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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 researching 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 historical, 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 phenomena 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 11
