Mongolian Buddhism, 8-9 April 2025

Please register by 7 January 2025 by sending your name, affiliation, title and abstract in 150 words to mongol@btk.elte.hu. If you need an invitation letter for the visa, please let us know.

In 2025, we celebrate the 90th anniversary of Professor György Kara’s birth (1935–2022) and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Hungarian-Mongolian diplomatic relations. We wish to contribute to these events by organizing the Fifth International Conference on Aspects of Mongolian Buddhism on 8–9 April 2025. The conference is organized by the Department of Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies and Research Centre for Mongolian Studies, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University with partner institutions from Hungary and Mongolia.

Following the success of the conferences “Mongolian Buddhism: Past, Present and Future” in 2015, “Mongolian Buddhism in Practice” in 2017, “Mongolian Buddhism: Tradition and Innovation” in 2019, “Mongolian Buddhism: Animals, Plants and Bioethics” in 2022, the fifth international conference is for scholars and monks to present their work on any aspect of the textual tradition of Mongolian Buddhism. This can cover history, philosophy, education, monasticism, rituals, folklore and folk religion, and any other fields related to Mongolian Buddhism’s textual tradition preserved in written form or oral narratives.

The tradition of Mongolian Buddhism traces back centuries, and Buddhist teachings and practices exist in both written and oral forms. The aim of the conference is to reveal the wide diversity of Mongolian Buddhism’s textual tradition.

The conference will focus on the Buddhism of Mongols living in the present area of Mongolia and the beliefs and practices of Mongols living in China, Russia, or other places where Mongols settled. The distinctiveness of Mongolian Buddhism compared to the Buddhist corpus in general will be revealed through the presentations. The scientific papers will be published in book format.

Renowned Hungarian Orientalist, Mongolist and philologist, Professor György Kara (1935−2022), corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, head of the Department of Inner Asian Studies at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University and the Research Group for Altaic Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for decades, was a pioneer in the research of the books of the Mongolian nomads and laid an emphasis on different scripts, eminent polymaths, and philological research of Mongolian texts. Presentations concerning Professor György Kara’s oeuvre, research topics, and philology are also warmly welcome.

The main languages of the conference are English, Mongolian and Russian.

The organizers will provide refreshments during the conference. Travelling and accommodation should be organized individually. If you need assistance regarding accommodation possibilities, please ask the organizers.

An escorted visit to the Oriental Collection of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences would be organized in the afternoon on 7 April 2025. The first day of the conference, 8 April 2025 will take place at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, and Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary will host the panels of the second day, 9 April 2025.

Please note that the conference ‟Community Histories, Environment and Mobile Pastoralism in Inner Asia” will take place at Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia on 4−5 April 2025.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Budapest at Eötvös Loránd University.

On behalf of the organizing committee:

Ágnes Birtalan, head of the department and the research centre