Mandala and History: Bidia Dandarovich Dandaron and Buryat Buddhism – Bělka Luboš (2016)

The book offers an original treatment of unique material that emerged in the mid-1970s and has not yet been published monographically in English. The original visual analysis works with both historical photographs from Buryatia and Tibet, as well as the author's own field observations and interview records with participants. The emergence of a new form of Buddhism within the traditional Buryat sangha can be dated to the mid-20th century. After World War II, during the so-called first revival of religion, there was an effort to save at least the basic elements of Tibetan Buddhism, which had been ravaged by reprisals. In the 1930s, monasteries were destroyed, some completely obliterated, monks were expelled, some executed, part of the clergy was imprisoned in gulags, and the rest had to renounce their monastic status. In the mid-1960s, during the first criticisms of Stalin's cult, a small but significant group, a Buddhist community, emerged in Ulan-Ude. An unofficial, secret micro-sangha formed under the leadership of B. B. Dandaron, a Buryat Buddhist and Buddhist scholar, and existed until his imprisonment in 1972. He was sentenced to five years of forced labor and died in a labor camp at the age of sixty in 1947. One of his foremost students, A.…