Buddhism and Popular Ritual in Mongolian Religion: A Reexamination of the Fire Cult

Abstract

Anyone who reads the fairly extensive literature on Mon at the popular or lay level will notice the persistence of c formulas used to explain the relations of Buddhism to wh manism.Essentially every ritual text or practice that is e with practical ends or untraceable to a Tibetan source is t manist.1At the same time, these texts and practices are sa contaminated or camouflaged with "Lamaist" formulas.N numerous or seemingly crucial to the meaning and inten these formulas are, however, they can never serve to obs tially shamanist nature of the text.In this view, while a su might think that shamanism had virtually disappeared in golia by the eighteenth century, it actually lived a vigorou life among the common folk of Mongolia, whose noma not be satisfied by the purely otherworldly religion of tGiven the pervasiveness of these formulas in the literat golian religion, a rejection of their applicability would im rethinking of the field as a whole.Yet the Lamaist v I would like to thank Robert Campany, Michael Walter, and Johan thorough and helpful readings they gave of earlier drafts of this article a agement in pursuing this article to publication. 1 Thus, the major Western-language bibliography of Mongolian Schwarz, Bibliotheca Mongolica, pt. 1, Works in English, French, and ham: Western Washington University, 1978), pp.118-30, gives a b topic divided into sections entitled "Native Religious Practices" and " ing to criteria that are not always clear.