Don Croner’s World Wide Wanders

Polar Star Books has another new release: The Diluv Khutagt of Mongolia: Political Memoirs and Autobiography of a Buddhist Reincarnation. It is available at outlets in Ulaan Baatar, including the Ikh Nomiin Delgüür (Big Book Store), just north of the Ulaan Baatar Hotel.

Here is the Foreword to the book, written by Telo Tulku Rinpoche, the sixth and current incarnation of the Diluv Khutagt:

I hope that people will enjoy the story not only of the life of the great spiritual master Diluv Khutagt but also the story of the Mongolian way of life and the tragedy that Mongolia went through in the past century.

I was born in 1972 in a family of Kalmyk immigrants in Philadelphia, usa. Kalmyk (historically known as Oirats) people are of Mongolian origin but have been part of the Russian Empire for the last 400 years since the Oirats left Mongolia to establish a separate kingdom. Karma plays funny games with all of us and the outcome is always interesting when we look at it more closely and analyze the law of cause and effect.

I was recognized by H. H. the 14th Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the great Diluv Khutagt in 1980 after years of begging and harassing my parents that I wanted to become a monk. No one could understand why this child from the hood of Philadelphia would want to become a monk when every other child wants to become a policeman, a fireman, or a doctor when they grow up. As for me, I always wanted to become a monk. It was not that I was exposed to many monasteries and hordes of monks in the hood of Philadelphia like it was in the old days in Mongolia when Diluv lived.

From the age of seven I grew up in a Tibetan monastery named Drepung Gomang which has been relocated to South India, a monastery where all the Mongol nationalities have been studying for centuries. Later on, when I, a Kalmyk monk born in the usa, was recognized as a new of Diluv Khutagt, I started to question myself: “Why me?” It was hard to understand as a teenager but nevertheless you question yourself and search for answers. I won’t say that I solved the puzzle or found all the answers but I feel that as I get older and hopefully wiser, I am starting to be able to put the pieces together. Who would have known that the Soviet Union would collapse in the early 90s? Who would have even thought that there would be a day when the Kalmyks people would have a chance to revive Buddhism after the years of Communist rule? Who would have ever known that the Kalmyk people would need a spiritual leader to help them in the revival of Buddhism? So many questions and so many answers to look for. But when I look back at past events, things kind of fall into place.

The previous Diluv spent the last days of his life among Kalmyk immigrants in Howell, New Jersey, after he himself immigrated to the usa. He was one of the spiritual lamas of the Kalmyk community. He knew of the situation in Russia and the hardships they went through. Pretty much the same as the Mongols went through during the Cultural Revolution. Diluv ’s main caregiver of his last days in the usa was Jampel Dorj who stills lives in Howell and is 101 years old. He asked Diluv before he died to give him specific instructions on how to search for his reincarnation. Diluv replied “No need to search, I will appear when it is needed.” That was said back in 1954. Years later I was born. I am not saying or making a big deal that I am the reincarnation of this person. Even I question it sometimes whether I am the true reincarnation or not. But it definitely carries a big responsibility to be a reincarnation of Diluv and to carry on the legend as to why the great Indian master Tilopa came back to this world to benefit sentient beings. This life is a new chapter and it is too early to speak of my current life as I am only 36 years old as I write this. The story of the previous Diluv needs to be exposed not because of him personally but because of what Mongolia went through in the 20th century. We are now in the 21st century and the past century was a century of violence not just between countries but within our own people. We must strive to make the 21st century a century of peace and compassion.

I want to thank Polar Star Books for coming up with this idea to reprint the biography of Diluv, and I hope that this book will help many scholars, researchers, and just readers to get a better understanding of the rich history and the life of the Mongolian people and compare the situation of the past and the present. Whatever happens in the future, it all depends on our present life or moment.