Bidia Dandaron

Bidia Dandarovich Dandaron was born on {{OldStyleDateNY|28 December|14 December}} 1914 in the Ulus of Shalot, Russian Empire (present-day, Russia) to Balzhima Abudueva and Lama Dorzhi Badmaev (Agvan Silnam Tuzol Dorzhi Shob), a Buryat Lama, Tantric teacher, writer and poet.{{cite book |last1=Bělka |first1=Luboš |editor1-last=Doležalová |editor1-first=Iva |editor2-last=Martin |editor2-first=Luther H. |editor3-last=Papoušek |editor3-first=Dalibor |title=The Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War : East and West |date=2001 |publisher=Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=0-8204-5151-7 |pages=171–182 |chapter=Bidiya D. Dandaron: The Case of a Buryat Buddhist and Buddhologist during the Soviet Period}}

Dandaron had three older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage to Dandar Bazarov, a Herder. Following the death of her first husband, Abudueva lived with her parents and unofficially with Badmaev. Since Abudueva and Badmaev were not married, both Dandaron and his sister Dashid were given the surname of Abudueva's first husband.

Shortly after his birth, Dandaron was recognised by Lama {{interlanguage link|Lubsan Sandan Tsydenov|fr}} as the new rebirth of the Gyayag (Wylie: rgya yag) Lama, and given the new name ″Vidyadhara″ ({{langx|bo|རིག་འཛིན་|Rigdzin}}). However, Tsydenov refused to allow a delegation from Tibet to relocation Dandaron to the Tibetan capital monastery of Kumbum Monastery. Due to this refusal, Dandaron is a recognized reincarnation in the line of the Gyayag Lamas as part of the “Buryat” branch alongside the ″Tibetan″ branch.{{ref|Alpha|α}}

In July 1921, Tsydenov

succeed the title of Dharamarāja to Dandaron at a ceremony in Shaluta.{{cite book |last1=Batchelor |first1=Stephen |title=The Awakening of the West: the encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture |date=1994 |publisher=Parallax Press |isbn=0-938077-69-4}}

Dandaron received his Buddhist education from his father and other local lamas.

In 1926, Dandaron began attending secular school in Kizhinga, where he was taught by Khotsa Namsaraev. In 1929, Dandaron began attending school in Kyakhta, where he meet his future wife Elizaveta Andreevna Shulunova.

In 1933, Dandaron moved to Leningrad (present-day, Saint Petersburg), and studied aeronautical engineering at Leningrad Civil Aviation Institute. In 1936, Dandaron met Agvan Dorzhiev at Datsan Gunzechoinei. Following Dorzhiev's recommendation Dandaron began attending the Tibetan language lectures of {{Interlanguage link|Andrei Vostrikov|et}} at Leningrad State University.{{cite journal |last1=Petrova |first1=Maria |title=Underground Hindu and Buddhist-inspired religious movements in Soviet Russia |journal=Usuteaduslik Ajakiri |date=2013 |volume=1 |issue=63 |pages=99–115 |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=4867 |access-date=28 June 2025 |publisher=Akadeemiline Teoloogia Selts |location=Estonia}}

{{Unreferenced section|date=June 2025}}

In 1937, Dandaron was arrested and charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Dandaron was released in 1943. In 1947, Dandaron was arrested again but released with political rehabilitation in 1956.

He actively wrote and taught on Buddhism while imprisoned, and some of his ardent followers started from camps. There, he also had a number of Russian philosophers and other scholars, as well as Buryat lamas, to exchange opinions and gain knowledge of European philosophy and history he widely refers to in his writings. Principally, Vasily Seseman, a philosophy professor from Lithuania who was imprisoned from 1950 to 1956, became his friend and tutor in European philosophy, starting Danrdaron's appreciation of Kantian thought.

After 1956 his friends from the Oriental Studies Institute in Leningrad made attempts to give him a job in the institute library, but were not allowed to. {{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

Pyotr Khadalov, then head of the Buryat-Mongolian Research Institute of Culture in Ulan-Ude, invited Dandaron to join the Institute.{{cite journal |last1=Zorin |first1=Alexander |title=Tibetan studies in Russia: a brief historical account |journal=Annuaire de l'EPHE, Section des Sciences Religieuses (2017-2018) |date=2019 |volume=129 |pages=63–70}} In 1957, Dandaron began working at the institute, and wrote extensively on Tibetan studies and translated religious and historical literature of Tibet into Russian, publishing over 30 articles and other works. His religious works came to public as samizdat.

In 1960 - early 1970s the community of his followers grew to several dozen people, mostly from St Petersburg, Moscow, Tartu and Vilnius. His principal community was in St Petersburg.

From 1956 to 1972, Dandaron published more than 30 works on Buddhism and Tibetan culture.

In August 1972, Dandaron was arrested and charged under Article 227-1{{ref|Beta|β}} and Article 147-3{{ref|Gamma|γ}} of the RSFSR Criminal Code.{{cite book |author1=Amnesty International |title=Prisoners of conscience in the USSR : their treatment and conditions |date=1975 |publisher=Amnesty International Publications |location=London |isbn=0-900058-13-7 |chapter=Soviet Criminal Law and Prisoners of Conscience}}{{cite book |last1=Samizdata |first1=Arkhiv |editor1-last=Bourdeaux |editor1-first=Michael |editor2-last=Rowe |editor2-first=Michael |editor3-last=International Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in the U.S.S.R |title=May one believe, in Russia? : violations of religious liberty in the Soviet Union |date=1980 |publisher=Keston College |pages=109–113 |chapter=Document 23: Transcript of the Trail of the Buddhist Scholar B. D. Dandaron, Ulan-Ude, December 1972}} Dandaron was accused of leading a Buddhist "sect" in which he led his followers in "bloody sacrifices", "ritual copulations", and "attempts to murder or beat former members of the sect who had wanted to break with it", and of having "contacts with foreign countries and international Zionism". From 18 to 25 December 1973, Danadaron was tried by Oktyabrsky District Court in Ulan-Ude. Despite the majority of the charges being dropped, Dandaron was convicted and sentenced to 5 years at a corrective labor colony as well as the confiscation of property, for acting as a "guru" to the so called "Dandaron group".

Dandaron was imprisoned at Vydrino Labor Camp near Lake Baikal, in the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (present-day, Buryatia). During imprisonment Dandaron continued to write about, teach and practice Buddhism.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}} Having warned his neighbors, in the camp in Vydrino he experienced samadhi several times, stopping his heartbeat and breath at will for days.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}} In 1974, he did not return from the samadhi.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

== Personal Life ==

In 1931, Dandaron married Elizaveta Andreevna Shulunova, a Buryat student at Leningrad Medical Institute. The couple had a son in 1936.{{cite book |pages=9–56 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136889 |access-date=1 July 2025 |chapter=Historical context |last1=Bělka |first1=Luboš |title=Mandala and History: Bidia Dandarovich Dandaron and Buryat Buddhism |date=2017 |publisher=Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts |location=Brno, Czechia |hdl=11222.digilib/136889 |isbn=9788021087255}} Shulunova died sometime during Dandaron's first imprisonment, whilst travelling from Leningrad to Ulan-Ude.

In March 1943, Dandaron married his second wife Zundyma Tsydypova, a Buryat midwife. Dandaron and Tsydypova had several children.

== Publications ==

• {{citation |last1=Dandaron |first1=Bidia |title= Opisanie tibetskikh rukopiseĭ i ksilografov buriatskogo kompleksnogo nauchno-issledovatelśkogo instituta |date=1960 |publisher=zd-vo Vostochnoĭ Lit-ry |location=Moscow |trans-title=Description of Tibetan manuscripts and xylographs of the Buryat Complex Research Institute}}. {{cite web |last1=Griffiths |first1=Rachael Margaret |title=A Polymath from Amdo: The Many Hats of Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Paljor (1704–1788) |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8eefe468-fb23-4f31-b9a4-0500ded4653f/files/dkw52j821d |website=Oxford University Research Archive: ORA |publisher=St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford |access-date=3 July 2025 |location=Oxford |date=2020}}

• Semichov, B. V.; Parfionovich, Yu. M.; Dandaron, B. D.; State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries. (1963). Parfionovich, Yu. M. (ed.). {{cite book |url=https://katalog.nukat.edu.pl/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=517232 |title= Kratkij tibetsko-russkij slovarʹ : 21 000 slov|publisher=State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries; Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Siberian Department, Buryat Complex Scientific Research Institute |location=Moscow |trans-title=Short Tibetan-Russian dictionary: 21000 words}}

• {{cite book |last1=Dandaron |first1=Bidia |title=Opisanie tibetskikh rukopiseĭ i ksilografov buriatskogo kompleksnogo nauchno-issledovatelśkogo instituta, vyp. II. |date=1965 |publisher=zd-vo Vostochnoĭ Lit-ry |location=Moscow |trans-title=Description of Tibetan manuscripts and xylographs of the Buryat Complex Research Institute, vol. II}}

• {{cite book |author1=Sumba-Khambo |title= History of Kukunor, Titled as "Beautiful Notes of a Brahma Song" |date=1972 |language=Russian}} Translated from the Tibetan by B.D. Dandaron. Moscow.{{cite web |last1=Haines |first1=Spencer |title=Defying the Nomadic versus Sedentary Dichotomy: The Rise and Fall of Zunghar Self-Strengthening Campaigns in Central Eurasia (17th-18th Centuries) |url=http://hdl.handle.net/1885/260714 |publisher=Australian National University |access-date=4 July 2025 |location=Canberra |doi=10.25911/3705-WH30 |date=2022|hdl=1885/260714 }}

• {{cite book |last1=Dandaron |first1=Bidia |editor1-last=Montlevich |editor1-first=Vladimir Mikhailovich |title=99 pisem o buddizme i lûbvi 1956-1959 |date=1995 |publisher=Datsan Gunzechoinei |location=Saint Petersburg |url=https://katalog.nukat.edu.pl/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=2662009 |trans-title=99 letters about Buddhism and love 1956-1959}}

• {{cite book |last1=Dandaron |first1=Bidia |title=Chernaya tetrad. O chetyrekh blagorodnykh istinakh Buddy |date=1995 |location=Saint Petersburg |publisher= Datsan Gunzechoinei |hdl=11222.digilib/136885 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136885 |trans-title=Black Notebook. About the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, in Russian}}

:{{note|Alpha|α}} Dandaron holds the title of ″14th (Buryat) Gyayag Lama Bidiadara Dandaron″ (Wylie: bidya dha ra), alongside ″14th (Tibetan) Gyayag Lama Lozang Tenpay Gyatsen″ (Wylie: blo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan; 1916–1990) of the Tibetan branch.

:{{note|Beta|β}} Article 227: Infringement of Person and Rights of Citizens under Appearance of Performing Religious Ceremonies.{{cite book |last1=Ennals |first1=Martin |chapter=Introduction |title=Prisoners of conscience in the USSR : their treatment and conditions |date=1975 |publisher=Amnesty International Publications |location=London |isbn=0-900058-13-7 }}

:{{note|Gamma|γ}} Article 147-3: Swindling Causing Significant Lose to Victim or Committed by an Especially Dangerous Recidivist.{{cite book |author1=Institute of Eastern European Studies, University of Amsterdam |editor1-last=Driessen |editor1-first=E. J. |editor2-last=Verhaar |editor2-first=H. L. |editor3-last=de Boer |editor3-first=S. |title=Biographical Dictionary of Soviet Dissidents |date=1982 |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |location=The Hague |isbn=9789024725380 |page=98 |chapter=Dandaron, Bidija Dandaronovič}}

• Dandaron, Bidia Dandarovich, an entry in: The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, Volume 7. Bruce F. Adams (Ed.), Academic International Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0-87569-142-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-87569-142-8}} pages 177-179
• John Snelling. Buddhism in Russia. Element, 1993. {{ISBN|1-85230-332-8}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85230-332-7}} pages 260-264
• A Chronicle of human rights in the USSR., issues 7–12, Khronika Press., 1974 (page 52 Dandaron Necrology)
• Mikhail Nemtsev Bidia Dandaron (1914–1974) an entry in: [https://filosofia.dickinson.edu/encyclopedia/dandaron-bidia/ Filosofia: An Encyclopedia of Russian Thought].

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Category:1914 births

Category:1974 deaths

Category:Tibetan Buddhists from the Soviet Union

Category:Tibetan Buddhism writers

Category:Tibetologists

Category:Buryat people

Category:Tibetan–Russian translators

Category:Buddhist translators

Category:Soviet translators

Category:Prisoners and detainees of the Soviet Union

Category:Prisoners who died in Soviet detention