Erdene Zuu

Our guide took us to the three main temples that were built by the founder of the monastery (middle), his son (left) and grandson (right). It showed Bhudda in 3 different stages of life: as a prince before enlightenment, middle aged - the classic Bhudda depiction & old.

He walked us through each of them and described how in Mongolia they follow the yellow hats, one of the 4 schools of Tibetan Bhuddism. I didn't even know there was more than one! Another tidbit, the Dalai Lama is the head of the yellow hats only - the other schools have different names for their head. As he showed us different murals and thangkas I asked about the violence depicted as it had always confused me why in a peace loving religion such graphic designs were used. He said that they were representative of destroying evil within the world but, very importantly, the evil is within man and the scary looking monsters are not monsters at all but benevolent beings to help curtail man's sins. The monstrous faces are to scare evil behaviour and the violent killing symbolic of kicking out the deviant behaviour found within each person.

The monastery itself was almost fully destroyed during the 1937 purges under Stalinist Russia during which they systematically expunged as many Bhuddist monasteries and monks as they could. The outer wall encompasses a large area that used to hold over 300 temples and shrines and now there are 19 left. A beautiful place to visit with a very sharp and recent edge, the vast space inside the walls a stark reminder of the atrocities that took place not just here, not just against Bhuddism and not just in Mongolia but everywhere controlled by Russia at the time who proposed a threat to authority.

All in all a very good tour and well worth a visit.Read more