Spread of Buddhism in Buryatia, Tuva, Kalmykia and St. Petersburg

Tibetan Buddhism in its Gelug form went in the eighteenth century from Mongolia to the Turkic peoples of Tuva as well, in the area of eastern Siberia north of western Mongolia. A first wave of Buddhism had gone to Tuva in the ninth century from the Uighurs. The Tuvans are, in fact, related to the Uighurs. Tuva was also part of the Mongol Empire of the descendants of Genghis Khan. Thus, the second wave of Buddhism that went to the Mongols undoubtedly reached them as well but also did not last. 

After the breakup of the Mongol Empire, the Tuvans were allies of the Oirat Western Mongols and lived not only in Tuva, but also in the southern Altai regions stretching into northern East Turkistan. Buddhist influence may have reached them via the Oirats as well. When the Manchus decimated the Oirats in the mid-eighteenth century, they dealt a similar blow to the Tuvans. Some fled and settled further south in the Urumqi-Turfan areas of East Turkistan. Their Buddhist descendants are still there today, known as the Uryankhai.

As part of the Manchu policy of using Buddhist institutions to stabilize their subjugated peoples and administer them, Tuva was placed under the jurisdiction of Mongolia itself. In the second half of the eighteenth century, formal monasteries were built, the main one being Upper and Lower Chadansky Khure. Its joint abbot received the title “Khambo Lama” as the head of Tuvan Buddhism. This was also an administrative position and, like the Bandido Khambo Lama of Buryatia, was not a title passed on by reincarnation.

Until the end of the Manchu rule in 1911, at which time Tuva, like Mongolia, within a few years became an independent country called Tannu-Tuva, the Khambo Lamas of Tuva were directly subordinate to the Bogdo Gegens of Urga. Thus, Tuvan Buddhism had a much closer link to Mongolia than did the Buryat form. Certain prayers were translated into Tuvan, a Turkic language, but most of the rituals and debate were done in Tibetan, with a slight mixture of Mongolian. There were direct contacts with Tibet as well, although all the lineages seem to have come through Mongolia. In Tuva, Buddhism co-existed in harmony with the local tradition of shamanism, with people turning to the shamans for certain purposes and to the Buddhists for others.

The first and second waves of Buddhism in Mongolia reached the Western Mongols, or Oirats, as well. As in Mongolia itself, it did not become widespread. After the breakup of the Mongol Empire in the mid-fourteenth century, the Oirats became an independent group that maintained a fierce rivalry against the Central Mongols, such as the Khalkhas, who were the descendants of Genghis Khan. The region they controlled was known as Dzungaria, which included the northern part of East Turkistan, or Dzungaria proper, sometimes as far south as Urumqi and up to Turfan, as well as the Altai Mountain area to the north of East Turkistan and west of Tuva, and also East Kazakhstan to the west of the Altai, parts of eastern Siberia north of there, the area in Kazakhstan to the east of Lake Balkhash, and parts of Kyrgyzstan. They were already well acquainted with Tibetan Buddhism, since in their 1440 Dzungar epic, which is similar to the Tibetan, Mongolian and Yellow Yugur Gesar epic, there is mention of the yellow hats and red hats.

At times, the Oirats controlled parts of Central Mongolia, but then at the beginning of the seventeenth century they were repulsed. It was agreed that they would no longer interfere in Central Mongolia, and about a quarter of them decided to move westwards. Those that migrated, starting in 1609, through Kazakhstan and southwestern Siberia to the regions in Russia north of the Caspian Sea between the Volga and Don Rivers, became known as the Kalmyks. They are sometimes referred to as Torguts, after the name of one of their five tribes. Of those that remained in Dzungaria, the main tribes were the Dzungars and the Qoshots. 

In the early fourteenth century, the Golden Horde adopted Islam. The Volga regions were attacked at the end of the fourteenth century by the forces of Tamerlane, a Central Asian Turk from the Golden Horde who established the Timurid Empire from Syria all the way to Delhi. Tamerlane was unable, however, to conquer the area.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Golden Horde broke up into several khanates. The ones that ruled the Volga regions were the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates. For the next hundred years the Czars in Moscow paid tribute to them. In the 1550’s, Czar Ivan IV the Terrible defeated these two khanates and incorporated the region into his Russian Empire. The Kalmyk Mongols migrated to the Volga region from Dzungaria in the early seventeenth century. 

It is unknown if there was a first wave of Buddhism in the lower Volga area prior to the Kalmyk migration. If there were, it could only have been during the period of Western Turk rule. It is doubtful that the Mongol Golden Horde before turning to Islam was influenced by Buddhism. Further exploration needs to be done.

When the Gelug tradition was adopted in Central Mongolia at the end of the sixteenth century with the visit of the Third Dalai Lama, it also seems to have been adopted separately by the Western Mongols. Before the Kalmyk migration, the Oirats had already built a monastery in East Kazakhstan. 

In the early seventeenth century, the Oirat Zaya Pandita, Namkhai Gyatso, contributed greatly to the stabilization of the Gelug tradition among the Oirats in general, and especially among the Kalmyks. He created the so-called “Clear” script for the Western Mongol dialects, based on the standard Mongolian/Uighur alphabet, which helped to foster a sense of national identity among these tribes.

Buddhism was adapted to the nomadic ways of these people, much as it was in Mongolia, Tuva and Buryatia, and many of the monasteries were in the form of “kibitka.” These were large “yurt” tents, made of felt with a wooden frame, which were mounted on enormous wooden carts drawn by teams of oxen, which would travel along with the movement of the nomads. During any periods of lengthy stay in one area, they could be removed from the cart and reassembled on the ground.

When the Kalmyks migrated to the north Caspian regions, they brought their Tibetan Buddhist tradition with them with these portable kibitka monasteries. They also built stationary monasteries, both on the way, such as in the Semipalatinsk area of Central Kazakhstan, as well as where they finally settled. As a mostly independent state within the Russian Empire, they had their own relations with Tibet and there were much travel and contact. 

As was the case with the Buryats, the head of Kalmyk Buddhism was appointed by the Russian Czars, starting in the mid-eighteenth century with Czarina Elizabeth, and called the “Lama of the Kalmyks.” In fact, he was the only one among the Kalmyks to be called by the title “Lama.” Again, this was not a position passed on through a line of incarnate lamas and was primarily a government administrative post. He was centered at their main monastery, Khosheutovsky, better known as Khushud Khurul, near Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga and, like the Buryat Bandido Khambo Lama, was completely independent of the Mongols. 

Although the Kalmyks were not patronized by the Czarist government to the extent that the Buryats were, they were useful to the Czars in helping to protect their southern border. The Kalmyks were one of the first peoples to institute a system of universal education, although it was only for male children.

The Manchus decimated the Oirats in Dzungaria in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1771, many Kalmyks, due to pressure for Russification under the reign of Czarina Catherine II the Great, returned to the Dzungaria region of East Turkistan and joined with those Oirats still left there, bringing with them their Buddhist customs and practices. Those that remained continued their traditions in Kalmykia. For some time, however, there was no Lama of the Kalmyks, and each district had its own head. Afterwards, in the nineteenth century, when a Lama of the Kalmyks was once more appointed by the Czars, one district on the Don River still retained its independent head, with the title “Baksha,” the Mongolian word for “teacher.”

The Kalmyks received their spiritual guidance directly from Tibet itself. They had almost no relation with either Mongolia, Buryatia or Tuva. Although the Kalmyks have always been primarily Gelug, they have often been syncretic and have adopted certain Sakya and Kagyu rituals as well. This is because they were situated so far from either Tibet or Mongolia that when pilgrims actually managed to reach Tibet, they would avidly learn any practices they encountered. They would then mix them all together when they returned home. During the nineteenth century, the Kalmyks often referred to themselves as “Those of the Yellow-Red Faith.”

One of the assistant tutors of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was the Buryat lama Agvan Dorjiev. He was extremely close to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and acted as his messenger to the governments of Russia and Mongolia. In fact, the British Younghusband military campaign in 1904 to Lhasa was launched because of British fears of too close a relation between Tibet and Russia. Agvan Dorjiev convinced Czar Nikolai II to build a Tibetan Buddhist Gelug monastery in Tibetan style architecture in St. Petersburg, which was later renamed Leningrad after the Russian Revolution. This was to be a symbol of the Czar’s sincere interest in Tibet. It was completed in 1915 and specialized in Kalachakra ritual practice. 

Norboyev, the Ganjirva Gegen from Tsugolsky Datsan, was a close associate of Dorjiev and backed his modernization movement. As a result, he was expelled from Tsugolsky by the conservative Buryat faction. Dorjiev placed him as his deputy at the Leningrad Datsang. After Norboyev’s death, no subsequent Ganjirva Gegen has been recognized.

Dorjiev also helped spread the Kalachakra tradition in Kalmykia, where he contributed greatly to the spread of Buddhism in general. He was the root lama, or main teacher, of the Kalmyk Geshe Wangyal, the first master of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition to come to the United States, in the early 1950’s. 

Geshe Wangyal established the North American Lamaist Buddhist Monastery in Freewood Acres, New Jersey, among the Kalmyk refugee community settled there after World War II. It was the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the United States. Many American translators of Tibetan Buddhism had Geshe Wangyal as their first teacher, including Jeffrey Hopkins, Robert Thurman, Elizabeth Napper and myself.

Thus, it can be seen that the Buddhist teachings have spread very widely throughout most of the major areas of Asia. Especially Tibetan Buddhism and culture have spread throughout Central Asia, from the Himalayas in the south to Siberia in the north, from St. Petersburg and Kalmykia in the west to Manchuria in the east. Tibetan has been the language of the educated Buddhists throughout this vast area, playing a civilizing and unifying role similar to that of Latin in medieval Europe. Likewise, Lhasa has been like the Rome, Mecca or Jerusalem for this large part of the world. 

Also like the medieval Catholic Church, Tibetan Buddhism has been used by many peoples of these areas in their struggles over power politics. Certainly, some of the Buddhist figures, like their European counterparts, played a role in these machinations. But unlike the Church and its Popes, the Dalai Lamas of Tibet and the heads of Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk and Tuvan Buddhism were not major players and did not interfere in the power politics of the groups around them. There is no Buddhist equivalent of excommunication from the Church, and it is a complete misconception to think of the Dalai Lamas as “god-kings.” The Dalai Lamas are seen as the human manifestations of Chenrezig, the compassion of all the Buddhas. From the Fifth Dalai Lama until the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who has officially relinquished this position, the Dalai Lamas have been the heads of an established, independent Tibetan government. But they have never been viewed as infallible gods with absolute power.