section_path: Legacy and historical assessment/Mongolia
section_name: Mongolia
paragraph_text: Mongolia
  
  For many centuries, Genghis was remembered in Mongolia as a religious figure, not a political one. After Altan Khan converted to Tibetan Buddhism in the late 1500s, Genghis was deified and given a central role in the Mongolian religious tradition. As a deity, Genghis drew upon Buddhist, shamanistic, and folk traditions: for example, he was defined as a new incarnation of a chakravartin (idealised ruler) like Ashoka, or of Vajrapani, the martial bodhisattva; he was connected genealogically to the Buddha and to ancient Buddhist kings; he was invoked during weddings and festivals; and he took a large role in ancestor veneration rituals. He also became the focus point of a sleeping hero legend, which says he will return to help the Mongol people in a time of great need. His cult was centred at the naiman chagan ordon (lit. ' "Eight White Yurts" '), today a mausoleum in Inner Mongolia, China.
  
  In the 19th and early 20th century, Genghis began to be viewed as the national hero of the Mongolian people. Foreign powers recognised this: during its occupation of Inner Mongolia, Imperial Japan funded the construction of a temple to Genghis, while both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party used the memory of Genghis to woo potential allies in the Chinese Civil War. This attitude was maintained during World War II, when the Soviet-aligned Mongolian People's Republic promoted Genghis to build patriotic zeal against invaders; however, as he was a non-Russian hero who could serve as an anticommunist figurehead, this attitude swiftly changed after the war's end. According to May, Genghis "was condemned as a feudal and reactionary lord exploited the people." His cult was repressed, the alphabet he chose was replaced with the Cyrillic script, and celebrations planned for the 800th anniversary of his birth in 1962 were cancelled and denigrated after loud Soviet complaints. Because Chinese historians were largely more favourable towards him than their Soviet circumstances, Genghis played a minor role in the Sino-Soviet split.
  
  The arrival of the policies of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s paved the way for official rehabilitation. Less than two years after the 1990 revolution, Lenin Avenue in the capital Ulaanbaatar was renamed Chinggis Khan Avenue. Since then, Mongolia has named Chinggis Khaan International Airport and erected a large statue in Sükhbaatar Square (which was itself renamed after Genghis between 2013 and 2016). His visage appears on items ranging from postage stamps and high-value banknotes to brands of alcohol and toilet paper. In 2006, the Mongolian parliament officially discussed the trivialization of his name through excessive advertising.
  
  Modern Mongolians tend to downplay Genghis's military conquests in favour of his political and civil legacy—they view the destructive campaigns as "a product of their time", in the words of the historian Michal Biran, and secondary to his other contributions to Mongolian and world history. His policies—such his use of the kurultai, his establishment of the rule of law through an independent judiciary, and human rights—are seen as the foundations that allowed the creation of the modern, democratic Mongolian state. Viewed as someone who brought peace and knowledge rather than war and destruction, Genghis Khan is idealised for making Mongolia the centre of international culture for a period. He is generally recognised as the founding father of Mongolia.