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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 monastery 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 Traditional 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. 379
