Zaya Pandita

(real name, Namhayjamtso). Born in 1599 in Western Mongolia; died September 1662. Political and religious figure in Dzungaria and Eastern Mongolia.

At the age of 17, Zaya Pandita gave up his rank in the Khoshot nobility and was ordained a lama and sent to Tibet, where he studied Buddhist dogma. In 1639 he returned to the Oirots and the Eastern Mongols to preach Buddhism. Zaya Pandita translated approximately 200 works into Mongolian. In 1648 he reformed the Old Mongolian writing system, creating the Oirot writing system known as todo bicig (“clear writing”) and bringing it closer to the spoken language. In 1640 he was a member of the congress of princes, at which the Mongolian-Oirot Code of Laws (Tsaajiyn-bicig) was ap-proved. He died of paralysis on the way to Tibet. Zaya Pandita’s biography was written by his pupil Radnabatoroy (1690).