Oldal 49 [49]
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVIVAL OF KHÖGSHIN KHÜREE
by the old monks from that monastery in 1990. Their legitimacy was based on them
simply re-starting where they had left off and manifested by the replication of a set
of practices: they worshipped the same protector and tutelary deities; they made
every effort to perform the same cycle of daily, monthly and some of the annual
ceremonies as they had done in the past; they did the püjas and chanting according
to the ways of Khögshin khüree with great emphasis being placed on the distinctive
rhythms. They had also legalised the revival by registering the temple with the rele¬
vant department under the terms set by the new national government. This situation
was repeated all over Mongolia in the early 1990s as old monks came together and
re-started their monasteries. (As Majer and Teleki point out not all newly activated
temples were registered with the authorities.) In some instances monks from the
Baruun (Western) and Dstitin (Eastern) branches of a great monastery came together
to re-start as one monastery.
The second revival of Khégshin khiiree bases its legitimacy on a well-known
monk being asked by the city authorities to re-start Khégshin khiiree when the first
ceased its activities, the request subsequently being ratified by a city resolution.
Those involved further justify their claim by having consulted widely with the pre¬
1937 monks and old people in the area. The leader of this revival further claims that
the two other active temple heads in the town are effectively revivals because they
had been monks in his temple for several years.
The monks involved in the third and most recent revival base their legitimacy on
the transmission they received from the old monks in the first revival of Khögshin
khiiree’s monastic practice. They see themselves in a direct line of the old monastery
and reject the claims of the second revivers because they had never been monks in
the first revival. They wish to underline their claim by formally registering their
monastery with the civic authorities and with Gandan neither of which they had been
able to do when I visited them in 2016.
For a fuller perspective on the revival of this great monastery I would need to
investigate the existing two revivals in greater depth as well as doing research among
the townspeople and authorities, as they are all actively involved in the process.
Notwithstanding this, my brief investigation demonstrates how the revival of Budd¬
hism in Baganuur is an on-going, organic, inter-connected and dynamic process. The
Heads of the two revivals struck me as genuine in their efforts to bring Buddhism
to the people. Significantly both of them had received their Buddhist education in
Mongolia before they established their monasteries and all of them continue to pay
homage to their teachers and gurus as well as maintaining historical connections
between the great monasteries in the region. They are, what I call, the cultural in¬
heritors of Mongolian Buddhism as it was practiced in the past in so far as this can
ever be replicated given the five decades in which no public practice was allowed
and the young monks tossed out of the monasteries in 1937 were old men with fad¬
ing memories at the time of the revival. For these young temple heads whichever
of the monasteries is the genuine revival, the link to the old monks was critical in
determining their understanding of how to run their monastery notwithstanding the
need to adapt to modern conditions. Time will tell if the two active revivals of the
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