Knowing the lords of the land:

cosmopolitical dynamics and

historical change in Mongolia
Presented by Isa Suleimanov
AAV KHAD ( FATHER
STONE)
Aav Khad is a particular example of a general
type of ritual site that is very common in
Mongolia; shrines to local deities commonly
known as gazaryn ezed, ‘land-masters’ or
‘spirits of the land’. These spiritual masters
are ancient features of a distinctive Mongolian
cosmology, originally ‘shamanic’ spirits that
were accommodated by Buddhism.
Elizabeth Endicott:
 «Buddhism in Mongolia had gradually over
the centuries accommodated the preexisting
beliefs of the pastoral nomadic population –
beliefs in a plethora of gods associated with
nature. Absorbing elements of shamanist
rituals, Buddhism also incorporated a
spiritual reverence for the land that
supported the herders’ way of life.»
 This narrative reflects the dominant western
scholarship on Mongolian religious practice,
which has continued to reproduce the 19th
century paradigm established by the Buryat
scholar Dorji Banzarov (1822–55).
OVOO SHRINE

 Mongolian ‘folk religion’ was taken

to be a composite form in which
Buddhist elements, introduced from
Tibet, formed a sort of veneer over
the older and more authentically
Mongolian beliefs of ‘shamanism’.
 In most parts of Mongolia, the ovoo
takes the form of a stone cairn
topped with branches and poles,
festooned with fluttering khii mor’
(‘wind horse’) prayer flags and
khadag scarves.
OVOO CEREMONIAL

 In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries,

the seasonal ceremonies carried out at
ovoos were important public events,
conducted on auspicious days by religious
and secular authorities and sometimes by
commoner households. These rites were
directed towards the savdag, the spiritual
lords or ‘owners’ of the local territory,
and the luus, the dragon spirits or naga of
Buddhist cosmology.
OVOO CEREMONIAL

 In the contemporary era, then, ovoo

ceremonial is again cosmopolitical, just as
it was in the pre-revolutionary one. But the
political and cosmological orders that are
referenced in the rites have been radically
transformed.
 However, the dominant understanding of
the ovoo is honouring shamanistic spirits,
the gazaryn ezed ‘lords of the land’, that
have inhabited the Mongolian landscape
from ancient times to the present day,
worshipped as part of a cultural
engagement with the landscape based upon
an equally ancient nomadic life-world.
The Third Mergen Diyanchi Gegeen

 One of the most influential figures in the popularization of Buddhism in Mongolia

was the Third Mergen Gegeen. Born in 1717, the third incarnation of the Mergen
Diyanchi lineage of ‘Living Buddha’ incarnate lamas of the Urad region of Inner
Mongolia, was one of the most prolific writers of 18th century Mongolia.
 His writings include numerous ritual texts devoted to local deities, the spiritual
masters of the land and water, including the sacred mountain Muna Khan and the
Yellow River.
 The Third Mergen Gegen wrote and widely circulated rituals that reconceptualized
the role of local deities in Buddhist Mongolia. It provides a historical example of
the politics of humans mediating the recruitment of the natural environment into
public discourse, in this case via ritual texts.
Contemporary cosmological construction
at Aav Khad
 “A person named Sharavsambüü worshipped this rock, and was living there and then
died. So his monument was raised. I heard that he was living here around 1970, then it
was raised after the market economy began”
 For what purpose do people worship there?
 Sharavsambüü asked his children to ‘please go and worship’ (shütej yavaarai) the stone
after he died.
 [His children said] ‘Our father fed us here and died here. Since that time we were
living here and we became rich. Our father was living in this homeland’, and they
worshipped this rock and put some khadags there and were going on like this. Only then
did it become a shrine (shüteen)
 Sharavsambüü worked in Norovlin district for twenty years as a teacher and, upon
retirement, moved to Batnorov district and began the rock worship, the man explained.
After stating that he himself was local – born and raised in Batnorov – the man assured
us that, ‘a long time ago, there was nothing inherited there. People in this homeland do
not worship it [this rock], just this one family. There is no history from long ago’.
 Conclusion
 Textual sources provide a crucial perspective
in understanding cosmologies as dynamic. By
drawing from historical sources, we can
understand how dramatically ovoo
ceremonies and lords of the land have
changed from the 18th, 19th and early 20th
centuries to the present.
 Drawing from textual sources also reveals
how a historical figure – Mergen Diyanchi –
can re-write different kinds of relations
between Buddhist establishment and local
deities to suit their political and religious
interests.
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION