Ivolginksy Datsan

Ivolginsky Datsan, located in East Siberia near Lake Baikal, is the most important Buddhist monastery in Russia. It is also home to a phenomenon that continues to intrigue scientists and attract believers by the thousands — the preserved body of the Khambo Lama, who died in 1927 and is still sitting upright in the lotus position .

Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was born in 1852 and began his religious education at the age of 16. He studied in Anninsky Datsan (a Buddhist university in Buryatia now in ruins) and earned degrees in medicine and philosophy. In 1911, he was appointed the 12th Pandito Khambo Lama (also spelled Hambo Lama), the head of Buddhism in Russia.

As Khambo Lama, Itigilov is credited with inspiring a Buddhist revival among Buryats and with founding the Gunzechoyney datsan, the first Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. He was also closely involved with Tsar Nicholas II, who invited the Lama to his house during the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Romanov dynasty in 1913 invested him with the Order of St. Stanislas in March 1917.

Itigilov remained an influential figure after stepping down from his post as Khambo Lama in 1917. During the First World War, Itigelov founded the organization of “Buryat Brothers" that helped the army with money, meals, clothes and medication. He also built a set of hospitals with lama doctors helping wounded soldiers. For this he received the St. Anna Award.

In 1926, Itigilov warned his students about the coming terror of the "red teaching" and advised them to flee to Tibet. He remained in Siberia, and in 1927 he announced it was time for his passing. He asked the lamas to join him in meditation and begin funeral rites, and he died while meditating in the lotus position at the age of 75. In accordance with his will, the Khambo Lama's body was buried in a wooden box sitting upright in the lotus position.

The temple is pleasantly situated in a wide green valley overlooked by mountain peaks. The complex, which is a state-protected cultural monument, includes several temples: Sockshin-gugan, Maidrin-sume, Devazhin and Sackhjusan-sume. There is also a library, a hotel, a center for Buddhist learning, a museum of Buryat art, service buildings and houses for lamas.

The focus of the site is the main temple, protected by painted tigers and elaborately decorated inside. The interior is a riot of colors, with painted dragons spiraling up columns, and hundreds of portraits and statues of the Buddha in various incarnations.

It is here in the main temple that Itigilov's body is kept, in a glass case on an upper floor. It is exhibited just seven days a year, on Buddhist holidays (a decision of the current Khambo Lama, Damba Ayusheyev). Itigilov sits in a glass case in front of the large Buddha statue in the temple, dressed in bright gold and orange robes. His body is slumped slightly forward, and his eyes and nose are now sunken in.