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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 relevant 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 pre1937 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 Buddhism 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 inheritors 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 fading 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 47
