Bursomonsky Dugan

Bursomonsky Dugan is a Buddhist temple in the village of Bursomon in the Krasnochikoysky municipal district of Zabaikalsky Krai. It stands on a hillside at the edge of the village, near the confluence of the Chikoy and Shergoldzhin rivers. Thirty meters from the temple is the Lusad spring, with clean drinking water, and fifteen kilometers away, in the taiga, lies the revered Bursomonsky Arshan spring, whose water is considered healing.

History

The first dugan in Bursomon was built in 1881: a windowless log building with its entrance facing south. According to tradition, in 1908 the local lama Tundup Balgoev collected funds in the Mongolian city of Urga to buy out the sacred collection of texts known as the Ganjur, 108 volumes in all. Before that he had spent eighteen years at the Sera monastery in Tibet studying Buddhist teaching. In 1910 Tundup brought the Ganjur to his home village, and a dugan was built specially to house the book.

By the late 1960s the temple had fallen into disrepair. Its revival began in 1990, when a new building was laid next to the old dugan with the involvement of Khambo Lama Damba Ayusheev. Construction was completed in 1992, and the Palace of the Golden Ganjur, still active today, was created.

What to see

The temple holds all 108 volumes of the Ganjur, a sacred compendium describing the culture and teachings of India, China, Tibet and Central Asia. Inside are statues of Buddha and other deities, old thangka — Buddhist icons painted on cloth — and a large eight-sided prayer wheel, the khurde. At the entrance to the dugan hang stuffed figures of a bear and a leopard, believed to represent the temple's guardian spirits.

Four hundred meters northwest of the main building stands a small prayer house that holds about a thousand clay ritual pyramids known as tsa-tsa.

The legend of the Ganjur

A belief connected with the Ganjur book in Bursomon holds that reading it with good intentions helps solve everyday problems, grants wishes, and helps with illness and difficulties conceiving children. Pilgrims and local residents still come to the dugan for exactly that.

Getting there

The dugan is located in the village of Bursomon, Krasnochikoysky municipal district, Zabaikalsky Krai, on the bank of the Chikoy river where the Shergoldzhin flows into it.