


Ī 9th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu was installed by the 14th Dalai Lama as the head of a reinvigorated Jonang lineage. In February 1929, the installation of any further Khutughtus was forbidden. The Dalai Lama's decision would nonetheless be subject to new Mongolian legislation for the separation of church and state.


Faced with the possibility of a new Khutughtu who was born within Mongolia and was not even a foreigner from Tibet, the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party decided in July 1925 to turn the matter over to the elderly 13th Dalai Lama in Lhasa. The communist government of the Mongolian People's Republic, which replaced the theocracy in 1924, declared that there were to be no further reincarnations.Ī reincarnation was in fact found almost at once in north Mongolia, and some high lamas of the dead Khutughtu's suite went to interview the child's mother, Tsendjav, and to instruct her in the details of the life of the former incarnation, so that she could familiarize the child-candidate with the tests which he would have to undergo. He was the head of state until his death in 1924. When the region of Outer Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty in 1911, the eighth Jebtsundamba (1869–1924) was elevated to theocratic ruler, called Bogd Khan and established the Bogd Khanate of Mongolia. After Chingünjav's rebellion and the demise of the second Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty decreed in 1758 that all future reincarnations were to be found from among the population of Tibet. Like Zanabazar, the 2nd Jebtsundamba Khutughtu was a member of Mongolia's highest nobility and direct descendant of Genghis Khan. On May 29, the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu paid homage to the Kangxi Emperor in 1691 at Dolonnor. Zanabazar was the son of the Tüsheet Khan Gombodorj, ruler of central Khalkha Mongolia, and himself became the spiritual head of the Khalkha Mongols. The first Jebtsundamba, Zanabazar (1635–1723), was identified as the reincarnation of the scholar Taranatha of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism. History Statue of Zanabazar, the 1st Jebtsundamba They also hold the title of Bogd Gegeen, making them the top-ranked lama in Mongolia. The Jebtsundamba Khutuktu or Khalkha Jetsün Dampa Rinpoche is a title given to the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.
