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GREETING WORDS OF H.E. D. CHOLJAMTS,
DOCTOR (oF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY), THE
ABBOT OF GANGDANTEGCHENLING MONASTERY,
THE CENTRE OF MONGOLIAN BUDDHISTS FOR THE
ACADEMIC CONFERENCE "MONGOLIAN BUDDHISM:
TRADITION AND INNOVATION” ORGANIZED AT
THE EÖTVÖS LORÄND UNIVERSITY (TRANSLATION)
I pay homage to the Dharma.
Honourable Professors, Scholars and Researchers!
With clasped hands, I greet everyone who has assembled here for different, but
harmonizing reasons, on this auspicious day.
This academic conference entitled “Mongolian Buddhism: Tradition and Innova¬
tion” was successfully organized on the initiative of the Eötvös Loránd University,
the Department of Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies, the Research Centre for
Mongolian Studies, (Budapest) Research Centre of Buddhist Studies, International
Association of Mongol Studies. I should like to express my deep gratitude to each
of them and wish happiness and I am delighted at their success.
When the ancestors of the Inner Asian nomads and Mongolian people have estab¬
lished a powerful state in our homeland about 2200 years ago, they decided to dispel
the darkness with the light of the Buddhist Faith and introduced it from the country
of the Sages via the Silk Road. They put the images of our master, Buddha, in the
place of honour in their felt tents and worshipped Him. They translated the Sanskrit
texts about the Way to Enlightenment, and the Buddhist vocabulary into our mother
tongue. The Gandhara-style statue of Buddha, which has been excavated from the
ruins in Sharga district of Gow’-Altai Province, and the White Stupa of Kherlen
Bars in Tsagaan-Owoo district of Dornod Province are not only important research
subjects but bear witness of the first conversion, too.
Due to the edict of the reincarnation of Vajrapani, Chinggis Khan, Khubilai Setsen
and the succeeding khagans invited the oracles of the Sakya and Karma schools from
Tibet, and payed respect to them. They, just like King Ashoka and his heirs of the
Kingdom of the Sages, implemented the policies of the “Two principles” and ruled
the people by law similar to the Great Jasag, and promoted the people’s spirit by the
respectful canons. The second conversion is represented by the ancient sutras and
canons translated into Mongolian by the orders of the Mongolian Khans, and the
Kanjuur, the collection of Buddha’s teaching, translated and published by the edict
of Ligdan Khutugtu Khan. These works survived until now.
The successors of the first Bogd Lama, Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, Öndör gegeen
Dsanabadsar were ruling on a declining country. They tried to protect the birthplace
of the Great Mongolian Empire from the chaos by creating a “yellow circle” around
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