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KEFLECTIONS ON THE REVIVAL OF KHÖGSHIN KHUREE, DRAWING ON THE DOCUMENTATION OF MONGOLIAN MONASTERIES PROJECT (2007) AND FIELD VISITS CARRIED OUT IN SUMMER 2016 Susan C. Byrne Independent Researcher, Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries Project, London In 2007 the Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries project (DOMM) recorded active temples throughout (Outer) Mongolia: temples built or re-activated after 1990. Around 300 were logged and are now on the project website: www.mongoliantemples.org. Of these, a little over half were described as a revival of a former monastery and these were evenly split between those revived on the site of the old monastery and those revived elsewhere. ' In 2016 I decided to work with a translator and gather data on the revival of Khégshin khiiree (Khal. X6gSin xtiré),? one of the great khiirees of Central Mongolia, which is situated in Môngônmor”’t district (sum) in Tôw province (aimag). The revival had been omitted in the original 2007 fieldwork although pilot work on this monastery in 2005 had indicated it had been revived in the nearby centre of Baganuur. In the original DOMM project we asked informants whether or not an active monastery was the revival of an old monastery or if it was a new foundation. The meaning of revival was self-defined and, with the exception of one of the survey teams, little data was collected on the details of the revivals beyond logging the principal actors involved and whether or not the building was on the same site as the old temple or a different site. In this supplementary field study reported in this paper, the aim was to collect detailed data on the revival of Khögshin khüree to give greater insight into the process as well as the considerations taken into account by those involved at the time. This was also to establish what changes had taken place in the two and a half decades since 1990 when Buddhism was restored in Mongolia: how the revival came about; what the actors meant by the term revival; how they justified the claim; the source of their knowledge about the old temple practices and what implications these had on the day-to-day practice in the temple. Information collected by the 2007 DOMM survey team in Dundgow‘ and Owérkhangai provinces will be used Cf. www.mongoliantemples.org, Mongolin stim xidin tiixen towcd — Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries Project (DOMM) conducted in 2007 surveyed 297 Active Temples of these 53% were described as revivals of an old monastery and, of these, 47% being revived on site, 53% revived away from old site. ? DOMM TOMM 051. Khögshin khüree, Kherlen goliin Dsüün khüree, Dsüün khüree. 21
