On the History of Buddhist Monastic Communities Formation Among Mongolian Peoples

The aim of this article is to fill the gaps in the history of the spread of Buddhism among the Mongolian peoples. In this connection, a number of objectives were set such as to reveal and analyze historical chronicles, monastic charters, archival documents in the Mongol language; on their basis, to trace the history of the spread of Buddhism and the formation of Buddhist monastic communities in historical retrospective and to determine the specific features of the formation of Buddhist communities in Mongolian monasteries in the 17th-18th cc. The main aim of the study determined the use of complex analysis based on a combination of different methods and approaches. The basic principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency were used in the article. The principle of historicism helped to research the history of the spread of Buddhism and the formation of Buddhist monastic communities against the background of the general historical development of the peoples in question. The principle of objectivity made it possible to reveal a set of historical facts, to consider and analyze the historical experience of the formation of communities among the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Kalmyks and the Buryats. The principle of consistency provided a comprehensive survey of the formation of monasteries and their communities in conjunction with historical processes. All this made it possible to give a general characteristic of the formation of Buddhist monastic communities in Mongolia, Buryatia and Kalmykia at the initial period of the spread of Buddhism. Based on the study of a variety of sources written in the classical Mongolian writing, such as biographies of Buddhist monks, historical records and literary monuments and monastic statutes, several ways of forming Buddhist monastic communities among Mongolian peoples have been identified. It has been established that the formation and replenishment of Buddhist monasticism occurred through: (1) the transfer of prisoners and dependent young people to Buddhist monasteries; (2) the tradition of giving senior priests some subordinate people along with property (this practice was particularly widespread among the Mongols who had a special institution of shabi (pupils)); (3) the "import" of lamas and novices from Tibet; (4) the gradually forming mechanism of mandatory transfer of one of the sons of a family to monks (usually the youngest son). In conclusion, it can be said that all these mechanisms in different proportions were the same in all parts of the Mongolian world: in Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia. Despite the fact that the information about the formation of monastic communities among the Buryats is quite scarce, unlike the Mongols and the Oirats, the sources cited in the article show that the mechanisms of recruiting Buddhist clergy in Buryatia did not differ from those of other parts of the Mongolian world.

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