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    <pre style="white-space:pre-line"><code>ritual  texts  were  recited  by  laymen,  frequently  without  fully  understanding  the  contents,  to  avoid
               danger or to remedy a misfortune (Wallace 2010). In the case of such an important doctrinal Buddhist
               text as the Diamond Sutra (also Diamond Cutter Sutra, Skt. Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra), in
                                                  43
               the  commonly  diffused  commentaries  it  was  explicitly  recommended  to  the  widest  circle  of  lay
               people to worship this sutra as a guaranteed means against all the failures of this present life, as well as
               a vehicle conducive to a better birth.
                             th
                     In the 20  century, both in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, the antireligious policy accompanied
               by antireligious tendencies in literary scholarship and other humanities disciplines introduced many
               critical  clichés,  especially  concerning  Buddhism  as  a  feudal  institution  exploiting  people  and  the
               means shrewdly applied by the Manchu Qing oppressors to weaken and subdue the Mongols. As a
               side effect of this official approach, Mongolian intellectuals started to return to shamans and the cults
               shamans were related to as the most ancient and authentic national cultural heritage. This intellectual
               appreciation of shamans, of course, became more visible only during the democratization period (and
               almost in parallel in recent decades in Inner Mongolia), since traditional shamans had been persecuted
                                                   44
               to  the same  extent  as Buddhist  monks.  However,  it  is  not  the  task  here  to  examine  the extent to
               which  the  revival  of  shamanism  in  contemporary  Mongolia  was  influenced  by  imported  views  of
               Western scholarship on Mongolian religions.
                     The syncretic interweaving of shamanistic and Buddhist elements in Mongolia was taking place
               (supposedly  during  a  considerably  long  period)  before  the  appearance  of  extant  ritual  texts,  as
               evidenced by the Mongolian manuscripts on birchbark from Kharbukhiin Balgas (Chiodo 2000, 2009,
               Очир  et  al.  2019)  with  a  composition  of  ritual  texts  already  very  close  to  the  later  situation.
               Christopher P. Atwood (1996: 131), following an analysis of textual variants of the fire cult ritual (the
               one formerly denoted as shamanistic), concluded that the differences between the variants consist in
               the determination for lay people or ritual specialists (in the case of tantric versions of the ritual texts
               including meditations on emptiness and visualisations). The difference between texts for the laity and
               the lama specialists can manifest itself also in the manual or prescription-like form of the tantric rituals
               versus  the  plain  ritual  texts  or  prayers  without  explicatory  notes  for  the  laity.  The  division  line
               between these two groups is not always clear and in several cases (Offering of the Fox, the Geser Khan
               cult), it is difficult to connect the ritual texts designed for the laity to the orally transmitted instructions
               about how to perform the ritual.
                     European Mongolists generally have preferred to study texts that seemed to resemble texts from
               the Mongolian domestic tradition without the adaptation of Tibetan patterns. Most of the ritual texts in
               European  collections  have  (except  the  Oirat  texts  in  the  Clear  script)  been  taken  from  the  regions
                                                                                         th
                                                                             th
               where shamans were marginal if not entirely absent, at least in the 19  and early 20  centuries. On the
               other  hand, foreign  researchers  in  their  fieldwork  frequently  went  to  regions  and  ethnic  subgroups
               where shamanism played an important role (Darkhats, Buryats, Mongolian Tuvans etc.). Even my own
               background is quite similar. Although the texts I am working with in this volume most likely come
               from  central  Mongolian  regions  without  a  significant  presence  of  shamanism,  my  field  research
               experience is based mostly on the southwestern Mongolian areas inhabited by Oirat ethnic groups –
               though also with a minimal shamanic tradition – with a considerably lesser evidence of written ritual
               texts when compared to the central part of the Khalkha area.
                     Mongolists have also endeavoured to give an answer to a question how local Mongolian deities
               entered the Mongolian Buddhist pantheon or how they became objects of Buddhist rituals. Were the
               local deities simply incorporated into the Buddhist cult, ritually “converted” into Buddhism, or used to
                                             45
               authorize the new Buddhist faith?  In Tibet, the process of a ritual appropriation of the cults of local
               deities,  the  concerns  with  controlling  dangerous  demons  and  spirits  proliferated  in  the  period  of
                                                                                     th
               political fragmentation after the collapse of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-9  century. The need to
               subjugate  autochthonous  spirits  of  Tibet  spurred  the  popularity  of  the  Buddhist  tantras  with rituals
               forcing the fierce spirits to recognize the benefits of their submission and to swear oaths of allegiance
               and servitude to their Buddhist masters (Dalton 2011: 59).


               43   The  usual  title  is  Qutuγtu  bilig-ün  činadu  kijaγar  kürügsen  wačir-iyar  oγtuluγči-yin  ači  tusa  erdem-ün
               tayilburi-yin sudur orusibai (“Sutra explaining benefits of the Diamond sutra”), Srba 2017: 154.
               44  Concerning the renewal of shamanism in Mongolian, see for example Maerli 2010, Buyandelger 2013.
               45  For a comparative discussion of various approaches see Lindahl 2010.

                                                           42</code></pre>
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