Mongolian Kanjur, the most important religious text in Mongolia. It is the Buddhist canonical text in 108 volumes.
'Kanjur' means 'Concise Orders'- the words of Lord Buddha in particular in the Mongolian language. The Mongolian Buddhists worship the Kanjur at temples and recite the lines of Kanjur in daily life as a sacred ritual. The Kanjur is kept almost in every monastery in Mongolia.
Mongolian Kanjur has been translated from Tibetan. The language of the Kanjur is Classical Mongolian. The Mongolian Kanjur is a source of providing a cultural identity to Mongolia.
The Ministry of Culture of India has taken up the project of reprinting 108 volumes of Mongolian Kanjur under the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM). The first set of five volumes of Mongolian Kanjur published under the NMM was presented to the President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind on the occasion of Guru Purnima, also known as Dharma Chakra Day, on 4th July 2020. A set was then handed over to the Ambassador (of Mongolia) to India.
The National Mission for Manuscripts was launched in February 2003 by the Government of India,
under the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, with the mandate of documenting, conserving and
disseminating the knowledge preserved in the manuscripts.
One of the objectives of the mission is to publish rare and unpublished manuscripts so that the knowledge enshrined in them is spread to researchers, scholars, and the general public at large.