G.Mend-Ooyo's new novel, The Holy One, tells the story of the nineteenth century poet, educator and spiritual teacher, the Noyon Hutagt Danzanravjaa (1803-1856), and of his realisation of, and how he expressed, the secret wisdom in the teaching and practise of the historical Buddha and his descendents.
The novel also deals with the extremely difficult period during the late 1930s when, with the Mongol government persecuting monastics and intellectuals, the man who was in charge of protecting Danzanravjaa's memory and his cultural and material possessions, O.Tüdev, sought to protect this heritage against its destruction by the state.
The Holy One also reveals how Danzanravjaa's life speaks to Mongol intellectual culture and the nomadic tradition of the Gobi area in which he lived, and how this tradition is an expression of the land and the environment in which he lived.