Page 27 [27]
OCR
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 Innovation” 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 established 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 25
