ABSTRACT
Buddhism in contemporary Kalmykia is far from being homogeneous, consisting of different—at times even discordant and conflicting—factions and communities. Based on a combination of historical analysis and fieldwork research conducted in 2008 and 2012, the chapter explores the restoration of Buddhist institutions and the problems that accompany it in Kalmykia, one of the major Buddhist areas of Russia, along with Buryatia, Tuva, and the Altai Republic. Because of the persecution of religion during the Soviet period, the lineages of Kalmyk monks had been interrupted, so from the end of the 1930s there had been no Buddhist educational establishments in Kalmykia. Despite Telo Tulku's efforts to revive and promote monasticism, the majority of the Buddhist communities in Kalmykia today are non-monastic. Nonetheless, the early modernist approach differed from the idea of "pure Buddhism" as advocated by the incumbent head of the Kalmyk sangha, even though in both cases a particular emphasis is on the canonical aspect.
