This legend was told by Inessa Ivanovna Lomakina, journalist-Mongolian, the author of the most curious book "The Head of the Ja-Lama".
This head, which by chance has become an exhibit of the famous Kunstkamera since 1925, lies in the museum's storeroom in an aquarium filled with formalin solution. It has been in use for over 70 years. It persisted in the terrible years of siege, when people, palaces, museum masterpieces perished in Leningrad. As an exhibit, the head of Ja Lama has never been exhibited and is unlikely to ever be exhibited …
- Inessa Ivanovna, what made you so interested in this, no doubt, mysterious story?
- Before - about the person who owned the head. Ja Lama led the militia into battle with the stubborn Chinese and survived after the famous assault on the city of Kobdo in August 1912. Then, according to legend, bowing in the saddle after the battle, he poured out from his bosom a handful of deformed bullets. And there were 28 holes on his robe!
He was called "the famous adventurer of Western Mongolia", the heir to the legendary Oirat prince of the 18th century Amursana, recognized in Lamaism as the embodiment of the formidable defender of the Mahakala faith.
The full name of Ja-Lama is Luvsan Dambi-Zhantsan - an intelligent, energetic person who was born a hundred years ago in a simple Kalmyk kibitka, who learned Buddhist wisdom and decided that his vocation was to lead the liberation struggle of the inhabitants of the steppes for their independence, begun by Amursana in the 18th century. Amursana, who rose at the time of civil strife with the help of the Manchu power, raised in 1755 an uprising against the Manchu-Chinese dominance.
His name has become in Central Asia a symbol of the struggle for national independence. However, the ending of Amursana was sad: he fled from his pursuers to Russia, but fell ill with smallpox and died near Tobolsk in 175
year. However, the memory of him lived among the people, and the whole steppe waited for the time to come - and Amursan would return and lead the Mongols to fight the Chinese conquerors. And everyone knew that he should appear from Russia …
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- And he returned in the form of Ja Lama?
- And more than once. For the first time, at the end of the 19th century, all Russian travelers - researchers of Central Asia wrote about it. A certain Dambizhantsan, a famous lama of 30-40 years old, appeared, who told the Mongols that he was the grandson of Amursana, that he would free the Mongols from the rule of China.
There is a version about the Ja Lama's walking to Tibet with the expedition of P. K. Kozlov in 1899 - 1901. The Ja Lama was there as a guide. Many legends are associated with the name of this man. One thing is obvious: according to Yu. N. Roerich, for 35 years the Ja Lama kept the whole Mongolia under "hypnosis".
- By the way, after all, it was Yuri Nikolaevich Roerich who visited the place of the last refuge of the Ja-Lama.
-Yes. Riddles surround the Ja Lama. Take a name - the only one in the world! In different periods of his life he was called by different names. And "Ja-Lama" is a truly popular name, and this is how it went down in history.
One episode is characteristic: “Ja-Lama came forward, like all lamas, with his head uncovered, in a red robe. Muttering the words of a prayer, he stood in front of the first of the tied kitayals in his left hand with a short sickle-shaped sacrificial knife. With a hissing blow of the silent cymbals, the shrill cry of the victim was heard.
Instantly thrust a knife into his chest with his left hand, Ja-Lama tore out a fluttering heart with his right! With gushing blood, the Mongols wrote "spell formulas" on the cloth. Then Ja Lama put the bloody heart in the prepared gabala - a bowl, which was actually the top of a human skull set in silver …
And again the sharp hiss of the plates accompanied the cry of a new victim, until finally all five banners were painted with the blood of hearts.
- Inessa Ivanovna, I confess, the text is not for the faint of heart … So who did he become after all these military victories?
- The head of state. For the first time in the history of Russian-Mongolian relations, he demanded that the Cossacks stationed in Kobdo pay a fee for transporting fodder. And he threatened that if they did not pay, they would not go far. There were complaints about the cruelty of the new ruler. In short, secret prescription No. 336 soon came into being (a copy is kept in the Foreign Policy Archive in Moscow) with the instruction "to arrest Ja-Lama."
The order was executed on February 10, 1914. And our hero went to the place of exile in Astrakhan. From there he managed to escape, he got to Mongolia and went south, to the Black Gobi. There he robbed caravans, killed, raped - with a word, maintained the notoriety of the area known as the "zone of fear."
Yuri Roerich left us a description of the fortress where Ja-Lama spent the rest of his life: several belts of walls with towers, watchtowers on the rocks and nearby hills - no one could escape from here. It was in this impregnable fortress that his death was found.
The Ja Lama was allegedly shot by the head of the State Internal Security as "the most dangerous enemy of the Mongolian socialist state." Be that as it may, the head of Ja-Lama was separated from the body, smoked and rubbed with salt - an old way to prevent decay. And then, having planted on a peak, they drove around the world: “Here he is, Ja Lama! He was defeated by the people's government!"
As a priceless trophy, the head arrived at its peak to the government building in Urga. It was there that the student Vladimir Kazakevich saw her, who came to Mongolia in 1922 for practice. It remains to be seen how, returning to Leningrad in the fall of 1925, he carried the box with the head of Ja Lama without customs inspection. And finally, Leningrad, the Kunstkamera. As a precaution, Kazakevich asked to write down simply: "The head of the Mongol."
The Ja Lama was known to have a vengeful memory. While working in the archives of the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, I. I. Lomakina wondered more than once: is it really mysticism - everyone who was associated with Jalama died, and did not die of old age.
And strange things happened with the manuscript of the book "Head of Ja-Lama". Suffice it to say that when the first sheets of the book were printed, the printing plates and the card index of readers' requests burned out. Perhaps the Ja Lama was trying to remind of himself in this way?