Image and Imagination in Mongolian Buddhism

Bringing together two leading specialists in Mongolian Buddhism, Image and Imagination in Mongolian Buddhism transforms our understanding of the textual, aesthetic, and social history of one of the world’s most lavish and inspired, but relatively unknown, Buddhist societies. Herein, readers will find both a rich history of Mongolian Buddhism across the imperial-socialist transition and an innovative model for collaborative work across the disciplinary frontiers of religious studies and art history. These pages will be read and read again by generations of scholars and students. – Matthew King, University of California, RiversideSignificantly expands our understanding of how Buddhist texts and objects are produced, circulated, received, and deployed within the wider Tibetan Buddhist world. – Andrew H. Quintman, Wesleyan UniversityThis book opens a portal into the world of Mongolian art, meditation, and literature. The reader is transported across the centuries to glimpse lives of eminent Buddhist masters, guided by the Kālacakra Tantra through the mythic landscape of Śambhala, and invited into a vast cultural memory. But even more, this book reveals how Buddhists in Mongolia used the power of imagination to transform consciousness. – Michael R. Sheehy, University of Virginia

Vesna A. Wallace is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the editor of Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture, and Society (2015), among other books.

Uranchimeg Tsultemin is the Edgar and Dorothy Fehnel Chair in International Studies and an associate professor of art history at Indiana University’s Herron School of Art and Design. She is the author of A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia (2021), among other books.