Yungdrung, Rigpa & The Fourth Moment

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"In general, Buddhism is not overly concerned with the direction the svastika turns. This is not true for the Bon religion, however, where the left-turning yungdrung is the principal symbol of the religion, and a right-turning yungdrung has no meaning. The word is also part of the official name of the religion, Yungdrung Bon—"Everlasting Truth."...... Jeff Watt "Himalayan Buddhist Art 101"....http://www.tricycle.com/blog/himalayan-buddhist-art-101-controversial-art-part-2-svastika

"Before the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet, the shamanistic tribes of the northern wastes of the Eurasian Plateau, who originated either in Central or East Asia and tended their sheep, goats, and herds of yak, made their way to the fertile land in the south, which was inhabited by clans of farmers who tilled the soil. As the shepherds reached westwards into central Nepal about the beginning of the Christian era, they became more settled. The chiefs and their families established an aristocracy and displaced the native inhabitants who had an independent state with its own language, literature, and culture; these people continue living in remote areas of Zhang Zhung, Kashmir, Ladakh, Zanskar, and the Himalayan regions of Nepal. They are followers of the Yungdrung religion, a term designating Bon. Yung means “the unborn, the absolute, free of any inherent nature,” and drung means “constantly arising.” Yungdrung Bon is the native religion of Tibet.".......http://www.rinpoche.com/stories/tibet1.htm

"Tibetan translators worked under a top-down system in which royal edicts decreed the correct Tibetan word to be used for every Buddhist Sanskrit term. ...One of the problems for the early translators was what to do with certain important and powerful words that came from the pre-Buddhist culture of Tibet....One of the most powerful and resonant words in pre-Buddhist Tibet was yungdrung (g.yung drung). It was a the key terms for the old royal religion, the mythological backdrop to the kingly lineage of the Tibetan Empire. For example, the inscription of the tomb of Trisong Detsen has the line: “In accord with the eternal (yungdrung) customs (tsuglag), the Emperor and Divine Son Trisong Detsen was made the ruler of men.”... we see “the eternal dharma” (g.yung drung chos) in many Dunhuang manuscripts. Translators of Chinese Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan used it to translate nirvana. Translators of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures used it to translate the Sanskrit samyak, meaning “correct” or “perfect”, as well as various Sanskrit terms meaning “eternal”. This messy scene begins to look more like the chaos that bedevils contemporary translation efforts.. .......Buddhism and Bön III: what is yungdrung?....http://earlytibet.com/2008/04/30/buddhism-and-bon-iii-what-is-yungdrung/.......early Tibet: Notes, thoughts and fragments of research on the history of Tibet..... Sam van Schaik, based at the British Library, working for the International Dunhuang Project, where I am currently a principle investigator in the project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State (ERC). My previous research projects include Tibetan Zen (British Academy) Tibetan and Chinese paleography (Leverhulme) and the Tibetan tantric manuscripts from Dunhuang (AHRC).

"Beyond Present, Past, and Future Is The Fourth Moment.....totality is taking place. A very precise something or other is happening. That is the state of vipashyana. It is nonverbal and nonconceptual and very electric. It is neither ecstasy nor a state of dullness. Rather, a state of “hereness” is taking place, which is described in the Tibetan Buddhist literature as nowness. Nowness is sometimes referred to as the fourth moment. That may sound more mystical than what is meant. You have the past, present, and future, which are the three moments. Then you have something else taking place, which is called the fourth moment. The fourth moment is not a far-out or extraordinary experience as such. It is a state of experience that doesn’t even belong to now. It doesn’t belong to what might be, either. It belongs to a non-category—which provides another sense of category. Thus it is called the fourth moment. That is the state of vipashyana, or the state of non-ego. The Tibetan term for this is lhakthong dagme tokpe sherap, which means “the knowledge of egoless insight.” It is a very real experience in which nothing can be misunderstood. It is such an overwhelming experience. The experience comes at you. You experience it precisely and in great detail."......By Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche....http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2883&Itemid=0

".....awareness in Tibetan is lhak- thong...... lhakthong dagme tokpe sherap, which means “the knowledge that realizes egolessness through awareness.”....The Essential Chogyam Trungpa - Page 84.

"One of the problems for the early translators was what to do with certain important and powerful words that came from the pre-Buddhist culture of Tibet. In some ways it was clearly beneficial to use these words, so as to give them a new, Buddhist resonance. But they came with a lot of baggage. The same problems face translators nowadays when we contemplate using Christian words like ‘hell’ and ‘sin’ to translate Buddhist concepts.One of the most powerful and resonant words in pre-Buddhist Tibet was yungdrung (g.yung drung). It was a the key terms for the old royal religion, the mythological backdrop to the kingly lineage of the Tibetan Empire. For example, the inscription of the tomb of Trisong Detsen has the line: “In accord with the eternal (yungdrung) customs (tsuglag), the Emperor and Divine Son Trisong Detsen was made the ruler of men.” I discussed how to translate that term tsuglag in an earlier post. Here, as you no doubt noticed, I have translated yungdrung here as “eternal”. Eternity seems to be the general meaning of yungdrung in the early religion. In addition, the word was associated with the ancient Indo-European swastika design, which in Tibet was the graphic symbol of the eternal....http://earlytibet.com/2008/04/30/buddhism-and-bon-iii-what-is-yungdrung/

"According to Reza Assasi, Swastika is a geometric pattern in the sky representing the north ecliptic pole centred to Zeta Draconis. He argues that this primitive astrological symbol was later called the four-horse chariot of Mithra in ancient Iran and represented the centre of Ecliptic in the star map and also demonstrates that in Iranian mythology, the cosmos was believed to be pulled by four heavenly horses revolving around a fixed centre on clockwise direction possibly because of a geocentric understanding of an astronomical phenomenon called axial precession. He suggests that this notion was transmitted to the west and flourished in Roman mithraism in which this symbol appears in Mithraic iconography and astrological representations."....http://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Swastika#Jainism

The center star of the Swastika is Zeta Draconis.....Astrobiology Magazine is NASA daily publication

..."The omniscient eye of pristine awareness is an eyeball looking in all directions simultaneously, in the total 360 degree vision of the holistic seed, the source of space-time in the zero dimension. In rigpa, no temporal processes take place; there is no motion. Light has no speed. Nowhere located, the zero dimension is omnipresent, a universal constant and the 'background' and context of all experience. It is Samantabhadra, the silent witness of all. In his all-round perspective, there is no historical judgement, no bias or partiality. This is the zero dimension: Super-Openness....the natural atemporal continum.....".... ( Longchenpa's Precious Treasury of Natural Perfection / Keith Dowman

"Rigpa, the intrinsic reality of total presence, with a 360 degree perspective, free of quantitative bias, unsubstantiated by language or logic. unsigned, neither eternal nor temporal, subject to neither increase not decrease, without directional movement or pulsation, immaculate in the immensity of immanent hyper-sameness, it is seamless openness unconfined by time or space."...... ( Longchenpa's Precious Treasury of Natural Perfection / Keith Dowman

"....our Rigden-related Shambhala practices are closely tied in with the level of cosmic mirror or dharmakaya.".....http://kootenayforestretreat.org/program/ten-day-mahamudra-retreat/

"That “Mind of” [kyi sems] is the unmixed totally complete essence, the primal nature of the eight consciousnesses endowed with a luminous [‘od gsal] identity which inherently never wavers into any extreme at all, free from all extremes, naturally pure and unwavering in the three times. Now then, if it is asked “Is it not impossible for such a pure primal nature to appear to the mind of a person?”, it is possible, called “vidyā” [rig pa, the knowing aspect of the mind]. The vidyā of migrating beings itself appears as the mental consciousness in terms of apprehending subjects and apprehended objects. When vidyā manifests its own primal nature, the mental consciousness manifests as self-originated wisdom, and then the pure basis of the mental consciousness (free from the root of an apprehending subject and apprehended objects) bring samsara to an end. The wisdom of one’s vidyā (without root or leaf) — naturally perfected as it all-encompassingly subsumes everything — is the true state [de kho na nyid]. -- The Sun That Illuminates the Meaning.".....http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2013/12/clarifications-on-term-rigpa.html.....Malcolm Smith: The Sun that Illuminates the Meaning is a short pithy commentary on one of so called sems sde lungs, The Cuckoo of Vidyā (rig pa'i khu byug).

"..... translating rig pa as "awareness" is passe......Ye shes is normally translated as wisdom or primordial wisdom, but some people these days, following John Pettite and Richad Baron are liking primordial awareness for this.....I back translate rigpa in Sanskrit generally, as vidyā unless it is being used as a verb "to know". Adriano Clemente has stopped translating it altogether, which I approve of. However, since we use terms like dharmakāya, etc., for Buddhist Dzogchen texts at any rate, vidyā is another word that is preferable."....http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2013/12/clarifications-on-term-rigpa.html

"Düsum Khyenpa (Tibetan: 1110–1193 AD) was the 1st Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.....Düsum Khyenpa means "knower of the three times" (past, present and future). It was given to him to refer to knowledge of the three forms of time he gained at enlightenment including the "timeless time" of enlightened awareness..... He achieved enlightenment at the age of fifty, while practicing dream yoga. He had a vision at that time of the dakinis offering him a vajra crown woven from their hair."....Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. (2003). "Brief Histories of the Sixteen Karmapas".

""The question of Indo-Iranian influence on Bön has been open for a long time now. Seeking to explain some linguistic and cultural parallels, several scholars have brought forward different theories of how and when Bön could have been influenced by the Indo-Iranian culture and religion. These theories could be broadly summed up in four points:
- Bön (Yungdrung Bön) is a stream of Central Asian Buddhism adopted from India by the Iranian speaking regions in the West (such as Kushana Empire and so on) from where it reached the Tibetan Plateau prior to the introduction of Indian Buddhism per se from the South in the 8th century AD. This Central Asian Buddhism, traceable to Buddha Shakyamuni, mixed with the native culture and religion of the Tibetan Plateau producing what is now known as Yungdrung Bön. (Snellgrove, Tucci)
- Bön is a branch of Zoroastrianism or Mithraism and Tonpa Shenrab Miwo was a priest at the court of the Persian king Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty. (Gumilev, Kuznetsov)
- Yungdrung Bön is a plagiarized form of Indian Buddhism which emerged after the 8th century AD and any Indo-Iranian - and especially Indian - influence was acquired in this process. (This is the view of many Tibetan Buddhist scholars and some Western scholars who still follow this outdated and flimsy theory.)
- Yungdrung Bön is the original, authentic Central Asian Buddhism taught by the Buddha Tonpa Shenrab Miwo who was born in 16,017 BC (according to tradition) in the Central Asian region of Tagzig (modern-day Tajikistan and surrounding Central Asian states). Tonpa Shenrab Miwo brought Yungdrung Bön teachings to the Zhang Zhung Confederation (tribal union of 18 tribes) and Tibet (at that time only U and Tsang provinces) himself, and that is the source of most Indo-Iranian linguistic and cultural traces found in Tibetan Bön. (This is the traditional Bönpo view)."
SIBERIAN SHAMANISM (BӨ MURGEL) & TIBETAN SHAMANISM (BÖN TRADITION), the anthropologist connections according to the indo-iranian common origin, by Dmitri Ermakov.

Jain/Buddhist swastika garden... Ranakpur, Jain Temple. Just one percent of Indians are Jains. Like Hindus, strict Jains are vegetarians.

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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Ilkhanid Buddhism & Eurasian Iran (1256-1335 AD)

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"Ilkhanid Buddhism: Traces of a Passage in Eurasian History.....Ilkhanid Buddhism, a political and cultural phenomenon of the Ilkhanate, had a sudden visible presence within the Eurasian world and then dissolved into morediffuse traces. The Ilkhans ruled Iran and neighboring territories from 1256-1335 AD as the grandsons and heirs of Chinggis Khan (1162-1227) and as subordinate regional rulers to the dominant Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Few scholars today would deny the pivotal and creative role played by the Mongol conquests despite their destructive and by some measures relatively short span of governance. Ilkhanid Buddhism also had a paradoxical existence, burning bright for a short time, seemingly disappearing under subsequent layers of Islamic and Eurocentric histories, and yet continuing to spin its traces through currents of intellectual life. What follows explores a political and cultural mapping of Ilkhanid Buddhism and the Eurasian discourse onBuddhism of which it was a part during a critical historical period."....ROXANN PRAZNIAK .....Robert D. Clark Honors College, History, University of Oregon...Comparative Studies in Society and History....2014

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"The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate (Persian: ایلخانان‎, Ilkhanan; Mongolian: Хүлэгийн улс, Hulagu-yn Ulus), was a breakaway state of the Mongol Empire, which was ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu. It was established in the 13th century and was based primarily in Persia as well as neighboring territories, such as present-day Azerbaijan, and the central and eastern parts of present-day Turkey. The Ilkhanate was based, originally, on Genghis Khan's campaigns in the Khwarazmian Empire in 1219–1224, and was founded by Genghis's grandson, Hulagu Khan. In its fullest extent, the state expanded into territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, western Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan. The Ilkhanate initially embraced many religions, but was particularly sympathetic to Buddhism and Christianity...... Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, embraced Islam."....

‘Rashid al-Din’s Life of the Buddha – Buddhist Perspectives.’ In Akasoy, Burnett, Yoeli-Tlalim (eds), Rashid al-Din as an Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran....This paper discusses the way of ‘cultural translation’ in which Rashid al-Din uses and adapts Buddhist notions in his ‘Life of the Buddha’. As such it exemplifies the way in which Buddhism and Islam not only translated each other in the Ilkhanid court, but also interacted with each other....Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb (Persian: رشیدالدین طبیب‎) also Rashīd al-Dīn Fadhl-allāh Hamadānī (1247–1318) (Persian: رشیدالدین فضل‌الله همدانی‎), was a Persian statesman, historian and physician thought to be of Persian Jewish family from Hamedan (Hamadani). A follower of Islam by the time he was 30, Rahid al-Din became the powerful vizier (prime minister) of the Ilkahn Mahmud Ghazan. Later he was commissioned by Ghazan to write the Jami al-Tawarikh, now considered the most important single source for the history of the Ilkhanid period and the Mongolian Empire.".....Morgan, D.O. (1994). "Rāshid Al-Dīn Tabīb". Encyclopaedia of Islam

"...Hulagu humiliated the defeated Last Caliph Musta'sim, which was history’s ironical way of seeking retribution for the humiliation of the last Persian Emperor Yazdgard in the same city in 637 (then known as Ctesiphon) by the victorious Arab Muslims.... All the residents of Baghdad were slaughtered in cold blood. Howsoever, ghastly this act was, with this one act the Mongols repaid all the six hundred years of Muslim bloodshed. Nearly eighty thousand people in all were slaughtered in Baghdad in a matter of two days."....http://www.historyofjihad.org/mongolia.html

"The actual founder of the Ilkhanate dynasty was Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and brother of both Möngke Khan and Kublai Khan......In the period after Hulagu, the Ilkhans increasingly adopted Tibetan Buddhism. Christian powers were encouraged by what appeared to be a favoring of Nestorian Christianity by the Ilkhanate's rulers but this probably went no deeper than the Mongols' traditional even-handedness towards competing religions. Thus the Ilkhans were markedly out of step with the Muslim majority they ruled. Ghazan, shortly before he overthrew Baydu, converted to Islam and his official favoring of Islam as a state religion coincided with a marked attempt to bring the regime closer to the non-Mongol majority of the regions they ruled. Christian and Jewish subjects lost their equal status with Muslims and again had to pay the poll tax. Buddhists had the starker choice of conversion or expulsion.".....Medieval Persia 1040–1797, David Morgan p.72.....

Buddha offers fruit to the devil, Khalili Collection from The Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh....Since 1970, Nasser Khalili has assembled, under the auspices of the Khalili Family Trust, eight of the world's finest and most comprehensive art collections

"The Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, (Mongolian: Судрын чуулган, Sudar-yn Chuulgan; Arabic: جامع التواريخ ‎; Persian: جامع‌التواریخ ‎), ("Compendium of Chronicles") is a work of literature and history, produced by the Mongol Ilkhanate in Persia. Written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318) at the start of the 14th century, the breadth of coverage of the work has caused it to be called "the first world history". It was in three volumes. The surviving portions total approximately 400 pages, with versions in Persian, Arabic, and Mongolian. The work describes cultures and major events in world history from China to Europe; in addition, it covers Mongol history, as a way of establishing their cultural legacy..... Approximately 20 illustrated copies were made of the work during Rashid al-Din's lifetime, but only a few portions remain, and the complete text has not survived.... Two Persian copies from the first generation of manuscripts survive in the Topkapi Palace Library in Istanbul. "

Atwood, Christopher P. (2004). The Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire.

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"..... a substantial proportion of men in the world are direct line descendants of Genghis Khan. By direct line, I mean that they carry Y chromosomes which seem to have come down from an individual who lived approximately 1,000 years ago. As Y chromosomes are only passed from father to son, that would mean that the Y is a record of one’s patrilineage. Genghis Khan died ~750 years ago, so assuming 25 years per generation, you get about 30 men between the present and that period. In more quantitative terms, ~10% of the men who reside within the borders of the Mongol Empire as it was at the death of Genghis Khan may carry his Y chromosome, and so ~0.5% of men in the world, about 16 million individuals alive today, do so.".....By Razib Khan | August 5, 2010 .....http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.VHcf24umNS8

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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Ubayd Allah, The Sita River & the Moslem Conquest of Shambala (698 - 870 AD)

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Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorje:......"In 672 an Arab governor of Sistan, Abbad ibn Ziyad, raided the frontier of Al-Hind and crossed the desert to Gandhara, but quickly retreated again. The marauder Obaidallah crossed the Sita River (aka Kabul River) and made a raid on Kabul in 698 only to meet with defeat and humiliation. Vincent Smith, in Early History of India, states that the Turkishahiya dynasty continued to rule over Kabul and Gandhara up until the advent of the Saffarids in the ninth century. Forced by the inevitable advance of Islam on the west, they then moved their capital from Kapisa to Wahund on the Indus, whence they contin­ued as the Hindushahiya dynasty. This was in 870 A.D. and marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination. The Hindushahis recaptured Kabul and the rest of their Kingdom after the death of the conqueror Yaqub but never again maintained Kapisa as their capital.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

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"Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad (Arabic: عبيد الله بن زياد‎) was an early Muslim general and governor for the Umayyad Caliphate.....He was the son of Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan. After his father's death in 673, Ubayd became the Governor of Kufa and Basra and later Khurasan. He also minted coinage, which survives to this day. In 674 he would cross the Amu Darya and defeat the forces of the ruler of Bukhara what would become the first known invasion of the city by Muslim Arabs."....The Arab Conquests in Central Asia By H. A. R. Gibb ... 2007

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"According to contemporary historian John bar Penkaye, al-Mukhtar sent an army of 13,000 lightly armed freedmen on foot under the command of Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar. At the river al-Khazir Ibrahim met with Ubayd Allah, whose army had 40,000 soldiers. In the ensuing battle, Ubayd Allah's army was annihilated, and Ubayd Allah himself with most of his lieutenants fell.....John bar Penkaye was an East Syriac Nestorian Christian writer of the late 7th century. He lived at the time of fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty Abd al-Malik..John bar Penkaye's writings provides an eye-witness account of the Arab conquests of his time...A number of his works are still in existence. Most of them have never been published and are extant only in manuscripts.."...S. Brock, A brief outline of Syriac Literature,

Smith, Vincent Arthur, 1848-1920....Alexander, the Great, 356-323 B.C; India -- History To 324 B.C; India -- History 324 B.C.-1000 A.D....Publisher: Oxford : The Clarendon press (1914)

The Khwarazmian dynasty, dynasty of Khwarazm Shahs, from Persian خوارزمشاهیان Khwārazmshāhiyān, "Kings of Khwarezmia") was a Persianate Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin....The dynasty ruled large parts of Greater Iran during the High Middle Ages, in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuqs and Kara-Khitan, and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia in the 13th century. The dynasty was founded by Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former Turkish slave of the Seljuq sultans, who was appointed the governor of Khwarezm....In the 800's, the Oguzes from the Aral steppes drove Bechens from the Emba and Ural River region toward the west. In the 900's, they inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai, and Emba to the north of Lake Balkhash of modern-day Kazakhstan. A clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraced Islam and in the 1000s entered Persia, where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire."....Grousset, R. The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press, 1991

"The Kabul River (Persian/Urdu: دریای کابل‎; Pashto: کابل سیند‎, Sanskrit: कुभा ), the classical Cophes /ˈkoʊfiːz/, is a 700-kilometre (430 mi) long river that starts in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and ends in the Indus River near Attock, Pakistan. It is the main river in eastern Afghanistan and is separated from the watershed of the Helmand by the Unai Pass. The Kabul River passes through the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan before flowing into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan some 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the Durand Line border crossing at Torkham. The major tributaries of the Kabul River are the Logar, Panjshir, Kunar, Alingar, Bara and Swat rivers.....The Kabul River is little more than a trickle for most of the year, but swells in summer due to melting snows in the Hindu Kush Range. Its largest tributary is the Kunar River, which starts out as the Mastuj River, flowing from the Chiantar glacier in Chitral, Pakistan and after flowing south into Afghanistan it is met by the Bashgal river flowing from Nurestan. The Kunar meets the Kabul near Jalalabad. In spite of the Kunar carrying more water than the Kabul, the river continues as the Kabul River after this confluence, mainly for the political and historical significance of the name."

The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia ...,(1873) Volume 3......By Edward Balfour

The Sanskrit sita simply means white or pure.

"Safēd Kōh (Persian: سفید کوه‎, Urdu: سفید کوہ‎, "White Mountains"; also known as Spin Ghar (Pashto: سپين غر‎, "white mountain", the Indian Caucasus as late as the 19th century, the Safīd Mountain Range and as the Morga Range), is a mountain range in eastern Afghanistan and expanding well to North-Western Pakistan......Its highest peak, straight and rigid Mount Sikaram, towers above all surrounding hills to 4,761 m (15,620 ft) above mean sea level. The Kabul River cuts a narrow trough through the Safēd Kōh mountains to flow eastward into the Indus River; otherwise, the range connects directly with the Shandur Top offshoot of the Hindu Kush mountain system...Mount Sikaram is a mountain in the Spin Ghar range on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border south of the Kabul River and Khyber Pass. At 4,755 m (15,600 ft), it is the highest peak of the Spin Ghar.."

"...passages in Tibetan texts mention Shambhala is located north of the river Sita."

"In a unique ninth century manuscript found at Dunhuang, called Huichao wang wu tianzhuguo shuan (Account of Huichao's Journey to the Five Lands of India)...Around 726 AD a Buddhist monk from Silla (Korea?) named Huichao travelled in the region of Balkh.......After coming to India from China by sea, Huichao made his way through much of India, and then travelled over the Hindu Kush into Tokharistan before returning to China overland through the Tarim basin. In the time since Xuanzang's visit (629-645 AD), Arab armies had conquered all of the Persian Empire and had been making war on Tokharistan for a long time....In 725 AD the Arab garrison had been moved into Balkh proper, as Arab sources tell.".

"From the land of Bamiyan I travelled northwards 20 days, and I arrived in Tokharistan (Tuhuoluo-guo). The home city of the king is called Balkh. At this time the troops of the Arabs are there and they occupy it. Its king was forced to flee one month's journey to the east and lives in Badakhshan. Now Balkh belongs to the Arabs' domain.....the language is different from that of the other lands; though somewhat similar to that of Kapisa....From the King to the lowly people, they all wear fur and cotton....there are plenty of horses, camels, cotton and grapes....the king, the nobles and the people revere the Three Jewels....the men cut their beards and hair....the land has many mountains...."....From a unique ninth century manuscript found at Dunhuang, called Huichao wang wu tianzhuguo shuan (Account of Huichao's Journey to the Five Lands of India).....In his view the King of Balkh was still alive and in exile in Badakhshan (Pashto/Persian: بدخشان‎) a historic region comprising parts of what is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan. The name is retained in Badakhshan Province which is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, in the far northeast of Afghanistan, and contains the Wakhan Corridor.

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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Bactrian & Sogdian Languages and the Moghon Shine Usu Inscription (770 AD)

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"Later Shambhalists would identify the ancient Uighur kingdom of Khocho, centered around the Turfan Depression, as one of the prime candidates for the physical location of Shambhala." ......http://balkhandshambhala.blogspot.ca/2013/01/shamis-en-balkh-alexander-csoma.html

"The Bactrian language (Bactrian: αρια, Arya) is a Middle Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan), and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. Bactrian was closely related to the extinct medieval Middle Iranian languages Sogdian, Khwarezmian and Parthian as well as to the modern Eastern Iranian languages Pashto, Yidgha, and Munji....Bactrian was natively known as αρια or "Arya" language. Because Bactrian was written predominantly in an alphabet based on the Greek script, Bactrian is sometimes referred to as "Greco-Bactrian", "Kushan" or "Kushano-Bactrian".."

"The Uighur Terkh runic inscription deciphered by S.G.Klyashtorny describes the military merits of El Etmish Bilgä qaγan (749–759), the actual founder of the Uighur Empire.....Runic inscriptions of the Uighur Empire in Inner Asia (744–840 AD) still contain many interesting accounts, which had not been fully utilised yet.... Domestic and external policy of Bögü-qaγan who accepted Manichaeism as a state religionin 762 and relied on Sogdians resulted in the extreme strengthening of the latter’s position in the Uighur state. This inevitably evoked strong resistance of the Uighur aristocracy. Political opposition finally succeeded in overthrowing Bögü-qaγan in 779 and replacing him with his cousin Ton Baγa-tarqan. The coup d’etat was reported to the T’ang court by Liang Wen-hsiu, the Chinese envoy to the Uighur capital, who eye witnessed that event. In the course of the coup d’etat Bögü-qaγan and about 2000 of his relatives and followers were murdered.....Revisiting the Uighur Runic Inscriptions and the T'ang Sources.....by Ablet Kamalov

History of Civilizations of Central Asia

"Naiman means "Eight" - the Naiman people were called like this because they were made up of eight tribes. They also had a Turkic names, "Säkizlär", which also ment "Eight (Tribes)". There is a theory that they were the descendents the Säkiz Oġuz (Sekiz Oguz, Eight Tribes) mentioned in the early Uyghur inscription of Shine Usu written for Bayan Čor Qaġan (Bayan Chor Qaghan) in the mid-8th century, but there is nothing else to prove that.....Where is the original land of Naiman? How they came in Afghanistan?."....http://steppes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=board20&action=display&thread=371

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"Turkic Runes.....Central Asia.....8th to 9th Century AD....One of the earliest recorded Turkic language is in the form of a script called "Turkic Runes", found in Russia's southern Siberia and the Xinjiang uygur Autonomous Region of China (a region not surprisingly also known as Chinese Turkestan) beginning at around the 8th century CE......At first sight, the angular Turkic Runes evoke comparison with Futhark or Germanic Runes. However, Turkic Runes cannot be shown to relate to Futhark conclusively. The angular visual style of Turkic Runes is more likely a result of carving texts on hard surfaces rather than some kind of formal link with Futhark. Instead, it is far more likely that Turkic Runes is derived from the Sogdian script......There are two slightly different forms of Turkic Runes, namely Orchon and Yenisei. They are named after the geographical location they are found....Turkic Runes ceased to be used by the 9th century CE. Instead they started to use the Uighur (Uygur) script which was another offshoot of the Sogdian script."......http://www.ancientscripts.com/turkic_runes.html

"The Old Uyghur alphabet (回鹘文字母 Huíhúwénzìmǔ) was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turfan, which is an ancestor of the modern Yugur language. The term "Old Uyghur" used for this alphabet is misleading because the Uyghurs of Mongolia used the runic Orkhon (Old Turkic) alphabet, and only adopted this script used by the local inhabitants when they migrated into Turfan after 840. It was an adaptation of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in Turfan. The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian and Manchu alphabets. The Old Uyghur alphabet was brought to Mongolia from Tata-tonga."

"Uighur Script.....Central Asia.....8th to 17th Century AD.....The Uighur Alphabet was derived from the cursive Sogdian script, which ultimately traces back to Aramaic. However, unlike Sogdian and Aramaic, the Uighur script is written from top to bottom and in columns going from left to right, like Aramaic turned 90 degrees counterclockwise....The Uighur alphabet was adopted to write Mongolian in 12th century CE..".....http://www.ancientscripts.com/uighur.html

"The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdiana. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from approximately 100-1200 AD.....Three main varieties of the Sogdian alphabet developed over time: Early Sogdian, an archaic non-cursive type; the sutra script, a calligraphic script used in Sogdian Buddhist scriptures; and the so-called "Uyghur" cursive script (not to be confused with the Old Uyghur alphabet). Early Sogdian dates to the early fourth century AD., and is characterized by distinct, separated graphemes. The sutra script appears around 500 C.E., while the cursive script develops approximately a century later. The cursive script is thus named because its letters are connected with a base line. Since many letters in the cursive script are extremely similar in form, to the point of being indistinguishable, it is the most difficult to read of the three varieties. As the Sogdian alphabet became more cursive and more stylized, some letters became more difficult to distinguish..."

Kamalov, A.: The Moghon Shine Usu Inscription as the Earliest Uighur Historical Annals. In: Central Asiatic Journal .....47:1 (2003)

Mackerras, C.: The Uighur Empire (744–840). According to the T’ang dynastic histories. Australian NationalUniversity, Canberra 1968, p. 88

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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Greco-Bactrians: Ariana, Arachosia and Bactria, (250 - 90 BC)

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"The Indo-Greek King Menander I (Pali Milinda) (c. 165 –130 BC) 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.

"Ariana, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ἀρειανή Arianē.... (inhabitants: Ariani; Αρειανοί Arianoi), was a general geographical term used by some Greek and Roman authors of the ancient period for a district of wide extent between Central Asia and the Indus River, comprehending the eastern provinces of the Achaemenid Empire that covered entire modern-day Iran, Afghanistan,most of Pakistan , most of Turkmenistan and southern of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan."

Greco-Bactrians, 250–110 BC; Indo-Greeks, 155–90 BC..

"King Menander I, 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

"Demetrius I (Greek: Δημήτριος Α΄; Persian: ‎/Pashto: دیمتریوس بلخی‎) was a Greek king (reigned c. 200–180 BC) of Gandhara. He was the son of Euthydemus and succeeded him around 200 BC, after which he conquered extensive areas in what now is eastern Iran thus creating an Indo-Greek Kingdom far from Hellenistic Greece. He was never defeated in battle and was posthumously qualified as the Invincible (Aniketos) on the pedigree coins of his successor Agathocles......"Demetrius" was the name of at least two, probably three Greek kings of Bactria (known as "ولایت بلخی" or Balkh Province in Afghanistan) and India. The much debated Demetrius II was a possible relative, whereas Demetrios III (c. 100 BC), is known only from numismatic evidence. Demetrius I was also known as the second Alexander. the Great."

"Demetrius started the invasion of northwestern India from 180 BC, following the destruction of the Mauryan dynasty by the general Pushyamitra Sunga, who then founded the new Indian Sunga dynasty (185–78 BC). The Mauryans had had diplomatic alliances with the Greeks, and they may have been considered as allies by the Greco-Bactrians. The Greco-Bactrians may also have invaded India in order to protect Greek populations in the subcontinent.......Demetrius may have first started to recover the province of Arachosia, an area south of the Hindu Kush already inhabited by many Greeks but ruled by the Mauryas since the liberation of the territory by Chandragupta from Seleucus. In his "Parthian stations", Isidorus of Charax mentions a colony named Demetrias, supposedly founded by Demetrius himself:......."Beyond is Arachosia. And the Parthians call this White India; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus. As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians." "Parthians stations", 1st century BC."....Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Greco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p52.

"Arachosia /ærəˈkoʊsiə/ 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 laid in what is today Kandahar in Afghanistan."

"Arachosia" is the Latinized form of Greek Ἀραχωσία - Arachōsíā. "The same region appears in the Avestan Vidēvdāt (1.12) under the indigenous dialect form Haraxvaitī- (whose -axva- is typical non-Avestan)." In Old Persian inscriptions, the region is written h-r-v-u-t-i. This form is the "etymological equivalent" of Vedic Sanskrit Sarasvatī-, the name of a (mythological) river literally meaning "rich in waters/lakes" and derived from sáras- "lake, pond." (cf. Aredvi Sura Anahita)."Arachosia" was named after the name of a river that runs through it, in Greek Arachōtós, today known as the Arghandab, a left bank tributary of the Helmand River."

Ariana and Arachosia...A 15th century reconstruction (by Nicolaus Germanus) of a 2nd-century map (by Ptolemy)....Following the Partition of Babylon, the region became part of the Seleucid Empire, which traded it to the Mauryan Empire in 305 BC as part of an alliance. The Sunga Dynasty overthrew the Mauryans in 185 BC, but shortly afterwards lost Arachosia to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. It then became part of the break-away Indo-Greek Kingdom in the mid 2nd century BC....After 400 AD, Arachosia became part of the surviving Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdoms of Kapisa, then Kabul, before coming under attack from the Moslem Arabs."

"Menander’s successors, Queen Agathocleia and Strato I Soter, continued to reign for at least 40 years after his death, but their lives saw the emergence of a new dynasty in western India, that of the Sakas (Scythians) and Yueh-Chih from central Asia, and the Greek Bactrian era came to an end."....http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

"Tibetan histories and works on Kala Chakrait may be conjectured that this S'ambhala, very probably, was the capital of the Bactrian Empire of the Eastern Greeks who had embraced Buddhism. It is also conjectured that the modern city of Balkh must have been the site of their latest capital. The name of King Menander {Minendra) who erected a very lofty chaiti/a has been mentioned by the Kashmirian poet Ksomendra, in Avaddna Kalpalatd, a work that was finished in about 1035 A.D…."...https://archive.org/stream/grammaroftibetan00dass/grammaroftibetan00dass_djvu.txt

Arya: Sanskrit/Indian: Noble, great, truthful.....The word "Arya" itself is a Sanskrit and Avestan/Old Persian word that means "noble".

"The Greek term Arianē (Latin: Ariana) is based upon an Iranian word found in Avestan...... Airiiana- (especially in Airiianəm Vaēǰō, the name of the Iranian peoples' mother country). The modern name Iran represents a different form of the ancient name Ariana which derived from Airiianəm Vaēǰō and implies that Iran is "the" Ariana itself – a word of Old Iranian origin.- a view supported by the traditions of the country preserved in the Muslim writers of the ninth and tenth centuries.".....The names Ariana and Aria, and many other ancient titles of which Aria is a component element, are connected with the Sanskrit term Arya-, the Avestan term Airya-, and the Old Persian term Ariya-, a self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran, meaning "noble", "excellent" and "honourable".

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"In page 193, of his Grammar, Alexander Csoma has the following passage: — .....He conjectured that S'ambhala must have been the capital of a kingdom ihat flourished in the early centuries of Christ and that S'ridhdnya Kataica was the Cuttak of Orissa. The last of the kings of S'ambhala is, however, not mentioned in the Ju!a Tantra....... It is stated that a king named Samudra Vijaya arrived at S'ambhala in 618 A.D., and shortly after that the period called, in the Tibetan chronology, (Me-kha-rgya-Mtsho*,) commenced. It is also stated that in 622 A.D., at Makha (Mecca) the Muhamadan religion was established. From what can be gathered from Tibetan histories and works on Kala Chakrait may be conjectured that this S'ambhala, very probably, was the capital of the Bactrian Empire of the Eastern Greeks who had embraced Buddhism. It is also conjectured that the modern city of Balkh must have been the site of their latest capital. The name of King Menander {in Sans. Minendra) whq erected a very lofty chaiti/a has been mentioned by the Kashmirian poet Ksomendra, in^ha Avaddna Kalpalatd, a work that was finished iu about 1035 A.D. ".....https://archive.org/stream/grammaroftibetan00dass/grammaroftibetan00dass_djvu.txt

"At various times, the region of Ariana was governed by the Persians (Achaemenids, 550–330 BC; Sasanians, 275–650 AD; Kushano-Sasanians, 345–450 AD), Macedonians (Seleucids, 330–250 BC; Greco-Bactrians, 250–110 BC; Indo-Greeks, 155–90 BC), Iranian peoples from Persia and Central Asia (Parthians, 160 BC–225 AD; Indo-Scythians, 90 BC–20 AD; Indo-Parthians, 20–225 AD; Kushans, 110 BC–225 AD), white Huns (Kidarites, 360–465 AD; Hephthalites, 450–565 AD), Indian empires (Mauryans, 275–185 BC; Hindu-Shahis)."

"Arya (Sanskrit, also ārya; Pāli: ariya) is a term frequently used in Buddhism that can be translated as "noble", "not ordinary", "valuable", "precious", "pure", etc. Arya in the sense of "noble" or "exalted" is frequently used in Buddhist texts to designate a spiritual warrior or hero. The term is used in the following contexts:
The Four Noble Truths are called the catvāry ārya satyāni (Sanskrit) or cattāri ariya saccāni (Pali).
The Noble Eightfold Path is called the ārya mārga (Sanskrit, also āryāṣṭāṅgikamārga) or ariya magga (Pāli).
Buddha's Dharma and Vinaya are the ariyassa dhammavinayo.
In Buddhist texts, the āryas are those who have the Buddhist śīla (Pāli sīla, meaning "virtue") and follow the Buddhist path.
Buddhists who have attained one of the four levels of awakening (stream-entry, once-returner, non-returner, arahant) are themselves are called ariya puggalas (Arya persons).
Those who despise Buddhism are often called "anāryas".

"Professor Frank Holt, Professor of ancient Greek and Roman history wrote, Bactria (now Afghanistan) had been a center of civilization long before the rise of the Greek cities....William Dalrymple a British historian wrote. The Great Mughals to regard Afghanistan as a far more elegantly cultured place than India....Ariana- meaning "Land of the Aryans" Ariana (now Afghanistan) the name of the Iranian peoples mother country). Ariana was named after its one of provinces Aria, a region enclosed chiefly the valley of the Hari River which is modern day's Herat Province of Afghanistan.....Since the Indo-Aryan peoples built their first Kingdom in Bactria (now Balkh) scholars believe that it was from this area that different waves of Indo-Aryan peoples spread to Iran and Seistan, where they became today's Persian, Pashtuns, and Baloch, The ones that stayed in Bactria became Tajiks, who are located in modern Balkh and surrounding areas. The period between 26th- 20th century BC was the most important period in the history of Balkh."

Frank Lee Holt .....Alexander the Great and Bactria: The Formation of a Greek Frontier in Central Asia (1989)

"ARYA / HERAT ...by W. J. Vogelsang.......The present town of Herat in western Afghanistan dates back to ancient times, but its exact age remains unknown. In Achaemenid times (ca. 550-330 B.C.E.), the surrounding district was known as Haraiva (in Old Persian), and in classical sources the region was correspondingly known as Areia. In the Zoroastrian Avesta (Yašt 10.14; Vidēvdāt 1.9), the district is mentioned as Harōiva. The name of the district and its main town is derived from that of the chief river of the region, the Hari Rud (Old Iranian *Harayu “with velocity”; compare Sanskrit Saráyu [Mayrhofer, Dictionary III, p. 443]), which traverses the district and passes just south (5 km) of modern Herat. The naming of a region and its principal town after the main river is a common feature in this part of the world. (Compare the adjoining districts/rivers/towns of Arachosia and Bactria.)....The site of Herat dominates the productive part of ancient Areia, which was, and basically still is, a rather narrow stretch of land that extends for some 150 km along both banks of the Hari Rud, from near Obeh in the east to near Kuhsān in the west. At no point along its route is the valley more than 25 km wide. The city and district of Areia/Herat occupy an important strategic place along the age-old caravan routes across the Iranian Plateau.....http://lukferi.webs.com

William Dalrymple....

Bronkhorst, J.; Deshpande, M.M., eds. (1999), Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation, and Ideology, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

F. R. Allchin and N. Hammond, The Archaeology of Afghanistan. From Earliest Times to the Timurid Period, London , 1978.

W. J. Vogelsang, The Rise and Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire. The Eastern Iranian Evidence, Leiden, 1992. Idem, The Afghans, Oxford, 2002.

"King Vishtasp of Bakhdi / Balkh.....Among the Farvardin Yasht's list of Zarathushtra's first "hearers and teachers" is Kavoish Vishtaspahe (Kava Vishtasp) (13.99). In the Yasht, Kava Vishtasp has a special place having a verse devoted to him. The common extrapolation is that Kava Vishtasp is the Kai Gushtasp (Gushtasp is a later form of Vishtasp) mentioned in later texts which also state that King Vishtasp's / Gushtasp's capital was Bakhdhi or Bakhdi, i.e. present day Balkh in Northern Afghanistan. ....Bakhdi is listed as a nation in the Vendidad but not in the Farvardin Yasht. These later texts also tell us that Zarathushtra died in Bakhdi/Balkh, killed by a Turanian. ...Balkh is directly south of Samarkand over an eastern spur of the Pamir mountains. The predecessors of present day Samarkand and Balkh are among the first nations listed in another (and later) book of the Avesta - the Vendidad."....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/airyanavaeja.htm

Migration of the Aryans and Expansion of Aryan Lands....Before the era of legendary King Jamshid, see (Aryan Prehistory and Location of Aryan Homeland), the original Aryan homeland in the Avesta, Airyana Vaeja, could not have been very large. However, starting in the Jamshidi era and continuing up to the establishment of the Achaemenian Persian empire under Darius the Great, the Aryan lands did grow considerably in size."...http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/airyanavaeja.htm

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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The Questions of King Menander .... Bactria, 150 BC

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The Indo-Greek King Menander I (Pali Milinda) (c. 165 –130 BC) 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.

"The Milinda Panha (Pali trans. "Questions of Milinda") is a Buddhist text which dates from approximately 100 BC. It is included in the Burmese edition of the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism as a book of the Khuddaka Nikaya; however, it does not appear in the Thai or Sri Lankan versions. A shorter version of it, however, is featured in Chinese Mahayana translations.....It purports to record a dialogue in which the Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali Milinda) of Bactria, who reigned in the 2nd century BCE, poses questions on Buddhism to the sage Nāgasena....The earliest part of the text is believed to have been written between 100 BC and 200 AD The text may have initially been written in Sanskrit; however, apart from the Sri Lankan Pali edition and its derivatives, no other copies are known.."

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"Menander 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

"The Milinda Pa¤ha is, with good reason, a famous work of Buddhist literature, probably compiled in the first century B.C. It presents Buddhist doctrine in a very attractive and memorable form as a dialogue between a Bactrian Greek king, Milinda, who plays the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ and a Buddhist sage, Nàgasena. The topics covered include most of those questions commonly asked by Westerners such as “If there is no soul, what is it that is reborn?” and “If there is no soul, who is talking to you now?”....http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

"The Milinda Pa¤ha is a Pali book written in about the 1st century B.C. King Milinda, a Bactrian king who ruled the northeast of India, met a learned monk called Nàgasena and the king put to him a number of questions on the philosophy, psychology, and ethics of Buddhism. I presume this debate was conducted in the Bactrian Greek language, but was later translated into Pali and Sanskrit."...http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

"The contents of the Milindapañhā are:
Background History
Questions on Distinguishing Characteristics : (Characteristics of Attention and Wisdom, Characteristic of Wisdom, Characteristic of Contact, Characteristic of Feeling, Characteristic of Perception, Characteristic of Volition, Characteristic of Consciousness, Characteristic of Applied Thought, Characteristic of Sustained Thought, etc.)
Questions for the Cutting Off of Perplexity : (Transmigration and Rebirth, The Soul, Non-Release From Evil Deeds, Simultaneous Arising in Different Places, Doing Evil Knowingly and Unknowingly, etc.) Questions on Dilemmas : Speaks of several puzzles and these puzzles were distributed in eighty-two dilemmas.
A Question Solved By Inference
Discusses the Special Qualities of Asceticism
Questions on Talk of Similes

"Milinda called upon the Yonakas and the brethren to witness: 'This Nâgasena says there is no permanent individuality (no soul) implied in his name. Is it now even possible to approve him in that?' And turning to Nâgasena, he said: 'If, most reverend Nâgasena, there be no permanent individuality (no soul) involved in the matter, who is it, pray, who gives to you members of the Order your robes and food and lodging and necessaries for the sick? Who is it who enjoys such things when given? Who is it who lives a life of righteousness? Who is it who devotes himself to meditation? Who is it who attains to the goal of the Excellent Way, to the Nirvâna of Arahatship? And who is it who destroys living creatures? who is it who takes what is not his own? who is it who lives an evil life of worldly lusts, who speaks lies, who drinks strong drink, who (in a word) commits any one of the five sins which work out their bitter fruit even in this life 1? If that be so there is neither merit nor demerit; there is neither doer nor causer of good or evil deeds; there is neither fruit nor result of good or evil Karma. --If, most reverend Nâgasena, we are to think that were a man to kill you there would be no murder, then it follows that there are no real masters or teachers in your Order, and that your ordinations are void.--You tell me that your brethren in the Order are in the habit of addressing you as Nâgasena. Now what is that Nâgasena"....BOOK II.....LAKKHANA PAÑHA......THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHICAL QUALITIES.......CHAPTER 1..........translated by T. W. Rhys Davids.

"Tibetan histories and works on Kala Chakrait may be conjectured that this S'ambhala, very probably, was the capital of the Bactrian Empire of the Eastern Greeks who had embraced Buddhism. It is also conjectured that the modern city of Balkh must have been the site of their latest capital. The name of King Menander {Minendra) who erected a very lofty chaiti/a (Castle) has been mentioned by the Kashmirian poet Ksomendra, in Avaddna Kalpalatd, a work that was finished in about 1035 A.D…."...https://archive.org/stream/grammaroftibetan00dass/grammaroftibetan00dass_djvu.txt

"Sagala or Sangala, the ancient Greek name for the modern city of Sialkot in present day Pakistan, was a city of located in northern Punjab, Pakistan. Sagala was known as Sakala to the natives of the Indian sub-continent during ancient times. Sagala (alias Sakala) is mentioned as the capital of the successor Greek kingdom when it was made the capital by King Menander I, son of Demetrius."

"Excerpt from: The Chariot exchange between the Venerable Nagasena and King Milinda: "In the land of the Bactrian Greeks, there was a city called Sagala...The Venerable Nagasena stayed at the Sankheyya hermitage together with 80,000 monks. King Milinda, accompanied by a retinue of 500 Greeks, went up to where he was, gave him a friendly and courteous greeting, and sat on one side.
"Then, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all. This "chariot" is just a mere sound. But what is the real chariot? Your Majesty has told a lie, has spoken a falsehood! There is really no chariot! Your Majesty is the greatest king in the whole of India. Of whom then are you afraid, that you do not speak the truth?" And he exclaimed: "Now listen, you 500 Greeks and 80,000 monks, this King Milinda tells me that he has come on a chariot. But when asked to explain to me what a chariot is, he cannot establish its existence. How can one possibly approve of that?"
The 500 Greeks thereupon applauded the Venerable Nagasena and said to King Milinda: "Now let You Majesty get out of that if you can!"
But King Milinda said to Nagasena: "I have not, Nagasena, spoken a falsehood. For it is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the wheels, the framework, the flag-staff, etc, there takes place this denomination "chariot", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name."
"Your Majesty has spoken well about the chariot. It is just so with me. In dependence on the thirty-two parts of the body and the five Skandhas, there takes place this denomination "Nagasena", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name. In ultimate realtiy, however, this person cannot be apprehended. And this has been said by our sister Vajira when she was face to face with the Lord Buddha:
"Where all constituent parts are present, the word "a chariot" is applied. So, likewise, where the skandhas are, the term a "being" commonly is used."
"It is wonderful, Nagasena, it is astonishing, Nagasena! Most brilliantly have these questions been answered! Were the Lord Buddha Himself here, He would approve what you have said. Well spoken, Nagasena! Well spoken!".....http://buddhanet.net/budsas

"Menander’s successors, Queen Agathocleia and Strato I Soter, continued to reign for at least 40 years after his death, but their lives saw the emergence of a new dynasty in western India, that of the Sakas (Scythians) and Yueh-Chih from central Asia, and the Greek Bactrian era came to an end."....http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

Arya: Sanskrit/Indian: Noble, great, truthful.....The word "Arya" itself is a Sanskrit and Avestan/Old Persian word that means "noble".

The Questions of King Milinda.......Volume XXXV of "The Sacred Books of the East".....[1890]......translated by T. W. Rhys Davids......http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/milinda.htm

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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Havilah, the River Pishon and Ancient Bactria (5000 BC)

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"Havilah (literally meaning "Circular"; also spelled Evilas, Evilath via LXX) is in several books of the Bible referring to both land and people....Genesis 2:11: 'And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium (a resin similar to myrrh) and the onyx stone."

".....Genesis 2:8-17......Now Jehovah had planted a garden in Eden eastward, and he placed there the man whom he formed: for hehad caused to spring from the ground every tree pleasant for sight or good for food; also the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river issued from Eden to water the garden, and thence it was parted, and became four head-[streams]: the name of the first is Pishon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of the Chavilah, where [is] the [metal] gold (the gold too of that land [is] good); there [also is] the [substance called bedolach, and a stone [called] the shoham); and the name of the second river [is] Gichon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of Cush: and the name of the third river [is] Chiddekel; this [is the one] that flows east of Ashshur: and the name of the fourth river, that [is] Perath.".....http://www.studylight.org/encyclopedia/mse/print.cgi?n=6061

"The Gottingen professor, J.D. Michaelis, originated this hypothesis,.....Gatterer, in the main, agrees with him, only he understands the Hiddekel to be the Indus, and takes the Pishon for the Phasis. Cush is found by Michaelis in the name of the city Cath or Caths, the ancient capital of Chowrasmia, on the Oxus or Jihun, near the site of Balkh. He refers to Quint. Curtius as speaking of the Cusaei or Cusitani being in Bactria upon the Oxus. Wahl sees Cush in the Khousti of Moses of Chorene, meaning the large province between the Caspian and Persian Seas, as far as the Indus and Oxus. The land of Havilah Michaelis connects with the tribe of Chwaliski or Chwalisses, from whom the Russians call the Caspian Sea the Chwalinskoie...."...http://www.studylight.org/encyclopedia/mse/print.cgi?n=6061

"In addition to the region described in Genesis 2, two individuals named Havilah are listed in the Table of Nations which lists the descendants of Noah, who are considered eponymous ancestors of nations. They are mentioned in Genesis 10:7,29, 1 Chronicles 1:9,23. One is the son of Cush, the son of Ham; the other, a son of Joktan and descendant of Shem."

Shem (Hebrew: שֵם, Modern Shem Tiberian Šēm ; Greek: Σημ Sēm; Ge'ez: ሴም, Sēm; "renown; prosperity; name"; Arabic: سام Sām)....A text from the Islamic world claims that the Greeks derived from Shem: Tabari II:11 “Shem, the son of Noah was the father of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Greeks;...In the Chronicles of George the Monk and Symeon Logothetes, the following genealogy occurs: "To the lot of Shem fell the Orient, and his share extended lengthwise as far as India and breadthwise (from east to south) as far as Phinocorura, including Persia and Bactria,....Indo-Iranians: According to Abulgazi, Shem's original land was Iran while Japheth's was the country called "Kuttup Shamach," said to be the name of the regions between the Caspian Sea and India.”

The Expedition Into Afghanistan: Notes and Sketches Descriptive of the Country By James Atkinson (1842)

Calmet's Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible: Scripture illustrated, by means ...By Augustin Calmet, Charles Taylor, Edward Wells (1814)

"The historian Josephus claimed that the Indians of India are descended from the sons of Joktan. Josephus explains that many Joktanites had settled in Afghanistan: "Now Joctan, one of the sons of Heber, had these sons, Elmodad, Saleph, Asermoth, Jera, Adoram, Aizel, Decla, Ebal, Abimael, Sabeus, Ophir, Euilat, and Jobab. These inhabited from Cophen [a river where Kabul is], an Indian river, and in part of Asia adjoining it. And this shall suffice concerning the sons of Shem."......This is modern Kabul and the valley of its river. The land further towards the Indus is Bactria. Thus, some of Joktan's descendants seemingly moved through the Arabian peninsula and went on to India. The part of Asia referred to here by Josephus is probably what is now Tajikistan—for its ancient capital was aciently known as Yotkan. Their having dwelt at one time in Afghanistan, leads to speculation that they were amongst the Aryans of northwestern India."..... Works of Flavius Josephus: Antiquities 1:6:4.

Havilah Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 7 By John McClintock, James Strong (1891)

“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into fur heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasses the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.....Genesis, states that one river went out of Eden and divided into four heads.....Such a location of four rivers starting from one source we find on the Pamir plateau in Central Asia, between the Tian Shan mountains on the north and the Hindu Cush on the south. From the lakes of that plateau issue four great rivers: the Indus, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and Tarim. The Oxus is still called by the natives the Dgihun or Ghon; the Chitral branch of the Indus answers the description of the Pison; the Jaxartes is the original Euphrates; and the Tarim going toward the east is in all probability the Hiddekel.".....http://israelect.com/reference/WillieMartin/The_Garden_of_Eden.htm

...“If we search to determine the country which best satisfies the geography of the first chapters of Genesis, it is necessary to avow that all conducts us to the region of the Imaus, where the most solid inductions place the cradle of the Human Race. There is found, as in the Paradise of Genesis, gold, precious stones, bdellium. This point is that of the world of which one is able to say with the most truth that four of rivers issue from the same source. Four immense currents of water: the Indus, the Helmend, the Oxus, and the Gaxarles, take there their rise, flowing in directions the most opposite. The second chapter of Genesis presents to us a traditional geography which has no connection with the ordinary geography of the Hebrews; but which, on the contrary, offers the most astounding resemblance with the Turanian system. The Pison, which issues from the Garden of Eden, situated in the East, is very probably the high Indus, and the country of Havilah, seems well to be the country of Darada towards Chachmises, celebrated for its riches. The Gihon is the Oxus, and it is without doubt by substitution of more modern names that we find the Tigri and Euphrates at the side of the other rivers indicated. Thus, all invites us to place the Eden of the Semites ate the point of the separation of the waters of Asia at the umbilici of the world, toward which, as with index finger, all the races seem to point as that recognized in their most primitive traditions.”.....Professor S.H. Buchanan on pages 125 and 126 of his work, The World and the Book, quotes the french Orientalist, M. Renan:.

" The Sumerians called themselves “the black headed people” and their land, in cuneiform script, was simply “the land” or “the land of the black headed people”. .....The region of Sumer was long thought to have been first inhabited around 4500 BCE.....The original homeland of the Sumerians is unknown. It is believed that they came from 'the east'....They entered Mesopotamia c. 4,000 B.C."

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2014

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