Datsans of Buryatia: Egituisky datsan. Sandalwood Buddha Statue – Zandan Zhuu

Zandan Zhuu (Sandalwood Buddha)

Egituisky datsan. Photo: Arkady Zarubin

Zandan Zhuu, “Sandalwood Buddha” or “Sandalwood Lord” - a sculpture of Buddha 2 m 18 cm high, made of sandalwood, according to legend, 2500 years ago by order of Raja Uddiyana. Located in the Egituysky datsan of Buryatia. It is a Buddhist shrine and is considered the only one made during the life of the Buddha (in literary sources there are references to other lifetime portraits and sculptures, but there is no reliable evidence). According to the Buddhist tradition, he is considered a living Buddha - his images carry grace. The statue has a special iconography: the Buddha stands, with long arms reaching to his knees, among flowers and landscape, a "human" Buddha similar to the Maitreya Buddha.

Story

According to tradition, the Buddha prophesied the movement of Zandan Zhuu to the North and, accordingly, the movement of the center of Buddhism.

  • In the 3rd century. the statue was transported from India to China.
  • In the 4th century, the monk Kumarayana from Kashmir, in order to save the statue from local wars, took it to Kucha.

married the sister of the local ruler and became a spiritual mentor in the state. His son Kumarajiva became a famous Buddhist sage.

  • In the 8th century - the wives of the Tibetan king Srontsangambo brought a statue of Tibet. Under the next ruler, King Tisrondetsan, Buddhism became the state religion of Tibet.
  • In the 13th century - location presumably in Mongolia.
  • In the winter of 1901, Sandalwood Buddha found himself in Transbaikalia. After the defeat of the Boxer Rebellion,

The Buryat Cossacks, taking advantage of the turmoil and devastation in the city and the fire in the Sandan-sy monastery (“Sandalwood Buddha Monastery”), where the statue was kept at that time, took it out. The operation was led by the head of the Russian post office, Gomboev. Upon arrival, a metal copy of the statue was made and placed in the Egituisky datsan, the original was hidden. The Japanese learned the location of the statue. Upon arrival, they were shown a metal copy, and they left with nothing.

  • In the 1930s, it was kept in the Odigitrievskaya Church in Ulan-Ude, where the funds of the Museum of Local Lore were housed.
  • In the 1980s, the statue was returned to believers and placed in the Egituisky datsan.
  • April 22, 2003 Decision of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia (Ivolginsky Datsan): “To approve as Buddhist shrines of Russia:

Buddhist legend about the appearance of the statue

According to the Tocharian monk Dharmanandi (385 CE) (Ekottara Agama Sutras from the Anuttara Nikaya), the Buddha was in Tushita heaven, preaching the Dharma to his deceased mother Maya. Prasenajit wanted to see the Enlightened Lord and ordered a statue of him to be made. Maudgalyayana took the masters to heaven, where they met the Buddha. After returning, the craftsmen sculpted a life-size statue from sandalwood. When Buddha Shakyamuni returned to earth, the statue took six steps towards him, then he made a prophecy that it would be moved to the north, and Buddhism would flourish there.

Impact of the statue on believers

Not everyone can be at Zandan Zhuu: some can’t stand it and leave the datsan. Others, on the contrary, find that several hours have passed since they sat down opposite the Sandalwood Buddha. It is believed that the shrine eliminates negative deeds, bestows long life, and gives guidance for good luck, happiness, and health, if the worshiper hopes for it and believes in it from the bottom of his heart.

Sources


Wikimedia Foundation.

2010.

it was said that while the Buddha was still alive, a sculpture of him was carved from sandalwood. Over time, this statue was transported to China, where... In a distant Buryat datsan, a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha is kept, which is perhaps the most valuable relic of all Buddhist world

. We are talking about the sandalwood Buddha, which in distorted Buryat pronunciation is called zandan - zhuu in Tibetan.

In a distant Buryat datsan there is kept a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, which is perhaps the most valuable relic of the entire Buddhist world. We are talking about the sandalwood Buddha, which in distorted Buryat pronunciation is called zandan - zhuu in Tibetan. This statue can be compared to the Shroud of Turin or the black stone of the Kaaba. Why go far, its significance for the Buddhist world is comparable to the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya or the Sinhalese tooth of the Buddha. But unlike all of the above religious relics, the Buryat zandan - zhuu is almost unknown in the Buddhist world. What's the matter? Buryatia can no longer be called “Bear Corner”, a godforsaken place, information about which can only be found in the notes of rare travelers. The era of the Internet has made everyone equal, and travel agencies compete in sophisticated methods of “Promotion” of branded objects of the republic. Why, in this case, does the Sandalwood Buddha remain a shrine of local significance, in contrast to, say, the incorruptible body of the Itigelov, the pilgrimage to which is already gaining international scope?

To answer this question, you need to figure out whether the Buddha statue kept in the Egitui datsan is so unique and sacred. Behind last years Two serious scientific works about it were published by the Czech religious scholar Lubos Belki and the famous St. Petersburg Buddhist figure Andrei Terentyev. Much of what will be said in this article is drawn from these works.

The story of the wanderings of the sandalwood buddha.

Buddhist legendary tradition states that intravital image Buddha Shakyamuni was made from sandalwood in heaven, where the Buddha miraculously moved to teach the teachings to his mother, who was reborn as a goddess. Ruler of one of the small Indian states At that time, Raja Udayana yearned for the missing teacher and ordered several sculptors to go to heaven and sculpt an exact copy of him there. Buddha liked the statue, and after his return to earth he declared it his deputy. Subsequently, for two and a half thousand years, the sandalwood Buddha wandered throughout Asia. In the 3rd century. The statue comes from India to China, from where, in turn, it was transported to central Asia, to the city of Kucha, the capital of the state of the ancient Indo-Europeans, the Yuezhi. Later, the statue may have traveled to Tibet, where a copy was made of it, which Tibetan Buddhists consider their main shrine. Another copy of the sandalwood Buddha was taken to Japan, where it is still kept in one of the temples in Kyoto. The statue was worshiped by Kublai Khan, on whose instructions the sandalwood Buddha was brought to the khanbalik by Marco Polo himself. The famous standing Buddha statue in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban, is also an enlarged copy of it. Finally, zandan-zhuu found a temporary refuge in Beijing, where it became the main treasure of the Manchu imperial court.

Burning Beijing.

The year 1900 became catastrophic for the decrepit Qing empire. Outraged by the aggressive colonial policies of the European powers and Japan, Chinese peasants and artisans began to unite in detachments and destroy the embassy quarters. Russia was among 8 other powers that suffered from the actions of the rebels, and joined its troops to the foreign punitive contingent. As a result, punitive forces broke into the capital and completely plundered the imperial quarter of Beijing - the forbidden city. Europeans robbed palaces and, covering their tracks, burned them. The memory of one of the eyewitnesses of the robbery was preserved: “soldiers, burying their heads in chests of red lacquer, rummaged through the things of the empress, others stirred up piles of brocade and silks, some stuffed them into their pockets or simply poured rubies, sapphires, pearls, and rock crystal into their shirts or caps.” ; who hung themselves with precious pearl necklaces. The clocks were taken from the fireplaces, the clocks were removed from the walls; gems, with which the palace chairs were inlaid. One of them tried very hard to cut open a charming watch in the style of Louis XV in order to extract the dial on which the crystal numbers sparkled; he imagined they were diamonds" (link.

Operation "Urgent Evacuation".

The same fate awaited the Sandalwood Buddha Temple with its precious contents. However, the Buryat Cossacks who were part of the Russian contingent from the Transbaikal Cossack army, at the request of the Mongol lamas, managed to secretly remove the statue from the city. For several years they took her to Buryatia. The operation was coordinated by the head of the postal service of the Russian embassy, ​​Nikolai Gomboev, the well-known and omnipresent Agvan Dorzhiev, and the rector of the Egitui datsan, Lama Zodboev. As reported in research: “She was taken on a Sleigh, Covered with Straw, Matting, Disguised with Provisions and Postal Props” (link. When the statue was brought to Buryatia, it was decided to assign it to a remote datsan, so as not to attract undue attention to it. Russian authorities have no idea They did not know about the daring act of the Buryat Cossacks, and if they had found out, they would probably have regarded it as a dangerous malfeasance. The operation did not go beyond the “Buryat Circle”.

Floating statue.

The Sandalwood Buddha statue is a 2m 18cm tall image of Shakyamuni Buddha along with a small pedestal. Contrary to the name, the statue itself, as analysis showed, is made of linden and covered with a layer of sandalwood paste. There is information that the upper part of the head of the zandan-zhuu was originally decorated with a ruby ​​or diamond, and the relics of the Buddha were placed inside the statue. These valuable artifacts were probably stolen in 1935, when the statue was transported from Egita to Ulan-Ude. Tradition also claims that the statue does not rest on a pedestal, but seems to float in the air, a hair's breadth away from it. Therefore, it is supposedly possible to check its authenticity by passing a silk thread between the soles of the feet and the base. However, such a check has not been carried out, as well as a full scientific analysis of the age of the wood. And this despite the fact that the statue was for some time in storage in the Odigitrievsky Museum, which served as a museum storage facility, and under restoration in the Hermitage. In the 80s of the last century, the statue was returned to the Egitui datsan.

China demands the return of the shrines.

When visiting the Far Eastern art departments of the Louvre or the British Museum, you can see old porcelain vases and panels that ended up there as a result of the sack of the Forbidden City in 1900. China has long been demanding Western countries and Japan for the return of valuables. Only if it is not possible to reach an agreement, Chinese authorities and large businesses are buying back lost items at auctions. Thus, to date, about 200 units have been purchased for a total amount of 33 million US dollars (link. For the Chinese government, it is a matter of honor to restore the forbidden city to its former form and close the shameful page of the history of its country. This, however, is only a drop in the ocean, since the number According to some estimates, there are one and a half million such exhibits. China understands this and sets the goal of returning at least the most valuable.

Strange situation.

In the case of the sandalwood Buddha, the situation is strange, if not insoluble. In fact, in this story, the Buryats have fooled both China, leaving it without a masterpiece of world significance, and Russia, which will have to solve this problem if the authorities of a neighboring power pay attention to it. Officially in China, it is believed that the sandalwood Buddha statue burned down along with the temple in which it was kept. But how many masterpieces, considered irretrievably lost, have returned to their owners?

In 2003, the Buddhist traditional sangha of Russia recognized the Zandan Zhuu statue as one of the three Buddhist shrines of Russia. However, at the federal level, the recognition of the Egitui shrine as an authentic monument of Buddhist art taken from China faces issues of cultural diplomacy.

Are your wanderings not over yet?

One of my St. Petersburg colleagues once expressed the idea that it is neither in the interests of Buryatia nor in the interests of Russia to promote mass media question about sandalwood buddha. Sooner or later, this will lead to the PRC sending its experts and demanding the return of the shrine to Beijing. But, on the other hand, such progress has already begun. The studies I mentioned by Squirrel and Terentyev were written in English language and are probably already known to their Chinese colleagues.

Is Zandan-Zhuu destined to remain a shrine of local significance, an “Internal Buryat Affair” or will the issue of the Sandalwood Buddha ever enter the agenda of Russian-Chinese relations? One thing is clear, the sandalwood Buddha statue is a hostage to the situation, which means that its wanderings are not yet completed. (C) Nikolay Tsyrempilov.

1901 The night cover over the huge eastern city is being torn apart by fires. The streets are filled with smoke and the heady smell of gunpowder. Shots, screams, moans are heard from everywhere

From the burning Sandan-Sy monastery, several military men carefully carry out a huge bundle and place it on a cart. On their high-cheeked, dark faces there are drops of sweat and joy mixed with anxiety. These are the Cossacks of the 6th Hundred of the 1st Verkhneudinsk Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army in Beijing, engulfed by the Boxer Uprising, implementing the Buddha’s prediction. A 2,500-year-old prediction. Now let's talk about everything in order.

Inscription on the stone

Immersing the inquisitive traveler in the mysterious atmosphere of these places, the road, not far from the Egituysky datsan, has turned into a forest lane, leads to a mysterious stone that one of my hunter friends, Vladimir Nikolaevich Safeev, found in the taiga. Once, while chasing a wapiti wounded during a hunt, he sat down to rest and was surprised to find that he was sitting next to an unusual stone. On one side, facing the taiga thicket, it looks like an ordinary boulder. On the other side, which looks from the wild rosemary onto the forest road, it seems to have been cut with a huge sharp knife and has a smooth matte surface in the shape of two semicircles, located one above the other. In the center of this site, it is unknown how a strange sign was made.

My friend, who was born and lived in these parts all his life, who walked the length and breadth of the local taiga, had not heard anything about this stone, just as other old-timers had not heard of it.

As it turned out later, this is a sign from the Sanskrit alphabet, read as “om”. It is with this that one of the most popular and significant mantras in Buddhism, “Om mani padme hum,” begins. My friend began to ask the local lamas what the presence of this stone could mean here. The answer he received was: “This is a strong place.” This means that these places have very powerful energy and are nourished by some higher forces. And when I tried to somehow clarify with other clergy the origin of the inscription on the stone, I was told: the inscription was not made by hands. The rest is a mystery, the solution to which has not yet been solved.

Six steps towards

The Egituisky datsan itself, which has the Tibetan name “Damchoy Ravzheling”, is an ancient architectural complex on the banks of the Marakta River, founded in 1820. It once consisted of twelve buildings. There were philosophical, medical and astrological dugans.


Photo: anonim03.ru

More than three hundred Khuvarak students studied science there. They say that when they whispered a prayer, it could be heard at a distance of three kilometers. It’s hard to imagine, but this “bear corner” already had its own printing house at the beginning of the 19th century.

And this is not what the datsan was famous for. Its main attraction was and remains to this day the statue of Zandan Zhuu (Sandalwood Buddha). Well, here we come to the main secret. The history of Zandan Zhuu began 2500 years ago, when this only image of Buddha was created during his lifetime. It is now difficult to say how one of the first works of Buddhist art actually came into being, there is too much here that is not ordinary, but this Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama was also an unusual person.

I don’t know what to believe: either that the masters sculpted it from a reflection in the river, because the light emanating from it blinded them, or that they had to visit heaven, where Buddha was at that time... But, somehow be that as it may, his image came into being. It is said that when the Buddha approached the statue to compare the likenesses, it took six steps towards him. They say that this is what prompted the Buddha to make the following prophecy: the statue will move to the north, and where it is located, Buddhism should flourish.

You can believe it or not, but the prophecy came true. And in the chain of events that will be discussed further, there are no accidents.

Nail on the foot

Over these 2500 years, the statue slowly but confidently moved north. First, in the 4th century, the monks, saving the statue from internecine wars, transported it to the city of Kucha in Central Asia. Then she came to China. Then, as a gift, it migrated to Tibet, and during the time of Genghis Khan - to Mongolia. And wherever the statue appeared, Buddhism began to flourish everywhere. The following story is connected with Zandan Zhuu’s stay in China. When the clergy of the monastery left the room where she stood for the night, her face was turned to where the people turned the statue, but every morning she invariably looked north.

She remembered Buddha's prediction. This problem was solved very simply - a nail was driven into the statue’s foot. From Mongolia, it again moved to China, where it was located before the events that began this story.

Miracles of Sandalwood Buddha

Someday history will name the names of the Transbaikal Cossacks who saved the Buddhist shrine from fire, but for now they are unknown to us. However, the names of other people who risked their lives to save Zandan Zhuu are known. This is the head of the Russian post office Gomboev and Lama Erdeniin Sorzho of the Egituy datsan.

The statue was securely hidden on a cart and brought across two borders - Chinese and Mongolian - to Russia. When the priceless cargo was leaving Mongolia, the guards asked why it was so securely wrapped. And they received an answer from those accompanying them: this is a relative who died of the plague. There were no more questions.

In 1934, during the persecution of datsans, Zandan Zhuu was transported to the Odigitrievsky Cathedral of Ulan-Ude. At that time, the funds of the anti-religious museum were located there. In the early 80s of the last century, it was there that I had the opportunity to see it for the first time. On September 22, 1992, the statue was again returned to the believers and is now forever located in the Egituisky datsan. Thus ended the centuries-long wanderings of the Sandalwood Buddha. And only the hole from the nail in the statue’s foot reminds of its difficult fate. But the miracles didn't end there. One of the respected lamas told me that Zandan Zhuu stands without touching the surface of the pedestal: a thread runs freely between the base of the statue and the pedestal. Everything can happen in our extraordinary lands.

People come here from afar to worship the Sandalwood Buddha and ask him for health and long life for themselves and their loved ones. And the statue helps. Helps everyone who believes.

A small touch from the modern history of Zandan Zhuu

In 2012, I had the opportunity to visit the locations of Buryat police officers in the North Caucasus. We drove through Chechnya and Dagestan. So, in Kaspiysk, at the location of the combined detachment in the so-called cockpit, I saw at the head of a row of beds a slightly crumpled image of Zandan Zhuu cut out from some magazine. At the head - where icons are usually located - there was an ordinary piece of paper attached. But there was a shrine on it, from which the guys asked to help them return home. And they returned safe and sound.

Addition from the editors

This is how an unknown author described the story and his impressions of Zandan Zhuu. Let's add one more case. September 22, 1991, the day when Zandan Zhuu was returned to the datsan, turned out to be very cold. It was raining and snowing. A landing site for a helicopter was prepared in front of the datsan. He was late, there was a fear that due to such weather he might not arrive. But the wet people waited patiently in the bitterly cold wind. And then the long-awaited helicopter emerged from behind the clouds. After it landed, people formed a long living corridor. Many could not hold back their tears of joy. Especially those who were children during the terrible years of religious persecution. Those, before whose children's eyes, they destroyed the Egituisky datsan so fiercely that the entire Egituisky valley was strewn with the pages of sacred books.

The pilots opened the cargo compartment, and the lamas carefully carried the sacred Burkhan Zandan Zhuu onto the Eravna land and carried it through the open doors of the datsan. The dream of returning the shrine of the then Khambo Lama Munko Tsybikov to his native datsan came true. He carried this dream through years of arrests, prison camps and long exile in Kolyma.

“We gladly accepted the order to deliver Zandan Zhuu.” It was difficult to fly. Wet snow, poor visibility. When we flew over Khorinsk, the ground was covered with snow. We chose a low flight ceiling. My colleagues Sergei Boyko and Vasily Bayusheev are experienced pilots. The responsible mission is completed. Let the prayers made in your datsan be heard by everyone. May God help everyone! - said then the commander of the Mi-8 crew A.V. Vatulin regional newspaper "Ulan-Tuya".

Almost 14 years later, on September 20, 2005, the helicopter made a circle of honor for the second time and landed at the Egituysky datsan. Imagine the surprise of the villagers who met them when they recognized the very pilots in the crew who were returning the shrine to extreme conditions in September 1991. This time, Mikhail Slipenchuk, who was getting acquainted with Buryatia, asked them to take them to the shrine. Seeing the enthusiastic curiosity of the children surrounding the helicopter, he asked the pilots to take the children for a ride. The children crowded into the cabin with joyful cries and for the first time in their lives flew around their native valley. And below at this time, a new guest, impressed by Zandan Zhuu, decided to help in the construction of a palace for the shrine.

(from Tib. tsan dan jo bo), or Sandalwood Buddha, is a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha that is perhaps the most valuable relic of the entire Buddhist world. Buddhist legendary tradition claims that the lifetime sandalwood image of Shakyamuni Buddha was made in heaven, where the Buddha miraculously moved to teach the teachings to his mother, who was reborn as a goddess.


Photo © Buryad-Mongol Nom


The ruler of one of the small Indian states of that time, Raja Udayana, grieved for the missing teacher and ordered several sculptors to go to heaven and sculpt an exact copy of him there. Buddha liked the statue, and after his return to earth he declared it his deputy.
Subsequently, for two and a half thousand years, the Sandalwood Buddha wandered throughout Asia. In the 3rd century. The statue comes from India to China, from where, in turn, it was transported to Central Asia, to the city of Kucha, the capital of the state of the ancient Indo-Europeans, the Yuezhi. Later, the statue may have traveled to Tibet, where a copy was made of it, which Tibetan Buddhists consider their main shrine. Another copy of the Sandalwood Buddha was taken to Japan, where it is still kept in one of the temples in Kyoto. The statue was worshiped by Kublai Khan, on whose instructions the Sandalwood Buddha was brought to Khanbalik by Marco Polo himself. Famous standing buddha statue in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban, is also an enlarged copy of it. Finally, Zandan-Zhuu found a temporary refuge in Beijing, where he became the main treasure of the Manchu imperial court.



Representatives of the troops of the eight coalition powers in 1900. From left to right: Great Britain, USA, Russia, British India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.


In 1900, outraged by the aggressive colonial policies of the European powers and Japan, Chinese peasants and artisans began to unite in detachments and destroy the embassy quarters. Russia was among eight other powers that suffered from the actions of the rebels, and joined its troops to the foreign punitive contingent. As a result, punitive forces broke into the capital and completely plundered the imperial quarter of Beijing - Forbidden City. Europeans robbed palaces and, covering their tracks, burned them. The recollection of one of the eyewitnesses of the robbery was preserved: “The soldiers, burying their heads in chests of red lacquer, rummaged through the things of the empress, others stirred up piles of brocade and silks, some stuffed them into their pockets or simply poured rubies, sapphires, pearls, and rock crystal into their shirts or caps.” ; who hung themselves with precious pearl necklaces. They pulled clocks from fireplaces, took clocks from walls; sappers wielded axes, smashing furniture into splinters to select the precious stones with which the palace chairs were inlaid. One of them tried very hard to cut open a charming watch in the style of Louis XV in order to extract the dial on which the crystal numbers sparkled; he imagined they were diamonds.”



The same fate awaited the Sandalwood Buddha Temple with its precious contents. However, the Buryat Cossacks from the Transbaikal Cossack Army who were part of the Russian contingent, at the request of the Mongol lamas, managed to secretly remove the statue from the city. For several years they took her to Buryatia. The operation was coordinated by the head of the postal service of the Russian Embassy, ​​Nikolai Gomboev, the well-known and omnipresent Agvan Dorzhiev, and the rector of the Egituy datsan, Lama Zodboev. As reported in the research: “She was transported on a sleigh, covered with straw, matting, disguised with provisions and postal details.” When the statue was brought to Buryatia, it was decided to place it in a remote datsan so as not to attract undue attention to it. The Russian authorities had no idea about the daring act of the Buryat Cossacks, and if they had found out, they would probably have regarded it as a dangerous malfeasance. The operation did not go beyond the “Buryat circle”.


The Sandalwood Buddha statue is a 2m 18cm tall image of Shakyamuni Buddha along with a small pedestal. Contrary to the name, the statue itself, as analysis has shown, is made of linden and covered with a layer of sandalwood paste.

There is information that the upper part of Zandan-Zhuu’s head was originally decorated with a ruby ​​or diamond, and the relics of Buddha were placed inside the statue.
These valuable artifacts were probably stolen in 1935, when the statue was transported from Egita to Ulan-Ude.

Tradition also claims that the statue does not rest on a pedestal, but seems to float in the air, a hair's breadth away from it. Therefore, it is supposedly possible to check its authenticity by passing a silk thread between the soles of the feet and the base. However, such a check has not been carried out, as well as a full scientific analysis of the age of the wood. And this despite the fact that the statue was for some time in storage in the Odigitrievsky Museum, which served as a museum storage facility, and under restoration in the Hermitage. In 1991 of the last century, the statue was returned to the Egituisky datsan.




Officially in China, it is believed that the Sandalwood Buddha Statue burned down along with the temple in which it was kept. In 2003, the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia recognized the Zandan-Zhuu statue as one of the three Buddhist shrines in Russia. In 2008, a new temple was built for her, equipped with a system for maintaining a constant microclimate.



Photo © Buryad-Mongol Nom

❚

We were taken to the border of the Eravninsky district to a poetic rock garden dedicated to the poets of Buryatia.

This is how Eravninsky district greets

I'll write more about this a little later. Next we went deep into the Eravninsky district to the Khara-Shibir area, where on the banks of the Marakta River there is the Egituisky datsan with the sacred statue of the Sandalwood Buddha - Zandan Zhuu.

I admit, it was only on this trip that I learned that there is a statue of the Sandalwood Buddha in Buryatia. And this is not just a statue, but according to legend, the only lifetime sculpture of Buddha Shakyamuni, which is recognized as a Buddhist shrine in Russia. It is a world shrine of Buddhists, made entirely of sandalwood, the height of the statue is 2 m. 18 cm. The statue was made by order of Raja Uddiyana 2800 thousand years ago. The statue came to the territory of Russia in Eravna thanks to the incredible efforts of the Sorzho Lama of the Egitui datsan Gombo Dorzho Erdyneev and many other people who risked their lives. The sandalwood statue was purchased by the lamas of the datsan during the Boxer Rebellion in China. According to another version, in the winter of 1901, after the defeat of the uprising in Beijing, the Buryat Cossacks carried out a precious statue from a burning monastery during a fire, and thereby saved it from death in the fire. As a trophy, the statue was taken with great care on a sleigh to Buryatia. At the same time, a metal copy of the statue was made, and the original was hidden. Until 1935, the statue was located in one of the sumes of the Egituisky datsan and was an object of worship and veneration. During the period of anti-religious repressions, the statue was transported to Ulan-Ude and kept in the funds National Museum

Before entering the temple-dugan of the Sandalwood Buddha, we were told the history of the Egitui datsan and the history of the Zandan Zhuu statue.

They also warned that the expression on the Sandalwood Buddha’s face changes depending on the viewing angle, and maybe on his attitude towards you, who knows :) Personally, when I walked in and looked at the Sandalwood Buddha’s face for the first time, it seemed to me that he was looking at us somewhat dissatisfied.

His lips were pursed in displeasure and the squinting of his eyes did not bode well. When I prayed and made offerings in the form of sweets and coins, my face seemed to become kinder and a slight smile appeared. Right there in the datsan there is a wooden board for prostrations, smoothly polished by the prostrations of those praying. I also did 21 prostrations praying for health, happiness and prosperity.

Someone may ask why exactly 21 times? The fact is that in Buddhism the numbers 3, 7, 21 and 108 have sacred meaning. Therefore, you need to read prayers, do goroo or prostrations exactly this number of times.

After the prostrations, the Sandalwood Buddha, it seemed to me, smiled with satisfaction. I shared my observations with a friend with whom we went on this trip together. And you know, our feelings and observations agreed on almost everything.

At the end of the visit, we had a lecture-discussion of Buddhism in general and Buddhism of Buryatia in particular. It turned out that pilgrims travel from Buryatia to Tibet every year. Tibetan lamas, having learned from which places they come, are very surprised and ask why they are traveling so far, when in their homeland there is the greatest shrine of world Buddhism - the statue of the Sandalwood Buddha Zandan Zhuu. I am more than sure that half of the population of Buryatia does not even know about its existence, not to mention other regions of Russia. I was convinced of this when I interviewed my relatives and friends. But many of us have already been to Thailand and seen statues of the reclining Buddha, jade Buddha and many others. It’s somehow sad that we don’t appreciate and don’t notice what we have nearby.

More articles about a trip to Buddhist datsans and holy places of Buryatia:

  • Holy places of Buryatia

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