Karl Tõnisson

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Karl Tõnisson (born August 8 . Jul / 20th August  1883 greg. Farm Odratsi in the village Umbusi , then rural community Vana-Põltsamaa , Livonia ; †  9. May 1962 in Rangoon , Burma ) was an Estonian Buddhist . He is best known under his spiritual name "Brother Vahindra". His nickname was "Barefoot Tõnisson".

Live and act

Karl Tõnisson ( Latvian Kārlis Tennisons ) initially lived in the Estonian capital Tallinn and the Livonian capital Riga , which were then part of the Russian Empire. In 1892 he studied at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Saint Petersburg . There he came into contact with Buddhist representatives.

In 1893 Tõnisson first went to Buryatia, which was influenced by Buddhism . He received a Buddhist "training" in the Agaa monastery in Buryatia. In 1900 Tõnisson went to Mongolia and China . From April to June 1903 he lived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka . Until the summer of 1905 he stayed in the Gobi Desert , Inner Mongolia, the Taklamakan Desert and in Ich-Chüree (now Ulaanbaatar ). In the same year, the influential Buryat monk Agvan Doržijev Tõnisson presented to the XIII. Dalai Lama in front. The encounter left a lasting impression on Tõnisson.

In 1906 Tõnisson was accepted as a believer in the Erdene Dsuu Monastery in Mongolia. There he also made the acquaintance of the Ja Lama (1862–1922).

In February 1907 Tõnisson went back to the western parts of Russia, first from Tuva to Orenburg . There he gave Buddhist lectures. From there Tõnisson traveled on to Samara and Saratov as well as to Astrakhan , where he gave lectures. In 1909 Tõnisson published his first book on Buddhist ideas in Riga . In 1912 a collection of Buddhist sentences from his pen appeared in Tartu . He also translates some Buddhist scriptures into Estonian .

With the outbreak of World War I , Tõnisson was drafted into the tsarist army . He served in the Caucasus and fought in East Prussia , among other places . In 1915 he left the army. He moved to Mongolia via Buryatia and then on to Tibet . He was said to be the first Estonian to come to Lhasa . He then returned to the Russian capital, which has since been renamed Petrograd . Here Tõnisson was active in the Buddhist temple in Saint Petersburg, which was completed in 1915. Soon, however, he was drawn back to Buryatia.

In 1920 Tõnisson returned to Petrograd. In Russia, the Bolsheviks had now taken power. The Buddhist temple was devastated. In 1922, the authorities of the newly formed Republic of Estonia refused a visa for Tõnisson. Instead, Tõnisson received Latvian citizenship.

Tõnisson lived partly in Estonia and partly in Latvia in the interwar period . There he propagated Buddhist ideas, but remained a bird of paradise in his time. The XIII. The Dalai Lama (allegedly) appointed him in 1923 as "Brother Vahindra" as Buddhist Archbishop for Latvia and Sangharaja of Buddhists in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Tõnisson believed in the attractiveness of Buddhist principles for his Baltic homeland too . In 1928 his Estonian book Tulevane Pan-Baltoonia Ilmariik (“The Coming Pan-Baltonian Empire”) was published in Riga . In 1930 he published the programmatic text Mina ja minu junggrid usume nõnda (“I and my disciples believe so”) in Tartu . In 1930 he gave Buddhist lectures in Narva . Tõnisson gathered a circle of disciples around him. However, his influence on the spread of Buddhism in Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania remained limited.

In 1931 Tõnisson moved to Asia together with his friend from Narva, the Baltic German Friedrich Voldemar Lustig (1912–1989), who later became known under the Buddhist name "Ashin Ananda". Both lived in China in 1935/36 . Then they moved first to Ceylon and later to Thailand . In 1941 they criticized the Thai government for its pro- Japan policies and for renaming the country from Siam to Thailand. In 1949 the Thai government expelled both of them. They moved on to Burma . Tõnisson and Lustig lived there as Buddhist monks in the Hinayana tradition .

Tõnisson died in Rangoon in 1962 . After his death he was made a Bodhisattva in Burma . His student Friedrich Voldemar Lustig continued Tõnisson's work as "Ashin Ananda". Lustig also wrote Tõnisson's life story in 1965 under the title The Mahatma of Baltic: The remarkable life of the Most Rev. Kārlis AM Tennisons The Buddhist Archbishop of Latvia .

literature

  • Mait Talts: "'Esimene buda preester Baltimere rannikul ...:' Karl August Tennison ja eestlaste esmatutvus budismiga." In: Akadeemia 2003, No. 7, pp. 1421–1443 and No. 8, pp. 1618–1645.
  • Gennadi Gerodnik: Vend Vahindra. Satiiriline dokumentaaljutustus. Tallinn 1973.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth information uncertain
  2. ↑ for example: "Supreme Monk Patriarch"
  3. ↑ Tulevane Pan-Baltoonia Ilmariik ja selles kuldses riigis asuvate Buddha-, Päärkonsi-, Pikse-, ehk, Taarausu preestrite seadus
  4. ↑ Scan
  5. ↑ Eesti elulood. Tallinn: Eesti entsüklopeediakirjastus 2000 (= Eesti entsüklopeedia 14) ISBN 9985-70-064-3 , p. 558
personal data
SURNAME Tõnisson, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brother Vahindra; Kārlis Tennisons, Kārlis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian Buddhist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Farm Odratsi in the village Umbusi , then rural community Vana-Põltsamaa , Livonia
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1962
Place of death Rangoon , Burma