Origin from 1630
In 1630, the Kalmyks, an Oirat Mongol people who had already turned toward the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, completed their migration from Dzungaria into the lower Volga steppe, settling on land once held by the Astrakhan Khanate. Their arrival made the Kalmyk Khanate the first, and still today the only, indigenous home of Tibetan Buddhism on the European continent. Russia's 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta with China formally acknowledged Buddhism's presence on Russian controlled land for the first time, and the Kalmyks kept close ties to Buddhist centers in Tibet and Mongolia into the late eighteenth century.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own accountArrived marks the Oirats' own migration carrying an already Buddhist population onto new, European territory, not a claim about when Buddhist teaching first reached any individual Oirat, which the sources place earlier, in the early seventeenth century, among princes still in Dzungaria. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Mongolia directly: "ties to Buddhist centers in Tibet and Mongolia into the late eighteenth century."
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Fills the map's own long silence between 1578's second conversion of Mongolia and 1853's arrival in the United States, carrying Buddhism for the first time onto European soil rather than further into Asia.
Sources
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