Mongolia

Interview with Dr. Berzin, following his 1990 visit to the Mongolian People’s Republic, for “Buddhists for Peace”: “Lessons To Be Learned from the Adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.”

Interview with Dr. Berzin for “Buddhism in Kalmykia” publication, in Elista, Kalmykia, 2009.

As of 1995, there were no books on Buddhism in the colloquial Mongolian language, hardly anyone who could make such translations and no money to print such books, even if they were made. Thus, young people and intellectuals were being drawn to Christianity, which they now...

Before the 1937 purges, Buddhism flourished in Mongolia. Learn about all the features of its monasteries and their customs.

Buddhism spread to West Turkistan (the present-day former Soviet Islamic republics of Central Asia) in the 1st century BCE and was present there, at various times, until the mid-18th century.

A report on the situation of the Buddhism in 1990 in the Buryat, Kalmyk and Tuva Republics of the USSR.

Kalmykia faces a very special challenge because Buddhist culture was repressed for many years and now is experiencing the pressures of globalization.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Eighth Dalai Lama sent Gyelse Dorjechang from his own Namgyal Monastery to establish the main Kalachakra Monastery of Mongolia, Dechen Kalawa. Kalachakra practice was spread throughout Mongolia by the Fourth and Fifth Bogdo Gegens.

The Mongolian style of Tibetan painting maintained the iconography but adapted the details of the background to reflect the grasslands of the Mongolian steppes.

Buddha taught in such a way that everyone could understand his words in their own language. That means that it is possible to convey the Buddhist teachings in all languages, no matter how challenging that might be.