E-mail: sophico512@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (495) 250-61-02
6–2, Miusskaya sq., Moscow, 125047, Russian Federation
Analyst, Teaching Scientific Center of Social Anthropology, Russian State University for the Humanities
The article was prepared within the framework of the project “The Role of the Ethnic Factor in Ensuring the National Security of the Russian Federation and the Socio-Economic Development of the Border Territories of Siberia and the Far East” (part of the program of fundamental and applied scholarly research “Ethnocultural Diversity of Russian Society and Strengthening of the All-Russian Identity,” 2020–2022).
This article explores the role that the recently discovered relics play in formulating and promoting the idea of a “northern Buddhist Renaissance,” in other words, the shift of the center of global Buddhism from Tibet to the north, and particularly, to the Russian Federation’s Republic of Buryatia. Based on the analysis of the recent discoveries and the popular legends associated with them, the author examines this process, drawing parallels with the mechanisms of the Tibetan Buddhist Renaissance of the tenth — twelfth centuries. She considers whether Ulan-Ude could become a new religious center in the same way as Lhasa did in the past. A significant part of the article is devoted to issues of cultural sovereignty in connection with the concept of sovereign Buryat Buddhism. The author concludes that, despite the existence of certain prerequisites for this, Buryatia is unlikely to become a new world center of Buddhism in the foreseeable future, but it may well become one of the centers of the Gelug school (or Lamaism, the “yellow faith”).
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Amogolonova D. D. (2012) Vozvrashchenie Khambo-lamy Itigelova i novaya kontseptsiya vozrozhdeniya Buryatii [The Return of Khambo-Lama Itigelov and the New Idea of a Buryat Renaissance]. Vestnik Buryatskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Bulletin of Buryat State University]. 2012. No. 7. Pp. 65–70. In Russian.
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