BUDDHISM, LAMAISM, IN TSARIST RUSSIA

BUDDHISM, LAMAISM, IN TSARIST RUSSIA. Westerners generally assume that the tsarist government in Russia always supported Orthodox Christianity to the exclusion of other faiths during the time of the Russian Empire. The historical record does not confirm this supposition. The winds of government, and we may include the opinions of the intelligentsia as well, blew in many directions in tsarist Russia.

During the 18th and 19th c. the lamas competed with Russian Orthodox missionaries among the peoples of eastern Siberia. The lamas taught Buddhism among these peoples in its Tibetan-Mongolian form, so-called lamaism. They easily adapted to prevailing social conditions by including in their pantheon the local gods and enlarging their cult with the local rites. By the first half of the 18th c. they obtained recognition of independent Siberian lamaism from the tsarist government, advancing as the chief agent of tsarism in Buryat-Mongolia. This accounted for the sympathy shown lamaism by the central, as well as the provincial, governments and the competition that they provided with Orthodox missionaries.