Tibet | Mongolia | Shambhala | Agvan Dorzhiev

Avgan Dorzhiev’s ancestors lived in the valley of the Lena River northwest of Lake Baikal. In 1811 his grandfather moved to the valley of the Uda River, which flows into the Selenga River, a tributary of Lake Baikal, 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 Dorzhiev 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 Dorjiev [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.
 

Mongolia | New Moon

In Zaisan Tolgoi the New Moon occurs on January 19 at 3:52 A.M. At this time the Moon will be 245,687 miles from Earth. It has been a rough two or three days leading up to the New Moon, especially for people born two or three days before a New Moon, but we have turned a corner and the next lunar cycle should be auspicious. 

Mongolia | Fourth Nine-Nine | Dönön Ükhiin Ever Khöldöno

The Fourth of the Nine-Nines, known as Dönön Ükhiin Ever Khöldöno—Time When Four Year-Old Cows’ Horns Freeze—begins today, January 18. This is supposed to be the coldest of the Nine-Nines, nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather. It was —44ºF at 9:00 AM, cold enough I think to freeze the horns of four-year-old cows. On the first day of Dönön Ükhiin Ever Khöldöne in 2013 it was a relatively balmy —15ºF. 

Tibet | Mongolia | Thirteenth Dalai Lama | Shambhala

Those late revelers in the red-light district of Shol at the foot of the Potala who in the wee hours of the morning of July 30, 1904, craned their necks upward may have noticed some unusual activity in the immense edifice which served as the home of the Dalai Lamas.  Perhaps they saw lanterns not normally burning at this time of the night, and they may have seen some figures scurrying about on the ramparts. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama and his close associates were preparing to flee north to Mongolia in an attempt to escape from the so-called Younghusband Mission, led by Sir Frances Younghusband, which had invaded Tibet in July of 1903. The expeditionary force was described as a “mission”, because, in the words of one historian, “the British disliked the idea of their forces invading the largely defenceless Himalayan realm, known in popular mythology for its monks, monasteries, and spiritual mysteries.” But it was an invading army, and several thousand ill-equipped Tibetan defenders had been killed before the expedition reached the Tsangpo River, thirty-five miles southeast of Lhasa. 

The Potala

Entrance to the Potala

On the north bank of the Tsangpo the  British were met by Chikyab Khambo, the Lord Chamberlain of the Tibetan government. He proposed that the Mission stop at the Tsangpo River and begin negotiations without proceeding on to Lhasa and meeting with the Dalai Lama. The situation was complicated by the fact that in the early summer of 1903 the Dalai Lama had begun a three-year-long nyen-chen, or “great retreat” which normally could not be interrupted. Younghusband refused to negotiate and announced his intention of marching on the Tibetan capital. The Lord Chamberlain hurried back to Lhasa with the news that the British army expected to arrive in Lhasa in a few days. At some point the Nechung Oracle, the Dalai Lama’s personal soothsayer who lived at Nechung Monastery, near Drepung Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa, was consulted, and he augured that the Dalai Lama should break his retreat and flee north.  It was unthinkable that the Dalai Lama would fall into the hands of the British or be forced to negotiate with them himself. 

The Dalai Lama and eight of his closest advisors left the Potala before daybreak on July 30. The group included the Lord Chamberlain Chikyab Khamboo; Soibon-Khambo, a close attendant and advisor of the Dalai Lama; Sobon-Khambo, an attendant in charge of food and tea; and the Buryat Mongol Agvan Dorzhiev, who was instrumental in the Dalai Lama’s decision to flee to Mongolia. Dorzhiev probably planned for the Dalai Lama to continue on to Russia, which the Buryat lama believed, or at least, insinuated, was the earthly manifestation of Chang [Northern] Shambhala. According to one Mongolian historian:

The Dalai Lama did not come to [Khalkh] Mongolia to find sanctuary there; he was in fact led by his Buryat-Mongolian monk confidante Agvan Dorzhiev on a passage to Russia, a new Buddhist land of Shambhala where the Russian Tsar was believed to be the incarnation of White Tara.

Alternative versions of the story suggested that the Czar was actually the reincarnation of Tsongkapa, the founder of the Gelug sect to which the Dalai Lama belonged, or of Sucandra, the first King of Shambhala (977–877 B.C.) to whom, according to tradition, the Buddha himself had taught the Kalachakra Tantra, the source of the Tibetan version of the Shambhala mythologem. In either case, Russia was the new Shambhala, and it was towards this variant of the legendary magical kingdom that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was headed.

Sucandra, the first King of Shambhala 

Mongolia | Apogee of the Moon | Artemisia | Raccoons

Tonight at 8:49 PM the Moon reaches its apogee, the farthest it gets from Earth this month. At this time it will be 251,926 miles away (measured from the center of the earth to the center of the moon). This is not an auspicious time for lunaphiles. We may feel exhausted, depleted, and vulnerable. Ideas may swarm in our heads but none of them lead t0 anything productive. Best to limit contact with other people, lest we say or do something we will regret; hence the shortness of this post. Burning Artemisia Incense may help dispel negative influences and repulse malignant entities. Be advised, however, that artemisia does not ward off Raccoons.

Artemisia

Artemisia growing along the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail

Mongolia | Xinjiang | Khotan | Rawak Stupa

The Roerich Expedition arrived in Ulaanbaatar on September 12, 1926. 

House where the Roerichs stayed while in Ulaanbaatar, Nicholas Roerich on the right. (Click on photos for enlargements)

House where the Roerichs stayed while in Ulaanbaatar, before it was turned into a museum

While in Ulaanbaatar Nicholas Roerich heard tales about the celebrated Rawak Stupa near Khotan, a city on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin in what is now Xinjiang Province, China, which the expedition had visited earlier: “Many other similar wonders were related to us by educated Buriats and Mongols. They spoke about a mysterious light which shines above the Khotan stupa; about the coming re-appearance of the lost Chalice of Buddha . . . He adds, “ The celebrated Suburghan near Khotan must be the place of one of the manifestations of the New Era. Khotan is the path of Buddha,” and “Khotan remembers the Signs of Maitreya [the future Buddha] over the ancient Stupa.”

The Roerich Expedition had passed through Khotan earlier. It had left the city of Leh, in Ladakh, now administered by India, on September 9, 1925, and after crossing seven high-altitude passes through the Karakorum and Kun Lun Mountains—including18,379-foot Kardong Pass, 17,753-foot Sasser Pass, 18,176-foot Karakorum Pass, 17687-foot Suget Pass, and 17,598-foot Sanju Pass—finally reached the southern edge of the Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan Desert. Nicholas wrote:

Descending the mountains to the sands of Taklamakan, where you meet only Moslems, Sarts, and Chinese, and where you see the mosques and Chinese temples of Khotan, one would not expect to see anything about Shambhala. And yet, just there we again came upon valuable information. Not far from Khotan, are many ruins of old Buddhist temples and stupas. One of these stupas is identified with the legend, that in the time of Shambhala, a mysterious light will shine from it. It is said that this light has already been seen. 

They finally arrived in Khotan October 14. The  Chinese Taotai (senior official) of the city, a man named Ma Darin, and the Amban (representative of the Chinese government) Chang Fu were friendly at first and George was eager to begin explorations:

Having established our headquarters, we began to plan our scientific and artistic activities in Khotan and its vicinity. The ancient site of Khotan, where from time to time landslides revealed miscellaneous objects and remains of old structures had to be explored. We also planned for a brief expedition to . . . the site of the Rawak stupa where shifting sands had uncovered interesting new remains.

Relations between the expedition and local officials quickly soured. Suspicious of the paintings Nicholas was making and the photographs that members of the expedition were taking, the Taotai accused them all of being spies. Their firearms were seized and the expedition was put under what amounted to house arrest. Nicholas was allowed to continue painting, but only with the confines of the house where the expedition was being held. After interminable arguments with the Taotai and other officials, detailed at length in George’s Trails to Inmost Asia and Nicholas’s Altai-Himalaya, on 27 January 27, 1926. the expedition was allowed to leave Khotan and to proceed to Kashgar, at the western edge of the Tarim Basin. Although they been in Khotan over three months they apparently never got the chance to visit the Rawak Stupa as George had hoped. 

Naturally I wanted to see the celebrated Rawak Stupa for myself, so I flew from Ulaanbaatar 710 miles southeast to Beijing, caught a flight west 1,490 miles to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and from there took another flight 615 miles southwest to Khotan. It was a perfectly clear day and halfway across the Tarim Basin, at an altitude of 35,000 feet, I was treated to spectacular views of the Tian Shan, the mountain range to the north, with peaks of up to 24,406 feet, and the Kun Lun Mountains to the south, with peaks of up to 23,514 feet. The Kun Lun mountain range is one of the longest in Asia, stretching for almost 1,900 miles along the southern edge of the Tarim and areas to the east. Although the terrain extending from eastern end of the Tarim Basin is relatively low, from the perspective of 35,000 feet it looked like the two mountain ranges completely encircled the Tarim Basin. I could not help but think of Shambhala, which is said to be surrounded by a ring high snowy mountains. Indeed, the Tarim Basin has often been associated with Shambhala.

Shambhala in the Tarim Basin

Well into the twentieth century scholars were still trying to identify Shambhala with some  actual place now known by a different name. Notes one:

There is a very good chance that Shambhala lies hidden time rather than space—as an ancient kingdom that passed long ago into myth. A number of Western scholars agree with the Dalai Lama's opinion that the Kalacakra teachings must have had an actual place of origin: They think that the teachings probably did come to India in the tenth century from a country somewhere in Central Asia.

Writing the beginning of the twentieth, Sir Charles Eliot (1862–1931), author of Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch, wrote:

Pending the publication of the Kâlacakra Tantra [it was not available in English at the time], it is not easy to make definite statements about this school which presumably marks the extreme point of development . . . in Buddhism, but a persistent tradition connects it with a country called Śambhala or Zhambhala, translated in Tibetan as bDe-ḥbyuṇ or source of happiness. This country is seen only through a haze of myth: it may have been in India or it may have been somewhere in Central Asia.

Helmet Hoffman, writing in the 1960s, refined this idea:

The land of Shambhala is undoubtedly somewhere outside India, and originally it was in all probability a real area, whereas as time went on it faded into the idea of a purely mythical kingdom . . . Some of the magically embellished descriptions of the way to this mysterious Shambhala rather suggest Tarim [Basin] in East Turkestan [Xinjiang Province, China] . . . Shambhala is described as being surrounded by snow-capped mountains . . . The connection of the Kâlacakra tradition with a strange Central-Asian land, from which . . . the teachings are said to have been introduced into India, is highly significant. There is also at least a probability that the Kâlacakra existed in areas outside India before it penetrated into the land of Buddha.

According to Ur-Shambhalist Edwin Bernbaum, writing in the early 1980s:

Of all the regions of Central Asia, the Tarim Basin . . . comes closest in size and shape to Tibetan descriptions of Shambhala. A huge oval-shaped area enclosed by the Kun Lun, Pamir, and Tian Shan ranges, it could be viewed as an enormous lotus blossom surrounded by a ring of snow mountains. The small kingdoms that have existed side by side in the numerous oases sprinkled around the fringes of the basin may well have provided the model for the ninety-six principalities of the outer region of Shambhala. These small kingdoms included Kashgar, Yarkand, Loulan, Karashahr, Kucha, the kingdom of Qocho, near Turpan, and Khotan. 

Bernbaum continues:

Until shortly before the Kalacakra reached India and Tibet, Buddhism had been flourishing in the Tarim Basin for nearly eight hundred years. During part of that time, caravans following the silk route to China had brought the outside influences of Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity to bear on the development of Buddhist art and thought in the area. Shambhala may have corresponded historically to the Tarim Basin as a whole or to one of the major oases such as Yarkand, Kashgar, or Khotan. Some scholars have singled out Khotan, the largest and most fertile oasis on the southern rim of the basin. Watered by melting snows of the Kunlun Mountains, it supported a thriving center of Buddhist learning, a people who loved music and culture, and a school of painting that impressed the Chinese and influence Tibetan art. 

Among the productions of this flourishing Buddhist culture was the Rawak Stupa.

Guidebooks to Khotan suggested visiting the Khotan Museum and I thought that this might be a good place to inquire about the stupa. But I could not find the museum. People in the street from whom I tried to get directions were either indifferent or surly. One Uighur woman shouted at me in English: “Go back to England!” I could take the abuse, but being mistaken for an Englishman was downright insulting. Then I was approached by a tall, thin Uighur man in his mid-twenties with shoulder-length black hair, thick mustache, and aviator sunglasses who spoke good English. “How can I help you?” he asked. At first I thought he might be a pimp, but decided to ask about the Rawak Stupa anyhow. He  knew about it and said it was in the desert about twenty miles north of Khotan. I told him I wanted to visit it. “Ah,” he said, “that is a problem. The Rawak Stupa is a Class A Historical Monument and no one is allowed to go there without a guide from the local museum to make sure they don’t damage or steal anything.” And where is the museum I wondered, explaining that I had been unable to find it. The museum, it turns out, had just moved to a brand-new building in a different part of town from the old museum, the one mentioned in my guidebook.  Anyhow, could he arrange a visit to the stupa? He called the museum, talked to the curator, who as it turned out also served as the guide to restricted sites, and found out that he was free at the moment and would be able to accompany me to Rawak Stupa that day. I would, of course, have to pay a fee to the museum. He could also arrange for a four-wheel drive vehicle to drive to the site.  He added that we would have to walk the final two miles or so to the stupa.

The curator is a Uighur man in his mid-thirties. He had studied for several years in Canada and spoke almost perfect English. As we drive northward from Khotan I discovered that he had read in English the accounts of many of the great Occidental explorers of the region, including Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. He had not, however, read anything by the Roerichs. About ten miles north of the city center the Khotan oasis, lush fields of corn, wheat, rice, cotton, and melons divided by rows of poplar trees, abruptly ends. After a couple of miles of gravelly flats the sand dunes of the Taklamakan Desert begin.

Sand dunes of the Taklamakan Desert

A mile or so into the desert is a checkpoint with a chain across the road to stop unauthorized access to the stupa site. The curator has a key to the lock. From here there is only a track in the sand.  After five or so more miles the track ends and we set off on foot around the sand dunes.

Proceeding to the Rawak Stupa on foot

Sand dunes of the Taklamakan Desert

Sand dunes of the Taklamakan Desert

Sand dunes of the Taklamakan Desert

After about two miles we come to the stupa. The curator says that it was built circa A.D 150. (Aurel Stein dated the stupa to the late third to early fourth century). It was probably abandoned around the time of the arrival of the Islamic Turks in the late tenth century. The Hungarian-born archeologist Aurel Stein rediscovered the stupa half-buried in the drifting sands in 1901, as he describes in his Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan.

The Rawak Stupa

The Rawak Stupa

I had brought a copy of Nicholas Roerich’s Shambhala with me and I read a passage to the curator:

In Khotan, the sands cover the remains of Buddhism and yet, in this place, is the great ancient Suburgan, the hope of all Buddhists; because on this spot the Age of Maitreya shall be acclaimed by a mysterious light over the ancient Stupa. 

The curator was unaware of any legends about lights appearing over the stupa or any other unusual phenomenon connected with the site. I asked him what he knew about Shambhala. “You mean the song by Three Dog Night back in the 1970s?” he replied. It turned out he was a big collector of Occidental pop music. In 1973 Shambala had reached Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The lyrics read in part:

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind

On the road to Shambala

Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind

On the road to Shambala . . . 

How does your light shine

In the halls of Shambala?

Were the Roerichs aware that Khotan had been singled out by historians as one of the possible sites of Shambhala? Probably. George was a world-class scholar and translator who had studied Asian history, religions, and languages, including Sanskrit and Tibetan, at London University, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Harvard in the USA and would have no doubt been cognizant of research done about the Kalachakra and Shambhala. Thus it was not surprising that Khotan turned up on the itinerary of the expedition. It was just one of the stops on their khora around Shambhala.

For more see In Search of Shambhala: The 1925-1928 Roerich Expedition in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Russia | Early Life of Nicholas Roerich

Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich was born in St Petersburg, Russia, on October 9, 1874. His father Konstantin was a notary serving the city’s courts, a fairly important position at the time. The family was well-to-do and lived in a comfortable apartment on the embankment of the Neva River, in close proximity to the homes of the Russian nobility. The Winter Palace of the Czar, on the other side of the Neva, was visible from the windows of the Roerich residence. Later in life Roerich would assert that his own family, the Roerichs, could trace their roots back to Vikings from Scandinavia. He also asserted, perhaps playing on the similarity of their names, that his family were descendants, or at least had some connection with, Rurik, the Scandinavian chieftain who in the year 862 was invited to Novgorod, in Russia, where he founded the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled what was known as Kievan Rus, centered first on what is now Ukraine and later Russia, until the beginning of the seventeenth century (the last member of the Rurik Dynasty  Vasiliy IV, ruled as Czar until 1612). 

Years later, after he had been admitted to the Russian Academy of Arts  and held the prestigious post of director of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Roerich was still harping on the Rurik connection. Prince Sergei Aleksandrovitch Stcherbatov, a painter and patron of the arts who came into contact with Roerich around this time, noted, “He was of northern—Norwegian type and he rather clearly alluded that his family name Roerich was connected with the name Rurik. It was not quite clear though in what way . . .”  One of Roerich’s hagiographers asserts, on the other hand, that Roerich means “rich in glory,” although no one else seems to agree with her. A Latvian researcher and linguist maintains, however, that the name Roerich is derived from either the German word das Röhricht (reed scrub) or the family name Roderich and has no connection whatsoever to the Scandinavian Rurik.

Roerich also liked to point to his family’s coat-of-arms, which included palm leaves, often an indication that members of the family had been involved in diplomacy, and a turban, a symbol often found on the coat-of-arms of Crusaders who had fought against Muslims in the Middle East. All this spoke to a long and distinguished family, a theme often repeated in the voluminous semi-hagiographical literature about the Roerichs. According to one such account:

Wealthy and politically influential, Nikolai’s father, Konstantin Fedorovitch Roerich, was a prominent notary and attorney born in Riga, Latvia. Throughout the centuries, many of the Roerich men had devoted their lives to service as political leaders, military figures, and members of secret societies like the Knights Templar and the Masons.

Most of this is not true. The first Roerich we know about is Nicholas’s great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich Röerich (1763–1820), who was born in Vetzieskate, a small town in the the Duchy of Courland, probably in what is now Latvia.  By profession he was a shoe-maker. Nicholas grandfather Friedrich (1806–1905) moved up a bit in the world and served as the steward on the estate of the Baron Johann von der Ropp and his wife Laura. Friedrich Roerich was an employee of aristocrats and not, of course, an aristocrat himself. Nicholas’s father Konstantin (1837–1900) was the illegitimate son of Eduard von der Ropp, scion of the von der Ropp family, and Charlotte Constantia Schuhschel, a house-maid attached to the family estate. Eduard von der Ropp was a captain in the Engineer Corps in St. Petersburg and he had apparently seduced the young maid while on vacation at his family’s estate. Nicholas Roerich’s later rhapsodizing about the illustrious Roerich family was completely beside the point. By blood he was not a Roerich at all. 

Nicholas’s father Konstantin was entered into the parish records under the family name of the house maid, but his baptismal records gave his name as  Konstantin Christoph Traugott Glaubert. It is not quite clear who Glaubert was. In any case, both names were an attempt by von der Ropp family to hide the child’s true paternity. Eduard von der Ropp did eventually take some interest on the child, however, and when Konstantin was twelve years old his father brought him to St. Petersburg and had him enrolled in the Technological Institute. There was a catch, however. On his admission papers the boy’s father’s name as listed Friedrich Roerich and his own name as Konstantin Roerich. A Latvian researcher has concluded that by this point Friedrich Roerich had adopted the boy and gave him the Roerich family name “‘to cover Edward’s [Eduard von der Ropp’s] sin.’” Friedrich Roerich may not have taken the boy under his wing solely out of the goodness of his heart. Anxious to be rid of the illegitimate child, a stain on the illustrious family’s honor, the von der Ropps apparently gave Friedrich Roerich a considerable sum of money to take the boy off their hands and make him a member of the Roerich family. 

Around this time, Friedrich Roerich, formerly a steward on the von der Ropp estate, rented two estates of his own, perhaps with the payoff money he had received from the von der Ropps. This branching out into the management of rental properties perhaps marks the beginning of the rise to social prominence of the Roerich family, hitherto a rather undistinguished group, and not at all the descendants of the Rurik Dynasty and other distinguished figures as Roerich was wont to claim. Ironically, Nicholas Roerich’s actual paternal line, the aristocratic von der Ropps, were illustrious. The lineage had been founded by in the thirteenth century by Theodoricus de Raupena, whose brother Albert founded the city of Riga, the current-day capital of Latvia in 1201, and in 1202 organized the Livonian Order of Warriors of Christ (Fratres militiae Christi Livoniae), a Christian crusading order dedicated to battling pagans in what is now Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. This was just the kind of prestigious background Nicholas would have liked to claim for himself, but of course he couldn’t. Indeed, he probably did not even know that his father had been an illegitimate child and a von der Ropp by blood. The whole matter had been kept very hush-hush.

For someone who began life as an an illegitimate child from the countryside Konstantin Roerich did quite well for himself in St. Petersburg. Eduard von der Ropp, although he had refused to give the boy his name, worked behind the scenes as his sponsor in the capital. Konstantin was employed first as an accountant in a military uniform factory and then in the Directorate of the Russian Railways. In 1867 he became a notary for the city courts. A 25,000 ruble security was required to take the post, 10,000 of which had to be paid up front.  His sponsors in St. Petersburg helped him come up with the money.  Serving as a notary in Russia at the time was a well-paying and prestigious job, and by 1872, two years before Nicholas was born, Konstantin was able to buy a 3,780 acre estate, complete with house, fifty miles southwest St. Petersburg (the house on the property is now a museum dedicated to the Roerichs). The country estate was known as Isvara. According to one account, the previous owner of the estate, the Russian diplomat Semyon Vorontsov, had given the estate its name after traveling through India, where he had apparently learned the Sanskrit word isvara. Later in life, when he came into contact with Indians from the sub-continent, Nicholas Roerich was told that Isvara was a corruption of the Sanskrit word Ishvara, the Lord. One of Roerich‘s hagiographers, on the other hand, maintains that Isvara means “sacred dwelling” or “ashram” in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit story is repeated in various Roerich biographies, for example:

During the winter holidays, or when mosquitoes and cholera began to cloud the stifling hot, long “white nights” of summer, the family happily moved to their country estate . . . Its name, given by the previous owner, was Isvara, Sanskrit for “Lord” or “sacred spirit.”

Russian linguists have claimed, however, that isvara is a word from the language of the indigenous people who originally lived in the area. It means simply “big hill” and refers to a conspicuous promontory in the area, and has nothing to do with the Sanskrit isvara. 

Nicholas spent considerable time at Isvara while growing up. Early on he took and interest in archeology and at the age of nine took undertook the excavation of burial mounds on the estate under the guidance of a professional archeologist. Another archeologist, A.A. Spitsyn, a member of the Imperial Archeological Committee, got Nicholas permission to conduct further archeological research on the property. Nicholas’s findings were the beginning of what would become a near-museum quality collection of artifacts. While at Isvara he also learned the finer points of horse-back riding and spent a considerable amount of his time hunting wildlife. Essays about his hunting adventures, accompanied by his own pencil drawings, may have been among his first literary productions. 

Nicholas Roerich as a young man

In 1893, at the age of nineteen, Nicholas graduated from an exclusive private secondary school ran by progressive educator Karl Ivanovich Mai, the motto of which was “First love, then teach”. The liberal atmosphere at the school, unusual for the  time and place, made it very popular with the intelligentsia of St. Petersburg. Attending the school at the same time as Roerich was Alexander Benois (1870–1960), the artist and set designer who, like Nicholas himself, would later collaborate with Sergei Diaghilev, the celebrated director of the dance troupe Ballets Russes. Benois would remember Nicholas as “. . . a pretty boy with pink cheeks, very affectionate, a little shy with his older schoolmates. By no means was he influenced by our group, as well as after graduation he remained an outsider for many years.”

After secondary school Nicholas’s father, hoping that one day his son would became pursue a career in law himself,  insisted that he enroll in the law department of St. Petersburg University. Nicholas agreed, but also somehow convinced his father to allow him to also audit classes at the Imperial Academy Arts at the same time. Roerich wanted to study under the realist painter Ilia Repin (1844–1930), the most highly regarded painter at the Academy, but his classes were already full and Nicholas was turned away. Instead he joined the landscape studio of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1841–1910). It was a fateful decision. In a chapter entitled “Guru—The Master” in his book Shambhala the Resplendent Roerich would write:

I recall the most uplifting memories of my teacher, Professor Kuinjy [Kuindzhi], the famous Russian artist. His life story could fill the most inspiring pages of a biography for the young generation. He was a simple shepherd boy in the Crimea [actually he was born near Mariupol, in the Donetsk District to the northeast of Crimea in what is now Ukraine]. Only by incessant, ardent effort towards art, was he able to conquer all obstacles and finally become not only a highly esteemed artist and a man of great means, but also a real Guru for his pupils in the high Hindu conception.

Kuindzhi became Roerich’s guru, at least in the artistic field.  He certainly seemed to have focused Nicholas’s attention on painting and perhaps provided the inspiration he needed to pursue a career as an artist. (In March of 2022 the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol was destroyed by the Russian military during the invasion of Ukraine. His paintings in the museum may have been removed beforehand, but their fate remains unclear.) Nicholas’ final painting  submitted to the  Academy to fulfill his graduation requirements, “The Messenger: Tribe Has Risen against Tribe”, was heavily influenced by Kuindzhi’s style. The painting was immediately bought by Pavel Mikchailovich Tretyakov (1832–1898), one of the leading art collectors of the day. Overnight Nicholas was catapulted into the ranks of up-and-coming young artists in Russia. 

In 1898 Nicholas Roerich finished law school, having successfully defending his thesis “Legal Rights of Artists in Ancient Russ,” and also completed his courses at the Art Academy. By then it had become clear that he was not going to pursue a career in law. One of the leading art critics of the day, Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (1824–1906), took the promising young artist Roerich under his wing and helped him obtain the position of assistant secretary for the prestigious Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. The Society enjoyed the patronage of Csar Nicholas II and his wife, and its honorary President was Princess Eugenia Maksimilianovna Oldenburgskaya, wife of Prince Alexandre Petrovich Oldenburgsky. Nicholas was soon hobnobbing with the very highest levels of Russian society. 

Nicholas also had other irons in the fire. He was still interested in archeology and in 1899 the Imperial Archaeological Society engaged him to investigate various sites in the provinces of Pskov, Tversk, and Novgorod. While traveling to the sites he stopped for the night at the house of one Prince Putyatin, a fellow archaeologist. It so happened that Prince Putyatin’s wife’s sister, Ekaterina Vassilievna Shaposhnikova, was also visiting the family at the time. The sister had a daughter, Elena Ivanovna, who was five years younger than Nicholas. Nicholas and Elena hit it off, and after a sometimes tempestuous courtship the couple would get married. She would accompany him on the 1925–28 khora through Inner Asia.