Badekar Monastery has three names. One is local Mongolian, which is Wudang Temple (Chinese: 五當召; pinyin: Wǔ dāng zhào); Wudang is a Chinese transliteration of the Mongolian word for willow, whilst zhao is a transliteration of the word for temple.[1]Badakar is the formal Mongolian name from oral Tibetan Bämagar/Pemakar (white peony). The formal quadrilingual name, granted in 1756 by the Qianlong emperor,[1] but rarely used, is
Tibetan name: རྒྱ༌ཆེན་རྟོགས་ལྡན༌གླིང༌། (Gyaqên Dog Dänling, Gyaqêndog Monastery)
The monastery is located 54 km from Bugat, but was developed as a major tourist destination during the reforms of the 1980s.[2] In 2001, the area around the monastery was declared a national park.
Architecture
In contrast to other Tibetan Buddhist institutions in Inner Mongolia, Badekar Monastery was constructed according to the layout of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Xigazê, thus it incorporates no Han-style architecture. All structures are positioned horizontally along the mountain, with halls along the central access ascending up into the mountains.[4]
Environment
From the late 1990s, it was observed that much of the vegetation near the monastery was receding, streams were drying up, and desert was spreading. The problem has been exacerbated by heavy summer rains, which inundate the dry soil, washing it away.[5] The area in front of the monastery has been urbanised and, in 2009, it was noted that very few willow trees could be found in its vicinity, despite them once having been plentiful.[5]
Liu 刘, Lin'an 临; Ye 叶, Yangyang 阳阳 (2009). "文物保护原则与旅游发展促进相结合的整合性规划——以内蒙古包头市五当召为例" [Integrated Planning Combined with Conservative Principles and Tourist Promotion——Taking Wudang Monastery as an Example]. Journal of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture (in Chinese) (4).
Yao 姚, Guixuan 桂轩; Di 翟, Wen 文 (1988). "五当召及其在内蒙古历史上的地位" [Wudang Temple and its position in Inner Mongolia's history]. Yinshan Academic Journal (in Chinese) (1).
