The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia:
Texts, Images, and Architectural Replicas
Isabelle Charleux, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (GSRL- EPHE-PSL)
Charleux, Isabelle. 2019. “The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in
Mongolia: Texts, Images, and Architectural Replicas.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and
Culture Review 31: 82–125. https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-31/charleux.
Abstract
The cult of the Nepalese stupa of Boudhanath (Tib. Jarung khashor/Bya rung kha
shor, Mo. Jarung khashar) was very popular in nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Mongolia, especially in Buryatia. Testaments to its popularity include the
translation into Mongolian of a famous Tibetan guidebook to Boudhanath, a corpus
of Mongolian oral narratives, the many thangkas and amulets depicting Boudhanath
stupa along with a Tibetan prayer, and the existence of architectural replicas in
Mongolia, probably to create surrogate pilgrimages to Boudhanath. How was
Nepalese architecture transmitted to Mongolia? This article focuses on these
architectural replicas in an attempt to understand whether the differences between
the “original” structure and the Mongol replicas are due to local techniques and
materials, the impossibility of studying the original, or distortions induced by the
mode of transmission. Has the original building been reinterpreted to the point of
transforming its meaning, and were the architectural replicas accompanied by the
cult practices associated with it?
Keywords: Buddhist architecture, Buddhist art, stupa, Bodnāth, Boudhanath, Nepal,
Mongolia, replication of sacred architecture, pilgrimage
A contemporary Mongol story relates that in ancient India, a blue elephant had
exhausted itself in the construction of a giant stupa named “Jarung khashar.”1 When
the stupa was completed, the great lama who consecrated it thanked everyone but
forgot to thank the elephant. The angry elephant then made a vow to destroy
Buddhism in its future reincarnations. Its first reincarnation was King Langdarma
(Tib. gLang dar ma, r. 838–841), who (is said to have) persecuted Buddhists in Tibet;
later reincarnations included, for Buryat Mongols of Russia, “Master” Stalin (Stalin
bagsh) (Humphrey 2001, 32–33, from a story collected by U. Hurelbaatar in 1999),
Mongolian words are transcribed from Classical Mongolian, except for place names in the
Republic of Mongolia and Russia, which are transcribed from Cyrillic Mongolian and Russian.
Here, “Mongolian” is restricted to the language and to qualify the citizens of Mongolia
proper after it gained its autonomy in 1911; otherwise, “Mongol” is used. Tibetan words are
phonetically transcribed according to the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard
Tibetan System and transliterated according to Wylie’s system.
1
Cross-Currents 31 | 82
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
and, for Khorchin Mongols of Inner Mongolia, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and
Ulaankhüü (1907–1988, a famous Inner Mongolian communist politician)—Mao was
the head, Liu was the chest, and Ulaankhüü was the buttock of the blue elephant (U.
Hurelbaatar, personal communication, 2016). It is said that even Buddha and the
deities could not prevent the disastrous results of such a vow.
Jarung khashar (sometimes spelled “Jarang" or “Jirung khashar”; Cyr. Mo. Jarun,
Jaran, or Jiran khashor) is the Mongolian name of Boudhanath (or Bodnāth) stupa,
one of the most famous monuments of the Kathmandu Valley (figures 1, 2a, and 2b).
The Mongolian name comes from the Tibetan Bya rung kha shor (pronounced
“Jarung khashor”), which is explained by a story recorded in the main Tibetan
guidebook devoted to the Nepalese stupa, the mChod rten chen po bya rung kha
shor gyi lo rgyus thos pas grol ba (History of the stupa Jarung khashor, liberation
upon hearing), written in the sixteenth century2 (for Mongolian translations of this
guidebook, see below). According to this guidebook, a poor widowed poultry keeper
named Déchokma (Tib. bDe mchog ma, Mo. Demchogmaa, Skt. Saṃvara), who lived
with her four sons, wanted to erect a stupa to enshrine relics of the past Buddha
Kaśyapa. She had obtained the king’s approval, but jealous nobles and ministers,
shocked that a mendicant could build such a huge stupa, wanted the king to forbid
its construction.3 The name of the stupa comes from the king’s answer: “Jarung
khashor/bya rung kha shor,” meaning “I have already given her my permission [kha
shor] to proceed with the work [bya rung].”4 Through oaths of reincarnation on the
part of the poultry keeper’s sons, the foundation of the stupa was connected to
those mainly responsible for introducing Buddhism into Tibet: King Trison Détsen
(Khri srong lde btsan, r. 740 or 755–797), Abbot Śāntarakṣita (725–788), and the
eighth-century tantric master Padmasambhava.5 Thanks to the blessings generated
by the construction of the stupa and to the oaths of reincarnation, the first Buddhist
monastery was founded, and Buddhism was firmly established in Tibet. Two animals
that had participated in the construction, a donkey and the abovementioned
elephant, had bad thoughts and were reincarnated as evil beings, but the
reincarnations of other actors of the story countered their bad deeds.
The guidebook is, according to its postscripts, a terma (gter ma, “hidden treasure,” a text of
teachings said to have been hidden by various great masters to be rediscovered at auspicious
times) of the Nyingmapa (rNying ma pa) tradition composed by Padmasambhava in the
eighth century and hidden by Yéshé Tsogyel (Ye shes mtsho rgyal). It was first discovered by
eleventh-century nun and tertön (gter ston, “treasure discoverer”) Lhatsün Ngönmo (lHa
btsun sngon mo) in Samyé (bSam yas) Monastery. The tertön Nganchang Sakya Zangpo
(sNgags ’chang Śākya bzang po) rediscovered it around 1512 and presumably had it printed
(Blondeau 1982–1983; Ehrhard 1990, 1–2; 2007, 25–27). It has been published in English by
Keith Dowman ([1973] 1993, 21–65; according to the last postscript, it was translated by
Kunzang Tenzin, based on a 1971 translation by Nima Norbu).
3
For variants of the story in Tibetan literature, see Tenzin Samphel (1998, 72–77).
4
Or, “Permission once given cannot be taken back”; lit., “I blurted out that it should be
done” (Cyr. Mo. üildej bolno gej am aldsan n’, Cl. Mo. üiledjü bolona gejü ama aldasan ni, lit.,
“I made the promise [that she could] proceed with the work”).
5
The fourth son became a messenger named Belselnang (sBal gsal snang).
2
Cross-Currents 31 | 83
Isabelle Charleux
Figure 1. Boudhanath stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1993. Photo by Katia Buffetrille.
Figure 2a (left). Plan depicting Boudhanath stupa and its surroundings from above. Source:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/121/multiple=1 andunique_number=1448.
Figure 2b (right). Drawing depicting Boudhanath stupa and its surroundings from above.
Source: Slusser (1982, fig. 25).
Cross-Currents 31 | 84
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Anthropologist U. Hurelbaatar and other Mongol friends with whom I discussed
this story did not relate this “Jarung khashar” stupa with Boudhanath stupa in
Kathmandu and thought it was a myth. Yet in the late Qing period (1644–1911),
Mongols, like Tibetans, not only went on pilgrimage to Boudhanath but also had
replicas of the Nepalese stupa erected in the steppe. In my survey of the Buddhist
architectural and artistic heritage of the Mongols, I came across six “Jarung khashar”
stupas explicitly referring to Boudhanath in (Khalkha) Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and
Buryatia, as well as twenty-four thangkas depicting “Jarung Khashar” stupas (tables
1 and 2). These architectural replicas are called “Jarung khashar”6 or, more recently,
Ama aldasan (Cyr. Mo. Am aldsan, taking of an oath, making a promise) (Pürevbat
2005, 107). To my knowledge, no architectural replicas of Boudhanath stupa were
built in Tibet before the twenty-first century,7 but three were erected in Bhutan.8
How did the cult of the Nepalese Boudhanath stupa reach the Mongols, and how did
they know about it? Why did they especially replicate Boudhanath stupa instead of
other famous Indian structures?
In understanding how architectural knowledge of Boudhanath stupa was
transmitted to Mongolia, I was most inspired by the works of Alexander Griswold,
Anne Chayet, Patricia Berger, and Christopher Wood on the replication of sacred
sites.9 In a 1965 article, Griswold compares architectural replicas of the Mahabodhi
Temple of Bodh Gaya in Southeast Asia, Nepal, and China and argues that the
architecture of the Indian temple was transmitted through small-scale models. In a
study of the temples of Chengde (or Jehol) northwest of Beijing, Chayet (1985)
argues that Manchu emperors Kangxi (r. 1661–1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736–1796)
copied Tibetan structures for political reasons, to make the Manchu emperors’
In Mongolian, Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu and the Mongol replicas are all called by
the same term, Jarung khashar; here I will use “Jarung khashar” only for the Mongol stupas.
7
The process of replicating sacred architecture seems to have been rare in Tibet, but there
are many instances of transfer or relocation of sacred Indian or Tibetan places, such as
mountains and charnel grounds, particularly through toponymy (Huber 2008, esp. 118–119;
Buffetrille 2015, 134–135). Similarly, several Mongol monasteries were said to be modeled
on the Tibetan monasteries of Drépung (’Bras spungs), Séra (Se ra) or Tashi Lhunpo (bKra shis
lhun po); however, it was generally not the architecture but the liturgy, music, debate
manual, or system of colleges that were copied (Charleux 2006b, 145–148).
8
Chorten Kora (mChod rten skor ra), built in the eighteenth century in East Bhutan (Tashi
Yangtse) to commemorate a Buddhist master and subdue a local demon (Lam Kezang
Chhophel 2002); Chendebji Chorten (sPyan ldan sbyi mchod rten), constructed in the
eighteenth century after a model brought from Nepal, about 40 kilometers west of Trongsa;
and a smaller one in Kuri Zampa, ca. 1800 (Bhutan Cultural Atlas website:
http://www.bhutanculturalatlas.org/998/culture/sites-structures/other-places-ofinterests/chorten-prayer-walls/chendebji-chorten/). I thank Françoise Pommaret for this
information (email message to author, March 6, 2015).
9
See also Chou (2015) on Emperor Qianlong’s replica of three Manchu temples modeled
after famed temples at Mount Wutai (the abode of Mañjuśrī in China). Thanks to a
suggestion from a reviewer of this article, I discovered Shen’s work (2019) on the duplication
and reduplication of Buddhist images, scriptures, and relics in medieval China.
6
Cross-Currents 31 | 85
Isabelle Charleux
summer palace the new center of Tibetan Buddhism.10 She evidenced that paintings
were certainly the main medium of transfer, which partly explains the distortions of
perspective, approximations, and trompe-l’oeil effect of the temples of Chengde.11
In Empire of Emptiness, Berger studies copies of Buddhist works of art at the court of
Qianlong and calls this process of replication a “translation,” because artworks, like
Buddhist scriptures, are translated into new cultural forms to make them more
familiar, to allow their indigenization (2003, 9–13). Wood’s Forgery, Replica, Fiction
(2008) on replicas of the Holy Sepulcher in Renaissance Germany also offers a
theoretical apparatus that is useful for my analysis.12
When comparing replicas with the “original object,”13 and evaluating how
closely they adhere to or deviate from it, art historians have often observed that
differences are more obvious than similarities.14 What has been transmitted can be
called the “concept,” the “essence,” or the “soul” of the original image or structure.
Griswold compares the architectural copy to the act of planting a germ or a seed of
the Bodhi tree: the descendant is a Ficus religiosa and preserves the essence of the
original tree.15 Hence, in some cases it would be more accurate to refer to the
replica as a “quotation” (following Berger),16 a “reference” (following Wood), a
“transplantation” (following Griswold), or a “representation” of the original object.
Wood notes that a replica may retain some compulsory characteristics from the
original—such as scale and proportions, or ground plane—but not nonessential,
contingent features like ornamentation, size, or construction materials and
techniques (2008, 43). What then are the essential, identifying features, which we
could call the “iconography” of a sacred structure? To understand the differences
between the model and the replica, we need to know how the model was
transmitted. Are differences due to a poor knowledge of the original, the
Regarding replicas of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya, McKeown (2010) argues that
the construction of Mahabodhi stupas shows how rulers reenacted the cakravartin (Buddhist
universal, enlightened ruler) kingship ideal through patronage of replication projects. The
Yongle emperor’s (r. 1402–1424/5) replica of the Mahabodhi Temple in Beijing, the Wuta
五塔 (Five Stupas), built between 1466 and 1473, would be a strategic reenactment of the
Yuan dynasty’s appropriation of Buddhism and its tantric “technologies.”
11
The distortions due to two different types of perspective used by painters were applied by
the builders of the Chengde temples (Chayet 1985, 86–95). See also Griswold (1965) about
scale models.
12
I thank Chou Wen-shing for having brought this book to my attention.
13
By “original object,” I mean the object that served as a model for a replica at a certain
period in time. Of course, there is no one immutable, unalterable original Boudhanath; the
stupa was rebuilt, enlarged, and restored many times (the most recent restoration followed
the 2015 earthquake); new structures were added while older ones disappeared.
14
Wood (2008, chap. 2, esp. 45–48) sees architectural replicas as connected to a common
source by referential links.
15
Griswold uses the term “transplantation”: “The sapling, though far smaller, and possessed
of far fewer branches and leaves, is no less a Ficus religiosa; and while it can never resemble
its ancestor exactly in configuration, it will be able to exercise the same power over men’s
minds” (1965, 181–182).
16
Berger uses the term “quotation” to describe “dropping untranslated elements into a new
framework” (2003, 8).
10
Cross-Currents 31 | 86
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
deformation of reduced three-dimensional models and two-dimensional depictions,
the transmission by a literary source (such as an iconographical description), or local
techniques and materials? Or, can differences be attributed to personal, deliberate
choices of builders and their own vision of what the original looks like? To answer
this question, it is necessary to study the transmission of the legend, the history, and
the iconography through texts, oral narratives, and portable images, as well as,
when available, the biographies of the people responsible for these transmissions.
Even when the model is not recognizable in the replica, these copies
nonetheless make explicit references to an original, often through an inscription, a
label,17 a lama’s vision,18 oral narratives, or a guidebook that denies the difference
between the model and the replica (Charleux 2015a, 89). With this process of
legitimization, in the eyes of devotees the copy has the same, or almost the same,
“power” or ritual efficacy as the original. In many cases, a pilgrimage to a replicated
sacred place is said to be equivalent to journeying to the distant original: the replica
therefore functions as an acceptable “substitute.”19 Or, a greater number of
circumambulations of the replica is prescribed by clerics and pilgrimage guides to
obtain the same amount of benefits.20 The reason for the construction of replicas is
often to build a surrogate pilgrimage site, because a sacred site is located too far
away or has been destroyed.21 With the creation of replicas, a sacred site moves
closer to the pilgrims’ home: it is not the pilgrim who travels abroad but the
pilgrimage center that travels to the pilgrims, transferring (and extending) the
numinous power of the original. Surrogate pilgrimages are made throughout the
Buddhist world: it is like worshipping the same deity in different temples. In this
“process of substitution,” the architectural replicas aim to take the place of the
original and deny difference, creating an “effect of identity” (Wood 2008, 40). Like
the Buddha’s relics, which were divided and transferred, such promotion of a local
pilgrimage was a strategy to enhance the prestige of a religious site and attract
crowds of pilgrims.
To illuminate the Mongol cult of Boudhanath, I will examine its architectural
replicas, discuss their differences from the Nepalese stupa, and question whether
On the practice of “labeling” artifacts through the extensive use of written texts
(inscriptions, epigraphic tablets, etc.) to posit links back to a prestigious origin and to support
their “authenticity,” see Wood (2008, 53–26).
18
For an example of a Tibetan “rediscovery” of a Buddhist holy place in India by visionary
revelation, see Huber (2008, chap. 5).
19
On Tibetan local pilgrimages considered equivalent to international holy places such as
Lhasa, Mount Kailash, and Bodh Gaya, see Large-Blondeau (1960, 226), Epstein and Peng
(1994, 24), and Nakza (2019). Griswold also observes this equivalence with regard to
pilgrimages to replicas of Bodh Gaya in South and Southeast Asia (1965, 182). For a
discussion of Christian replicas of the Holy House of Nazareth, Lourdes, and other shrines,
see Coleman and Elsner (1995, 104–106).
20
However, some replicas never functioned as substitutes, or were only second-best options,
and pilgrims are not content with surrogate pilgrimages if they have the opportunity to visit
the original place. See Charleux (2015b) on Mongol surrogate Wutaishan and Buffetrille
(2015, 144–145) on Tibetan surrogate pilgrimage places.
21
See Jonathan Smith’s work on Jerusalem, in which he studies the ways that sacred sites are
relocated when the original site is no longer accessible (1998).
17
Cross-Currents 31 | 87
Isabelle Charleux
these differences may be explained by the stupa’s depiction in two-dimensional
images. But first I will provide some information on the historical context of the cult
of Boudhanath in Mongolia, Mongols’ pilgrimages to Nepal, and the role of the
sixteenth-century guidebook and other literary sources. Finally, I will ask whether
there were some uniquely Mongol characteristics in the cult of Boudhanath, and
whether the “Jarung khashar” stupas became a new type of Mongol stupa.
The Historical Context of the Cult of Boudhanath in Mongolia
Why do replicas appear at a particular place and time? Before introducing the
architectural replicas of Boudhanath, I will present some of the historical context
surrounding the construction of replicas of Buddhist sacred sites in Mongolia. In the
eighteenth century, a replica of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya, the place
where Buddha attained Enlightenment in India, was built in Hohhot (Cl. Mo.
Khökhekhota, Inner Mongolia, China). It was actually a copy of a copy, because it
replicated the fifteenth-century Beijing pagoda built on the model of the Mahabodhi
(Charleux 2006a). The construction of this building known as the Tabun suburga (Ch.
Wuta, “Five Stupas”) between 1727 and 1732 must be placed in the particular
context of the cosmopolitan Manchu court in the first half of the Qing period:
although the structure was built with private funding, its founder Biligündalai (d.
1745), a high-ranking Mongol lama, was close to the Manchu court and to Third
Changkya Khutugtu Rölpé Dorjé (lCang skya khutugtu Rol pa’i rdo rje, 1717–1786)
(Charleux 2006a).22
The replicas of Boudhanath in Mongolia, as well as the thangkas depicting the
Nepalese stupa and the translation of the guidebook, all appeared in a different
context in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The late nineteenth
century was a time of economic stagnation and Sino-Manchu domination yet one of
relative peace, rise in faith, pilgrimages (Charleux 2015b), and rich artistic
production. One of the replicas was built in Ikh Khüree (Cl. Mo. Yekhe Khüriye) or
Örgöö (transcribed in Russian as Urga), the great monastery and residence of the
Jebtsündamba Khutugtu that had settled in the Tuul Valley in 1855, on the site of
present-day Ulaanbaatar. The building of a “Jarung khashar” stupa may have been
part of a larger program of artistic and architectural projects in and around the
monastic city linked to the construction of Ikh Khüree as the main pilgrimage center
of Khalkha Mongolia (Charleux 2015b, 44–48; Uranchimeg 2016).
After the fall of the Qing, Inner Mongols struggled for autonomy while their
land became the focus of conflicts between various foreign powers. Between 1927
and 1935, the Ninth Panchen Lama, Lozang Thubten Chökyi Nyima (bLo bzang thub
bstan chos kyi nyi ma, 1883–1937) traveled through Inner Mongolia, where he
performed Kālacakra initiations (the Wheel of Time, an advanced tantric teaching).23
Rölpé Dorjé composed a text to be engraved on the walls of the Tabun suburga.
The Ninth Panchen Lama’s popularity was enhanced by the belief that a future
reincarnation of the Panchen Lama would reign as the king of Shambhala and lead the
Buddhist army in the final war between Buddhists and heretics. Anyone who took the
Kālacakra initiation from the current Panchen Lama was ensured a later rebirth in the
kingdom of Shambhala and a participation in the final victory and would be liberated.
22
23
Cross-Currents 31 | 88
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
He ordered the construction of a replica of Boudhanath stupa in order to “bring
peace and happiness to the whole banner” (Delege 1998, 633) in this period of
troubles and rebellions. During the same period, Buddhism was developing as a
world religion from Sri Lanka to China and Buryatia and was the object of
reformation attempts in several countries. India was revalorized as the homeland of
“ecumenical Buddhism” and Bodh Gaya was resacralized as the main place of
pilgrimage to the “origins of Buddhism,” while improved means of transportation
made the pilgrimage to India and Nepal much easier (Huber 2008).
If this period seems to have created a climate that was conducive to
pilgrimages and the construction of replicated architectures of the Holy Land, this
climate does not explain why Boudhanath was specifically chosen instead of, for
example, Bodh Gaya. Was the cult of Boudhanath linked to particular relations
between Mongolia and Nepal? Since the medieval period, Newars (Nepalese of the
Kathmandu Valley) have been renowned throughout the Inner Asian world for their
bronze craftsmanship. In the Yuan period (1276–1368), the celebrated Nepalese
artist Arniko (Ch. Anige 阿尼哥, ca. 1244–1306) worked at the court of Khubilai Khan
(r. 1260–1294), and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Newar craftsmen
worked for Mongol princes and Buddhist dignitaries (Charleux 2015a, 99, 140;
Béguin 1993). However, the modern Mongol interest in Boudhanath was not related
to this earlier interest in Nepalese craftsmanship. Instead, like the Tibetans, who
appropriated the site in the fourteenth century,24 modern Mongol Buddhists saw
Boudhanath as one of the holiest places of the ancient history of Buddhism in India.
Tibetans and Mongols undertook pilgrimages to Boudhanath stupa because they
believed that it had the “power of granting all prayers for worldly wealth, children,
and everything asked for” (Waddell [1895] 1985, 315; Tenzin 1998, 75, 95).
Boudhanath was associated with the granting of all kinds of wishes, and worshipping
Boudhanath was also an occasion to give back to one’s parents the compassion they
had for their children.25 On a print from Buryatia depicting Boudhanath stupa, a
Mongolian inscription at the bottom says that this great stupa is like a cintāmaṇi
The oldest chöjung (Tib. chos ’byung, lit., “origin of Buddhism,” historical chronicle), dated
to the twelfth century, that tells the story of the stupa named “Jarung khashor” locates it in
what most authors identify as Magadha in India; in the fourteenth century, Tibetans
transferred the story of “Jarung khashor” to Boudhanath (Blondeau 1982–1983). About the
dates and circumstances of the foundation of Boudhanath stupa, see Ehrhard (1990),
Blondeau (1994), and Tenzin Samphel (1998, 65–77).
25
According to Tenzin Samphel, this stupa is comparable to a cintāmaṇi (jewel) “because,
whatever the vow one pronounces, it will realize itself. Even the Buddhas cannot describe
the benefits and blessings resulting from offerings, prostrations, or circumambulations made
with a pure spirit in front or around the stupa of Bodnath. The one who sees this stupa will
not be reincarnated in inferior realms. The one who hears about it will plant inside
him/herself the seed of Enlightenment. The one who thinks about it will be freed from
demonic forces and mental diseases and will see his or her capacities of meditation improve.
To sum up, this stupa will grant the realization of all wishes. This is why it is called Smon lam
thams cad sgrub pa’i mchod rten, ‘the stupa that grants all wishes’” (1998, 75, 95).
24
Cross-Currents 31 | 89
Isabelle Charleux
(jewel) that fulfills all wishes (table 2, no. 13).26 The recently built Jarung khashar in
Amarbayasgalant khiid (Cyr. Mo. Amurbayaskhulangtu kheid), Selenge Province,
Mongolia (figure 23 and described below), is called “Great stupa of the jewel that
grants all wishes.”27 Similarly, at Chorten Kora in Bhutan, devotees “believe that
making prostrations and praying with a pure mind at the festivals will enable them
to realize their aspirations in life” (Lam Kezang Chhophel 2002, 4).
Boudhanath/Jarung khashar was therefore comparable to the cintāmaṇi that fulfills
all wishes.
Mongol Pilgrimages to Boudhanath
Danish explorer Henning Haslund-Christensen (1896–1948), who resided in
Mongolia in the 1920s and 1930s, mentioned Boudhanath as a major pilgrimage site
for Mongols:
From all the corners of Central Asia [these pilgrims in prostrations]
work their ways to the holy places of pilgrimage and the goal may
be as remote as Wu-t’ai Shan [Wutaishan] of the many legends, or
Dzarung Khashor, the domed pagoda in still more remote Nepal.
(Haslund-Christensen 1935, 28)
Except for Bodh Gaya and other holy places in India linked to Śākyamuni’s life,
Boudhanath is the farthest pilgrimage destination for Mongols (even more so for
Buryat Mongols). Yet despite the dangers of the road, the difficulty of obtaining
travel permits, the physical hardship, and the financial cost, an increasing number of
Mongol pilgrims (including Buryats and Kalmyks) visited Tibet in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.28 The pilgrimage to Lhasa was well organized:
Khalkhas and Buryats usually joined the two large annual caravans that brought
monastic trade missions from Ikh Khüree to Lhasa (Charleux 2015b, 30–39). Their
main destination was Lhasa, and only a minority continued their journey to southern
Tibet and Kathmandu, and then an even smaller number traveled on to India.29 A
famous pilgrim to Lhasa to Boudhanath was Buryat diplomat monk Agvan Dorjiev
(1853–1938), who traveled in 1901 (Martin and Norbu 1991, 24 [translation of
Dorjiev’s autobiography, written in 1923]).
Boudhanath appears to have been the main destination of Mongol pilgrims to
Nepal; Swayambunath stupa, known in Tibetan as Pakpa shingkün chöten (’Phags pa
shing kun mchod rten), and Namo Buddha (Tib. Takmo lüjin/sTag mo lus sbyin]),
The Mongolian text of this thangka reads: “Ene yeke suburγa anu sedkilcilen cindamani
lüge adali” (see Czaja 2015, 96n59).
27
Cyr. Mo. “Khamag khüsliig biyelüülegch erdeniin ikh suvraga” (“Shaltagan tögöldör
bolgutai” [https://news.mn/r/641185/]).
28
Mongols’ pilgrimages to Boudhanath prior to the nineteenth century are not documented.
29
In the twentieth century, transportation facilities and guidebooks facilitated the pilgrimage
from Lhasa to Nepal and India (pilgrims traveled to India by train and took a boat to China to
return home) (Charleux 2015b, 33–37).
26
Cross-Currents 31 | 90
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
which were equally important destinations for Tibetans,30 were much less popular
among Mongols. I did not find Mongolian translations of guidebooks to
Swayambunath, and Mongols apparently did not build architectural replicas of
Swayambunath. Although Swayambunath appears on some thangkas, together with
Boudhanath and another stupa on three thangkas (table 2, nos. 22–24), I did not
find thangkas depicting Swayambunath alone.
We have no details on whether Mongol pilgrims visited Boudhanath in greater
numbers during the Year of the Bird, which is the most auspicious year to visit the
site for Tibetans. Some famous Buddhists restored Boudhanath stupa, but none of
them was Mongol.31 Yet even if historical sources are silent about Mongols in
Boudhanath, we know that it was such a holy place for Mongols that some of them
settled there. In the 1950s, a Gélukpa reincarnation from Ordos (Inner Mongolia),
Gurudeva Rinpoché (1908–2009), also known as Sogpo Rinpoché (Sog po rin po
che)—Sogpo meaning “Mongol” in Tibetan—founded a monastery named Ganden
Chöphel Ling (dGa’ ldan chos ’phel gling) on the circumambulation path (barkor/bar
skor) northeast of Boudhanath. Devotees offered him land to build the monastery,
which was staffed by two or three Mongol monks. In the 1960s, when Tibetans took
possession of the monastery, Sogpo moved to India (Corneille Jest, personal
communication, 2008).32 He came back to live in his monastery in Boudhanath33
from 1986 to 1992, after which he left for Mongolia.34 After his death, a replica of
Boudhanath stupa was built in his Mongol monastery (figure 23).
Enthusiastic Mongol pilgrims to Nepal may have decided to make replicas of
this particular stupa once back home; yet it seems to me that the flourishing cult of
Boudhanath in Mongolia was not proportional to the small number of pilgrims who
actually reached that distant place. Pilgrimages to Boudhanath stupa may have
developed only after its worship was well established in Mongolia through texts,
tales, images, and architectural replicas. In other words, the replicas may have
For Tibetans, visiting the three main stupas of Kathmandu Valley—Boudhanath,
Swayambunath, and Namo Buddha—was considered equivalent in terms of accumulating
merit to visiting all the other sacred pilgrimage sites (Tenzin Samphel 1998, 6). There exist
several Tibetan guidebooks on Swayambunath stupa that contain descriptions of other
Nepalese holy places, including Boudhanath (Ehrhard 2013, 71–91).
31
On Tibetans who restored the stupa, see Ehrhard (1990; 2013), Gutschow (1997, 96–99),
and Buffetrille (2015, 137–138). On Tibetan pilgrimages to Nepal, see Huber (2008, 173–
175).
32
Tibetologist David Snellgrove met Sogpo Rinpoché in Boudhanath in the early 1950s and
took a photograph of him (Snellgrove 1957, 100, pl. 14). Social anthropologist Corneille Jest
met Sogpo Rinpoché when he headed the monastery in the 1960s.
33
With the influx of large populations of refugees from Tibet since 1959 and the construction
of over fifty Tibetan monasteries surrounding the stupa, Boudhanath has become a small
Tibetan enclave in Nepal.
34
He helped the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in exile to re-found the main Tibetan monastic
institutions in India. In 1986, Sogpo Rinpoché was forced to leave India for Nepal because he
was involved in a conflict with the Dalai Lama over the practice of the deity Dorjé Shukden
(rDo rje shugs ldan), which the latter banned. Under increasing pressure from Tibetans in
Nepal, he left Nepal in 1992 and settled in Mongolia.
30
Cross-Currents 31 | 91
Isabelle Charleux
served as surrogate pilgrimage places sites before the original place became easier
to reach.
Literary Sources on Boudhanath Accessible to Mongols
Knowledge of the great Buddhist pilgrimage places was transmitted in Tibet and
Mongolia through Tibetan culture in general and, more particularly, through Tibetan
historiography, biographies of great masters, and guidebooks, as well as oral
accounts of pilgrims. Mongol lamas educated in Tibetan learned the story of the
construction and legend of Jarung khashor/Boudhanath through various Tibetan
sources such as chöjungs, termas, and pilgrimage guides (see Blondeau 1982–1983,
1994).35 At least two historiographical works written by Mongols—Sagang sechen’s
Erdeni-yin tobci (Bejewelled summary, Saγang secen [1662] 1955) and Galdan’s
Erdeni-yin erike (Bejewelled rosary, [1859] 1999)—mention the legend of Jarung
khashor, without identifying it with Boudhanath (see Appendix 1).
The main source of the legend of Jarung khashor is the abovementioned
Tibetan guidebook, History of the stupa Jarung khashor, liberation upon hearing. In
the 1880s, pilgrims could purchase a contemporaneous printed version of the
guidebook at Boudhanath (Ehrhard 1990, 1).36 The guidebook was translated into
Mongolian and is known under the title “Legend of the [stupa] known as Jarung
khashor.” At least four manuscripts in the format of ancient Indian pothi (palm-leaf
books) are preserved.37 According to its colophon, it was translated into Mongolian
by a gelung (Tib. gélong/dge slong, ordained monk) named Shirab or Shisrab, and
published in the Year of the Water Dragon (1772, 1832, or 1892).38 A xylograph
printed version preserved in Aga (Aginskii) datsan (monastery) in Buryatia also still
exists. The latter has been adapted into modern Mongolian and transcribed into
Cyrillic and is included in a booklet about Boudhanath stupa and one of its
Mongolian replicas (Ninjbadgar 2000).39
See, for example, the eighteenth-century pilgrimage guide to Nepalese sacred places by
Fourth Khamtrul Chöki Nyima (Kham sprul chos kyi nyi ma, 1730–1779) (Blondeau 1982–
1983).
36
Copies of the printed text were still available at the shrine when Snellgrove visited it in the
early 1950s (1957, 99 note a).
37
One copy is in Ulan-Ude (Tsyrempilov and Vanchikova 2004, 289, cat. 829: Biarung kašur
kemen aldarsiγsan egüni tuγuji orosiba, twenty-six folios); three are in Saint Petersburg
(Uspensky 1999, 280, cat. 247: Bharug ga-šor kemekü orosibai, twenty-three folios; cat. 248:
Bharug ga-šor kemekü orosibai or Bharug ga-šor kemekü yeke suburγan-u tuγuji sonosuγad
tonilγagci kemekü, twenty-four folios; and cat. 249: Tib. Bya rung kha shor, twenty folios). I
did not have access to these pothi and do not know if their texts are identical. The
manuscript was also translated into Russian (Tsendina 1995).
38
Vladimir Uspensky (1999, 280, cat. 247) believes the Year of the Water Dragon could be
1772.
39
The adaptation was revised by D. Tserensodnom. Ninjbadgar gives the following title in
Cyrillic Mongolian (Cyr. Mo. Ikh suvraga Jarun khashoryn tuuj sonsokhui getelgegch
khemeekh sudar orshiv, Cl. Mo. Yeke suburγa Jarung qašor tuγuji sonosqui getülgegci kemekü
sudur orosiba, The sutra that saves by hearing the story of the Great Jarung khashar Stupa).
According to the colophon, it was translated into Mongolian by famous gabju Bachoijijaltsan
35
Cross-Currents 31 | 92
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
The guidebook tells the story of the construction of the stupa (chapter 1) and
the foundation of Samyé Monastery by the reincarnations of the poultry keeper’s
sons as King Trison Détsen, Śāntarakṣita, and Padmasambhava (Ninjbadgar 2000,
19–20). Chapter 3 (on the blessings produced by worshipping the stupa, according
to the types of worship and offerings), chapter 4 (on the portents of the ruin of the
stupa, which was destroyed during the troubled times of the Kali yuga), and chapter
5 (on the restorers and their attainments) deal with the later history of Tibet. The
only mention of the Mongols in this text is in chapter 4, which relates the history of
the Mongols’ conquest of Tibet (Dowman [1973] 1993, 55).40 The guidebook does
not contain any description or architectural detail of Jarung khashor.
This guidebook belongs to the category of tödröl (thos drol, “liberation upon
hearing”), which means that the fact of reciting, hearing, memorizing, and
understanding it leads to Enlightenment.41 It is a Tibetan means of instructing
people along the spiritual path toward the attainment of complete realization (the
stupa being itself a symbol of Buddhahood) (Dowman [1973] 1993, 3–5).
The translation into Mongolian and existence of different manuscripts and
printed versions highlight the popularity of Boudhanath among laypeople; the book
not only informed future pilgrims about the sacred place but also served as an
object of worship per se, a surrogate of the pilgrimage, and a means of “liberation
upon hearing.” According to Ninjbadgar, other Tibetan and Mongolian prayer books
on Boudhanath stupa were printed in Mongolia (2000, 1).
Architectural Replicas from the Eighteenth to the First Half of the Twentieth
Centuries
Most of the ancient architectural replicas of Boudhanath in Mongolia were
destroyed during the twentieth century; they are known to us thanks to
photographs, a few mentions in the literature, and the souvenirs of elderly monks.
Unfortunately, although the building of temples and colleges is generally recorded
and dated in monastic sources and archives, this is rarely the case for the
construction of stupas. In this section, I present information, mostly based on
historical and iconographical sources, about five “Jarung khashar” stupas in
Mongolia and one in China, from the eighteenth to the first half of the twentieth
centuries.
and engraved by rabjamba Lubsanlundub and gebshi Lig and Dan (gabju [Tib. kachu/dka’
bcu], rabjamba [Tib. rapjampa/rabs ’byams pa], and gebshi [géshé/dge bshes] are different
Buddhist academic degrees) (Ninjbadgar 2000, 47). A different version (probably directly
translated from Tibetan) was published by Pürevbat (2005, 526–540).
40
The modern Mongolian version published by Ninjbadgar reports that the Mongols
conquered not Tibet (as the Tibetan version claims) but the “Country of the Sun” (i.e., Japan)
(“Moduin [khyazgaar] Mongol ber Narii [Yapony] oron evdekh tsag,” Ninjbadgar 2000, 37)!
Pürevbat’s version has “Anr(iig).” The transcriptions “Narii” and “Anr(iig)” are probably a
misunderstanding of the original Tibetan text.
41
On liberation upon hearing, and more generally on the senses as a mean of salvation, see
Gayley (2007).
Cross-Currents 31 | 93
Isabelle Charleux
(1) The oldest replica I came across was not located in Mongolia but at a great
Chinese pilgrimage site that attracted Mongols, Tibetans, and Chinese: the
Wutaishan Mountains in Shanxi Province. The stupa is located in Baohuasi 寶華寺,
an old Chinese Buddhist monastery that was turned into a Tibetan Gélugpa (dGe
lugs pa) monastery in 1719 (Charleux 2015b, online appendix B, Baohuasi). The 9meter-high Tibetan-style stupa known as “Dīpankara’s Mother” or “Stupa That Came
Flying” (Ch. Feilaita 飛來塔)42 is believed to enshrine a lock of the hair of
Tsongkhapa (Tsong kha pa, 1357–1419). In his guidebook to Mount Wutai, Rölpé
Dorjé wrote that lama pilgrims renovated the stupa on the model of Boudhanath
stupa in Kathmandu (Charleux, 2015b, online appendix B). In 1873, the monastery
was restored and the monks rebuilt the white stupa. A stone inscription in Tibetan
and Mongolian, written by a disciple of the Sixth Panchen Lama, Lozang Penden
Yéshé (bLo bzang dpal ldan ye shes, 1891–1958) who meditated on Mount Wutai,
also links the stupa with Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu (see Charleux 2015b,
online appendices A2 and B). The stupa of Baohuasi has been preserved and
restored (figure 3).
Figure 3. “Dīpankara’s Mother” stupa of Baohuasi, Wutaishan, Shanxi Province, China, 2010.
Photo by the author.
It is located 3.5 kilometers north of Taihuai 臺懷 Village. According to legend, the stupa’s
base came from Tibet, its body flew from Kumbum Monastery, and its summit fled from
Tibet or Nepal to Wutaishan. On the legend of the flying stupa, see Charleux (2015b, online
appendix B, 102–103).
42
Cross-Currents 31 | 94
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
(2) The first architectural replica in Mongolia probably was the “Jarun khashor-un
suburga” (stupa of Jarun khashor) of Khan öndriin khüree (Cl. Mo. Khan öndör-ün
khuriye) about 96 kilometers from Tsetserleg, north of the Tamir River in Ikh Tamir
District, in Arkhangai Province. Khan öndriin khüree had about thirty temples and a
dozen stupas, surrounded by housing for about one thousand monks and novices. It
was founded by several generations of the Noyan tsetsen ching wangs (title of the
jasags—Chinggisid princes ruling their eponym banners) of the Sayin noyan khan
aimag. Tsetsen ching wang Denjin banzur (Den toin) founded the first temples in
1679, then, in 1809, new temples were built by Tsetsen ching wang Lawangdorji
(1749–1816, jasag in 1771). The monastery is therefore a “princely monastery,”
tightly tied to the secular power of the jasags. It received titles from the Qing
emperor and the Jebtsündamba Khutugtus. As one of the largest monasteries of
Mongolia, it trained monks from all of Khalkha aimags (provinces) in its academic
colleges. The monastery was closed in 1932 and razed to the ground in 1937 or 1938
(Ninjbadgar 2000, 55–64; Maidar [1970] 1972, 32–33; Shchepetil’nikov 1960, 162).43
Ninjbadgar documented the history of the construction of nineteen temples
(including academic colleges) but did not find any detail on the construction of the
“Jarun khashor suvraga” (Cl. Mo. suburga, “stupa”) (figures 3–6).44 In 1857, khoshoi
ching wang Daram founded the Suburgan-u takhil-un khural (Assembly to make
sacrifices/offerings to the stupa),45 which may refer to the rituals organized in the
“Jarung khashar” stupa (Ninjbadgar 2000, 59–63). Therefore, the date of
construction of the stupa may be 1857.
Figure 4. “Jarung khashar” stupa, Khan öndriin khüree, Ikh Tamir District, Arkhangai Province
(destroyed). Photo taken before 1937. Source: Tsultem (1988, fig. 157).
Eight stupas were rebuilt north of the monastery in 2002.
Ninjbadgar (2000, 55–64) used sources from the Central Library and the Central Archives
of Mongolia, as well as oral accounts of elderly people.
45
Also called Demidnineen suvragany takhilyn khural. See “Khan öndöriin khüree,” the
Mongolian Monasteries website
(https://www.mongoliantemples.org/index.php/en/component/domm/1091?view=oldtemp
leen).
43
44
Cross-Currents 31 | 95
Isabelle Charleux
According to a ninety-six-year-old lama named Damtsaabadgar, who was a
pupil at Khan öndriin khüree before its destruction, the founders intended to build
the Eight Great Stupas of the Buddha (referring to the eight major events of
Śākyamuni’s life and teachings) and another large stupa. For a long time, they
collected many images (jirug) of stupas in order to choose one, and eventually
selected Boudhanath stupa in Nepal (Ninjbadgar 2000, 61).
Figure 5. “Jarung khashar” stupa, Khan öndriin khüree. Photo taken before 1937.
Source: Shchepetil’nikov (1960, 162, fig. 97).
Figure 6. General view of Khan öndriin khüree. Photo taken before 1937. Source: Tsultem
(1988, fig. 136).
Cross-Currents 31 | 96
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Figure 7. “Jarung khashar” stupa near Gandantegchilen Monastery of Ikh Khüree
(Ulaanbaatar, destroyed). Photo taken in 1934. Sources: Tsultem (1988, fig. 159) and
Shchepetil’nikov (1960, 167, fig. 102).
(3) A replica of Boudhanath stupa was erected near the great academic monastery
of Gandan (short for Gandantegchinlin) west of Ikh Khüree/Ulaanbaatar (figure 7).46
The “Jarung khashar” stupa, built at some distance northwest of the monastery, was
surrounded by a fence and dedicated to the glory of the incarnation of the Buddha.
Other stupas built by devotees (including the Eight Great Stupas of the Buddha)
were nearby. The place was certainly a main object of devotion for the many
pilgrims who circumambulated Gandan,47 though whether it formed a separate
temple or was part of Gandan itself is unclear (Teleki 2011, 190). Krisztina Teleki, a
specialist on Mongolian monasteries, writes, “According to Gonchig lama, 3–4 lamas
held ceremonies regularly in the treasure-vase hall (Mo. bumba, Tib. bum-pa) of this
stupa, and this was called the Tsagaan suwragiin khural” (Tsagan suburga-yin khural,
Monastery/Assembly of the White Stupa) (2011, 190). Gandan Monastery was
Four photos of the stupa are in the Albert Kahn collection in Boulogne-Billancourt, France
(nos. 3983, 3984, 5475, 68516). Another photo shows Jarung khashar in a separate enclosure
(https://www.facebook.com/HelloUlaanbaatar/photos/a.352593164881755.1073741830.35
2517848222620/354470604694011/?type=1&theater).
47
Pozdneev mentions twenty-eight stupas built by pious worshippers to the west and north
of Gandan but does not mention the “Jarung khashar” stupa ([1896] 1971, 77).
46
Cross-Currents 31 | 97
Isabelle Charleux
founded in 1809 but became a main monastic center in 1838 (Teleki 2011, 162), and
the “Jarung khashar” stupa appears on Balgan’s and Jügder’s maps, respectively
dated to the 1880s–1890s and 1912 (figure 8). The stupa can therefore roughly be
dated to the late nineteenth century. According to another source, construction
ended in 1905 and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tupten Gyatso (Thub bstan rgya
mtsho, 1876–1933), consecrated it while sojourning in the capital.48 It was destroyed
in the late 1930s, and a television tower was built on its site in 1967.
Figure 8. “Jirangqašar-yin suburγa” near Gandantegchilen Monastery. Detail of Balgan’s map
of Ikh Khüree, 1880s, Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, Ulaanbaatar. Photo by the author.
(4) Another Jarung khashar may have been built northeast of Dambadarjaa khiid (Cl.
Mo. Damba dorji kheid or Shasin-i badaragulugchi süme), northeast of Ikh Khüree
(now in a suburb of Ulaanbaatar) (Daajav 2006, 2:121–131; Teleki 2011, 241–252).
Dambadarjaa khiid was built in 1761–1765 on Emperor Qianlong’s order in memory
of the Second Jebtsündamba Khutugtu (1724–1758). It had colleges with a high level
of learning and more than one thousand monks in the 1910s. Funerary stupas
enshrined the relics of the Second, Third, and Sixth Jebtsündamba Khutugtus.
According to historian of architecture D. Maidar, the Jarung khashar of Dambadarjaa
khiid was surrounded by the Eight Great Stupas of the Buddha ([1970] 1972, 32–33).
Daajav wrote that it was located northeast of the monastery, outside the
compound, but does not specify his source (2006, 2:126, 129; quoted in Teleki 2011,
242). It was probably destroyed at the same time as the rest of the monastery in
1937 and 1938, and it was rebuilt from 2003 to 2004 (figures 9 and 10). Although
several old photos of the monastery are known, none of them shows the Jarung
“Sain baina uu Ulaanbaatar mini”
(https://www.facebook.com/HelloUlaanbaatar/photos/a.352593164881755.1073741830.35
2517848222620/354470368027368/?type=3&theater).
48
Cross-Currents 31 | 98
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
khashar,49 and it is not visible on ancient maps such as Jügder’s.50 The rebuilt stupa
seems to have been modeled on an old photo of Gandan’s Jarung khashar, but its
spire is square-based whereas Gandan’s was round-based (figure 10).
Figure 9. “Jarung khashar” stupa, rebuilt from 2003 to 2004, northeast of Dambadarjaa khiid
(suburb of Ulaanbaatar), 2013. Photo by the author.
Figure 10. “Jarung khashar” stupa, northeast of Dambadarjaa khiid, partially rebuilt stupa
and drawings exhibited during the reconstruction, 2003. Photos by Sue Byrne, 2013.
Sue Byrne, who collected old photographs of Mongolian monasteries for the project
“Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries,” could not find old photos of the stupa but did
find one of Gandan’s Jarung khashar mislabeled as “Dambadarjaa” (Sue Byrne, pers. comm.,
May 2015).
50
Russian orientalist A. M. Pozdneev gave a detailed description of Dambadarjaa khiid, which
he visited in 1892, but did not mention the Jarung khashar ([1896] 1971, 387–392). Yet, he
did not mention that of Gandan either.
49
Cross-Currents 31 | 99
Isabelle Charleux
(5) A “Jarung khashar” stupa was built in Üüshin juu or Ganjuur nom-un süme
(Kanjur Monastery, Ch. Wushenzhao 烏審召) in the Üüshin Banner of Ordos. Üüshin
juu was founded by a Tibetan lama from Amdo named Nangsu in the 1570s and was
rebuilt around 1713. In 1734, Üüshin juu became the “banner monastery” of the
fifth jasag, beise Rashisereng, who enlarged it. In 1764, Lubsang dorji laramba (d. ca.
1801), a Khalkha lama trained in Lhasa, became the abbot. The main icons of the
monastery were two sandalwood statues of Śākyamuni he had brought back from
Kumbum (sKu ’bum) in Amdo. Four colleges were founded in the eighteenth
century, and Üüshin juu became a large academic monastery of 1,200 monks and
four reincarnate lamas, with twenty-five temples and more than ten treasuries. It
was famous for its three large stupas and 108 (or 206) smaller ones, many of which
were funerary stupas enclosed by a wall (Narasun and Temürbaγatur 2000, 233–
239, 269–300; Delege 1998, 372–373, 629–333; Charleux 2006b, CD-ROM [track no.
60]). The monastery was partially destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and was
rebuilt from 1999 to 2000.
Figure 11. “Octagonal lama stupa,” Üüshin juu (Ganjuur nom-un süme), Üüshin Banner,
Ordos League, Inner Mongolia. Photo taken before 1959. Source: Zhang (1959, 51).
The three large stupas included the Gegeen suburga built in 1773 and the
“octagonal stupa” built on the model of Boudhanath stupa, of which we have a
photo taken before 1959 (figure 11). The twelfth (and last) jasag of Üüshin Banner,
Tegüs amugulang, had it erected at the request of the Ninth Panchen Lama, to bring
peace and happiness to the whole banner. Lamas from Üüshin juu undertook a
three-year journey to Nepal to study the architecture of Boudhanath and came back
with drawings and sketches (Delege 1998, 633).51 The stupa was built between 1934
Delege (1998, 633) wrongly writes that it was called Puti jiaye data 菩提伽耶大塔 (“Great
stupa of Bodh Gaya”) and was a replica of the Mahabodhi Temple.
51
Cross-Currents 31 | 100
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
and 1942, northwest of Üüshin juu (figure 12). The perimeter of its round base
measured 25 zhang 丈 (80 meters), it stood 7 zhang high (22.4 meters), and its
construction cost more than 300,000 silver yuan. It was partially destroyed during
the Cultural Revolution. Between 1999 and 2001, it was restored or rebuilt
according to its former outer appearance. The restored stupa has a large vaulted
room inside (figures 13 and 14).52
Figure 12. Painting depicting Üüshin juu, kept in the monastery. The “Jarung khashar” stupa
is visible in the upper left corner. Photo by Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, August 2013.
Figure 13 (left). Restored stupa of Üüshin juu. Photo by Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, August
2013.
Figure 14 (right). Interior of the restored stupa of Üüshin juu, similar to the inner chamber of
the Tabun suburga/Mahabodhi of Hohhot. Photo by Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, August 2013.
See “Xiushan hou de Wushenzhao fota” 修缮后的乌审召佛塔 [The stupas of Üüshin juu
after restoration]
(http://www.nmgcnt.com/nmglswh/lsyjsm_1/smdz_4600/smdz/201209/t20120903_30708.
html). I thank Agata Bareja-Starzyńska for sending me her photos of the restored stupa.
52
Cross-Currents 31 | 101
Isabelle Charleux
(6) A large “Jarung khashar” stupa was built between 1915 and 1919 near Khejenge
datsan (Cl. Mo. Khotun Khijingge-yin Dashi lhundubling; Russ. Kizhinga), now in
Kizhinginsky District, Buryatia. Khejenge datsan was founded in 1766; the stupa was
completely destroyed in 1937 along with the monastery, and it is not even possible
to determine its exact location. It was the most worshipped stupa of Buryatia (Bĕlka
2001, 167–172). The decision was made to rebuild it in its original shape near the
alleged original site, with a height of 33 meters, a surface area of 44 x 44 meters,
and a 16-meter-high inner chamber with an area of 22 x 22 meters. In 1990, Drukpa
Rinpoché (’Brug pa rin po che) from Nepal visited and consecrated the future site,
and construction started in 1991, but the work was interrupted due to financial
difficulties. The stupa was eventually built between 1999 and 2001 on a more
modest scale, at a height of only 12 meters, with a surface area of 12 x 12 meters
and an inner chamber with an area of 10 x 10 meters (figure 15). On the south side
of the main entrance are a small temple to bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (on the right)
and a temple to the Twenty-One Tārās (on the left).53
Figure 15. Rebuilt “Jarung khashar” stupa of Khejenge Monastery, Kizhinga, Buryatia. Photo
by Ekaterina Sundueva.
See Stupa Djarun-Khashor (http://www.visitburyatia.ru/places/section-135/item-460/),
Sait Administratsii Kijinginskogo raiona (https://hezhenge.ucoz.ru/publ/2-1-0-3),
Djarun Hashor (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Джарун Хашор), Subarga Djarun-Khashor
(http://selorodnoe.ru/dos/show/id3634084/), and Svyashchennyye mesta Kizhinginskogo
rayona (http://ksutur.ru/nasledie/svyatiemesta.html).
53
Cross-Currents 31 | 102
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Table 1. The “Jarung khashar” stupas listed in chronological order
Name of stupa
Monastery
Location
Date
“Stupa That
Came Flying” or
“Dīpankara’s
Mother”
“Jarang khashar”
stupa/Suburganu takhil-un khural
“Jarung khashar”
stupa/Tsagan
suburga-yin
khural
“Jarang khashar”
stupa
Baohuasi
Wutaishan,
China
1719?
Rebuilt
1873
Present
condition
Preserved
and
restored
Khan öndriin khüree
Arkhangai, Ikh
Tamir District,
Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia
1857?
Destroyed
Late
19th c.–
1905
Destroyed
after
1892?
Destroyed,
(re)built
2004
“Jarung khashar”
stupa
Khejenge/Khotun
Kijingge-yin Dashi
lhundubling
Üüshin juu/Ganjuur
nom-un süme
Northeastern
suburb of
Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia
Kizhinga,
Buryatia
1915–
1919
Ordos, Inner
Mongolia
1934–
1942
Selenge,
Mongolia
Dornogovi,
Mongolia
2010
Destroyed,
rebuilt
1991–2001
Partially
destroyed,
rebuilt
1999–2000
Preserved
ca. 2012
Preserved
Octagonal stupa
Am aldsan stupa
Kālacakra stupa
Northwest of Gandan
Monastery
Dambadarjaa khiid
Amarbayasgalant
khiid
Unnamed
The Architecture of the “Jarung Khashar” Stupas
All of the abovementioned Mongol replicas of Boudhanath were built in or near
large academic monasteries and were considered as separate units, often located
northeast of a monastic complex. But what are the architectural characteristics that
make them “replicas” of Boudhanath stupa? We are speaking here about the
aspects of Boudhanath in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are
known to us mostly thanks to photographs.54
An initial observation is that some of the Mongol replicas had an inner shrine,
whereas the Nepalese Boudhanath stupa is a solid structure with no room inside.
The “Jarung khashar” stupas of Gandan and Khan öndriin khüree were called khural.
No in-depth architectural description of Boudhanath stupa has been published yet. The
stupa probably attained its present shape during the 1821 restoration. For a short
description of its architecture and iconography, see Gutschow (1997, 96–99), Slusser (1982,
149–175), and Tenzin Samphel (1998, 91–95). Old photos of the stupa are accessible on the
website of the “Shree Boudhanath Area Development Committee”
(http://bnadc.org.np/gallery/old-boudha-stupa/).
54
Cross-Currents 31 | 103
Isabelle Charleux
Khural, meaning “assembly, ritual, religious service,” also designates a monastery or
a temple, especially in Ikh Khüree; here it seems to designate a stupa with an inner
chamber to hold assemblies. These two stupas may thus have served as a temple for
specific rituals. The Jarung khashar of Üüshin juu had a gate (perhaps to an inner
shrine) protected by a Chinese-style portico topped by a reduced stupa (figure 11),
and the restored/reconstructed stupa has a large vaulted room inside (figure 14).
The rebuilt stupas of Dambadarjaa khiid (figure 9) and Khejenge datsan also have an
inner shrine (figure 15), but nowadays there is a trend in Tibet and Southeast Asia to
build hollow stupas with a shrine inside to exhibit statues and relics.55
Zsuzsa Majer, a specialist on Mongolian monasteries, hypothesizes that there
must have been more Jarun khashor stupas in Mongolia, though evidence in the
form of pictures or remnants is not lacking, because
Tsagaan suwragiin khural was a name for several other countryside
monasteries (presumably all with a big white stupa), for example
one in Dundgow’ we surveyed, but no one can confirm now if they
had Jarun khashor type of stupas, or other type of stupas painted in
white (all we know of the above Dundgow’ stupa is that it was an
arched type—could even be Jarun khashor). (Zsuzsa Majer, email
message to author, April 22, 2015)
Let us now compare the architecture of Boudhanath with that of the Mongol
and Chinese replicas from bottom to top:
— Boudhanath stupa, about 40 meters in height and diameter,56 is one of the
largest stupas in the world (about twice the size of the Great stupa of Sanchi in
India). An old photograph of Khan öndriin khüree shows the Jarung khashar
overlooking the surrounding temples (figure 4). According to local elders, its “foot”
(floor surface) was the size of a six-walled (Cyr. Mo. khana) yurt; it was 15 to 20
meters high; its pedestal or lion’s throne (sentii) probably measured 400 square
meters (Ninjbadgar 2000, 62). The Jarung khashar of Üüshin juu may have been 22.4
meters high; that of Gandan was probably shorter, yet it was much larger than the
surrounding stupas.
— Boudhanath stupa has its main entrance on the northern side, whereas the
“Jarung khashar” stupas of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia were oriented toward the
south, as is typical of Mongol temples.
— The three successive twelve-cornered terraced platforms or plinths of
diminishing size on which Boudhanath stupa rests,57 which are used as
A Mongolian example is the recently built stupa of Khamryn khiid (Cl. Mo. Khamar-un
kheid) in Dornogovi Province. The recently built replica of Boudhanath in Amdo/Qinghai
Province, China also has an inner shrine (Buffetrille 2015, 143–144).
56
The total area is 82.36 x 82.03 meters, the diameter is 36.57 meters, and the height is 43
meters.
57
These plinths of intersected squares and rectangles correspond to the viṃśatikona, the
platform of twenty angles, one type prescribed by the twelfth-century Kriyāsaṃgraha. Mary
Shepherd Slusser (1982, 171, 175) believes that a primitive core from the Licchavi period
(sixth century) is probably concealed under the immense dome. In the transitional or early
55
Cross-Currents 31 | 104
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
circumambulatory passages, and the flights of stairs giving access to each successive
tier were not copied in the Mongol replicas. All the Mongol stupas have a square
base, except that of Üüshin juu, which superposes three octagonal bases of
recessing size.
— Four smaller stupas stand at the four corners of the “Jarung khashar” stupas
of Khan öndriin khüree,58 (modern) Dambadarjaa khiid, and Baohuasi, and eight
stupas form a square around the “Jarung khashar” of Gandan.59 At Boudhanath, four
small stupas stand at the four intermediate directions of the lower platform, and
two additional small stupas stand at the northern side’s main entrance, but these
four stupas are so small and different from the central stupa that they are almost
unnoticeable.
— In front of the “Jarung khashar” of Khan öndriin khüree, two small niches
with tiled eaves probably protected an icon. Two pavilions with round, arched
openings and tiled roofs stand in front of the Gandan stupa. As we will see below,
these probably replicated two shrines that existed at Boudhanath in the nineteenth
century (Czaja 2015, 92).60
— The shape of the aṇḍa (vase shape, Tib. bum pa, Mo. khomkha or bumba,
“main body of the stupa”) of all the “Jarung khashar” stupas of Mongolia differs
from the hemispherical shape of the aṇḍa of Boudhanath stupa, but it is also
systematically different from the aṇḍa of “bottle-shaped” Tibetan-style stupas. The
shape of the aṇḍa of the “Jarung khashar” of Gandan is cylindrical; the aṇḍa of the
stupa of Khan öndriin khüree has a slender, elongated shape that resembles that of
the bell-shaped nirvana stupa (one of the Eight Great Stupas of the Buddha) (Maidar
[1970] 1972, 32). The aṇḍa of the stupa of Üüshin juu is a reduced hemispherical
dome that looks like a cupola on the third octagonal level. The octagonal shape may
be a reference to the base of the stupa of reconciliation (another of the Eight Great
Stupas of the Buddha). The stairs leading to the harmikā (square part at the spire’s
base, Cl. Mo. suulga) of Boudhanath stupa were not replicated in the Mongol
stupas.
— The “Jarung khashar” stupa of Khan öndriin khüree has a very large niche (Cl.
Mo. ger-ün üüde, “door”) projecting from the main face with a pointed-arch opening
that resembles the iwan’s arched gateway61 of Islamic architecture; inside the niche
Malla period, the Tibetans transformed the stupa into the mandala form it now has, perhaps
in imitation of the stupa of Gyantsé (rGyal rtse) Monastery in Tibet.
58
In figure 5, the stupas have lost their spires.
59
See the photos in the Albert Kahn collection. In the Chinese classification of stupas, a big
central stupa surrounded by four smaller stupas recalls the Mahabodhi of Bodh Gaya; this
type of stupa is called wuta (“five stupas”).
60
Nowadays at Boudhanath, at the northern (main) entrance there is a temple dedicated to
Hārītī with a pitched metallic roof between its two southern gates and a small Tibetan-like
building inside the precinct, left of the main gate. Inside the precinct are other smaller stupas
and shrines, including a Hindu shrine (see Tenzin Samphel 1998, 91–95, on the iconography
of Boudhanath, and notably about the goddess Pukasi, one of the eight mothers associated
with the eight sacred cemeteries). These shrines are not reproduced in the Mongol replicas.
61
The iwan is an element of Persian architecture that consists of a vaulted space that is open
on one rectangular facade featuring a large equilateral pointed arch.
Cross-Currents 31 | 105
Isabelle Charleux
one can distinguish a wooden door that may have opened to an inner shrine. The
interruption in the rows of small niches on the tiered round and square platforms
below the niche may indicate the presence of a staircase giving access to the inner
shrine. On the Gandan stupa, a central projecting niche has the same shape as the
tiled pavilions at the foot of the stupa, with a rounded-arch opening and tiled
eaves;62 it may also have been the entrance to an inner shrine. The reconstructed
stupa of Dambadarjaa khiid has an inner shrine that opens with a double-panel door
(figure 9). It has a rounded-arch decoration with the symbol of the Kālacakra, and
sculpted vajras63 around its aṇḍa. The presence of this large niche, which is missing
in the aṇḍa of Boudhanath stupa, may be explained, as we will see, by twodimensional images of Boudhanath.
— Two rows of small niches (for icons, perhaps) pierce the aṇḍa below the
large niche of the Jarung khashar of Khan öndriin khüree, and two other rows pierce
the square platforms (figures 4 and 5). The reduced aṇḍa of the stupa of Üüshin juu
is pierced by twenty-four niches. This row of niches is a distinctive feature of
Boudhanath stupa: just above the base of the dome, encircling its entire periphery is
a series of 108 recessed niches, each enshrining a sculpture of a Buddhist deity. 64
— Pairs of eyes are painted and/or carved on the four faces of the harmikā65 of
the Mongol stupas and of Baohuasi. This is the main characteristic that links the
Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas to Boudhanath stupa.66 In the Tibetan world, many
stupas that have no connection with Boudhanath stupa have painted eyes,67 but in
Mongolia, the only stupas with eyes were “Jarung khashar” stupas. As in
Boudhanath, the Jarung khashar of Gandan also had the nose symbol resembling a
question mark. Whose eyes are they? The eyes and curved nose-mark on the
harmikā of Boudhanath stupa are said to be the eyes of the ādibuddha (primordial
buddha of Vajrayāna Buddhism) symbolizing Enlightenment; it is believed that they
are self-emanating (Snodgrass 1985, 361). People at Dambadarjaa khiid say the
stupa has the eyes of Avalokiteśvara. The eyes on the Jarung khashar of Khejenge
are said to symbolize the all-seeing eyes of Buddha, who is ready to help at any time
(“Stupa Djarun-Khashor”). It is said that by praying and looking at the eyes of the
See photo no. 3984 in the Albert Kahn collection.
A vajra, or “thunderbolt-diamond,” is a ritual object symbolizing both the properties of a
diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force).
64
The niches enshrine stone images of the Nyingmapa pantheon: buddhas, bodhisattvas,
siddhas (accomplished masters), lamas, yidams/yi dams (tutelary deities of Vajrayāna
Buddhism personifying philosophical systems), ḍākinīs(female figures who personify
wisdom), and dharmapālas (wrathful guardians of the doctrine who vowed to defend the
Dharma and suppress the enemies of Buddhism).
65
The harmikā represents Buddha’s head. With slender eyes painted on the harmikā, the
“Jarung khashar” stupas of Gandan and Dambadarjaa look like human beings. The shape of
the stupa represents the Buddha, crowned and seated in meditation on a lion’s throne: his
crown is the top of the spire, his head is the harmikā, his body is the aṇḍa, his legs are the
steps of the lower terrace, and the base is his throne.
66
The eyes are also found on the Bhutanese replicas.
67
For example, the stupas of Gyantsé in Tibet, the northern stupa of Mukden/Shenyang in
China, and Swayambunath and Kathesimbu stupas in Kathmandu.
62
63
Cross-Currents 31 | 106
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
recently built Jarung khashar of Amarbayasgalant khiid, one gets rid of his or her
sins.68
— Except for the Gandan stupa, which had a round-based spire, the stupas
have the square-based spire (Skt. chattra, Cl. Mo. choingkhor) that is characteristic
of Boudhanath stupa.
— Whereas “traditional” Tibetan stupas are topped by the moon, the sun, and
a flame, all the Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas, similar to Boudhanath, are
crowned with a ganjir (treasure vase),69 which looks like a miniature stupa.
The eighteenth-century stupa of Baohuasi differs from the rest of our corpus,
yet although it may not be immediately detectable to an untrained eye, its
architecture shares the basic characteristics that allow us to identify a replica of
Boudhanath stupa: the four smaller stupas in the corners, the row of Buddha images
at the base of its aṇḍa, the eyes on the harmikā, the square-based spire, and the
ganjir on its summit.
To summarize, the Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas were separate objects of
worship within Mongol monasteries, and some of them may have had an inner
chamber. Their common characteristics were their large size, the eyes decorating
the harmikā, an aṇḍa with a slender or cylindrical shape (but always different from
the bottle shape) with small niches for images at its base and a large central niche
that could serve as the entrance to an inner shrine, and a ganjir pinnacle. Four or
eight smaller stupas surrounded them. The Jarung khashar closest to Boudhanath is
that of Khan öndriin khüree. Many of the characteristics of Boudhanath were not
“translated” to Mongolia, such as the platforms with recessing shapes and the
surrounding walls with prayer wheels.70 Even if the Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas
do not exactly “respect the program” of Boudhanath, they are clearly differentiated,
by their architectural characteristics and size, from the other types of Mongol
stupas. This is what Wood, writing about medieval European architectural replicas,
calls the “principle of negative differentiation”: “It did not matter how…closely it
[the program] was respected, so long as the resulting building was sufficiently
differentiated from another building that belonged to a different token family, or to
no token family” (2008, 45).71 Wood stresses that though the resemblance to the
See “Selenge aimagiin 7 gaikhamshig” (http://mongolcom.mn/like/15170) and
“Shaltagan tögöldör bolgutai”(https://news.mn/r/641185/). An “ordinary” bottle-shaped
stupa called Stupa of Enlightenment and Suppression of Negative Energy, built in Iki-Burul,
Republic of Kalmykia, in 2004, has eyes painted on each side of its harmikā “in accordance
with the Nepalese Nyingma tradition.” According to the monastery’s abbot Padma Sherab,
they represent the eyes of Avalokiteśvara (Gazizova 2009, 48).
69
Cl. Mo. ganjir or sang tegülder, Skt. kalāsa, Tib. dzöden/mdzod ldan or dzödang/mdzod
bdang).
70
This wall is probably a later addition built around 1860 (Czaja 2015, 88n7, quoting
Gutschow 1997, 68).
71
For Wood (2008, 45–48), “this principle of negative differentiation from the surrounding
context explains the strong local flavor of so many of the medieval European replicas of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.” One or two salient features, such as the central ground plan
and specific proportions, were enough to connect the Holy Sepulchre to its architectural
replicas.
68
Cross-Currents 31 | 107
Isabelle Charleux
original is not always perceivable to modern eyes and minds, which have at their
disposal photographs of the building of reference, in an earlier time minimum
criteria of resemblance sufficed to transmit the essence of the prime building. These
selected criteria “reveal to modern observers which aspects of building a historical
culture considered most important” (2008, 44).
The Media: Paintings and Prints
How did Mongols know about the architecture of Boudhanath? Because the
guidebook to Boudhanath does not contain any physical descriptions of the stupa, it
was of no use in making replicas. Knowledge of the stupa’s architecture may have
been transmitted instead by paintings, xylograph prints, and scale models. As
mentioned earlier, the Jarung khashar of Khan öndriin khüree was modeled on an
“image,” and lamas from Üüshin juu traveled to South Asia to study and make
sketches of the “original.”72 Similarly, during the eighteenth century, the founder of
Chorten Kora in Bhutan set out on a journey to Boudhanath and returned home with
a model of the stupa that had been quickly made out of radish. “By the time they
arrived home the radish model had shrunk distorting the shape. As a result, the
stupa or chorten, particularly the one at Teashi [sic] Yangtse, underwent some
changes in design especially in the level of galleries” (Lam Kezang Chhophel 2002, 2–
3). The story of the deterioration of the media—here, a radish—may, of course,
have been invented to justify the replica’s differences from its model.
Scale models of Boudhanath stupa were kept in monasteries of Eastern Tibet
and Mongolia (Czaja 2015, 91 and figs. 7 and 8) (figure 16),73 but paintings and
xylograph prints were much more common (see table 2).74 Do the inaccuracies of
these paintings and prints explain, as in the case of the Chengde temples, some of
the characteristics of the architectural replicas? Conversely, some of the twodimensional images may have been made after a Mongol architectural replica.
Because none of these paintings and prints are dated,75 we have no answer to this
question, but this may have been the case with thangka no. 13 (table 2). This print
that shows Jarung khashar with many small stupas on its terraces may have served
as a model for the recent reconstruction of the Jarung khashar of Khejenge, of which
apparently no ancient image is known (figure 15).
The replicas of Bodh Gaya in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and Pegu (Myanmar) were also based
on plans and drawings made by architects and craftsmen sent in mission to India (Griswold
1965, 185, 187).
73
For an example in Tibet, see the Qing dynasty “Sandalwood Promise Pagoda,” 28.5 x 20.4
cms (Yan 2000, 4:162–163, fig. 68).
74
Table 2 is attached to the end of the article.
75
According to Deborah Ashencaen and Gennady Leonov (1996, pl. 9), thangka no. 4 of table
2 is eighteenth-century, but the nineteenth century seems more plausible.
72
Cross-Currents 31 | 108
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Figure 16. “Am-aldasan [Ama aldasan] stupa made by silver casting and hammering,” MIBA
collection, Ulaanbaatar. Source: Pürevbat (2005, 376, fig. 245).
Table 2 presents a few examples of Mongol paintings and prints divided into
four categories: (1) paintings depicting Boudhanath with some of its characteristic
features (figure 17); (2) xylograph prints from Buryatia depicting Boudhanath (figure
18); (3) prints depicting a bottle-shaped Tibetan stupa with Avalokiteśvara, with a
text that refers to Jarung khashar (figure 19); and (4) prints depicting Boudhanath
along with other stupas (figures 20 and 21).76 Several prints come from the same
matrix (table 2).
These thangkas have a few common characteristics. First of all, several of the
prints include in their lower registers a Tibetan text briefly describing the legend of
the foundation of Boudhanath and its religious significance and have mantras
written in Tibetan, Mongolian, and/or Lantsa77 on the terraces and/or below the
stupa (table 2, nos. 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 24). Typically, in East Asia, the making of
xylograph printed images with a prayer at the bottom, distributed or sold to
devotees, reflects the great worship of a holy site. These cheap, mass-produced
prints were distributed or sold on pilgrimage sites; devotees used to worship them
on their home altar, or fold them (figure 21) and use them as amulets in portable
reliquaries that were carried to bring good luck and fulfill wishes. These prints were
kept in laypeople’s homes for private worship and were usually circulated more than
thangkas.78
For a detailed study of some thangkas and prints depicting Boudhanath stupa, see Czaja
(2015).
77
Lañtsa or Rañjanā, a Brahmi script developed in Nepal, is commonly used in Mongolia for
formulas of consecration and other mantras.
78
For an example of a printed image with a prayer to a famous icon in the Mongol world, the
sandalwood Buddha of Beijing, see Charleux (2015a, 137 and fig. 28).
76
Cross-Currents 31 | 109
Isabelle Charleux
Figure 17. Thangka, 72 x 109 cms, Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, no. 8125-2968. Source:
Fleming and Shastri (2011, 1, cat. 435).
Figure 18. Large colored print depicting “Jarung khashar” stupa, Buryatia. Private collection
of Michel Tournet, France. Photo by the author.
Cross-Currents 31 | 110
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
The prayer below the large prints nos. 9 and 10 in table 2 (figure 18)
summarizes the story of Boudhanath stupa (see Appendix 2), lists the immediate
and long-term benefits generated in making this print, and advises those who want
to learn more details about the history of this stupa to consult the karchak (dkar
chag, i.e., the guidebook), which “liberates upon hearing” it. Interestingly, the stupa
is located in “the region of Makuti” (perhaps Magadha in India) “in Nepal,” thus
conflating the two different locations of pre- and post-fourteenth-century Tibetan
sources. The last sentence says that it has been printed at “Ago’i chos sde chen mo
bde chen lhun grubs gling” (i.e., Aga datsan in Buryatia)—the same monastery
where the guidebook was printed. The prayer of print no. 24 (table 2), which aimed
at increasing benefits and merit, is a request (or petition) addressed to Boudhanath,
and specifies that it was also printed at Aga datsan.79 Most of these prints appear to
have been made in Mongol monasteries, at least ten of them in Buryatia. There also
exist Nepalese and Tibetan thangkas depicting Boudhanath stupa,80 and some of the
Mongol prints and paintings may have taken a Nepalese, Tibetan, or Mongol
thangka as a model: we can imagine a multiplicity of intermediate media copying
each other.
Most of the thangkas depict Boudhanath stupa surrounded by four smaller
stupas on its first and third platforms, eyes and sometimes a nose on the harmikā,
decorations on the aṇḍa, and a miniature stupa on top. They usually have three
terraces of diminishing sizes plus two levels with curved angles, the upper one being
decorated with niches containing buddhas (table 2, nos. 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 14–17); or a
Sumeru base supporting three terraces of diminishing sizes (nos. 4, 9–12). Thangka
no. 6 of table 2 has five levels or terraces with curved angles standing on a Sumeru
base. Offerings to the five senses, as well as a deer and an elephant (perhaps
referring to the elephant of the story), are often depicted in the lower register.
In most images, two symmetrical shrines stand on the first terrace. The shape
of the roof in thangkas nos. 4 and 9 to 12 (table 2) is different—conical on the left,
curved on the right—which seems to correspond to the two pavilions in front of
Boudhanath stupa that existed more than a hundred and fifty years ago (Czaja 2015,
fig. 1). But in thangkas nos. 1 and 2, 5–8, and 14–17 (table 2), these are two
symmetrical Chinese-style tiled pavilions, like at the “Jarung khashar” stupas of Khan
öndriin khüree and Gandan. Inside these shrines are depicted, or designated by their
names and mantras, four-armed Avalokiteśvara (on one side) and Vajrapāṇi or
Padmasambhava (on the other side); we do not know the identity of the deities in
the pavilions of the architectural replicas. In several thangkas, a central flight of
steps or a ramp giving access to the great niche is decorated with bricks or
geometrical motifs. Some stupas are raised on a Sumeru pedestal decorated at its
center with a tapestry with golden motifs or a Chinese-style dragon that evokes a
carpet or a marble ramp of Beijing’s Forbidden City (table 2, nos. 4, 6, 9–12).
Other inscriptions are translated in Czaja (2015, 92–94).
In Western collections, several Nepalese paintings depict Boudhanath stupa (see, for
example, Czaja 2015, fig. 9).
79
80
Cross-Currents 31 | 111
Isabelle Charleux
The aṇḍa of the stupas in thangkas nos 4, 9–13, and 21–24 of table 2
reproduces Boudhanath’s hemispherical shape.81 Others have a round or bell-like
shape. On the embroidered thangka in the Rubin Museum of Art (table 2, no. 3), the
aṇḍa has a more elongated shape recalling that of the Gandan stupa. In some prints,
the aṇḍa looks like that of bottle-shaped Tibetan stupas (figure 19 and table 2, nos.
14–17): only the Tibetan inscription that gives a brief history of Boudhanath allows
us to identify them with the Nepalese stupa.
Figure 19. Print on cotton depicting “Jarung khashar” stupa. Private collection of Michel
Tournet, France. Photo by the author.
Another particularity of the two-dimensional images is that most of them
depict Eleven-Faced (ekadaśamukha) Mahākarunika Avalokiteśvara in the large
niche of their aṇḍa (in only in one case, no. 8 of table 2, Avalokiteśvara is replaced
by Uṣṇīṣavijayā, who is traditionally depicted inside a stupa). The deity was probably
81
Table 2, thangka no. 24 shows the stairs leading to the harmikā.
Cross-Currents 31 | 112
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
thought to reside inside the aṇḍa, but in two-dimensional media he or she is
represented in front of the aṇḍa, and his or her halo or mandorla looks like a large
niche (figure 17). It is possible that the halo of the architectural replicas modeled on
paintings and prints was understood as being a niche carved in the aṇḍa or even an
inner shrine containing an image of Avalokiteśvara (there is no such large niche in
the aṇḍa of Boudhanath). We can make the hypothesis that the large niche or inner
shrine of the Mongol architectural replicas enshrined an image of this bodhisattva.82
Why is Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara depicted in these thangkas? At the
beginning of the “Legend of the [stupa] known as Jarung khashor” guidebook,
Avalokiteśvara sheds two tears when he realizes that it is not possible to save all
living beings, and the two teardrops are transmuted into two daughters of King
Indra. One of the daughters is reincarnated as the poultry woman at the origin of
the construction of the stupa. The text of thangkas nos. 10 and 11 (table 2, figure 9,
and Appendix 2) simplifies the story, since it presents the poultry keeper Jadzima as
the reincarnation of Avalokiteśvara. However, in Nepal and Tibet, Boudhanath stupa
is not associated with Avalokiteśvara; the presence of Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara
seems to be a Mongol specificity. The bodhisattva of compassion was worshipped
especially in several monasteries that had a “Jarung khashar” stupa: Dambadarjaa
khiid was famous for a sandalwood statue of Avalokiteśvara Lokeśvara (Cl. Mo.
Logshir); and in Gandan the Migjid janraiseg Temple, built in 1911–1913, housed a
25-meter statue of Eye-Healing Avalokiteśvara (Migjid janraiseg).
It is likely that the images coming from Khalkha Mongolia (table 2, nos. 14–20
and figure 19) as well as thangka no. 2 (table 2) showing Boudhanath as a bottleshaped stupa with four smaller stupas at the corners, three platforms and a
staircase, two identical pavilions with a Chinese tiled roof, and a large image of
Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara in the central niche served as models for the
architectural replica of Gandan Monastery (figure 7).
Images 21 to 24 show Boudhanath stupa with one or two other stupas:
Swayambunath and the stupa of Dhānyakaṭaka83 in India, or Namo Buddha), the
Stupa of the Offering of the Body to the Tigress, on the site in Nepal where in a
previous life, Śākyamuni is said to have have offered his body to the tigress
according to a well-known Jataka (figures 20 and 21). On prints nos. 22 and 23 (table
2 and figure 20), the central stupa is identified as Swayambhūnāth and Boudhanath
is depicted on the right side; it has no eyes and its harmikā is decorated with the
same crown as that of Swayambunath. Because of the presence of the five animals
raised by the Mongols (the “five muzzles”), these images may have functioned as
protective amulets.
Because Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara became especially associated with Boudhanath stupa
in Mongolia, Olaf Czaja believes that three other prints of the Leder collection dedicated to
Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara are a “symbolic depiction” of Boudhanath: Leipzig inv. no. 3453,
Stuttgart inv. no. 23895, 24387
(http://www.moncol.net/mongolia/museum/itemdetailview/id/3278).
83
The Dhānyakaṭaka stupa is also depicted on Mongol thangkas: see a thangka in the former
Kālacakra College of Ikh Khüree, now preserved at Gandan Monastery (Croner 2006, 67). It is
the place where Śākyamuni (who actually was at Vulture’s Peak and used his gift of ubiquity)
taught the Kālacakra sūtra to Sucandra coming from the kingdom of Shambhala.
82
Cross-Currents 31 | 113
Isabelle Charleux
Figure 20. Print depicting Swayambunath (center), the stupa of Dhānyakaṭaka, and
Boudhanath, above the five Mongol “muzzles.” Private collection of Michel Tournet, France.
Photo by the author.
Figure 21. Print depicting Boudhanath (center), Pakpa shingkün chorten (’Phags pa shing kun
mchod rten—i.e., Swayambunath) (left) and Takmo lüjin (right). Printed at Aga datsan.
Source: Private collection, Russia.84
84
I thank Vladimir Uspensky for having sent me a photograph of this print.
Cross-Currents 31 | 114
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
To summarize, the transmission of the architectural knowledge of Boudhanath
stupa through block prints and paintings explains the presence of not only the wellknown characteristics of the original, such as the eyes on the harmikā, but also some
interpretations and additions, such as the slender or cylindrical shape of the aṇḍa,
the four smaller stupas, the large central niche, and the transformation of the
platforms of the Mongol Jarung khashar. They allow us to make hypotheses about
the iconography in the central niche or inner shrine (perhaps Avalokiteśvara) and in
the two lateral pavilions of the architectural replicas.
Interestingly, two different modern drawings of Boudhanath published in the
monumental study of stupas by the great Mongolian monk-artist Pürevbat85 repeat
some of the characteristics seen in thangkas: one has a large central niche piercing
the aṇḍa; the second has the crown of Swayambhunath. Both of them have five
platforms instead of three, and four smaller stupas stand on the two lower
platforms (figure 22).
Figure 22. Two drawings of “Am-aldsan [Ama aldasan] stupa at Boudhanath,
Kathmandu, Nepal.” Source: Pürevbat (2005, 169 and 526, fig. 352).
85
He founded the Zanabazar Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art of Gandan Monastery.
Cross-Currents 31 | 115
Isabelle Charleux
Twenty-First-Century Replicas of Jarung Khashar
More than ten years after Buddhism was revived in the postcommunist societies of
Mongolia, China, and Buryatia, the stupas of Dambadarjaa khiid, Üüshin juu, and
Khejenge Monastery were rebuilt or restored. In addition, two new “Jarung khashar”
stupas were constructed: a huge stupa named Ama aldasan in Mongolia, popularly
known as the “stupa with eyes,” was erected thanks to donations from many
devotees and consecrated in July 2010; it is located on a hill above Amarbayasgalant
khiid, not far from the Russian border (figure 23). Nearby on the hill, the mantras of
the three main bodhisattvas—Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, and Vajrapāṇi—are spelled
out in white stones. This new construction was built in honor of Gurudeva (Sogpo)
Rinpoché: after he left his monastery near Boudhanath in 1992, he became the
abbot of Amarbayasgalant khiid, which he restored aided by fundraising. The Jarung
khashar was built just after Sogpo Rinpoché—a major figure of the revival of
Buddhism in Mongolia—passed away. Nowadays a few wealthy pilgrims from
Ulaanbaatar make special pilgrimages to Boudhanath and visit the monastery of
Gurudeva Rinpoché.86
Figure 23. “Jarung khashar” stupa, Amarbayasgalant khiid, Selenge Province, Mongolia.
Photo by Marissa Smith.
In 2012, Pürevbat built a similar stupa, called the Kālacakra stupa, on a hill in
the Gobi Desert of Dornogovi Province, Mongolia. It is 46 meters high and 90 meters
in diameter (the width of the lower platform)—even larger than Boudhanath stupa,
According to Katia Buffetrille (pers. comm., 2011), quoting information from the
Mongolian consulate in Nepal.
86
Cross-Currents 31 | 116
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
but its name does not make any reference to Jarung khashar (Sue Byrne, personal
communication, 2017).87 It is not clear why it is called Kālacakra. That symbol is also
seen on the modern stupas of Dambadarjaa khiid and Wutaishan’s Baohuasi, and it
often decorates Mongol temples and stupas.
The architecture of the rebuilt stupas of Dambadarjaa khiid and Üüshin juu
make an attempt at faithfulness not only to old photographs but also to peoples’
memories—a new element in the chain of replications. The new stupas of
Amarbayasgalant khiid and Dornogovi Province are much closer to the Boudhanath
stupa, in their monumentality and general shape. This is also the case of another
replica of the Nepalese stupa built in the 1990s in Lungngön (Lung sngon)
Monastery, Golok (mGo log) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Amdo (northeastern
Tibet, now in Qinghai Province, China), which is slightly larger than the original.
Nearby are replicas of Samyé Monastery, of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya
and other Buddhist sites in India and Tibet. As shown by Buffetrille (2015), the
construction of such replicas is a new phenomenon in Tibet.88 The founder of
Lungngön Monastery, Kusum Lingpa (sKu gsum gling pa, 1934–2009), is affiliated
with the rimé (ris med) nonsectarian movement.89 This replica of Boudhanath has an
inner shrine that contains a library and statues (Buffetrille 2015, 144). Other replicas
of Boudhanath stupa are being built in Tibetan regions, notably near Derge (sDe
dge) in Kham, present-day Sichuan Province, China (Kunsang Namgyal Lama,
personal communication, 2018).
Conclusion
Replicas of Boudhanath stupa apparently functioned as surrogate pilgrimage sites
linking Mongolia to South Asia. This direct connection between Mongolia and South
Asia is also found in the recognition of high Mongol lamas as being reincarnations of
Tibetan saints and, ultimately, Indian kings in Mongolian Buddhist chronicles.
We have little information on the motivations of the builders, but we can guess
that religious motivations (to acquire merit and generate incommensurable
blessings) were mixed with political ones. Boudhanath may have become more
popular and “efficacious” than Bodh Gaya in the Mongols’ imagination because it
was said to fulfill all kinds of wishes, and because of the popularity of its guidebook
and legend.
The replicas of Boudhanath appear in two main periods of history: the
nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries—a time that coincides with the
translation into Mongolian of the Tibetan guidebook, the making of numerous
thangkas, and actual pilgrimages to Boudhanath—and the twenty-first century,
when Buddhism was revived in Mongolia, Buryatia, and China after years of
persecution, in a context of both globalization and the rise of nationalism. Several
Also see “Khram-stupa Kalachakry v Gobi” (http://mongoloved.org/2012/11/).
A replica of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya was also recently built on Wutaishan.
89
This was a nonsectarian, universalistic movement that developed in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century eastern Tibet and held that all Buddhist traditions were valuable and
worthy of study and preservation.
87
88
Cross-Currents 31 | 117
Isabelle Charleux
“Jarung khashar” stupas were built or rebuilt, and the guidebook was retranslated
and reprinted. In Amarbayasgalant khiid and Khejenge, the construction of a Jarung
khashar is linked to religious and diplomatic contacts with Nepal. Because of their
respective locations near the northern border with Russia and the southern border
with China, the stupa of Amarbayasgalant khiid and the Kālacakra stupa of
Dornogovi symbolically protect the frontiers of the Republic of Mongolia.90 The use
of photography as a new medium has led to a certain faithfulness in outward
appearance either to the former “Jarung khashar” stupas or to Boudhanath stupa,
though today most modern replicas have an inner shrine.
Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas were often associated with other stupas,
notably with those corresponding to the eight major events of Buddha’s life—Khan
öndriin khüree had a dozen stupas; Gandan Monastery, twenty-eight; and Üüshin
juu, three large and 108 smaller ones. The stupas erected outside Gandan were
located in a place that was accessible to laypeople (who were not allowed to enter
the monastery itself): the Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas appear to have been
major places of devotion for laypeople. Devotees circumambulated the “Jarung
khashar” stupas, but they could not practice the ascending circumambulations of
the three platforms toward the dome symbolizing the three levels of initiation into
the mandala stupa and progression toward liberation, as in Boudhanath.
Several “Jarung khashar” stupas had an inner shrine, perhaps with an icon of
Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara (we have no information on the rituals performed in
the inner shrine or whether it was accessible to laypeople). Stupas are not supposed
to have an accessible inner chamber: being originally funerary barrows, their main
function in the Buddhist world is to enshrine precious relics and symbolize
Enlightenment; after construction, the monument is sealed off. But some of the
Mongol “Jarung khashar” stupas were both a form and an interior space: thus, the
stupa was transformed into a different type of ritual site. This was also the case of
the wuta of Beijing and Hohhot: the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya was
understood as being a stupa,91 yet one can enter their inner shrine as one would
enter a temple to worship images. Like the replica of the Mahabodhi Temple in
Hohhot, the “Jarung khashar” stupas were thus considered as being something
between the stupa and the temple.
Mongol replicas of Boudhanath stupa have become a new type of stupa clearly
differentiated from other stupas. Some of their characteristics can be explained by
distortions of two-dimensional media that certainly played a role in the process of
transmitting the image, together with its cult, to Mongolia. But other differences
from Boudhanath stupa may simply not have mattered at all to the builders and
worshippers, provided that these replicas reproduced what were considered the
essential features: the lowest common denominators, such as the size and the eyes.
The octagonal stupa of Üüshin juu, though locally known as Jarung khashar, is
erroneously presented as a replica of the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya both by
It is possible that Pürevbat built the Kālacakra stupa on the Mongolian southern border to
mirror that of Amarbayasgalant.
91
The Tabun suburga of Hohhot is not a temple but a mandala stupa of the Five Tathāgatas
with a central tower surrounded by four smaller towers (Charleux 2006a).
90
Cross-Currents 31 | 118
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Delege, an Inner Mongol specialist of Mongol Buddhism, and on the information
boards within the monastery.92 Mongols remember the legend of “Jarung
khashar”—the story of the construction and its karmic consequences—but link it to
Boudhanath stupa in Nepal, and think it is a mythical place. The “translation” was so
successful that in some cases it led to a complete indigenization, to the point that
the original was forgotten: Jarung khashar has become a type of Mongol stupa that
fulfills all kinds of wishes and is associated with Avalokiteśvara; the foundation
legend has even been recycled to integrate events of the communist history.
Nowadays Mongols from the Republic of Mongolia are often discouraged from
undertaking pilgrimages abroad; their lamas generally advise them to go to Khamryn
khiid, the “Gate of Shambhala” in Dornogovi Province, or to Amarbayasgalant khiid,
and tell them that these two pilgrimages are equivalent to a pilgrimage abroad.93
Like the Mahabodhi, and images and relics said to have come from ancient India,
Boudhanath stupa has been relocated in Mongolia, and these replicas have
functioned as key objects in rooting Buddhist faith in Mongolia. Eventually, over the
course of time, some replicas in their turn came to be viewed as independent
artifacts and the prime object was forgotten (see Charleux 2015a about the Jowo [Jo
bo] images). Local replicas allowed pilgrims to appropriate the power of the original
and, at the same time, could be used to legitimize political power; they are part of
the fashioning of a distinct Mongol Buddhist identity.
Appendix 1: Mentions of Jarung Khashor in Mongolian Historiographical Works
The story of vows of reincarnations that originated in the stupa’s construction is
found in three passages of Sagang sechen’s Erdeni-yin tobci (1662), which are
repeated in Galdan’s Erdeni-yin erike (1859). I did not find it in other Mongolian
chronicles, such as Lubsangdanjin’s Altan tobci (seventeenth century), Rasipungsug’s
Bolor erike (ca. 1774–1775), Arya Pandita mKhan po’s Altan erike (1817), or
Gongcugjab’s Subud erike (1835).
In Erdeni-yin tobci and Erdeni-yin erike, the story is evoked in the chapter on the
early history of Buddhism in Tibet (Krueger 1967, 21–22; Galdan [1859] 1999, 89–
91). The first mention of the angry elephant is when King Songtsen Gampo (Srong
btsan sgam po, d. 649), who is credited with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet,
sends an emanation of himself (qubilγan toyin) in South India to rediscover an
eleven-headed image located beneath a marvelous but fallen sandalwood tree.
“Thereupon, from beneath the stupa consecrated by Kāshyapa buddha, named the
Wheel of Flowers [seceg kürdün], he [the emanation] reverently brought forth [lit.,
“invited”] many relics of the three Buddhas” (Krueger 1967, 22; Galdan [1859] 1999,
89–90). However, to dig the earth, the emanation had to disturb a mighty elephant
named Arza vartan (Airāvata or Arajavartan) that was lying there: the elephant then
“uttered an evil prayer, ‘Your Transformation-King forgot me of old when he
requested sanctity. Now my cool place has been disturbed. Let me, in a future
The error may have occurred because the stupa’s interior recalled the large vaulted room
inside the Tabun suburga “Mahabodhi” of Hohhot.
93
According to interviews carried out between 2009 and 2013 about Mongols’ pilgrimages.
92
Cross-Currents 31 | 119
Isabelle Charleux
rebirth, be reborn and become a mighty king who will destroy your religion,’”
(Krueger 1967, 22; see also Galdan [1859] 1999, 90).
When the object of veneration (sitügen)—the image and, I assume, the relics—
are brought back to the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo explains the elephant’s curse
and recalls his previous incarnation when he was the son of “Degedü Amugulang”
(Sublime Peace, referring to Déchokma, the poultry keeper) in ancient India and
erected a stupa called “Bsharung kashuur” (Sagang Sechen) or “Byarung qshovar”
(Galdan):
“[W]hen I was requesting sanctity [qutuγ guyu-] before it, there was
there an ox [a donkey in the original story], which had hauled earth
to it. Forgetting him, and not conferring a blessing [on him], that ox
was extremely angry, and uttered an evil prayer. I likewise laid down
a counter-prayer. Now this elephant in his present rebirth, through
having lain over this powerful faith-beholding object, has had his
angry thoughts pacified. In the future, it will be easy to cause him to
be tamed. I’m going to be that selfsame adversary who shall cause
him to be tamed,” did he declaim. (Krueger 1967, 22; see also
Galdan [1859] 1999, 89–91)
The story of the vows of reincarnation is again evoked when King Trison Détsen
plans to build a temple called Nom-un kürdün süme, “Monastery of the Dharma
Wheel” (Samyé Monastery). To convince Padmasambhava to come to Tibet and
tame the local demons, Śāntarakṣita—here called bodhisattva Gambu (Tib.
khenpo/mkhan po, “abbot”), or ubadani (Skt. upādhyāya, “teacher” or “instructor”)
bodhisattva—says to the king that “there is an ancient invocation [irügel] able to
make him come,” and tells him the story of Degedü Amugulang’s three sons from
three different fathers, their building of the stupa called “Bsharung kasuur/Bvarung
kashuvar,” and their vows of reincarnation owing to their meritorious deeds,
respectively as “a mighty Cakravarti King, Lord of the Alms of Religion,” “a great
ubadani who will maintain religion,” and “a great dhāraṇī-expert, who will purge the
obstacles of religion.” “In accord with the pronouncement [jarliγ] of that former
bodhisattva, Padmasambhava would have no other choice but go to Tibet and tame
the local demons, and this is what happened” (Krueger 1967, 32; see also Galdan
[1859] 1999, 103–104).
The third occurrence involves King Langdarma’s persecution of Buddhism and
promotion of the “black faith.” This is explained by the fact that he was “a rebirth of
that former elephant, and by reason of having made that evil oath and by evil
inclination.” But when the king was sixty-three, “when it reached the time for
placing (in effect) that former counter-oath,” he was assassinated by a lama named
Lharung cogtu Vajra (Tib. Lhalung Palgyi Dorjé/Lha lung dpal gyi rdo rje) to prevent
the Dharma from being entirely effaced from Tibet: he was “the sure qubilgan
[khubilgan, “reincarnation”] of elevated King Srong-bzan skampo” (Krueger 1967,
37; see also Galdan [1859] 1999, 109–110).
The Mongolian sources do not identify the stupa of Jarung khashar with
Boudhanath (as stated above, in Tibetan sources “Jarung khashor” was said to be
Cross-Currents 31 | 120
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
located in Magadha before the legend was transferred to Boudhanath in the
fourteenth century). Besides, the references to the story focus not on the stupa
itself but on the oaths of reincarnations to explain the rise and fall of Buddhism in
early Tibetan history. The modern Mongolian name of the stupa, Ama aldasan
(“making of an oath, a promise”), can be understood as both the king’s answer (Cl.
Mo. üiledjü bolona gejü ama aldasan ni, lit., “I made the promise [that she could]
proceed with the work”) and as a reference to the oaths of reincarnation of the
protagonists of the story.
Appendix 2: Translation of the Text of Figure 18, by Françoise Wang-Toutain
Namo guru. Here is the story of the great stupa known as Jarung Kashor [Tib. Bya
rung kha shor] that was told by Orgyen Rinpoché [that is, Padmasambhava] at the
request of King Trison Détsen:
In very ancient times, at the feet of the Tathāgata Amitābha, the
great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara had made the wish to liberate all
beings from samsara. Later on, at the time of Buddha Dipankara, in
the region of Makuti in Nepal, he was reborn as the woman Bya rdzi
ma [poultry keeper]. With her four sons and a servant, she built this
stupa. As for the benefits [of its worship]: by making the depiction
of this site, as well as offerings and circumambulations, in the short
term one will obtain wealth, have neither hunger nor thirst nor
diseases, obtain longevity, be endowed with respect for ethics, and
have a sound knowledge of the Tripiṭaka; and in the longer term,
one will be reborn in Sukhāvatī. If one wants to have more details
about the history of this stupa and the benefits [of its worship], he
or she should have a look at the karchak that liberates just by
listening to its reading. This was printed at [honorary sign] Ago’i
chos sde chen mo bde chen lhun grubs gling.
References
Ashencaen, Deborah, and Gennady Leonov. 1996. Art of Buriatia: Buddhist Icons
from Southern Siberia. London: Spink and Son.
Béguin, Gilles. 1993. “Les sources de Zanabazar.” In Trésors de Mongolie, XVIIe–XIXe
siècles [Treasures of Mongolia, seventeenth–nineteenth centuries], edited by
Françoise Aubin and Gilles Béguin, 64–81. Paris: Réunion des musées
nationaux.
Bĕlka, Luboš. 2001. Tibetsky buddhismus v Burjatsku [Tibetan Buddhism in Buryatia].
Brno, Czech Republic: Masarykova Univerzita.
Berger, Patricia. 2003. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in
Qing China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Blondeau, Anne-Marie. 1982–1983. “Religions tibétaines” [Tibetan
religions]. Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Ve section, Sciences
religieuses 91: 123–131.
Cross-Currents 31 | 121
Isabelle Charleux
———. 1994. “Bya rung kha shor, légende fondatrice du bouddhisme tibétain” [Bya
rung kha shor, founding legend of Tibetan Buddhism]. In Tibetan Studies:
Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan
Studies, Fagernes 1992, vol. 1, edited by Per Kvaerne, 31–48. Oslo: Institute for
Comparative Research in Human Culture.
Buffetrille, Katia. 2015. “Some Remarks on Bya rung Kha shor and Other Buddhist
Replicas in Amdo.” In From Bhakti to Bon: Festschrift for Per Kværne, edited by
Hanna Havnevik and Charles Ramble, 133–152. Oslo: Institute for Comparative
Research in Human Culture.
Charleux, Isabelle. 2006a. “Copies de Bodhgayā en Asie orientale: Les stupas de type
Wuta à Pékin et Kökeqota (Mongolie-Intérieure)” [Copies of Bodh Gaya in East
Asia: The Wuta-type stupas in Beijing and Kökeqota (Inner Mongolia)]. Arts
Asiatiques—L’autre en regard, Volume en hommage à Madame Michèle
Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens 61: 120–142.
———. 2006b. Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure [Temples and
monasteries of Inner Mongolia]. Paris: Comité des Travaux Historiques et
Scientifiques and Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (+ 1 CD-ROM).
———. 2015a. “The Mongols’ Devotion to the Jowo Buddhas: The True Icons and
Their Mongol Replicas.” Artibus Asiae 75 (1): 83–146.
———. 2015b. Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800–1940.
Leiden: Brill.
Chayet, Anne. 1985. Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains [The temples of
Chengde and their Tibetan models]. Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations.
Chou, Wen-shing. 2015. “Imperial Apparitions: Manchu Buddhism and the Cult of
Mañjuśrī.” Archives of Asian Art 65 (1–2): 139–179.
Coleman, Simon, and John Elsner, eds. 1995. Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the
World Religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Croner, Don. 2006. Guide to the Locales Connected with the Life of Zanabazar, First
Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: BookSurge Publishing.
Czaja, Olaf. 2013. “Tsaklis, Thangkas, Prints, Amulets and Manuscripts.” In The
Mongolian Collections: Retracing Hans Leder, edited by Maria-Katharina Lang
and Stefan Bauer, 38–52. Verlag: VÖAW.
———. 2015. “Some Remarks on Representations of the Bodhnath Stupa in Art and
Architecture in Tibet, Mongolia and Buryatia.” In The Illuminating Mirror:
Tibetan Studies in Honour of Per K. Sørensen on the Occasion of His 65th
Birthday, edited by Olaf Czaja and Guntram Hazod, 87–100, 581–589.
Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.
Daajav, B. 2006. Mongolyn uran barilgyn tüükh [History of Mongol architecture]. 3
vols. Ulaanbaatar: Admon.
Delege 德勒格. 1998. Nei Menggu lamajiao shi 內蒙古喇嘛教史 [History of
“Lamaism” in Inner Mongolia]. Hohhot: Nei Menggu renmin chubanshe.
Dowman, Keith, trans. [1973] 1993. The Great Stupa of Boudhanath: The Tibetan
Legend of the Great Stupa. Ballyvaughan: Footprint Publishing.
Ehrhard, Franz-Karl. 1990. “The Stupa of Bodhnāth: A Preliminary Analysis of the
Written Sources.” Ancient Nepal 120 (1): 1–9.
Cross-Currents 31 | 122
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
———. 2007. “A Forgotten Incarnation Lineage: The Yol mo ba Sprul skus (16th to
18th Centuries).” In The Pandita and the Siddha: Tibetan Studies in Honour of E.
Gene Smith, edited by Ramon N. Prats, 25–49. New Delhi: Amnye Machen.
———. 2013. “Old and New Tibetan Sources Concerning Swayambhūnāth.” In
Buddhism in Tibet and the Himalayas: Texts and Traditions, by Franz-Karl
Ehrhard, 71–91. Kathmandu: Vajra Publications.
Epstein, Lawrence, and Wenbin Peng. 1994. “Ganja and Murdo: The Social
Construction of Space at Two Pilgrimage Sites in Eastern Tibet.” Tibet Journal
(special issue: Powerful Places and Spaces in Tibetan Religious Culture) 19 (2):
21–45.
Fleming, Zara, and Jadamba Lkhagvademchig Shastri, eds. 2011. Mongolian Buddhist
Art: Masterpieces from the Museums of Mongolia, vol. 1, parts 1–2: Thangkas,
Embroideries, and Appliqués. Chicago, IL: Serindia Publications/Ministry of
Education, Culture and Science, and the Centre for Cultural Heritage, Mongolia.
Galdan tusalaγci. [1859] 1999. Erdeni-yin erike [Bejewelled rosary]. Edited by
Ardajab. Hohhot: Öbör Mongγol-un arad-un keblel-un qoriya.
Gayley, Holly. 2007. “Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism.” Numen 54:
459–499.
Gazizova, Valeria. 2009. “Stupas and Their Consecration in Contemporary Kalmykia.”
MA thesis, University of Oslo.
Griswold, Alexander B. 1965. “The Holy Land Transported: Replicas of the
Mahābodhi Shrine in Siam and Elsewhere.” In Paranavitana Felicitation Volume
on Art and Architecture and Oriental Studies, edited by Nicholas A.
Jayawickrama, 173–222. Colombo: M. D. Gunasena and Co.
Gutschow, Neils. 1997. The Nepalese Chaitya: 1500 years of Buddhist Votive
Architecture in the Kathmandu Valley. Stuttgart: Axel Menges.
Haslund-Christensen, Henning. 1935. Men and Gods in Mongolia (Zayagan).
Translated from Swedish by Elizabeth Sprigge and Claude Napier. London:
Trench, Trubner and Co.
Huber, Toni. 2008. The Holy Land Reborn: Pilgrimage and the Reinvention of
Buddhist India. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Humphrey, Caroline. 2001. “Staline et l’éléphant bleu: Paranoïa et complicité dans
les métahistoires postcommunistes” [Stalin and the blue elephant: Paranoia
and complicity in postcommunist metahistories]. Diogène 194 (2001/2002): 31–
42.
Krueger, John R., ed. 1967. The Bejewelled Summary of the Origin of Khans (Qad-un
ündüsün-ü Erdeni-yin tobči): A History of the Eastern Mongols to 1662, Part I:
Chapters 1–5: From the Creation of the World to the Death of Gengis Khan
(1227). Bloomington, IN: The Mongolia Society.
Lam Kezang Chhophel. 2002. “A Brief History of Rigsum Goenpo Lhakhang and
Choeten Kora at Trashi Yangtse.” Journal of Bhutan Studies 6: 1–4.
Large-Blondeau, Anne-Marie (=Blondeau, Anne-Marie). 1960. “Les pèlerinages
Tibétains” [Tibetan pilgrimages]. In Sources orientales 3: Les Pèlerinages, edited
by Jean Yoyotte, Maurive Vieyra, and Muhammad Hamīdullāh, 203–245. Paris:
Le Seuil.
Cross-Currents 31 | 123
Isabelle Charleux
Maidar, D. (1970) 1972. Mongolyn arkhitektur ba khot baiguulalt: Toim [Architecture
and construction of cities in Mongolia: Overview]. Translated from Russian.
Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn khevleliin kombinat.
Martin, Dan, and Thupten J. Norbu, 1991. “Dorjiev: Memoirs of a Tibetan Diplomat.”
Hokke bunka kenkyū 法華文化研究 17: 1–105.
McKeown, Arthur. 2010. “From Bodhgayā to Lhasa to Beijing: The Life and Times of
Śāriputra (c.1335–1426), Last Abbot of Bodhgayā.” PhD diss., Harvard
University.
Nakza, Drolma. 2019. “Pilgrimage Guide of the Tibetan Buddhist Holy Mountain Brag
dkar sprel Rdzong.” Revue d’Études Tibétaines 48: 170–183.
Narasun, S., and Temürbaγatur. 2000. Ordos-un süme keyid [Monasteries of Ordos].
Hailar: Öbör Mongγol-un soyol-un keblel-ün qoriya.
Ninjbadgar, S. 2000. Ikh suvraga Jarin khashor ba Khan öndriin khüree [Great stupas
Jarung khashar and Khan öndriin khüree]. Ulaanbaatar: Urlakh Erdem.
Pozdneev, Aleksei M. [1896] 1971. Mongolia and the Mongols, vol. 1. Translated
from Russian by J. R. Shaw, and D. Plankrad. Bloomington: Mouton and Co.
Pürevbat. 2005. Ikh Mongolyn suvarga: Onol khiigeed büteekh yos [Stupas of
Greater Mongolia: Theory and practice]. Ulaanbaatar: MIVA.
Saγang secen [1662] 1955. Erdeni-yin tobci [Bejewelled summary]. Printed edition:
Eine Urga-Handschrift des mongolischen Geschichtswerks von Secen Sagan
(alias Sanang Secen), edited by Erich Haenisch. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Shchepetil’nikov, Nicolai M. 1960. Arkhitektura Mongolii [The architecture of
Mongolia]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo literatury po stroitel’stvu.
Shen, Hsueh-man. 2019. Authentic Replicas: Buddhist Art in Medieval China.
Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Slusser, Mary Shepherd. 1982. Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu
Valley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1998. “Constructing a Small Place.” In Sacred Space: Shrine, City,
Land, edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, 18–31. New York:
New York University Press.
Snellgrove, David. 1957. Buddhist Himalaya: Travels and Studies in Quest of the
Origins and Nature of Tibetan Religion. Oxford: Bruno Cassirer.
Snodgrass, Adrian. 1985. The Symbolism of the Stupa. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Teleki, Krisztina. 2011. Monasteries and Temples of Bogdiin Khüree. Ulaanbaatar:
Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History.
Tenzin Samphel. 1998. “‘Les yeux de la compassion’ : Les trois principaux lieux saints
de la vallée de Kathmandu visités par les pèlerins tibétains” [Eyes of
compassion: The three principal holy places visited by Tibetan pilgrims in the
Kathmandu Valley]. DEA diss., Institut National des Langues et Civilisations
Orientales, Paris.
Tsendina, Anna D. 1995. “Istoriya o bol‘šoi stupe Djarung-Khašor” [The story of the
Great stupa Jarung khashar]. In Tibetskii buddizm: Teoriya i praktika, edited by
Nikolai V. Abayev, 223–252. Novosibirsk: Nauka.
Tsultem, N. 1988. Mongolian Architecture. Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House.
Cross-Currents 31 | 124
The Cult of Boudhanath Stupa/Jarung Khashar Suvraga in Mongolia
Tsyrempilov, Nikolai, and Tsymzhit Vanchikova (compilers). 2004. Annotated
Catalogue of the Collection of Mongolian Manuscripts and Xylographs MI of the
Institute of Mongolian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies of Siberian Branch of
Russian Academy of Sciences. Sendai: Tōhoku Daigaku Tōhoku Ajia Kenkyū
Sentā.
Uranchimeg Tsultemin. 2016. Mongolyn Ikh khüree khiidiin Buddyn shashny urlag
[Buddhist art of Ikh Khüree Monastery of Mongolia]. Ulaanbaatar: BCI khevleliin
kompani.
Uspensky, Vladimir L. 1999. Catalogue of the Mongolian Manuscripts and
Xylographs in the St. Petersburg State University Library. Edited and foreword
by Tatsuo Nakami. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of
Asia and Africa.
Waddell, Austine. [1895] 1985. Buddhism and Lamaism of Tibet, with Its Mystic
Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in Its Relation to Indian Buddhism.
Kathmandu: Educational Enterprise.
Wood, Christopher. 2008. Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German
Renaissance Art. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Yan, Zhongyi, ed. 2000. Precious Deposits: Historical Relics of Tibet, Vol. 4. Beijing:
Morning Glory Publishers.
Zhang Yuhuan 張馭寰. 1959. Nei Menggu gu jianzhu 內蒙古古建築 [Ancient
architecture of Inner Mongolia]. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe.
About the Author
Isabelle Charleux is Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific
Research (CNRS), Group Societies, Religions, Laicities (GSRL, CNRS–École Pratique
des Hautes Études-PSL, Paris). The author thanks Katia Buffetrille, Sue Byrne,
Kunsang Namgyal Lama, Françoise Pommaret, Uranchimeg Tsultemin, Vladimir
Uspensky, two anonymous Cross-Currents reviewers for their suggestions and
additional references, Olaf Czaja for sharing his notes and photographs of prints of
Boudhanath, and Françoise Wang-Toutain for translating the text of Appendix 2. The
author is deeply grateful to Zsuzsa Majer for having sent me a copy of Ninjbadgar (2000) and
to Patricia Berger who provided many insightful comments about and corrections to
an earlier version of this article.
Cross-Currents 31 | 125
TABLE 2. Mongol thangkas (paintings and prints) depicting Boudhanath
No.
Image
Description
Paintings depicting Boudhanath
1
19th c.
72 x 109 cm
Mongolia?
The golden stupa stands under a rainbow in a
beautiful landscape with trees and ponds. It has a
three-tiered base and four small stupas on the first
and third terraces. A dark green stairway leads to
the aṇḍ a.
cf. Fig. 17; Fleming and
Shastri (2011, 1: cat. 435)
Zanabazar Museum of
Fine Arts, Ulaanbaatar, no.
8125–2968
2
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Mahākarunika
Avalokiteśvara;
– Below the aṇḍ a: Small niches containing Mañjuśrī
and eleven buddhas
– First terrace: Two pavilions with images of
Vajrapā ṇi (left) and four-armed Avalokiteśvara
(right)
– Above the stupa: Offering goddesses pouring
nectar of immortality or holding canopies
– On both sides of the stupa: Amitāyus, White
Tārā, the Eight Auspicious Jewels, and the Seven
Symbols of the cakravartin
19th c.
45.09 x 36.83 cm
Buryatia?
Although stylistically different, this thangka is very
similar to no. 1. The stupa is a golden color.
Iconography: Same as no. 1
http://www.himalayanart.
org/items/660
Rubin Museum of Art, New
York, acc. #F1998.16.2
No.
Image
Description
19th c.
22.23 x 16.19 cm
Buryatia
Embroidered thangka. Boudhanath stands under
a pointed ogival rainbow on a blue background
and surrounded by four smaller stupas and two
temples. On the reverse is a long Tibetan text.
Czaja (2015) gives a detailed description and
translation of the text.
3
http://www.himalayanart.
org/image.cfm/1087.html;
Czaja (2015, 94–95 and
fig. 11)
Rubin Museum of Art, New
York, acc. #P1997.26.3
4
18th c. (?)
56 x 37 cm
Buryatia
Similar to no. 9. The dominant colors are yellow and
two shades of blue.
Iconography: Same as no. 9, but there are no labels
below the lamas and deities.
Ashencaen and Leonov (1996,
pl. 9)
Spink Collection, Russia
No.
Image
Description
Early 19th c.
Unknown
Buryatia
The ogival rainbow is similar to no. 3, but the trees,
ponds, and animals are comparable to nos. 1 and
2.
5
Czaja (2015, fig. 13, from
Bongard-Levin [2003, pl.
404])
Unknown
6
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara;
– Below the aṇḍ a: Small niches containing six
buddhas plus Mañjuśrī
– First terrace: Two pavilions with images of fourarmed Avalokiteśvara (left) and Vajrapā ṇi (right)
– Above the stupa: Mañjuśrī, Amitāyus, and
offering deities in clouds
– On both sides of the stupa: Green and White
Tārās
19th c. or early 20th c.
50.3 x 36 cm
Mongolia?
The golden stupa is on the same model as nos. 1
and 2, but is elevated on a high Sumeru-type
pedestal decorated with rows of jewels and a red
carpet or tapestry with golden motifs at its center.
The beautiful landscape includes two trees with
huge peaches and a pond with waterbirds in an
enclosure.
Mongolyn burkhany
shashnintny töv
Gandantegchenlin khiid
(2015, 123)
Gandan Monastery,
Ulaanbaatar
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara
– Below the aṇḍ a: Small niches containing twelve
buddhas
– First terrace: Two pavilions with images of fourarmed Avalokiteśvara (right) and Vajrapā ṇi (left)
- Above the stupa: Mañjuśrī, a lama, and offering
deities in clouds
- On both sides of the stupa: Amitābha (?) and
White Tārā (?), the Eight Auspicious Jewels, and
the Seven Symbols of the cakravartin
No.
Image
Description
19th c. or early 20th c.
36 x 30.4 cm
Mongolia?
The general shape of the stupa is similar to no. 1.
7
Mongolyn burkhany
shashnintny töv
Gandantegchenlin khiid
(2015, 125)
Gandan Monastery,
Ulaanbaatar
8
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara is depicted in a
red niche/opening with scroll motifs
– Below the aṇḍ a: Small niches containing seven
buddhas;
– First terrace: Two pavilions with images of a red
lama (Padmasambhava?) and a white bodhisattva
(Tārā?)
– Above the stupa: Offering deities in clouds
– On both sides of the stupa: Two nāgas in a water
pond offering a cintāmaṇi, and the Green and
White Tārās in medallions
19th c.
32 x 22 cm
Mongolia?
The aṇḍ a looks like the frame of a large niche
enshrining Uṣṇ īṣavijayā.
Narantuya and Shur (2010,
cat. 22)
Collection of Gansukh
Sodnom, Ulaanbaatar
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Three-faced, eight-armed Uṣṇ īṣavijayā
– First terrace: No deities are shown in the two
pavilions
– Above the stupa: Śākyamuni with two disciples
and Tsong kha pa with two disciples
– On both sides of the stupa: Amitāyus and White
Tārā
No.
Image
Description
Xylograph prints from Buryatia depicting Boudhanath
9
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Aga datsan, Buryatia
Large colored print. Boudhanath is depicted under
a rainbow. The hemispherical aṇḍ a is decorated
with kīrtimukha motifs, or horned lion faces and
garlands of jewels. It is accessible by central stairs
with geometrical motifs and a ramp decorated
with a dragon. The long Tibetan inscription is
provided in Appendix 2.
Photo by Isabelle Charleux
Private collection of Michel
Tournet, France
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara
– Ten buddhas plus Amitāyus and Mañjuśrī appear
in the lower part of the aṇḍ a
– First terrace: Two pavilions with a conical (left)
and curved (right) roof
– Above the stupa: Three lamas and three female
deities identified by inscriptions: “bTsong[sic]
kha pa la na mo,” “Pan chen la na mo,” and “Da la
rin po che la na mo”—Homage to Tsong kha pa,
to the Panchen (Lama), and to the Dalai (Lama)
Rinpoche—on the left; “gDug [gDugs] dkar la na
mo,” “sGrol ma dkar,” “sGrol ljang”—Homage to
Sitātapatrā, White Tārā, and Green Tārā—on the
right, and the Eight Auspicious Jewels.
No.
Image
Description
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Aga datsan, Buryatia
Uncolored print with a text: same xylographic
matrix as no. 9.
10
Iconography: Same as no. 9.
Chandra (2008, 188)
Unknown
11
19th c. or early 20th c.
56 x 37 cm
Buryatia
Colored print similar to no. 9 but without the text
below.
Iconography: Same as no. 9.
Ashencaen and Leonov (1996,
pl. 10)
Spink Collection, Russia
No.
Image
Description
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Buryatia
Colored print that seems to use the same matrix as
no. 11.
12
Iconography: Same as no. 9.
Czaja (2015, fig. 12 and
detailed description on p. 95,
from Bongard-Levin 2003,
pl. 403)
Unknown
20th c.
Unknown
Buryatia
13
Czaja (2015, fig. 14, from
Bongard-Levin 2003, pl. 402)
Unknown
Same shape as that of the rebuilt Jarung khashar of Khejenge Monastery. The hemispherical aṇḍ a is decorated with kīrtimukha motifs
and garlands of jewels. Ten small stupas are
depicted on two lower terraces. Mongolian
inscription (transcribed and translated in
Czaja 2015, 96, 96n59).
No.
Image
Description
Prints depicting a bottle-shaped Tibetan stupa with Avalokiteśvara
14
19th c.
51 x 49 cm
Mongolia
Bottle-shaped stupa surrounded by four stupas. A
Tibetan text in the lower part gives a brief history
of Boudhanath stupa (see detailed description and
translation of the text in Czaja [2015, 92–93]).
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara
– First terrace: Two pavilions are inscribed with the
names “Padmasambhava” and “sPyan ras gzigs”
(Avalokiteśvara), with their mantras written on
the side of each pavilion
– On the lowest terrace: Mantras of Amitāyus,
“Mongolian Art Collections
Śākyamuni, Green Tārā, Kālacakra, Vajrapā ṇi,
– The Hans Leder Collection”
White
Tārā, and Mārīcī
(http://www.moncol.
net/mongolia/museum/
itemdetailview/id/4228)
Völkerkundemuseum vPST
Heidelberg, Inv. no. 34072
(Leder Collection)
No.
Image
Description
19th c.
48.5 x 28.5 cm
Mongolia
Same xylographic matrix as no. 14.
15
“Mongolian Art Collections
– The Collection” (http://
www.moncol.net/mongolia/
museum/itemdetailview/
id/3998; Czaja (2015, fig. 10,
92–93)
Völkerkundemuseum vPST
Heidelberg/ ÖAW, Inv. Nr.:
33689 (Leder Collection)
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Mongolia
Same xylographic matrix as no. 14.
16
Photo by Isabelle Charleux
Private collection of Michel
Tournet, France
No.
Image
Description
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Mongolia
Xylograph print. Same “family” as nos. 14, 15, and
16, but with a larger pointed central niche and
Tibetan and Lantsa texts on the terraces. On
either side of the stupa are Mañjuśrī (left) and a
protector deity (right).
17
Pürevbat (2005, 365)
Private collection of Pürevbat?
18
19th c.
46 x 32 cm
Mongolia
Colored print. The Tibetan-style stupa with mantras
in Lantsa on the terraces and spire is identified as
Boudhanath stupa by Olaf Czaja.
Iconography:
– Aṇḍ a: Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara
– Below and on both sides of the stupa: Nine deities
Czaja (2013, 48, fig. III/19)
Grassi Museum für
Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, inv.
no. 3444 (Leder Collection).
Photo by Jan Seifert
No.
Image
Description
19th c.
47 x 34 cm
Mongolia
Colored print.
19
Iconography: Same as no. 18.
Czaja (2013, 48, fig. III/20)
Grassi Museum für
Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, inv.
no. 11263 (Leder Collection).
Photo by Jan Seifert
20
19th c.
ca. 80 x 45 cm.
Colored print.
Iconography: Same as no. 18.
Czaja (2013, 48, fig. III/21)
Linden-Museum Stuttgart,
State Ethnology Museum, inv.
no. 23934 (Leder Collection)
No.
Image
Description
Prints depicting Boudhanath with other stupas
21
19th c.
9.6 x 7.9 cm
Mongolia
Miniature thangka.
Meinert (2011, cat. 129)
German private collection
22
Photo by Isabelle Charleux
Private collection of Michel
Tournet, France
Iconography:
– Upper register: Boudhanath stupa and the stupa
of Enlightenment on each side of Ṣaḍak ṣarī
Avalokiteśvara. The three-tiered terraces of
Boudhanath are clearly visible
– Central register: Guhyasādhana Lokeśvara in
yab yum (sexual union representing the union of
wisdom and compassion) with his consort in the
center
– Lower register: Sitātapatrā flanked by a blue
garuḍ a (legendary bird-like creature) and Tsi’u
dmar po (?)
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Mongolia?
Print depicting three stupas identified by
inscriptions: “’Phags pa shing kun mchod rten”
(Swayambhunath) in the middle, “’Bras spungs
mchod rten” (stupa of Dhānyakaṭaka) on the left,
and “Bya rung kha shor” (Boudhanath) on the
right. Boudhanath has no eyes, and its harmikā
is decorated with the same crown as that of
Swayambhunath. In the foreground are the five
Mongol “muzzles” (camels, yaks and cows, horses,
sheep, and goats).
No.
Image
Description
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Mongolia?
Same block as no. 11.
23
Pürevbat (2005, 366)
Private collection of Pürevbat?
24
Photo by Vladimir Uspensky
Private collection, Russia
19th c. or early 20th c.
Unknown
Aga datsan, Buryatia
Print depicting a big stupa surrounded by two stupas
with inscriptions: “’Phags pa shing kun mchod
rten” (Swayambhunath) on the left and “sTag mo
lus sbyin” (the Stupa of the Offering of the Body
to the Tigress) on the right. The central stupa has
no inscription but is identified as Boudhanath in
the prayer below. Swayambhunath is recognizable
with its small shrines and the lateral śikharas
(rising towers).
References
Ashencaen, Deborah, and Gennady Leonov. 1996. Art of Buriatia: Buddhist Icons
from Southern Siberia. London: Spink and Son.
Bongard-Levin, Grigorii M. 2003. Ikonografiya Vadzhrayani [Vajrayana iconography]. Moscow: Dizain.
Chandra, Lokesh. 2008. Tibetan Art. New Delhi: Niyogi Books.
Czaja, Olaf. 2013. “Tsaklis, Thangkas, Prints, Amulets and Manuscripts.” In The
Mongolian Collections: Retracing Hans Leder, edited by Maria-Katharina Lang
and Stefan Bauer, 38–52. Verlag: VÖAW.
———. 2015. “Some Remarks on Representations of the Bodhnath Stupa in Art
and Architecture in Tibet, Mongolia and Buryatia.” In The Illuminating Mirror: Tibetan Studies in Honour of Per K. Sørensen on the Occasion of His 65th
Birthday, edited by Olaf Czaja and Guntram Hazod, 87–100, 581–589. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.
Fleming, Zara, and Jadamba Lkhagvademchig Shastri, eds. 2011. Mongolian
Buddhist Art: Masterpieces from the Museums of Mongolia , vol. 1, parts 1–2:
Thangkas, Embroideries, and Appliqués. Chicago, IL: Serindia Publications/
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and the Centre for Cultural Heritage, Mongolia.
Meinert, Carmen, ed. 2011. Buddha in the Yurt: Buddhist Art from Mongolia. 2
vols. Munich: Hirmer Verlag.
Mongolyn burkhany shashnintny töv Gandantegchenlin khiid. 2015. Melmiigeer
bolgoogch khutagt Janraisig – Arya Avalokiteshvara the Compassionate Eyed
One. Vol. 1. Ulaanbaatar: Publisher unknown.
Narantuya C., and B. Shur. 2010. Nüüdelch Mongolyn sod büteelüüdniin
deejees: Sodnomyn Gansukhiin khuviin tsugluulgaas [Masterpieces of nomadic
Mongolia: Collections of Gansukh Sodnom, “Eternal Art” antique gallery].
Ulaanbaatar: Ulaanbaatar Print.
Pürevbat. 2005. Ikh Mongolyn suvarga: Onol khiigeed büteekh yos [Stupas of
Greater Mongolia: Theory and practice]. Ulaanbaatar: MIVA.