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PROLEGOMENON
To the third volume of the series Aspects of Mongolian Buddhism
One of the internationally recognised research fields of the Department of
Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies (Eötvös Loránd University) is the multilateral
studies of various aspects of Mongolian Buddhism. This topic appears already in
Gabor Balint of Szentkatolna’s (1844-1913) — the first Hungarian Mongolist’s —
linguistic materials, recorded among the Kalmyks in Astrakhan (1871) and the
Mongols in Urga (1873). His materials are invaluable sources of 19th century
Mongolian Buddhism. The topic became one of the major academic subjects of
Louis (Lajos) Ligeti (1902-1987), the founder of our Department and establisher
ofthe philological research and philology-based education of Mongolian religious,
historical and linguistic sources. We, the second and third generations of disciples,
adherently follow his traditional methodology, nevertheless try to introduce new
research approaches, as in the conference in 2019 and the present volume: i. e. the
aspects of “tradition, invented tradition and innovation”.
The series of conferences that started in 2015 targeted to assemble scholars re¬
searching the Buddhism of Mongolian people and practitioners, i. e. Buddhist /amas
and other related religious specialists. We aim to offer intriguing central topics in
the bi-annual conferences that attract many experts and provide a broad scale of
possibilities to display their research and ideas. In the first year (2015), the histori¬
cal, social, and political concept was at the discussion’s centre (Past, present and
future). In the second year (2017), the ritual practice (Buddhism in practice) and its
context were discussed at the conference and in the volume dedicated to this subject.
The theme of the third conference (2019) and the present collection of articles
is a topical one as it is closely connected to such social, political and cultural phe¬
nomena as “country branding”, “country image”, “cultural branding”, all of them
interwoven with the aspects of tradition, innovation and invented tradition. The
studies included in this volume are based on various written, oral text corpora and
Buddhist objects of different types and seek answers primarily on the following
problems:
e traditional Buddhist scriptures and genres in practice
e interaction in mythologies
e rethinking the Buddhist historical past
* written and newly recorded oral history
¢ Mongolian Buddhism in transition
e image and text in interaction
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