Gandantegchinlen Monastery

Mongolia's most important Buddhist monastery, reborn after Soviet suppression

Gandantegchinlen Monastery — Gandan for short — is the most important Buddhist monastery in Mongolia and the religious heart of Ulaanbaatar. Founded in 1809 and largely destroyed under Soviet rule, it was the one monastery allowed to operate under communism (though in heavily restricted form). Since 1990 it has been restored and expanded, and now functions as a full religious community with several hundred monks in residence.

The centrepiece is the Megjid Janraisig Temple, built to house the 26-metre gilded copper statue of Avalokiteśvara — the bodhisattva of compassion. The statue is encrusted with precious stones and semi-precious materials donated by Buddhist communities from across Mongolia. Morning prayers begin around 9am and visitors are welcome to observe from the back of the temple — the sound of monks chanting while incense burns and the butter lamps flicker is one of the better experiences in UB. The monastery complex includes several smaller temples, a monastic college, and a library of Buddhist scriptures. Arrive on foot from the city centre — the 15-minute walk passes through a neighbourhood of Soviet-era apartment blocks that is itself part of the experience.

things to do temple
A story
In Stalin's 1937 purges of Mongolian Buddhism, approximately 17,000 monks were executed and the rest were imprisoned or forced to disrobe. Of roughly 700 monasteries, only a single one was allowed to remain open — as a Potemkin monastery for foreign visitors, with a handful of elderly monks as props. Gandan was that monastery. After 1990, real religious life returned. The 26-metre gilded statue of Avalokiteśvara completed in 1996 replaces the original, which the Soviets melted down in 1937 for ammunition.