Although the merciful bodhisattvas did feature in Mongolian religion, they could be overshadowed by the more uncaring deities. Offerings were made for the usual reasons: relief of illness, fertility of crops, cursing of enemies. Averting disaster also loomed large as a pious motive. Tibetan Buddhism makes very specific distinctions between offerings for worship, which honour the enlightened gods, and offerings of propitiation, made to keep the unenlightened gods from getting angry. Many Mongolian offerings fell into this second category; pay-offs to various malevolent spirits in a divine protection racket.
A cynic might say that this protection racket benefited corporeal lamas more than spiritual gods. Every year, a significant part of the national income drained into the coffers of monasteries already stuffed with the wealth of centuries. Another goodly portion went,
quite literally, up in smoke, for holocausts were an integral to Mongolian ritual. Animal sacrifice was common, hecatombs of livestock being offered to the blood-hungry gods. The meat, as with most offerings, ended up feeding the monks - or sometimes the poor.
The lamas were greatly concerned with sacrifice themselves. The Bogd Khanâs failing eyesight was a particular worry; ten thousand statues of the Buddha were ordered from Poland, and a gigantic statue of the Buddha brought from Inner Mongolia and placed in a newly built temple. Together these two offerings, both made in 1912, cost some 400,000 Chinese silver taels, a vast sum of money. They had no effect on the Bogdâs vision.
And behind all this there was always the whiff of something older and perhaps more frightening. Mongolian Buddhism, like Tibetan, drew heavily on older religions, particularly shamanism. The Chinese had their shamanic traditions too, but they were largely corralled and suppressed, surviving only in a few figures such as the ancient Mother Goddess of the West and the shape-shifting heroes of primordial Chinese mythology. They are uncomfortable figures, standing somewhat outside the comfortable domesticity or light bureaucratic satire of most Chinese gods. Even today they have an unnerving power. In Hong Kong I once handled a statue of a snake-god who, in ancient Chinese mythology, shaped the formless chaos of the newly created universe. 26 It caught my attention because they are so rarely depicted directly, but it was long and thin and sinuous and seemed to twist oddly in the half-light.
Western writers have been fascinated by shamanism, in Asia and elsewhere, seeing in it the dawn of religion. In Mongolia, it seemed, one barely had to scratch the surface of Buddhism to uncover essentially shamanic beliefs. Indeed, some of the more remote tribal groups still had shamans of their own. In shamanic cosmologies, the spirit world is ever-present, and the rituals and sacrifices needed to deal with it a mainstay of everyday life. The shaman stands between two worlds, pleading or bargaining with the spirits for power for himself and his community. Much of the Mongolian relationship with their gods seemed to be drawn from this worldview, and the gods themselves were, in many cases, of pre-Buddhist origin. The range of gods and spirits was highly varied; broad distinctions could be made between the lu or nagas , spirits of water, the savdag , spirits of land, and
dashgid , the Wrathful Ones, spirits of air, but within these there were numerous subcategories - nagas, for instance, could be categorised by colour, origin, caste, intention and sex - and only the lama or shaman could be expected to have the nous to deal with them properly.
Tibetan Buddhism made this explicit in its legends, telling of how early Buddhist saints had wrestled, argued, or, in a few notable cases, seduced the demons of the land into becoming good Buddhists. The myths werenât as explicit in Mongolia, but the links were clear. Some gods were even regarded as having not yet found the true path of Buddhism,
A cynic might say that this protection racket benefited corporeal lamas more than spiritual gods. Every year, a significant part of the national income drained into the coffers of monasteries already stuffed with the wealth of centuries. Another goodly portion went,
quite literally, up in smoke, for holocausts were an integral to Mongolian ritual. Animal sacrifice was common, hecatombs of livestock being offered to the blood-hungry gods. The meat, as with most offerings, ended up feeding the monks - or sometimes the poor.
The lamas were greatly concerned with sacrifice themselves. The Bogd Khanâs failing eyesight was a particular worry; ten thousand statues of the Buddha were ordered from Poland, and a gigantic statue of the Buddha brought from Inner Mongolia and placed in a newly built temple. Together these two offerings, both made in 1912, cost some 400,000 Chinese silver taels, a vast sum of money. They had no effect on the Bogdâs vision.
And behind all this there was always the whiff of something older and perhaps more frightening. Mongolian Buddhism, like Tibetan, drew heavily on older religions, particularly shamanism. The Chinese had their shamanic traditions too, but they were largely corralled and suppressed, surviving only in a few figures such as the ancient Mother Goddess of the West and the shape-shifting heroes of primordial Chinese mythology. They are uncomfortable figures, standing somewhat outside the comfortable domesticity or light bureaucratic satire of most Chinese gods. Even today they have an unnerving power. In Hong Kong I once handled a statue of a snake-god who, in ancient Chinese mythology, shaped the formless chaos of the newly created universe. 26 It caught my attention because they are so rarely depicted directly, but it was long and thin and sinuous and seemed to twist oddly in the half-light.
Western writers have been fascinated by shamanism, in Asia and elsewhere, seeing in it the dawn of religion. In Mongolia, it seemed, one barely had to scratch the surface of Buddhism to uncover essentially shamanic beliefs. Indeed, some of the more remote tribal groups still had shamans of their own. In shamanic cosmologies, the spirit world is ever-present, and the rituals and sacrifices needed to deal with it a mainstay of everyday life. The shaman stands between two worlds, pleading or bargaining with the spirits for power for himself and his community. Much of the Mongolian relationship with their gods seemed to be drawn from this worldview, and the gods themselves were, in many cases, of pre-Buddhist origin. The range of gods and spirits was highly varied; broad distinctions could be made between the lu or nagas , spirits of water, the savdag , spirits of land, and
dashgid , the Wrathful Ones, spirits of air, but within these there were numerous subcategories - nagas, for instance, could be categorised by colour, origin, caste, intention and sex - and only the lama or shaman could be expected to have the nous to deal with them properly.
Tibetan Buddhism made this explicit in its legends, telling of how early Buddhist saints had wrestled, argued, or, in a few notable cases, seduced the demons of the land into becoming good Buddhists. The myths werenât as explicit in Mongolia, but the links were clear. Some gods were even regarded as having not yet found the true path of Buddhism,
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