Tibet | Mongolia | Shambhala | Agvan Dorzhiev

Avgan Dorzhiev’s ancestors lived in the valley of the Lena River northeast of Lake Baikal. In 1811 his grandfather moved to the valley of the Uda River, which flows into the Selenga River at Verkhneudinsk (current-day Ulaan Ude) in what is now the Republic of Buryatia, part of the Russian Federation. He was born near the village of Khara-Shibir, about thirty miles northeast of Verkhneudinsk in the Wood Tiger Year of the fourteenth sixty-year cycle of the Kalachakra calendar (1854 according to the Gregorian calendar). A precocious student with obvious linguistic talents, he soon learned Russian—his native language was Buryat, a dialect of Mongolian—and would eventually speak French. He showed an early interest in Buddhism and eventually added Sanskrit and Tibetan, the language of most Buddhist religious texts, to his resumé. At the age of thirteen he received an Amitayus Long-Life Empowerment from a local lama, who also advised him to go to Tibet for further studies. This lama may have been the Namnane Lama, a.k.a. Janchub Tsultim (1825-1897), the Buryat who according to some sources would play a leading role in Dorzhiev’s early life.

Tibet, however, was far off, and Dorzhiev’s means were limited. Örgöö [Ulaanbaatar], in Mongolia, was much closer,  just 280 miles to the south, and it was there that Dorzhiev went a year later, in 1868. Here he took the precepts of an upsaka, or religious layman, restraining himself from killing, stealing, lying, irresponsible sexual activity, and the use of intoxicants. Apparently at this point he was not totally convinced of his religious vocation and not yet ready to become a fully ordained monk. Instead he married a woman named Kholintsog and may have fathered a child—coitus in the married state not being considered irresponsible sexual activity. He quickly discovered that, in his own words, that “the household life, both in this and future births, is like sinking into a swamp of misery.’” According to his biography, it was the Namnane Lama who advised him to leave his wife. After consulting with another teacher, the revered Mongolian lama Chöpel Pelzangpo, he decided to advance a further step on the path of his religious vocation by taking the vows of a celibate layman, or ubashi. At this point wife and purported child disappear from his curriculum vitae, never to be heard from again.

For the really serious student of Buddhism there was only one ultimate destination—Lhasa, the lodestar of Inner Asian Buddhists. Dorzhiev was nothing if not ambitious, and he soon trained his sights on the Tibetan capital, where he hoped to eventually acquire the degree of geshé, the Buddhist equivalent of a doctorate. But here we get the first whiff of intrigue that was to hover like a miasma around Dorzhiev for the rest of his life. One historian has speculated that even at this early date Dorzhiev may have been working for Russian intelligence services. Documents he found in the archives of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society proposed “sending one or more Buryat Buddhists to Lhasa . . . with a Mongolian mission which was to bring back to Urga a new incarnation of the recently deceased Khutukhtu.” The Buryats were to concern themselves with “intelligence gathering.” The documents do not name the individual or individuals involved, but the same historian concludes that one of the Buryats in question must have been Dorzhiev.

 
Dorzhiev and his teacher, the Mongolian lama Chöpel Pelzangpo, left Mongolia for Lhasa in the winter of 1873, accompanying the caravan sent to bring back the little Tibetan boy, the son of an accountant at the court of the Twelfth Dalai Lama, who had been declared the Eighth Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia. At the time all Europeans and citizens of the Russian empire were still strictly barred from entering Tibet, and Dorzhiev, although a Buryat and a Buddhist, was still a citizen of Russia. Thus he went along on the caravan disguised as a Khalkh Mongol attendant to Chöpel Pelzangpo. At the time this was quite a dangerous undertaking for a Buryat. If exposed he would have been subjected to severe punishments, perhaps ending up in a Tibetan dungeon, or worse. 

In Lhasa Dorzhiev found temporary refuge at Gomang College in Drepung Monastery, where by tradition Mongolians in Tibet studied. Here he could blend in with Mongolian monks who would be unlikely to expose him even if they knew his true status. Word seems to have leaked about Dorzhiev’s true origins, however. His position precarious and running low on funds, he decided to forgo for the moment his dream of pursuing Buddhist studies in Lhasa and instead return to Örgöö. He and Chöpel Pelzangpo accompanied the caravan bringing the little four-year-old Eighth Bogd Gegeen to Mongolia. If we believe the assertion that Dorzhiev was a Russian intelligence agent, however, this may have been the plan all along.

Temple at Drepung Monastery

Ruins of Gomang College. It was heavily damaged during the Cultural Revolution

Luvsanchoijinimadanzinbanchug (1870–1924) was the twenty-third incarnation of Javsandamba and eighth in the line of Bogd Gegeens of Mongolia established by Zanabazar. He would witness the fall of the Qing Dynasty and oversee the rise of an independent state of Mongolia. In addition to his role as head of Buddhism in Mongolia he would eventually be crowned king of Mongolia, and he would live to see his power usurped by the Bolshevik communists who had seized control of the country in 1922. 

The Eighth Bogd Gegeen

By the time Dorzhiev returned to Örgöö he had decided on his religious vocation. At the age of twenty-one he was given full ordination by Chöpel Pelzangpo and began studies with several other venerable monks who initiated him into various tantric practices, including the sadhana of Vajrabhairava, which would become his lifelong practice. Vajrabhairava was also one of the main practices of his root guru, Namnane Lama. Namnane Lama may have also introduced Dorzheiv to the Kalachakra Tantra, according to legend taught to Sucandra (977–877 b.c.), the first King of Shambhala, by the Buddha himself. He also studied at monasteries at Wutai Shan in Shanxi Province, China, a mountain (actually a cluster of five peaks) dedicated to Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He had not given up his dreams of continuing his studies in Lhasa, however. Informed by knowledgeable lamas at Wutai Shan that the obstacles he had previously faced could be overcome by generous offerings to monasteries and officials in Lhasa, he returned to Buryatia and managed to solicit a considerable amount of alms from his fellow countrymen, duly impressed as they were by the energetic and charismatic monk who already appeared destined for greater things. Part of this booty was given to Dzasak Rinpoche, a high-ranking lama at Wutai Shan. This worthy, who apparently had good connections in Tibet, smoothed the way for Dorzhiev’s trip back to Lhasa and even determined an auspicious time for him to leave on his journey. One account maintains that Dorzhiev returned to Lhasa in 1877 in the company of Namnane Lama, who made lavish donations to the Big Three monasteries of Sera, Ganden, and Drepung, and presented the Dalai Lama with a large silver mandala. These gifts supposedly eased Dorzhiev back into monastic life in the Tibetan capital. Another account maintains, however, that the twenty-six-year-old Dorzhiev arrived back in Lhasa in 1880. Upon his arrival he himself made generous offerings to the monasteries of Sera, Ganden, and Drepung, with an extra and especially munificent donation to Gomang College at Drepung. “By this means,” relates his biographer, “which may not exactly have been bribery, but something very much like it, the earnest and energetic young Buryat was able, in his own words, ‘to create favourable conditions for my studies.’” The matter of his Russian citizenship was for the time being forgotten.

Agvan Dorzhiev as a young man

Dorzhiev’s subsequent career at Lhasa was nothing short of meteoric. He studied with some of the most distinguished lamas in Tibet and in 1888, just eight years after his arrival in Lhasa, he was awarded the Buddhist equivalent of a doctorate, passing the exams with the highest honors. Normally it took fifteen or twenty years to earn such a degree. “It is . . . a little puzzling how he managed to complete the course so quickly,” observes his biographer, “for there is usually a waiting list and ample funds are necessary to pass the final hurdles. Everything points to Dorzhiev having an influential patron and sponsor. Perhaps money was reaching him from Russia—and perhaps from high places in Russia. Naturally he is reticent about anything of this kind.” He immediately began instructing Mongolian students in Buddhistic logic and metaphysics and soon became “a recognized member of the monastic elite.”

All this would pale in comparison to his next assignment. That same year, 1888, he was appointed as tutor of the thirteen-year-old Thirteenth Dalai Lama. According to his own account:

 . . . when the Dalai Lama reached the age of 13, seven persons from the monasteries of Briyveng, Ser and Gandan [Drepung, Sera, and Ganden], were being chosen as his tutors. One of these was Lharambo Doijiev [writing here in the third person] who was then promoted to the rank of Tsan Khambo, attached to the person of the Dalai Lama, and he remained in this capacity. capacity until he was 45, i.e. until 1898. Apart from the study of Choira [meditative and ritual practices], the Lama, under the direct guidance of Dorjiev, studied also the Tibetan and Sanscrit written languages and grammar.

 
He became, in his own words, the Dalai Lama’s ““inseparable attendant’” and his ”’true guardian and protector,'’ himself instructing the Dalai Lama on a near-daily basis and present when other lamas gave him initiations into the highest teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism. When the Dalai Lama was finally empowered as the ruler of Tibet at the age of nineteen he took on additional duties. According to Charles Bell, the British diplomat who knew the Thirteenth Dalai Lama personally and wrote a biography of him, Dorzhiev was appointed as “‘Work Washing Abbot,’ part of his duty being to sprinkle water, scented with saffron flowers, a little on the person of the Dalai Lama, but more on the walls of his room, on the altar, and on the books, as a symbol of cleansing. He was thus in a close relationship with the young god-king, now come into power.” According to another source, Dorzhiev also “held the exalted office of ‘Keeper of the Golden Teapot’”.

Dorzhiev also preached about Russia to the Dalai Lama. In an autobiographical essay he wrote:

Having thus become intimately related with Dalai Lama and acquainted with the highly placed persons from the Tibet clergy and government, Dorjiev [writing here in the third person] sought to bring home to them that there was a large number of Buddhists inhabiting the Russian State and that their creed was protected by the Russian laws of religious tolerance. Hence Tibet and its rulers began to distinguish between an Englishman and Russian, as formerly many people disliked equally the Russians and English, believing them to be one and the same nation. . . As a result, the Tibetans since that time have been getting more and more convinced in what Dorjiev told them about Russia.

Charles Bell elaborates:

Withal, Dorjieff was an ardent Russian. He appears to have told the Dalai Lama that, since their close contact with Mongolia, more and more Russians were adopting Buddhism in its Tibetan form, and even the Tsar himself was likely to embrace it. To have such a powerful Ruler united to him by the strong bond of a common religion, what more could the Dalai Lama desire? The professor of theology was clever and pushful, and the godking was cut off from contact with the outside world.

Dorzhiev had a lot more to say about Russia. Charles Bell noted that Dorzhiev:

 . . . appears to have spread the story that North Shambala was Russia and the Tsar was the king who would restore Buddhism. He is said even to have written a pamphlet to prove this. He urged on his master and on the leading men of Tibet the desirability of seeking the friendship of the great northern Power. The Dalai Lama and others were told that . . . more and more Russians were adopting the Tibetan religion and the Tsar himself was likely to embrace it. With a common religion—the one thing that really mattered—and with unlimited resources, Russia was, of all the Powers, the one most likely to aid Tibet.

Dorzhiev would eventually rank as one of the Dalai Lama’s closest political advisors. The fact that he was a Russian citizen had been forgiven but not forgotten. Some in the Dalai Lama’s entourage were appalled that a foreigner had become the religious leader’s right-hand man. At one point, his “ill-wishers,” as Dorzhiev  himself called them, “solicited repeatedly before the Tibetan king and ministers to have me removed from my post and sent back to my homeland.” But he had the support of the Regent and the Dalai Lama himself, and all their objections were in vain. The Buryat monk who had first slunk into Lhasa in disguise had become one of the most influential men in the country. It was he who put the Thirteenth Dalai Lama on the road to Shambhala.