The 15th of March is the birthday of my teacher Begzin Yavuuhulan, a great poet and enlightener of Mongolia. Here is my essay, through which I want to deliver his last words to our next generation. I am preparing a book of essays in English, in which this essay will be included.

The famous Dariganga region of Mongolia took its name from two of its iconic landmarks -the Dara Mountain and Ganga Lake. The inhabitants, known as Darigangians, created a peculiar nomadic culture in the southeastern Mongolia. In this region, a large collection of ancient Indian stories, called the Ulgeriin Dalai (Ocean of Stories) is frequently heard. The collection is also placed on top a chest in the northern section of gers of some elders. The collection has a chapter about “Ganga and Dara, two sons of the heavens”, reminding me of the river or lake names in my homeland and in India.

When you lookout from top of the Dara Mountain, or better known as the Golden Hill, you have a beautiful view of sand dunes edging the foot of the mountain, red willow growing on the lake shores and thousands of birds flying in, as if it was the legendary land of Shambala. The lake is fed by twenty-one springs. The numbers also symbolize something special. Mother Tara has twenty one manifestations.

Everyone was amazed, and from that time, the child's extraordinary talent and ability began to reveal itself. Atthe age of six, he took the vows of a monk, and at nine he was recognised as a the fifth incarnation of the Noyon Hutagt. Between eleven and fifteen, he studied Buddhist philosophy and tantric practise at Badgarcholin Monastery, in what is today Inner Mongolia, and great teachers such as Janjaa Hutagt, Ajaa Gegeen and Düinhor Pandit gave him the instructions and empowerments for secret mantra practises, and so his magical and spiritual genius became gradually more and more open. Although great scholars of religion study the Dharma for about ten years and so reach a high level, Danzanravjaa was amazing in that he took a short cut and penetrated the secrets of the Dharma after about five years. At sixteen he returned to the place of his birth and, as he perfected the practise of secret mantra, he began to build what is now Övörbayasgalant Hamriin Hiid. Two years later his father Dulduit died. After this time, he gave himself to building temples and monasteries and to magical practises such as bringing rain and spreading the Dharma, he wrote poetry and composed music and songs, and he choreographed dances, and so he spread magic and brought enlightenment to his homeland of the Govi.

My father, who was a livestock herder in the countryside, first showed me the Mongol script by writing it in the snow, out in the sheep pastures, with a piece of feathergrass, he told me that I should learn the script.  Thus it was that I came to study in the department of Mongol Language and Literature at the Pedagogical University. I had had the chance to go to the University for Literary Studies in Moscow, but chose not to take that path.  Because of the political situation at that time, and because of the increased pay it would bring, as I read the classic texts of Marxism-Leninism, and commited some of them to memory, I began also to study the ancient Mongol texts.

Looking back on my life in poetry and literary culture, the history of my work appears to have been a flight within, for indigenous Mongol knowledge, for its traditions, its nature and its culture. These four ancient matters are forever calling to me, forever disturbing me, they constitute the ancient writings, collected in the landscape and the language of my birthplace, the melodies of the horsehead fiddle, and traditional understanding. In the first few years, balancing Mongol script and traditional culture, I sought the possibility of expressing my own inner world, my own thoughts, through the combination of ink and brush, and so I began to make my first calligraphies on paper with ink and a brush. At first these calligraphies were modest, simple works, my own nature poems written in Mongol script. Later, I tried to show the melody of my poems through the movement of the brush. This period was important for me as the coming together of poetry and calligraphy.

Near the ruins of the city around Mexico’s pyramid, they found a crystal human skull. The man who found this crystal skull dreamed that he saw what was happening a thousand years ago, as though in a movie. This skull produced unending amazement in anthropological circles and he explained what ancient peoples of our earth had done, and answered the scholars’ questions about how the ancients had used the skull and with what implements they had made it. There were noisy rumors that such crystal skulls had been found, not only in Mexico and America, but in Mongolia too.