Mongolia | Dornogov Aimag | Caves |Update

Linguist, historian, and Germanic studies scholar Mönkhnyagt has pointed out that I neglected to mention what she considered one of the more interesting aspects of Danzan Rajvaa’s caves.

Mönkhnyagt

On the top of the cliffs above the caves is a hole which supposedly opens into a networks of air channels connecting all of the caves. This not only serves as a natural air-conditioning system but, according to monk Baatar, also allows certain biophysical energies found in the desert atmosphere here to enter the caves. These energies reportedly have an effect on those who meditate in the caves.

Hole on the top of cliffs allows in air and energies

Also I forgot this: Baatar mentioned that each of the stupas under construction at the nearby Shambhala Land had been paid for by donations from various interested parties, most of them Mongolian. One of the stupas, however, has been paid for with a donation from action-movie actor Steven Seagal, who reportedly visited Khamariin Khiid last year. I had not heard about this visit before, so if this is the case he must have made the trip without the publicity blitz which accompanied his 2002 Visit to Chingis Khan’s 840th Birthday Bash, where he made a cameo appearance after a dramatic arrival by helicopter.

Billboard touting whirlwind 2002 Mongolian tour of would-be Chingis Khan Steven Seagal. Apparently the Chingis Khan bio-pic he was planning did not pan out, which is unfortunate because I was looking forward to seeing Winona Ryder play Börte, Chingis’s wife.