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DARIMA D. AMOGOLONOVA
to be more important to Itigelov and that is why he soon resigned of his position as
Hambo Lama and returned to the Yangazhinski Datsan.? Within a decade, he wrote
a number of works on Buddhist philosophy and also a fundamental work, Zhor, on
Tibetan pharmacology.
On 15 June 1927, at the age of seventy-five, Dashi-Dorzho Itigelov asked the
lamas of Yangazhinski Datsan to read for him the prayer Htig Namshi ("good wish
to a departed person”). As the lamas refused to read this prayer for him, who was
alive, he began to recite it himself. The lamas joined in the recitation of the prayer
and after the end of the ritual, and according to Itigelov’s will, they placed him in
lotus position in the sarcophagus (Bur. bumhan), which was buried in Hühe Zürkhen
district (today Buryatia’s Ivolginski district).
For profanes, the last days of Itigelov’s earthly life were full of mystical predic¬
tions and inexplicable foresight. Intertwined with later mythological plots telling
about the miracles he has shown since childhood, now his life story represents him
as a holy bodhisattva. Thus, in addition to his “ordinary” one, a new version of his bi¬
ography has become popular, according to which Itigelov was born under miraculous
circumstances, entering the world and the community of people at the age of five.
And as in the traditional Buryat society there was no concept of ‘orphanhood’, the
vise rector of the Buddhist University Dashi Choinhorlin Samdan Dashidondokov
concluded that Itigelov “had no usual birth and is a holy bodhisattva.”" The same
idea is supported by the Hambo Lama Ayusheev who said referring to the authority
of Nagarjuna (c. 150 —c. 250): “Every person at birth receives a body that develops
and after death perishes. It means that having found a body, we inevitably should
lose it. That is why I have big doubts whether Hambo Lama Itigelov had ordinary
birth at all.""
Itigelov’s mythologized image and his life after death inexplicable from
a scientific point of view’? works in at least two directions. First, it proves the truth
of Buddhist Teaching and thus promotes growing interest to it. The believers together
with unbelievers and skeptics got evidence, which is convincing that rational know¬
ledge cannot explain the deep meanings of being, whereas Buddhism has achieved
tremendous results in this. Second, Itigelov’s phenomenon works for various social
° J believe that the reasons of Itigelov’s decision included also the incessant and ineffectual disputes
between Buryat “nationalists” and “democrats,” in which the questions of religious innovation have
simply sunk. In addition, it became evident that the Buryat national committee (Burjatskom) that
seized power over whole Buryat political life in 1917-1919 showed no interest to religious problems
at all.
Dasidondokov, S. S.: Fjenomen dostopoctennogo Hambo Lamy Etigelova! Mirovozrjenije nasjeljenija
Juznoj Sibiri i Central’noj Azii v istoricjeskoj rjetrospjektivje. Issue 1. Izd-vo ‘Azbuka,’ Barnaul 2007,
p. 229.
'! Cf. Mahaëkjejev, A. V.: Portret ijerarha: XXIV Pandito Hambo lama Damba Ajusjejev. NovaPrint,
Ulan-Ude 2010, p. 145.
? For details on Itigelov’s miracles during life-days as well as about his glorious return in 2002 and
impossibility to explain rationally his life decades after departure, see Amogolonova, D.: Religious
and Secular Practices in Modern Buryatia: The Example of Khambo Lama Itigelov. In: Religion and
Ethnicity in Mongolian Societies. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Studies in Oriental
Religions, Vol. 69. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 97-110.
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