I visited Erdene Zuu Monastery last year and so you might think that not much had happened during this year. Last year I had dealt more with the stupas [1] and there still remains a lot to tell about the monastery itself, but I'm always interested in special things and this time I was interested in the activities in front of the monastery or better the absence of these, because there was always a two-part World: the one behind the entrance and the one in front of the entrance, that is the sacred and the profane world. In the past year there have been a lot more activities on the mundane side and now there was just the uninteresting parking lot.
"The Erdene Zuu Monastery (Mongolian: Эрдэнэ Зуу хийд, Chinese: 光顯寺, Tibetan: ལྷུན་གྲུབ་བདེ་ཆེན་གླིང་) is probably the earliest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia.” [2] The word "probably" had already bothered and irritated me last year. The grandfather of the famous Zanabazar ordered the construction of the Erdene Zuu Monastery in 1585. Only three temples had survived the iconoclasm of the Stalin era; Stalin himself had to stop the Mongolian communist leader, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, so that there was still something left left to show international visitors. And we don't want to forget that over 10,000 monks were also killed in this iconoclasm, and the word killing doesn't do justice to the brutality in the slightest. The monastery and temple complex Zayain Gegeeni Süm was founded in 1586 (?) [3]. Are we so sure about the two dates? Interesting question, which I can't answer yet.
Only, and as a special feature, I looked at the photo showing the monks and the pram. Of course, that was pure coincidence, a family with children was nearby, but at least it was something special and otherwise everything was the same as last year, you could visit the individual temples, admire the museum pieces and you could also go to the part of the monastery where a ceremony took place and listen to the sutra recitations. But I was much more interested in something else-: the doorknob or namely the lion: what he may have seen earlier and what he no longer sees, because he is now looking at the boring parking lot.
Formerly, the monastery was well separated from the mundane world by a wide strip of land. There, people stood in front of the wall for a photo, but the only way into the monastery was through the gate, and behind it entry was controlled. Let's take a look around and then we see a grocery store, we see stalls with fruit, sweets and drinks, antique and souvenir shops. We see, we saw toys, balls, clothing or a stand with eagles. People dressed up to take photos in traditional Mongolian costumes. Then there was also an arts and crafts shop. Children sat around and got bored, but most of the people didn't get bored, they had some fun in front of the monastery besides visiting the monastery and the museum. Now something more solid but also lifeless has emerged a little beyond the parking lot, but I don't think it will draw the crowds it did before; exceptions may be art and antique shops. And that's a shame. Because this site needs more than museum and monastery as attraction. So I would have put the parking lot somewhere else and not scared away the fair.
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/08/mongolia-mysterious-100-stupas-of.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdene_Zuu_Monastery
[3] This will have to be reported on separately, because it was an important monastery, now a museum, which survived the iconoclasm because it had long been used as a storeroom. There is also a stele showing that Buddhism had reached Mongolia as early as the 6th century - and then fell into oblivion. I would now like to point out a special study: https://www.academia.edu/59476654/Zaya_Kh%C3%BCree_from_the_17th_to_the_early_20th_century
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