Jebtsundamba Khutuktu
젭춘담바 쿠툭투
The supreme incarnate lama and spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Outer Mongolia, who also bears the title Bogd Gegeen and ranks as the highest lama in Mongolia. The office is passed down through reincarnation, beginning in 1639 when Zanabazar was recognized as the first Jebtsundamba.
In depth
Foundation and lineage
The office began in 1639, when a convocation of nobles declared the four-year-old Zanabazar spiritual leader of the Khalkha Mongols, and in 1649 the 5th Dalai Lama identified him as the reincarnation of the scholar Taranatha. In a lineage counting Taranatha as the 15th incarnation, Zanabazar was recognized as the 16th, and he and his successors were called the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu. The Tibetan hierarchy also granted him the title Bogd Gegeen, the top-ranking lama in Mongolia. The first Jebtsundamba, Zanabazar (1635–1723), was a son of the Tüsheet Khan Gombodorj, and the second was likewise drawn from Mongolia's highest nobility as a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. After Chingünjav's rebellion and the second Jebtsundamba's demise, the Qianlong Emperor decreed in 1758 that future reincarnations were to be sought from among the population of Tibet.
Theocratic state and the interrupted succession
When the Qing collapsed and Outer Mongolia declared independence in 1911, the 8th Jebtsundamba (1869–1924) was elevated to theocratic ruler as the Bogd Khan and headed the state until his death in 1924. The communist government of the Mongolian People's Republic that replaced the theocracy declared there would be no further reincarnations. Yet a reincarnation candidate was found almost at once after the Bogd Khan's death in north Mongolia, lamas interviewed the child's mother Tsendjav, and the MPRP Central Committee, facing a Khutuktu born in Mongolia, decided in July 1925 to turn the matter over to the 13th Dalai Lama. Rumors of a reincarnation appeared in Mongolia in 1924 and 1925, but no traditional determination of the supposed incarnation was conducted.
Sources differ on when the final ban came. One account records that in November 1926 the 3rd Great Khural approved a resolution that searches for reincarnations of the Bogd Gegen should not be allowed, and that a final prohibition was approved by the 7th MPRP Congress and 5th People's Great Khural in 1928; another states that in February 1929 the installation of any new Khutuktu was forbidden.
The 9th and 10th
Jampal Namdol Chökyi Gyaltsen, the 9th Jebtsundamba, was born in Lhasa and recognized in 1936 as the Bogd Khan's reincarnation, but because of the persecution of Buddhism in the communist Mongolian People's Republic the Dalai Lama kept his identity secret until 1990, and he did not reside in Mongolia until the final year of his life. His birth year is reported both as 1932 and as 6 January 1933; he died in Ulaanbaatar on 1 March 2012 after a prolonged illness. His identity was revealed in 1990, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Mongolia's democratic revolution, and he was enthroned in Dharamsala in 1991 and in Ulaanbaatar in 1999. He received Mongolian citizenship in 2010 and was enthroned as head of Mongolia's Buddhists in November 2011. On 23 November 2016 the Dalai Lama stated his belief that the 10th had been reborn in Mongolia, and on 8 March 2023 he publicly acknowledged the 10th reincarnation at a ceremony in Dharamshala. The 10th, born around 2015 in Washington, D.C. to Khalkha Mongolian parents as one of identical twins, was followed by Chinese tariffs and the closure of a key border crossing after the 2023 acknowledgement. The office is ongoing, so no precise end year is assigned.