Agvan Dorzhiev - The Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913

The Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913

In early 1913, Agvan Dorzhiev and two other Tibetan representatives signed a treaty in Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. However, Agvan Dorzhiev's authority to sign such a treaty has always been - and still is - disputed by some authorities. According to Charles Bell, a British diplomat who had maintained a close relationship with the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama had told him that he did not authorise Dorzhiev to sign such a treaty with Mongolia.

Some British authors have, based on remarks of a Tibetan diplomat some years later, even disputed the mere existence of the treaty, but scholars of Mongolia generally are very positive it exists. The Mongolian text of the treaty has, for example, been published by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982. John Snelling says: "Though sometimes doubted, this Tibet-Mongolia Treaty certainly existed. It was signed on 29 December 1912 (OS) by Dorzhiev and two Tibetans on behalf of the Dalai Lama, and by two Mongolians for the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu." He then quotes the full wording of the treaty (in English) from the British Public Records Office: FO 371 1609 7144: Sir George Buchanan to Sir Edward Grey, Saint Petersburg, dated 11 February 1913.

Also in 1913, Dorzhiev founded a manba datsan, a medical college, at the monastery of Atsagat. It quickly became an important centre of Tibetan medicine in Buryatia.