Aspects of Mongolian Buddhism: Tradition and Innovation

One of the internationally recognised research fields of the Department of Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies (Eötvös Loránd University) is the multilateral studies of various aspects of Mongolian Buddhism. This topic appears already in Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna's (1844 1913) the first Hungarian Mongolist's linguistic materials, recorded among the Kalmyks in Astrakhan (1871) and the Mongols in Urga (1873). His materials are invaluable sources of 19th-century Mongolian Buddhism. The topic became one of the major academic subjects of Louis (Lajos) Ligeti (1902 1987), the founder of our Department and establisher of the philological research and philology-based education of Mongolian religious, historical and linguistic sources. We, the second and third generations of disciples, adherently follow his traditional methodology, nevertheless try to introduce new research approaches, as in the conference in 2019 and the present volume: i. e. the aspects of ¿tradition, invented tradition and innovation¿. The theme of the third conference (2019) and the present collection of articles is a topical one as it is closely connected to such social, political and cultural phenomena as ¿country branding¿, ¿country image¿, ¿cultural branding¿, all of them interwoven with the aspects of tradition, innovation and invented tradition.