‘Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance’: The Zul Lamp in the Buddhist Tradition of Mongolic Peoples

Introduction. Zul (a butter lamp) is one of the most widespread ritual objects in the Buddhist culture of Mongolic peoples. Despite its extensive use in both everyday and festive religious practices, it has rarely been examined as an independent subject of ethnological and anthropological inquiry, being more often treated merely as an element of Buddhist ritual. Yet zul represents a complex phenomenon that combines a material object, a symbolic system, and a set of embodied and ritual practices. The article aims to analyze zul as a ritual offering and a form of everyday religious practice in the Buddhist traditions of Mongolic peoples, and to explore its role in contemporary religiosity in Mongolia, Buryatia, and Kalmykia. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the author’s field materials collected in Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Zabaykalsky Krai between 2018 and 2025, as well as in-depth interviews with Buddhist clergy and lay practitioners. In total, 25 informants were interviewed. The research employs participant observation, semi-structured interviews, narrative analysis, and comparative ethnographic analysis. Methodology. The study draws upon the approaches of Lived Religion and Material Religion, which examine religious objects through practices of use, everyday interpretations, and social contexts of their functioning. In addition, assemblage theory is employed to analyze zul as part of dynamic networks linking people, material objects, spaces, affects, and religious ideas. Results. The study demonstrates that zul functions not only as an offering of light symbolizing wisdom and the overcoming of ignorance, but also as an independent meditative practice in which the process of lamp-making acquires moral and ritual significance. Analysis of the field materials reveals the diversity of zul’s functions in contemporary religious life: it is used in daily offerings, funerary and commemorative rituals, calendrical festivals, and shamanic practices. Particular attention is paid to the transformation of the tradition under contemporary conditions, including the spread of electric lamps and the digitalization of ritual services. The article concludes that zul should be understood not merely as an object of Buddhist worship but as a processual practice through which relationships between humans, the sacred realm, community, and ancestral memory are continuously reproduced. Through the offering of light, Buddhist rituality adapts to modern conditions while preserving its key symbolic and social functions.

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