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REFLECTIONS ON THE REVIVAL OF KHÖGSHIN KHÜREE New Year, Tsagaan sar, Khansh neekh, celebration of the anniversary ofthe monastery (which draws several hundred attendees), and Tsongkhapa Day. Informant 3 stresses that the monastery was not set up as a business but a place to practice Dharma and to serve the community perhaps casting an aspersion on the other Temple Heads in the city. (Many temples in Mongolia, which are new foundations rather than revivals of an old monastery are, in effect, private businesses legally owned by the people who set up the temple with all monies raised by temple activities belonging to them.*’) He is openly ambitious about wanting Gundu Yondon Rawjaalin to become the leading monastery in Baganuur and the wider district, and to build Dharma primary and secondary schools in the city. As he admits “even though it is impossible to revive the Khögshin khüree as whole, we wanted to preserve the Khögshin khüree and pass down its traditions into next generation and prevent the khtiree being forgotten in the future. There is traditional monastic disciple (dulwaa, Tib. ‘dul ba, Skr. Vinaya), which is almost disappeared, so therefore it became quite important to preserve and pass down to the youth whatever I heard and learnt from the elderly practitioners from the Khégshin khiiree.” Passing on a Mongolian Form of Buddhist Practice This desire to pass down the traditions is felt very strongly by Informant 3: “It is our obligation to pass down what we learnt from the previous generation.” Both he and Informant | felt keenly, what they saw as, the weakening or impending loss of, what they call, the traditional way of Mongolian Buddhist practice and culture feeling it is being unduly influenced by (modern) Tibetan ways. This was impacting on them in various ways, for example: in terms of the chanting rhythms used for daily prayers and other pijjas to local ceremonies in sacred places to the perceived de-emphasis on these traditional rituals and practices and with greater emphasis being given to Buddhist philosophy. Note that both these informants had undergone their many years of training in Mongolian institutions and monasteries and neither of them had had a Tibetan teacher. They pointed out that the education given to Mongolian monks in South India did not include any ministrations to a local population nor did it involve cultural rituals and practices drawn from the Mongol shamanic past. They explained how Mongolian monks returning from studying in the Tibetan monasteries in India and the Tibetan monks serving in Mongolia used Tibetan pronunciation in their Dharma teaching and in the recitation of texts that locals do 3° In 2013 I was told by the monk in Gandan, the Head Monastery in Mongolia, who is in charge of liaison with all the monasteries throughout the country, that he was working with the Ministry of Law and Interior to try and prevent private ownership of monasteries and to return to the situation whereby the monastery is owned by the monk body not by individuals. The discussions also include developing a system of registration that is relevant only to religious institutions, which is not the case at present, and drawing up the Buddhist qualifications and experience needed to set up a Buddhist temple; there currently being no such requirements with anyone who cares being able to set up a Buddhist temple regardless of their background and qualifications. E-mail communication in late 2017 confirmed these discussions are on going. 43
