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

MOSCOW, May 5, 1998 (AP) Buddhist monks in southern Russia demonstrated Tuesday against the departure of a 300-year-old medical text for a U.S. exhibition, a day after police beat protesters trying to block the manuscript's removal.

The monks held a vigil Tuesday outside the parliament building in Buryatia, a predominantly Buddhist republic 4,000 miles southeast of Moscow, Russian news agencies reported.

The 17th century Atlas of Tibetan Medicine is considered a national relic in Buryatia, and Buddhist leaders feared it would not be properly protected during scheduled exhibitions in four U.S. cities, Russian news agencies said.

On Monday, police beat some demonstrators and arrested about 50 who were protesting the book's removal from the National Museum of History in Ulan Ude, the Buryatian capital.

Scenes of police in riot gear beating the saffron-robed monks and dragging them away from their picket line were widely shown on Russian television.

The decision to display the atlas in the United States was approved by the Russian cabinet and by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The reports did not identify the cities where the book is to be exhibited.

The Interfax news agency said the monks' concern led Buryatian President Leonid Potapov to cancel the exhibition contract, but that he relented after being given additional assurances of the book's safety.

The atlas was brought to Russia from Tibet in the 19th century, Interfax said.