World Tibet Network News Tuesday, May 05, 1998 (I)

MOSCOW, May 5 (Reuters) - An antique Tibetan medical textbook is on its way to the United States despite efforts by Buddhist clergy to block its removal from a temple, police in Russia's Far East said on Tuesday.

``People were moved aside,'' a duty officer in Ulan-Ude, capital of the traditionally Buddhist region of Buryatia, told Reuters by telephone.

He said police foiled the priests' attempt to prevent the removal of the rare copy of the Atlas of Tibetan Medicine, which will be flown to the United States from Moscow.

``No one was arrested. There were no clashes,'' he said of the protest on Monday, denying a report from Ulan-Ude by Interfax news agency that some 50 Buddhist monks had been detained.

Russia's NTV commercial television later showed special OMON police in masks handcuffing several maroon-robed monks and marching them away from the temple grounds. A couple of young monks complained of excessive force by the police.

An official at the Moscow representative office of the Buryatia regional government declined to comment on the incident. Buddhist leaders in Ulan-Ude were not available.

Interfax quoted the head of an Ulan-Ude Buddhist congregation, lama Nimadzhap Ilyukhinov, as condemning the monks' protest.

The clergy should occupy themselves with religion and not ``politicking,'' the agency quoted Ilyukhinov as saying.

The agency said Buryatia authorities had a contract with a US company allowing the book, which was put together between the 16th and 19th centuries, to be exhibited in four states until December. The U.S. firm was not named.

The Buryat monks were said to be worried that the precious volume would be lost on its journey, recalling that in the last century the book had been taken from Tibet and sold in Moscow.

Buryat President Leonid Potapov blocked the book's transfer last month, seeking further safety assurances, RIA news agency said.

Tibetan-style Buddhism has seen a post-Soviet revival in Buryatia, which lies on the Mongolian border in southern Siberian, although ethnic Russians make up 70 percent of its population.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, has visited the region and is head of the Yellow Hat sect to which most Russian Buddhists belong.

NTV said the Dalai Lama and Hollywood film star Richard Gere, a convert to Buddhism, would view the Tibetan textbook during its tour of the United States.