Фольклорные мотивы в иконографии буддизма (на материале буддийской коллекции КалмНЦ РАН)

Introduction. The relevance and novelty of the research topic are determined by the need to study some little-known aspects of folklore sources for Buddhist arts in nineteenth-twentieth century Kalmykia. Goals. The study aims to identify and characterize folklore motifs in Buddhist iconography across exhibits of the Zaya Pandita Kalmyk Traditional Culture Museum (KalmSC RAS). Myth and mythological conscience lay the foundations of folklore and faith which implies there might be mutual determination between the cultural phenomena, and it is urgent to examine the latter in Kalmykia’s Buddhist culture from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Methods. The work employs a historical / cultural approach to study traditional worldviews, and it is based on principles of systemic analysis into historically determined processes. The methodology is essentially comprehensive, and involves both approaches of art history and folklore studies, cultural philosophy and museum studies. The prism of traditional culture proves instrumental in identifying certain folklore motifs in Buddhist pantheon that had become inherent to Mongolic mythologies. These are projections of pre-Buddhist worldviews intertwined with deific images of Northern Buddhism. The mythopoetic aura comprises foundations of Buddhist visual arts, symbols of color and confessional attributes. Results. The study reveals the iconography of images is inspired by mythological archetypes of pre-Buddhist origin. The space of public perceptions gave birth to archaic mythopoetic features inherent to images of the White Old Man that was inherited by the Buddhist pantheon from folklore. One thus can witness here a synthesis of traditions that shapes somewhat local distinctness of Kalmyk icon painting and sculpture. The folklorization phenomenon is integrated through the process of interaction between traditions in the prism of canonical Buddhist visual arts.