Danara Ungarlinova, About Shajin Lama Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin and His Clan

• Main Author: Terbish, Baasanjav
• Format: Moving Image (Video)
• Language: unknown
• Published: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository 2018
• Subjects: Shajin Lama; Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin; Baldwin; Menke; Denisovskaya; Sakhalin
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.42756; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/295707

Danara talks about Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin who was Shajin Lama (Head Lama) of Kalmykia: He was born in 1875 to the Domdon Tepkin family in Denisovskaya village. His father ran his stud farm. The family had 3 sons, Kaplyuk, Erdne, Lubsan-Sharap and a daughter, Adyakush. Lubsan-Sharap received secular education in a parish school. He also studied in the Denisovskiy khurul (temple), which since 1873 had been headed by Menke Bormanzhinov. In 1902, when Menke Bormanzhinov was elected Bagsh Lama of the Don Kalmyks, Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin, then 28, became head of the Bogshrakhinskiy khurul (temple). He was referred to as Sharv Bagsh. In 1908, Tepkin visited St. Petersburg on the occasion of the anniversary of the house of the Romanovs in the delegation of the Don Kalmyks. After visiting St. Petersburg, Lubsan-Sharap set out on a pilgrimage to Tibet in order to continue his spiritual education. In Lhasa, he spent 11 years, graduated from the Buddhist Philosophical Academy, and learnt the Mongolian and Tibetan languages. In 1916, Tepkin was appointed as one of the advisers (soybun) to the Dalai Lama XIII. The Dalai Lama ordered Tepkin to write about events unfolding in Soviet Russia. He was sent to St. Petersburg, where he taught Mongolian and Tibetan languages at the Institute of Living Eastern Languages for 3 years. In the summer of 1925, Tepkin returned to Kalmykia. In December 1925, at a congress of the Buddhist clergy of the Kalmyk autonomous region in Astrakhan, Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin was elected Shajin Lama of the Kalmyk people. From 1925 to 1931 he worked as Shajin Lama in the Cheerya Khurul (temple). In 1931 he was arrested by the NKVD in Saratov and sentenced to be shot. The execution, however, was reverted to a 10-year prison term. He was charged with having ties with the Kalmyk émigré circles in Europe, including the Kalmyk Commission of Cultural Workers in Prague and the Buddhist Union. He was also accused of having correspondence with Ulanov and receiving Kalmyk magazines from Europe. He did his time in Akmolinsk, where he worked in the camp as a clerk and practiced Tibetan medicine. He was allowed to keep his religious books there. Colonel Gavriil Erdnievich Tepkin, commander of the 80th Zyungar army, was the nephew of Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin. For his participation in World War I, Gavriil Tepkin was awarded the Order of St. George of the 4th degree. His wife was Uli Sanzhinovna Tepkina (maiden name Kaltykanova). They both died in 1920 in the Crimea during the Civil War. Gavriil’s brother, Timofey Tepkin, was dispossessed and lived in the Urals, in the town of Berezniki. Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin lived with Timofey for the last two years of his life. Another nephew of Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin, Zambo Davidovich Tepkin, lived then on Sakhalin. In 1952 he moved to the village of Grigorevka in Kyrgyzstan, where Timofey lived. Zambo Tepkin never met his uncle, Lubsan-Sharap Tepkin, who died in 1952. There are many descendants in the Tepkin family. At the end of the video Danara recounts their names. : Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin