A poem by Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b. 1976). Please refer to the Index of Mongolian Poetry and Articles for other works that may be of interest.

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THE INNER FIRE

(English Translation)

When every human being is born into this world,
They come with fire in their eyes, and fire in their hearts.¹“Нүдэндээ, сэтгэлдээ галтай” is literally “with fire in their eyes and in their setgel.” Сэтгэл spans a range of meanings, including “heart, mind, spirit, feeling.” For this translation, I settled on the poetic “hearts.”
Yet the fire of most beings is easily extinguished,
Losing faith and love, they go on, with only a dim glow.

The fire of the eyes, blazing bright, is kindled from the heart,
And the flame of the heart’s lamp burns on through many births.²“Зүрхний зулын дөл” carries a distinctly devotional image. Зул is more than a generic lamp; in a Mongolian Buddhist context it evokes the devotional butter lamp and the light of an offering. I have retained “the flame of the heart’s lamp,” which preserves the image without making it overly literal. “Олон төрөл дамжин” means “passing through many births” or “through many forms of existence.” Given the poem’s Buddhist register (see below), “through many births” preserves the implication of rebirth.
Beneath the storms of this degenerate age,³Цөвүүн цаг (tsövüün tsag) is an established Mongolian expression for an age of decline, disorder, or spiritual deterioration. In Mongolian Buddhist and prophetic literature it can refer not simply to “bad times,” but to a period in which moral conduct, religious understanding, and social order are understood to have weakened. The expression also sits comfortably within Mongolian oral and prophetic traditions in which periods of calamity and decline are interpreted through a distinctly Mongolian historical and cultural vocabulary (cf. Srba 2021; Birtalan 2025). I have translated it here as “degenerate age” to retain that stronger Buddhist moral sense, rather than the flatter “troubled times.” both are difficult to protect;
Yet if one can hold fast to a steadfast heart, they shall not be extinguished.

But those with corrupted hearts, who go about putting out the fires of others,
Roam everywhere, insinuating themselves, here and there.
Those who hate the fire stand seven levels beneath those without faith.⁴“Seven levels beneath”: The number seven here should not necessarily be read as a reference to a specific Buddhist doctrine. Mongolian expressive and ritual culture gives particular weight to odd numbers, notably three, five, seven, and nine, which can function symbolically and rhetorically rather than as simple quantities. Studies of Mongolian ritual folklore identify three, five, and seven as numbers carrying sacred significance, while work on The Secret History of the Mongols demonstrates the much older use of number-patterning and numerical amplification in Mongol oral and political culture (cf. Bitkeeva and Gympilova 2021; Moses 1986). Such numerical symbolism belongs to a cultural field extending beyond Buddhism and rooted in Mongolian pastoral, ritual, and oral traditions. Indeed, scholarship on Mongolian religion cautions against automatically assigning practices or symbols found in Mongolian Buddhist contexts to Buddhist doctrinal origins, since Mongolian Buddhism developed through sustained interaction with pre-existing local ritual traditions (cf. Atwood 1996). Accordingly, долоон дор (doloon dor, literally “seven below”) is rendered here as “seven levels beneath”: the translation retains the culturally resonant number and the original spatial metaphor without imposing the more strictly arithmetic sense suggested by English “sevenfold.”⁵Cultural field: the broader network of traditions, practices, symbols, values, and forms of expression within which a particular idea acquires meaning.⁶Spatial metaphor: using language of physical position or direction, such as “above,” “below,” “higher,” or “beneath,” to express an abstract relationship such as moral or spiritual standing.⁷The Mongolian urvagch (урвагч) more literally means “traitor,” “betrayer,” or one who has turned against a former allegiance. I have translated it here more freely as “those without faith.” This choice is guided by my reading of the movement of the poem itself. In the opening stanza, Rinpoche speaks of beings who lose itgel khair (итгэл хайр), “faith and love,” as their inner fire grows dim. When the poem later turns to those who actively extinguish the fire of others, I read urvagch not only as betrayal in a social or political sense, but as a deeper failure of fidelity. Rendering it as “those without faith” allows that earlier language to return in the final stanza, and keeps the emphasis on the poem’s moral and spiritual world rather than on the more political associations that “traitor” can carry in English.
May those sowers of calamity be subdued, by the fire of intuitive discernment.⁸Bilig bilgüün (Билиг билгүүн) belongs to a semantic field of wisdom, insight, discernment, and intuitive understanding. In Buddhist contexts билиг can conventionally be translated as “wisdom,” but I have chosen “intuitive discernment” here to preserve something of its sense of insight that sees and distinguishes clearly, rather than reducing it to acquired knowledge or intellectual reasoning. The expression билиг билгүүн reinforces this quality through closely related terms, giving the phrase a heightened sense of perceptive understanding. “Intuitive discernment” is therefore intended to retain this emphasis while avoiding a more formulaic Buddhist-English rendering such as “transcendent wisdom.”⁹On the poem’s literary register: The poem draws deliberately upon an older Mongolian literary and Buddhist register, most visibly in verbal forms that are markedly elevated beside ordinary contemporary speech. Examples include badmalmui (бадмалмуй, “blazes; burns on”), ül untramui yaa (үл унтрамуй яа, “shall not be extinguished”), and the archaizing copular amu (аму, “is; are indeed”). The concluding nomkhotgokh boltugai (номхотгох болтугай, “may [they] be subdued”) adds an optative cadence characteristic of formal religious utterance. These forms should not be understood simply as decorative archaisms. Mongolian Buddhist texts constitute an important repository of earlier Mongolian linguistic forms, while the long development of Mongolian Dharma literature established its own learned grammatical and lexical conventions (cf. Higuchi 2015; Dashlkhagvaa and Orosoo 2023). In a contemporary Cyrillic composition, the selective use of such forms therefore allows Zava Rinpoche’s poem to speak simultaneously in a modern Mongolian voice and through an inherited Mongolian literary-religious idiom. I hope the translation preserves this distinction through a measured formality in English, especially in its declarative lines, without attempting to imitate the Mongolian forms with artificially archaic English.¹⁰Archaizing copular: the deliberate use of an older or old-fashioned form of the verb “to be” (a copula), giving the language an elevated, literary, or traditional tone.¹¹Optative cadence: a form or rhythm of expression conveying a wish, prayer, blessing, or invocation, often corresponding in English to constructions such as “may it be” or “may they…”.¹²Decorative archaisms: deliberately old-fashioned words or grammatical forms used mainly to give a text an antique, elevated, or traditional flavour, rather than because they carry a specific inherited literary or religious function.¹³Translated by C. Pleteshner, 19.10.2026, from the Mongolian original dated 11.10.2025. Translation necessarily involves interpretation across languages and cultures. Any errors are entirely my own, and for these I humbly apologise.

The Son Who Delights Mañjuśrī
11.10.2026

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ДОТООД ГАЛ

(Original Mongolian)

Хүмүүн бүгд орчлонд төрөхдөө
Нүдэндээ, сэтгэлдээ галтай ирдэг авч
Олонх төрөлхийтний гал хялбархан бөхөж
Итгэл хайрыг алдан сүүмийн явах аж

Нүдний гал бадрангуй зүрхнээс асаж
Зүрхний зулын дөл олон төрөл дамжин бадмалмуй
Цөвүүн цагийн шуурган дор аль альныг хамгаалах бэрх авч
Хатамжит сэтгэлийг барьж чадваас үл унтрамуй яа

Харин бусдын галыг унтраан явагч арилсан дотортон нугууд
Хаа сайгүй хөлхөж, басхүү энд тэнд шургалан явна
Галыг үзэн ядагч тэдгээр нь урвагчдаас долоон дор аму
Гай таригч тэднийг билиг билгүүний галаар номхотгох болтугай

Манзуширийг баясгагч хөвгүүн
11.09.2026

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NOTES

• 1
  “Нүдэндээ, сэтгэлдээ галтай” is literally “with fire in their eyes and in their setgel.” Сэтгэл spans a range of meanings, including “heart, mind, spirit, feeling.” For this translation, I settled on the poetic “hearts.” ↩︎
• 2
  “Зүрхний зулын дөл” carries a distinctly devotional image. Зул is more than a generic lamp; in a Mongolian Buddhist context it evokes the devotional butter lamp and the light of an offering. I have retained “the flame of the heart’s lamp,” which preserves the image without making it overly literal. “Олон төрөл дамжин” means “passing through many births” or “through many forms of existence.” Given the poem’s Buddhist register (see below), “through many births” preserves the implication of rebirth. ↩︎
• 3
  Цөвүүн цаг (tsövüün tsag) is an established Mongolian expression for an age of decline, disorder, or spiritual deterioration. In Mongolian Buddhist and prophetic literature it can refer not simply to “bad times,” but to a period in which moral conduct, religious understanding, and social order are understood to have weakened. The expression also sits comfortably within Mongolian oral and prophetic traditions in which periods of calamity and decline are interpreted through a distinctly Mongolian historical and cultural vocabulary (cf. Srba 2021; Birtalan 2025). I have translated it here as “degenerate age” to retain that stronger Buddhist moral sense, rather than the flatter “troubled times.” ↩︎
• 4
  “Seven levels beneath”: The number seven here should not necessarily be read as a reference to a specific Buddhist doctrine. Mongolian expressive and ritual culture gives particular weight to odd numbers, notably three, five, seven, and nine, which can function symbolically and rhetorically rather than as simple quantities. Studies of Mongolian ritual folklore identify three, five, and seven as numbers carrying sacred significance, while work on The Secret History of the Mongols demonstrates the much older use of number-patterning and numerical amplification in Mongol oral and political culture (cf. Bitkeeva and Gympilova 2021; Moses 1986). Such numerical symbolism belongs to a cultural field extending beyond Buddhism and rooted in Mongolian pastoral, ritual, and oral traditions. Indeed, scholarship on Mongolian religion cautions against automatically assigning practices or symbols found in Mongolian Buddhist contexts to Buddhist doctrinal origins, since Mongolian Buddhism developed through sustained interaction with pre-existing local ritual traditions (cf. Atwood 1996). Accordingly, долоон дор (doloon dor, literally “seven below”) is rendered here as “seven levels beneath”: the translation retains the culturally resonant number and the original spatial metaphor without imposing the more strictly arithmetic sense suggested by English “sevenfold.” ↩︎
• 5
  Cultural field: the broader network of traditions, practices, symbols, values, and forms of expression within which a particular idea acquires meaning. ↩︎
• 6
  Spatial metaphor: using language of physical position or direction, such as “above,” “below,” “higher,” or “beneath,” to express an abstract relationship such as moral or spiritual standing. ↩︎
• 7
  The Mongolian urvagch (урвагч) more literally means “traitor,” “betrayer,” or one who has turned against a former allegiance. I have translated it here more freely as “those without faith.” This choice is guided by my reading of the movement of the poem itself. In the opening stanza, Rinpoche speaks of beings who lose itgel khair (итгэл хайр), “faith and love,” as their inner fire grows dim. When the poem later turns to those who actively extinguish the fire of others, I read urvagch not only as betrayal in a social or political sense, but as a deeper failure of fidelity. Rendering it as “those without faith” allows that earlier language to return in the final stanza, and keeps the emphasis on the poem’s moral and spiritual world rather than on the more political associations that “traitor” can carry in English. ↩︎
• 8
  Bilig bilgüün (Билиг билгүүн) belongs to a semantic field of wisdom, insight, discernment, and intuitive understanding. In Buddhist contexts билиг can conventionally be translated as “wisdom,” but I have chosen “intuitive discernment” here to preserve something of its sense of insight that sees and distinguishes clearly, rather than reducing it to acquired knowledge or intellectual reasoning. The expression билиг билгүүн reinforces this quality through closely related terms, giving the phrase a heightened sense of perceptive understanding. “Intuitive discernment” is therefore intended to retain this emphasis while avoiding a more formulaic Buddhist-English rendering such as “transcendent wisdom.” ↩︎
• 9
  On the poem’s literary register: The poem draws deliberately upon an older Mongolian literary and Buddhist register, most visibly in verbal forms that are markedly elevated beside ordinary contemporary speech. Examples include badmalmui (бадмалмуй, “blazes; burns on”), ül untramui yaa (үл унтрамуй яа, “shall not be extinguished”), and the archaizing copular amu (аму, “is; are indeed”). The concluding nomkhotgokh boltugai (номхотгох болтугай, “may [they] be subdued”) adds an optative cadence characteristic of formal religious utterance. These forms should not be understood simply as decorative archaisms. Mongolian Buddhist texts constitute an important repository of earlier Mongolian linguistic forms, while the long development of Mongolian Dharma literature established its own learned grammatical and lexical conventions (cf. Higuchi 2015; Dashlkhagvaa and Orosoo 2023). In a contemporary Cyrillic composition, the selective use of such forms therefore allows Zava Rinpoche’s poem to speak simultaneously in a modern Mongolian voice and through an inherited Mongolian literary-religious idiom. I hope the translation preserves this distinction through a measured formality in English, especially in its declarative lines, without attempting to imitate the Mongolian forms with artificially archaic English. ↩︎
• 10
  Archaizing copular: the deliberate use of an older or old-fashioned form of the verb “to be” (a copula), giving the language an elevated, literary, or traditional tone. ↩︎
• 11
  Optative cadence: a form or rhythm of expression conveying a wish, prayer, blessing, or invocation, often corresponding in English to constructions such as “may it be” or “may they…”. ↩︎
• 12
  Decorative archaisms: deliberately old-fashioned words or grammatical forms used mainly to give a text an antique, elevated, or traditional flavour, rather than because they carry a specific inherited literary or religious function. ↩︎
• 13
  Translated by C. Pleteshner, 19.10.2026, from the Mongolian original dated 11.10.2025. Translation necessarily involves interpretation across languages and cultures. Any errors are entirely my own, and for these I humbly apologise. ↩︎

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FURTHER READING

For a poem about adversity and the inner resources with which we meet it, see Mongolian Poetry 42: Adverse Circumstance, Your True Companion.

For a closer look at the rich meanings of setgel and the challenges it presents in English, see Letter from Mongolia 13: Setgel in Translation.

For more on devotion as lived and understood by a Mongolian Gelugpa prelate, see Letter from Mongolia 24: On Faith and Devotion: Part 1.

For more on why I use footnotes to preserve cultural and linguistic difference rather than smoothing it away in translation, see Letter from Mongolia 30: Writing Cultural Difference.

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REFERENCES

Atwood, Christopher P. 1996. “Buddhism and Popular Ritual in Mongolian Religion: A Reexamination of the Fire Cult.” History of Religions 36 (2): 112–139. https://doi.org/10.1086/463455.

Birtalan, Ágnes. 2025. “Prophecies of the Khalkha Jebtsundamba Khutugtus Written in Oirat Script (From the Oriental Collection in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences).” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae78 (2): 189–218. https://www.akjournals.com/view/journals/062/78/2/article-p189.xml.

Bitkeeva, A. N., and S. D. Gympilova. 2021. “Ritual Folklore of Mongolian Peoples in Education.” In Proceedings of INTCESS 2021: 8th International Conference on Education and Education of Social Sciences. OCERINT. https://www.ocerints.org/intcess21_e-publication/papers/109.pdf.

Dashlkhagvaa, G., and M. Orosoo. 2023. “The Influence of the Sumdag on Traditional Mongolian Language and Dharma Literature.” Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics.

Higuchi, Koichi. 2015. “The Value of Mongolian Buddhist Works from the Linguistic, Philological and Historical Viewpoint.” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 73. https://toyo-bunko.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/3117/files/Memoirs73_01_HIGUCHI.pdf.

Moses, Larry W. 1986. “Triplicated Triplets: The Number Nine in the ‘Secret History’ of the Mongols.” Asian Folklore Studies 45 (2). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1178621.

Srba, Ondřej. 2021. “Interpreting Future Histories: Prophetic Thinking in Oral Tradition of the Bulgan River Basin in Western Mongolia.” Mongolica Pragensia. https://sites.ff.cuni.cz/ujca/wp-content/uploads/sites/63/2023/02/Mongolica-Pragensia-2019-01-1.pdf#page=53.

End of transcript.

Please refer to the INDEX for other poems and articles that may be of interest.

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