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Datsan

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Ivolginsky datsan
Tseezhe-Burgaltaysky datsan, Buryatia, Russia

Datsan (Mongolian: Дацан, Russian: Дацан, Buryat: Дасан; derived from Standard Tibetan: གྲྭ་ཚང།, romanized: grwa.tshang) is the term used for Buddhist university monasteries in the Tibetan tradition[1] of Gelukpa located throughout Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia. As a rule, in a datsan there are two departments—philosophical and medical. Sometimes a department of tantric practices is added to them where the monks study only after finishing education in the philosophical department.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, datsans traditionally existed only in the Buryat territories, most of those now included in Buryatia and Transbaikalia (a number of datsans there have been reconstructed or newly established since the early 1990s).[citation needed] There was a difference with Tibetan administrative idea: in Tibet, several datsans were education-centered parts of larger organizations,[1] as Drepung, Ganden, and Sera Monastery in Gelukpa tradition.[citation needed] In Russia, datsans were not parts of a larger entity, but rather independent educational and religious centers. In Buryat Buddhism, the terms "Buddhist monastery" and "Datsan" are interchangeable,[2] as other monastery organization forms found in Tibetan Buddhism elsewhere, were not present.

List of datsans in Mongolia

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List of datsans in Russia

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Datsans were officially acknowledged in Imperial Russia in 1741.[4] By statute of 1853 there were two recognized datsans in the Irkutsk government and others in the Zabaykalsky government. The first datsan in Europe was Datsan Gunzechoinei in St. Petersburg.[citation needed]

Before the Communist Revolution in 1917, there were 40 datsans (not counting smaller temples — sume). After the revolution, the number went up to 48, but between 1927 and 1938 all datsans that existed in Buryatia and Transbaikalia were closed or destroyed. The Second World War, that followed shortly after, became another turning point for the Buddhists in Buryatia: despite the suppression by the communist government, the Buryat Buddhist community came together in 1944 and collected financial aids to support the communist state and the Red Army in their struggles against Nazi Germany. The communist government expressed their gratitude for the donations by giving them permission to open a Buddhist datsan in Buryatia. In 1946, the Ivolginsky datsan[4] and the Aginsky datsan resumed operations.[5] The following datsans were not opened until 1991.

An early 20th-century Saint Petersburg Datsan

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Rinchen, B.; Maidar, D., ed. (1979). Mongol ard ulsiin ugsaatnii sudlal, khelnii shinjleliin atlas [Ethnographic and Linguistic Atlas of the Mongolian People’s Republic]. Ulaanbaatar. according to Majer, Zsuzsa; Teleki, Krisztina (2006). "Monasteries and Temples of Bogdiin Khьree, Ikh Khьree or Urga, the Old Capital City of Mongolia in the First Part of the Twentieth Century" (PDF). Budapest. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-02-27.
  2. ^ Барданова, Туяна Иннокентьевна (2006). Декор в архитектуре бурятских буддийских храмов [Decor in the architecture of Buryat Buddhist temples] (Thesis) (in Russian). Улан-Удэ: Типография Буддийского университета «Даши Чойнхорлин». Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  3. ^ "Homepage of the Manba Datsan". Archived from the original on 2013-07-05. Retrieved 2013-11-20.
  4. ^ a b "Буддийская эклектика: история дацанов в России". dazanspb.ru. Дацан Гунзэчойнэй. Retrieved 2023-09-17.
  5. ^ Gazizova, Valeriya (2017). "Buddhism in Contemporary Kalmykia. 'Pure' Monasticism versus Challenges of Post-Soviet Modernity". In Havnevik, Hanna; Hüsken, Ute; Teeuwen, Mark; Tikhonov, Vladimir; Wellens, Koen (eds.). Buddhist Modernities: Re-inventing Tradition in the Globalizing Modern World. Part 2: Revivals and Neo-Traditionalist Inventions. Routledge studies in religion. New York and London: Routledge. p. 94. ISBN 9781315542140. Retrieved 2023-09-17.
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