The existing Mongolian Tengyur was translated and printed in Beijing in 1742−1749 at the initiative of the Qianlong emperor. However, St. Petersburg University Library possesses several unique manuscripts which prove that an earlier attempt to translate the Tengyur into Mongolian was undertaken at least ten years earlier. It is highly likely that only a few volumes of the 225-volume set of the Tibetan Tengyur had been translated at that time. For this reason, when in the 1740s, it was again proposed to translate the whole Tengyur into Mongolian, it was decided by the new translation commission to start the whole translation anew and the earlier translations were laid aside.