The foundations of the Great Maitreya Buddha statue rise from the steppe surrounding Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, an area beaten by howling winds and freezing winter temperatures. The workers have had to take a break from their monumental task until spring returns.
When they are done, the Great Maitreya Buddha will stand 54 metres tall, about eight metres taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York. An attached 108-metre-high stupa towering over an expansive park will complete Mongolia’s vision of one of the world’s largest Buddhist shrines, with total costs set to reach more than US$230 million — $32 million for the statue and the stupa alone.
When the structure is completed by 2020, the complex is expected to attract pilgrims and tourists from all over the world, and eventually become an icon of modern Mongolia.
“The young, walking Maitreya symbolises the Mongolia of nowadays: a young democracy and economy moving forward driven by the new energy that runs through its veins,” said D. Erdembileg, a sculptor and artistic father of the project.
Sparsely populated, resource-rich Mongolia is experiencing rapid economic growth driven by the development of the mining sector. With largely untapped deposits of coal, copper, gold and uranium worth hundreds of billions of dollars, the country “has the potential to become the Saudi Arabia of Asia”, in the words of veteran emerging markets investor Marc Faber.
Massive mining developments such as Rio Tinto’s $14-billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine are taking shape in the Gobi desert. Farther north, cranes and skyscrapers tower over Ulaanbaatar’s apartment blocks and outlying neighbourhoods of traditional ger, the nomadic tents often referred to as yurts.
The Great Maitreya project embodies the ambitions of modern Mongolia. Pilgrims and tourists will be able to explore it from toe to head and then move on to the attached six-level stupa building, where they will find a prayer space and educational facilities, alongside 108,000 smaller copies of the statue. All around, a truly multi-purpose Buddhist complex will sprung up over an area of 108 hectares where visitors will find all the they need to fulfil their spiritual needs — or just have fun.
The complex will feature Buddhist museums and meditation halls, a five-star hotel, an opera theatre and a zoo park. Its total costs could reach $200 million, according to figures from the Maitreya foundation, which is developing the project on behalf of a group of private donors.
“Tourism will allow us to cover the shrine maintenance costs,” said Tsogtbayar Bukhbaata, the foundation’s CEO. The development of the whole complex will wrap up in 2020, as long as private donations can cover the costs.
A monk stands in front of a full-size mock-up of the face of the giant Maitreya statue.
Farther down the road, the overall vision also encompasses the construction Maitreya Eco City, which a real estate company aims to develop to host 200,000 new citizens and a “green triangle” expanding from the shrine all the way to the Chinese border.
While projecting an image of Mongolia striding into a prosperous future, promoters also hope the shrine can serve to heal the open wound created by seven decades of communism that ended in 1990.
“There is stirring in the hearts and minds of some Mongolians [a feeling] that the time has come to regain some of the glories that Mongolia possessed in Buddhism prior to Soviet occupation,” Bataa Mishigish, a former monk and religious expert on religion’s place in international relations, wrote in a recent essay.
“Mongolia has many ancient monasteries that were destroyed during the socialist days — now only a few are left standing, and these not very accessible to the average person.”
Ruled by Soviet Union-backed governments between 1924 and 1992, the country experienced Stalin’s fury in the mid-1930s, when some 30,000 Mongols were executed in a series of campaigns against Mongolia’s cultural and religious heritage. Thousands of lamas were either killed or secularised —in 1935, a lamas’ industrial production association employed some 35,000 holy men in forced labour.
Altogether, 1,250 monasteries and temples were destroyed, according to estimates from Mongolia’s Arts Council. In a few years, the Gandan monastery in Ulaanbaatar survived as the only active monastery left in the whole country.
The purge also targeted national hero Genghis Khan as the Russians tried to stifle any nationalistic feeling prompted by the memory of the father of the great Mongol empire. Today, a massive, brand-new Genghis Khan equestrian statue dominates the steppe 54 kilometres east of Ulaanbaatar. The Great Maitreya Buddha will soon match its magnitude and brightness. Both are the brainchild of D. Erdembileg.
“The Genghis Khan statue is meant for the glory of the nation, whereas the Great Maitreya Buddha symbolises spiritual immunity,” he said.
“Only through spiritual immunity can the glory of a nation last forever.”
Scaffolding surrounds the foundation of the statue being erected outside Ulaanbaatar, where work will resume in the spring.
The Maitreya will tower over some of the world's best-known landmarks.