Monastery in Time
The Making of Mongolian Buddhism
"A Monastery in Time" is the first book to describe the life of a Mongolian Buddhist monastery – the Mergen Monastery in Inner Mongolia – from inside its walls. From the Qing occupation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the Cultural Revolution, Caroline Humphrey and Hifcrelbaatar Ujeed tell a story of religious formation, suppression, and survival over a history that spans three centuries. Often overlooked in Buddhist studies, Mongolian Buddhism is an impressively self-sustaining tradition whose founding lama, the Third Mergen Gegen, transformed Tibetan Buddhism into an authentic counterpart using the Mongolian language. Drawing on fifteen years of fieldwork, Humphrey and Ujeed show how lamas have struggled to keep Mergen Gegen's vision alive through tremendous political upheaval, and how such upheaval has inextricably fastened politics to religion for many of today's practicing monks. Exploring the various ways Mongolian Buddhists have attempted to link the past, present, and future, Humphrey and Ujeed offer a compelling study of the interplay between the individual and the state, tradition and history.
About the Author
Caroline Humphrey is professor emerita and director of the Mongolian and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge. She is the author or co-author of twenty previous books, most recently "Urban Life in Post-Soviet Central Asia".
Hurelbaatar Ujeed founded the Hurelbaatar Institute for Mongolian Studies at the Inner Mongolia Normal University and is senior research associate in the Mongolian and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge.
Reviews
"'A Monastery in Time' is a tremendously original product of almost fifteen years of painstaking scholarship. Caroline Humphreys and Hurelbaatar Ujeed combine an ethnography of a particular site, the Mergen monastery in Inner Mongolia, with a theoretically informed description of what a tradition – the Mongolian Buddhist tradition or any tradition – actually is. The results are impressive both for the theory and for the ethnography of an important but little-known religious community" – Christopher P. Atwood, Indiana University
"During the past two decades, an impressive body of scholarship has emerged concerning the revival of religious life in China following the Cultural Revolution, a particular focus of which has been renewal among China's minority peoples, including Tibetan Buddhists. Relatively little has appeared, however, in respect to the cognate Buddhist traditions of Inner Mongolia. This gap now begins to be filled, and masterfully so, in 'A Monastery in Time' by Caroline Humphrey and Hurelbaatar Ujeed. The great strength of this work is found in its unusual blend of exacting observation of contemporary events with the depth born of thorough historical research, and further with the insights of recent work in the social sciences and Buddhist Studies. I recommend 'A Monastery in Time' highly, both for its substantive contribution to our knowledge and for its theoretical savvy" – Matthew T. Kapstein, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and The University of Chicago
"This is a vital addition to our understanding of the rich interweaving of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism, taking place in a land where religion and politics have, for better or worse, undergone almost perpetual revolution. Caroline Humphrey and Hurelbaatar Ujeed's ethnography of the Mergen monastery combines a deep sense of Inner Mongolia's turbulent history – from the rise and fall of the Qing dynasty to the terrors of the Cultural Revolution to the labyrinthine regulations of the modern moment – with a nuanced portrait of the individual religious meanings, the personal struggles, and the everyday institutional strategies that make up that history" – Martin Mills, University of Aberdeen
"A lively product of extensive field research in Inner Mongolia, this book brings to light how the Mergen monastery propagated Mongol versions of Buddhist texts and rituals among lay populations in the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on a variety of untapped local sources, Caroline Humphrey and Hurelbataar Ujeed offer a refreshing view on the Mongol reappropriation of Buddhism in everyday life – an indispensable anthropological reading that illuminates previous studies based on official sources" – Roberte Hamayon, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
