Razib Khan
In 1915, nine lamas arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia, to inaugurate the Datsan Gunzechoinei Buddhist temple there. Russia’s last Tsar, Nicholas II, had approved its construction in the empire’s then capital. Erecting a temple on Europe’s northeastern fringe as the 20th century dawned may sound odd, but Buddhism had actually been one of the Russian Empire’s official religions since 1741. Hundreds of thousands of the Tsar’s subjects were devotees of the Vajrayana tradition; from Kalmyk Mongols tending their herds on the Volga to Tuvan Turks ascending Siberian peaks every summer to reach upland pastures.
Vajrayana derives from the Sanskrit vajra, a diamond-strong thunderbolt the storm god Indra yields, thus its alternate labels: the “Diamond Vehicle” or “Thunderbolt Vehicle.” Vajrayana is Buddhism’s third and youngest tradition, after Theravada or the “Way of Elders,” which is both the most ancient and traditional variant dominant in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and the Mahayana tradition of China and Japan, which translates as the “Great Vehicle.” Theravada puts the onus on individual action to attain salvation, while Mahayana sects count on the power of supernatural intercessory beings, or bodhisattvas, to aid believers in attaining enlightenment. Vajrayana, meanwhile, though originally an extension of the Mahayana tradition, contends that enlightenment can be accelerated into a single lifetime through initiatory rites supervised by a teacher of confirmed spiritual lineage, often himself a reincarnated bodhisattva in the flesh (rather than an unseen spirit). These teachers are called lamas, the Tibetan word for guru, and Vajrayana is often termed “Lamaist” for their essential role. Turkic and Mongolian Vajrayana adherents also use the term lama for their religious leaders, illustrating Tibetans’ influence after incubating and nourishing this form of Buddhism for over a millennium.
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