A brief note for returning readers, and a warm welcome to those joining for the first time.

If you are interested in gaining insight into Mongolian nomadic and Buddhist thinking, then studying Mongolian poetry, especially its doha form, is a wonderful place to start. Here is an English-language interpretation of “ЗАГАСНЫ НУЛИМСЫГ ХЭН БЭЭР ҮЗЭВ?”, a poem by the Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b. 1976–). I’ve prepared some notes, yet they are not definitive. Each of us appreciates and reads poetry from a different perspective and in different ways.

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WHO HAS EVER SEEN THE TEARS OF A FISH?

(English Translation)

Why do sorrow and grief arise, and why do they take such deep root?

Because they arise in one who feels and understands a warm and tender heart;

because, above all, such a one can truly read another being’s gift, wisdom, and ability;

because, even through harsh experience, such a heart has held not the slightest thought of disloyalty.

* * *

Why is it that the precious nectar called tears* truly wells up and even flows?

Because, though the last hope may seem to have been extinguished, as if only ash remained, there is still cause for it to be kindled again;

because, whether the inner meaning was understood or not, the heart was poured out in utter sincerity;

because lakes and ponds hold within themselves, and keep hidden, the stories of countless water birds.

* * *

Why is it that sadness and loneliness arise even in the midst of a crowd, sitting hidden and withdrawn?

Not because one is without companions,

but because those who once moved within that shared enchantment have already gone;

because those able to receive a refined and beautiful heart have grown few, while the coarse have multiplied;

because those rare beings, wise and gracious enough even to ease another’s sorrow, have become scarce.

* * *

Why is it that no one knows the weeping of fish,

that no one sees it, blind to it before their very eyes?

Why is it that no one notices or listens to the sighing and panting of birds?

Why does no one think of the great family of lives dwelling within a horse’s coat*?

Why are the many billions of lives that sustain the human body not held in respect?

Ginnara of Dragon Mountain*

18.05.2025

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Translation is always an interpretation into another culture.

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(Original Mongolian)

Нулимс хэмээх нандин рашаан юуны тул жинхэнээсээ мэлтгэнэж, бүр урсдаг буй?

Нурам л үлдсэн мэт сүүлчийн итгэл найдвар унтарсан ч ахин асах учир л

Нут утгыг ойлгосон ч, ойлгоогүй ч чин зүрхээ зориулан асгаруулсан болохоор л

Нуур цөөрөм олон түмэн усны шувуудын түүхийг шингээж нууцалдаг ачир л

* * *

Уйтгар ганцаардал яагаад олны дунд ч төрөн гацуудлаа нуун суудаг буй?

Угтаа нөхдөөр гачигдсандаа бус, уг илбээр наадагчид хэдийн одсон болоод л

Уран гоёмсог сэтгэлийг хүлээж авагчид нэн хомстож бүдүүлэг инү олширсон тул л

Уйтгар гунигаа ч тайлж мэдэх сэцэн дур булаам төрөлхийтэн ховордсон аху л

Загасны уйлахуйг яагаад хэн ч мэдэх үгүй харах үгүй нүдэн балай байдаг буй?

Шувуудын уухилан аахилахуйг яагаад хэн бээр ч анзаарч сонорддог үгүй буй?

Адууны живэр дотор амьдрах нэгэн их бүлийн орчлыг яагаад хэн бээр ч боддог үгүй буй?

Хүмүүний биеийн орчлыг тэтгэдэг олон тэр бум амьдралыг яагаад үл хүндэлдэг буй?

Луут уулын гиннара

18.05.2025

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NOTES

This attentive and quietly piercing doha by Mongolia’s Zava Damdin Rinpoche keeps returning to what goes unseen: sorrow, tears, loneliness, and the lives that exist all around us without being noticed. Its questions are not really asking for information; they are asking why human attention is so blunt, so selective, so slow to perceive what is quiet, hidden, or easily overlooked. In that sense, the doha is asking for a finer kind of seeing.

It begins by treating grief not as weakness, but as the mark of a heart capable of feeling deeply, understanding another, and remaining loyal even after hardship. Tears, too, are not treated as mere sadness. They are something precious, poured out from sincerity, hope, and inner meaning. Loneliness, in turn, is shown not as simple isolation, but as the pain of living in a world where true receptivity, refinement, and sympathy have grown rare.

By the end, the poem widens from human feeling to a broader moral and almost Buddhist field of compassion. The tears of fish, the distress of birds, the small lives gathered in and around other beings, even the countless lives that sustain a human body — all of these ask to be regarded with care. What the doha presses for, above all, is attention: a more exact, humble, and compassionate awareness of lives and sufferings that are real even when they remain almost invisible.

хэн бээр (khen bėėr) — this is a more emphatic, slightly elevated way of saying “who.” I’ve chosen to keep that added weight in the English by using a formal rhetorical phrasing, but not to force it into anything overly archaic.

Нулимс хэмээх нандин рашаан (nulims khemeekh nandin rashaan) — this phrase presents tears as something precious, almost like a sacred nectar. I’ve chosen to keep that image alive in the translation with “the precious nectar called tears,” rather than reducing it to plain “tears.”

адууны живэр (aduuny jiver) — this one still needs care. The line points to a hidden, easily overlooked world of life connected with the horse, and in the final translation I’ve chosen “within a horse’s coat” as a readable approximation. That keeps the poem’s attention on the small lives sheltered there, without pretending the exact physical referent is more certain than it is.

Луут уулын гиннара (Luut uulyn ginnara) — I’ve chosen to render this as “Ginnara of Dragon Mountain.” Луут уулis naturally “Dragon Mountain,” while Zava Damdin Rinpoche’s choice of  “гиннара” appears to reflect kinnara, the Buddhist celestial musician or bird-like heavenly being. In a Mongolian setting, though, the word also picks up a more local resonance: something airy, musical and not entirely of the human world. That feels especially apt here, given the poem’s intimate attention to even the smallest forms of life and its compassionate awareness of beings that usually pass unnoticed. So here I’ve kept Ginnara rather than normalising it all the way to Kinnara, since that feels closer to the Mongolian-Buddhist, nomadic imagination the line seems to carry.

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Any errors of judgement in this article are entirely my own, and for those I humbly apologise.

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Refer to the INDEX for other articles that may be of interest.

© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Mongolian Poetry 37: Who Has Ever Seen the Tears of a Fish?” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ScholarGPT provided an additional channel for research. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Posted: 12 April 2026. Last updated: 12 April 2026.