Datsan


Datsan is the term used for Buddhist university monasteries in the Tibetan tradition 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. There was a difference with Tibetan administrative idea: in Tibet, several datsans were education-centered parts of larger organizations, as Drepung, Ganden, and Sera Monastery in Gelukpa tradition. 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, as other monastery organization forms found in Tibetan Buddhism elsewhere, were not present.

List of datsans in Mongolia

  • Manba Datsan

    List of datsans in Russia

Datsans were officially acknowledged in Imperial Russia in 1741. 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.
Before the Communist Revolution in 1917, there were 40 datsans. 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 and the Aginsky datsan resumed operations. The following datsans were not opened until 1991.