SOCIO-POLITICAL REASONS FOR THE MASS DISTRIBUTION OF KANGYUR SETS IN BURYATIA (18TH – 19TH CENTURIES)

DOI 10.30792/2949-5768-2025-11-97-104

SOCIO-POLITICAL REASONS FOR THE MASS DISTRIBUTION OF KANGYUR SETS IN BURYATIA (18^TH – 19^TH CENTURIES)

Bazarov Andrey Alexandrovich – Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Associate Professor, Leading Researcher, Head of the Center for Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Institute of Mongolian Studies, Buddhology and Tibetology SB RAS (Ulan-Ude, Russia).

E-mail: bazarow_andr@mail.ru.

The paper is devoted to the role of socio-political motivation in the emergence of numerous Kangyur sets in Buryatia. The methodological basis of the study was “social archeography” using historical phenomenology. Social and archeographic analysis of the collection allows us to understand the social significance of the Kangyur and the specifics of Buddhist book culture in the Baikal region of the 18^th – 19^th centuries. The main problem of the study is to reconstruct the social aspects of the formation of the Buddhist canonical heritage in the Russian regions. The analysis of the collections showed that Buryat monasteries had built a harmonious book system in which the Kangyur occupied a central place. There were elements of both forms of motivation, practical and soteriological, in the decision of the leaders of the region’s Buddhist communities to acquire Kangyur in large quantities from Qing China.