History
The monastery was constructed by the order of Yongzheng Emperor in 1727. Nine years later, it was established and named Qingning Si by Qianlong Emperor, as residence of the Second Jebtsundamba, Outer Mongolia's highest reincarnated lama. It became the principal center of Buddhist learning in Mongolia.
In the 1930s, the Communist government of Mongolia, under the leadership of Khorloogiin Choibalsan and under the influence of Joseph Stalin, destroyed all but a few monasteries and killed more than 15,000 lamas.
Gandantegchinlen Khiid monastery, having escaped this mass destruction, was closed in 1938, but then reopened in 1944 and allowed to continue as the only functioning Buddhist monastery, under a skeleton staff, as a token homage to traditional Mongolian culture and religion. With the end of Marxism in Mongolia in 1990, restrictions on worship were lifted.
Read more about this topic: Gandantegchinlen Monastery
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