Khelsen üg khiisne
Bichsen üg üldene

(The spoken word flutters away, but the written word remains)

-Mongolian proverb

Will Schlaack in front of an UIUC tent that he surprising found at a sports festival in the plains of Mongolia, during his time serving in the Peace Corps.

Few Westerners outside of central Asian studies circles seem to know the name “Choibalsan” but his name resonates for many Mongolians the same way “Stalin” does in the former Soviet Union. Khorloogiin Choibalsan was the supreme ruler of the Mongolian People’s Republic from the mid-1930s to his death in 1952. During this time he led ruthless purges uprooting any form of dissent from his Stalinist vision for Mongolia. The Buddhist Sangha in Mongolia, which oversaw hundreds of years of rich Tibetan Buddhist traditions, faced particular brutality under Choibalsan’s rule. The monks and lamas (along with other various “enemies of the revolution” ranging from intellectuals and former communist lackeys who fell afoul to ethnic minorities like  Buryats and Kazakhs) were seen as a relic of an oppressive, misguided, backward past – a source of embarrassment for a country seeking to quickly join the ranks of the Stalinist vision of modernity. This period of oppression lead to the deaths of upwards of 35,000 Mongolians, a substantial number given the relatively small population of the Mongolian People’s Republic.

During these purges hundreds of monasteries were destroyed, and unfathomable volumes of precious Buddhist literature and sacred scripture were lost to the flames. The lineages and written testaments of the Sangha was broken over the course of a few years. Despite this the Central Library of Ulaanbaatar now houses over four million books, with a sizable portion of these being religious texts. Mongolians have a unique reverence for books – no bags are to be placed on the floor for fear of disrespecting or dirtying the contents, i.e. books, therein. Buddhist practitioners pass around liturgical books and press their head to them before giving it to another, as the books are seen as items of restorative power. Buddha is said to be present in these texts and they take a special place on the shelves of altars in homes and Buddhist centers across the country.

To preserve these Buddhist texts Mongolians both past and present have employed many unique means. Early means to ensure the preservation of these texts was the material they were written on – bitch bark was commonly employed for myriad of reasons: it was plentiful in many regions (especially the north), it was considered more spiritual as it was unprocessed, and therefore “clean” as opposed to traditional Chinese style paper, and it had a durability that stood up to the harsh climate and lifestyle of early Mongolians. Many Mongolians kept sacred texts in their breast pocket of the traditional coat (called a “deel”) and thus there was a significant amount of wear and tear to consider. Texts were produced on birch for centuries, with many collections now just being discovered in recent decades.

Beyond the older format of birch-bark printing Mongolians also developed unique papermaking techniques best suited for their environment:

The Mongols also developed their own technique of producing a composite paper (bolgoson tsaas) made by sticking thin pages together in order to make them suitable for writing texts with heavy ink made of precious substances such as gold, silver, and the like. They have been producing a composite paper by using the fine flour paste and juice extracted from the flower of an orchid family. Once a composite paper was produced, it was then frequently painted with oily black paint made from an animal’s raw brain, the soot of birch bark, and yellow glue.

-Vesna A. Wallace, Diverse aspects of the Mongolian Buddhist manuscript culture and realms of its influence

From: Berkwitz, Stephen C., Schober, Juliane, and Brown, Claudia, eds. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism : Buddhist Manuscript Cultures : Knowledge, Ritual, and Art (1). Florence, US: Routledge, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 20 April 2017.

All of this goes to show the art, ingenuity, and preservation-mindedness of Mongolian culture. Despite the subsequent near loss of the collections and knowledge of books arts modern Mongolian perseveres. While librarians at the Central State Library of Mongolia estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of texts facing preservation issues (the author can confirm: there is little in the way of HVAC or climate control systems in the Library) efforts have begun in domestic conservation laboratories to enact conservation work. In addition there has been a surge in interest of these materials and a re-discovery of their artistry and importance. The future of these texts, however remains to be seen – it is undoubtable that the conservators of Mongolia are working under vast constraints of time, money, and equipment. It is my hope that this collection receives the attention it deserves and Mongolia seen as a rich book-producing culture which created not only beautiful book art, but also developed innovative and unique solutions for early book preservation that drew from the breathtaking beauty of the region.