Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

There is a simple reason for Dorjiev’s enthusiasm for Russia. He was convinced that the Kalachakra
system and the Shambhala myth had their origins in the Empire of the Tsar and would return via it. In
1901 the Buriat had received initiations into the Time Tantra from the Ninth Panchen Lama which
were supposed to have been of central significance for his future vision. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist
monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the last century, claims to have heard of a pamphlet
in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of
Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist
empire” (Snelling, 1993, p. 79). Although it is not certain whether the lama really did write this
document, it fits in with his religious-political ideas. Additionally, the historians are agreed: “In my
opinion,” W.A. Unkrig writes, “the religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of
a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ...
[and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the
religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern
Shambhala’” (quoted by Snelling, 1993, p. 79).
At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala
— the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. The shrine was dedicated to the Kalachakra deity. The
Dalai Lama’s envoy succeeded in bringing together a respectable number of prominent Russians who
approved of and supported the project. The architects came from the West. A painter by the name of
Nicholas Roerich, who later became a fanatic propagandist for Kalachakra doctrine, produced the
designs for the stained-glass windows. Work commenced in 1909. In the central hall various main
gods from the Tibetan pantheon were represented with statues and pictures, including among others
Dorjiev’s wrathful initiation deity, Vajrabhairava. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest
that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War.
There was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds.
Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a
whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The inauguration took place in 1915, an important social event with numerous figures from public life
and the official representatives of various Asian countries. The Dalai Lama sent a powerful
delegation, “to represent the Buddhist Papacy and assist the Tibetan Envoy Dorjiev” (Snelling, 1993,
p. 159). Nicholas II had already viewed the Kalachakra temple privately together with members of
his family several days before the official occasion.
Officially, the shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat and Kalmyk minorities in
the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was undoubtedly a tantric mandala with which the
Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. Then, as we have already explained, from
the lamas’ traditional point of view founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a
territory. The legends about the construction of first Buddhist monastery (Samye) on Tibetan soil
show that it is a matter of a symbolic deed with which the victory of Buddhism over the native gods
(or demons) is celebrated. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are
cosmograms which are — in their own way of seeing things — employed by the lamas as magic seals
in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples. It is in this sense that the Italian, Fosco
Maraini, has also described the monasteries in his poetic travelogue about Tibet as “factories of a holy
technology or laboratories of spiritual science” (Maraini, 1952, p. 172). In our opinion this
approximates very closely the Lamaist self-concept. Perhaps it is also the reason why the Bolsheviks
later housed an evolutionary technology laboratory in the confiscated Kalachakra shrine of St.