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PRELIMINARY NOTES ON TIBETAN AFTER-DEATH RITES AND THEIR TEXTS IN MONGOLIAN BUDDHIST PRACTICE
Several short texts recommended for the deceased may also appear of Mongolian
temples as part of the everyday reading called Cogcin (Tib. tshogs chen, ‘general as¬
sembly / great assembly’), which is a set of different shorter and longer texts recited
in a given monastery every day in the given order.* In Daséoilin monastery, this list
consists of 52 texts being of different length from some line stanzas to lengthy ones,
while in Gandan it is made up of 35 texts, and in smaller temples around 15—20 titles.
The variety of texts included on a given individual temple’s list of everyday chanting
(gorim, Tib. go rim, ‘sequence, order’, meaning the set of these texts), apart from the
tradition followed, mostly depends on the temple’s size, that is, the number of its lamas,
meaning a restricted number of texts and therefore shorter everyday ceremonies for
temples with extremely few lamas. In general, every temple has on its list the same ba¬
sic texts (sometimes with slight variations). The texts chanted mainly are basic Tibetan
prayers and therefore the gorim of Mongolian temples do not differ considerably from
readings in Tibetan monasteries, though reforms in Mongolian chanting introduced by
Öndör Gegen Janabajar (1635-1723), the 1“ jewcündamba xutagt, are mirrored in the
everyday chantings of the present Mongolian monasteries as well, both in the melodies
being different from the Tibetan melodies, both in that several of the prayers composed
by him or other Mongolian lamas are included.
Lagwi molom (Tib. [hag pa’i smon lam / lhag pa’i smon lam them skas (ma), "Su¬
perior prayer’ / ‘Superior prayer of steps’), a prayer for rebirth in Sukhavati is chanted
daily in many Mongolian monasteries. It is included in the daily chantings in Gandan
and its dacans (Tib. grwa tshang, monastic college); in DaSéoilin monastery; as well as
in many of the smaller monasteries and temples of Mongolia, as many tend to follow
the readings of these. Other related texts included in the daily chantings of Mongolian
monasteries are two of the Six Prayers, Sanjid molom or Yerélin xan and Sanje günla
or Maidarin yeröl / Jambin yerél. The Gandan monastery daily readings also include
Cogjii jalwa of the Six texts.
Apart from the ceremonies in the regular schedule, many of the texts appear on the
list of the requestable texts, as actually almost all the text titles I deal with in this article
were collected from these lists.
The Schedule of Tasks / Rituals to be Performed Upon Someone’s
Death and the Usage of the Individual Texts in It
As the basis of studying the exact usage of the individual texts (exact place and time
where and when to be performed) the schedule of all measures taken, tasks and ritu¬
als to be performed upon someone’s death in the Buddhist practice of Mongolia is
‘Data on the daily chanting texts of Ulanbatar monasteries was collected for my PhD dissertation (Majer,
Zsuzsa: A Comparative Study).
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