Oil Lamp Snuff Divination

Abstract

Introduction. Oil lamp snuff divination practices used to be widespread enough in Tibet, Mongolia, Kalmykia, and other regions. Goals. The paper introduces into scientific discourse texts thereof in Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian. The analysis of the practices reveals values, logic, symbols, and structural patterns inherent to traditional societies. Materials. The article examines a number of sources, namely: 1) a Chinese text published in Hohhot (Inner Mongolia, PRC), 2) a Tibetan text posted on the website of Buddhist Digital Resource Center, 3) a Beijing xylograph of one Mongolian text stored at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the RAS (St. Petersburg, Russia). The latter was checked against another copy of the Beijing xylograph submitted by Demberel Sükhee, a lecturer at the National University of Mongolia (Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies). Results. The article analyzes the traditional oil lamp snuff divination method and provides a comparative study of texts in three different languages, translating and transliterating the employed sources

Keywords

• divination
• oil lamp
• snuff
• chinese
• tibetan
• mongolian