Page 36 [36]
OCR
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 traditions 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 Datsan, 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. 34
