Gandantegchinlen Khiid, ‘the great place of complete joy’, is the largest monastery in mongolia, with construction having started in 1810. the great purge of 1937 also fell heavily on Gandan Khiid. when US vice-president Henry Wallace asked to see a monastery during his visit in 1944, then prime minister Choibalsan guiltily scrambled to pen this one to cover up the fact that he had recently laid waste to the country’s religious heritage. Gandan Khiid remained a ‘show monastery’ for other foreign visitors until 1990 when full religious ceremonies commenced. today, the monastery has over 500 monks.
the monastery’s main attraction is in the white Migjid Janraisig Süm, containing the Migjid Janraisig Statue. The original was a 20m-high gold and bronze statue of Avalokitesvara (Janraisig), built by the Bogd Khaan in 1911. it was removed by the communists in 1937 and taken to Leningrad (today’s St. Petersburg in russia). its exact fate is still unknown; one theory is that it is still hidden in storage and another that it was melted down to make bullets.
in 1996 after nearly five years of work, a new statue called Migjid Janraisig (meaning “the lord who looks in every direction”) was consecrated by the Dalai Lama. located in the temple of the same name, the 26.5m-high, 20-ton statue is made from copper, gilded with gold donated from nepal and japan and covered in gold brocade and over 500m of silk. the statue contains precious stones, 27 tonnes of medicinal herbs, 334 sutras, two million bundles of mantras and, in the base, an entire ger, plus furniture!
it is indeed quite impressive.
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