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As of 2010 approximately eleven percent of Alaskans are Buddhists making Buddhism the third largest religion in Alaska. Until the 1950's Tibetan Lamanism was the prominent school of Buddhism in the country. Unique to Alaska, New World Buddhism has developed an equally visible presence. The Chan school is also a reality in Chinese Alaskan enclaves. Geographically Buddhists are distributed throughout Alaska the largest concentration is in Sitka the most Buddhist city in North America.
History
Alaskan Buddhism traces its origins to Kalmyk soldiers serving the Imperial Army. during the Russo-Spanish war. On one such occasion before battle with the Spanish the Kalamyk built a steel marker and meditated for balance in battle. According to Kalmyk legend this handed the Russians victory for that day. After the war many of the Kalmyk choose to stay in the newly taken Sonora while some reportedly returned to Eurasia to bring back their families. Originally using their new homes as pasture land in Yurts the Kalmyak settled, clustering around a temple by 1845. At first many Kalmyk clergy were reluctant to leave because of the unreachable distance from their Tibetan spiritual homelands. Teacher and Bodhisattva Sants Nemaev differed with the hope t hat enlightenment could be found everywhere. Teacher Nemaev became the first spiritual leader of the Russian Kalamyk, building the first Alaskan Buddhist monastery. Namev's main teachings emphasized generosity, scholasticism and family kinship as vehicles important to successful meditation.
Traditionally students to Kalamyk priesthood would have traveled to Tibet for their training but as this became impossible new spiritual grounds were established in Sonora. Farther out into the west locations in Oreagon would become Kalamyk locations of meditation where students would spent part of the year in relative solitude to become closer to enlightenment. Among many Alaskan Buddhists especially Lamnatists this custom continues to the present day.
The Gold Rush brought new waves of Buddhist affiliated Chinese men, unlike the Kalamyk they came with the intention to make gold fortunes and leave. After the rush abated some discovering the Kalmyak merged into their community intermarrying with the Kalamyk. Others took to the coastal English and Russian cities to start businesses. Much later Cantonese and Han women would arrive giving the Chinese permanence. Young Chan monks took interest in the expanding Alaskan colony and arrived by the 1860's. Manchurians, Buryats, Turvans and Oriats followed suit in immigrating to Alaska. Fraternal Societies were the foundation for Chan beliefs in Alaska.
While the majority of Russian Alaskans were contemptuous or outright hostile to the Asian Alaskan immigrants, there were exceptions. A small fraction of Russian families fresh to Alaska converted to Buddhism, but adding their own interpretations becoming the foundations of New World Buddhism. Russian Buddhist Scholor Fyodor Stcherbatsky took personal interest in this phenomenon and traveled to Alaska at the turn of the century. Many Western Scholars came to see the Buddhists in Sonora. New World Buddhism would eventually add elements to make the religion more applicable for former Christians.
By the turn of the 20th century there were more than 200 temples and dozens of monasteries throughout Alaska.
The first quarter of the 20st century saw Buddhists unite nation wide in several organized sects. Prior to the 1910's Buddhists organized exclusively on a local level. Major organizations that exist to the present day include the Yellow Hat Dharama, the Lotus Union, and the Nirvana Church and others. These groups existed to standardize theology for their sects, promote Buddhist schools and also build strong ties for laymen that were spread throughout Alaska.
The Russo-Japanese War attracted suspicion from colonial imperial authorities for all Alaskan Buddhists. Colonial officials enacted many discriminatory laws limiting their movement, night curfews and unprecedented intrusion into the daily lives of many people for even alleged involvement in "Japanese Sabotage". This caused some Alaskian Buddhists to convert to Orthodoxy in an attempt to evade harassment from authorities. Discrimination and the forcible expansion of the Russian Empire and East Asia created a short boom of additional immigration in the first decade of the 20th century. Abroad many second and third generation Alaskian Buddhists saw Asia for the first time in their lives fighting in Manchuria for the empire. Bringing home many artifacts, texts and some sages the years before the Alaskian wars was a time of spiritual renewal for Buddhists that otherwise been very far away from the roots of their faith. Lamanists went to great lengths to bring ritual into their faith. Many Alaskians, particularly those from Somona traveled on pilgrimage to holy sights in Tibet and Nepal. Bringing back with them their own interpretations of their doctrine.
The outbreak of civil war in the Russian Empire ruptured fledgling Buddhist groups on political lines. Early on Buddhists showed reluctance but pockets supported white, blue and red factions. Such decisions were typically based one's local political environment and the best way for a noticeable and estranged minorities to avoid being targeted by majority white Christian populations or communist vanguards. In 1922 communists in New Irtsuk and the far north issues edicts forcing Buddhists to renounce their faith or face expulsion. Most able bodied men were drafted into Bolshevik armies. As many as 5,000 Buddhist men, women and children were executed by the Alaskan Socialist Republic for charges of espionage for the New Archangel government. At least fifty temples were destroyed between 1920 and 1925. Hundreds were sent to labor camps for reeducation throughout the 1930's, some of these prisoners were imported from the Soviet Union.
Old World destruction of Buddhist culture led to massive Buddhist white emigrees, perhaps as many of 100,000 by 1930. Many came willing to fight for the Alaskian National Republic and English Colombia but faced suspicion from both. A.N.R fighters believed that such foreign people could be infiltrated with red agents and often barred them from jobs and military service. Meanwhile Doug Colombia attempted to expel all Buddhists because they were categorized as a Eurasian influence just like Russian and Ukrainian Alaskians.
Fortunately The Alaskan Democratic Republic that replaced the A.N.R took a more forgiving position of Buddhists, even while still discriminating on basis of origin the A.D.R saw the need to in cooperate minorities for the sake of unity. Buddhists were incooperated back into public life to some extent and were permitted entrance into military service and some government jobs. For this reason Sitka still hosts some of the largest Buddhist minorities by percentage in Alaska today.
Buddhist Alaskians found their Alaskan identity in supporting the unification of all of Russian America. In the 1930's several Buddhist Monks become well known in the general mainstream for their calls of unity. Also an middle class of Russian speaking Buddhist Entrepreneurs, Educators, Doctors and Lawyers became better known in the costal cities. Modern Schools, businesses and clinics became common.