He was a researcher of Mongolia's language, literature, and history, and a recorder and preserver of the country's cultural heritage, publishing many shamanist and folklore texts.

Rinchen was also a prolific poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and translator, authoring the screenplay for Tsogt taij (1945), Mongolia's first historical feature film, and the trilogy Rays of Dawn (1951–1955, revised 1971), its first novel set during the 1921 revolution.

His great-grandfather Bimba, despite being an ethnic Khalkha of the Yüngshiyebü clan, fled zud in Outer Mongolia and enrolled in Russia's Buryat Cossacks, adopting the surname Bimbayev (which Rinchen also used early in his life).

[1][2] Rinchen learned Mongolian and Manchu before attending a Russian school in Kyakhta from 1914 to 1920, and in 1921 was employed as a scribe in the Bogd Khan government's Border Ministry.

It was criticized for its "archaic language" and "too detailed" descriptions of religious ceremonies, facets of pre-revolutionary life which Rinchen hoped to preserve as part of the country's cultural legacy.

Rinchen's other writings include The Princess (1969), The Great Migration (1972), Amban Sanduo (1973), a four-volume work on the Mongolian language, the collection Epic Poems of Our People, and the Ethnographical and Linguistic Atlas of Mongolia (1976).

[1][2] Rinchen was known for his wit and practical jokes, as well as his flowing white hair and beard and the colorful deel (Mongolian gown) which he wore at the university and at conferences.

Despite his conflicts with government officials, to the end of his life he believed in the 1921 revolution, and his scholarly work shows admiration of the great Russian tradition of Mongolists.

[1][2] In May 2005, to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, a monument to Rinchen was erected outside of the Mongolian National Library building in central Ulaanbaatar, where he had worked for many years, in a spot previously occupied by a statue of Joseph Stalin.