Encyclopedia of Buddhism

ment failed to convince the new communist-led gov-
ernment of the People’s Republic of Mongolia, how-
ever, and, in 1937, following the precedent set by
Joseph Stalin’s repression of the Russian Orthodox
Church, Buddhism was banned. The Mongolian gov-
ernment executed thousands of lamas, burned monas-
teries to the ground, and destroyed religious books and
images. Beginning with the collapse in 1991 of the So-
viet Union, to which the People’s Republic of Mongo-
lia was tied as an unofficial satellite, Buddhism began
to resurface in both Outer Mongolian and in Russian
Buriatia. Gandantegchinling, the main monastery in
Ulan Bator (located at the last site of Urga); Amar-
bayasgalant khiid, where Öndür Gegen’s remains were
once enshrined (and whence they were apparently
stolen); Erdeni Zuu; and other monasteries in Outer
Mongolia began to rebuild their monastic populations,
both through the return of former monks, by then el-
derly, and the entrance into monastic life of new ini-
tiates. By contrast, in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous
region of the People’s Republic of China, Buddhism
has been submitted to the same Chinese state control
as exists in Tibet.

Bibliography

Bawden, Charles R. The Modern History of Mongolia.London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. 2nd revised edition, Lon-
don and New York: Kegan Paul, 1989.

Berger, Patricia, and Bartholomew, Terese. Mongolia: The
Legacy of Chinggis Khan.San Francisco: Asian Art Museum
of San Francisco, 1995.

Dharmatala, Damcho Gyatsho. Rosary of White Lotuses, Being
the Clear Account of How the Precious Teaching of Buddha
Appeared and Spread in the Great Hor Country,tr. Piotr
Klafkowski. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1987.

Farquhar, David. “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance
of the Ch’ing Empire.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies38,
no. 1 (1978): 5–35.

Grupper, Samuel. “The Manchu Imperial Cult of the Early
Ch’ing Dynasty: Texts and Studies on the Tantric Sanctuary
of Mahakala at Mukden.” Ph.D. diss. Indiana University,
Bloomington, 1979.

Heissig, Walther. “A Mongolian Source to the Lamaist Sup-
pression of Shamanism in the Seventeenth Century.” An-
thropos48, nos. 1–2 (1953): 1–29; nos. 3–4 (1953): 493–536.

Heissig, Walther. The Religions of Mongolia,tr. Geoffrey Samuel.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Jagchid, Sechin. “Buddhism in Mongolia after the Collapse of
the Yuan Dynasty.” In Traditions religieuses et para-
religieuses des peuples altaiques.Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1972.

Moses, Larry W. The Political Role of Mongol Buddhism.Bloom-

ington: Asian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University,

1977.

Pozdneyev, Aleksei M. Mongolia and the Mongols,tr. John Roger

Shaw and Dale Plank. Bloomington: Indiana University,

1971.

PATRICIABERGER

MONGOLIA, BUDDHIST ART IN. SeeHi-

malayas, Buddhist Art in

MONKS

The English word monkderives from the Latin mona-

chus, originally referring to a religious hermit, but

eventually coming to mean instead a male member of

a religious order living in a community of other re-

nunciants devoted to the performance of religious du-

ties. Similarly, while terms for monk in the Buddhist

tradition (Sanskrit, bhiksuor s ́ramana; Pali, bhikkhuor

samana) are rooted in words connoting mendicancy

and austerity, the Buddhist monk is more generally un-

derstood as a member of a community of religious re-

nunciants (the SAN ̇GHA) who has undergone a formal

ORDINATIONceremony conducted by a quorum of fully

ordained monks. In addition to the fully ordained

monk (bhiksu), novice monks (s ́ra
manera) may also

be considered members of the monastic community.

Hence, one way to understand what it means to be

a Buddhist monk is to examine the collective to which

monks belong, a line of inquiry readers can pursue un-

der entries for san ̇gha and MONASTICISM. It is equally

useful, however, to focus on smaller groups or types of

monks within this larger community, and to examine

the most common motivations for becoming a

monk—subjects not necessarily covered in compendia

of monastic regulations or discussions of the history

of the monastic community as a whole.

Ascetics

One such type is the ascetic monk, who devotes him-

self to physical austerities. Almost all monks are as-

cetics in a loose sense of the term, since becoming a

monk involves renunciation of certain sensual plea-

sures, usually including avoidance of sex, adornment,

and alcohol. But some monks are drawn to the chal-

lenge of greater acts of self-denial. These may involve

MONKS