Accepting Divine Patronage

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, Kalmykia, in common with the other republics and ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union, has been going through a period of religious and cultural reconstruction after decades of the atheistic policy during the communist era. This article focuses on a modern Kalmyk category of religious specialists claiming to have received the patronage of ‘guardian deities’, mostly from the Buddhist pantheon, with the deity the White Old Man being of particular importance. Based on interviews conducted in Kalmykia during 2011 and 2012, this study introduces some of the beliefs and ritual activities of these practitioners, discusses functions they perform in society and offers a description of their initiation ceremonies, with the primary aim of exploring what ‘accepting divine patronage’ implies in the present-day Kalmyk context. The author argues that receiving the tutelage of deities, and hence claiming special healing and visionary abilities, is a proliferating phenomenon in Kalmykia and can be regarded as a distinctive particularity of its contemporary religious scene.