Historically, Buddhism was incorporated into Russian lands as early as the late 15th century, when Russian explorers travelled to and settled in Siberia and what is now the Russian Far East. It is also supposed that Indian King Ashoka had sent monks to spread Buddhism all over the world including Siberia. The main form of Buddhism in Russia is Tibetan Buddhism. Although Tibetan Buddhism is most often associated with Tibet, it spread into Mongolia, and via Mongolia into Russia.
It spread into the Russian constituent regions geographically and /or culturally adjacent to Mongolia: Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, Tuva Republic, and Kalmykia, the latter being the only Buddhist region in Europe, located to the north of the Caucasus.
Tibetan Buddhism is primarily practiced by the indigenous peoples in these regions of central and eastern Russia, except for a few Russian converts based mainly in the larger cities as St. Petersburg and Moscow, where there is greater access to urban Buddhist centers or facilities of the like. The other major forms of Buddhism found in Russia are traditions practiced by immigrant communities, among them the Koreans, Chinese,Vietnamese, and others, based mainly in the large cities.
There are several Tibetan Buddhist university-monasteries throughout Russia, concentrated in Siberia, known as Datsans. Adherents to Buddhism account for approximately 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 0.5% of the total population.
Statistics: There are about 300,000 people of Buddhist faith, 432 Buddhist communities, and 16 datsans (monasteries) with 70 lamas in Soviet republics. Most Buddhists are located in the Huryat, Kalmyk, and Tuva republics, in the Chita Region of the Russian Federation, and in Leningrad and other cities.
Organizations: The highest authority for Soviet Buddhists is the Central Buddhist Board based in the Ivolginski Datsan in the Buryat Republic. (A permanent office in Moscow is concerned with external relations). The congress of clergy and laity convenes once in four years and elects the members of the Board. Head of the Central Buddhist Board is Bandido Khambo-Lama Munko Tsybikov, 82.
Brief History: Mongolian and Tibetan lamas first appeared on the eastern shores of Lake Baikal in the middle of the 17th century and quickly spread Buddhism in the area. Later in that century Buddhism emerged as the dominant religion in Tuva. The Kalmyks who migrated from China to the lower reaches of the Volga in the later half of the 17th century also professed Buddhism.
Tzarist authorities were fairly tolerant with respect to Buddhists. In the 1930s the Buddhists suffered more than any other religious community in the Soviet Union. Prosperous monasteries and churches, many of which were architectural masterpieces, were closed. All Buddhist religious buildings in the Khalmyk Republics and Tuva were razed as were most Buddhist monasteries in the Buryat Republic. Not a single functioning temple and not a single lama remained. After the Second World War, two temples with a limited number of monks were built. Religious life was under rigid official control. The late 1980s saw a renaissance of Buddhism; monasteries were opened and the publication of spiritual literature and periodicals resumed. In early 1991 a Buddhist school opened at the Ivolginski Datsan.
Current Situation and Problems: There is a dire shortage of lamas, even though training is provided in Mongolia and Nepal. Contrary to the traditional view of their way of life, many of them are married and have children. Their families live in datsans. One new development is the nontraditional involvement of people in the west-European Soviet areas in Buddhist activities.
REBIRTH OF BUDDHISM
As the day of 15 January 1989 dawned, the people of the Kalmyk Republic capital, Elista, for the first time in fifty years head the divine sound of a conch proclaiming the rebirth of a Buddhist community. People sitting in a praying posture expressed joy and had tears in their eyes when lamas who had arrived from the Ivolginsk datsan - a Buddhist monastery in Siberia - began the ritual of opening a Kalmyk holiday, the khural.
In 1991 the first Buddhist religious school opened in Buryatiya (Siberia) with sixty pupils not only from Buryatiya but also from the Kalmyk and Tuva republics.
The Kalmyk Autonomous Republic on the Caspian steppes of the lower Volga, the republics of buryat and Tuva, and the Chita and Irkutsk regions in Siberia are the traditional areas of Buddhism in the Soviet Union. However, in the 1930s, at the height of Stalin’s dictatorship, all Buddhist temples in the country were closed down, and thousands of lamas were persecuted. Buddhist monasteries were blown up, their priceless treasures thrown into the fire if attempts to hide them failed.
Only after World War II, when government policies towards religion softened somewhat, the Aginski datsan (monastery) in the Chita region reopened and the Ivolginsk datsan in the Buryat Republic was rebuilt. However, Buddhism remained a banned religion in the Kalmyk and Tuva republics.
The years of perestroika and glasnot have made it possible to correct this glaring injustice. A revival of Buddhism has begun both in Siberia and in the European Soviet republics. New temples are opening and the number of lamas is increasing. A Buddhist community is being established in Tuva, in south central Siberia.
SOVIET BUDDHIST HISTORY
Mongolian and Tibetan lamas first came to the area east of Lake Baikal, regions close to the Mongolian border, in the first half of the seventeenth century. Later, religious centers - Buddhist monasteries, or datsans - appeared in other areas of Buryatiya, too. Within a short time most of the Buryats living east of Lake Baikal were converted to Buddhism. In 1764, Damba Dorzhi Zayayev, the high priest of the Tasongolski datsan - the oldest in the Baikal region - became head of the entire Buddhist clergy with the title Bandido Hambo Lama.
In the late sixteenth century the Kalmyks were converted to Buddhism by Mongolian lamas in Dzungaria (China). In the seventeenth century, they moved to the lower reaches of the Volga River, retaining their religion. At that time the Kalmyks gained access to the first works of Buddhist literature translated from the Tibetan language.
In Tuva Buddhism firmly established itself toward the end of the seventeenth century, having ousted shamanism, the traditional folk beliefs.
BUDDHISM IN THE USSR TODAY
Soviet Buddhism is representative of the Gelugpa school ("the School of Virtue"), which is a branch of Tibetan Buddhism in the Mahayana tradition, that is, "the broad path" of salvation from endless rebirth in the world of suffering. Soviet Buddhism has a number of specific ritual peculiarities that have taken shape over the course of history. Historically it has been marked by the prevalence of rural lamas living outside datsans because of the nomadic way of life. To some extent, this tradition has survived to this day. In keeping with tradition, six major holidays, khurals, are celebrated annually and are attended by a large number of people who bring various gifts to datsans as well as money and food for lamas.
Tsagaalgan is a holiday celebrated on the eve of the lunar new year, which usually falls in February. This khural is devoted to the twelve miracles of Buddha during his dispute with six preachers of heresy. Services and a series of religious rites are conducted to mar the occasion. Buddhists, dressed in their best clothes, come to pray together for well-being and more happiness. On the eve of the new year, a solemn evening ritual is performed during which food is served to the doksheetsi, the protectors of the faith. This involves the ritual burning of Dugzhub, a magic pyramid of paper and wood; according to a Buddhist belief, a ritual fire consumes all evil thoughts. A long note from a big white conch proclaims the first day of the lunar new year. A traditional service is held to celebrate the Sagaan Sar ("white month") holiday. In the main temple lamas, replacing one another, pray for fifteen days for peace and goodness.
The khural Duyn-khor, a second major holiday, lasts three days in April. It is dedicated to the preaching of the sacred teaching of Kalachakra. The third major holiday is Gandun-Shunserme, devoted to the birth and enlightenment of Buddha and his attainment of nirvana. It is celebrated in early summer.
The fourth holiday Maidari is dedicated to Maidari, the Buddha of the future. It is always celebrated for two days in midsummer. People spend the first day in many hours of devout prayer. On the second day the gilded statue of Maidari is solemnly carried out of the temple and placed on a chariot twined with silk ribbons. It is surrounded by lamas in ceremonial dress. A green horse of plaster is harnessed to the chariot, and the procession sets off around the datsan. This ceremony symbolizes Maidari’s tour of the universe and the spread of his grace throughout it. Several thousand people gather in the datsan for the procession. A kharang, a big copper shield, is struck with a mallet, and its sounds can be heard far away. There is a fanfare, the drums roll, and conchs are blown. The procession stops at every turn of the monastery walls for a reading of scared Scriptures. Many Buddhists attending the procession try to approach the chariot, to hold onto its beam and harness, and to throw money at the feet of the statute of Maidari.
The last two khurals are celebrated with less splendor, but they also attract large crowd of believers. Lkhabab Duysen, marked in autumn, is devoted to the Buddha’s return from the thirty-third heaven. The holiday Zula is dedicated to the passing away of the father of lamaism, Bogdo Tsongkhapa. A thousand candles are lit during the service. During the khurals prayers are said in honor of the protectors of the faith and for well-being and peace on earth.
Lamas who live in monasteries observe the Dulva, a traditional moral and ethical code. Depending on the level of ordination, they participate in services and philosophical discussions and perform special religious rites at the people’s request.
Recently, in addition to Buryats, Kalmyks, and Tuvinians, more and more Russians, Ukrainians, and people from the Baltic republics have been attending Buddhist services. Previously, they all went to pray at the Ivolginsk datsan, but today, with the 1991 reopening of the temple in Leningrad, followers of Buddhism from the European part of the country will travel there, too.
That temple was initially built from 1909-1915, but the social changes in Russia after 1917 forced its closure. In the first years of the Soviet regime, a military unit was stationed in the grounds of the Buddhist temple. The interior of the temple was seriously damaged, statues and manuscripts were destroyed, and soldiers used paper with ancient Tibetan texts to roll their cigarettes. Only after the famous Tibetan doctor Agvan Dordzhiev lodged a vigorous protest was the temple returned to the Buddhist community. In 1923 and 1924 the interior of the temple was partially restored. A 4.5 meter statue of the Buddha with colored porcelain eyes was brought in from Poland.
In 1938 the Buddhist temple was turned into a sports center, and during World War II grenades were manufactured in the building’s basement. After the war, a radio station was located here, and in early 1960s the USSR Academy of Sciences took charge of the building and set up a zoological laboratory there. The building’s outward appearance changed; certain parts disappeared. For example, copper hand-chased round cover plates that decorated three pairs of doors were scrapped, and their handles were substituted with iron handles typical of the period.
These days Buryat lamas are frequent visitors in Leningrad, just as in the Kalmyk Republic, where they are helping to revive spiritual life. Many of them have abandoned the traditional celibacy and now have families. Hundreds of Muscovites also have applied for registration and permission to open a house of prayer.
SOVIET BUDDHIST SCHOLARSHIP
There is a growing interest in Buddhism among Russian scholars. The Russian buddhological school had won an international reputation already in the nineteenth century. Many books treating various Buddhist subjects were published in the Russian language during that time. For instance, the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, outlined the biography of Buddha in a brochure issued by the Posrednik (Mediator) publishing house. He also used ideas borrowed from the Dhammapada, a code of Buddhist ethics, as a source of his moralizing works.
At present Buddhism is studied in research centers in Moscow, Leningrad, and Tartu, as well as in Central Asia, Ulan-Ude, Elista, and Kyzil. Together, scholars examine the Buddhist religious system, the social functions of Buddhism, and its influence on the culture and traditions of Oriental people.
The Moscow buddhologists concentrate on the role of Buddhist rituals as well as the place and role of Buddhism in the social and political structures of Asian countries. In Leningrad, scholars are engaged in deciphering ancient Indian inscriptions, textological research in the field of Buddhist terminology, the study of different aspects of Buddhist art, and old Uighur, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Chinese texts.
Buryat researchers focus on a broad range of social, ideological, and cultural phenomena linked with Buddhism. They analyze canonical literature, translate texts on Indo-Tibetan medicine, and carry out sociological research into the place of present-day Buddhism. The research covers all 108 volumes of the Kanjur, a collection of the most authoritative texts and sayings of Buddha Sakyamuni, that have canonical validity. The Kanjur of the Ivolginsk datsan library is one of the rarest. All of its volumes are handwritten in a highly artistic style using ink solutions of nine precious stones and metals.
The library also boasts a complete Tanjur ("collection of commentaries") in 225 volumes. It contains treatises on theology, philosophy, logic, medicine, philology, art, rituals, and architecture. The Tanjur includes all twenty-four existing Tantric systems, united into the four sections of the Tantra, and the most important writings of the "six decorations of India" - the teachers Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, and Dharmakirti.
Among the library’s other treasures are invaluable manuscripts in the Tibetan, Mongolian, Sanskrit, Buryat, and other languages. Alongside works devoted to the Buddhist history, mathematics, and folk medicine, the collection also includes namtars, the biographies of prominent Buddhist leaders and well-known lamas.
A group of scholars has prepared for publication a unique volume - a complete atlas of Tibetan medicine which has been used to teach many generations of Tibetan doctors. This unique book has been preserved in the Buryat Republic and will, of course, prove a priceless manual for modern physicians, too.
Buryat scholars believe that forgotten remedies of natural origin may be very effective in supplementing modern drugs, especially in treating diseases of the digestive organs. Buryat scientists have developed preparations that restore the functions of the liver in cases of hepatitis and are also effective in the treatment of chronic gastritis, ulcers, and enteritis. They also study many other ancient methods of Buddhist traditional medicine, such a massage, acupuncture, cauterization, phlebotomy or blood-letting, and hydrotherapy.
The chronopharmacological trend in Buryat medicine is also of considerable interest. What it entails is determining the best possible time for the action of drugs and medicines during the day, month, or year. This is to a great extent in line with the present - day concept of biorhythms.
A major research effort is the study of oncological diseases. Tibetan medicine has been accumulating clinical knowledge in this area. The Buddhists also have interesting methods of mental training, which can be extremely useful in conditions of stress.
Tuvinian lamas know a number of methods of brewing herbal teas or herbal lamb broth, which is herbs boiled with a shoulder of lamb. For some diseases lamas recommend eating half-raw meat, explaining that this meat preserves its healing properties better. Lamas treat measles with blood taken from a live female goat, wounds with the fat of a ram, and bear gall applied topically for fever, swellings, or contusions.
Only recently Buddhist physicians could not practice their art, because this was strictly prohibited. However, perestroika had made it possible for them to treat patients freely and to participate in scientific research.
Buddhism in Russia 
There were schools opened at datsans and books printed. In the 18th century, Tibetan Buddhism from Mongolia reached Turkic population of Tuva, though the first wave of Buddhism had come there from Uigurs in the 9th century. Like in the Baikal region, it was mainly the Gelug tradition; the Nyingma tradition also spread widely. The priors of Chadan Khura were given the title of Khambu Lama as leaders of Tuva Buddhism. Since Tuva, like Mongolia, was under Manchurs' authority until 1912, the Khambu Lamas of Tuva were subordinate directly to Bogdo Gegens in Urga. Buddhism in Tuva had significantly closer relations to Mongolia than Buryat Buddhism; besides, it coexisted peacefully with the local tradition of shamanism. People came to see shamans on certain cases while consulting Buddhist priests on the others.
In the early 17th century, the ancestors of Kalmyks separated from the Oirats of Dzungaria and migrated to the region between the Volga and the Don River, north to the Caspian Sea. They brought their own tradition of Tibetan Buddhism with them. Namkhai Guiyatso, the Oirat of Zai Pandita, gave them a great help by developing the Kalmyk-Oirat written language on the base of the Mongolian alphabet. The leader of Kalmyk Buddhism was appointed by the Russian tsar and was titled Lama Of The Kalmyk People. His residence being situated in Astrakhan, he possessed complete independence from the Mongols, Bandido Khambo Lama of Buryats alike. Kalmyks received spiritual guidance directly from Tibet, and owing to their natural syncretism, they adopted rites of the Sakya and Kagyu traditions as well as the Gelug one, which was the most widely practiced.
By 1846, 34 datsans had been built in Buryatia. With much effort and a lot of expenses, Buryats managed to import a vast number of the sacred books from Tibet, China, and Mongolia, and adopted many living practices of both the dominant Gelug and other schools.
In 1869, Buddhists of Tsugol Datsan began studying Indo-Tibetan medicine under the guidance of Mongolian lama Choi Manramba; presently such studies were initiated in several other places.
Formation of the basic institutions of higher theological education after the Tibetan pattern had been completed in 1876, when a school of Duinkhor Kalachakra was established at Aginsk Datsan.
Book publishing was developing rapidly. In 1887, there were already 29 publishing houses, which had produced about 2,000 titles in Tibetan and Mongolian before their destruction in the 1930s.
It was not long before the revolution of 1917 when the Buddhist family of Russia accepted Tuvinians of the South Siberia, the only Turkic nation confessing Buddhism. Many temples (khures) there had schools for boys to acquire basic religious literacy. The higher theological education Tuvinians usually obtained in Mongolia.
For promotion in the development of Russia's international bonds in the East and particularly for establishing direct ties between the tsarist government and theocratic regimes of Mongolia and Tibet, a Buddhist temple was built in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. The works were funded by Dalai Lama and donations raised in Buryatia and Kalmykia. Bogdo Gegen, the head of Mongolian Buddhists, also contributed a significant sum. An eminent Buryat lama Agvan Dorjiev was in charge of the temple's establishment and activities.
By 1935, about one third of Buryat datsans was emptied because the clergy had either fled or been repressed. A year later, 22 of 29 datsans were closed down under the pretext that they were situated near the state border, and lamas were expelled, accused of being 'Japanese spies' and 'the people's enemies'. Similar actions were taking place in Kalmykia, as well as in formally independent Tuva.
During 1917-1937, 79 temples (khuruls) were closed down in Kalmykia. Shortly after the revolution of 1917, Chore theological academy was eliminated, the other one lasted until 1933. None of the novitiates remained in khuruls in 1937 as result of so-called 'systematic struggling for the young generation'. Since Kalmyk autonomy was abolished in 1943, and the people were deported to Siberia, the existence of temples and Buddhism in Kalmykia was out of the question.
In Tuva, an 'independent' state since 1921, the church at first remained untouched. In 1928, the national parliament (Minor Khural) even legislated Buddhism as a state religion. Perhaps this provoked the devastation to begin in 1929, which was enforced in 1930 by the Communist Party's special resolution on 'the problem of lamas'. According to the witnesses, lamas were arrested methodically, the top echelon of the clergy at first, then the next 'layer', and so on to the very last.
It was only in 1948 that a new monastery was built in Ivolga, near Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, and one of the buildings of Aginsk Datsan near Chita was re-opened.
With the beginning of perestroika, a great number of Buddhist communities was officially registered under the aegis of the Central Religious Committee of the Buddhists of the USSR. Restoration of destroyed monasteries started in the Baikal region, Kalmykia, and Tuva, along with building new temples. St. Petersburg Datsan was returned to the Buddhist community and renovated. A Buddhist Institute was opened at Ivolga Datsan. In Kalmykia 22 temples now. In Tuve about 16. In Buryatia more than 30 temples. Many buddhist center openly in all big city, including Moscow and Saint-Ptereburg. Whole buddhists in Russia about 1500.000.
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