View source for Buddhism in Kalmykia

{{More footnotes|date = April 2009}}
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[[Image:Golden Temple Elista Kalmykia.jpg|250px|thumb|Golden Temple Elista Kalmykia]]
[[Image:Kalmykia_in_Russia.svg|thumb|250px|right|The Republic of Kalmykia (a federal subject of Russia), the only Buddhist-majority nation in Europe.]]
[[File:NEVEDJEV(1833) p307 Kalmyk people in a buddhist ceremonie.jpg|250px|thumbnail|Kalmyk people in a Buddhist ceremony (1830s)]]
The [[Kalmyk people]] are the only people of [[Europe]] whose national religion is [[Buddhism]]. In 2016, 53.4% of the population surveyed identified themselves as Buddhist.<ref>{{Cite web|title=На тюменском севере каждый десятый готов взять в руки оружие|url=https://www.znak.com/2016-03-24/na_tyumenskom_severe_kazhdyy_desyatyy_gotov_vzyat_v_ruki_oruzhie|access-date=2021-04-09|website=www.znak.com}}</ref> They live in [[Kalmykia]],  a federal subject of the [[Russian Federation]] located in southwestern Russia. The border faces [[Dagestan]] to the south, [[Stavropol Krai]] to the southwest, [[Rostov Oblast]] to the west, [[Volgograd Oblast]] to the northwest and [[Astrakhan Oblast]] to the east. The Caspian Sea borders Kalmykia to the southeast.

The Kalmyks are the descendants of [[Oirats]] who migrated to Europe during the early part of the 17th century.  As [[Tibetan Buddhism|Tibetan Buddhists]], the Kalmyks regard the [[Dalai Lama]] as their spiritual leader.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2011-11-29|title=Regions and territories: Kalmykia|language=en-GB|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/4580467.stm|access-date=2021-04-09}}</ref> The Šajin Lama (Supreme Lama) of the Kalmyks is [[Erdne Ombadykow]], a [[Philadelphia]]-born man of Kalmykian origin who was brought up as a Buddhist monk in a Tibetan monastery in India from the age of seven. Ombadykow was appointed to this position by the 14th Dalai Lama in 1992, who identified him as the reincarnation of the Buddhist saint [[Telo Rinpoche]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Lekshe Tsomo|first=Karma|date=2016|title=Prayers of Resistance: Kalmyk Women’s Covert Buddhist Practice|url=https://digital.sandiego.edu/thrs-faculty/7/|journal=Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions|volume=20|pages=91}}</ref> Ombdaykow divides his time between living in [[Colorado]] and living in Kalmykia.

Kalmyk political refugees opened the first Buddhist temple in Central Europe, the [[Belgrade pagoda]], located in [[Belgrade]], [[Serbia]], in 1929. In the wake of the Second World War, an estimated 526 Kalmuk refugees migrated from West Germany and surrounding areas to America in the late 1951 and early 1952.<ref name="foo">{{Cite journal|date=1962|title=The American Kalmyks|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43194607?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents|journal=The Mongolia Society Newsletter|volume=1|pages=6}}</ref> By 1962, the approximate Kalmyk population in the United States was 700.<ref name="foo" /> There, they established several Kalmyk Buddhist temples in [[Monmouth County, New Jersey|Monmouth County]], [[New Jersey]] and its environs. [[Ngawang Wangyal]], a Kalmyk Buddhist monk, established the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center and monastery in [[Washington, New Jersey]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center|url=http://labsum.com/|access-date=2021-04-09|language=en-US}}</ref>

== The babushki matsik ==

The ''babushki matsik,'' meaning "group of old women precept holders" were groups of elderly women who perpetuated traditional Tibetan Buddhist practices during the forced [[Deportation of the Kalmyks|deportation of Kalmyk nationals]] to Siberia in 1943.<ref name=":0" /> This followed a period in the 1930s of the arrests and persecution of the Buddhist clergy under the [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] regime.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Fedorov|first=Gleb|last2=RIR|date=2014-08-20|title=The Soviet Union’s repression of Buddhism|url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/08/20/the_soviet_unions_repression_of_buddhism_37691|access-date=2021-04-09|website=www.rbth.com|language=en-US}}</ref> During this period, all Kalmyk Buddhist shrines and temples were demolished.<ref name=":1" /> The ''babushki matsik'' are increasingly recognised for their role in preserving translated Tibetan Buddhist sacred texts, advantageously using their "politically negligable" status as old women to create untouchable religious material that could then be recorded and dispersed in periods of religious freedom.<ref name=":0" />  

==See also==
* [[Buddhism in Buryatia]]
* [[Buddhism in Russia]]
* [[Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume]]
* [[Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Seth Mydans, [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/world/the-saturday-profile-an-ex-telemarketer-s-other-life-as-a-buddhist-saint.html An Ex-Telemarketer's Other Life as a Buddhist Saint], The New York Times, 12 June 2004
*Sinclair, Tara (2008). Tibetan Reform and the Kalmyk Revival of Buddhism, Inner Asia 10(2), 241-259
* Ulanov, Mergen; Badmaev, Valeriy and Holland, Edward (2017). Buddhism and Kalmyk Secular Law in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Inner Asia 19(2), 297–314

==External links==
*[http://www.buddhisminkalmykia.ru/?eng Buddhism in Kalmykia]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130326232132/http://www.kalmykia.eu/ Republic of Kalmykia: News and events]

{{Buddhism topics}}
{{Europe topic|Buddhism in|countries_only = yes}}

{{commons category|Buddhism in Kalmykia}}

[[Category:Buddhism in Kalmykia| ]]
[[Category:Kalmykia]]
[[Category:Buddhism in Russia|Kalmykia]]


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