Официальный сайт архива Республики Бурятии

II INTERNATIONAL BUDDHIST FORUM TRADITIONAL BUDDHISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF

II INTERNATIONAL BUDDHIST FORUM

TRADITIONAL BUDDHISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF MODERNITY

DECREE OF

HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY

THE ALL-RUSSIAN AUTOCRAT

AND EMPRESS

EKATERINA ALEKSEEVNA

From Border Office

No. 610

on the proposal of the Senate on

“... APPROVAL OF

DAMBA DARZHA ZAYAEV

As someone who knows the meaning of books

108 volumes of Ganjur as

the senior

BANDIDA KHAMBA LAMA of the

Lama Eastern Siberia and

Transbaikalia Church”

June 22nd day of 1764 Saint-Petersburg

2024 marks 260 years since Empress Catherine II established the position of the head of Buddhists in the Russian Empire – the Pandito Hambo Lama of Eastern Siberia and Transbaikal Region. This event took place in 1764 after a meeting between Empress Catherine II and Lama Damba Darzha Zayaev, who was approved as the first Pandito Hambo Lama.

At the request of the Empress, Lama Zayaev derived his title from a combination of three components. The first, “Pandito” (or “Bandida”, according to the rules of that time and pronunciation norms of the inhabitants of the southern modern Buryatia, where D.D. Zayaev was from) means “scholar in five sciences” in Sanskrit (usually of a humanitarian nature). By incorporating this word into the title, D.D. Zayaev established a connection with India, where Shakyamuni Buddha achieved Awakening. The second word, “Hambo”, is Tibetan and means “the head of a monastery or network of monasteries”. By including this term into his title, D.D. Zayaev demonstrated the connection between Russian Buddhism and Tibet, the place where Je Tsongkhapa founded the Gelug (pa) school, often referred to as the “school of virtue”. It is primary Russian Buddhists who are the followers of this school. The third word, “lama”, is also Tibetan, and means “teacher”, “guru” or “bagsha” in various languages.

Since then, the Pandito Hambo Lamas Institution has been traditional in Russia and autocephalous in relation to Tibet. The line of succession of Russian Traditional Buddhism has been maintained since that time. Its activities continued almost uninterrupted (with the exception of a brief period of militant atheism and during the Great Patriotic War, specifically from 1938 to 1945). Currently, the XXIV Pandito Hambo Lama Damba Ayusheev is on the throne.

By the 260th anniversary of the establishment of the Pandito Hambo Lamas Institution, at the suggestion of the acting head of Buddhists, Damba Ayusheev, expressed during a meeting of the Council for Interaction with Religious Associations under the President of the Russian Federation, it was decided to install a monument dedicated to this event on the territory of the center of Russian Buddhism, Ivolginsky Datsan. This proposal was unanimously supported by the members of the Council. Ivan Efimovich Itygilov, a Saint Petersburg sculptor of Buryat origin, conceived a monument depicting a moment when the Great Charter was handed over from Empress Catherine II to Lama Damba Darzha Zayaev upon his appointment as Pandito Hambo Lama of Eastern Siberia and Transbaikal Region. This act also affirmed the manifesto of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who recognized Buddhism as the second officially acknowledged religion in the Russian Empire in 1741.

The opening of the new cathedral temple of Tsogchen Dugan at Ivolginsky Datsan, rabnai (consecration) of which will take place on September 6, and will be dedicated to the 260th anniversary of the Pandito Hambo Lamas Institution. The new Tsogchen Dugan is the largest cathedral temple in the entire history of ethnic Buryatia (its walls exceed a length of 30 meters, which has never been before, and are 36 meters and 32 meters, and a height of Tsogchen Dugan, including ganzhir, is of 43 meters). The first tranche for the construction of the main cathedral was received on behalf of the President of Russia V.V. Putin following his visit to the Datsan in 2013.

The first eleven datsans established by the manifesto of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in 1741: