The Atlas of Tibetan Medicine and Purbo B. Baldanzhapov’s Contribution to Its Study and Preservation

Introduction. The article deals with The Atlas of Tibetan Medicine and examines a history of its studies at the Buryat Institute of Social Sciences from new perspectives. Goals. To facilitate this, the work aims to 1) examine a history of the Buryat copy and attempt its attribution, 2) investigate the Orientalist P. B. Baldanzhapov’s personal contribution to the exploration and preservation of the monument, and 3) identify specific features of cultural interaction in the cross-border Buddhist region of Russia and Tibet. Materials and methods. The article analyzes archival and literary documents, field records, and electronic sources. It uses modern methods of historical science, including the concept of ‘intellectual biography’. Therein, intelligence is understood as a psychological aspect, a quality of personality that takes its complete shape on the basis of moral principles. Results. The Atlas of Tibetan Medicine is a corpus of illustrations to Vaidurya sNgon-po (Tib. ‘Blue Beryl’), a commentary to rGyud-bZhi (‘Four Tantras’). Its excellent copy dated to the late 19th and early 20th centuries was once owned by Buryat datsans (monasteries), and since 1936 has been stored at the National Museum of Buryatia. The study of the forgotten monument was initiated by Baldanzhapov in 1968 when he organized a scientific department at the Buryat Institute of Social Sciences, and the research team included both secular and clerical scholars, i. e. previously repressed Buryat Buddhist monks with expertise in Tibetan, philosophy, and medicine. Notably, the work on the study and preservation of the monument had a moral, ethical significance to Baldanzhapov psychologically motivated as an intellectual shaped by the Buddhist milieu and Buddhist teachers. Being an Orientalist scholar at an academic institution, he had the resources and opportunities to fulfill his mission and — in an atheist state — return monuments of Buddhist culture to the world. Conclusions. The authentic materials analyzed attest to that the active processes of cultural interaction in the Buddhist cross-border region of Russia and Tibet resulted in that The Atlas of Tibetan Medicine and other valuable monuments were delivered to Buryatia. The paper also stresses a uniqueness of the monument and shows the invaluable personal contribution of the prominent Orientalist Baldanzhapov to its study and preservation.

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