History of the Khori Buryats: the Manuscript by Dashi Bubeev

Abstract

The article deals with a previously unknown historical work by the chronicler Dashi Bubeev entitled “A Brief History of the Khori Buryats” (qori mongγol buriyad ulus-un quriyangγui teüke orusibai) from the Mongolian fund of the Center for Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of SB RAS. The fund has about thirty works by D. Bubeev, this work is one of them. For studying the history and origin of the Khori Buryats the most famous historical records are the records by Tuguldur Toboev (1793–1878), Vandan Yumsunov (1823–1883), Sh.-N. Khobituev. After studying this manuscript, we conclude that the content of the manuscript by D. Bubeev largely coincides with the content of the records by T. Toboev and V. Yumsunov, but at the same time, it contains a number of little-known historical information. It is noted that the compilative character of the annalistic composition does not reduce their scientific significance. We used comparative-historical, textological and historical-biographical methods. Due to these methods we can state that D. Bubeev’s additions continue the traditions of the Buryat annals and contain valuable historical information, supplementing the already known facts on the history of the Buryats. The article describes in detail the content of the text of the manuscript, gives its source study characteristics and a brief description. The manuscript by D. Bubeev is an original text with elements of the traveling genre of the Buryat literature in the ancient Mongolian language. The novelty lies in the fact that a previously unknown record on the history of the Khori Buryats is introduced into scientific circulation.The article is aimed at revealing unknown historical facts by translating and analyzing the original source, with special attention paid to discrepancies in the history of 11 Khori clans compared with the early versions of historical records.

Keywords

• dashi bubeev
• manuscript
• old mongolian writing