ULAN BATOR, MONGOLIA

Kushok Bakula walks a fine line between politics and religion.

For six years, he has been India's ambassador to Mongolia, two countries
often at odds with neighboring giant China. A close ally of the Dalai Lama,
the Tibetan Buddhist leader exiled in India, Ambassador Bakula shuttles
frequently between Mongolia and Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders.

The elderly Bakula, a monk who is considered to be a reincarnated Buddhist
saint, is also helping lead a revival of Tibetan-style Buddhism on the
Mongolian steppe and, to Beijing's dismay, on China's doorstep. "Mongolian
culture is directly related to Buddhism. To keep Buddhism alive is to keep
their culture alive," says Bakula, who wears red and saffron robes and
meets weekly with devotees to give religious counseling. "If you are not
Buddhist, then what are you? You lose your identity," says the monk. "How
different are you then from Chinese or Russians?"

Buddhism, silenced for 70 years by communism and Soviet domination, is
making a slow comeback in Mongolia. In 1937, Khorloin Choibalsan, the
country's Stalin-like dictator, burned most of Mongolia's 700 monasteries
and executed one-sixth of its 110,000 monks.

Today, six years after Mongolians threw off the mantle of communism, their
religious revival has become a worry for China and a factor in the restive
Chinese-controlled region of Tibet. Western analysts say Mongolia's
religious reawakening has emerged as a new source of strength for Tibetan
Buddhism - now under siege because of China's control of the former
Himalayan kingdom - and its revered god-king, the Dalai Lama.

Mongolia has long had cultural, religious, and political ties to Tibet.
Mongolians are followers of the Dalai Lama, the revered spiritual leader of
Tibetan Buddhism, and the Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's second-most
important religious leader. Earlier this century, Mongolia even recognized
Tibet's independence from China.

For the first time since he fled an unsuccessful Tibetan uprising against
China in 1959, the Tibetan leader can visit a country where Tibetan
Buddhism is the major religion. As China has tried to diminish his stature,
the Dalai Lama has visited Mongolia four times since 1990, each time
drawing huge crowds and Chinese protests. Beijing's objections have done
little to quiet the Tibetan leader's growing popularity in Mongolia as well
as in Mongolian areas of Russia, which border sensitive regions of
northwest China. "With the revival of Buddhism in Mongolia, the Dalai Lama
has a new ally," says a Western diplomat in Beijing.

Still, Mongolia's Buddhist renaissance remains in its infancy. In the
ancient capital of Karakorum in central Mongolia, the Erdene Zuu Monastery,
once a famous center for Buddhist learning, is but a shadow of the
once-sprawling complex. Since 1990, only three reconstructed temples stand
and a few old monks live where there were once 60 temples and thousands of
resident clergy.

Almost 60 years ago, Gombochir was a young monk in the monastery when the
religious crackdown began. Most of the elderly monks were dragged off and
killed. Gombochir escaped execution but was forced to work in a factory and
later married. After Mongolians overthrew their hard-line Communist leaders
in 1990 and proclaimed a democracy, Gombochir only returned to the
monastery after being assured repeatedly that all would be well. "I had had
no hope of being able to return to the monastery," says the monk. "I was
happy, but I also was afraid that it was a trap."

Only then did the daily chanting that breaks the early morning dawn of the
steppe begin anew. In six years, almost 200 young monks have joined.

"I think Buddhism has a future here if we support the Dalai Lama . . . . ,"
says the monastery's head monk. "Then we Buddhists will be strong and
united and cannot be defeated."

"There is now a generation gap. It is difficult to have the same kind of
force," warns Ambassador Bakula. "This is a period of revival, but it will
take time."

Elsewhere in Mongolia, other temples are rising again. Erdene Khambyn
Monastery, also destroyed in 1937, is now being rebuilt by the
granddaughter of one of the monks. Dawa, a devotee, has raised almost
$20,000 in assistance from local people, pilgrims, and Bakula.

The temple's centerpiece is a small statue of the Maitreya Buddha handmade
by Mongolia's first theocratic Buddhist leader three centuries ago. Similar
to Tibet, Mongolia was also led by a king whom the people believed to be
part god-king before the Communist revolution in 1921. Also, like Tibet,
Buddhism took hold in Mongolia when it was integrated with the local folk
religion. In Tibet and Mongolia, the religion developed into a theocracy
supported by powerful and wealthy monasteries presided over by the
god-king.

Dawa managed to save the valuable statue by hiding it for 60 years, not
even revealing its existence to her children. Her temple prominently
features pictures of the Dalai Lama, the late Panchen Lama, the boy
designated by the Tibetans as his reincarnation, and Bakula, the Indian
ambassador.

"We support the Dalai Lama as our religious leader. China can't change
that," she says.

PHOTO (COLOR): STARTING FROM SCRATCH The Erdene Zuu Monastery in Karakorum
- once a famous center for Buddhist learning - is being rebuilt.