Sources of Mongolian Buddhism

Despite Mongolia's centrality to East Asian history and culture, Mongols themselves have often been seen as passive subjects on the edge of the Qing formation or as obedient followers of so-called "Tibetan Buddhism," peripheral to major literary, religious, and political developments. But in fact Mongolian Buddhists produced multi-lingual and genre-bending scholastic and ritual works that profoundly shaped historical consciousness, community identification, religious knowledge, and practices in Mongolian lands and beyond. In Sources of Mongolian Buddhism, a team of leading Mongolian scholars and authors have compiled a collection of original Mongolian Buddhist works--including ritual texts, poetic prayers and eulogies, legends, inscriptions, and poems--for the first time in any European language.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Notes on Transliteration Contributors Introduction Vesna Wallace Part I: Two Early Seventeenth-Century Texts The Stone Inscription of Covtu Taiji Brian Bauman Siregetü Güüsi Corji's Treatise Containing the Complete Meanings of the Most Important [Doctrinal Concepts] to be Used Agata Bareja-Starzynska Part II: Autobiography and Biography The Autobiography of the First Khalkha Zaya Pandita Lobsang Trinley Sangseraima Ujeed Zava Damdin's Beautifying Ornament for the Mind of the Faithful: A Praise-Biography of my Root Lama Vajradhara, He Who Possesses the Three Types of Kindness, the Great Madapandita Endowed with Excellent Discipline and Learning Named "Sanjaa" Matthew W. King Part III: Buddhist Teachings A Trilogy of Ngawang Palden and Sherüb Tendar Erdenebaatar Erdene-Ochir Miscellaneous Writings of Caqar Gebsi Luvsancültem Matthew W. King Teachings of the Pious Fat Pandita Tsevelvaanchigdorji Vesna A. Wallace Mergen Gegeen's Didactic Poetry Uranchimeg Ujeed Part IV: Buddhist Didactic Poetry Buddhist Literature of Danzan Ravjaa Simon Wickham-Smith Part V: Buddhist Ritual Texts Khalkha Zaya Pandita's Smoke Offering Rituals to the Khangai Mountain Range Krisztina Teleki Ritual Texts of Mergeen Gegeen Uranchimeg Ujeed Ritual Texts of Prosperity and Purification Vesna A. Wallace Ritual Texts Dedicated to the White Old Man with Examples from the Classical Mongolian and Oirat (Clear Script) Textual Corpora Birtalan Ágnes Incense Offering to the Lord Chinggis Khan Matthew W. King Caqar Gebsi Luvsancultem's Offering Ritual to the Fire Goddess Batsaikhan Norov and Batchimeg Ushkhbayar Three Ritual Prayers by Ondor Gegeen Zanabazar Zsuzsa Mayer Part VI: Buddhist Oral Literature of the Eighteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries The Legend of Mother Tara the Green Brian Baumann Oral Historical Narratives from the Early Twentieth Century Adrienne Gecse Part VII: Tradition in Transition: The Twentieth-Century Writings Zava Damdin's "A 1931 Survey of Mongolian Monastic Colleges" Matthew W. King Agwan Dorjiev's Questions about the Past and Future of Mongolian Buddhism Matthew W. King The Internal Regulations of Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar Uranchimeg Tsultemin Agvaanyam's "The Origin of Human Beings and the Holy Dharma Kings and Ministers in Mongol Lands," from The History of the Dharma, The Lamp of Scriptures and Reasoning Matthew W. King Literary Treatments of Buddhism in the Period of Transition Simon Wickham-Smith Part VIII: Contemporary Buddhist Writings Contemporary Buddhist Poetry and Fiction Simon Wickham-Smith Index

About the Author :
Vesna A. Wallace is Professor of South Asian Religions and Inner Asian Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She has authored and translated four books on Indian Buddhism. Her most recent book is an edited volume on Mongolian Buddhism titled Buddhism in Mongolian Culture, History, and Society.

Review :
This volume constitutes an excellent window into this understudied field.