Lost and Found Treasures

Mongolia is largely a Buddhist country, though Buddhism and shamanism have merged in many ways. In our travels through the Gobi, we came across the ruins of many Buddhist monasteries. In the 1930’s, Buddhism came under attack in Mongolia as part of the communist governments militant atheistic rule. During this time, many of the monasteries and temples were destroyed and thousands of Buddhist monks were killed. But all was not lost during these dark days. We learned about the efforts of one family to preserve the religious legacy of one of Mongolia’s most revered Lama’s (Buddhist leaders), Lama Dazanravjaa. Dazanravjaa was a prolific writer, artist, and musician. At his death in 1856, he left a wealth of material, including a play that took several weeks to perform and involved more than 120 actors. When Dazanravjaa died, a special caretaker took reasonability for preserving the artistic and religious riches of his life. This caretaker then passed his knowledge of Dazanravjaa and his work on to his son so that he could preserve his legacy. By the 1930’s, this task of caretaker had passed through 6 generations. Tudev, the caretaker when the government attempted to wipe out Buddhism in Mongolia, went to extreme measures to preserve Dazanravjaa’s legacy. He carefully packed all Dazanravjaa’s treasures in crates and for 64 nights, he carted one crate into the desert to be buried in a secret location. By the 65 night, the government troops arrived and destroyed the remaining crates as well as the monestary complex developed by Dazanravjaa. Tudev guarded the secret of the crates with his life, telling no one of their location and traveling in secret to check on the treasures and ensure that they were surviving in their desert hideout. Tudev then trained his grandson to carry on this tradition, giving him special instruction from the age of 6 as to where the crates were located and how to maintain the treasures. Once the communist government fell in 1990, Tudev’s grandson, Altangerel, slowly began to dig up the crates. With limited funds, he started a museum to share the treasures with the world. The process of unveiling the contents of the crates has been slow as Altangerel has only dug up the crates for which he has adequate resources to display. There are still over 20 crates buried. Altangerel continues to protect the location of the treasures, but instead of keeping them from the communists, he is keeping them safe from treasure hunters who would like to sell the treasures on the black market. We got a chance to visit the museum Altangerel set up to share the life work of Dazanravjaa with the world and even got to meet Altangerel and get a sneak peak at the contents of the latest crate to be unearthed. This sounds like a Hollywood movie in the making to me!