Oldal 36 [36]
SUSAN C. BYRNE
Rinpoche. He met and married a girl living in Binder district in Khentii province
where he went to live. Here he joined the monk community in Dashchoimbellin, the
revival of Lamiin khüree. His teacher there was Lkhamsiiren.”!
When he first arrived in Baganuur he was struck by the absence of an active
temple in the city centre and was determined to open his own. He attended Yengar
Shaddüwdarjaalin in its last two years of operation though it was far from the city
centre and, after it was opened, he attended Ontsar Esheelin. However, he remained
set on having his own temple and felt confident to do this having learned how to run
a temple from the old monks in Lamiin khiiree and from his brief time with Ven.
Luwsandamba at Yengar Shaddtiwdarjaalin.
In 2007 he founded his temple, Dashchoimbellin, in the southeast of Baganuur
city. He says the practices and rhythm of the chanting are similar to Khégshin khiiree
but he does not claim his temple is a revival: “I don’t know what the traditions are”
he says explaining that he would need to do research on the specific pijas, prayers
and ceremonies. “Because I don’t know what are the traditions and if we do some
research then we can know. This is the book (Mongolin stim xidin tiixés) and there is
good information about the khiiree. If we want to revive the Khégshin khiiree tradi¬
tions in that case we need to know and study the Khögshin khüree well what were
the püjas, prayers and ceremonies it used to make.”
He clearly feels others are more entitled to revive Khégshin khiiree: monks like
Ven. NB who was at Yengar Shaddtiwdarjaalin in its first years and who learnt the
style and the rhythms directly from the old monks. “The last (remaining) monks
of Luwsandamba and Yondon, ... they are their disciples who learnt from their
teachers the traditional style of the prayers and piijas. For instance as I told (you)
before Ven. NB ... learnt the style and rhythms from the Khégshin khiiree and in
terms of the prayers and pijas (they) are all the same. But the style and rhythms are
done in Mongolian style.”
He also pointed out that his background was different because he had studied in
the tantric college, Badmayogo, as well as studying astrology in Ivolginsky Dat¬
san, Buryatia and performs these practices. He remains in touch with his teachers
in Badmayogo (Bayanbaatar, Baatarkhüü and Tserendorj who is a teacher of old
Mongolian writing) and Lamiin khüree (Lkhamsüren and Gombo) and he also has
a teacher called Samdan who is from the Ugtam Tegchilin khiid in Bayandun district
in Dornod province.”
Informant 2’s temple seemed to be busy on the Sunday afternoon I visited with
a constant stream of local people coming in to see the temple head who was sitting
in his room wearing a lama’s yellow shirt. He sat at a large desk and behind him was
a display of framed images of Buddhist deities including Janraiseg (Tib. spyan ras
gzigs), small statues with one of Baldanlkham (Tib. dpal Idan lha mo), water offering
bowls, some small balin (Tib. gtor ma) and photograph of one of his teachers. On the
2! Cf. www.mongoliantemples.org. Badmayogo DOMM UB19, Dashchompillin DOMM Active XOBP
085, Lamiin khiiree DOMM XDBP 086.
» Cf. www.mongoliantemples.org. Ugtam Tegchilin khiid (DOMM Old OBJ] 029, DOMM Active
[OBH 030) in Bayandun district in Dornod province.
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