Hadda: Greek-Buddhist Archeological Site (1st c. AD)

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"Haḍḍa (Pashto: هډه‎) is a Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient region of Gandhara, near the Khyber Pass, ten kilometers south of the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan."

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"Some 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures, both clay and plaster, were excavated in Haḍḍa during the 1930s and the 1970s. The findings combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism in an almost perfect Hellenistic style......Although the style of the artifacts is typical of the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BC, the Haḍḍa sculptures are usually dated (although with some uncertainty), to the 1st century AD or later (i.e. one or two centuries afterward). This discrepancy might be explained by a preservation of late Hellenistic styles for a few centuries in this part of the world. However it is possible that the artifacts actually were produced in the late Hellenistic period......Given the antiquity of these sculptures and a technical refinement indicative of artists fully conversant with all the aspects of Greek sculpture, it has been suggested that Greek communities were directly involved in these realizations, and that "the area might be the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style"..... John Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity

"Hadda is 10 km south of the Kabul River...... (Kābol Rōd, also called Daryā-ye Kābol), in eastern Afghanistan and tributary of the Indus....its drainage area takes up large proportions of eastern Afghanistan with the nine provinces of Nangarhār, Kunar, Laḡmān, Lōgar, Kabul, Kāpisā, Parvān, Panjšēr, and Bāmiān.....the East flowing Kabul River, which in times past, was known as the Sita, or White River.... In the year 1900 the Russian mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff traveled by raft down part of this river, as part of an expedition led by Prof. Kozlov in search of the ruins of ancient Shambhala.".......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/uddiyana.htm

Sir Alexander Burnes Map (1834)...Click on the map to enlarge.

"Captain Sir Alexander Burnes, FRS (16 May 1805 – 2 November 1841) was a Scottish traveller and explorer....His travels continued through Afghanistan across the Hindu Kush to Bukhara (the maps and narrative which he published in England in 1834)"

"Musée Guimet:: Afghanistan: Hadda......The Buddhist monastery complex at Hadda in Eastern Afghanistan, not far from Kandahar, yielded a rich trove of sculpture and painting during the French excavations of the late 1930s......Hadda, Monastery of Bagh-Gai. 3rd-4th c. AD.....Barthoux expedition 1927-28.....https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/museums/mg/hadda.html"

The Buddhist stupa of Tapa Kalan, Hadda (near Jalalabad in the Kabul River valley

"Hadda, a small town 15 km south of Jalalabad (Eastern Afghanistan), owes its fame to the number and beauty of the remains of its Buddhist stūpas, shrines and monasteries scattered over an area of 15 km2 around the urban settlement......Throughout the period of Buddhism’s great flourishing, from the Kushans (1st–3rd century AD) into the 7th century AD, Hadda was a popular pilgrimage destination where, according to the accounts of famous Chinese pilgrims such as Faxian and Xuanzang, various relics of the Buddha’s body and belongings were preserved, each of them enshrined in a stūpa: a bone of the Buddha’s skull and uṣṇīṣa (cranial protuberance), an eyeball, the monastic robe and the ascetic staff....Exploration of the site began in 1834 with Charles Masson, who discovered Graeco-Bactrian, Indo-Scythian, Hunnic, Roman and Byzantine coins inside 14 stūpas in different sacred areas. The most important of these, Tapa Kalan, also yielded fragments of stone and stucco sculptures. Further minor investigations followed, until J. Barthoux of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan carried out extensive excavations on various sites from 1926 to 1929.....Their astonishing beauty and liveliness, originally enhanced by a vibrant color, which has only minimally been preserved, and especially their Hellenistic touch aroused great interest......Between the mid-1960s and the end of the 1970s other sites were excavated by Afghan and Japanese teams. Tapa Shotor, one of the most interesting sites to be excavated during this period, revealed shrines housing cultic images and scenes characterized by the theatrical arrangement of the sculptures and their lively background (2nd–5th century AD) as well as an underground room, probably restricted to the monks’ meditation practices, as suggested by the painted decoration (5th–6th century AD) dedicated to the theme of meditation on death......In the course of the Afghan civil war, the majority of known archaeological sites was destroyed by the Taliban."...http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/story233?language=en .

"In 1834, Charles Masson’s excavations in the region of Kabul and Jalalabad included a series of Buddhist ‘Topes’, i.e. stupas (sacred domed structures symbolizing the Buddha). Tope Kelan (Stupa 10) on the outskirts of Hadda, a village south of Jalalabad in south-eastern Afghanistan..... The relic deposit contained more than 200 coins buried along with a variety of over 100 objects including silver rings, gilded bronze, silver and gold reliquaries, glass and semi-precious beads and brass pins including a unique cockerel-headed example. These were buried as part of a Buddhist ritual aimed at earning merit in the afterlife."....http://blog.britishmuseum.org/category/collection/money-gallery/

"The Tope Kelan deposit contains five series of coins, Byzantine gold solidi, Sasanian silver coins, Alchon Hun silver coins, Kidarite Hun gold and silver coins, and a gold coin from Kashmir, all minted before AD 480. The hoard is important evidence of the Silk Route trade network that crisscrossed Europe, Central Asia to China and India in the first millennium AD. The Tope Kelan hoard is thus a testimony to the multiculturalism of ancient Afghanistan with its links to the Indian sub-continent, Iran and China.".......http://blog.britishmuseum.org/category/collection/money-gallery/

"The Buddhist Shrine Complex at Hadda. A Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient area of Gandhara, six miles south of the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, Hadda was one of the largest Buddhist temple and pilgrimmage complexes in the world during the 1st through 3rd centuries AD.......A key location on the 2,000-mile path that pilgrims followed in the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, Hadda was an active center for manuscript translation and duplication as well as sculpture. ....More than 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures made of clay or plaster, architectural decorations plus heads and figures depicting men, women, children, assorted demons, as well as the elderly, with every conceivable mode of expression and dress, every rank and status, every facial type from all corners of the known world — more faces than one would need to re-create an entire Buddhist city — were excavated from Hadda in a series of archaeological excavations during the 1930s and the 1970s. .....Sculptures from Hadda combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism, in an almost perfect uniquely identifiable Hellenistic style. Although the style itself is suggested by experts to date from the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BC, the sculptures from Hadda are usually dated, tentatively, to the 1st century AD or later. .....Given the early date, superb quality, technical refinement, variety and stupendous quantity of sculptures, Hadda must have been a "factory town" where Greek or Greek-trained artists familiar with all the aspects of Hellenistic sculpture, lived and worked in, what scholar John Boardman described as "the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style." .....The transferance of Greek heros to Buddhism (e.g., Herakles being the inspiration and model for the Buddhist Bodhissatva) is fully on display at Hadda. ....A sculptural group excavated at the Hadda temple known as Tapa-i-Shotor, for example, represents a Buddha flanked by a perfectly Hellenistic figure of Tyche holding her cornucopia and Herakles holding not his usual club, but the thunderbolt associated with the Boddhisatva fiture Vajrapani."...http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-08enl.html

"Hercules and the Buddha....In Gandharan art, the Buddha is often shown under the protection of the Greek god Herakles, standing with his club (and later a diamond rod) resting over his arm...Via the Greco-Buddhist culture, Heraclean symbolism was transmitted to the far east.....Heracles was perhaps the most popular hero god of the Greeks. In the Greek colonies in Bactria and India, the club wielding lion killer, Heracles became Vajrapani a protector of Buddha. Still recognizable as a bearded Greek with a club....which became the diamond thunderbolt).... "

"In addition to sculpture, Hadda contained some of the the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts in the world, which are perhaps the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts of any kind,the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect that dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread from India to China. ....Probably dating from around the 1st century AD, looted from Hadda during the 1990s and smuggled to Pakistan, these Buddhist manuscripts were written on birch bark in the Gandhari language. Discovered in a clay pot bearing an inscription in the same language eventually passed to the British Library in London and the University of Washington in Seattle. The legal ownership of these priceless manuscripts remains in dispute. ....More than 1000 of the vast assemblage of sculptures found at Hadda during the 1930s and 1970s were secured at the Kabul Museum and the Musée Guimet in Paris.".....http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-08enl.html

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/A241CC/hadda-monuments-at-darunta-on-the-road-to-hadda-afghanistan-A241CC.jpg

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February 2016

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Avestan Geography: The Mixture of Mythical and Historical Elements

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"AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY......Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border.....the first stumbling-block in the study of Avestan geography is the mixture of mythical and historical elements....it was common among the Indo-Iranians to identify concepts or features of traditional cosmography—mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.—with their concrete historical and geographical situation as they migrated and settled in various places......... the concept of Mount Harā, or Haraitī, barəz/bərəz or bərə-zaitī “high”, and that of Mount Meru, or Sumeru, in Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jainist cosmography.......the idea of the seven regions of the earth, the Iranian karšvar- (Pahlavi kešwar) and the Indian dvīpa; the idea of a central region, Xᵛaniraθa (Pahlavi Xwanirah) and Jambūdvīpa; the idea of the “Tree of All Seeds” in the Vourukaša sea, south of the Peak of Harā and the Jambū tree, south of Mount Meru.....the great mountain ranges running from the Hindu Kush to the Pamir and the Himalayas could have inspired the various successive identifications of nordic, polar elements with the ancient cosmology and traditional geography of the Aryans......the main Avestan text of geographical interest is the first chapter of the Vidēvdād. This consists of a list of sixteen districts (asah- and šōiθra-) created by Ahura Mazdā.....the sixteen Great Districts, Ṣoḍaśa mahājanapada, in the Buddhist and Jainist sources and the epic poetry of India in the sixth century B.C., which were subject to the Aryan element."

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"1. The first of the sixteen districts, Airyana Vaēǰah....Airyana Vaēǰah (Pahlavi: Ērānwēz), “the area of the Aryans” and first of the sixteen districts in Vd. 1, the original name of which was airyanəm vaēǰō vaŋhuyā dāityayā,...Airyana Vaēǰah is situated in a mountainous region .....

"Airyana Vaēǰah......Airyanem Vaejah lies at the center of the sixteen lands, in the central Afghan highlands....According to Skjærvø, and Gnoli it was situated between the Helmand River and the Hindu Kush Mountains....

"The main Avestan text of geographical interest is the first chapter of the Vendidad (Vidēvdād)......Twenty paragraphs.....paragraphs 2 and 13 deal with Airyana Vaēǰah and Haētumant respectively. The period the text belongs to is uncertain: While the contents and lack of any reference to western Iran suggest that it should date back to the pre-Achaemenian period ( pre 550 B.C.) the form in which it survives would seem to place it in the Parthian period (c. 247 BC) ."

"The Vendidad is a collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta......unlike the other texts of the Avesta, the Vendidad is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual....some consider the Vendidad a link to ancient early oral traditions..... the writing of the Vendidad began before the formation of the Median and Persian Empires, before the 8th century B.C......"

"This geographical part of the Avesta was intended to show the extent of the territory that had been acquired in a period that can not be well defined but that must at any rate have been between Zoroaster’s reforms and the beginning of the Achaemenian empire. The likely dating is therefore between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C., starting from the period of the domination of the Aryan followers of Ahura Mazdā."

"King Menander I, (c. 165 BC) son of Demetrius was born in Bactria, but brought up in Ariana (the Kabul valley) and in the early years of his rule expanded his father’s kingdom to the Indus valley and beyond, perhaps later establishing his capital at Sàgala. Unlike Bactria, which was predominantly influenced by Greek culture, these new areas were already Buddhist. Menander, then, would have been educated in the Greek traditions but would have had direct contact with Buddhism and no doubt often met monks living in his kingdom."....http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

"That the geographical horizon of the Mihr Yašt is located in Central Asia emerges from the countries listed in Yt. 10.14. .....The geographical extension of Mihr Yašt covered the eastern part of the Iranian territory, the central part being occupied by the regions of the Hindu Kush, represented by Mount Harā, Iškata (Kūh-e Bābā?), Paruta (Ḡūr?), the district of Herodotus’s Aparútai or Ptolemy’s Paroûtai or Párautoi....Like all texts of the Avesta, the Mihr Yašt belongs to an oral cul­ture of ritual poetry whose roots reach back to the prehistoric Indo-Iranian civilization...The Yashts (Yašts) are a collection of twenty-one hymns in Younger Avestan. Each of these hymns invokes a specific Zoroastrian divinity or concept.."

"MIHR YAŠT...........the name of the tenth of the 21 Yašts of the Avesta (145 verses)......the hymn of the sixteenth day of the 30-day month of the Zoroastrian cal­endar.....Dedicated to Miθra, a ma­jor Zoroastrian deity, it belongs to the hymnic group of Yašts and is one of the longest and most important hymns of the Avesta....stanzas 1-6: Ahura Mazdā requests that Mithra be worshipped and prayed to as much as he, Ahura Mazdā, himself...Mithra rises at dawn and oversees all Aryan countries.... His chariot is drawn by horses, which are spiritual (mainiiauua-), white, radiant, conspicuous, life-giving (spəṇta), knowing, shadeless, and swift.....Haoma worshipped Mithra on Hukairya, which is the highest peak of lofty Haraitī (ALBORZ)......Mithra’s armor is of silver and gold. ....White racehorses pull Mithra’s chariot with its one golden wheel .... .......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mihr-yasht

"Mount Albarez........The root of the name of this mountain is identical to that of the Alburz in northern Iran and the Elbrus in the Caucasus, and therefore, it is likewise derived from the Old Persian term Bərəzaitī (see Hara Berezaiti), meaning "high," "tall," "of stature." The more proper spelling of the name of this mountain is Albarez. Albarez is of the same construct as the names Alburz and Elbrus. The ancient Iranian peoples seem to have given this name to the tallest mountains in any area that they happened to live (exactly as the Turkic people did when they called all the tallest mountains in their sight, "Qaradağ"/Karadag, with the term qara/kara standing for great/big, as well as color black). In fact, into the early 20th century, the northern portions of the Hindu Kush mountains near Balkh/Mazar-i Sharif was also known as Mt. Alburz, as recorded by the British travelers like Alexander Burnes.".....Travels into Bokhara. Being an account of a Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia. Also, narrative of a Voyage on the Indus from the Sea to Lahore (London: John Murray). 1834. 3 Vols.

"..... the analogy between the Iranian concept of the peak of Harā with the Indian one of Mount Meru or Sumeru. The Manicheans identified Aryān-waižan with the region at the foot of Mount Sumeru that Wishtāsp reigned over, and the Khotanese texts record the identification of Mount Sumeru in Buddhist mythology with the Peak of Harā (ttaira haraysä) in the Avestan tradition.....As for the river of Religious Law.....the most likely hypotheses seem to be those that identify it with the Oxus, or rather the Helmand (The Helmand River rises in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 50 miles west of Kabul)....."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_geography#cite_ref-8

ARACHOSIA. (White India.) Substantially the modern Afghanistan......The Helmand valley region is mentioned by name in the Avesta (Fargard 1:13) as the Aryan land of Haetumant, one of the early centers of the Zoroastrian faith in pre-Islamic Afghan history. But owing to the preponderance of Hindus and Buddhists (non-Zoroastrians), the Helmand and Kabul regions were also known as "White India" in those days.....http://parthia.com/doc/parthian_stations.htm

"The Zamyād Yašt, dedicated to Xᵛarənah, is of very great importance for Avestan geography as it provides a surprisingly well-detailed description of the hydrography of the Helmand region, in particular of Hāmūn-e Helmand. In Yt. 19.66-77 nine rivers are mentioned.....other features of Sīstāni geography recur in the same yašt, like the Kąsaoya lake (Pahlavi Kayānsih) or Mount Uši.δām (Kūh-e Ḵᵛāǰa), both closely bound up with Zoroastrian eschatology, so that with the help of comparisons with Pahlavi and classical sources, mainly Pliny and Ptolemy..... we can conclude that the Zamyād Yašt describes Sīstān with great care and attention. In Avestan geography no other region has received such treatment.....yet another reference to Sīstān is to be found it another passage of the great yašts, Yt. 5.108, in which Kavi Vīštāspa, prince and patron of Zoroaster, is represented in the act of making sacrifice to Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā near Frazdānu, the Frazdān of Pahlavi literature, that is, one of the wonders of Sīstān; it can probably be identified with Gowd-e Zera (Godzareh)....."

"Sīstān (Persian/Baloch/Pashto: سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastan (Persian/Baloch/Pashto: ساكاستان; "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day eastern Iran (Sistan and Baluchestan Province), southern Afghanistan (Nimruz, Kandahar, and Zabul Province), and the Nok Kundi region of Balochistan (western Pakistan).....In the Shahnameh, Sistan is also referred to as Zabulistan, after the region in the eastern part of Iran. In Ferdowsi's epic, Zabulistan is in turn described to be the homeland of the mythological hero Rostam...."

"Arachosia....is the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy in the eastern part of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Greco-Bactrian, and Indo-Scythian empires. Arachosia was centred on Arghandab valley in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended east to as far as the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan. The main river of Arachosia was called Arachōtós, now known as the Arghandab River, a tributary of the Helmand River. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Aryan land of Harauti which was around modern-day Helmand. The Arachosian capital or metropolis was called Alexandria or Alexandropolis and lay in what is today Kandahar in Afghanistan. Arachosia was a part of the region of ancient Ariana.....

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avestan-geography

http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/gonur.htm

Skjærvø, P. O...... The Avesta as a source for the early history of the Iranians. In: G. Erdosy (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, (Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, IPSAS) 1, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1995, 166.

Gnoli, G........ Zoroaster's Time and Homeland. A Study on the Origins of Mazdeism and Related Problems. Naples 1980, 227.

Nations of the Vendidad - Aryan Prehistory......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/maps/vendidad.htm

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February 2016

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The Bairam-Ali Manuscript & the Gyaur Kala near Merv

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"Bairam-Ali (aka: Baýramaly, Bayram-Ali, Persian: بایرام علی‎‎) is a city of Turkmenistan, a seat of Baýramaly District within Mary Province. It lies about 27 km east of the provincial capital Mary, along the main railway line from Ashgabat to Tashkent......Close to Baýramaly are the ruins of ancient Merv."

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"....the Bairam-Ali manuscript appears to present the story of Buddhism’s first female adherents with the addition of several new details that reflect the influence of the Mahāyāna......In the Bairam-Ali manuscript, the tale of the first of these women begins on fol. 14b(4).....This section of the manuscript primarily contains tales about female Buddhists. We know of the formation of the Buddhist female community and women’s monasteries since the end of the first centuries A.D., although Buddhist tradition links this fact with permission granted by the Buddha after many requests by Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī (the Buddha Sakyamuni’s aunt, who raised him after his mother’s death) and support from Ānanda.." ......http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/templates/main/images/title_main_new.gif

A New Version of the Gāndhārī Dharmapada and a Collection of Previous-birth ... By Timothy Lenz, Andrew Glass, Dharmamitra

Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya M. A Sanskrit Manuscript on Birch-Bark from Bairam-Ali. II. Avadāna and Jātaka (Part 4) // Manuscripta Orientalia. Vol. 7, No 3, September 2001. P. 9-14.......http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_publications&Itemid=75&pub=1377

"Gyaur-Kala - 'The Fortress of Infidels' .......was built approximately in the 4th century BC. Its ten-metre walls impress with the power. They surround ruins of two citadels that presumably could be a temple and palace constructions. One of citadels could serve as a protective construction and a temple. It is not surprising, as this district is considered the native land of the most ancient texts of Avesta - Gathas, written by Zarathustra. The numerous ruins of the centres are the evidence that inhabitants Gjaur-Kaly were Zoroastrians who worshipped the sacred fire......The fortress continued to function up to arrival the Mongols to the Central Asia in 1220. Genghis Khan’s elder son Temujin ordered to ruin the city to the ground. Subsequently townsmen moved and established a new settlement near to Gyaur-kala remains."......http://www.advantour.com/uzbekistan/karakalpakstan/gyaur-kala.htm

Click on the images to enlarge.....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/images/turkmenistan/gyaurKala1.jpg

http://www.orexca.com/images/fotogallery/img_full/1202910845_1966.jpg

"Erk Kala......The oldest of Merv's ruins, Erk Kala (a modern name meaning citadel castle), date from the 5th century BC. Constructed by the Persian Achaemenians, Erk Kala appears to have been the central city of Margush as it was known to the Achaemenians serving as an important administrative and trading centre. It lay at the hub of the spectacular Silk Roads along which trade between the furthest reaches of the Persian empire flourished. The site is some 12 hectares in size and lies 17 metres below today's surface. Buried under more than 1,500 years of buildings old and new, it is virtually inaccessible to archaeological exploration. Little is therefore known about this enclosure. It is possible that the ruins of an earlier city lie beneath Erk Kala's ruins."......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

"Gyaur Kala......With the defeat of the Achaemenians by Alexander in the 4th century BC, Merv came under Macedonian rule.....Antiochus I (280-261 BCE), began a massive expansion of the city at Merv, constructing a walled city nearly two kilometres across called Antiochia Margiana (today called Gyaur Kala) and covering some 340 hectares. He converted the earlier city of Erk Kala into a citadel that lay within the new walled city. Gyaur Kala was to remain occupied for a thousand years. ....The vitality of the city during these times is reflected in the wealth of archaeological objects recovered from the excavations within Gyaur Kala.....Like Erk Kala, Gyaur Kala also lies buried under a millennium and a half of construction on top of its ruins.."..........http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

"Merv's origins are prehistoric: archaeological surveys have revealed many traces of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC and that the city was culturally part of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Under the name of Mouru, Merv is mentioned with Balkh in the geography of the Zend-Avesta (commentaries on the Avesta). Mouru was among the sixteen perfect lands created by Ahura Mazda."

The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian.....By E. Yarshater

"Merv was renamed Antiochia Margiana by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt and expanded the city at the site presently known as Gyaur Gala (Turkish Gayur Kala) (Fortress). It was ruled in succession by Bactria, Parthia, and the Kushans after the fall of the Seleucid dynasty. It was a major city of Buddhism learning with Buddhist monastery temples for many centuries until its Islamicization. At the site of Gyaur Kala ......Bairam Ali Buddhism was followed and practised often at the Buddhist stupa."

"In 1221 AD, a Mongol army advanced on Merv and its cavalry rode around the walls for spent six days looking for the weak points. The terrified residents negotiated a surrender which only served to open the gates and allow the Mongols to enter, after which they proceeded to massacre the townspeople and burn the town."..............http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

February 2016

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The Sasanian high priest Kartir & Iconoclastic Mazdaism (241 - 275 AD)

The Sasanian high priest Kartir & Iconoclastic Mazdaism (241 - 275 AD)

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"KARTIR.....a prominent Zoroastrian priest in the second half of the 3rd century CE, known from his inscriptions and mentioned in Middle Persian, Parthian, and Coptic Manichean texts.....Kartīr’s inscriptions are the earliest indigenous written testimonies to the basic tenets of Mazdayasnianism (Zoroastrianism)...... They are therefore of the utmost importance for studying the Mazdayasnian tradition under the early Sasanians....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

The Sasanian high priest Kartir.....c. 241 - 275 AD....Stone relief of Kartir at Naqsh-e Rajab, an archaeological site just east of Istakhr and about 12 km north of Persepolis in Fars Province, Iran.

"Kartir was probably instrumental in promoting the cause of Mazdaism (as opposed to Zurvanism, the other - now extinct - branch of Zoroastrianism, for in his inscription at Naqsh-e Rajab, Kartir makes plain that he has "decided" that "there is a heaven and there is a hell", thus putting himself at odds with the principles of (fatalistic) Zurvanism.....Nonetheless, it was during the reign of Shapur I (r. 241-272) - to whom Kartir was first appointed advisor - that Zurvanism appears to have developed as a cult, and this contradiction remains an issue of scholastic dispute. Some scholars therefore conclude, at odds with what has been stated above, that Kartir "himself held Zurvanite beliefs"......Simultaneously, Kartir was also a significant force in an iconoclastic movement that would result in the loss of favour of the shrine cults, a religious tradition alien to Indo-Iranian forms of worship that was inherited instead from the Babylonians; shrine cults had been instituted six centuries earlier by Artaxerxes II.....It was during Kartir's time as high priest that the shrines were - by law - stripped of their statues, and then either abandoned or converted into fire temples.".......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartir

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"Shapur I.....the second shahanshah (king of kings) of the Sasanian Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as c.240 - 270 A.D......Šāpūr I bestowed upon Kartīr.....various high clerical honors.....Kartīr would perform the various rituals (kerdagān) for the gods, founding Warahrān fires and caring for the priests; sealing charters (pādixšahr) for fires and Magi ... and making priests “happy and prosperous” .....All of this would bring “profit” (sūd) to Ohrmazd and the other gods, while Ahrimen and the “demons” (dēws; see DAĒVA), were harmed and *diminished.".........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

"At this time, the rituals for the gods were increased, and great “satisfaction” (šnūdīh) came to the good creations—the gods, water, fire, and kine (gōspand), while Ahrimen and the demons received “blows” (snah/sneh). They were “opposed, hated” (bištīh), so that “(false) beliefs” (kēš) in them were no longer adhered to in the land.......Non-Mazdayasnians were “struck down” (zad) in the land, including Jews, Shamans (Buddhists), Bramans (Hindus), Christians, Nāṣrā (Nazarenes or Nazoreans), Makdags (baptists? Bailey, 1980), and Zandīgs (Manicheans)....... Idols (uzdēs) were destroyed; the “dens” (gilist) of the demons were obliterated and turned into thrones (gāh) and seats for the gods."........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

".....during the second half of the third century when the Zoroastrian high priest, Kartir, directed the religious policy of the empire. With purist fervor to eliminate all images of deities in the realm and have only the Zoroastrian sacred fire as the focus of devotion, Kartir had ordered several Buddhist monasteries destroyed, especially in Bactria. This was because the statues and wall paintings of Buddha in them incorporated many Zoroastrian elements. For example, Buddhas were often depicted encircled with a halo of flames and an accompanying inscription or graffiti scrawl labeling them as “Buddha-Mazda.” Bactrian Buddhism, then, would have appeared to the high priest as a Zoroastrian heresy. Buddhism revived, however, after Kartir’s persecution.".....http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/historical_interaction/pt1/history_cultures_02.html

The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian.....By E. Yarshater

"Kartir and Manicheism......"Because of Kartīr’s involvement in the execution of Mani (c. 216–274 AD) , it has also been suggested that his inscriptions specifically targeted Mani’s teachings.... the conflict between Zurvanism and Mazdaism ....history from the time of Mani’s appearance at the court of Šāpūr until he was executed by Warahrān I in the last months of his reign..... Manicheism was important to the Mazdayasnian restoration because it was considered as a Zoroastrian heresy and priestly opposition to it “might provoke unexpected speculation and re-examination of Zoroastrian doctrine”; he also suggested that it was Kartīr’s part in the Mani debacle that earned him his promotion under Warahrān I .... the notions repeatedly stressed by Kartīr. A person is potentially good, and if he or she behaves according to the Mazdayasnian tradition, the body will reap the benefits while alive and the soul both in this life and after death. This is quite different from the Manichean conception of soul and body, with the transcendental “soul” imprisoned in the corpse-body and the material soul being composed of the basest elements of man. "...........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

"Kartīr’s statement about his treatment of other religions has also spawned comments, notably, in Jewish scholarship on the third century. Jacob Neusner presented Šāpūr as having “encouraged Mani to expound a syncretistic doctrine capable of bringing together” the other religions “under one cult” and Kartir as having “remained submissive to the tolerant policy of the great emperor,” but, after his death, as using his power to reverse Šāpūr’s tolerant policy...... Neusner also interpreted the execution of Mani as a “judicial murder” arranged by Kartīr and his fellow Magi.".............http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

"Kartīr’s statement that he “struck down” (zad) other religions suffices to talk about a terror regime and religious obscurantism..... or to conclude that Kartīr was the “most redoubtable enemy of religious minorities” in the history of the Sasanians ..... The verb zad is a traditional, epic term for eliminating evil and does not necessarily refer to killing (which is ōzad).....All the Sasanian kings except Warahrān II were “lukewarm Zoroastrians,” so that, although Kartīr [like Zarathustra himself] “abhorred animal sacrifice” (as proved by his statement regarding Water, fire, and animals).....he had not been able to prevent Šāpūr from performing them...." .........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

Kartir and Zurvanism......"It was the conflict between the current Zurvanism and flourishing Manicheism, both of which “always favoured universalism,” aggravated by Kartīr’s rise to power, that caused Mani’s death and was “put aside to establish Zoroastrianism as a nationalistic religion in Iran” .....He regarded Šāpūr’s Zurvanism as an established fact (referring to Boyce) and argued that Mani “never would have” called his highest god Zurwān if he had not known Zurvanism ....He concluded that the early kings each had a “court theologian” : Ardašīr had Tansar, Šāpūr had Mani, and Ohrmazd and the Warahrāns had Kartīr.."..........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

Kartir and Shamanism...."The shamanistic aspects of the vision narrative were, apparently, first mentioned by Grigorii M. Bongard-Levin and Ėdvin A. Grantovskiĭ (1974), and were repeatedly discussed by Gignoux (1979; 1981, p. 258: journey into the beyond by a living person; 2001, chap. 4) and by James Russell (1990, p. 180: “ecstatic practice generally termed shamanistic in the study of religions”............http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir

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Iranian Migration into Eastern Tibet (7th - 9th Centuries AD)

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650 A.D......"Iranian-Aryan Relations with the Tibetan Empire....The Tibetan empire established by Songtsen Gampo soon grew in power that extended beyond its borders....The Yarlung dynasty appears to have continued the collaborative relationship the Zhang Zhung had with the Iranian Aryans. The relationship continued even after the Arabs had conquered the Persian empire. Since it is the Tibetans who had become the dominant eastern power in the seventh century AD, it is they who provided the Persians and Sogdians sanctury.....As they fled east, the Persians first took refuge in Sugd (Sogdiana) and their presence there has been recorded on Sogdian inscriptions in Panjakand and Paykand. Then as the Persians and Sogdians continued east into China...... the rise of Tibetan power was because of the assistance of Persian refugees fleeing from the Arab invasion of Persia in the 650s AD. According to Nikitin, when the Persians arrived in the Tibetan court, they trained the Tibetans in the art of imperial warfare. According to another author Beckwith, a Chinese source describes the Yarlung Tibetan warriors and horses as being completely clad in armour in the Sassanian fashion. An important military technological advance and advantage for the Tibetans was their newly acquired ability to produce chain mail for armour.".....http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/7621

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"Tagzig, Zhang-Zhung, Western Tibet........In Tibet there is a minority religion called Bon that long preceded the coming of Buddhism. Present-day Bon practice allies it with Buddhism. However, the original practice may have been quite different........According to Bon tradition, the founder of the orthodox Bon doctrine was Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche of Tagzig some 18,000 years ago. Tagzig is believed to be a form of Tajik and some writers identify the region with Balkh/Bactria. The name Shenrab has an Iranian sound to it......The Bon religion was spread by Shenrab's disciples and their student-translators to adjacent countries such as Zhang-Zhung (also Zhangzhung, Shang Shung or Xang Xung - a land north of the Himalayas, which contained Mount Kailash in today's Western Tibet), India (northern Indus valley cf. Bru-zha / Gilgit), Kashmir (Kha-che), Western China and eventually Greater Tibet. Tonpa Shenrab is reputed to have visited present-day Tibet once. On that visit he found the people unprepared to receive the entire body of his teachings, but he prophesied that his teachings would flourish in Tibet in the coming ages. The students of his disciples continued his mission and Tibetan Bon scriptures were translated from texts in the language of Zhang-Zhung......The Bon tradition provides a close link between the Aryan and Tibetan cultures. In addition to the place of its origin, the Bon tradition includes additional links to Zoroastrian Aryan culture including what Western writers have labelled as 'dualism' and the myths about the original homeland and its Shangri-La like beauty.......Tagzig is more completely called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring and is described in Bon as a non-dual (one which resides beyond dualism) spiritual realm. The feature of this non-dual realm is that it was a timeless perfect realm where peace and joy were the very fabric of being and evil was not known.......In legend, Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring is said to have been a fragrant land, coloured by beautiful flora and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It was located west of Mount Kailash.".....ZOROASTRIAN HERITAGE...by K. E. EDULJEE.....http://zoroastrianheritage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/iranian-aryan-connections-with-western.html

"Given that the Zoroastrian and Bon religions may have existed side-by-side in Central Asia, the Pamirs and the northern Himalayan region, it is quite possible that even during the time of the Iranian Sassanian dynasty c. 224 - 649 CE, the relations between the Zoroastrian Iranians and the Tibetan Buddhists was collaborative. There is evidence that that this collaboration survived even after the overthrow of the Sassanians by the Arabs.....The land of Zhang Zhung on its part continued its dominance of the Tibetan plateau until it was annexed by Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century. Songtsen Gampo was the thirty-third king of the Yarlung Dynasty which ruled the Yarlung River (the Brahmaputra in India) and is revered by Tibetans as the founder of the Tibetan state and empire. He is also said to have introduced Buddhism to Tibet.....The Yarlung dynasty appears to have continued the collaborative relationship the Zhang Zhung had with the Iranian Aryans....After the Arab take over of the Sassanian Iranian state, the Yarlung Tibetans fought against the Arabs together with his Turkic allies in order to expel them from Sugd (Sogdiana).....The Yarlung captured Khotan – an Iranian-Tajik kingdom allied with Kashmir and Sugd (Sogdiana). The Tibetan conquest of Khotan was followed by the immigration of many Khotanese Buddhist monks, craftsmen and merchants into Tibet.".......http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/7621

"Amdo and Kham, East Tibet...... is a historical region of Eastern Tibet covering a land area largely divided between present-day Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan province of China.....Chinese linguists and anthropologists refer to Kham as the 'Ethnic Corridor of Southwest China', as its vast and sparsely populated territories are inhabited by over 14 culturally and linguistically distinct ethnic groups......One-third of Kham residents are speakers of Qiangic languages, a family of twelve distinct but interrelated languages that are not closely related to the Khams Tibetan language.....The people of Kham were reputed warriors. They were renowned for their marksmanship and horsemanship...The peoples of Kham have endured a tumultuous past, their sovereignty often encroached upon and marginalized by both Tibetans to the West and the Han Chinese to the East.....The Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but with the fall of the empire the region soon divided into a variety of territories.....Since the collapse of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-9th century, the peoples of Kham had aggressively maintained their independence from invading nations......In historical times, the people of the region were typically non-Tibetan, such as Mongol or Tibetan of foreign origin such as the Hor people.....Tea-Horse Trade Route formed in AD 6th century... the Tea-Horse Trade Route included 2 major branches, which ran separately through Amdo and Kham to connect the hinterland of China and Tibet together. ."

Bon in Central and East Tibet.....Chapter 19.....The Tibetan History Reader.....edited by Gray Tuttle, Kurtis R. Schaeffer

"The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhist kingdom that was located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was originally located to the west of modern-day Hotan (Chinese: 和田) at Yotkan. From the Han dynasty until at least the Tang dynasty it was known in Chinese as Yutian (Chinese: 于闐, 于窴, or 於闐). The kingdom existed for over a thousand years until it was conquered by the Muslims in 1006 AD.....According to legend, Kushtana, said to be a son of Ashoka, the Mauryan emperor, founded Khotan when he settled there about 224 BC..... in 640 AD Khotan submitted to the Tang emperor. The Four Garrisons of Anxi was established, one of them at Khotan.......The Tibetans later defeated the Chinese and took control of the Four Garrisons, and the Khotanese helped the Tibetans to conquer Aksu....in the 10th century, the Iranic Saka Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan was the only city-state that was not conquered yet by the Turkic Uyghur (Buddhist) and the Turkic Qarakhanid (Muslim) states....The Islamic conquest of Khotan led to alarm in the east, and it has been suggested it lead to the sealing of Dunhuang's Cave 17, which contained the Dunhuang manuscripts, after its caretakers heard that Khotan's Buddhist buildings were razed by the Muslims, and the Buddhist religion had suddenly ceased to exist in Khotan.....".....Wikipedia

The Tibetan History Reader.....edited by Gray Tuttle, Kurtis R. Schaeffer

http://zoroastrianheritage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/iranian-aryan-connections-with-western.html

A. Nikitin, G. Roth, "A New Seventh-Century Countermark with a Sogdian Inscription", The Numismatic Chronicle, 155, 1995: 277-279.

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