500 Tögrög Buddhist Deity Maitreya

Mongolia's post-Soviet numismatic program in the 1990s leaned heavily on Buddhist iconography as the country reasserted a cultural and religious identity that had been systematically suppressed under the Mongolian People's Republic for nearly seven decades. Maitreya — the future Buddha awaiting rebirth in Tuṣita heaven — carries particular resonance in Mongolian Buddhism, where the Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar had housed a massive gilded Maitreya statue destroyed by Soviet order in 1937, its bronze melted down for ammunition.

The 1998 gold series of which this piece is part was produced in limited quantities for the collector market, with virtually no circulation use given the face value against gold spot.