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INTRODUCTION
to the Mongolian state he had granted once from the socialist government of Mon¬
golia.
The two-day conference had ten panels with interesting papers covering various
topics. Due to the large number of presentations coffee breaks served for guestions
and answers and the Embassy of Mongolia gave a reception as a closing event of the
conference. The distinctiveness of the forum was the large number of participants:
almost all scholars who study Mongolian Buddhism participated in the workshop.
Another unigueness was the presence of Mongolian monk scholars, the professors of
the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, as well
as the Mongolian television.
Special events accompanying the conference were the visit of the Oriental Collec¬
tion of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
where Buddhist manuscripts and blockprints from Mongolia were studied as well as
the visit of the Collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts in the reposi¬
tory of the Museum of Applied Arts where Mongolian Buddhist thangkas were intro¬
duced.
We are grateful to Eötvös Loránd University, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
the Khyentse Foundation through the Budapest Centre for Buddhist Studies, the Dhar¬
ma Gate Buddhist Church, and all co-operated institutes and Mongolian and Hungarian
individuals who supported the event.
During the conference special emphases was laid on the activity of Öndör Gegeen
Dsanabadsar, Luwsandambiidsantsan (Tib. blo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan), the First
Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutugtu. The camp or residence (6rgdd, Urga) where Dsana¬
badsar lived as a child, was established in 1639 at Shireet Tsagaan Nuur in the current
area of Bürd sum, Ow6érkhangai aimag. After studying in Tibetan monastic universi¬
ties, he received initiations from the most prominent Gelukpa masters: the Fifth Dalai
Lama (1617-1682) and the Fourth Panchen Lama (1570-1662). The Fifth Dalai Lama
recognised him as reincarnation of the Tibetan master, writer and historian Taranatha
(1575-1634), the representative of the Tibetan Jonang stream. Returning from Tibet
in 1651 started Dsanabadsar to found monasteries in his homeland and introduce re¬
ligious life according to the Geluk tradition. He became a prominent Buddhist master
and artist who crafted the most famous bronze masterpieces of Mongolian Buddhist
art including the sculptures of Vajradhara, the five Tathagata Buddhas, the White and
the Green Taras and several other deities. He also proved two scripts and laid the basis
of the present-day capital city. It is stated that the assemblies founded by Dsanabadsar
in his old age represented all the religious traditions (Gelukpa, Nyingmapa, Sakyapa
and Kagyüpa) that had ever been followed in Mongolia.
The papers and the articles of the conference and the present volume reflect on the
great significance and manifold activity of Dsanabadsar including his biography, art,
the scripts he developed, his monastery building activity, his incarnations, and many
other characteristics. The other topics of the conference were also in close connection
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