done away with those with the beaks and fangs. Now we’ll live on having the three lucks each day”.
The epic shows that Nature is closely connected with the life of man. Nature gives the man strength and vital energy. The co-evolution of man and nature or the principle of the ecological imperative, ecological ethics and ecological responsibility that are believed to be the main contribution of the epic to the common knowledge of the humankind cannot be overestimated.
The Image of Nature in the Buryat heroic epic
A good deal of attention is given to the image of the Mother-Earth in the Buryat myths. In the old days they worshipped the Earth that gives everything to the man including life and everything returns back to her. She is the Hostess of the water, she represents the souls of fish, bird, snake, all the beasts and animals. She is taken to be the Great Mother of the Beasts. The image of the Great Goddess in the Buryat epic “Geser” has its parallels in the world folklore. The most ancient image of the Mother – Earth was discovered in Ur, an ancient Sumerian city on the Euphrates. This is a mother holding the son in her hands, both depicted with the snake’s head. The snakes represent the eight kinds of the spirits of the Earth worshipped by the peoples including the Buryats who thought the snake-like sabdaks to be the hosts of the territory or locality. In Sumer she is a dual divinity, in the morning she is the goddess of the battles and heroes, whereas at night she is the goddess of fertility. In a later time in Egypt she was understood as the virgin giving birth to all the worlds. In the Buryat uliger or epic she conceives from the rays of the Sun and the Moon and gives birth to the daughters who continue the lineage of the human beings.
Yenkhoboi sisters from the Geseriade like the Mother-Earth from Sumer also had the long breasts, they threw them back which symbolized death and forward which symbolized life. The bulls in the epic are understood as the totemic forefathers of the Buryats. The grain is often mentioned in the Buryat uligers. They are of the sacral meaning, Geser when praying throws them around as an offering to the hosts of Nature.
Understanding of the essence of the physiological phenomena like pregnancy, birth, growing of corn from grains, the appearance of birds out of eggs, the reproduction of fish, insects, worms in the water led to the sacralization of the biological vitality. The water, grain, egg were attributed the magic vital potentiality. Their ritual part in the religious cults was enormous. Those natural elements have a deep symbolical meaning connected with the idea of the vital energies. The larva reminding of the worm is of interest in understanding the phenomenon of the sacralization of Nature.
One of the main attributes of the shaman is the crown on his head which is connected with the idea of the World Tree. On the crown there are the hangings. The semantics of those objects was not quite clear. The hypothesis put forward by S. V. Alkin enables to solve the problem to some degree. He takes them to be the images of the larvae of the insects. The crown is the image of the World Tree with the souls of the unborn people that are depicted as the larvae. The outward similarity of the human and the animal embryons with the C-like larvae might give rise to the formation of a peculiar cult.
The epic gives much attention to the chaos, fire, water, air, wind, rain, frost, etc. which all have the special epical names. One of the powerful personages of the “Geser” epic, Gal Durme Khan is the symbol of the Fire. Thus one can say that the prime elements of nature are attached a great significance to in the Buryat tales. The Buryats took note of the fact that their household and everyday life were dependent on the natural phenomena, such as the periodical change of seasons, the climatatic variations, rain and snow, humidity of soil, etc. Alongside with this they mastered the reality in the spiritual sense, they had the ideas of the spiritual relationship of Man and Nature. As a result there emerged quite a few cult rituals.
There is a custom of hanging from a tree a Khii-morin (air horse), a personal votive flag for well – being and prosperity. This is connected with the honor and respect for horse. The horse is regarded as mediator between the Sky and the Earth. The horse plays one of the most important parts in the Geseriade and in the life of the Buryats, especially in the early ages.
There are the special rituals when building something. Earlier it was prohibited to dig ground not to damage its upper soil which was taken to be most fertile. It was needed to appease the spirits of the Earth, to calm them down, to ask them for the permisson to erect something. The spirits of the Earth get very angry when people without any reasonable excuse dig the ground, break stones and rocks, fell treеs, contaminate rivers and springs, throw the dirty things into the fire. One has to appease the gods and the spirits making offerings and addressing them with the invocations.
Before the battle the heroes of the epic complete the special rites. Geser is often shown going onto the top of a high mountain and praying. Before he starts his prayer he unbuttons his coat and takes off his belt.
Nature played a great role in the life of the Buryats as it is shown in the epical works. It is inseparable from the nomad¢s everyday life. It gives strength to the nomad, the latter receives from Nature his/her life energy. The idea of the cohesion of Man and Nature which is depicted in the Geseriade has been of great importance in all the times because the alternative idea would be non-acceptance of all the laws of Nature. Thus there were the numerous cults connected with Nature.
Hunting in the taiga had some territorial limitations, the hunters were well aware of the stock of the hunting areas, they had a good idea of how much game they could catch or kill in order to keep in balance the number of the wild animals, i.e. the food stock of the nomads. The latter abstained from hunting the she-animals, especially with the cubs and the young animals with no couple. Thus there was the cult of hunting and the Lord of the thick forest. Before going hunting the Buryats completed the special rites, among them chanting of the “Geser” verses.
The atmospheric phenomena are presented in the epic in the personages of the tengris. Among the 44 eastern tengris there are the tengris of the summer, autumn, winter mists, the black dirt, the black smoke. Among the 55 western tengris there are the following: the Tengri of the Upper Wind, the Tengri of the Fire, the Tengri of the Sun Warmth, the Tengri of the Rain, the Tengris of the Lightning and the Thunderstorm, the Tengri of the Snow, the Tengri of the White Bottom) or in the other words the cloudless sky, etc. The struggle takes place symbolically between the warmth and the cold; between the clear, sunny weather and the black nastiness; between the rain contributing to the growth of the vegetation which is favourable for the nomad-cattlebreeder and the drought.
The Geseriade evidences of the fact that the Buryats were noted for their ecological approach to Nature which presupposed the adaptation to the natural conditions. The form and the type of the dwellings, the utilitarian constructions, the tools, the clothes, the customs and the habits are chiеfly dependent on the climate, the geographical position, the flora, the fauna, the temperature and the other objective factors that gave rise to the numerous religious cults and rituals.
The proto-Buryats, i.e. the hunters and the collectors of the plants representing the forest tribe communities entered the new stage of the social and economic life brought about by the establishment of the paternal right much later than the ancestors of the other nomad tribes. The socio-economical ties were those of a tribal community and the Buryats did not undergo the process of the unification for a considerable period of time. Even in the end of the XIX century the Buryats somewhat preserved the patriarchal and tribal relations since the new tendencies did not display themselves so vividly in their economy for there were neither factories, nor railroads, nor electricity, etc. Due to fact the epic preserved itself almost in a pure form.
One should mention that the epic of Geser in its versified version which is believed to be the Buryat creation was preserved by the “western” Buryats, among whom most widely spread were the shaman rituals. One can say that the oral “Geser” and shamanism are to some extent interrelated. The versification and the shaman elements evidence of “Geser’s” being ancient since it is generally recognized that the most ancient epical works of the Mongolian