Mongolians and Buddhism

Mongolians Salty tea, named Süütei tsai.

Mongolia is a country in Asia, just between Siberia and China, it has emerged from the Communism pressure and has escaped and from now all open for the world. Mongolians still live in a ger, a huge tent that can be removed easily to other cities or places, and every place in ger is specially listed for someone, for example the door is always faced on south, is place of honor for the guests, for elders is the back of the ger and on the back wall are placed family photos and altar, with Buddhist images of course.

Everyone have heard about Mongolians deep emotions to Tibetan Buddhism, even in their history. Every single Buddhist Mongolian tries to go to the holy city named Lhasa. Back in 1921 more than 110,000 monks were living in 700 different monasteries in Mongolia. Ten years later thousands of monks were arrested and sent to Sibiaria, until 1990 when was the final freedom of religion restored, since than there has been phenomenal Buddhism revival. After all the monasteries have reopened, but always have Tibetan names, even now.

Mongolian language is Ural-Altaic family member of languages, which is mix of Finnish, Uzbek, Kazak and Turkish. They have very rich literature, unfortunately almost non of that is known to speakers of European languages. Just lately there is one important text translated Mongol-un Nigucha Tobchiyan, The Secret History of Mongolian, in order to celebrate Mongolia’s day of greatness.

For Mongolians most important meal of the day is the breakfast, they even have a saying : Breakfast, keep for yourself; lunch, share with your friends; dinner, give to your enemies”. They have a special diet with a horse meat and milk, their food contains a lot of fats. In their culture, if a man is not able to drink arkhi, which is Vodka, are considered wimps. They are big Tea drinkers, the particular is a Salty tea, named Süütei tsai.