Buddhism in Postsoviet Russia: Revival Or Degeneration?
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Religion, State & Society, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2001 Buddhism in Postsoviet Russia: Revival or Degeneration? GERALDINE FAGAN Buddhism in Russia has been the subject of state control ever since its introduction into Transbaikalia (the Siberian region situated directly east of Lake Baikal) by Mongol and Tibetan lamas ofthe Gelug school in the early eighteenth century.' Since Transbaikalia still represented the wild frontier of Russia's expanding empire at that time, its new rulers reckoned upon an independent local Buddhist hierarchy preventing the Buryat-Mongol population from falling under the influence of China's Qing dynasty, which controlled neighbouring Buddhist Mongolia.2 Despite local officials' unease at the spread of the alien faith, Empress Elizabeth's toleration decree of 1741 permitted 11 datsan (temples) (in fact the number then already in existence) and set the number of lamas at 150;' they were obliged to pledge their loyalty to the Russian state in return for the right to function legally.4 The same decree also created the post of shiretui, or chief lama, which was later changed to khambo lama after the emergence of rival claimants to the earlier title. 5 Subsequent attempts by the tsarist regime to control the growth of Buddhism in Transbaikalia met with limited success. An ordinance of Nicholas I in 1853 restricted the number of lamas to 251 and prohibited the construction of further datsans, which by then had increased to 34.6 By 1913, however, a further three datsans had been built, and the lama population had grown to some 16,000.7 Indeed, under Nicholas 11 the relationship between Russia's Buddhists and the ruling family became particu larly warm. Buryat doctor of Tibetan medicine Petr Badmayev treated the tsar - on one occasion with a 'marvellous' mixture of henbane and hashish - and was also regularly consulted for political advice. R The three-hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913 saw lavish celebrations by Russia's Buddhists: a triumphal arch was erected at the Atsagatsk datsan in Buryatia, while at a new datsan in St Petersburg a special ceremony of worship was conducted in front of a nine-foot statue of Buddha flanked by portraits of the tsar, the tsarina and the tsarevich.9 To the consternation of local Orthodox, who regarded this datsan as an 'idolatrous pagoda' , Nicholas 11 had given his consent to its construction in the Russian capital four years earlier. 10 Moves by the Buddhist hierarchy to show their allegiance to the fledgling com munist state following the 1917 Revolution were not rewarded by any such favours. During the 1920s Khambo Lama Agvan Dorzhiyev proclaimed that Buddhist doctrine was 'largely compatible with current communist thinking' ," and Buryatia's datsans began to fly the Soviet flag.'2 However, this failed to prevent the destruction ISSN 0963-7494 print; 1465-3974 on1ine/01l010009-13 © 2001 Keston Institute DOl: 10.1080109637490020032564 10 Geraldine Fagan or closure of all 47 under Stalin; and of the 15,000 lamas who were exiled, barely 200 returned.13 In 1948 a new datsan was built near the Buryat capital, Ulan-U de, at Ivolginsk; the Soviet government discovered that a Buddhist community in the USSR could be useful when dealing with Asian states and created the Central Spiritual Directorate of Buddhists (Tsentral'noye dukhovnoye upravleniye buddistov (TsDUB», which consistently endorsed its policies. l4 Buddhist subservience to the Soviet state became such that in 1959 Khambo Lama Eshi-Derzhi Sharapov was obliged to issue a public statement expressing anger at the 'imperialist activities' and 'behaviour of reactionaries' following communist China's invasion of Tibet,15 thereby lending support to the initial stages of a campaign which, ironically, was to result in the destruction of all but 13 of Tibet's 6259 datsans and the deaths of over 110,000 Buddhist clergy.16 Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the TsDUB continued to function and was renamed the Buddhist Traditional Sangha (Buddiiskaya traditsionnaya sangkha) in 1995. It is currently headed by Khambo Lama Damba Ayusheyev. Although the khambo lama is described as the 'head of the Buddhists of Russia' in official communications from the Interreligious Council of Russia,17 the Buddhist Traditional Sangha is today proportionally far less representative of Russia's Buddhists than was the TsDUB. Buddhists in Tuva and Kalmykia - the other traditionally Buddhist areas within the Russian Federation - now look to their own equivalents of the khambo lama in Kamby Lama Dolaan Kuulur18 and Shadzhin Lama Telo Tulka Rinpoche19 respectively. Even within the Buddhist heartland of Buryatia, several of the now 20 datsans have chosen to leave the Sangha. The abbot of Atsagatsk datsan, Tuvan-Darzhi Tsympilov, has adopted the title khambo lama (with the original meaning of abbot), and his datsan was registered as a local religious organisation independently of the Sangha on 26 May 1999.20 Two datsans in the Tunkinsky raion and one in the Okinsky raion of Buryatia registered as local religious organisations in May and April 1999 respectively in order to form another Buddhist centralised religious organisation besides the Sangha, Maidar, which was registered in Ulan-Ude on 6 July 1999.21 According to its head, Danzan-Khaibzun Samayev, Maidar was founded in order to protect the respective datsans from inter ference in their internal affairs by the Sangha.22 Dissatisfaction with the leadership of the present khambo lama appears to be the principal reason for Buddhists remaining outside or leaving the Sangha. Samayev is sharply critical of Ayusheyev's personal qualities and believes that he was elected khambo lama in 1995 solely thanks to an impressive practical ability to construct datsans. 23 He comes in for similarly personal criticism within the Sangha's lay move ment in Ulan-Ude. Green Tara (Nogoon dara ekhe), a Gelug lay group with approxi mately 30 members, registered as a local religious organisation within the Buddhist Traditional Sangha on 1 July 1999 after spending a year trying to register as an entirely autonomous religious organisation without success. Members of the group - which currently meets in a private flat - complain that visits by their Tibetan spiritual teacher Bogdo-Gegen Khalkha Jetsun Dampa Huktuku are restricted by the khambo lama, whom they have to consult before issuing an invitation. (Of special importance to every Buddhist group is the patronage of a particular spiritual teacher, who makes regular visits in order to give spiritual advice. Due to the severance of the Buddhist tradition during the Soviet period the majority of such spiritual teachers currently originate from outside the Russian Federation.) To the particular chagrin of Green Tara members, Bogdo-Gegen was obliged to enter Russia on a private visa rather than in an official capacity on his visit of 17-24 September 1999, and was therefore Buddhism in Postsoviet Russia 11 not received in due accord with his status as the reincarnation of the leader of Mongolia before the advent of the communist regime there in 1924.24 Green Tara was formed in 1998 after it broke away from Ar'yaa baala, the successor to the Association of Buddhist Laymen (Ob"yedineniye buddistov miryan), which was founded in Ulan-Ude in the early 1990s by Dzhampa Tinlei, the dalai lama's representative in Russia.25 By contrast with dissenters such as Samayev and Green Tara, five members of Ar'yaa baala at a meeting at their dugan (shrine) within the former Department for Political Enlightenment in Ulan-Ude pointed to the group's strong subservience to the Sangha. At first insisting that only their absent group leader Nikolai Dambayevich was qualified to speak for them, the five stressed their allegiance to the khambo lama: 'We are no one.... We are subordinate to him . .. He is our leader in Russia and we respect him.' Unlike Green Tara, an important element in whose meeting was a discussion of ways to disseminate Buddhism through lectures, Ar'yaa baala members stressed that they shared their faith only with those who expressed an interest in it, possibly indicating that a lack of dynamism within Sangha structures presents a further cause for dissent.26 Billed as confessionally belonging to the Rime Movement, which embraces all traditions in Tibetan Buddhism, an additional direct rival to Ayusheyev's Sangha is posed by the Spiritual Directorate of Buddhists (Dukhovnoye upravleniye buddistov (DUB», which is in fact predominantly Gelug. Registered as a centralised organisa tion on 23 September 1998, its president is Nimazhap Ilyukhinov, head of Ulan Ude's Dharma Centre. Ilyukhinov is similarly critical of Ayusheyev, whom he accuses of trying to destroy other Buddhist communities 'using structures of power' . He believes that the main Buddhist organisation in Russia should include all Buddhists in Russia, not just followers of the Gelug school or Buryats, although he consents that the dominant role should be played by the Gelug school due to its long established tradition in Kalmykia, Tuva and Buryatia. However, he complains that the Sangha has restricted its activity both geographically - to within Buryatia - and to those who are not well-schooled in Buddhism and so prove easy to control: The khambo lama is trying to make Buddhism the particularity of two or three peoples in Russia and give it a national hue, such as 'Buryat Buddhism'. This does not exist - nor does Tuvinian, nor Crimean Buddhism. The only Buddhism is that of Hinayana and Mahayana (early and late Buddhist scriptures - GF).27 Whereas the typical member of both Green Tara and Ar'yaa baala appeared to be a middle-aged Buryat female, the majority of those present at a weekly meditation session on the outskirts of Ulan-Ude of the Diamond Path Buddhist Centre were young ethnic Russian males.