Mongolian Kanjur

Under the National Mission for Manuscripts, the Culture Ministry of India has taken up the project of reprinting 108 volumes of Mongolian Kanjur. What is Mongolian Kanjur? To know more, read on. This is an important topic for art and culture, as well as, international relations segments of the UPSC syllabus.

What is Mongolian Kanjur?

Mongolian Kanjur is the Buddhist canonical text in 108 volumes that is considered to be the utmost important religious text in Mongolia.

• Kanjur means ‘concise orders’ in Mongolian and represents the words of the Buddha especially.
• Translated from the Tibetan, the Kanjur is seen in almost every monastery in the landlocked country.
• Mongolians recite the Kanjur as part of daily prayers as a holy ritual and these are also kept in temples and worshipped widely.
• The Kanjur has been written in classical Mongolian.
• The Kanjur is widely respected in Mongolia and is part of the people’s cultural identity.
• The text contains about 20 million words.

Significance of the National Mission for Manuscripts’ current Project

• During the socialist era in Mongolia, which was from 1924 to the early 1990s, xylographs of the Kanjur were burnt and many monasteries were deprived of their holy scriptures.
• During 1956-58, Professor Raghu Vira from India secured a microfilm copy of the rare Kanjur manuscripts and brought them to India.
• In 1970, a then member of the Rajya Sabha, Prof. Lokesh Chandra, got the 108 volumes of the Kanjur published.
• Now, the present edition is being published by the National Mission for Manuscripts in which every volume will have a list of contents indicating the original title of the sutra in Mongolian.

India – Mongolia Relations

India became the first country outside of the Soviet Bloc to establish diplomatic relations with Mongolia when it did so in 1955. The resident Indian Mission in Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia) was opened in 1971; till then, the Indian Ambassador to the Soviet Union was jointly accredited.

Many treaties of mutual cooperation and friendship have been signed between both countries since then.

• India had supported Mongolia’s inclusion into the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Mongolia now supports India’s candidature for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.
• Mongolia’s first oil refinery (Mongol Refinery Project) is under construction currently with Indian aid. It will meet about three-fourths of the oil requirement of the country and is expected to be completed by 2022.
  • During PM Modi’s 2015 visit to Mongolia, India had given a soft loan credit line of one billion dollars to the country for this refinery.
• In 2013, Mongolia became the sixth country with which India signed a civil nuclear agreement. The country is believed to have rich resources of uranium.
• Historically, India and Mongolia share a relationship that dates back to ancient times through Buddhism. A little more than 50% of the population of Mongolia are Buddhists.

Read a detailed article on India – Mongolia relations in the link.

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