Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, August 6, 1996

KARAKORUM, Mongolia, (Aug. 5) IPS - Sixty years ago, Gombochir was a young monk in Erdene Zuu monastery, a centre for Mongolian followers of Tibetan Buddhism.

Then, in 1937, Mongolia's brutal Communist dictator Choibalsan decided to crush religion in the then Soviet satellite. The leader had 17,000 of the country's 110,000 monks executed and most of its 746 monasteries destroyed.

Gombochir, then 26, did not face the firing squad, the fate that awaited most senior monks. Instead, he was assigned to work in a factory and later married.

After Mongolians overthrew their hardline Communist leaders in 1990 and proclaimed a democracy, Gombochir returned to the monastery -- but only after being repeatedly assured that all would be well.

Most Mongolians are followers of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and the late Panchen Lama whose successor has become the centre of a major dispute between the Tibetan leader and China.

"I think Buddhism has a future here if we support the Dalai Lama and his choice for the Panchen Lama," says the 85-year-old head monk in this famous centre of Buddhist learning. "Then we Buddhists will be strong and united and cannot be defeated."

A Buddhist religious revival is slowly taking shape in Mongolia, a development that may impact on China and its restive region of Tibet. Since Mongolia threw off the mantle of Communist six years ago, it has become crucial to the future of Tibetan Buddhism, now under siege in the former Himalayan kingdom.

Mongolia has long has cultural, religious and political ties to Tibet. Earlier this century, it even recognised Tibet's independence from China.

Exiled to India from Tibet in 1959, The Dalai Lama has visited Mongolia four times since 1990, drawing huge crowds each time. China has repeatedly protested, but Mongolia has gone ahead because of the revered monk's popularity.

While China is trying to extinguish the Dalai Lama's influence within Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism is also rejuvenating in Mongolian populated areas of Russia, Buryiatia and Tuva, bordering Beijing's sensitive northern and western borders.

"With the revival of Buddhism in Mongolia, the Dalai Lama has a new ally," says a Western diplomat in Beijing.

Still, Mongolia's Buddhist renaissance is only in its infancy. Erdene Zuu, a sprawling complex that once boasted 60 temples and thousands of monks, currently has only three reconstructed temples and a few old monks like Gombochir.

Since 1990, almost 200 young monks have joined, although most senior monks are too ill to conduct services and pass on the rituals. Prayers passed down orally among the monks have been forgotten.

Still, Kushok Bakula, India's elderly ambassador to Mongolia, insists Buddhism will not die. A reincarnated Buddhist saint, Bakula dresses in red and saffron robes and dispenses spiritual advice along with conducting his official duties.

"If you are not Buddhist, then what are you? You lose your identity," says Bakula. "What difference are you then from Chinese or Russians?"

Elsewhere in Mongolia, temples are also being rebuilt. Erdene Khambyn monastery, also destroyed in 1937, is now being rebuilt by the granddaughter of one of the monks. Dawa, a 63-year-old votee, has raised assistance valued at about 20,000 dollars from local people, pilgrims and the Indian ambassador.

The temple's centrepiece is a small statue of the Maitreya Buddha handmade by Mongolia's first theocratic Buddhist leader three centuries ago. Similar to Tibet, Mongolia was also led by a god- king before the Communist revolution in 1921.

Also, like Tibet, Buddhism took hold in Mongolia when it was integrated with the local folk religion, shamanistic practices and local healing. In Tibet and Mongolia, the religion developed into a theocracy supported by powerful and wealthy monasteries presided over by the god-king.

Dawa managed to save the valuable statue by hiding it for 60 years, not even revealing its existence to her children out of fear that they would tell.

Her temple prominently features pictures of both the Dalai Lama and the late Panchen Lama, the second most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism who died in 1989.

There are also pictures of the young boy designated by the Dalai Lama to succeed the Panchen Lama, a choice which drew the wrath of China. Beijing has placed the boy under arrest and appointed its own reincarnation of the Buddhist leader.

"We support the Dalai Lama as our religious leader. China can't change that," says Dawa.