Bazar Baradin’s Diary “Amdo-Mongolia” on the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and His Stay in the Van Khuree Buddhist Monastery

Bazaar Baradin (1878–1937) was an outstanding Buryat scholar, politician, and writer. From 1905 to 1907, the Russian Committee for the Study of Central and Eastern Asia sent him on a research trip to Mongolia, and later to Eastern Tibet, where he spent eight months in Labrang Monastery. The Archive of Orientalists at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences holds a special collection No. 87 named after B.B. Baradin. There is still unpublished file No. 28 titled “Amdo-Mongolia. Diary of a Buryat Buddhist pilgrim’s journey through Khalkha Mongolia, Alashan, and the northeastern outskirt of Tibet – Amdo (1905–1907),” 320 pages. It describes Baradin’s travels from Trans-Baikalia to Urga, his stay at the headquarter of Mongolian prince Handorj – Van Khuree, and his interactions with the 13th Dalai Lama Tubden Gyatso, as well as subsequent travels to Alashan and Kumbum Monastery. In this article, the author publishes 11 selected excerpts from the diary in which Baradin gives an account of the 13th Dalai Lama, Mongolian prince Handorj and his headquarter Van Khuree, the British expedition to Lhasa led by Colonel F. Younghusband, and many other interesting facts related to the history of Mongolia and Tibet in the early 20th century. The author argues that this diary by Bazar Baradin is a unique and valuable document that requires thorough study and further publication. It is the only eyewitness account about life in the no longer existing hoshuun Van Khuree and Dalai Lama’s camp during late autumn 1905 and winter 1906.