Source: TW
The spread of the Red & Yellow schools of the bauddha-mata in Mongolia reveals some of the worst counter-religious aspects of the tAthAgatan movement. In some ways it acted no different from the west Asian counter- religions, clearly establishing the shared ugliness across these movements. Lama Agvan dordchiev remarked that “…the conversion of various nations [to the nAstikamata] has to be different; while one will be converted by mere discipline, others are to be subdued by magic powers, i.e., terror.” Sounds familiar? To things recommended by the Lamaistic documents in this regard are:
- “influence the ruler to interfere with the old religion through economic encouragement of the converts [to the nAstikamata];
- “iconoclastic purges of the shamanist idols”.
The Lamas called on the descendants of Khasar, the brother of Chingiz Khan, & the Chingizids who they had converted to make “Shamans & Shamanesses of the heretical, idolatrous faith were made to renounce the propagation of (their) deities & idols.” The Lamas then sent out their disciples: “to enter the gers of all noblemen, dignitaries & commoners collect their Ongghot images and burn them in giant pyres.” Given the Mongol attraction for the old religion the functionaries of the Panchen Lamas then resorted to substitution of the deities of the “bhairava-tantra” for those in the old, vilified religion.
Another approach they resorted to, was to initially retain the fire ritual hymns with some minimal lamaistic adaptation. Remarkably, the Japanese expedition to the Mongol Olon süme site recovered fragments of manuscripts of such incantations that remain poorly studied.
Source: TW
Received a note in DM that the bauddha conversion might have nevertheless helped the core Mongols resist infection by even more pernicious counter-religions like those from West Asia. I actually don’t disagree with that assessment. The below thread was to primarily illustrate how the tAthAgatan religion had the hallmarks of a counter-religion even as it did at the time of its birth in India. As I’ve noted before, it often takes a counter-religion to counter another. We have thus seen the bauddha-s of different strains being quite effective at this, e.g. in lankA against the pretamata.
The imposition or the missionary spread of the nAstika-mata in Mongolia & Japan had some interesting consequences. First, in Japan it gave a model for shinto to canonize itself & become more resistant to West Asian counter-religions. The japanese also abstracted the H core from the bauddha-mata and cultivated that to a greater degree – thus finding a natural religion within the counter-religion. One could say the same thing happened to a degree in Mongolia. E.g., the fire ritual incantations I mentioned on the original thread. A similar situation was also seen with other shamanistic traditions and the cult of Chingiz Khan, some of which survived beneath a bauddha patina.