К сыну Есугея, избранному владыке Чингисхану, взывал я девять раз: текст Урюс сара в записи И. И. Попова

Abstract

Introduction. Üres Sara, a holiday marking the beginning of summer, is one of traditional celebrations still observed among some Mongolic peoples, including Kalmyks. The celebration includes a whole range of ritual actions accompanied by recitation of special prayers. Goals. The paper introduces one such texts from the Don Kalmyk tradition that was recorded at the turn of the 20th century by Kalmyk folklore collector Ivan I. Popov to be further included into the 2nd volume of his handwritten collection of Kalmyk folklore and literature samples nowadays stored at the State Archive of Rostov Oblast. Results. The text entitled by Popov as ‘Ürsin Bičig’ (Kalm. ‘Text on Üres Sara’), according to his own description, was recited by the eldest family member at dawn. The incantation accompanied the process of kumiss libation (sprinkling), a ritual aiming at bestowing blessings to children and young cattle. In addition, Popov includes in the manuscript another text of aspiration prayer — Γadasuni Irügel (‘An Aspiration Prayer on the Stake [for Cattle]’). Probably, this prayer also belonged to the group of ritual texts accompanying the Üres Sara celebration and had some important functions in the ritual. Ürsin Bičig recorded by Ivan I. Popov is a unique sample of the ritual text accompanying the Üres Sara celebration. Due to historical circumstances, this type of literature has been almost lost by Kalmyks nowadays. This, in turn, determines the main aim of the article as to introduce the text of Ürsin Bičig recorded by Popov.