A poem by the 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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WONDERFUL ETUDE OF THE MILKY WAY
(English Translation)
Why so mesmerising and elegant?
Like a young shoot sprouting
Like a fig flower blossoming
Like the flight of a gracious swan
Why is it, that we come to this world?
Adorned with a delightful sensibility
So matter-of-factly, displaying and expressing beauty
With just one glance, crystal clear eyes seeing all in ten directions
On the ice of the soul of a frozen humanity
A verse is drawn with the poetic brush of dance
Melting the permafrost with the heat of a hot fire
Each movement a song of secret meaning, quintessential and melodic
Why is it so mystical?
Like a dream, amid the haze of a mirage
Like a lotus growing out of mud
An exquisite sketch of The Milky Way *
Pure Land of Swoyambhu
Zava Damdin
16.02.2022
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Translated by Zava Damdin and C.Pleteshner.
English interpretation 16.02.2023 from the original Mongolian 16.02.2022.
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The following note from Zava Rinpoche accompanied his original poem:
* I am a Lama, here in the Soyombo Temple with our little monks watching the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Whilst fifteen-year-old skater Kamila Valieva gives us moments of figure skating bliss, six-year-old Amba Lama declares in three breaths, “Teacher, Teacher, this girl is exactly like plant sprouts, exactly like flower blossoms, exactly how a bird flies ….!”
All fine muses decorate our universe. Without such marvellous phenomena, the world would be miserable. How our minds were moved! Her own teacher may well be a special-hearted one. Thank you Kamila! The whole world and all sentient beings on our mountain rejoice. You have inspired us to also study with joy and complete dedication to attain similarly great results. May all beings develop amazing knowledge: the inner talent for method and wisdom. (ZDR, 16.02.2023)
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FURTHER READING
For another perspective on aesthetic expression as a way of communicating experience, see Letter from Mongolia 05: Poetics.
Readers interested in cultivated knowledge through dedication and sustained practice may also enjoy Landscape 11: Teaching and Learning circa 2019.
For a material perspective on skilled practice in the care of sacred objects, see Landscape 05: Living Voices.
For an ethnographic perspective on collective activity taking material form within Mongolian Buddhist life, see Landscape 08: Women and re-place-ing Mongolian Buddhism.
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TRANSLATOR NOTES
Source: A Bilingual Collection of Zava Damdin (b.1976) Poetry. Vol. 1 (2021-2024). The Zava Damdin Sutra and Scripture Institute Library Archive, Manjushri Temple Soyombot Oron, Mongolia. Unpublished manuscript. p44.
Translation is always an interpretation into another culture.
Excluding the preparatory training and clarity of narrative structure and ideation required, the journey of such compositions tends to move through three phases, starting with: (i) the creation of the original composition with the vertical Mongol Bichig Script; (ii) the subsequent transfer and rendering of this transcript into the Mongolian Cyrillic Script; and then on to, (iii) a (British) English language interpretation, such as you see here.
I bring to this interpretive exercise my own particular collection of English language narrative skills and their imagined audiences. From this perspective, a final English language version of a narrative emerges as a negotiated text.
End of transcript.
Refer to the INDEX for other articles that may be of interest.
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© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Mongolian Poetry 03: Wonderful Etude of the Milky Way” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Open access should not be understood as the absence of attribution. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Posted: 25 March 2024. Last updated: 10 September 2026. |