Click Here to View the Main Index
Email....okarresearch@gmail.com
In Kalacakra Buddhism, the Cintamani, the wish-fulfilling fire pearl.
The Cintamani is mentioned in Hindu texts as arising out of sea during the Churning of the Milky Ocean. The word "mani" here means "pearl" while "cinta" is "desire, love."
The Roman Emperor Elagabalus, who reigned from AD 218-222, was formerly a priest at the temple of Elagabal in the Syrian city of Emesa. It was common in that era for stones – meteorites in particular – to be venerated as gods and the conical Stone of Emesa was a perfect example. The stone garnered fame across the entire Roman Empire thanks to Elagabalus, who brought it from Emesa to Rome upon his installation as Emperor.
MECCA.....The Black Stone, or “Al-Hajarul Aswad”, is an ancient Muslim relic that according to Islamic tradition, fell from heaven to form the altar upon which the biblical Adam and Eve performed their first sacrifice. The Black Stone was venerated before the founding of Islam, and is said to have been positioned at the eastern cornerstone of the holy Ka’aba in the center of Mecca’s Grand Mosque by the prophet Muhammad himself.
Skt: Cinta-mani. This is represented in art as a bluish colored stone as large as a crystal ball. Mani literally means "stone", in contrast to the word "jewel" (ratna). The term Cinta means "thought". The Cintamani is literally the "thought-stone" or the stone which magnifies one's thoughts, i.e., fulfils one's wishes.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, an early thirteenth century Bavarian knight, is one of the earliest composers of a European Grail story. In his long and colourful poem, Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach described the Grail as a " stone of the purest kind" called lapsit exillis. " By the power of that stone," he said, " the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again. Thus does the phoenix molt and change its plumage, which after is bright and shining... There never was a human so ill but that, if he one day sees that stone, he cannot die within the week that follows. And in youth he shall not fade... This stone is also known as the Grail."
Amongst the legendary stories that have grown up around the memory of King Indrabhuti there is one in particular that is most fascinating. We are told that the old King, now blind, is unable to have a son. As in many a classical fairytale, some kind of 'wound' represents the sovereign's infertility. Here the wound appears as blindness. But the wound, the royal infirmity, does not infect the king alone. Infertility pertains to the whole kingdom. The land is impoverished by famine. The crops will not grow. The royal treasury is exhausted. Consequently, to find a cure, the Blind King must enter upon a quest for that magical blue pearl of the sea known as the Wish fulfilling Gem.
wish-fulfilling gem (Skt. chintamani; Tib. yid bzhin nor bu)
The description of the Healing Buddhas is given in the4 text "The abbreviated essence of he Healing Buddha Sutra, entitled "The Wishfulfilling gem" (Tib:sMan bLa'i mDo chog gi snying-pf bsdus-pa yid bzhin norbu zhes bya ba), compiled byShakya shramana Chos Kyi rGyal-mtshan, who delivered the teaching at the school of religious attainments at Tashilhunpo monastery.
Lipman, Kennard (c.1984). "How Samsara is Fabricated from the Ground of Being." Translated from Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa's Yid-bzhin rin-po-che'i mdzod. In Crystal Mirror IV. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing.
"The Legend of King Indrabhuti and the Holy Grail.......Amongst the legendary stories that have grown up around the memory of King Indrabhuti there is one in particular that is most fascinating. We are told that the old King, now blind, is unable to have a son. As in many a classical fairytale, some kind of 'wound' represents the sovereign's infertility. Here the wound appears as blindness. But the wound, the royal infirmity, does not infect the king alone. Infertility pertains to the whole kingdom. The land is impoverished by famine. The crops will not grow. The royal treasury is exhausted. Consequently, to find a cure, the Blind King must enter upon a quest for that magical blue pearl of the sea known as the Wish fulfilling Gem. Those familiar with medieval European culture will recognize that this story is, in fact, an early source of that great collection of aristocratic literature and poetry commonly known as the Grail Myth, which began to circulate in the West shortly after the first Crusades.....Dr. W. Y Evans-Wentz should probably be credited as the first to introduce the story of 'King Indrabhuti and the Wish-fulfilling Gem' to English readers in his The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, published by Oxford University Press in 1954. Evans-Wentz's translation reads:....."In the country of Urgyen (or Udyana), westward from Bodh-Gaya, there was the great city of Jatumati, containing a palace called 'Emerald Palace' wherein dwelt King Indrabodhi. Although possessed of vast wealth and power and blessed with five hundred queens and one hundred Buddhist and one hundred non-Buddhist ministers, Indrabodhi was blind; and his subjects called him 'the wealthiest king without eyes'. ....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury
Email....okarresearch@gmail.com
John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2012
The name "thought-jewel" (cintāmaṇi) evokes immediately that of the Philosophers' Stone (Lapis Philosophorum) of the Western alchemy. N. K. Roerich has written already about its relation to the Grail myth. It seems that in many traditions the symbols of the precious stone, the cup and the heart are inter-changeable. Thus in the Iranian mythology there was the cup of king Jamshed (= Avestan Yima) - jām-e Jam in which the whole universe was reflected (even today it is the name of a popular news channel in Iran) or also its equivalent - the cup of Kay Khosrow with a similar function as clairvoyant accessory (used instead of the traditional crystal ball which can be seen as equivalent to the "jewel" symbol).
ReplyDeleteIt is recognized by many scholars today that the roots of the Grail myth have come from the Scythian epic. In the Alanic Nartic tales there is such magic cup called Acamonga ("truth-revealing") or Nartamonga ("revealing the true hero"). According to the Scythian genealogical myth a golden cup was amongst the regal treasures that fell from the sky in the beginning in order to distinguish the chosen king out of the three brothers who then found the royal dynasty. According to Herodotus from this was derived a Scythian custom to wear cup on one's belt. The Greek version of the legend gives another interesting detail: the ordeal for the Scythian king was to put string in the bow of his ancestor Heracles-Targitaos and to gird up his belt. This girding of the "belt" could correspond to the closing of the circuit of the waist energetic channel (called in the Taoist alchemy dai mo), while putting the string in the bow is like closing the "microcosmic orbit" which in Taoist tradition consist of the back ascending channel (du mo, here - the "bow") and the front descending channel (ren mo, here - the "string"). The cup (equivalent to the "jewel" or the "crystal ball") as was mentioned above, is put on the belt, i.e. on the waist plane in the middle of the body, so the surface of the liquid in it (functioning as equivalent to the crystal in which visions should appear) is around the place of the cakra Maṇipūra from the Yoga tradition which name means literally "city of the jewel" (like the Grail Castle of the Western legend). Likewise in the contemporary Thai Buddhist tradition of Vijjā Dhammakāya there is a practice of visualizing crystal ball in the center of one's body where the practicant can see his progress while peeling the subtle higher bodies one after another. It is possible that the Western Hermetic traditions about the Grail, the Philosophers' Stone etc. have come from this Scythian "royal art" (Ars Regia as the alchemy was called in the Middle Ages).