Choijin Lama Temple

Listen for a moment. Behind you, Ulaanbaatar hums with traffic, car horns, and the hiss of buses. In front of you, behind a low wall, there is a courtyard of grey paving stones, green-tiled roofs with upturned corners, and a quiet that does not seem to belong to this city. Glass towers rise directly behind the temple roofs. Few places in Mongolia's capital show the old and the new standing this close together.

This is the Choijin Lama Temple. Today it is a museum, but it was built as a working monastery in the first years of the twentieth century, roughly between 1904 and 1908. That makes it young by the standards of Buddhist architecture. Yet it is one of the few religious complexes in central Ulaanbaatar that survived the twentieth century more or less intact. That survival is the heart of its story.

First, the name. Choijin Lama is not a personal name. It is a title. It refers to the state oracle, a monk who was believed to enter a trance and speak with the voice of a protector deity. In old Mongolia, people consulted the oracle on serious matters. They asked about the health of the ruler, about coming dangers, and about decisions of state. The office carried real weight at court.

The man who held this title was Luvsankhaidav. He was the younger brother of the Bogd Khan, the Eighth Jebtsundamba Khutughtu. The Bogd Khan was the highest Buddhist figure in Mongolia, and after 1911 he also became the country's head of state. So this temple was not a remote hermitage. It was the residence and monastery of a man very close to power, in the political centre of the capital.

Now, look at the layout around you. The complex is a group of separate temple halls set along a line, with gates and courtyards between them. The style mixes Mongolian, Tibetan, and Chinese traditions. You can see it in the wooden columns painted deep red, the carved and coloured brackets under the eaves, and the tiled roofs that curve up at the ends. The main hall sits at the centre. Smaller halls stand behind it and to the sides.

When you step inside the main hall, give your eyes a moment. The light is dim, and the air often smells faintly of old wood, dust, and incense. Gradually the details appear. There are painted silk scrolls, gilded statues, and ritual objects behind glass. Look up as well. The ceilings and upper beams carry painted patterns in blue, green, red, and gold. Many visitors keep their eyes at eye level and miss them completely.

Here is the first thing many visitors do not expect. The collection includes masks and costumes from Tsam. Tsam is a sacred masked dance that monks performed to drive away evil and to honour protector deities. The masks are large and heavy, and many show fierce faces with bulging eyes, wide mouths, and crowns of small skulls. They are frightening on purpose. In Buddhist thought, these terrifying figures are protectors, and their anger is turned against obstacles, not against people.

To understand why this place survived, we need to look at the 1930s. Under the communist government, which was closely tied to the Soviet Union, religion was violently suppressed. In the late 1930s, hundreds of monasteries across Mongolia were destroyed. Many thousands of monks were killed, imprisoned, or forced to leave the monastic life. Whole libraries and workshops disappeared. It was one of the darkest periods in the country's history, and families in Mongolia still remember it.

The Choijin Lama Temple was closed in this period, but its buildings were not torn down. Instead, the authorities turned the complex into a museum in the early 1940s. That decision was not made for spiritual reasons. Even so, it protected the halls and much of their contents. Statues, scrolls, and ritual objects from other places were also brought here. So the temple you see today is partly a time capsule and partly a rescue collection.

The second surprise concerns the art. Some of the bronze statues here belong to the tradition of Zanabazar. He was the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, a seventeenth-century spiritual leader. He was also an extraordinary sculptor. His style is known for calm faces, slim bodies, and smooth, graceful gilded bronze. As you walk through the halls, compare the faces of the statues. Some look gentle and quiet. Others are fierce. Both kinds are part of the same tradition.

The smaller halls behind the main temple deserve your time. Each one had its own purpose and its own deities, and the atmosphere changes as you move between them. Some rooms are bright. Others are close and shadowy. According to accounts of the temple, one of the halls holds a seated figure linked to the remains of Luvsankhaidav's teacher. Labels and staff can tell you more. Please treat these rooms with respect, since many Mongolians still see them as sacred spaces.

Step back into the courtyard and look at the skyline once more. The towers of modern Ulaanbaatar rise just behind the curved roofs. For photographers, this contrast is the defining image of the place. For residents, it is a daily sight. The temple sits only a short walk from Sukhbaatar Square, the main square of the city. Old and new Mongolia share the same few streets here, and neither one hides the other.

Before you leave, stand still in the courtyard for a minute. Notice the paving stones under your feet, worn smooth by many visitors. Notice the red columns, the faded paint, and the green roof tiles against the sky. This small compound has served as an oracle's residence, a closed building, a museum, and a place of memory. As you walk back toward the traffic, listen to the noise of the city return... and remember how quiet it was inside these walls.