Book review: Religious bodies politic: rituals of sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, Buddhism is one of the older established-by-law religions of the Russian Republic. In the eighteenth century, Yellow Hat, Mahayana Buddhism was brought by Mongol Lamas from Tibet through Mongolia and into the Transbaikal region of Siberia. The targets of that missionary work, the Buriat-Mongols, had ethnic, linguistic, economic, and other cultural ties to the Mongolian lamas or priests. By the early nineteenth century the majority of Buriats in the Transbaikal were Buddhist. In the Cis-Baikal Buddhism became important, but not overwhelmingly so due to Russian intervention. As would be expected, by the time of the Russian Revolution, Buddhism played an important role in the Baikal region. Again, following the Russian Revolution, as with other religions in the new Soviet Union, Buddhism was suppressed. Since 1991 the Buddhist revival has included rehabilitation and renewal at the headquarters of Buddhism, the Ivolginsk Datsan, the introduction of new forms of Buddhism, reconnections with Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist institutions, and a general reassessment of what it means to be Buddhist in modern times.