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THE CULT OF THE LORDS OF EARTH AND WATERS
BUDDHIST COSMOLOGICAL PATTERN IN MONGOLIAN
FOLK RELIGION
Agnes Birtalan
Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies, Budapest
A Case Study on the Belief System of the
Western Mongolian Dsakhchins!
In 1991, during the first research journey of the Hungarian—Mongolian Joint Expedition
we worked with an old Dsakhchin (Khal. Jaxëin, Oir. Zaxëin, Jax&in) Lama, called by
his monk’s name Jigmedjame (born in 1906, in the year of the red female sheep — ulagé
xonin jil) in the centre of Mankhan district (Khal. Manxan sum) of Khowd (Khal.
Xowd) province.” When he was six years old he was sent by his mother to the Tögrög
Monastery,? in the centre of Mankhan. Later he continued his studies in another mo¬
nastery of Dsakhchins, in Dsereg (Khal. Jereg).* In the thirties he was forced to become
a soldier and then after the 2" world war he became a herdsman. After the political
changes in 1990 in Mongolia he established a yurt-shrine on the very place of the
destroyed Tögrög Monastery in Mankhan together with other three old herdsmen who
were former Lamas similarly to him.° When we visited their yurt-shrine, we learned
from Jigmedjamc some unique narratives about the monasteries of the Dsakhchins,
! On the ethnnography of the Dsakhchins: Menes, G.: Jaxëin. In: Badamxatan, S. (ed.) Mongol Ulsin
ugsätni jüi. Oiradin ugsatni jiii XIX-XX jini jag tiye 2. s. n., Ulanbatar 1996, pp. 334-377 [The
Dsakhchins. Ethnography of Mongolia. The Ethnography of the Oirads on the Turn of the 19"-20"
Centuries].
2 On the activity of the Expedition among the Oirads, cf. Birtalan, Agnes: Fieldwork among the Oirads.
Activity of the Hungarian-Mongolian Joint Expedition for the Research of Mongolian Dialect and Tra¬
ditional Culture. In: Birtalan, Agnes (ed.) Oirad and Kalmyk Linguistic Essays. (Talentum Sorozat 11.
Ed. Kulcsár Szabó, Ernő — Sonkoly, Gábor). ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest 2012, pp. 11—24.
3 About the spread of Buddhism and the Dsakhchin’s Monasteries, cf. Birtalan, Ágnes: Geschichte der
heiligen Götterbilder der drei Klöster unseres Jaqaëin Volks. AOH 39 (1985), pp. 177-203.
4 Birtalan, Agnes: Geschichte der heiligen Gétterbilder.
5 Birtalan, Agnes: Dsakhchin (West-Mongolian) Folksongs with Buddhist Content. AOH 61 (2008), pp.
415-429.
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