The Center for Central Asian Literatures in Translation

ON THE ROAD TO GOLDEN HILL 

The stones of Golden Hill are given a place of honor in every settlement throughout our homeland.  I don't actually know how far this practise has spread.

We offer an invitation to the god of Golden Hill to create Dariganga.  The moon which rides the white horse of precious Golden Hill soars over the earth and gazes down compassionately, its face gentle and peaceful, upon the world.  The Buddha raises in his left hand the precious cintamani, the wish-fulfilling jewel, the nexus of all riches, and so shows his ability quickly to grant help.  The stone comes from afar, fulfilling the vow, To think with love is to follow, we invite the god in the form of the stone to the place of honor.  Thus the white horse is consecrated and is made a sacrifice to Golden Hill.  And so we invite the god of Golden Hill, who rides upon the white horse.

ONCE UPON A TIME...

Many years ago, a young man came to study in the snowy land of Tibet.  Filled to exhaustion by the profound Dharma, he dozed off.  He dreamt about Golden Hill, and then he woke up.  This young man had violated the strict vows of the community and so received the monastery's severe punishment.

They were all about to descend upon the poor boy with their clubs, when a man came galloping in on a white horse, holding a spear, with which he kept them at bay.  In this way the people punishing the young man were frustrated.  They asked:

"What were you thinking about?  Why did this man come to protect you on a white horse?  Tell us."  And the young man said,

"My head was overcome by thoughts of a hill in the area where I was born and raised.  And while I was dreaming this hill of mine had come into my mind."  One of the others said, without any surprise,

"This white horseman is the hill you were thinking of.  This mountain is the great and extraordinary Chös-rgyan, who helps a person who thinks with love of the things of his homeland.  Please believe this."  And so the practise of worshipping Golden Hill spread.

CHATTERING ABOUT HOME 

"During the Second World War, the army, as they passed through Dariganga, saw a beautiful elegant white horse drinking the water of Dyyt.  They didn't know what had happened."

"On the day when the soldiers came home from the war, they saw a small, badly-conditioned white horse drinking the water of Dyyt.  They they didn't know what had happened."

"Perhaps Golden Hill had followed its people and then returned?"

FROM FATHER'S REMINISCENCES

I met with a soldier from our homeland, called Darjaa, who was in a hospital in the wilderness around the town of Jekhe.  This is what he told me.  He had come as a spy into the depths of the war and, being close to the fighting, had been wounded and passed out.  When he came to, he said, he was drawn into a misty fog.  He wondered how he might escape with his life, surrounded by battle and with his whole body so wounded.  Exhausted, he heard the words Call upon your hill.  He lay down and prayed to Golden Hill.  He immediately followed a gully and found there a white horse.  His strength drained away, he thought of riding the horse, but he couldn't remember what happened after.  Then, in a flash, he was lying on the ground.

"Golden Hill saved me", this soldier told me.

AND THIS IS WHAT MOTHER SAID

"My son, please think about Golden Hill.  Every hill and body of water is contained within it.  The Ganga is its wife, they say, Khongor it's child, Lung is its compassionate monk, Bayandulan is its minister, the Brown Hill of Dökhöm is its younger brother.  And its relatives dwell upon the colored earth of Dariganga.

ONCE UPON A TIME...

A mendicant monk, following the path of Dharma in a foreign land, took with him a stone from Golden Hill.  As he spoke with the people in this country about his having this stone, he became delirious, his body became ill.  He drank boiling water, he prayed morning and evening, and so he became stonger.

But because he didn't reach the pinnacle of his study, he didn't go home.  He thought that mundane things were not visible in the land of abundant Dharma.

This stone which he held in his hand was his homeland. 

Before he died, when he had become a learnèd elder, he told his most trusted students,

"Sixty years ago, I took this from Golden Hill.  Do you think that this is just an ordinary stone?  It is a Buddha who discovered the sanctified life.  And now there's no-one to depend upon this Buddha.  So, however you can, please take it back to the high hill."

The students took an oath to fulfill the request of their wise teacher.  I don't actually know how many of them followed it up.

THEY ALSO SAY... 

A man of genius muttered a magical incantation over the stone from Golden Hill and thereby gained strength.  Thinking about it now, a man goes to Golden Hill and takes a stone from its lower slopes, placing it upon an ovoo.  The stone absorbs into itself the warmth of his hands and, through them, the man's warm and gentle mind, and these remain there, upon the ovoo.  Is there a stone on Golden Hill which has not absorbed the trembling of the man's mind and the warmth of his body?

The ideas which I formed upon Golden Hill, and the loving words which I muttered there, all like tumbleweed and inchoate, were they all not absorbed into the stone body of the hill?

The thoughts of people have at all times been absorbed into the mountains and water and stones, they were written and placed inside a magical box.  And all creation recites aloud the most precious and pure thoughts from Golden Hill.

A MEMORY

Father, three times in the place were I was born I thought I might e abandoned, or that phsyically and emotionally I needed the protector's beneficence.  This happened when I was very small, and later when I finished high school. 

From the livestock shelter Denjiin Khemnegt where I was born, I could see the blue hill called Kharaat, one of the Five Hills of the steppes.

"Father, can we see Golden Hill from here?"

"No, my son, we can't."

So my birthplace in Golden Hill was really not visible to us.  And you say, Golden Hill looks upon my son and supports him.

Father walks on, smiling, and points towards Kharaat.

"Kharaat is looking down upon Denjiin Khemnegt.  And Golden Hill is visible from Kharaat.  Someone on Golden Hill can see what's happening on the land around Kharaat - and so can we!"

"Of course, my son!  You can see Shiliin Bogd on Golden Hill and, on Shiliin Bogd, you can see Zotol Khaan.  Really, you can see every single hill in our homeland."

"And can we see all the mountains on earth?"

"Sure we can!  We can see every single mountain in the world."

This discussion we had stuck in my mind.  Later, looking from the peak of Bogd Dünjingarav at the distant hills, I believed I could make out the shape of my Golden Hill, and I was so very happy.

Some time after all this, aware that Bogd Uul was visible from the glorious mountain of Züün, some ten relay-stations east of Urga, I looked upon the peak of Otgontenger, at about the same distance in the west.  I firmly believed that I could see every single mountain in the world.

One blueskied day of spring, flying over the snowy white finials of Otgontenger, whose form was of Vajrapani, I thought of the connection between my family and Golden Hill, so uniquely lovely.  I thought about how I was loved, not only by my own homeland, but by my motherland, by Mongolia as a whole.

So the love of my homeland and of my motherland and of the world itself shone forth from this little stone.

The morning sun, rising over Otgontenger, falls first upon the finial of Golden Hill, a tree which has stood strong and firm through the winds and the suns of untold centuries.  Does this call from the peak of eternal snow stem from my family's connection?

And later, when I was flying over the pillarlike white mountain of the Himalayas, although it was not exactly the white peak of the glorious and towering stupa of Otgontenger, still as I looked over the surrounding mountains, I was filled with a pure joy.  As father had told me,

"Go to all the famous mountains where I've been, I'll show you.  Ascend them if you can, go as far as you can in any case.  The spirit of the mountain will support you.  If it shows you the fresh water of a spring upon the mountain, then taste it.  This is not one water alone, but the water of all rivers.  If you taste it, you taste the essence of all such waters!"  This is what my father taught me. 

THEY ALSO SAY... 

If you say you'd know humanity in its entirety, they say you should know your mother and father, your brothers and sisters, your relatives and your friends.

If you say you'd know Golden Hill in its entirety, then you should know its brothers and sisters, its dear relatives and the many mountains and waters with whom it feels close.

But I cannot hold the stone in which my homeland is gathered, I cannot taste the waters.  They say its essence is mighty.

In this way, I can say that I recognise a single stone from a mountain, a few grains from a great desert, a droplet of water from a lake.  Is not the precious wish-fulfilling cintamani symbolised through these three tokens?

They say that all the brothers and sisters of Golden Hill - stones from the mountains, droplets of water from the lakes and grains of sand - are gathered within it.