Gandan lamasery, nestled in the modern city of Ulaanbatar, is the seat of Mongolian Buddhism and the largest monastery in the Mongolian People's Republic. Founded at nearly the same time as Ulaanbaatar, in the seventh century CE, Gandan lamasery shares a common history with the nation's capital. In 1651 Gandan lamasery was established at the behest of Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682) in the young nomadic religious settlement of Orgoo in Mongolia. For over a century, the lamasery moved with Orgoo and became the center of the settlement's religious activities. Orgoo and Gandan lamasery settled in 1778 on the site of modern-day Ulaanbaatar, and gradually a city of merchants and craftsmen formed around the religious center. By 1900 Gandan lamasery boasted a majority of the city's 25,000 inhabitants. This changed with the beginning of socialist rule in the 1920s, when the government instituted strict rules against the practice of Buddhism and destroyed most of the monasteries in Mongolia. Due to its special status, Gandan was preserved as a religious museum during this time, but the number of lamas in its service decreased dramatically. With Mongolia's transition to democracy beginning in 1989, Gandan monastery reopened as a center of the Buddhist faith and has grown to include several thousand monks.
Further Reading
Bawden, Charles R. (1968) The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Center of Gandantegchilin Studies. (1981) Buddhism in Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: State Publishing House.
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