Tibetan manuscript collection at the National Library of Mongolia

Abstract

Mongolia’s ties with Tibetan Buddhism date back to the 16th century. Altan Khan convened the title of Dalai Lama – Mongolian for ‘Ocean Lama,’ to Tibetan spiritual leader Sonam Gyatso in 1587. Because of this close ties, many of religious Tibetan texts had been brought into Mongolia as gifts to monasteries or to be translated into Mongolian. The most of the collection were destroyed during