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A Goat AS BUDDHA’S THRONE: THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE IN MONGOLIAN RIDDLES of enchantment’ has been narrowed down to a commonplace every day utilitarian object with little of the cosmos, mythology or fairy tales attached to it. In contrast, in many Mongolian riddles, the opening or widening of the semantic field occasioned by the solution is very striking, as if the exact opposite progression were taking place. Instead of narrowing things down from a nearly infinite series of possibilities, it’s as if the riddle were opening up into a vast semantic field of polyreferentiality.!° The analysis of Dulam also supports these conclusions. He sees riddles in the following context: One, concerning the etymology of the word onisogo (riddle), on the basis of the explanation given in “Dictionary of Mongolian Lexical Roots,” the meaning “to find the essence (of a thing)” is cited; two, the words iiliger (story, tale) and riddle (onisogo) have always been, since ancient times, connected; they share a common origin; three, the term “üliger” in the context of our discussion is not a ‘story’ or ‘tale’ in the general sense of the word, but instead concerns origin myths, that is, the events surrounding the existence of the gods (tenger) and other deities (asar); four, the true task and intention of the riddle, manifest in the thought contained in it deserving of special notice, is to direct the agency of non-human forces, which, while co-existing among man and beast, are not conspicuous: to gladden and appease them, to frighten them, and to render them harmless... | The answer to every riddle, rather than leading to disappointment, is the beginning of a story or a legend. Aspects of Buddhism in Mongolian Riddles The religious and cultural traces of Buddhism are manifested in the Mongolian riddle corpus through three main linguistic phenomena: — Loan words or distorted loan words (from Uyghur, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese) — Fragments of mantras, deity names — Reference to Buddhist practise and ritual, votive objects '0 This is particularly true of riddles that invoke cosmological imagery. (See my forthcoming paper.) '! Tlynam, C. — HannunőxuruTr, T.: Moneon aman 30xuobin oHon. MoHron YııcbIH Mx CypryyJIHÜŰH XYYXIHÜH Coër Hpronmun Cynianpix Tes, Oro Yncnüx Mouron Coëxpix Te, YiaaxGaarap 2007 [Theory of Mongolian Oral Literature], p. 155. 151
