of waking up in the people of all the positive which had been accumulated by the ancestors, a respectful attitude towards one’s own culture and resulting from it self-education and the spiritual growth. This all presupposes a true recognition of the other cultures which cease to be alien in that case. This involves a two-fold task, to excite interest in the world civilization through cognizing one’s own.
On the study of the “Geser” heroic epic
The manuscrpipt “Abai Geser khubun” (Abai Geser the Mighty) is kept in Ulan-Ude in the archives of the Buryat folklore pieces in the collections of the Center for the Manuscripts and Block Prints at the Buryat Scientific Center which is a part of the Siberian Department (the city of Novosibirsk) of the Russian Academy of sciences (Moscow). It is well known all over the world among the orientalists, and its prestige among the scholars is ever growing. It is one of the richest repositories of the oriental heritage which attracts lots of the experts from the various countries. It has the ties with the scientific organizations and workers throughout the world. There are a lot of the foreign guests visiting or working in its richest archives. It is of the innovational nature and well equipped. The workers of the Centre also keep close ties with the scholars from many countries. They go on expeditions and business trips across the world and complete the joint projects. Very many international scientific forums take place in its assembly halls. It has got the international recognition and is making a good contribution to the further development of the oriental science.
In 1776 P.S. Pallas gave the first information in Russia concerning the epic “Geser”. B. Bergmann rendered the contents of the two chapters from the Kalmyck version of the tale of Geser (1804). J. I. Schmidt re-edited in the Old-Mongolian script the so-called (так-называемый) Peking version of 1716 consisting of the seven chapters [1836], and in three years he published its translation in German [1939]. S. A. Kozin published the translation of “Geser” to Russian [1935—36]. A.M. Pozdneev in 1896 published the rendering (пересказ) of a Kalmyck version with the translation in Russian [1896]. G. N. Potanin gave the rendering of a Buryat version [1981, 1883]. He then published in proze the Tibetan and Buryat versions of “Geser” [1893]. M. N. Khangalov wrote down from the epic-tellers the variants of the Buryat version and published their renderings (пересказ, переложение) in Russian in the so called “Balagan collection” [1903, 1959].
One should take note of the fact that in 1909 an English traveler J. Curtin published the three variants of “Geser” making use of his notes [1909]. One can find among them the abridged tale of Geser written down from the epic-teller M. Imegenov. This curtailed variant has some passages which differ it from the full recording made from the same epic-teller by Ts. Zhamtsarano in 1906. One should bear in mind that the texts in J. Kurtin’s book present the result of the double translation. At first the text was translated from Buryat to Russian by V. Mikhailov on the request of J. Kurtin. Then it was translated from Russian to English, therefore they present in fact a prosaic rendering of some motives of the epic but certainly they cannot be taken as the precise recording of the epic performed by the epic-teller.
On the contrary, the records made by Ts. Zhamtsarano are of great academic interest. In the first and second issues of the second volume of “The patterns of the folklore of the Mongolian tribes” one can find the tales “Abai Geser khubun”, “Oshor Bogdo” and “Khurin Altai” written down from a story-teller M. Imegenov [1930, 1931]. Ts. Zhamtsarano accompanied his records with the comments, the characteristics of the epics, the peculiarities of their performing art. The epic-teller M. Imegenov was born in 1849 into a poor peasant’s family in the village of Kukunut. He had a special gift for story-telling. Ts. Zhamtsarano wrote: “When the rhapsode performs the uliger, he puts the pure water near him to have it time from time, leans back, half closes his eyes and gets absorbed in the atmosphere of his epical poem and begins to sing in a drawn-out, melodious manner being carried away while as if drawing one picture after the other with a surprising calmness and impassivity despite his being inspired and taken away. The listeners echo him whenever necessary” [Obraztsy, 1930]. (Translated by Ye. Khundaeva).
The folklore experts S. P. Baldaev, A. K. Bogdanov, G. D. Sanjeev, K. A. Khadakhane, K. B. Baginov, A. I. Shadaev, I. N. Madason, D. D. Khiltukhin, N. G. Baldano, R. F. Tugutov, D. A. Alexeev, N. O. Sharakshinova and the others wrote down the tales of Geser in all the districts of Buryatia. They wrote down the epics from the celebrated (знаменитый) story-tellers of the 20—30-s of the 20 century.
At present in the Center for the Oriental Manuscipts and Block-prints at the Institute for the Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies of the Siberian Depatment, the Russian Academy of sciences, the collection of the epics (uliger) contains over one hundred authentic works among which presented most richly is the epic of Geser. There are about ten variants of “Geser”. The records were made in different years in such districts of the Irkutsk province (oblast’) as Ekhirit-Bulagat, Bokhan, Osinsk and Nukut. The epic-tellers were M. Imegenov, A. Vasiliyev, P. Petrov, P. Dmitriyev, P. Tushemilov, N. Ivanov, P. Stepanov, A. Baldakshinov, B. Zhetukhaev, A. Toroyev and the others.
The academic studies and the texts of the heroic epics are published beginning with the 1950-s. One can mention a fundamental study completed by a Mongol scholar Ts. Damdinsuren [1957]. He made a comparative study of the Mongol, Buryat and Tibetan versions of the epic. The French scholar R. – A. Stein completed a study of the various aspects of the Tibetan Geseriade [1959]. The Hungarian scholar L. Lorincz studied the Mongol and Buryat epics, particularly “Geser” [1978—79]. The issues of the epical heritage of the Mongols and Buryats were studied by the scholars in such countries as Japan (K. Tanaka), France (R.-A. Stein, R. Hamayon), Germany (W. Heissig, C. Sagaster).
The Ekhirit-Bulagat variant of the Buryat version of the “Geser” epic written down by Ts. Zhamtsarano in 1906 from the epic-teller Manshud Imegenov was published in Buryat in the academic transcription in St.Petersburg in 1930. In 1961 its second publication with the translation to Russian was completed by M. P. Khomonov. Then in 1969 it was again published with a new translation to the Russian language by N. O. Sharakshinova.
Since that time about fifty years passed. During those years a great progress was made in the study of the heroic epic of the Buryats. The academic level of the preparation of the texts for publishing improved as well as the translating techniques to Russian. The book “Abai Geser khubun” (1995) was prepared taking into account the new requirements. The Buryat authentic text, its translation to Russian, the commentaries and the academic articles are in essence a new academic interpretation of the epical monument in its unique and artistic originality taking account of the new requirements concerning the edition of the epics.
But it hasn’t been translated to English although it might be the prerequisite (предпосылка) of its becoming known to a wider public. Therefore a decision was taken to translate the epic to the English language. The English translation of the Ekhirit-Bulagat variant of the Buryat version of “Geser” written down by Ts. Zhamtsarano in 1906 from Manshud Imegenov was recently completed by Ye. Khundaeva. The present English translation of the epic of Geser is made on the basis of the manuscript (Inv. No 1) of the collection of the Buryat folklore (The Center for the Oriental Manuscripts and Block Prints, The Institute for the Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies, SB RAS, Ulan-Ude) which is entitled “Abai Geser khubun” and its published variant (Abai Geser khubun, Moscow, 1995).
А brief summary of the contents of Geser
Those were the remotest times when there were neither celestial gods nor sun, stars. Instead of the sky there was some misty haze and below there was only water. The Great Mother the Goddess was all alone. And she
