Telo Tulku Rinpoche, About Stupas in Kalmykia

Telo Tulku: In the Buddhist Mahayana tradition a stupa is like a monument. There are eight types of stupas. Each stupa has a certain meaning. What is stored inside stupas are religious relics. Stupas serve as examples of how individuals can achieve enlightenment. In Tibet you would find stupas inside monasteries which are embellished with ornaments that can be made from precious stones as an offering to Buddhas. In Kalmykia, building stupas became a sort of movement. Reasons for that are many. Many villages and communities want to build a prayer house or a temple. But due to lack of funds they want to build something cheaper but nonetheless spiritual. They settle on building either a prayer wheel or a stupa, or both. As a temple we guide them in order to ensure that these structures are built properly according to Buddhist canons. There are certain rituals that we have to follow. Firstly, we carry out the consecration of land where we request from nagas and spirits, who may exist around that land, permission to build a holy object. We request that these spirits do not harm the builders. It is a very simple ritual. After that we build the foundation. According to the established design, each level has to be filled with certain religious objects. In Kalmykia we have built around 130 to 140 stupas so far. Many of them were built in memory of an old temple that existed in that particular place or in memory of a high lama or in memory of the deportation of Kalmyk lamas and people. Baasanjav: Do people in Kalmykia dedicate stupas to clans? TT: They do. I think this concerns more those clans who have suffered during the revolution and deportation. Among those clans not all members were lay people. There were monks in their communities. B: Could you count the stupas you have?Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin