Changing Lifestyles : In Mongolia, a Reincarnation of Buddhism : Faith finds new life now that communism’s chains are broken. But struggles lie ahead.

Two child monks climbed a tower outside the scripture-reading hall of Erdene Zuu Monastery, then blew long blasts on conch-shell horns in a call to prayer. The temple air, heavy with incense and smoke from butter lamps, soon filled with Tibetan Buddhist chants and the sound of cymbals, drums and horns as 50 lamas gathered in worship.

Erdene Zuu, once one of Asia’s greatest centers of Buddhist learning, is alive again, thanks to the collapse of communism from Eastern Europe to the borders of China. Both the monastery, located outside the ancient Mongolian capital of Karakorum, about 200 miles west of the present capital, Ulan Bator, and the faith it symbolizes are struggling to revive themselves and ultimately to recover key roles in society.

But Erdene Zuu, like Buddhism itself in Mongolia, still suffers bitter wounds. The mostly desolate land within the monastery’s outer walls--where 60 years ago more than 100 monastery buildings stood--reflects the devastation wreaked on Mongolian society by a 1930s wave of Stalinist terror and subsequent decades of repression.

In a milestone for the effort to heal this nation’s collective psyche, the Dalai Lama, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, visited Mongolia late last month, offering advice to religious leaders and reverent crowds. He said that with Mongolia’s newly democratic government now allowing religious freedom, he hopes to visit more often and for longer stays.

Mongolia, a nation of 2.2 million, has a small Muslim minority and some Christian groups, as well as Communists who profess atheism. But an estimated 90% of the people are believed to be adherents of Tibetan-style Buddhism, at least in a passive way. At the beginning of last year, Mongolia had only one functioning monastery, and many Mongolians had few chances for active worship.

Thus, as head of a branch of Buddhism adhered to by most Mongols as well as Tibetans, the Dalai Lama can exert great influence here. But Mongolians themselves will determine just how Buddhist practice is to be reborn, and how broad will be its renewed role in society.

The answers are unfolding at Erdene Zuu, at more than 100 other newly re-established monasteries across the vast grasslands of the Central Asian steppe, in the round felt-tent homes of nomadic herdsmen and in the high-rise urban apartments of Ulan Bator.

At stake is the very identity of a historically great but now nearly forgotten people. The rebirth of Buddhism here may also be of geopolitical importance if, as seems likely, it helps smooth this nation’s transition to a democratic, free-market system with close ties to Japan, the United States and Western Europe.

The losses under 60 years of repression--which ended only last year with Mongolia’s transformation into a multi-party democracy--have been immense. Recovery will take years.

Tibetan-style Buddhism, in which lamas traditionally exercised great secular power, is unlikely ever to regain the theocratic role it played here in the years before this nation’s 1921 Communist revolution. The Dalai Lama himself, who once held political as well as religious power in Tibet, opposes any such effort.

“There is a danger that when they try to revive Buddhism and the monasteries’ life and institutions, they (may be) simply thinking of the old system,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview during his visit. “This is impossible to adopt. And even if adopted, it will be harmful.”

The Dalai Lama indicated that in Mongolia--and someday in Tibet, which is now under repressive Chinese control--he hopes to see a kind of reformed Buddhism in which monks and nuns are fewer in number than during pre-Communist days but better educated and more involved in social services.

For the monks, or lamas, of Erdene Zuu, such visions lie far in the future. The elderly men who lead this reborn monastery are concerned with the most basic matters of rebuilding a religious community and trying to regain control over the few historic temple buildings that survived Communist-ordered destruction in 1937.

“According to the government’s statistics, there were about 740 monasteries destroyed (in the mid-1930s), and 8,000 lamas were killed,” said Yondonsambuu, 79, the deputy head lama of Erdene Zuu, who like most Mongolians uses just one name. “But it’s not the real number. We think it really was more.”

Dendev, the head lama of Erdene Zuu, is a man in his mid-80s who entered nearby Shankh Monastery at the age of 10, spent about 20 years there, escaped death in the 1937 persecutions and spent 50 years as a carpenter. He returned to monastic life to lead the reopening of Erdene Zuu in March of last year.

Erdene Zuu, which had about 1,000 lamas in the early 1930s, now has 63, including 31 old men who entered monasteries before 1937, and 32 “student lamas” ranging in age from 8 to 41. Nanjid, 41, is one of the star pupils, a man Dendev said could someday be Erdene Zuu’s leader.

“I began to believe when I was about 10,” Nanjid explained. “I started to study the teaching of Buddha, but at that time it was illegal. If someone knew that I studied Buddhist teachings, it would have been bad for me. My teacher was an important figure in Buddhist learning, an old man named Ravjaa who taught me at his home.”

Child monks at Erdene Zuu are assigned to elders to memorize scriptures and learn the rituals of monastic life.

“We old men can’t live for long now,” Dendev said. “We try to teach what we can. There are about 10 old lamas who know the Buddhist laws.”

Erdene Zuu’s leaders, who now hold services in a restored guest house made into a temple, hope to arrange the rebuilding of several prayer halls in the next decade and the training of hundreds of monks. “I think the number (eventually) will be 600, or something like that,” Nanjid said.

The key to Erdene Zuu’s future, he added, must be recovery of Buddhist control over the three main temple buildings, originally built in 1586 and restored about 200 years ago. They are now museums under state control. The buildings, themselves of great historical importance, house immensely valuable Buddha images and other art.

“The future of Erdene Zuu will depend on the three museum buildings,” Nanjid said. “Many precious objects are kept there, and we need the buildings because we are so active. Erdene Zuu is a great historical and religious center of Mongolia, not a museum!”

Devaadorj, a dour bureaucrat, historian and Communist who has served as Erdene Zuu’s museum director for the last 20 years, was equally vehement that “we will never give these properties back to the lamas.”

The issue has gone to the highest levels of the Mongolian government in Ulan Bator. But there, the monks, viewed by Mongolia’s politicians as disorganized and untrustworthy, have found little support. Both the dominant Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which until this year considered itself Communist, and quasi-opposition groups such as the Mongolian Democratic Party, which have roles in the administration as well as Parliament, say that Buddhist organizations are not yet ready to retake control of the nation’s cultural legacy.

“In this temple there is a very valuable heritage of our history and of our traditions,” Deputy Prime Minister Dorligjav, a member of the Mongolian Democratic Party, which played a key role in bringing religious freedom to Mongolia last year, said in an interview.

“There were some cases even in Ulan Bator where lamas stole precious gems and other objects from the temple. . . . We should have people who will keep and protect this heritage which is now in these temples.”

One political organization, the Mongolian Believers Party, established after last year’s parliamentary elections, takes a pro-Buddhist stance. But Buddhism seems unlikely to become a strongly organized political force any time soon.

The Buddhist identity of most Mongolians could, however, help insure a stable democracy here, much as Christianity contributed to the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

“I think that Buddhism will play a role mainly as a reservoir or bulwark of support for continuing democracy,” said Chris Atwood, an American graduate student in Mongolian studies living in Ulan Bator. “They will instinctively oppose any move back to an authoritarian system. For Buddhists, the idea of dictatorship and political interference is inescapably linked with the persecution of their religion . . . “

Buddhism survived here because “in the end the truth will win,” declared Enkhbat, 19, a Mongolian State University student who came to Ulan Bator’s Gandan Monastery to see the Dalai Lama. “We couldn’t live without religion. It couldn’t be cut off, even in 50 or 60 years.”

A Buddhist Primer

* The Man: Born in southern Nepal, Siddhartha Gautama was believed to have lived between 563 BC and 483 BC. He sought supreme truth in meditation and later became Buddha, “the enlightened one.”

* The Doctrine: Buddhism evolved in opposition to the rituals and hardening caste system of Hinduism. It offered a “middle way” that avoided the extremes of mortification and indulgence. Buddhism accepted the basic concepts of Hinduism--including rebirth and the law of karma, which holds that one’s actions directly control one’s destiny--but emphasized ethics as a means to salvation. By following the “noble eightfold path” of right living and actions, the adherent, freed of self, can achieve nirvana--the state of bliss in which humans escape the law of reincarnation.

* The History: Buddhist doctrine first took hold in northern India, in the 6th Century BC. Monks spread the religion through much of Asia over many centuries. The religion today includes a wide variety of sects grouped into three primary branches: Hinayana, Mahayana (including Zen) and Tantrism. Today, Buddhism is considered the world’s fourth-largest religion behind Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, with some 350 million adherents--all but a relative handful of them in Asia.

LARGEST BUDDHIST POPULATIONS

Total Buddhist Population Population (in millions) (in millions) (% of total) Bhutan 1.6 1.0 63% Cambodia 7.2 7.1 99 China 1,120.0 63.3 6 Hong Kong 5.8 4.2 72 India 853.0 5.8 1 Indonesia 189.0 1.7 1 Japan 123.6 91.0* 74 Laos 4.0 2.3 58 Malaysia 17.9 3.0 17 Mongolia 2.2 2.0** 90 Myanmar 41.3 36.5 88 Nepal 19.1 1.0 5 S. Korea 42.1 15.4 37 Sri Lanka 17.2 11.7 68 Taiwan 20.2 8.6 43 Thailand 55.7 52.5 94 Vietnam 70.2 36.1 51

* Many Japanese adhere to both Shintoism and Buddhism.

** Estimated figure including inactive as well as active worshippers.

SOURCES: Encyclopaedia Britannica 1990 Book of the Year; Random House Encyclopedia; 1991 Information Please Almanac.