The Center for Central Asian Literatures in Translation

THIS IS WHAT THEY SAY

I'm standing on Golden Hill.

Everything related in the original lines of my homeland's history books is inscribed upon this mind whose power is sufficient to my insignificant heart, one chapter calls upon a single volume of ideas, and you have offered the Golden Book with its precious words.

All things are everywhere interrelated and are drawn powerfully to the earth, and this is a universal law.

A local man was at one time wickedly motivated to smash up a stone head, which he carried off in pieces.  As he journeyed, he felt its burden and, during the night, he shifted the pieces to the edge of our land, and the story goes how, over the course of months and years, the stones rolled themselves together into one large pile.

An old woman called Majigsüren, living in the Khailaast district of the capital city, picked a number of different types of grasses - golden caragana, swallowwort, and mongolian onion - and planted them in the enclosure.  They acclimatised well to the ovoo and grew well there.

But then something caught her eye.  She said,

"They've moved forward about a step from the place where I originally planted them.  Over the months and years, they've moved closer towards their home, their stems and branches have deliberately pushed in this direction.  This is really interesting - when will the poor things get home?"  She crouched down, shading her eyes and looking out towards where they had come from.  As she stood up, her old woman's curved back stretched out  south-easterly and she and the caragana looked even more alike.

A friend of mine spent many years carrying out experiments to study race and nationality, observing the intimacies of family life.  As he worked on his research, he could see that it was a natural law how everyone grew used to taking births over many hundreds of years, amid the turmoil of this great city filled with people.  And, having been scattered far afield, they became invisibly attracted back to one another.

The men and women grew old, but it became quite unusual for them to be buried in the land of their birth.

A thousand years of thickly iced mountains has penetrated the dense fog of endless images and thoughts.  And the stories of a hazy time long gone, of having today come close together though having been lost in the far distance, has formed a string of circumstance.

...the sky of the mind turns blue...
 

THEY SAY...

 
CREATING A STUPA 

I was looking at the form of a shining white stupa, more and more it penetrated in towards the very center of my thoughts and mind.  And oh, I was looking out at it from the top of my Golden Hill!

And I said,

"Joining letters together to make words, speaking words to express meaning, I have erected my own stupa upon my Golden Hill.  I haven't taken stones from the land and moved them from one mountain to another, rather I have collected my endless thoughts from across the steppes, like stones lying here and there abandoned, and I have piled them high.  I have not dug in the earth and extracted clay and limestone, rather I have balanced individual stanzas and rhythms, as though correcting blemishes, and I have organised these innumerable thoughts of mine into some kind of pattern.

The eternal sun and moon have not blazed forth from the summit. like a towering mountain.  Rather, the moon shines in the night and the sun illuminates the day and the fire blooms in our hearts and our minds.

This stupa-eye at the center of our thoughts cannot be seen on Golden Hill, but it is in our hearts and our minds.  On Golden Hill, when a person looks beyond thoughts, beyond the distant time, it is their own stupa which rises aloft. 

This stupa is a small mountain on the steppe reflected in the mirror of the eyes, its timeless meaning and import towers into the sky of the mind reflected in the mirror of the heart.

...the sky of the mind turns blue...
 

THEY SAY...

MEETING MY FATHER AGAIN 

I was looking again at the bright form of my father, more and more it penetrated in towards the very center of my thoughts and mind.  And father said to me,

"Father's gaze has illuminated the many pathways of his son's thoughts, he has listened to the words, however they have been presented.  Father's mind was at rest.  He has thanked his son."

My mind was very happy.  As though guessing my thoughts, father's eyes shone intently, they gleamed like a spark.  He continued,

"But my son has taken the first step towards understanding Golden Hill."

"The first step?"

"Yes, you've started on your journey."  Father continued,

"Your father saw a white stupa of enlightenment towering high in the thoughts of his son.  The stupa of my son's mind forever stands tall!  That said, all things in this world are collected wisdom and form innumerable stupas.  And the Buddhas' pleasure is able to create the wonder that looms above us, that is Golden Hill."  I wondered,

"So how powerful is my stupa?"  Father replied,

"A person is formed through one life, but might it be that the power of the shards from Golden Hill have, like the Buddha, previously been realised?"

...the sky of the mind turns blue...
 

Father's form was no more.  Awakened from thought, however, Golden Hill stood out in its regular form.  The sky glimmered above Golden Hill, the stones stood out around Golden Hill, and I felt the gentle magic in the scent of wormwood and thyme upon the winds of Golden Hill.

Customs come and go around the wheel of time and many things disappear from the world.  Inlai, the senior monk of Golden Hill, invited my teacher Duvsandagva to the land of Shambala.  My father, the fiddle player of Golden Hill, is no longer here.  My mother, an old grey pilgrim to Golden Hill, is no longer here.  Ulaan-Sakhius Dashbalbar, whose family made an oath on Golden Hill, is no longer here.  The young artist Naranbaatar, an eldest son in the prime of his youth, who led me by the hand onto Golden Hill, is no longer here.  My elder brother, the lama of Orloi Majig, who created the great epic, a vehicle travelling the land, is no longer here ...

The great scholar, the old abbot Damdinsüren, whom they knew as Danigai, who was familiar with the ten difficult things, is no longer here.  My teacher the great poet Yavuukhulan, the son of Ogtontenger, who was devoted to singing songs on Golden Hill, is no longer here.  The writer Sengiin Erdene, who told me, "This book, Golden Hill, is the song of our homeland.  I don't know of another work capable of offering such genuine and pure instruction" - he is no longer here.  And neither my younger brother Uyanga who, once Golden Hill had been published, wrote a review in which he discussed "the enlightened Golden Hill raised up by the shining people", nor my elder brother the poet Toomoi Ochirkhüü wrote how the book was"about the creation of poetic rhythm" remain upon the earth.

And many people who have loved Golden Hill along with me are not here.

There is no-one who has returned to drink the waters of the earth, and I shall chase along the path here, or there along the road, gripped by the hardness of my mind and by my streaming tears of grief.  My mother gave birth in my presence, she milked her children for the first time.  Over thirty years, the four children born to my parents grew up together, two other sons and a daughter, and then there were my two nephews Bilgüüdei and Yesüüdei and my niece Bilgüüj.  Let us hope that the old grey herdsmen will meet together.  And there are many people dear to me in the four directions and the eight intermediate directions, my close friends in the artistic community, my students and the family at home.  These are my readers.

The customs of the world do not fade away, and my Golden Hill, towering Golden Sumeru, unique in the world, forever brings with it a love of the time passed, the present and the future.  I make an offering of this little text to Golden Hill, it is for all of you to read.