A Long Road to the Temple

(The history of the discovery and new searches for a Buddhist monastery in the Karatal River Valley)

Abstract

Based on archival data, the article describes the history of the discovery, and then oblivion and resultless searches in the 19^th century of a Buddhist monastery, accidentally discovered in 1854 on the right bank of the Karatal River, in the Laba mountains, by military engineer P.S. Nechogin. He excavated a religious structure (suburgan) here and discovered many miniature religious items: terracotta tsha-tshas in the form of a stupa (suburgan), and round medallions with the image of Avalokiteshvara. In the following years, the site was visited by P.A. Nikitin (1855), P.P. Semenov (1856) and N.A. Abramov (1860), who also conducted unauthorized excavations here. S. Nechogin repeatedly appealed to the scientific societies of Russia, seeking support for the study of the archaeological monument he had uncovered. In 1888-1890, the Imperial Archaeological Commission organized an expedition and entrusted the search and excavation of the monastery to amateur archaeologist N.N. Pantusov, but they were unsuccessful. In 2008‑2009, the search for the monument resumed under the guidance of historian I.V. Erofeeva, who suggested that these were the remains of a monastery founded in the 1660s and 1670s by the Dzungarian rulers Ochirtu-Tsetsen Khan or Galdan-Boshokhtu Khan. Based on the analysis of archival and literary sources, as well as field research, the author of the article established the location of the Buddhist monastery in 2023.