Podgorbunsky Innokenty

Podgorbunsky Innokenty (1862–1913) – priest, missionary, teacher of Buryati and Mongolian languages at the Irkutsk Spiritual Seminary, specialist in Mongolian studies, translator, researcher of Buryat Buddhism, Shamanism, folklore and speaking language of Mongolian peoples, editor of ‘Irkutskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti’ (The Irkutsk Eparchy Herald), photographer.

In 1878, he graduated from the Nerchinsk Spiritual School; in 1884 – from the Irkuts Spiritual Seminary; in 1884-1888, he studied at the Kazan’ Spiritual Academy, where he got the Candidate degree in Theology for his composition ‘The Moral Doctrine of Buddhism According the Mongolian Book Uliger-und-dalay, with Russian Translations Supplied’. In 1888, he returned to Irkutsk and entered the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, in the Museum of which he described its collections on Buddhism and Shamanism, made the catalogue. He founded a museum in the Irkutsk Spiritual Seminary: it included collections for studying Buddhism and Shamanism; he composed an educative book for students: ‘Shamanic Beliefs of Mongols and Buryats’ (1895); he regularly published the results of his own research work in ‘Irkutskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti’, ‘Izvestiya’ and ‘Trudy’ of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, in the weekly ‘Vostochnoe obozrenie’, and in ‘Sibirskyi sbornik’. His studies were centered at the religious beliefs of Mongolian peoples: Shamanism, and Buddhism. He knew Buddhist literature quite good, translated it into Russian, analyzed such issues and the conceptions of woman in Buddhist society, Buddhist astrology, quantity of Buddhists in Russia and in the world, and so on. He put a special attention to ethnography, mythology, folklore, and Animism of Buryats. In his last years, P. concentrated at the various aspects of Mongolian and Buryat languages; in 1908, he published ‘The Russian-Mongolian-Buryat Dictionary’, composed by him.

Compositions

Catalogue of the Museum of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Irkutsk, 1888. (in Rus.)
The Highest Benefits and Ways to Them, According the Doctrine of Buddhism and Christianity // Irkutskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti. Irkutsk, 1891, No 13–15. (in Rus.)
Ideas of Buryat Shamanists on Soul, Death, Afterlife and Another World // Izvestiya of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Irkutsk, 1891, vol. 25, No 1. (in Rus.)
Materials for the Characteristic of the Astrology of Lamas // Izvestiya of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. 1892. Т. 23. № 2. (in Rus.)
Shamans and Their Mystery Performances // Vostochnoe obozrenie. 1892, No 42. (in Rus.)
The Conception of Woman in Buddhist Educative Literature // Izvestiya of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Irkutsk, 1893, vol. 24, No 2. (in Rus.)
From the Mythology of Mongols and Buryat Shamanists // Sibirskyi sbornik. 1894, vol. 5; 1895, vol. 6.
Shamanic Beliefs of Mongols and Buryats. Irkutsk, 1895. (in Rus.)
Buddhism, Its History, and the Main Principles of Its Doctrine. Irkutsk, 1900, iss. 1; 1901, iss. 2. (in Rus.)
Buryats: Physical Type and Spiritual Personality of Buryats. Irkutsk, 1903. (in Rus.)
Catalogue of the Buddhist Collection of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Irkutsk, 1908, part 17. (in Rus.)

About him

Podgorbunsky Innokenty Aleksandrovich // Irkutsk: Dictionary in the Local History. Irkutsk, 2011.С. 405. (in Rus.)
Shinkova А. I. Oriental Collections of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and the Input of Orthodox Priest I. А. Podgorbunsky into Studying of Their Buddhist Component // Historical Geography of the Asian Russia: Proceedings of the All-Russian Research Conference, Irkutsk. November 28–30, 2011. Иркутск, 2011, pp. 207–210. (in Rus.)

E. T.