Power for the Powerless: The Mongol-Tibetan World and Its Prophecies

In modern times, the people of Mecca were no longer a threat to T ibetan Buddhism. In fact, now the mlecca were on the defensive, trying to shield themselves from the advances of Western civilization. Beginning around the 1500s, Moslem encroachments on the followers of Buddha subsided, replaced by

assertive advances by the Chinese, later joined by the Russians and, at the very end of the nineteenth century, by the English. Th ese new “barbarians” did not care about converting the Mongols and Tibetans to their religions. Th eir major interests were power and land for the Chinese and Russians, and trade

for the English. In the 1600s and 1700s, the Manchu Dynasty that ruled China secured control over Mongolia, Tuva, and Tibet. In the meantime, the Russian Empire rolled into southern Siberia and the Far East, taking over the Altai and Trans-Baikal area, clashing with China over spheres of infl uence. Finally,

in the 1890s, Britain, fi rmly established in India, began banging on the gates of Tibet, demanding that the “Forbidden Kingdom” open itself to international trade. When it refused, in 1904, like a bolt of lightning, the English thrust into the heart of Tibet, crushing Buddha’s warriors armed with swords and antiquated muskets. China and Russia did not like such aggressive advances in their backyard, and

soon the three powers became involved in the Great Game over who would control Inner Asia. Rulers of China and Russia subdued the princes in Mongol-Tibetan countries and turned them into their vassals, leaving Buddhist clergy alone. Frequently, Buddhist monks were pitted against secular princes, who were

treated as potential rebels. In the 1600s and 1700s, Tibetan Buddhism began to fl ourish, and lamas were free to conduct missionary work. As a result, by the end of the eighteenth century the “yellow faith” had spread all over Mongolia and made successful inroads in southern Siberia. Th e privileged status of the Buddhist teaching, which eventually crippled secular power, might explain why later monasteries and monks usually headed social and political

movements in the TibetanMongol world. It also explains why, in modern times, at fi rst Tibet and then Mongolia became theocracies (states headed by clergy). Tibet was ruled by the Dalai Lama (“Ocean of Wisdom” in Tibetan), the chief religious leader and administrator. Yet he did not enjoy total power. Th e Panchen Lama, abbot of the Tashilumpho monastery, traditionally exercised control over the eastern part of the country. Panchen Lamas, whom many

viewed as the spiritual leaders of Tibet, did not pay taxes and even had small armies. Th is special status originated from the seventeenth century, when Lobzang Gyaltsen, abbot of the Tashilumpho monastery, spiritually guided the fi ft h Dalai Lama (1617–82), the great reformer who built up Tibet. As a gesture of deep gratitude to his spiritual teacher, the Lhasa ruler endowed the abbot with the title of Panchen Lama, “Great Scholar,” and granted

Tashilumpho a special tax-exempt status. In modern times, this privileged status of the Panchen Lamas became a liability, undermining and chipping away Tibetan unity and sovereignty, to the joy of its close neighbors, some of whom did not miss any chance to pit the Ocean of Wisdom against the Great Scholar. Th eologically speaking, Panchens stood even higher than Dalai Lamas. Tashilumpho abbots were considered the reincarnation of Buddha Amitabha (one of the fi ve top Buddhas, in addition to Gautama),

whereas Dalais were only reincarnations of Avalokitesvara, who was only a bodhisattva and the manifestation of Buddha Amitabha.1 Besides, the faithful linked Panchens to the Shambhala prophecy; at the end of the eighteenth century one of the Tashilumpho abbots composed a guidebook to this great northern

land of spiritual bliss and plenty,2 and many monks came to believe that in the future the Great Scholar would be reborn as a Shambhala king to deliver people from existing miseries. Despite such impeccable religious credentials, real power in Tibet belonged to the Dalai Lama. In Mongolia, traditionally much power was concentrated in the hands of the Bogdo-gegen (Great Holy One). Th is third most prominent man in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, aft er the

Dalai and the Panchen, was considered the reincarnation of the famous Tibetan scholar Taranatha, who had lived in the 1500s. At fi rst, Bogdo reincarnations were found among Mongol princely families, but, haunted by the specter of Mongol separatism, the Manchu emperors curtailed this practice and ordered that all new Bogdo come only from Tibet.3 Aft er the country freed itself from the Chinese in 1912, the Great Holy One was elevated to the head of

the state and, just like Tibet, Mongolia became a theocracy. Tibetan Buddhist countries were mostly populated by nomads who raised horses and sheep. About 30 percent of the entire male population were lamas. Tibet was the only country that, besides the nomads, had large groups of peasants and craft smen. As parts of the Chinese Empire, Mongolia, Tibet, and Tuva, as well as the Kalmyk, Buryat, and Altaians within the Russian Empire enjoyed considerable self-

rule. As long as they recognized themselves as subjects of their empires and agreed to perform a few services (usually protecting the frontiers and paying tribute), they were left alone. Moreover, in China, the Manchu Dynasty, following the old tactics of divide and rule, went further, segregating Tibetan Buddhist people from the rest of the populations. Mongols and Tibetans were not allowed to mingle with the Chinese, wear their clothing, or learn their

language. At the same time, Chinese peasants were forbidden to settle in Tibet and Mongolia.

At the end of the nineteenth century everything changed. Famine and population pressure in China put an end to no-settlement policies. While mountainous

Tibet was of little interest, the pasturelands of the Mongols looked very appealing, and the Manchu began to squeeze them from their native habitats and curtail their traditional law. By the beginning of the twentieth century, southern (Inner) Mongolia was fl ooded with Chinese, and in all major cities of the northern (Outer) part of the country, Mongol offi cials were replaced with Chinese mandarins. Simultaneously, between the 1880s and 1910s, aft er serfdom in Russia was terminated, hundreds of thousands of settlers fl ocked to southern Siberia in search of good pasture and plow lands. Although Siberia

was large enough to absorb many of these newcomers, in the Altai and the Trans-Baikal, the most lucrative settlement areas, Russian newcomers began to clash with local nomads over land. Between 1896 and 1916, to speed up colonization and link the eastern borderlands to the rest of the country, the Russian

government built the Trans-Siberian railroad. To the dismay of indigenous folk, the Russian Empire, like its Manchu counterpart, cracked down on their traditional self-rule and law. Jealous of Russian advances and fearful that the Russians would roll southward into Mongolia and on to the Far East, the

Chinese doubled their colonization moves, expanding to Manchuria and further into Inner Mongolia, where the number of Mongols soon shrank to 33 percent. Replicating Russian steps in Siberia, in 1906 the Chinese government built a railroad to Inner Mongolia, drawing this borderland area closer to Beijing. Th

e centuries-old policy of noninterference was shredded. From then on there would be no peace between the Mongols and the Chinese. As one historian of the period wrote, the entire Mongol history in the fi rst half of the twentieth century became saturated with anti-Chinese sentiments.4 Although the rugged

terrain of Tibet did not attract the hordes of settlers and it was fortunate to avoid the fate of Mongolia, the Forbidden Kingdom was not immune to anti-Chinese sentiments. Tibetans equally distrusted the Manchu Empire, which wrecked their sovereignty in 1908

by bringing a detachment of troops to Lhasa, stripping the Dalai Lama of his power, and giving decision-making authority to two governmental inspectors

(ambans) sent from Beijing. Besides, in eastern Tibet, the Manchus kicked out all local administrators and replaced them with Chinese bureaucrats. Although these measures were a response to the 1904 military strike at Tibet by the English, the Forbidden Kingdom recognized them as an attack on its sovereignty.

Anti-Chinese Prophecies in Tibet and Mongolia Resorting to prophecies such as Shambhala was one way for Tibetans and Mongols to empower themselves to deal with the Chinese advances. As early as the 1840s the French missionary Abbé Huc, who visited the Tashilumpho monastery, described how this particular myth

served as a spiritual resistance against China’s infringement on Tibetan sovereignty. Th e version of the prophecy that he heard said that when the Buddhist faith declined, the Chinese would take over the Forbidden Kingdom. Th e only place where the true faith would survive would be the Kalon

(Kalachakra?) fellowship, a sacred brotherhood of the Panchen Lama’s devoted followers, who would fi nd refuge in the north somewhere between the Altai and Tuva. In this mysterious faraway northern country, a new reincarnation of the Panchen Lama would be found. In the meantime, the subjugated people would

rise up against the invaders in a spontaneous rebellion: “Th e Th ibetans will take up arms, and will massacre in one day all the Chinese, young and old, and not one of them shall trespass the frontiers.” Aft er this, the infuriated Manchu emperor would gather a huge army and storm into Tibet, slashing and

burning: “Blood will fl ow in torrents, the streams will be red with gore, and the Chinese will gain possession of Th ibet.” Th at was when the reincarnated Panchen Lama, the “saint of all saints,” would step in to free the faithful from the infi dels. Th e spiritual leader of Tibet would assemble the members of his sacred society, both alive and dead, into a powerful army equipped with arrows and fusils. Headed

by the Panchen, the holy army would march southward and cut the Chinese into pieces. Not only would he wipe out the enemies of the faith, but he would also take over Tibet, Mongolia, all of China, and even the faraway great state of Oros (Russia). Th e Panchen Lama would eventually be proclaimed the universal ruler, and the Tibetan Buddhist faith would triumph all over the world: “Superb Lamaseries would rise everywhere and the whole world will recognize an infi nite power of Buddhic prayers.”5 Th e world of Inner Asian nomads was saturated with epic legends, myths, fairy tales, and stories, which common folk,

mostly illiterate shepherds, shared with each other or received from storytellers and oracles. Prophecies were an important part of this oral culture, helping the populace deal with the uncertainties of life and mentally digest dramatic changes in times of troubles.6 Spreading like wildfi re over plains

and deserts, prophecies comforted people, mobilized them against enemies, and guided them to the correct path. Not infrequently, learned lamas put these messages down on paper and passed them around as chain letters to other monasteries. In the Mongol-Tibetan world people took these prophecies very

seriously. For example, Abbé Huc was stunned by how passionately Tibetans believed in the reality of the Shambhala prophecy, taking for granted not only its general message but also its particular details of what was about to happen: “Everyone speaks of them as of things certain and infallible.” Although

loaded with Christian biases, the perceptive missionary also noted the explosive power of this lingering prophecy: “Th ese absurd and extravagant ideas have made their way with the masses, and particularly with those who belong to the society of the Kalons, that they are very likely, at some future day, to

cause a revolution in Th ibet.”7 As if anticipating actual events that would take place in Inner Asia in the early twentieth century, the holy father correctly predicted that it would take only one smart and strong-willed individual to come from the north and proclaim himself the Panchen Lama in order to ride these popular sentiments.

Besides Shambhala, people of the Mongol-Tibetan world shared other tools of spiritual resistance. One of them was turning epic heroes and actual historical characters into sacred beings. For example, the famous Genghis Khan became a god-protector of Mongol Buddhism. Another popular deity was Geser Khan, a legendary hero immortalized in epic tales widespread among the Buryat, eastern Mongols, and Tibetans. Sent by the god Hormusta to free people from evil,

Geser won back his kingdom through a horse race, defeated demons in Tibet, and crushed barbarians who preyed on Mongolia, even chasing them down in faraway Persia. Indigenous bards who recounted his glorious deeds added their own details to the plot. Some storytellers merged the character of Geser with the image of the Shambhala king who was expected to resurface from the north and deliver people from the demonic forces.8 Th e most ancient prophecy, predating

Shambhala and Geser, was about Maitreya (called Maidari by Mongols), the Buddha of compassion and of a new age, who was commemorated in numerous statues and temples. Maitreya is the most worshipped Buddha besides Gautama, the Buddha proper and founder of the faith.9 Maitreya, who would be the fi ft h and the last Buddha, was expected to come in thirty thousand years aft er the faith deteriorated and the world underwent a terrible war, natural calamities,

and epidemics. Buddhists believed that aft er this era of darkness Maitreya would descend upon the earth and bring about the golden age of prosperity and spiritual bliss. Many minor individual prophecies were issued by the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, the Bogdo-gegen, and monastery oracles. At the turn of the 1900s, these public messages were increasingly fi lled with anti-Chinese sentiments. Addressing his fellow Mongols, the Bogdogegen predicted, “Th ere

will be an unimaginable amount of suff ering. Black-headed Chinese become many; they do not love the religion of Buddha and they have reached the extremes of disorder, so that it is impossible to accept the well-established law of predecessors as an example and to follow the order of Heaven.” He also instructed the faithful not to socialize with the Chinese infi dels or use their products and clothing, and even openly called the Mongols to revolt.10

Oirot/Amursana Prophecy in the Altai and Western Mongolia Simultaneously, spiritual resistance was brewing in the Altai and western Mongolia where nomads shared the popular Oirot/Amursana prophecy, no less powerful and no less explosive than Shambhala. Around the 1890s, people began to spread word from camp to camp about the miraculous resurrection of a glorious prince who had fi nally come to redeem them from oppression. Th e Mongols and some Altaians called him Amursana. At the same time, many nomads in the Altai argued

that his real name was Oirot and that Amursana was his chief lieutenant. Whatever his name, this redeemer was said to have returned aft er hiding in a northern country for 120 years, and now, in charge of a mighty army, he would take revenge on enemies and bring together his Oirot people. Who were the

enemies? In the Altai, they were the fl oods of Russian settlers who squeezed native shepherds from their alpine pastures; in western Mongolia, they were the Chinese merchants and bureaucrats who came to control the lives of nomads. Both Oirot and Amursana were personifi cations of the glorious Oirot confederation (named aft er the ruling Oirot clan), which in the 1600s united Turkic- and Mongol-speaking nomads of western China, western Mongolia and the Altai. Assertive Oirot princes embraced Tibetan Buddhism and frequently acted as patrons of Dalai Lamas; they also constantly challenged the Chinese Empire. Eventually the Manchu Dynasty became fed up with these warlike nomads and unleashed genocidal warfare against them, slaughtering all Oirot men, women, and children. Th e few who survived scattered, hiding in the mountains, deserts and taiga forests, and later giving rise to the Altaians, Kalmyk,

Tuvans, and western Mongols. Th e nomadic empire was gone, but its glory became imprinted in folk memory in the form of legends about Amursana and Oirot, who were expected to resurrect and save the nomads from alien domination. In fact, these legends became so popular that one of the refugee groups that escaped to the Altai Mountains, in literature usually called the Altaians, began to refer to themselves as the people of Oirot or simply the Oirot. Th e

real Prince Amursana (1722–57) was the last Oirot prince and in fact was very arrogant and opportunistic. At one point, he served the Chinese, but then fell out of favor and turned against them. Folk memory chose this second “noble” part of his life for celebration and glorifi cation. Fighting a losing

battle against his former masters, Amursana escaped to Russia, where he soon caught a plague and died in Siberia. Th is sudden disappearance of the prince in the faraway northern country later sparked legends about his subsequent return to his former

subjects to deliver them from the Chinese and the Russians. Eventually, lamas declared the popular hero a manifestation of the menacing Mahakala, protector of the Buddhist faith. Th e lingering prophecy agitated nomads to such an extent that in the 1890s they asked a Russian geographer-explorer visiting in western Mongolia if he was a vanguard of the Amursana army they expected to ascend from a northern country to liberate them from the Chinese.11 Th ere were many versions of the Oirot/Amursana legend. One of them was recorded by the musicologist Andrei Anokhin in 1919: Many years ago, Prince Oirot ruled the Altai. Oirot defended everybody, and there were neither poor nor discontented people in his domain. Th en the Oirot people became surrounded by enemies who

destroyed this idyllic life (a clear reference to the genocide of the Oirot confederation by the Chinese). Unable to protect his own people, Oirot retreated to Russia and married a maiden princess—an allusion to the Russian empress Elizabeth who accepted several runaway Oirot clans under her wing as her subjects. Before his departure, Oirot did two things: he cut his horse’s tail to the root, and he also cut a larch tree down to the level of his

stirrups. Th en the prince declared that he would come back to the Altai only when his horse’s tail grew again and the larch tree grew so big that it would cover a whole army with its leaves. Another important element of this tale was Oirot’s statement that the news about his return would be announced by a twelve-year-old girl and marked by the shift ing of a glacier on the highest Altai mountain. Similar legends, only about Amursana, circulated in western

Mongolia. In the Altai, the news that Oirot was fi nally coming was revealed in 1904 by Chet Chelpan, a humble shepherd who frequented Mongolia, and Chugul Sorokova, his twelve-year-old adopted daughter. Both claimed to have seen the messenger of the legendary prince, who confi ded to them that Oirot would soon drive all Russians from the Altai and restore the old way of life. Chet Chelpan also prophesied that Oirot would be sent by Burkhan (the image of Buddha), which Chet considered the Spirit of Altai and the Oirot nation. In the meantime, as the

good shepherd instructed his fl ock, the Oirot people were to reject all contacts with the Russians, destroy Russian money, and stop using Russian tools. Th is was the birth of the Ak-Jang (white or pure faith), an Altaian version of Tibetan Buddhism that drew on bits and pieces of Buddha’s teaching,

indigenous shamanism, epic tales, and memories of the Oirot confederation. Behind Chet and his daughter stood a group of indigenous activists headed by Tery Akemchi (White Healer), who had apprenticed in Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia where they picked up elements of Buddhism and brought them to the Altai. Th e Oirot/Amursana prophecy was further bolstered in 1911 when Ja-Lama (1860–1923), a Russian Kalmyk immortalized in Ferdinand Ossendowski’s

esoteric bestseller Beasts, Men and Gods,12 showed up in western Mongolia, declared himself the reincarnation of Amursana, and led a local liberation movement against the Chinese. When news about the reincarnated Amursana reached the Altai, the prophecy was already adjusted to local needs and acquired an anti-Russian spin. Th e Altai nomads expected Amursana to arrive accompanied by seventeen reincarnated lamas, seven hundred dogs, and seven thousand mighty

warriors who would crush the Russians. Th e legends about Oirot/Amursana, which were familiar to all people of the Altai and western Mongolia, helped override clan and territorial diff erences and merge the nomads into nationalities. Th e good shepherd Chet Chelpan asked his fl ock to forget all quarrels and live “like children of one father” and “like the herd headed by one stallion.” Ja-Lama was even more explicit, telling his nomadic warriors that they

were fi ghting and dying for Mongolia. Later, in eastern Mongolia, the Shambhala prophecy served the same purpose: to unite the Mongols against the Chinese. In their song about northern Shambhala, Red Mongol soldiers sang that they would be happy to die fi ghting against the Chinese infi dels and to be

reborn in the Shambhala kingdom. Tibet was a more complicated case. By the early twentieth century, the Forbidden Kingdom was already a united country ruled by the thirteenth Dalai Lama (1875–1933), who was working hard to make his

domain into a sovereign nation. So here, instead of bringing the Tibetans together, the Shambhala prophecy and the Panchen Lama, who stood in its shadow and challenged Lhasa, disrupted nation building.

When Empires Collapse: Mongolia, Altai, Tibet, and the Panchen Lama In 1911, the Chinese Empire collapsed. Six years later, the same fate befell the Russian Empire. Th e chaos, civil wars, violence, and banditry that followed the demise of these two giants activated Mongol-Tibetan

prophecies that helped people get through tough times. Common shepherds, princes, lamas, warlords, and even several European adventurers were all eager to tap into such redeeming legends as Shambhala, Maitreya, Amursana, and Oirot. Much of this prophetic baggage served the goals of nationalism. Amid the

anarchy and chaos that reigned over northern Eurasia in the 1920s, the Kalmyk, Buryat, Oirot, Mongols, Tuvans, and Tibetans began to take power in their own hands and shape themselves into nationalities and nations. Moreover, driven by nationalist dreams, a few assertive leaders promoted grand political schemes that went beyond the existing cultural and geographical boundaries. Brought into the spotlight by a whirlwind of revolutionary changes, some of these “redeemers” peddled projects that would bring all Turkic-speaking nomads together into one large state. Others toyed with the idea of reviving the seventeenth-century Oirot confederation. Some dreamers wanted to build up a pan-Mongol state that would unite people of the “Mongol stock” in Siberia, Mongolia, and Manchuria. Finally, several prophets worked to gather all Tibetan Buddhist people into a large pan-Buddhist theocracy. In 1912, a year aft er

the Chinese revolution put an end to the Manchu Empire, the people of northern (Outer) Mongolia, backed up by Russia, drove the Chinese out of the country and made the Bogdo-gegen (head of Mongol Buddhists) the supreme ruler of their new independent theocracy. In 1918, when the Russian Empire was gone and amid the raging Civil War, the Cossack platoon leader Grigory Semenov, the Buryat intellectual Elbek-Dorji Rinchino, and a dozen of his friends educated at Russian universities, gathered in the Siberian town of Chita and announced they had created a great pan-Mongol nation. To the dismay of Mongol leaders who did not want to be part of this, the adventurous gang of dreamers was all set to travel to the Paris peace conference to seek recognition from the great powers as an independent nation. Th e whole scheme suddenly collapsed when Japan, which originally backed the project, abruptly changed its mind. With no

support from below, the rascals who peddled the “great Mongol nation” scattered; half of them were murdered by a Chinese warlord in Manchuria who lured them to an “offi cial banquet” and then executed them for separatism. Th e same year in the Altai, the indigenous landscape painter and folklore collector

Grigory Gurkin, along with his friend Russian anthropologist Vasilii Anuchin, launched the Karakorum state (a reference to the legendary capital of the Genghis Khan’s empire). Riding the popular Oirot prophecy, they declared an autonomy of the Mountain Altai and began to contemplate a “Republic of the

Oirot,” which was to revive the seventeenth-century Oirot confederation by uniting Turkic- and Mongol-speaking nomads of the Altai, Tuva and western Mongolia. Anuchin, who suff ered from delusions of grandeur, pushed his indigenous comrades to charge ahead “fearing nothing” and to “shape history in a

revolutionary manner.” Speaking in front of the “children of Oirot,” the agitated scholar argued that the populations of these areas were one tribe and one kinship family: “Formerly they represented one great nation—Oirot. To bring them together again into one family and into one state is crucial because all

these tribes craving for unifi cation are now neglected by everybody. Th ese tribes will give rise to a great Asian republic that will occupy an area exceeding Germany and France together.”13 In 1911, taking advantage of the collapse of the Chinese Empire, the Tibetans revolted against the Chinese,

kicking out their inspectors and troops. Still, in the northeastern part of the country, the warriors of the Forbidden Kingdom had to fi ght repeatedly against the Chinese from 1913 to 1919 before they fi nally secured the Tibetan borders and sovereignty. In the meantime, the Dalai Lama returned from exile

in India and began to move his theocracy toward full-fl edged nationhood. To empower his emerging nation, the Lhasa ruler made a few modest steps to modernize. He had a telegraph line built between northern India and Tibet and a small electric power station erected. Yet his major goal was raising an

army equipped with modern weapons, requiring additional taxes. Now everybody, including monasteries, which previously enjoyed tax-exempt status, had to contribute to this defense project. Th e clergy were not enthusiastic about this project at all and were equally upset

about the power station, telegraph, and English military instructors the Dalai Lama invited to drill Tibetan soldiers. Conservative monks, fearful that these innovations would corrupt Tibetan Buddhist tradition, began to look to the Panchen Lama for support. Th e abbot of the Tashilumpho monastery, who was

simultaneously a powerful lord in eastern Tibet, did not like the infringement on his privileges and refused to pay taxes. In 1921, his followers erected a large statue of the Buddha Maitreya, and he invited the Dalai Lama Figure 2.4. Th e Panchen Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, standing in front of a Mongol dwelling aft er his escape during one of his tours of Inner Mongolia, 1930.

to consecrate the project. Th e Lhasa ruler was infuriated and severely rebuked the abbot for wasting so much money at a time when Tibet needed a modern army to defend itself. Th ere was so much bad blood between them that the Panchen Lama became paranoid about his safety, and in 1923 he fl ed from Tibet to Chinese Mongolia and never came back.14 He became popular with the Mongols, who accepted him as their spiritual leader aft er their Bogdo-gegen died in

1924. Th e runaway abbot liked to visit their nomadic camps, performing public Kalachakra initiations for thousands. Ja-Lama: Amursana-Mahakala and a Budding Dictator In the meantime, in western Mongolia another spiritual celebrity rose in power and captivated the minds of local nomads. It was the aforementioned notorious Ja-Lama, who in 1911 declared himself the

reincarnation of Amursana, rallying the disgruntled Mongols, who wanted to free themselves from the Chinese and were ready to accept the legendary redeemer.15 He showed up at the right place and right time. Th e nomads of the Altai and western Mongolia were already scanning the horizon for someone

with marks of Amursana and Oirot, who would come from the north and rescue them. Th e Russian folklore scholar Boris Vladimirtsov, who visited Western Mongolia in 1913, stressed that the loss of land and Chinese domination stimulated the Mongols to search for signs of the legendary redeemer.16 Ja-Lama

grew up in the lower Volga River area, where his fellow Kalmyk, the runaway splinters of the Oirot confederation, had resided since the 1600s. His family eventually moved back to Mongolia, where the boy was put in a monastery for education. Ja-Lama proved to be a smart student and was sent to continue his

training in Tibet. Yet the youth had a wild temper and allegedly killed a fellow monk during a heated argument. To take the life of a fellow Buddhist was a very serious crime, and the youth had to escape to Beijing, where for a few years he earned his living by printing Buddhist calendars. His fi rst attempt

to plug himself into the Amursana prophecy took place as early as the 1890s, when he wandered into western Mongolia and declared himself the grandson of the prince. Although many nomads followed him, the situation was not yet right. At that time, Chinese authorities quickly apprehended the rascal, and the “royal off spring” had to fl ee southward to Tibet. Aft er the 1911 Chinese revolution, when the Mongols rose up against the “yellow peril,” the timing was perfect. Th e spiritual trickster resurfaced in Western Mongolia, where local nomads welcomed him. At one point, to enhance his legendary northern origin

Ja-Lama donned a Russian offi cer’s military uniform with chevrons; according to the prophecy, Amursana escaped to the land of the “maiden tsarina” (Elizabeth of Russia) and became one of her generals before coming back to save his people. Professor Ossendowski portrayed Ja-Lama as a desert magician who suddenly popped out of nowhere with a Colt revolver under his

sash. Aft er an intellectually stimulating dialogue, the Avenging Lama, impressed the professor with his supernatural power by slashing the abdomen of a

comrade and then quickly repairing it without leaving any scars. Unlike authors of other accounts of Amursana, Ossendowski was a very perceptive observer who did not restrict himself to simply listing the miraculous deeds of the notorious Kalmyk. Th e writer correctly described Ja-Lama as an ardent nationalist who worked to bring the various tribes of western Mongolia together into one nation. Taking full advantage of the Mongols’ dislike of the

Chinese, Ja-Lama invoked “blood and soil” sentiments among his followers. His major military coup was the successful seizure of Kobdo, the only major battle during the Mongols’ liberation movement in 1911–13. Before storming the town, Ja-Lama blessed his nomadic warriors with words that appealed not only

to their religious feelings but also to their nationalistic sentiments: “You must not fear death and must not retreat. You are fi ghting and dying for Mongolia, for which the gods have appointed a great destiny. See what the fate of Mongolia will be!”17

To boost his spiritual power in the eyes of followers, from time to time, Ja-Lama visualized and merged with the powerful god Mahakala, one of the “eight terrible ones,” defenders of the Buddhist faith. He was also prone to literal interpretations of Tibetan Buddhist mythology and iconography. Aft er the

victory over the Chinese at Kobdo, Ja-Lama performed a public tantra session for his warriors. It was scripted according to ancient Kalachakra texts and involved a sickle, skull cups, blood, and hearts ripped out from the chests of the enemies. During this ceremony, Ja-lama, in a trance, turned into

wrathful Mahakala, using the blood and hearts of prisoners to fi ll his skull cup the way Mahakala was portrayed doing on sacred scrolls. When a representative of the Bogdogegen rode into the crowd and confronted Ja-Lama with orders from the Bogdo-gegen to stop the ritual, he was killed in the ensuing melee. By morning, mixed with blood and soil, the sparks of civic notions lay dead, sacrifi ced to the altar of faith and race.18

Ja-Lama awed nomads of western Mongolia with his power and embarked on building his own fi efdom, where he began to rule as a modern dictator. About two

thousand people recognized him as their ruler. Order and discipline were his obsessions. Near the monastery of Munjok-kurel, he erected a tent town populated by lamas and regular shepherds. Felt yurts were pitched in strict geometrical lines in straight rows rather than chaotically as the Mongols

normally did. “Amursana” demanded complete obedience and enforced a strict religious discipline, humiliating and punishing lamas who dared to drink or smoke, which was against traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Th ose who broke the code of faith were forced to get married and were turned into soldiers. Ja-Lama announced that in his new-era state, there would be “few lamas, but only good ones.” Th e rest of the clergy had to become productive laborers. In his tent

town all people, clergy and laypeople, were subjected to regular physical labor, kept busy building a dam and digging an artifi cial lake to provide a permanent water supply. Nobody was allowed to just hang around as in the past. Th is budding dictator was defi nitely up to something serious. On the one hand, he preached the return to original teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. On the other, he wanted to make his people modern. He planned to build schools, import machinery from Russia, and teach the Mongols the art of agriculture. Besides order and discipline, another obsession was hygiene, which he

relentlessly promoted, in stark contrast to the fi lth of the surrounding nomadic encampments. All of his town was neat and clean, unusual for contemporary Mongols, who dumped their garbage near their dwellings. In fact, when Ja-Lama saw people throwing trash around or drinking liquor, he severely punished the

culprits. Th ose who continued to disobey were simply beheaded.19 Like his colleagues from the Altai, the reincarnated Amursana with a zeal for modernization nourished a great plan to unite all nomads of western Mongolia and western China into a large state—another attempt to revive the great Oirot confederation in its seventeenth-century borders. Th ese ambitions seriously disturbed the Bogdo-gegen and his

court, who were afraid that the reincarnated redeemer might widen traditional diff erences between eastern (Khalka) and western (Oirot) Mongols and eventually split the country in two. In 1914, following up on these fears and using Ja-Lama’s brutalities as an excuse, the Bogdo-gegen solicited the

assistance of a Russian consul to apprehend the Avenging Lama, who formally remained a Russian subject. Ambushed and arrested by a platoon of Cossacks, Ja-Lama had to spend several years in exile in northeastern Siberia, the coldest place on earth. Yet this was not the end of the lama with a gun. Aft er the 1917 Russian Revolution, Ja-Lama would spread his wings once again.