A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

168 A history of Inner Asia
however.The conversion of Altan Khan set in motion a rapid adoption
of Buddhism by most Eastern Mongols; moreover, in the following
century Buddhism gained a similar success among the Oirats, and eventually
also among the Buriats of southern Siberia.In all three cases the
form adopted was the Tibetan denomination of the Yellow Hat, better
known as Lamaism – and more correctly, in scholarly terminology, given
its Tibetan name Gelugpa.It was famous for its extreme monasticism,
theocracy eventually symbolized by the person of the Dalai Lama reigning
from Lhassa, and a complex system of reincarnations.This also
meant a lasting and mutually supportive relationship between the
Mongol and Tibetan churches, which began in 1578 when Sonam-
Gyatso (or bSod-nams rgya-mts’o, if we follow the generally accepted
scholarly transliteration), chief of the Tibetan church, came to
Mongolia to organize the new junior branch.It was at that point that
the title Dalai Lama appeared for the first time – a Mongolian–Tibetan
hybrid with the connotation of “Universal Lama” – apparently
bestowed upon the Tibetan prelate by Altan Khan and from then on
assumed by the spiritual and temporal chief of the Tibetan church.
Sonam-Gyatso then returned to Tibet, but not without leaving in
Mongolia a substitute of sorts, a “Living Buddha” who then resided at
the aforementioend Köke-khoto or Huehot, a city in Inner Mongolia
near the northeastern bend of the Yellow River and now the capital of
China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.
The effect of this conversion, especially on the Eastern Mongols, was
profound, pervasive, and persistent, lasting until the establishment of
Communist rule in 1921.It affected the Mongols’ political, social, and
economic structure, cultural life, and demography.Demographically, it
ended up draining some 40 percent of the male population into the
country’s numerous lamaseries, with a nearly suicidal effect on the population.It
is indeed an irony of Mongol history: a nation that paid a
heavy demographic price for its dazzling military empire in the Middle
Ages, and then again for its total abandonment to a quietist religion in
the modern era.
The social structure of the Mongols meant that their conversion proceeded
along tribal lines, the Tümet and Ordos of the southern territories
– what is now Inner Mongolia – under Altan Khan preceding those
of the north by a few years.The conversion of Tümen-Sasakhtu
(1557–93), another descendant of Dayan Khan and chief of the
Chakhar tribes, deserves attention for the fact that it was this khan who
initiated the promulgation of a new Mongol law code based on