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ÁGNES BIRTALAN
about the Buddhist rituals, customs, some very fascinating data about the obo-worship"
and the local protective spirits of the Dsakhchin territory. The resuscitation of old cus¬
toms in 1990 and 1991 revived such Buddhist and pre-Buddhist rituals, cults, traditions
as the sacrifice at stone or wooden cairns, obos among others. The customs of erecting
obos are closely connected with the beliefs in the lords of earth and waters."
The Buddhicised World Concept? among the Dsakhchins
Lama Jigmedjame’s narration about the spirits of the Dsakhchin territory:
“Here is the Jambudvipa, the southern continent. Regarding the southern continent,
from south the first, second, third and going further the twenty seventh [mountain] is
here, on our land. Downward [sic!] from our land there are the twenty-eighth twenty¬
ninth thirtieth up to the Five Holy [Mountains] of Altai; downwards there ends the
[southern] continent. [There] [one] enters into Central Asia, the Central Continent.
People say that the Central Continent northwards from the Five Holy [Mountains]
of Altai is divided into thirty parts. That is the northern part of Jambudvipa .... The
southern part from the south at the twenty-sixth [mountain are we]. Our twenty-sixth
is this; the predominant mountain is the Sutéa King Mountain. Sutaa is the southern
one [from here]. It is called Sutää Mountain. We got used to [calling] it Sutää King,
[but] the Sutää lord-spirit (Oir. sibdg, Khal. siwdeg) is a female one. The lord-spirit
of this land, the local protector spirit is under the ground. Concerning its shape it
§ On the worship of obos, cf. Birtalan, Ägnes: Obö hagyomänyok a mai Mongöliäban. In: Birtalan, Agnes
(ed.) Tanulmányok a mongol népi hiedelemvilágról. (Őseink nyomán Belső-Ázsiában, I.) Nemzeti
Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest 1996, pp. 4-19. [Traditions of Obo Worship in Contemporary Mongolia. In:
Studies on Mongolian Beliefs. On the Traces of our Ancestors]; Birtalan, Agnes: Typology of the Stone
Cairns Obos and their Symbolical Meaning (Preliminary Report, Based on Mongolian Fieldwork Mate¬
rial Collected in 1991-1995). In: Blondeau, Anne-Marie (ed.) Tibetan Mountain Deities. Their Cults
and Representations. Proceedings of the 7" Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies.
Graz 1995. Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 1998, pp. 199-210.
7 In detail, cf. Birtalan, Agnes: Die Mythologie der mongolischen Volksreligion. In: Schmalzriedt, Egidius
— Haussig, Hans Wilhelm (ed.) Wörterbuch der Mythologie 34. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, pp.
879-1097, passim; Uray-Köhalmi, Käthe: Die Herren der Erde. In: Heissig, Walther (ed.) Fragen der
mongolischen Heldendichtung \V. Vorträge des 6. Epensymposiums des Sonderforschungsbereichs 12,
Bonn 1988 (Asiatische Forschungen 120). Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1992, pp. 78-87.
rekonstrukciós kísérlet előzetes vázlata). In: Pócs, Éva (ed.) Mikrokozmosz — makrokozmosz. Balassi
Kiadó, Budapest 2002, pp. 11—20. [World View and World Models in the Mythology and Belief System
of Mongolian Ethhnic Groups. In: Microcosmos — Macrocosmos.]; Colö, J.: Egy tájegység földrajzi
szókincséről. In: Birtalan, Ágnes (ed.) Őseink nyomán Belső-Ázsiában. Tanulmányok a mongol népi
hiedelemvilágból I. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest 1996, pp. 47—55. [About the Geographical Ter¬
minology of a Region. In: Studies on Mongolian Beliefs. On the Traces of our Ancestors]; Heissig,
Walther: The Religions of Mongolia. Routledge et Kegan Paul, London and Henley 1980.
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