Benjamin Fürchtegott Balthasar von Bergmann. 1823. “Exposé des principaux Dogmes tibétains-mongols.” Journal asiatique. October 1823. pp. 193–204.
This is an excerpt from the work of Benjamin Bergmann, translated into French by Moris. Bergmann begins by claiming a connection between Tibeto-Mongolian religion and Indian religion, and the list of reasons he gives are quite interesting:
- India was once the cradle of the human race, and therefore of the first religion.
- The great antiquity which Indian traditions give to this origin, which they place before that of Brahmā.
- The enthusiasm for Indian wisdom which prevailed in Europe and Asia, and which must have been communicated also to the Mongols.
So what are the primary simlilarities between Indian religion and Tibeto-Mongolian religion?
| partie dans leurs principaux dogmes, savoir: La chute des esprits et celle des hommes, la migration des ames, les châtimens futurs et les purifications; partie dans les suppositions cosmogoniques; partie enfin dans une foule d’usages religieux qui diffèrent fort peu entre eux chez les Indiens et chez les Tibétains-Mongols. | partly in their principal dogmas, namely: The descent of spirits and that of men, the transmigration of souls, and future punishments and their purification; partly in their cosmogonic suppositions; and partly in the number of religious customs which differ very little between the Indians and the Tibeto-Mongols. |
For Bergmann, any differences in their doctrines and practices are due to independent developments once the cultures became separated in place and time.
Bergmann makes some interesting comparisons. For example, the Indians venerate the “Trimoutri” (Skt. trimūrti), three deities as an expression of one god. The Mongols, on the other hand, have “trois sublimes honorables” (three sublime venerables), by which they mean the Buddha, the dharma, and the saṅgha (“la sainteté du Bourkhan, le dogme et les prêtres”).
The remainder of the article is dedicated to an outline of the Tibeto-Mongolian cosmos, including the sky-god Tengri, the axis mundi of Mount Sumeru, the great oceans and world-continents, the size of the sun and moon, the gradual decline of human lifespans and glory over successive æons, and so on.
