Bogdo Zanabazar
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Bogdo Zanabazar, also known as Bogd Gegeen, Lam Zanabazar — The First Resplendent Saint of Mongolia (1635-1723) was the first Jebtsundamba, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.
When the Buddhists of Tibet and Mongolia wished to appoint a new spiritual leader over Mongolia, divination and omens indicated Zanabazar, the three-year-old son of Gombodorji, ruler of the Tüsheet Khanate, and his wife, Khandujamtso, as being the reincarnation of the scholar Taranatha of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism, who died in 1634.[citation needed] The young Zanabazar later became the first Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia. His given name was taken from the Sanskrit word jñana, "knowledge", and the Mongolian word bazar, "thunderbolt" (Sanskrit Jñānavajra).
In 1640, Zanabazar, who was directly descended from Genghis Khan, was recognized by the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama as being a "Living Buddha", and he received his seat at Ulan Bator, then located 400 miles from the present site of Ulaanbaatar at the Buddhist monastery of Da Khuree, as head of the Gelug tradition in Mongolia. Miraculous occurrences allegedly took place during his youth; and in 1647, aged 12, he founded the Shankh Monastery.
Zanabazar has been called the "Michelangelo of Asia" for bringing to the region a renaissance in matters related to spirituality, including theology, language, art, medicine and astronomy. He composed sacred music, mastered the sacred arts of bronze casting and painting, created a new design for monastic robes, and invented the Soyombo script in 1686, based on the Lantsa script of India — as well as the Quadratic Script, based on the Tibetan and Phagspa scripts.
The scholar Ragchaagiin Byambaa has suggested that both of these scripts invented by Zanabazar were combined to write in a tripartite "Dharma" language composed of Tibetan, Mongolian and Sanskrit, because, he says, the two scripts were specifically designed to better accommodate the phonetics of all three languages. At present, they are mainly used for sacred and ornamental Buddhist inscriptions, and among learned Buddhist scholars in Mongolia.
