Oriental Studies (Sep 2020)
Sūtra [Averting Effects] of Bad Dreams: Two Oirat Manuscript Copies Revisited
Abstract
Goals. The article introduces two Oirat manuscript copies of the Sūtra [Averting Effects] of Bad Dreams, a well-known dream book of the Mongolian tradition, and analyzes the texts diachronically comparing their contents to available sources dealing with Mongolic ethnography. Methods. The study employs the comparative method and that of historical reconstruction, the latter being most instrumental in outlining the functioning of this dream-book in Buddhist rituals. Results. Two analyzed manuscripts are copies of one dream-book once widely spread in Classical Mongolian too (earliest samples date back to the early/mid-17th century). Our analysis reveals the texts consist of three sections, namely: bad dreams with humans; bad dreams with birds, animals; and bad dreams with certain situations predicting death. Some of the omens are still inherent to contemporary Mongolic cultures, most of the former based on the principle of imitative and reflection magic, an integrated space of dream and ancestors’ worlds viewed as one with opposite orientation. The analysis of ethnographic data on the tradition of Mongolic dream interpretation attests to the latter had initially been associated with shamanistic practices but was subsequently incorporated into a Buddhist ritual framework. Means to avert bad dreams were transformed accordingly: complex rituals were replaced by mere reciting of special Buddhist texts without accompanying exercises. The comparison of Oirat manuscripts to Tibetan texts shows a big difference between the dream interpretation systems and respective averting methods, which complicates attempts to define the sūtra as a translated work or original Mongolic ones. The paper transliterates, translates, and supplements a facsimile of the manuscript stored in the Kalmyk Scientific Center (RAS).
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