Buddhism is the largest religion in Mongolia practiced by 51.7% of Mongolia's population, according to the 2020 Mongolia census.[1]Buddhism in Mongolia derives much of its recent characteristics from Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages, but is distinct and presents its own unique characteristics.
Statuette of Zanabazar, one of the most influential tulkus of MongoliaThangka showing a mountain deity carrying a sword
Buddhism in Mongolia derives many of its recent characteristics from Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages, but is distinct and presents its own unique characteristics.[citation needed] Traditionally, the Mongolian ethnic religions involved worship of Heaven (the "eternal blue sky") and ancestors and the ancient North Asian practices of shamanism, in which human intermediaries went into trance and spoke to and for some of the numberless infinities of spirits responsible for human luck or misfortune.
History
Nomadic empires (first millennium CE) – first introduction
The earliest introduction of Buddhism into the Mongolian steppes took place during the periods of the nomadic empires. Buddhism penetrated Mongolia from Nepal via Central Asia. Many Buddhist terms of Sanskrit origin were adopted via the Sogdian language.[citation needed]
The rulers of the nomadic empires such as the Xiongnu (209 BC – 93 CE), Xianbei (93–234), Rouran Khaganate (late 4th c. – middle 6th c.) and the Göktürks (middle first mill. CE) received missionaries and built temples for them. Buddhism prevailed among aristocrats and was patronised by the monarchs of the Xianbei-led Northern Wei dynasty (386–535) and of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty (916–1125). The Khitans aristocracy regarded Buddhism as the culture of the Uyghur Khaganate that dominated the Mongolian steppes before the rise of the Liao dynasty. The monarchs of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234) also regarded Buddhism as part of their culture.
The oldest known Mongolian language translations of Buddhist literature were translated from the Uyghur language and contain Turkic language words like sümbür tay (Sumeru Mountain), ayaγ-wa (a dative form of ayaq, a Uyghur word meaning honor), quvaray (monk) and many proper names and titles like buyuruγ and külüg of 12th-century Turkic origin.[2]
Mongol Empire and Yuan dynasty (13th–14th century) – second introduction
Genghis Khan (c. 1162 – 1227) and his immediate successors conquered nearly all of Asia and European Russia and sent armies as far as central Europe and Southeast Asia. The emperors of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in the 13th and 14th century converted to Tibetan Buddhism.
The founder of the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan, invited lamaDrogön Chögyal Phagpa of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism to spread Buddhism throughout his realm (the second introduction of Buddhism among the Mongols). Around this time, influence from the Church of the East was noted to be a major cultural factor for Mongols[3] that indirectly spread and altered Mongolian Buddhism, and therefore Chinese Buddhism.[4] However, Church of the East Christianity was a minority religion among Mongols.[5]
Some Mongolian Buddhist institutions borrowed large amounts of doctrine from Nestorian Christians.[4]
Other religions such as Manichaeism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism also influenced Mongolian Buddhism.[6]Catholic Church elements and even Roman Catholic believers also contributed to the syncretic practices of the time.[6]
Buddhism became the de factostate religion of the Yuan dynasty. In 1269, Kublai Khan commissioned Phagpa lama to design a new writing system to unify the writing systems of the multilingual empire. The 'Phags-pa script, also known as the "Square script", was based on the Tibetan script and written vertically from top was designed to write in Mongolian, Tibetan, Chinese, Uighur and Sanskrit languages[7][8][9][10] and served as the official script of the empire.
Tibetan Buddhist monasticism had an important influence on the early development of Mongolian Buddhism.[11]:12 Buddhist monkhood played significant political roles in Central and Southeast Asia, and the sangha in Mongolia was no exception.
The activities of the Mongols were conducive to the prominency of the Sakya school and then the Gelug, and to the further development of Tibeto-Mongolian culture.[12]
Northern Yuan dynasty and cultural renaissance (16th century) – third introduction
Temple at Erdene Zuu monastery established by Abtai Khan in the Khalkha heartland in the 16th century
Hutuhtai Secen Hongtaiji of Ordos and his two brothers invaded Tibet in 1566. He sent an ultimatum to some of the ruling clergy of Tibet demanding their submission.[13][citation needed] The Tibetan supreme monks decided to surrender and Hutuhtai Secen Hongtaiji returned to Ordos with three high ranking monks. Tumen Jasaghtu Khan invited a monk of the Kagyu school in 1576.[citation needed]
In 1578 Altan Khan, a Mongol military leader with ambitions to unite the Mongols and to emulate the career of Genghis Khan, invited the 3rd Dalai Lama, the head of the rising Gelug lineage to a summit. They formed an alliance that gave Altan Khan legitimacy and religious sanction for his imperial pretensions and that provided the Buddhist school with protection and patronage. Altan Khan recognized Sonam Gyatso lama as a reincarnation of Phagpa lama, gave the Tibetan leader the title of Dalai Lama ("Ocean Lama"), which his successors still hold. Sonam Gyatso, in turn, recognized Altan as a reincarnation of Kublai Khan.[14][citation needed] Thus, Altan added legitimacy to the title "khan" that he had assumed, while Sonam Gyatso received support for the supremacy he sought over the Tibetan sangha. Since this meeting, the heads of the Gelugpa school became known as Dalai Lamas. Altan Khan also bestowed the title Ochirdara (Очирдар, from Sanskr. Vajradhara) to Sonam Gyatso.
Altan Khan died soon after, but in the next century the Gelug spread throughout Mongolia, aided in part by the efforts of contending Mongol aristocrats to win religious sanction and mass support for their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to unite all Mongols in a single state. Viharas (Mongolian datsan) were built across Mongolia, often sited at the juncture of trade and migration routes or at summer pastures where large numbers of herders would congregate for shamanistic rituals and sacrifices. Buddhist monks carried out a protracted struggle with the indigenous shamans and succeeded, to some extent, in taking over their functions and fees as healers and diviners, and in pushing the shamans to the fringes of Mongolian culture and religion.
Church and state supported each other. Reincarnations of living Buddhas were often discovered in the families of Mongolian nobility until this practice was outlawed by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty.
Qing dynasty (1636–1912)
During the Qing's founding emperor Hong Taiji's (1592–1643) campaign against the last Northern Yuan ruler Ligdan Khan, he started the sponsorship of Tibetan Buddhism to gain support.[15] According to the Manchu historian Jin Qicong, Buddhism was used by Qing rulers to control Mongolians and Tibetans; it was of little relevance to ordinary Manchus in the Qing dynasty.[16]
The long association of the Manchu rulership with the Bodhisattva Manjusri, and his own interest in Tibetan Buddhism, gave credence to the Qianlong Emperor's patronage of Tibetan Buddhist art, and patronage of translations of the Buddhist canon. He supported the Yellow Church (the Tibetan Buddhist Gelukpa sect) to "maintain peace among the Mongols" since the Mongols were followers of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama of the Yellow Church.[17] Mark Elliott concludes that these actions delivered political benefits but "meshed seamlessly with his personal faith."
The Khalkha nobles' power was deliberately undermined by Qianlong, when he appointed the Tibetan Ishi-damba-nima of the Lithang royal family of the eastern Tibetans as the 3rd reincarnated Jebtsundamba, instead of the Khalkha Mongol which they wanted to be appointed.[18]:26 The decision was first protested against by the Outer Mongol Khalkha nobles, and then the Khalkhas sought to have him placed at a distance from them at Dolonnor. Nevertheless, Qianlong snubbed both of their requests, sending the message that he was putting an end to Outer Mongolian autonomy.[18]:17 The decision to make Tibet the only place where the reincarnation came from was intentional by the Qing to curtail the Mongols.[19]
The Bogd Khan was simultaneously the religious and secular head of state until the 1920s.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Outer Mongolia had 583 monasteries and temple complexes, which controlled an estimated 20 percent of the country's wealth. Almost all Mongolian cities have grown up on the sites of monasteries. Ikh Huree, as Ulaanbaatar was then known, was the seat of the preeminent living Buddha of Mongolia (the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, also known as the Bogdo Gegen and later as the Bogd Khan), who ranked third in the ecclesiastical hierarchy after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. Two monasteries there contained approximately 13,000 and 7000 monks, respectively, and the pre-revolutionary name of the settlement known to outsiders as Urga, Ikh Huree, means "Big Monastery".
Over the centuries, the monasteries acquired riches and secular dependents, gradually increasing their wealth and power as the wealth and power of the Mongol nobility declined. Some nobles donated a portion of their dependent families—people, rather than land, were the foundation of wealth and power in old Mongolia—to the monasteries. Some herders dedicated themselves and their families to serve the monasteries, either from piety or from the desire to escape the arbitrary exactions of the nobility. In some areas, the monasteries and their living buddhas (of whom there were a total of 140 in 1924) were also the secular authorities. In the 1920s, there were about 110,000 monks, including children, who made up about one-third of the male population, although many of these lived outside the monasteries and did not observe their vows. About 250,000 people, more than a third of the total population, either lived in territories administered by monasteries and living Buddhas or were hereditary dependents of the monasteries.
Mongol praying at a shrine in Urga
With the end of Manchu rule in 1911, the Buddhist church and its clergy provided the only political structure available. The autonomous state thus took the form of a weakly centralized theocracy, headed by the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu in Yehe Kuriye.
By the twentieth century, Buddhism had penetrated deeply into the culture of Mongolia, and the populace willingly supported the lamas and the monasteries. Foreign observers usually had a negative opinion of Mongolian monks, condemning them as lazy, ignorant, corrupt, and debauched, but the Mongolian people did not concur. Ordinary Mongolians apparently combined a cynical and realistic anticlericalism, sensitive to the faults and the human fallibility of individual monks or groups of monks, with a deep and unwavering concern for the transcendent values of the church.
When the revolutionaries took power and formed the Mongolian People's Republic, determined to modernize and reform Mongolian society, they confronted a massive ecclesiastical structure that enrolled a large part of the population, monopolized education and medical services, administered justice in a part of the country, and controlled a great deal of the national wealth.
The Buddhist church, moreover, had no interest in reforming itself or in modernizing the country. The result was a protracted political struggle that absorbed the energies and attention of the party and its Soviet advisers for nearly twenty years. As late as 1934, the party counted 843 major Buddhist centers, about 3,000 temples of various sizes, and nearly 6000 associated buildings, which usually were the only fixed structures in a world of yurts. The annual income of the church was 31 million tögrögs, while that of the state was 37.5 million tögrögs. A party source claimed that, in 1935, monks constituted 48 percent of the adult male population.
In a campaign marked by shifts of tactics, alternating between conciliation and persecution, and a few reported uprisings led by monks and abbots, the Buddhist church was removed progressively from public administration, was subjected to confiscatory taxes, was forbidden to teach children, and was prohibited from recruiting new monks or replacing living Buddhas. The campaign's timing matched the phases of Joseph Stalin's persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Robert Rupen reports that in the 1920s there were over 112,000 Mongolian Buddhist monks, representing more than 13% of Mongolia's overall population. By the 1940s, nearly every monk was either dead or had apostatized.[11]:90 In 1938—amid accusations that the church and monasteries were trying to cooperate with the Japanese, who were promoting a pan-Mongol puppet state—the remaining monasteries were dissolved, their property was seized, and their monks were secularized, interned or executed. Those monastic buildings that had not been destroyed were taken over to serve as local government offices or schools. Only then was the ruling party, which since 1921 gradually had built a cadre of politically reliable and secularly educated administrators, able to destroy the church and to mobilize the country's wealth and population for its program of modernization and social change.
Since the late 1940s, one monastery, Gandan Monastery, with a community of 100 monks, was open in Ulaanbaatar. It was the country's sole monastery and was more for international display than functionality.[11]:96 A few of the old monasteries survived as museums, and the Gandan Monastery served as a living museum and a tourist attraction. Its monks included a few young men who had undergone a five-year training period, but whose motives and mode of selection were unknown to Western observers. The party apparently thought that Buddhism no longer posed a challenge to its dominance and that—because Buddhism had played so large a part in the history of Mongolia and traditional arts and culture, total extirpation of knowledge about the religion and its practices would cut modern Mongols off from much of their past to the detriment of their national identity. A few aged former monks were employed to translate Tibetan-language handbooks on herbs and traditional Tibetan medicine. Government spokesmen described the monks of the Gandan Monastery as doing useful work. Today the monastery has been reinvigorated as Gandantegchinlen Monastery by the post-Communist governments of the country.
After the 1990 overthrow of communism, there has been a resurgence of Buddhism in the country, with about 200 temples now in existence and a monastic sangha of around 300 to 500 Mongolian monks and nuns.[20] According to Vesna Wallace, a professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara: "Now more people are coming to temples and visiting monasteries. There is also a new interest in meditation among the general public."[21]
According to the national census of 2010, 53% of the Mongolians identify as Buddhists.[22]
The main Mongolian deity Begtse in a cham-dance. Photo from before 1930.
The last Great Khüree Cham- dance festival in Mongolia before organised Buddhism was wiped out, the festival was organised in 1937. The central figure in the photo is the deity of the Old White Man, the most comic character in the cham.
Dalai Lama is a title given by Altan Khan, the first Shunyi King of Ming China in 1578 AD at Yanghua Monastery to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and incumbent Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who lives in exile as a refugee in India. The Dalai Lama is considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
The 3rd Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso ; (1543–1588) was the first in the tulku lineage to be entitled formally as the Dalai Lama. In 1578 Altan Khan presented the spiritual title of Dalai Lama, in honor of Sonam Gyatso's profound teachings conferred in Mongolia, which soon became a Tibetan Buddhist country. He founded Kumbum Monastery, Lithang Monastery, and Namgyal Monastery. The spiritual title was retrospectively given to his two tulku lineage predecessors, the 1st Dalai Lama and the 2nd Dalai Lama.
The Gelug is the newest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It was founded by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), a Tibetan philosopher, tantric yogi and lama and further expanded and developed by his disciples.
The Jebtsundamba Khutuktu or Khalkha Jetsün Dampa Rinpoche is a title given to the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. They also hold the title of Bogd Gegeen, making them the top-ranked lama in Mongolia.
Altan Khan of the Tümed, whose given name was Anda, was the leader of the Tümed Mongols de facto ruler of the Right Wing, or western tribes, of the Mongols, and the first Ming Shunyi King (顺义王). He was the grandson of Dayan Khan (1464–1543), a descendant of Kublai Khan (1215–1294), who had managed to unite a tribal league between the Khalkha Mongols in the north and the Chahars (Tsakhars) to the south. His name means "Golden Khan" in the Mongolian language.
Güshi Khan was a Khoshut prince and founder of the Khoshut Khanate, who supplanted the Tumed descendants of Altan Khan as the main benefactor of the Dalai Lama and the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1637, Güshi Khan defeated a rival Mongol prince Choghtu Khong Tayiji, a Kagyu follower, near Qinghai Lake and established his khanate in Tibet over the next years. His military assistance to the Gelug school enabled the 5th Dalai Lama to establish political control over Tibet.
Amarbayasgalant Monastery or the "azzaya", is one of the three largest Buddhist monastic centers in Mongolia. The monastery complex is located in the Iven Valley near the Selenge River, at the foot of Mount Büren-Khaan in Baruunbüren sum (district) of Selenge Province in northern Mongolia. The nearest town is Erdenet which is about 60 km to the southwest.
Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar was the first Jebtsundamba Khutuktu and the first Bogd Gegeen or supreme spiritual authority, of the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.
Gandantegchinlen Monastery, also known as Gandan Monastery, is a Buddhist monastery in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It was founded in 1809, closed amid persecutions in 1939, and from 1944 to 1989 was the country's only active monastery. Today, it is the center of Buddhism in Mongolia. The monastery has more than 100 resident monks and numerous Buddhist treasures, including a 26-metre (85 ft) statue of Avalokiteśvara made of gilded bronze and precious stones.
The Erdene Zuu Monastery is probably the earliest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. Located in Övörkhangai Province, approximately 2 km north-east from the center of Kharkhorin and adjacent to the ancient city of Karakorum, it is part of the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site. The monastery is affiliated with the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
Mongolia under Qing rule was the rule of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China over the Mongolian Plateau, including the four Outer Mongolian aimags and the six Inner Mongolian aimags from the 17th century to the end of the dynasty. The term "Mongolia" is used here in the broader historical sense, and includes an area much larger than the modern-day state of Mongolia. By the early 1630s Ligdan Khan saw much of his power weakened due to the disunity of the Mongol tribes. He was subsequently defeated by the Later Jin dynasty and died soon afterwards. His son Ejei handed the Yuan imperial seal over to Hong Taiji in 1635, thus ending the rule of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Inner Mongolia. However, the Khalkha Mongols in Outer Mongolia continued to rule until they were overrun by the Dzungar Khanate in 1690, and they submitted to the Qing dynasty in 1691.
The 9th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu was the 9th reincarnation of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the third highest lama in the Tibetan Buddhism hierarchy and the spiritual leader of the Gelug lineage among the Khalkha Mongols. Although recognized as the reincarnation of the Bogd Khan in 1936, his identity was kept a secret by the Dalai Lama until 1990, due to the persecution of the Buddhist religion by the Communist Mongolian People's Republic, and he did not reside in Mongolia until the final year of his life.
The Changkya Khutukhtu was the title held by the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Inner Mongolia during the Qing dynasty.
There were several Mongol invasions of Tibet. The earliest is the alleged plot to invade Tibet by Genghis Khan in 1206, which is considered anachronistic; there is no evidence of Mongol-Tibetan encounters prior to the military campaign in 1240. The first confirmed campaign is the invasion of Tibet by the Mongol general Doorda Darkhan in 1240, a campaign of 30,000 troops that resulted in 500 casualties. The campaign was smaller than the full-scale invasions used by the Mongols against large empires. The purpose of this attack is unclear, and is still in debate among Tibetologists. Then in the late 1240s Mongol prince Godan invited Sakya lama Sakya Pandita, who urged other leading Tibetan figures to submit to Mongol authority. This is generally considered to have marked the beginning of Mongol rule over Tibet, as well as the establishment of patron and priest relationship between Mongols and Tibetans. These relations were continued by Kublai Khan, who founded the Mongol Yuan dynasty and granted authority over whole Tibet to Drogon Chogyal Phagpa, nephew of Sakya Pandita. The Sakya-Mongol administrative system and Yuan administrative rule over the region lasted until the mid-14th century, when the Yuan dynasty began to crumble.
There is a small Mongolian community in India, comprising mostly Buddhist monks and scholars as well as international students from Mongolia.
The Khoshut Khanate was a Mongol Oirat khanate based in the Tibetan Plateau from 1642 to 1717. Based in modern Qinghai, it was founded by Güshi Khan in 1642 after defeating the opponents of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. The 5th Dalai Lama established a civil administration known as Ganden Phodrang with the aid of Güshi Khan. The role of the khanate in the affairs of Tibet has been subject to various interpretations. Some sources claim that the Khoshut did not interfere in Tibetan affairs and had a priest and patron relationship between the khan and Dalai Lama while others claim that Güshi appointed a minister, Sonam Rapten, as de facto administrator of civil affairs while the Dalai Lama was only responsible for religious matters. Güshi Khan accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Qing dynasty in 1654, when seal of authority and golden sheets were granted by the Shunzhi Emperor. In the last years of the khanate, Lha-bzang Khan murdered the Tibetan regent and deposed the 6th Dalai Lama in favor of a pretender Dalai Lama.
Buddhists, predominantly from India, first actively disseminated their practices in Tibet from the 6th to the 9th centuries CE. During the Era of Fragmentation, Buddhism waned in Tibet, only to rise again in the 11th century. With the Mongol invasion of Tibet and the establishment of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in China, Tibetan Buddhism spread beyond Tibet to Mongolia and China. From the 14th to the 20th centuries, Tibetan Buddhism was patronized by the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1644–1912) which ruled China.
The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang was the Tibetan system of government established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642, when the Oirat lord Güshi Khan who founded the Khoshut Khanate conferred all spiritual and political power in Tibet to him in a ceremony in Shigatse. During the ceremony, the Dalai Lama "made a proclamation declaring that Lhasa would be the capital of Tibet and the government of would be known as Gaden Phodrang" which eventually became the seat of the Gelug school's leadership authority. The Dalai Lama chose the name of his monastic residence at Drepung Monastery for the new Tibetan government's name: Ganden (དགའ་ལྡན), the Tibetan name for Tushita heaven, which, according to Buddhist cosmology, is where the future Buddha Maitreya resides; and Phodrang (ཕོ་བྲང), a palace, hall, or dwelling. Lhasa's Red Fort again became the capital building of Tibet, and the Ganden Phodrang operated there and adjacent to the Potala Palace until 1959.
Religion in Inner Mongolia is characterised by the diverse traditions of Mongolian-Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, the Chinese traditional religion including the traditional Chinese ancestral religion, Taoism, Confucianism and folk religious sects, and the Mongolian native religion. The region is inhabited by a majority of Han Chinese and a substantial minority of Southern Mongols, so that some religions follow ethnic lines.
Abtai Sain Khan - alternately Abatai or Avtai (Mongolian: Автай хан, meaning who have the gift of witchcraft and good - was a Khalkha-Mongolian prince who was named by the 3rd Dalai Lama as first khan of the Tüsheet Khanate in 1587. He zealously propagated Tibetan Buddhism among the Khalkha Mongols and founded the Buddhist monastery of Erdene Zuu in 1585.
↑ Benard, Elisabeth (2004). "The Qianlong Emperor and Tibetan Buddhism". In Dunnell, Ruth W.; Elliott, Mark C.; Foret, Philippe; Millward, James A. (eds.). New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde. Routledge. pp.123–124. ISBN9781134362226.
↑ Morris, Nomi (2010-09-11). "Buddhism continues to flower in Mongolia". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2016-01-07. Retrieved 2015-12-28. The practice, suppressed for decades by the Communist Party, is being reclaimed by Mongolians as an integral part of their national identity.
↑ Grim, Brian J.; Johnson, Todd M.; Skirbekk, Vegard; Zurlo, Gina A. (2014). Yearbook of International Religious Demography 2014. BRILL. p.152. 2010 Population and Housing Census of Mongolia data
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Statue of Migjid Janraisig, Gandantegchinlen Monastery
The main Mongolian deity Begtse in a cham-dance. Photo from before 1930.
The last Great Khüree Cham- dance festival in Mongolia before organised Buddhism was wiped out, the festival was organised in 1937. The central figure in the photo is the deity of the Old White Man, the most comic character in the cham.
