Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain worshipped

Society
baljmaa@montsame.gov.mn
2020-10-27 17:10:15

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. A worship ceremony for the Great Burkhan Khaldun – the mountain of national glory was organized on October 26, Monday. 


Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, members of the State Great Khural – parliament, and representatives from the Office of the President, General Staff of the Armed Forces and Gandantegchinlen Monastery and Khentii aimag administration took part in the ceremony. 


In his remarks at the ceremony, Prime Minister Khurelsukh said “The Burkhan Khaldun Mountain, which preserves the legacy of Great Chinggis Khaan, is a place of sacred ground for the origin of our history. The ancestral lands and heritages passed down to us through generations must be protected, cherished and enriched further.”


On 16 May 1995, the first President of Mongolia issued a decree ‘Supporting initiatives to revive the tradition of worshiping Bogd Khan Khairkhan, Burkhan Khaldun (Khan Khentii), and Otgontenger Mountains’, pronouncing the state support for initiatives to revive official Mountain worship, and prohibiting of any activity on the Burkhan Khaldun Mountain other than worshipping rituals. 


One of the Khentii Mountains in the Khentii aimag of northeastern Mongolia, which extends over an area of 12,000 square kilometers, Burkhan Khaldun Mountain was announced by the government as the mountain of national glory in 2013. 


The Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and its surrounding sacred landscape were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 4 July 2015. 


The site is believed to be the place of Chinggis Khaan’s birth and burial and testifies to his efforts to establish mountain worship as an important part of the unification of the Mongol people.  The state ceremonies to worship sacred mountains are organized as a gesture for Mongolia's longstanding traditional culture of protecting, loving and worshipping the mother nature.