17 Facts About Ja Lama

Ja Lama was an adventurer and warlord of unknown birth and background who fought successive campaigns against the rule of the Qing dynasty in western Mongolia between 1890 and 1922.

Ja Lama claimed to be a Buddhist lama, though it is not clear whether he actually was one, as well as a grandson and later the reincarnation of Amursana, the Khoid-Oirat prince who led the last great Mongol uprising against the Qing in 1757.

Ja Lama was one of the commanders of Mongolian forces that liberated Khovd city from Qing control in 1912.

However, Ja Lama avoided imprisonment after the Russian consul in Ikh Khuree identified him as "Amur Sanaev," a Russian citizen of Kalmyk origin from the Astrakhan province, and secured his release and expulsion to Russia.

In 1912 at Khovd, Ja Lama helped defeat the Manchus and ransack their fort.

Ja Lama let it be known everywhere that he was going to free the Mongols from the rule of Qing dynasty.

The Mongols noted that Ja Lama possessed a cap to which a golden Kalacakran vajra was affixed, instead of a button as common among Mongols.

Ja Lama quickly mobilized his own force and joined the 5,000 Mongols from the Khovd Province.

Ja Lama installed himself as the military governor of western Mongolia, tyrannizing a huge territory through a reign of fear and violence.

In February 1914, Ja Lama was arrested by Siberian Cossacks on the orders of Russian consular officials in Khovd.

Ja Lama was imprisoned in Tomsk for about a year and later moved to Irkutsk.

In 1916, Ja Lama returned to his native Lower Volga region then reentered Mongolia in the summer of 1918.

Ja Lama refused to recognize the authority of the Bogd Khan and the government immediately issued a warrant for his arrest.

Ja Lama managed to evade Mongolian authorities, and established himself in a retreat in the Black Gobi, on the border between Mongolia and the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu.

Ja Lama gained a lucrative amount of gold and silver after looting a Tibetan caravan of fifty merchants.

Ja Lama's forces scattered and his head was displayed first in Uliastai and then Niislel Khuree.

Later, Ja Lama's head was brought to Saint Petersburg and put on display at Kunstkammer of the Hermitage, labelled "No 3394, head of a Mongolian".