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CZECHOSLOVAK ACADEMIC STUDY OF BUDDHISM IN THE 1950s AND 1960s: FIELD RESEARCH IN ASIA Jisl: To the accompaniment of chanting, trumpeting, drum beating, bell ringing and gong banging, the drape falls from the dome and Buddha’s picture in a golden wrought cabinet appears. Vlöek: The ceremony has come to an end. The abbot gets in the car, the faithful crowd around him, stroking and kissing the car. Everything that was touched by a holy man is sacred. And everyone wants a little bit of the holiness for himself. Jisl: The whole company leaves for a silk yurt and right away people pass bowls full of boiled mutton around. It reminded me of our village fairs with all the bustle at the parsonage and hungry lads. A nice roast goose would be the right thing now. Or at least pork, dumplings and sauerkraut. Who wants to trade for mutton?’ Jisl published the information about the consecration ritual only in the English and German versions of his book (there is only one sentence in the Czech mutation); in his archive there are detailed descriptions to his documentary photographs and a lot of interesting facts can be found from them; for instance that the polychromy of Gandantegchinling sculptures and reliefs was restored on the occasion of the ceremony. Lumir Jisl took both black and white and color photographs of these exteriors and interiors during his first visit to Ulaanbaatar in 1957, and thus he was able to capture and compare the appearance of the structures. He even noticed unfortunate interventions of monks during the restoration of an old sculpture: his note on a file card about insensitive and incompetent “restoration of Tsongkhapa’s statue with cement” is highly critical and also unpublished. It nevertheless testifies of the fact that the consecration ritual on 9" July 1958 was not an isolated event and its preparations included other steps, such as the extensive restoration of polychromy of Gandantegchinling sculptures and stone reliefs. There is another important fact: the photographs that have been preserved in the archive — both published and unpublished ones — capture the participants to the religious ritual as well as participants to another public event, the sports and social festival called naadam, which started two days later on 11" July 1958.* If we compare both groups of photographs we find out that the central figures of the consecration are monks, whereas monks are not present at naadam, unlike times before the revolution. Many high quality photographs capture monks. However, these pictures Jisl, Lumir — Vléek, Emanuel: Reportaz z Ulanbataru [Report form Ulaanbaatar]. Radiobroadcast scenario, unpublished typescript, Praha 1958, p. 4. About naadam see e.g. Krist, Stefan: Wrestling Magic: National Wrestling in Buryatia, Mongolia and Tuva in the Past and Today. The International Journal of the History of Sport Vol. 31. No. 4. (2014), pp. 423-444. 423
