Erdene Zuu

(Corrected and updated April 26, 2005)

Monastery founded by Avtai, Great-Grandfather of Zanabazar

Location: N47º11.530 / E102º50.548. Övörkhangai Aimag, on the outskirts of the sum center of Kharkhorin.

Buddhism as it exists today in Mongolia today can be traced back to Zanabazar’s great-grandfather Avtai Khan (1554-1587), who ruled the Tüsheet Khanate, one of the four autonomous regions which made up the domains of the Khalkh, or Eastern Mongols, in the late sixteenth century. The Tüsheet Khanate was centered around the valleys of the Tuul and Orkhon rivers, including the area now occupied by Mongolia’s capital of Ulaan Baatar.

Thangka of Avtai Khan, now in the Zanabazar Art Museum

In 1580 or thereabouts Avtai traveled to what is now Inner Mongolia in China and met with the Tibetan lama Sonam Gyatso, who two years earlier, in 1578, had been given the title “Dalai Lama“ by the Mongolian chieftain Altan Khan, a new convert to Buddhism. Sonam Gyatso’s two previous incarnations assumed the title posthumously, and he himself became the third Dalai Lama. As a result of his meeting with Sonam Gyatso Avtai too converted to Buddhism. The Dalai Lama gave Avtai a relic of the Buddha and a statue known as the Ochirpani and instructed him to built a temple to house them, adding, “There is in your territory an area with the name of Old and New Orqon [Orkhon]. You should select an auspicious site and build it [the temple] there.” The Dalai Lama was no doubt aware that as many as twelve Buddhist temples (plus two mosques and a Christian church) had been built in the old Mongol capital of Kharkhorum during the reigns of khans Ögedai, Güyük Khan, and Möngke Khan in the mid-thirteenth century. These temples were destroyed after the fall of the Yüan Dynasty in 1368 and the subsequent destruction of Kharkhorum by armies of the Chinese Ming Dynasty. In the next two hundred years Buddhism all but disappeared in what is now the country of Mongolia.

Avtai eventually decided to build the temple on the site of the old Mongol capital, located on the Orkhon River just below from where it debouches from the foothills of the Khangai Mountains. In 1585 he sent to Khökh Khot in what is now Inner Mongolia—the city founded by Altan Khan, now known as Hohhot—for a lama to oversee the construction of the temple. This first structure was the Khökh (Blue) Temple, also known as the Ovgon (Grandfather) Temple. Shortly thereafter another temple was rebuilt from the ruins of a temple which had previously existed at Kharkhorum during the brief fluorescence of Buddhism here in the thirteen century. This became the Central Zuu Temple. Over the next several decades the Western Zuu Temple and the Eastern Zuu temples were built on either side of the Central Zuu Temple. According to some sources the Western Zuu Temple was built by order of Zanabazar’s grandmother, the wife of Erkhii Mergen Khan, and the Eastern Zuu Temple by Zanabazar’s mother, Khandjamts. These three temples constituted the core of what became Erdene Zuu Monastery.

The Central and Western Zuu Temples

The Central and Eastern Zuu Temples

Zanabazar undoubtedly spent a lot of time at Erdene Zuu. The steppe to the east was his ancestral home and he studied at Erdene Zuu as a young man. In 1653, after his first trip to Tibet to meet with the Panchen and Dalai lamas, his followers held a danshig naadam to celebrate his nineteenth birthday. These naadams, which at that time featured wrestling and archery matches (horse racing was apparently added later) were first held in honor of Zanabazar when he was five or six years old and were the forerunners of the current-day Naadam celebrations in Mongolia. At these events rulers and noblemen of all the Khalkh, or Eastern Mongol aimags (provinces) met and presented Zanabazar with offerings of food, livestock, gold and silver, and other gifts. The two winners of the wrestling matches were presented with the “nine gifts”: bolts of silk, silver, tea, leather, fox skins, one camel, one horse, one sheep, and an assortment of food stuffs. In 1657 another large convocation was held at Erdene Zuu to celebration Zanabazar’s return from his second trip to Tibet. At this meeting, in addition to another danshig naadam held in his honor, Zanabazar performed several ceremonies he had learned in Tibet from the Panchen Lama, including the circumambulation of the monastery with a figure of Maidar (Maitreya, the Future Buddha). This was the origin of the Maidar ceremony which would become a standard feature of Buddhism in Mongolia right down to the early twentieth century, when it was finally banned by the new communist regime. (The Maidar Ceremony is once again being performed at Erdene Zuu; the latest one on March 18, 2005.) He also gave several days of sermons centered around the teachings he had just received in Tibet from the Panchen and Dalai lamas. In this he was assisted by Tibetan monks who had come back with him from Tibet.

The same year he ordered the construction of a huge ger on the site where Avtai Khan had erected his own ger. Zanabazar’s ger, known as the Bat-Ulziit, was forty-five meters in diameter, fifteen meters high in the middle, and could hold up to 300 people. In 1658 a convocation of Mongol leaders, apparently attended by Zanabazar, was held in the Bat-Ulziit ger, and later Zanabazar had it moved to Urga (now Ulaan Baatar), where it served as a temple devoted to his great-grandfather, Avtai Khan. It was still in Urga in 1892 when the Russian ethnographer Podzneev saw it. “Ordinary Mongol yurts [gers] standing next to it seemed toy-like by comparison,” he noted. What eventually happened to this ger is unclear.

Zanabazar and his followers fled to China where the Qing emperor Kangxi gave them refuge. He did not return to Erdene Zuu until 1702. In the intervening years the monastery had apparently been abandoned, and some of the temples had been damaged. Zanabazar immediately set about reconsecrating and repairing the temples, and the monastery soon became active again. The last report we have of Zanabazar at Erdene Zuu is in 1711, when another danshig naadam was held in his honor.

By the late eighteenth century Erdene Zuu Monastery had at least sixty-two temples and hundreds of other buildings. The first version of the wall which surrounds the monastery was built between 1804 and 1808 and contained 92 stupas. When the Russian ethnographer A. M. Podzneev first visited Erdene Zuu in 1877 this wall had almost completely collapsed, although the stupas remained. When he returned in 1892 a large portion of the current wall had been rebuilt but apparently there were still only ninety-two stupas. Thus the current wall with its 108 stupas, one of the most notable features of the monastery and certainly the most photographed, was completed sometime thereafter. The wall as it now stands measures 1315 feet (402 meters) on each side. Each of the stupas were paid for, according to Podzneev, “by alms-givers and worshippers of Buddha of the most diverse calling, from princes of the first class to the most ordinary Mongolian common people, distinguished at the time by their having surplus means.”

The Erdene Zuu Wall

The entire complex was severely damaged during the anti-Buddhist campaigns of the late 1930s and today only eighteen temples remain. The main complex, including the Three Zuu temples, is now a museum. The Tibetan-styled Laviran Temple towards the back of the compound has been reopened once again and now serves as the center of a functioning monastery for a small community of monks. .

The Khökh Temple, the first structure built by Avtai, still exists. The small, un-signposted building can be seen between a complex of large stupas to the right of the Three Zuus and the Laviran Temple.

The Khökh Temple

Both Avtai, Zanabazar’s great-grandfather, and Gombodorj, his father, were buried at Erdene Zuu. Their tombs, heavily damaged during the 1937 upheavals, have been restored and can be seen in directly in front of the Three Zuu Temples, Avtai’s on the left and Gombodorj’s on the right.

Tombs of Avtai, on the left, and Gombodorj, on the right

Zanabazar’s mother Khandjamts was also buried at Erdene Zuu, although outside the monastery walls. Her stupa-tomb, constructed by order of Zanabazar and his brother Chakhundorj in 1674, can be seen just beyond the northeast corner of the monastery.

Tomb of Zanabazar’s mother Khandjamts

The Dalai Lama Temple, in front of the wall surrounding the Three Zuus, was built by Zanabazar’s brother Chakhundorj to commemorate his visit to Tibet in 1673. Among other items, the temple contains six thangkas depicting Sonam Gyatso, the Third Dalai Lama, who had converted Avtai Khan to Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama Temple

Near the center of the monastery grounds can be seen the circular stone foundation of the so-called Bat-Ulziit ger built by order of Zanabazar in 1657 and later moved to Urga.

Circular Stone foundation of the Bat-Ulziit ger

Stone sockets which held the post of the Bat-Ulziit ger

Museum officials say there are at least nine works of art at Erdene Zuu attributed to Zanabazar and numerous others from the so-called School of Zanabazar, consisting of works by artists who attempted with varying success to emulate his style. As of this writing only three Zanabazar or School of Zanabazar works are on public display, although museum officials promise more will be shown soon. These include a large Vajrasattva in the Tsampa Temple, on the left in front of the Three Zuu temples; a Malakala statue in the Western Zuu Temple; and a small bronze stupa in the Central Zuu Temple. Museum guides are quick to point out that they are all original works of Zanabazar, while knowledgeable Mongolian artists I have talked to maintain that they are in fact School of Zanabazar works.

Vajrasattva

Malakala

Bronze Stupa

See More in Zanabazar Guide