TWO BUDDHISMS IN
CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

Johan Elverskog

In a recent overview of the ‘two Buddhisms’ thesis of Buddhism in the West, Paul

Numrich argued for the continued validity of this typology. In particular, through an

extensive overview of current scholarship, he convincingly showed that the oft-noted

dichotomy between immigrant Buddhism and western convert Buddhism remains a

valuable heuristic tool. At the same he also suggested various avenues for further

research. One such topic was the need to relate these developments of ethnic/convert

and traditionalist/modern dichotomies in the West with the broader realities in the

Buddhist communities of Asia (Numrich 2003, 70). To this end I would like to outline in

this study how the Buddhist revival in contemporary Mongolia relates not only to the

heuristic value of the two Buddhisms in Asia, but also to historiographical issues

concerning the study of the Dharma.

Continuity and conversion

We need to note in the beginning that the case of Mongolia slightly

problematizes the standard dichotomy between continuity and conversion
implied in the two Buddhisms model. Unlike many other Asian communities and
their emigrants in the West, the Mongols have not had a continuous tradition of
Buddhism as a lived tradition. Instead, as with groups in other postsocialist states,
the Mongols are returning to or reviving a religion that was disrupted and
fragmented by decades of socialist intervention, but is now simultaneously
deemed to be central to one’s ethnic and/or national identity and also something
one knows virtually nothing about. Like Bosnian Serbs scrambling about to find
their ‘Saint’s Days’,

1

many Mongols are completely ignorant of the Buddhist

tradition. In essence, the majority of the population is not really engaged in a
continuing religious ‘tradition’; rather, they are ‘converting’, with ethnicity, or a
longing for a sort of ethnic or national unity, as their prime motivation.

As in the West, among many ‘ethnic Buddhists’, for many Mongols there is

no ontological need to ‘know the Dharma’; the ethno-national reason is reason
enough. As Bakula Rinpoche, who himself was from Ladakh and until recently was
a leading figure in the current revival, put it: ‘If you are not a Buddhist, then what

Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 7, No. 1, May 2006

ISSN 1463-9947 print/1476-7953 online/06/010029-46

q

2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14639940600877937

are you? You lose your identity. How different are you then from Chinese or
Russians?’ (S.T. 1996). This view is also echoed in the comments of an ethnic
Buddhist, a Kalmyk Mongol in New Jersey: ‘A Kalmyk who is not a Buddhist is not a
Mongol’ (Sagaster 1999, 186 – 7). Based on such comments, it is easy to surmise
that for the Mongols being Buddhist is deeply rooted in the genealogical, ethnic,
and national imagination of the Mongols. Indeed, some contemporary Mongols
have even gone so far as to advocate that those who convert to other religions
should no longer be considered Mongol (Crossley 1999, 325). Some make this
claim not only in regards to contemporary Christian conversion, but also in the
case of families whose ancestors converted to Islam during the Yuan dynasty
(1272 – 1368).

2

Yet, although these examples seem to fit an apparently common pattern of

return to religion within various ethno-national narratives throughout the
contemporary world, the reality in Mongolia is not as simple as these observations
would lead us to believe. In fact, many Mongols do not readily equate their ethnic
identity with Buddhism. Rather, they often hold quite the opposite view. Indeed
many Mongols understand the Dharma as the discourse of empire that was
employed by the Manchu court to keep the Mongols submissive. In this view, the
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911) is seen as a blight or detour on the Mongol’s march
into modernity, the reason behind Mongolia’s inability to progress on from
Chinggis Khan and the formation of the world’s greatest land empire, the root
cause of contemporary Mongolia’s economic and technological backwardness
(Elverskog 2006b, 2 – 6). And, since it is a widely accepted fact that the Manchus
used Buddhism to maintain their control of the Mongols during the Qing dynasty,
the Dharma is blamed specifically for many of Mongolia’s woes.

The origin for this view can clearly be traced back to the late-nineteenth and

early-twentieth centuries when Mongol nationalists and Marxists both began to
argue that the main reason the Manchus had colonized the Mongols was the Qing
state’s promotion of the Dharma. Thus, in both Marxist and nationalist rhetoric,
the Dharma was the most powerful tool in keeping the Mongols submissive to
Manchu power.

3

This theoretical move fit well not only with the teleologies of

Mongol nationalism and Marxism, both of which required the Qing to be equated
with backwardness and cultural stagnation (indeed, why else have a revolution?),
but also with narratives of modernity and its attendant secularization, wherein the
most common culprit for both the Qing imperial project and Mongol turpitude
was none other than religion. This sentiment is well captured in a pamphlet
published in July 1929 in Dolonnuur, which warns the Mongols of the danger
posed by the Panchen Lama.

From the latter period of our Mongolia’s great Yuan dynasty, Buddhism began to

penetrate. About five hundred years ago, at the same time as Altan Khan of the

Tu¨meds had spread Buddhism widely among the Mongols, the Manchu Qing

dynasty arose. Seeing it as a fine-tuned way to decrease the unparalleled brave

and heroic nature of the Mongols, they turned the Mongols towards affairs of

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J. ELVERSKOG

emptiness like mercy and merit, sin and future incarnations, and made them fall

completely behind in political knowledge and economic development. The

might and glory of the ancient Mongols was already covered over and we

preserved a gentleness like sheep, thus becoming food for the wolves. (Atwood

1994, 512)

This pamphlet captures the basic idea well: the Manchus used Buddhism to keep
the Mongols weak, and thus, to advance into the modern age, Buddhism with all
its superstitions and institutionalized political structures needed to be abandoned
(Elverskog 2004a, 140). Curiously, however, this was not only a modern
interpretation. Mongol authors, such as the famous late-nineteenth-century
scholar Injanashi, had long been warning of Buddhism’s ‘too metaphysical’ nature
(Hangin 1973, 34), which kept the Mongols from focusing on the really important
things, such as technology and progress.

Invariably this historiographical interpretation reached its apotheosis in

Marxist circles, in which the very idea of Mongol and Buddhist were not only
dismissed as epiphenomena distorting true class distinctions, but also as
ideological smokescreens foisted on the masses by the religio-political elite to
ensure their own power. As the Mongol scholar Natsagdorj explained:

The Mongol feudalists strove to cause the Yellow Sect [the Dalai Lama’s Gelukpa]

to expand into the conquered territory under them, beginning with the second

half of the sixteenth century. As for suddenly having a liking for the religion on

the part of the Mongol feudalists, that was not directed solely by religious belief,

but was motivated mainly from the goal they had of exploiting the influence of

the Yellow Sect. The propagation of the Yellow Sect was directly related to the

use of the religion by the feudalists to subdue the anger of the masses who had

become mindless with suffering in the uninterrupted wars of the feudalists.

(1963, 13)

Obviously, the feudalists, with their promotion of the Dharma, had led the people
astray.

While we may easily dismiss this interpretation as Marxist theory run amok,

it is also important to recognize its fundamental insight—that the Manchus
somehow used Buddhism to rule the Mongols—continues to be the dominant
interpretative paradigm within the western academy today. Indeed, to better
understand the ubiquity of this model, one need only look at three excerpts from
recent scholarship on the Qing dynasty:

Qianlong universalism was founded on a complex of religious and political ideals

that bound together Tibet and Mongolia. Since the time of Nurhaci it had been

clear that legitimate rule over the Mongols depended upon patronizing Tibetan

lamas, whom Altan Khan had established as the spiritual guides of the Mongols.

Indeed by the late seventeenth century reincarnations of the lamas could be

found among the Mongols themselves, consolidating the ideological

identification of Tibet and Mongolia. (Crossley 1997, 113)

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

31

The Manchu rulers had to compete with Mongol khans for regional hegemony

and they too turned to Tibetan Buddhism for legitimacy. The history of Tibetan

Buddhist patronage by the Qing court is thus closely intertwined with the

successful Manchu campaigns to extend their control over the Mongols, who

constituted their greatest potential threat. (Rawski 1998, 244)

Qing emperors were personally involved with Tibetan Buddhist beliefs,

practices, temples, and clerics and intent on defining themselves as both

Chakravartian [sic ] rulers and incarnations of Manjusri. Playing the role of both

patron and student of the religion allowed them leverage over the highest lamas

and provided them with personal religious advisors. Moreover, active Qing

patronage enlarged the Tibetan Buddhist world and both created and expressed

a particularly Manchu solidarity with believers within and beyond their empire.

(Naquin 2000, 308 – 9; see also Zito 1997, 23; Hostetler 2001, 35)

These three quotes are from leading scholars in the field of Qing history, and one
can find similar passages in the work of Mongol historians and Tibetan historians
(for example, Moses 1977; Jagchid and Hyer 1979, 177; Bawden 1989, 86 – 8; Bira
2002). Indeed, virtually every work on the subject maintains this interpretation. It is
found even in the Oxford English Dictionary under the word Lamaism, which reads
‘It is with this view [of enfeebling the strength of the Mongol princes] that the
emperors patronise lamanism [sic ]’ (Lopez 1998, 41). Yet perhaps the most telling
piece of evidence confirming the pervasiveness of the idea that the Manchus used
Buddhism to rule the Mongols is that the Japanese adopted it as their own
strategy when they attempted to rule the Mongols in the early twentieth century
(Li 1998, 2003).

On account of this uniform discursive framework it is perhaps hardly

surprising that the vast majority of Mongols today believe the same thing. It is
simply taken for granted that the Manchus used Buddhism in order to rule the
Mongols. This sentiment is found not only among western academics and Mongol
writers, but throughout the population. One of the better examples of how
ingrained and pervasive this idea has become among the Mongols is the case of a
Christian convert. He used precisely this argument and its embedded notion of
backwardness to justify his conversion. ‘If my father had not been forced out of the
monastery [during the 1930s], I would never have been born. If Mongolia had not
been a nation of celibate monks, following a religion forced on us by the Manchus
to keep us weak, we would be a strong nation of 40 million people today’
(O’Donnell 1999).

In contradiction to the notion promoted by both modern Buddhist

reformers and the Mongolian government itself, which asserts that Mongol
identity is intrinsically tied to the Dharma and some glorious Buddhist past, the
reality is that for many the common linkage is more often with backwardness and
colonialism. Furthermore, as a result, for many Mongols, Buddhism is not a religion
of liberation and enlightenment, but the handmaiden of imperialism. This fact, of

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J. ELVERSKOG

course, problematizes one of the central components of the ‘two Buddhism’
model. Namely, unlike other Asian communities who identify the Dharma as a
positive component of their history and ethnic identity, Mongol Buddhist history is
intrinsically tinged with loss and national humiliation, which leads to interesting
speculation on the future of the Dharma in Mongolia. When the state tries to co-
opt the mantle of Buddhist rule—as has recently happened, when President
N. Bagabandi decreed a state Buddhist ceremony be conducted on the holy
mountain north of the capital in order to ‘restore patriotism and national pride’
(n.a. 2004)—will this be seen as cynical political manipulation of religion, or will it
be taken as an inspiring invocation of the Dharma on behalf of the nation?

The question is one that many who are interested in the revival in Mongolia

often ignore. Indeed most outside observers see the ‘revival’ not only as a return
to the natural order, but also that the return of Buddhism is fundamentally a good
thing (Kollmar-Paulenz 2003). As far as I am aware, unlike the Mongols themselves,
no outside observer (aside from some Christian missionaries) has critically
questioned the contemporary rise of Mongolian Buddhism. Instead, everyone
seems to agree that it is a positive development.

4

But the question matters and

the answer remains unclear. On one level, the return of the Dharma to Mongolia
offers a positive and celebratory narrative progression. After the brutal communist
purges of the 1930s and 1940s, in addition to the general mayhem of seventy
years of communist rule, the Dharma has finally rightfully returned. But one can
legitimately wonder why this return to religion has not been greeted with the
angst surrounding similar revivals in places such as the Middle East, South Asia, or
among evangelicals in America, or why so little is made of the increased
persecution of Christians and Muslims in Mongolia, or why the return of the former
communist party running on a pro-Buddhist xenophobic platform was seen as a
return to the natural order of things (Elverskog 2001).

The reasons that observers of Mongolia seem to speak within such a limited,

positive framework are numerous, but one important factor is the general view of
Buddhism as a post-enlightenment good religion (Masuzawa 2005, 121 – 46).
Moreover, for many observers it is likely that Mongolia functions as a synecdoche
for Tibet. Until Tibet throws off the shackles of the People’s Republic of China, and
thereby becomes a glorious Buddhist beacon to the world, Mongolia will have to
do. Among writers and scholars of central Asia, Mongolia’s religious identification
with Tibet is considered a given. This identification is, when one considers it well,
somewhat extraordinary. We do not after all say that the Burmese are Thai
Buddhists, although they share some religious characteristics, so why are the
Mongols identified as Tibetan Buddhists? Conversely, it sounds odd, if not
incomprehensible, to say ‘my German friend is a Mongolian Buddhist’—although
we in the West apparently have no problem in imagining and saying that a
German is practicing Tibetan Buddhism. Why is this? How can the late Buddhist
tantra created in Tibet still be Tibetan outside of Tibet? Or, more to the point, why
do we instinctively assume that a specifically Mongolian Buddhism does not exist
(Elverskog, forthcoming )? The historiographical implications of these issues have

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

33

intrigued me for some time (Elverskog 2000). But we also need to consider the role
they play in the contemporary Mongolian revival. We need to ask whether
Mongols want to be ‘Tibetan Buddhists’ or ‘Mongolian Buddhists’.

Tibetan or Mongolian Buddhism

In thinking about such a question it is important to keep in mind Mongol

views of Tibetans. Again most often in the West, these two are imagined as loving
cultural brethren sharing a Buddhist culture. Again, reality does not quite fit the
common wisdom. One reason is that, as described in the earlier quotations, the
Mongols believe that the Tibetans are not simply benign followers of the Dharma.
Rather, Tibetans were part and parcel of the Qing dynasty’s imperial machinery.
And perhaps even more damning, those Mongols reared on the nationalist dream
of Mongol unification also know that it was Gelukpa lamas who played a key role
in keeping Inner Mongolia within the orbit of Chinese nationalists, and in turn the
People’s Republic of China (Jagou 2004; Bulag forthcoming).

Yet again, this is not only a modern interpretation. Already in the Qing

period, Mongol stories are filled with episodes highlighting duplicitous Tibetan
lamas serving the power of the Manchu state. One story tells of Saghang Sechen,
who is revered in Mongol folklore as an anti-Manchu rebel. According to the story,
he told his followers that upon his death they should put certain flowers on his
grave and he will thus revive or be reborn and continue the struggle. However, a
lama heard of this and told the emperor, who then sent the lama to perform the
funeral services and, instead of flowers, he put covers from the Kanjur into the
grave. Because of this desecration the Mongols were thenceforth born stupid and
under Manchu domination (Mostaert 1934).

This is not a flattering image of the Dharma and its representatives.

Moreover, it reveals tensions between the Mongols and Tibetans that are often
overlooked. Scholars and other observers of contemporary Buddhism and central
Asia need to recognize that many Mongols perceive the Tibetans as imperialists,
who are haughty, arrogant, and imagine themselves to be better than the
Mongols (Elverskog, forthcoming). Tibetan sources throughout the ages have
always depicted the Mongols as savages (Kollmar-Paulenz 2000). In one of the
more memorable passages of this kind, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama wrote that the
Mongols were even ‘more barbarous than the Muslims’ (Ahmad 1995, 193), and
views like this continue to influence the contemporary revival in various ways. For
example, a director of one of the several foreign institutions promoting the
Buddhist revival in Mongolia told me of an experience she had in Dharamsala.
Having gone there to try to recruit qualified teachers among the Tibetan
community to train a new generation of Mongolian monks, this director was met
with something close to disdain: the head of the School of Dialectics in
Dharamsala dismissively waved his hand and said the Mongols were not worth it,
nor would any monk want to go there. He did eventually send two junior monks,
but this episode offers some evidence of these lingering historical tensions.

5

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J. ELVERSKOG

Another example of Mongolian Buddhists’ anxiety over the Tibetans is the

confusion surrounding the Ninth Jebdzundamba Khutugtu, who is supposed to
be the hereditary Buddhist leader of the Khalkhas and Outer Mongolia. The Eighth
Jebdzundamba was made ruler of Mongolia when it declared independence in
1911. After he died in 1924, however, the communists forbade Mongolian monks
from searching for his reincarnation (Moses 1977, 180). Reting Rinpoche in Tibet,
however, did find the Eighth Jebdzundamba’s reincarnation, and he was trained in
Tibet until he went into exile in India, where he continues to live. Although he had
returned to lay life, when the democratic revolution occurred in Mongolia and the
revival of Buddhism was beginning, the Ninth Jebdzundamba Khutugtu wanted
to return to Mongolia and reclaim his throne. The Mongols in turn wanted him to
come. But his return was not a success and the Ninth Jebdzundamba has never
been able to reclaim his rightful position within the Mongol Buddhist
establishment.

There are numerous reasons for this. The furor over the Jebdzumdamba’s

‘illegal’ visit during sensitive Sino-Mongol negotiations, an infraction for which the
Dalai Lama had to publicly apologize, certainly contributed to the Jebdzumdam-
ba’s problematic image. But, beyond the economic and geopolitical concerns tied
into Mongolia’s foreign relations with its increasingly powerful southern neighbor,
the central issue for most Mongols is actually ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’. The current
Jebdzundamba is Tibetan, which reminds Mongol’s of the Qing policy mandating
that only Tibetans could be identified as reincarnations in Mongol areas (Jagchid
1974, 1976). This divide et imperia policy was aimed to ensure that the leading
lamas would not join the Mongol nobility in rebellion against the Qing. It also
maintained Tibet as the center of gravity in the Buddhist world, thereby insuring
that an indigenous Mongolian Buddhism could never arise and challenge Qing
hegemony maintained through Gelukpa orthodoxy (Elverskog 2006a). And this
legacy continues today in the tensions between Tibetan missionaries, who dismiss
local practices as debased or not ‘true Buddhism’ (i.e. ‘Tibetan Buddhism’), while
the leaders of local Mongol institutions respond by claiming their religion is not
‘Tibetan Buddhism’ but ‘Mongolian Buddhism’.

As a result, tension between ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ and ‘Mongolian Buddhism’,

or the perceived lack of an indigenous ‘Mongolian Buddhism’ and an attendant
positive Buddhist history, shape the current revival. Although, once again, we
need to recognize that the question of whether there is, or should be, a distinct,
autochthonous Mongolian Buddhism is not a new concern. Mongol scholars
throughout the Qing period wrestled with this issue as well. Some wondered what
the implications were for simply promoting Tibetan Buddhism writ large, in terms
of sacred space and local ritualization. Others were concerned that the Dharma
was promoted by the Qing state in Tibetan, a language incomprehensible to the
majority of Mongols. Mergen Gegen, a famous eighteenth-century scholar, for
example, tried to deal with both of these issues by creating a four-volume
Mongolian liturgy focusing on local spirits and cult sites—creating in a sense a
‘Mongolian Buddhism’ (Atwood 1996). Yet, even though this collection was

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

35

printed in Beijing during the reign of the Qianlong emperor, it never had any real
impact. Indeed, within the empire only two monasteries used the Mongolian
language—and by imperial decree both used the liturgy prepared by the Beijing-
affiliated Jangjia Khutugtu. What remains interesting about this Qing-era debate
on the use of Tibetan language or Mongolian is that, to a large degree, it is still
going on today.

Tibetan or Mongolian language?

A main point of contention between the local Buddhist establishment and

the transnational modernizers, such as Lama Zopa’s Foundation for the
Preservation of the Mahayana (see Cozort 2003; Samuel 2005, 288 – 316), is
whether the Dharma should be conducted in Tibetan or Mongolian. With the
above history in mind one would perhaps imagine that the nationalist strain
within the local Buddhist establishment would result in their support of
Mongolian. This, however, is not the case.

6

Rather, they strenuously support the

maintenance of the Tibetan liturgy, while it is the modernizers from the West who
advocate for a ‘revival ‘of Mongolian, or even the promotion of the Dharma in
English.

7

To put this into context we also need to recall the history of Mongolian

script and the sad history of script reform in Mongolia. Traditionally,
Mongolian was written in the vertical Sogdo-Uygur script, but in the 1940s the
Mongolian People’s Republic abandoned that in favor of Cyrillic. Cyrillic was a
stunning success, and, as Morozova has pointed out, the use of Cyrillic was a
‘crucial step in the formation of a secular, Soviet-style educational system’
(Morozova 2003, 24). But, because of this success, Mongols today cannot read
their own histories, laws, or Buddhist texts in the old script. In the early 1990s, with
the goal of promoting a national and cultural identity, there was an attempt to
revive the old script, which itself was abandoned two years later (Grivelet 1995,
57). Now, the old script in Mongolia survives only as a sort of Chinggis Khanian
ornamentation, and the entire Buddhist corpus in Mongolian, Buddhist histories,
stories, and ritual texts, are inaccessible to contemporary Mongols. For western
modernizers today, as for Mongols during the Qing dynasty, the loss of the old
script is seen as creating a massive rupture, a chasm across the path to creating
relevancy and meaning for Buddhism among the Mongols.

Indeed, for the modernizers this is fundamentally the problem: people have

no knowledge of the Buddhist tradition, and thus it is meaningless. They argue
that if the Buddhist literary corpus were in Cyrillic Mongolian, then a greater
appreciation of the tradition would arise. But the local Buddhist clergy does not
accept this argument, instead asserting the need to maintain the liturgy in Tibetan
because the revival of the Dharma is not predicated on the modern ontological
need to ‘know the Dharma’. Rather, it is tied into the traditional symbiotic
relationship based on ritual that united the monastics with the laity. For the clergy,
the future of the Dharma, or more particularly Mongolian Buddhism, resides in

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rebuilding the samgha based on the traditional boundaries of the Buddhist
community, which today is invariably tied to the state formation of the nation.
Thus they continue to maintain Tibetan as the liturgical language and do what
they have always done: perform ritual for the laity and the state (Pozdneyev 1978).
These are the acts that define not only their role, but also that of the laity.

In this context, the use of Tibetan is thus understandable for its aura of

power and authority, much as in Thailand where the use of Pali maintains a ritual’s
‘sacredness and their efficacy’ (Tambiah 1968, 105). Moreover, however, the use of
Tibetan maintains the samgha boundaries. The fact that the monastics have this
knowledge and can manifest it in ritual on behalf of the laity is at the core of their
relationship. In the countryside in particular, the Buddhist revival is led by monks
whose authority and communal recognition rests solely on their credentials of
having resided in Tibetan institutions in the People’s Republic of China or in exile
and having knowledge of Tibetan and thus ritual efficacy.

The intertwined relation between Tibetan and ritual performance by the

monastics for the laity is also borne out by one of the most prominent Buddhist
books available in Ulaanbaatar (n.a. 2000). It is not one of the ‘introduction to
Buddhism’ books made available by Tibetan modernizers (which are most often
published in English), but a pilgrimage guide to the main monasteries in the
capital. Included under each monastery entry is the name of the founder, a
biography hinting at his lineage and religious power, a history of the monastery,
and most importantly, judging by the length, a price list of ritual performances.
Clearly this is what matters for the producers of the book and the implied reader:
where and for how much can I get rituals performed? And if one visits a monastery
in Ulaanbaatar, the room where monks take these requests is always the most
active and filled with people. For the readers and writers of this text, the meaning
or relevancy of the Buddhist tradition lies thus in the re-creation of the samgha
through the performance of ritual, preferably in Tibetan.

Buddhism and the community

In accord with the ‘two Buddhisms’ model, this focus on rituals is typical of

‘ethnic Buddhisms’ in the West, in contradistinction to the modern, deritualized,
and meditative forms of the tradition favored by western converts. Thus, unlike
western Buddhists who like to blur the samgha boundaries by having the ‘laity’
doing many of the things previously reserved for the ‘monastics’, the Mongolian
Buddhist reformers want to reaffirm these boundaries. Moreover, unlike ethnic
Buddhisms in the West, these Mongolian reformers do not identify with the Dharma
in order to maintain connections with the ‘homeland’. Instead, the local Buddhist
establishment and its supporters hope to achieve the re-creation of a new Buddhist
community centered specifically on Mongolian and its inhabitants. In many ways
this is the traditional notion of the samgha and why we can readily speak of
Japanese Buddhism or Thai Buddhism. These communities all trace their Buddhist

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

37

history to imperial conversions, and thus the Dharma plays a powerful role in not
only ethno-national myths but also distinct ethno-national state formations.

The case of Tibetan Buddhism, however, is slightly different. While it is

specifically tied to a distinct cultural, ethno-national, territorial, and political entity,
it has also simultaneously been dissociated from that specific reality. Thus, as
Lopez has claimed, it is ‘perfectly acceptable to refer to a Mongol, for example, as
Tibetan Buddhist, much as one might say that a Spaniard is a Roman Catholic’
(2004, 22). Still, we should query the actual accuracy of this representation—and
ask, moreover, whether this modern interpretation obscures more than it
explains? For example, if we look at Mongolian sources, a category such as
‘Tibetan Buddhism’ does not exist. Mongolians who might fall under that rubric
are simply those who follow the ‘religion of the Buddha’ (burqan-u sasin), or the
‘Yellow Religion’ (sira sasin), which refers specifically to the Gelukpa. This emic
terminology should, I believe, require us to rethink our conceptualizations of
‘Tibetan Buddhism’; not only in the case of Mongolia, but also in Ladakh, Bhutan,
and all the other distinct cultural and political entities that have adopted the late
Buddhist tantra developed in Tibet. None of the Buddhists in these regions, after
all, would necessarily consider themselves as ‘Tibetan Buddhists’. This is
particularly true for the Bhutanese, who have valiantly tried to remain separate
and distinct from Tibet through the centuries (Aris 1994). Our continued use of
Tibetan Buddhism obscures precisely the historical realities that these entities
tried to forge in adopting the Dharma. If we are to recognize these spatial and
temporal realities, as well as the linkage between Buddhism and state formations,
we, as scholars and critical observers, need to modify our terminology.

Furthermore, labels such as ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ are more misleading than

illuminating. Continuing with Lopez’s analogy, we need to recognize that a
Spaniard and her Roman Catholicism were different in 1492, 1763, and under
Franco—and her Roman Catholicism and that of an actual Roman were different in
any of those times. Similarly, Ladakhi Buddhists and Mongolian Buddhists in 1588
were not the same, even though both may have been followers of the Gelukpa
tradition. Their religious realities were shaped by local customs and practices; by
the distinctive narratives and rituals that legitimated the Ladakhi state on the one
hand, and Altan Khan’s Twelve Tu¨med on the other. Rather than finding a ‘Tibetan
Buddhism’ in Mongolia in any particular period, we find distinct sociopolitical
polities created within the practices of late Buddhist tantra: a Yuan Buddhism
(1272 – 1368), a Mongolian Buddhism (1582 – 1644/1692), a Qing Buddhism (1644 –
1911), and then again a Mongolian Buddhism (1911 – 1921).

Of course, all of these were defined by the tantric Buddhism created in Tibet,

yet none of them were ‘Tibetan’. The Mongols remained Mongols; the Manchus
remained Manchu, much as Han Chinese converts today are still Chinese
(Germano 1998; Kapstein 2004). However, unlike today, in the pre-modern period
religion was not necessarily an individualistic pursuit; rather, its practice, myths,
and history most often legitimated the state or ‘nation’ within which it was
practiced. Mongol histories from the pre-Qing period thus focus exclusively on

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Mongolia and Mongolians. Mongol histories from the Qing period do not dwell on
‘Mongol independence’, but rather praise the Qing state and the good fortune
that the Mongols can partake in the ‘Great Enterprise’ blessed by the Buddha.
Unfortunately, it is precisely these differences that are most often glossed over
when both are referred to as ‘Tibetan Buddhism’. Or when it is blithely noted that
the Manchus promoted the same Buddhism, as did the independent Mongols.
Clearly the narratives and rituals of the Qing period did not promote Mongol
independence, but rather subordination to the Manchus who were the ones who
had most recently received the Buddha’s dispensation (Elverskog 2005a).

When we can see how closely, even inextricably, connected Buddhism is to

various state formations, we need to think of how the Buddhist community was
created through narratives and rituals connected to these polities. And if we do so
in regards to the period of Manchu rule, it is perhaps better to speak of a ‘Qing
Buddhism’ instead of a ‘Tibetan Buddhism’. Indeed, if we think about Qing rule,
what made it so successful was not that it kept all its constituencies separate from
one another, but that it was by means of tantric Buddhism that these previously
disparate communities found unity within the Qing state. One example of this
reality is found in a nineteenth-century Mongol ritual text, which claims that the
Mongols, Chinese, and Tibetans were all born from one mother.

8

In today’s age of

hard ethno-national boundaries such a notion is impossible, yet it was precisely a
sort of transethnic unity that was forged within the Qing mandala.

If we are to historicize the study of Buddhism we need to recognize that how

the Dharma was understood changed as it became affiliated with different groups,
peoples, and state formations. Yet it is precisely this reality that is obscured when a
blanket term such as ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ is employed. It ignores the fact that a
Mongolian Buddhist history written in 1607 will not be same as a Mongolian
Buddhist history written in 1835, much less one in 2006. And if we actually do look at
these histories, one facet that distinguishes them is not necessarily the Buddhist
doctrine, such as the prasangika madhyamika of the Gelukpa, but quite specifically
how the Buddhist community is conceptualized. In the 1607 history, it is the Mongol
community (Elverskog 2003). In an 1835 text, it is the transethnic Qing community
(Elverskog 2006b). This is, of course, part and parcel of why the Qing is so despised
among Mongols today, since counter to all their modern nationalist claims the
Mongols readily supported the Qing state (Elverskog 2004b, 2005b). The Qing was
the Buddhist ecumene that the Mongols helped defend from both Muslim and
Christian uprisings as well as western imperialists. At the time, of course, this made
sense since it was in fact their community.

With the pending fall of the Qing dynasty, however, the Mongol relationship

to the Qing changed. The Mongols no longer believed that the Manchus
supported the Dharma. In a letter sent to the Russian Czar, Nicholas II, the Eighth
Jebdzundamba Khutugtu and the Mongol nobility in 1911, they declared: ‘We
followed the Manchu Emperor because he was a believer in Lamaism and a man of
great compassion, but this turned out to be all talk and no substance, with the
result that our suffering has only increased over the years’ (Nakami 1984, 133). Five

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

39

months after sending this letter and two months after the anti-Qing uprising in
Wuchang, the leaders of Outer Mongolia declared their independence. Mongolia
entered the modern world as an independent theocratic Buddhist nation-state—
the Mongol Ulus ruled by the Jebdzundamba Khutugtu, the incarnation of the first
Indian ruler, ‘Elevated-by-the-Many’, Mahasammata (Onon and Pritchatt 1989).
The Mongols were therefore still ‘Buddhist’, but the community within which this
tantric tradition was embedded was vastly different. It may be more accurate to
say that this post-Qing theocratic state was in fact a form of ‘Mongolian
Buddhism’. And it is this same notion that the local Buddhist establishment is
trying to revive in the new democratic nation of Mongolia.

Conclusion

The tension between ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ Buddhisms and modern,

transnational forms of the Dharma is central to the typology of the two
Buddhisms in the West. Within this religious parallelism it is assumed that one
form relates to Asian immigrants trying to retain ethnic and national identities
through various religious discourses—while, on the other hand, the modern,
transnational form of Buddhism appeals to western converts precisely because it is
divorced from such local concerns. Indeed, as Geoffrey Samuel has poignantly
noted in the case of Tibetan lamas: it is precisely those who do not have strong
support within the Tibetan community itself, such as Lama Zopa’s Foundation for
the Preservation of the Mahayana, that function most successfully in the
international arena (2005, 301). This new religious transnationalism thus allows
theorists such as Slavoj Zizek to argue that this new form of Buddhism ‘is
establishing itself as the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism’ (2001, 12).

9

Yet,

regardless of whether Zizek is correct or not, the distinction between these ‘two
Buddhisms’ still remains a valuable heuristic tool in the interpretation of Buddhism
in the West. My question here, however, has been: What happens when these two
forms return to a postsocialist nation in Asia? In the case of Mongolia, both forms
are evident. There are Buddhist missionaries representing the modern,
transnational variant and then there are the local Buddhists trying to re-create a
Buddhist community centered on Mongolia, and as in the West there is a tension
between these two groups. Yet, it seems as if today the ‘national Buddhism’ is
winning out over the modernizing transnational groups.

One reason for this is that, for the Mongols, the newly revived transnational

tantric Buddhism invariably harks back to the Qing and throws into relief the
fundamental question of what differentiates a Mongol, a Han Chinese, and a
Taiwanese practicing Buddhist tantra under the guidance of a lama? If there truly
is no difference, as implied in the case of the term ‘Tibetan Buddhist’, then could all
be incorporated within a new supranational samgha? Perhaps even a
reconstituted Qing empire, now renamed the People’s Republic of China? This
is, of course, precisely what the Mongols do not want. Rather, their Buddhism,
although derived from India and transformed in Tibet, is to be locally rooted. In

40

J. ELVERSKOG

particular, they want to forge a ‘Mongolian Buddhism’ that sustains and
legitimates their independent community and state. And such a reality is what the
local Buddhist establishment provides. Thus, even though many outside observers
rarely see the local Buddhist samgha in a positive light, preferring instead to
highlight their undisciplined, and even lackadaisical nature, the Mongolian
samgha still receives the support of the laity. It is their Buddhism.

This fact may also go some way to explain the failure, or lack of success, of

the modern transnational Buddhist groups in Mongolia. All of these groups are
transnational, or to use Sharf’s (1995) term ‘denationalized’, and this is precisely
the opposite of what the Mongols are themselves looking for in the Dharma.
Indeed, in thinking about the two Buddhisms, what is interesting about
contemporary Mongolia is that it seems as if most of the western groups have
tacitly recognized, or accepted, this reality. Thus, rather than promoting a
‘deritualized/meditative/modern/transnational’ variant of the Dharma, most of the
foreign groups in Mongolia are now focused precisely on helping the old, ritual-
based, samgha of Mongolian Buddhism become self-sustaining.

10

The case of Mongolia provides a new dimension to the ‘two Buddhisms’

debate. The two factions involved—transnationalists and localists—are neither
unaware nor openly antagonistic of one another. Instead they seem to be working
hand in hand to achieve the same end; namely, the revival, or perhaps more
accurately the creation of ‘Mongolian Buddhism’. Of course, how this will develop is
unclear. Will an independent ‘Mongolian Buddhism’ emerge—one based on the
Gelukpa doctrine, but separate from the authority of the Dalai Lama? It has
happened before, and with the inevitable death of Fourteenth Dalai Lama and its
inherent turmoil, coupled with the eminent death of the Ninth Jebdzundamba and
the recognition of his reincarnation in Mongolia, it is certainly very likely.

A final question: What might distinguish a Mongolian Buddhism from the

Gelukpa variant found in Tibet and in exile. Again this is uncertain; however, with the
widely recognized and often accepted sexual licentiousness of Mongolian monks,
both today and historically, we might speculate that this laxity could develop into an
accepted tradition of monastic marriage within the Gelukpa tradition in Mongolia, or
perhaps even a married monk tradition, as is the case in Japan (Jaffe 2001). In a widely
dispersed country such as Mongolia, and one that is increasingly modernized, such a
system may in fact be more appropriate, or functional, than the large-scale
monasticism of the late imperial period. Either way, unlike elsewhere, for now it seems
as if Mongolia will not struggle with ‘two Buddhisms’, but rather one. And the
changing nature of that one is something only time will tell.

NOTES

1. Of the many works on the role of religion in the breakup of Yugoslavia, one of

the most astute is Perica (2002).

2. The issue of being a Mongol Muslim is not only a contemporary concern,

however. During the Yuan dynasty, for example, Ananda, the grandson of

TWO BUDDHISMS IN CONTEMPORARY MONGOLIA

41

Khubilai Khan, did not take the throne on account of several factors, the most

important being that he was a ‘pious Moslem. The power realities dictated the

need for some other choice’ (Dardess 1973, 13).

3. This is not to suggest that the Manchus did not use other technologies of

domination, such as marriage alliances, economic and social institutions, the

Bureau of Colonial Affairs, legal systems, and brute military force; however, these

are more often than not overlooked in favor of blaming Buddhism for the Qing’s

success. The fact that Mongolian histories of the Qing period focus almost

exclusively on the Dharma may go some way to explaining this later

interpretation of Qing rule.

4. One example of this positive view is reflected in news articles that stress the

inherent dangers that Christian missionaries pose to the Buddhist revival (for

example, O’Donnell 1999; Kohn 2001).

5. Another issue that possibly ties into this dynamic is the surprising growth of

Dorje´ Shukden worship in Mongolia (Vesna Wallace, personal communication,

Summer 2001). Whether or not the worship of this protector deity expressly

rejected by the Dalai Lama is related to these Tibeto-Mongol tensions needs

further investigation. On the controversies surrounding Dorje´ Shukden and the

New Kadampa Tradition, see Dreyfus (1998) and David Kay (2004, 44 – 52).

6. This is not to say all Mongolians support the use of Tibetan. One group that is

leading the call for a return to Mongolian is the Association of Buddhist Lay

Believers (Khar Burkhany Kholboo) in Ulaanbaatar. This group argues that the

Mongols do not understand Buddhism because it is in Tibetan, and therefore

promote the return to Mongolian (Bareja-Starzynska 2000, 5).

7. As Peter Gregory (2001) has noted, it is likely that English will in the future

become a major canonical language. In Mongolia, however, the Dharma in

English functions much like the King James Bible in that it links the religion with

the West and all that entails, especially education, modernity, technology, and so

on. Even so, it is unlikely that the Dharma will flourish in English in Mongolia, not

only for the reasons outlined, but also because English is losing its prestige in

relation to Chinese, the study of which is flourishing everywhere including

Mongolia.

8. ‘Tibetans, Chinese, and Mongols . . . those three were born from one mother’

(to¨bed kitad mong

gol . . . tere gurbagula nigen eke-ece to¨ro¨gsen ajigu), U

¨ negen-u¨

sang orosiba, mss., 2r. The same passage is found in both Ulaanbaatar U

¨ negen-u¨

sang manuscripts published by Bawden (1976, 453). However, the Oirat

manuscript claims they had the same father (Bawden 1978, 25).

9. For a similar interpretation, see Urban (2000); and for a more positive

interpretation of modern, globalized Buddhism, see Obeyesekere (2003).

10. One example of such endeavors is Foundation for the Preservation of the

Mahayanas Mongolian Sangha Food Fund, which asks for donations to feed the

monks at Ganden monastery in Ulaanbaatar: ‘your contribution to the Food

Fund will help Sangha members to study much more effectively and build a true

42

J. ELVERSKOG

Dharma community, because they won’t be concerned about where their next

meal is coming from’ (www.fpmt.org/mongolia).

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Johan Elverskog Department of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist

University, Dedman College, PO Box 750202, Dallas TX 75275-0202, USA.

E-mail: [e-mail]

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J. ELVERSKOG