Seite 48 [48]
OCR
SUSAN C. BYRNE pendence with the introduction of a democratic system but also the revival of their traditional religion, Buddhism, which had been suppressed but not extinguished for over 50 years. Being acutely short of Buddhist teachers, with only a handful of highly educated monks alive at the time though very elderly, they sought help with the revival from the exiled Tibetans. The Tibetans had managed against all odds to preserve their form of Buddhism in exile but they were still effectively stateless and excluded from their homeland some 30 years after the Dalai Lama had fled Tibet. The Head Abbot of Mongolia told me in 1993 that the Gandan management committee had made the conscious decision to follow the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and to follow the exiled Dalai Lama by sending the young monks to be educated in the Tibetan monastic institutions in South India rather than seeking help from the monastic community in Tibet, which was under the sway of the Chinese Communist regime. After 1990 the first young monks from the three philosophical temples in Gandan* went to the Tibetan exile monasteries in South India to continue their traditional Gelugpa monastic education (by now reformed by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama) with the majority going to Drepung Gomang, and others to Sera Jey.** By the mid 2000s, what had been a handful had grown to around 300 student monks studying in India. Many came back before completing the 11-year study period although some stayed on to do Geshe Lharampa studies. During this time I witnessed Gandan putting a great deal of effort into building up the teaching capacity within its datsans and the Dsanabadsar Buddhist University while limiting the number of Tibetan monks coming to the country to teach. It was clear that the Gandan authorities wanted the revival to be Mongolian led. However, the decisions made in the early years of the revival is now playing out as more and more monks return from India bringing with them the influences of their Tibetan teaching institutions. Closing Thoughts The story of the revival of a great Khégshin khiiree, which unfolded in Baganuur was intriguing and revealing. There are competing reasons for claiming a temple activated after 1990 is a revival of a monastery destroyed in the late 1930s. The most unquestioned basis for the revival of Khdégshin khtiree was the one manifested 32 For full description of these datsans see Majer, Zs. — Teleki, K.: Monasteries and Temples of Bogdiin Khiiree, Ikh Khiiree or Urga, the Old Capital City of Mongolia in the First Part of the Twentieth Century. Budapest 2006, pp. 76-78. www.mongoliantemple.org. Project of the Berzin Archives. Study Buddhism. The monastic education system in the Gelug monasteries covers five major topics, based on five great Indian scriptural texts studied through the medium of logic and debate. The five main subjects are: Prajfiaparamita (Tib. phar phyin); Madhyamaka (Tib. dbu ma); Abhidharma (Tib. mngon par chos, mdzod); Vinaya (Tib. ‘dul ba). Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Head of the FPMT (Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Trust), who came to Mongolia in the late 1990s, was influential in re-establishing the re-connection between Sera Mey and Gandan having raised the funds and rebuilt the Jdgaachoinzinlin datsan (in Gandan) in 2003. 46
