Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet

Gombojab Tsebekovich Tsybikov (Buryat: Tsebегэй Гомбожаб, Mongolian: Цэвэгийн Гомбожав) (1873 — 1930) — traveler-researcher, ethnographer, oriental scholar (Tibetologist and Mongolist), Buddhist scholar, politician and educator of the Russian Empire, USSR and MPR, translator, professor at several universities. He studied at the Imperial Tomsk University in the Faculty of Medicine. In Tomsk, he met the famous doctor and politician Pyotr Badmaev, who persuaded the student to abandon medicine and engage in oriental studies. Gombojab agreed and went to Urga, where at the school established by Badmaev for Buryats, he studied Chinese, Mongolian, and Manchu languages. Journey to Tibet (1899—1902) During the «Great Game», the Russian Empire reached the borders of Tibet. Research expeditions were organized to this country, primarily by N. M. Przhevalsky, but they did not reach Central Tibet and Lhasa. Relying on the experience of Indian «pandits» — British agents and researchers, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted the custom of pilgrimage of Buryats and Kalmyks to Tibet. Tsybikov set off on a journey that lasted from 1899 to 1902, as part of a group of pilgrims, with carefully hidden research equipment. In Tibet itself, the researcher spent 888 days. He met with the 13th Dalai Lama there.