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REFLECTIONS ON THE REVIVAL OF KHÖGSHIN KHÜREE
Fig. 9. First revival of Khögshin khüree Yengar Shaddüwdarjaalin. S. Byrne, Baganuur, 2016.
By the late 1980s many of the old men who had been monks in Khögshin khüree at
the time of its destruction, had migrated to the growing city of Baganuur. When the
democratic freedoms came in 1990 a number of these elderly monks came together
under the leadership of Ven. Yondon, a gawj and Ven. Luwsandamba, Assistant
chanting master (baga umzad) in the main hall (7sogchin) of the old monastery. This
followed a pattern repeated around Mongolia in the early 1990s whereby monks from
a pre-1937 monastery came together and began chanting often in a ger (felt tent)", or
where available, in a building within a monastic complex that has remained intact.'4
They would then set about raising funds and collecting scarce materials to build
a small temple, or, in relatively few cases, restore (some of) the ruined buildings
that remained. For them this was what they meant as reviving their old monastery
3 Cf www.mongoliantemples.org. DOMM OXXX 017 Shankhiin baruun khüree khiid in Öwörkhangai
province was operating in a ger in 1993 when I visited it but soon after the monks restored one of the
three remaining temple buildings.
Cf. www.mongoliantemples.org. DOMM AP9B 012 Tögs bayasgalant buyan delgerüülekh khiid is
the revival of DOMM AP9B 052 Dsayaiin deed khüree and was set up in a side temple of the old
monastery.
Byrne, Susan: Seeds of Hope — A Journey in Mongolia. Tibet Foundation Newsletter. London, July
1998. “He explained how they had reconstructed the monastery in the Year of the White Horse
(1990) when the 50 or so surviving lamas had led the chanting. He told me that since that day they
had chanted every single day in the monastery. For him this was the true revival of the great Western
Choir Monastery.”
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