Minorities Ethnic; Kalmykia; Buryatia; Tuva; Religious Revitalization; Philosophy; Social sciences; religion and theology
摘要
The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 allowed for a unique and rare opportunity to study and to see in action the processes of regeneration of religion emerging after 70 years of suppression. The central problem addressed by the dissertation was to understand how Shamanism--based in nature, specific locale and in kinship bonds to natural locale--is especially vulnerable to actual physical disruptions through ideological, political or economic upheaval and how this vulnerability in turn affected the re-emergence of the religion.
The research examined the re-emergence of Shamanism in the Buddhist republics of Russia as this emergence was described by informants in 1996, about five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the collapse of much of its ideology, specifically Atheism and collectivization. Fieldwork was done in the three Buddhist republics--Kalmykia, Buryatia, and Tuva and was directed towards understanding the current practices of Shamanism as well as adaptations during the Soviet period and shamanic practice prior to the Soviet period. The research consisted of participant-observation of shamanic rituals and curing, and the intensive interviewing of individual shamans, Buddhist lamas and other members of Kalmyk, Buryat or Tuvinian society who were also able to cast light upon current and past adaptations. Since Buddhist lamas were intensively interviewed, good comparative data was gained relative to the processes of regeneration of Buddhism in Russia.
The research found that the key to the power and continuity of Shamanism lies in its relationship to kinship, nature, and locale. Although Shamanism as a religion bound to kinship and specific locale may be more vulnerable to disruption from external forces, yet at the same time, because of that very connection to locale, it also holds within itself the keys to regeneration, sui generis. By comparison with Buddhism, an institutionalized, organized religion with a canon of philosophical belief and literature which is shown to be regenerated from the outside, that is, by support from the Dalai Lama, Shamanism is demonstrated to have the power to regenerate from within, once the connection to locale has been re-established.
