The Deity Oxus & Ancient Bactrian Polytheism

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"There are many gods....They are always present everywhere.....we prefer to use the term Naturalism rather than Polytheism."

"The single most important element that dominates the landscape of ancient Bactria is the river Amu Darya, the ancient Oxus, and its many tributaries. Bactria without Oxus is almost unimaginable.....yet most research has been confined to the study of the "major" religions (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and/or Islam)...... Despite that, the local Bactrian polytheistic pantheon presents an amazing richness and forms a fascinating field of study, yet acknowledged by not many modern scholars."......THE LOCAL RIVER GOD OXUS-WAKHSH IN PRE-ISLAMIC BACTRIA.....http://www.iranianstudies.com/content/local-river-god-oxus-wakhsh-pre-islamic-bactria

"It is a river deity or aquatic deity for which we know two things for certain: that in the Hellenistic period a whole temple was dedicated to this god and that much later, in the seventh and eighth century CE, local people took its worship seriously by taking oaths on its name during their legal and economic transactions.".....http://www.iranianstudies.com

Valley of Takhti Sangin

Takht-i Sangin....The ancient town of Takht-i Sangin is located near the confluence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, the source of the Amu Darya, in southern Tajikistan.....The Greco-Bactrian temple site of Takht-i Sangin is believed by many to be the source of the Oxus Treasure that now resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum. Part of greater Transoxiana and built in the 3rd Century BC, the site consists of a well-fortified citadel containing the so-called "Temple of Oxus".....Holt, F.L. (1989), Alexander the Great and Bactria: The Formation of a Greek Frontier in Central Asia: 2nd Edition, Brill Archive.

"OXYARTES......Hellenized form of the Old Persian male name Vaxšuvarda (also seen spelled as Vakhshuvarda), which was derived from older Persian Vaxšuvadarva......part of the name referring to Vakhsh, the Aramaic counterpart of the Greek river god Oksos or Oxos (known as Oxus in Latin).... Oxyartes would then be a Greek transliteration of the original Aramaic name......if one looks up the Oxus river (nowadays called Amu Darya) from which the river god derived its name (or vice versa).....Vakhsh is said to be ultimately derived from Sanskrit Vaksu. A known bearer of this name was the father of Roxana, the Bactrian wife of Alexander the Great (4th century BC)."......."Kingship in Hellenistic Bactria" by Gillian Catherine Ramsey.....http://www.behindthename.com/name/oxyartes/submitted

"In modern Takht-i Sangin, on the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan borders, along the river Amu Darya (Gr. Oxus, Bact. Wakhsh), a large temple complex has been excavated by Russian archaeologists, which bears little resemblance to typical ancient Greek religious architecture. However, this building has provided us with significant evidence for the cult of the local river god Oxus through Greek inscriptions from the time of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. A famous stone altar base with a standing Marsyas on top, fragments from a stone perirrhanterion on the temple’s entrance and a bronze caldron preserve dedicatory inscriptions mentioning god Oxus. All names of the devotees are Iranian, but the “epigraphic habit”, god Marsyas, the caldron and the perirhanterion are a clear reference to a Greek understanding of the ritual and the cult.".....https://hellenisticmonarchies2015.wordpress.com/day-2/spyridon-loumakis/

"The popularity of the local cult of Oxus can be seen in the amount of examples of Oxus-based theophoric names found in Aramaic documents from Bactria, dated from 353 to 324 BC, possibly from the archive of the satrap of Bactria, and in the epigraphic data from the Hellenistic city of Aï Khanoum in Bactria (before the mid second c. BC). In addition, we know from ancient Greek authors that Oxy-atres was the name of Darius III’s brother (Arrian, Anabasis 7.4; Strabo, Geography 12.3.10), that Oxy-dates was a high royal Persian, imprisoned by Darius III, and later appointed satrap of Media by Alexander III (Arrian, Anabasis 3.20; 4.18) and that Oxy-artes was one of the four powerful noblemen of Bactria who resisted the advance of Alexander III’s army (Arrian, Anabasis 3.28; 4.18-21; 6,.5; 7.4; 7.6; Diod. Sic., Historical Library 2.6.2)."....Spyridon Loumakis (Concordia University): “Oxus-Wakhsh: A Local River God in Hellenistic Bactria”......https://hellenisticmonarchies2015.wordpress.com

".... this unique temple, which mixes Hellenistic and local Iranian religious traditions in many levels (sacred setting, ritual, cult) was extremely significant for the eastern most border of the Hellenistic world in central Asia, based on three arguments: (a) on the temple’s variety and richness of offerings (more than eight thousand excavated objects of alabaster, clay, terra cotta, bone, ivory, semiprecious stones, glass, textiles, iron, bronze, silver and gold), (b) on its monumental proportions, which manifest the concentration of great political and economic power, and (c) on the abundance of arms dedicated to the temple, probably the biggest assemblage in the entire Central Asia, with different types of offensive and defensive armour, from Hellenistic, Middle Eastern and Sarmatian-Scythian origins.".....Spyridon Loumakis......https://hellenisticmonarchies2015.wordpress.com

"In the extremely beautiful spot where the Vakhsh and Pyanj rivers flow together and give birth to the Amu Darya lie the ruins of the Takhti Sangin temple, a Zoroastrian temple of the Achaemenid Persian period.....During the silk-road period it was a center where merchants visited by land and river. Here, it is believed, the Oxus Treasure pieces were found in 1877; beautiful objects of incredible elegance and beauty..... the Takhti Sangin temple has various legends. Signs of different religions have been found, indicating that the temple existed as a strategic point of trade between the east and west....it takes two days to explore Takhti Sangin and other small castles along Amu Darya river and Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve.... unfortunately, the story of the temple is different, its location right in the border with Afghanistan means that few can currently get permission to visit.."....by Bahodur Sheraliev.....

"...northeastern Bactria (that is, the Hindu Kush region) was known as Kafiristan ("Land of the Infidels" in Persian) because of the people's fierce resistance to Islam and unique polytheism (different than Hinduism).....

"The Oxus region is home to archaeological relics of grand civilisations, most notably of ancient Bactria, but also of Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Margiana, and Hyrcania. However, most of these ruined sites enjoy far less fame, and are far less well-studied, than comparable relics in other parts of the world....most of the ruins have been neglected by the modern world – largely due to the region's turbulent history.....

Ayaz Kala of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), today desert but in ancient times green and lush

"The Oxus is the largest river (by water volume) in Central Asia. Due to various geographical factors, it's also changed its course more times (and more dramatically) than any other river in the region, and perhaps in the world.......The source of the Oxus is the Wakhan river, which begins at Baza'i Gonbad at the eastern end of Afghanistan's remote Wakhan Corridor......The Oxus proper begins where the Panj and Vakhsh rivers meet, on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border...... the land that was the region's showpiece in the antiquity period: Bactria. The Bactrian heartland can be found south of Sogdiana, separated from it by the (relatively speaking) humble Chul'bair mountain range. Bactria occupies a prime position along the Oxus river: that is, it's the first section lying downstream of overly-rugged terrain; and it's upstream enough that it remains quite fertile to this day, although it's significantly less fertile than is was millennia ago...... surprisingly little is known about the details of ancient Bactria today. ....The capital of Bactria was the grand city of Bactra, the location of which is generally accepted to be a circular plateau of ruins touching the northern edge of the modern-day city of Balkh. These lie within the delta of the modern-day Balkh river (once known as the Bactrus river), about 70km south of where the Oxus presently flows. In antiquity, the Bactrus delta reached the Oxus and fed into it; but the modern-day Balkh delta (like so many other deltas mentioned in this article) fizzles out in the sand......Balkh is believed to have been inhabited since at least the 27th century BC.....due to decades of military conflict in the area, access continues to be highly restricted, for security reasons.".....Forgotten realms of the Oxus region...http://greenash.net.au/

"....in Upper Bactria is the archaeological site of Takhti Sangin. This ancient ruin can be found on the Tajik side of the border; and since it's located at almost the exact spot where the Panj and Vakhsh rivers meet to become the Oxus.....The principal structure at Takhti Sangin was a large Zoroastrian fire temple, which in its heyday boasted a pair of constantly-burning torches at its main entrance. Most of the remains at the site date back to the 3rd century BC, when it became an important centre in the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (and when it was partially converted into a centre of Hellenistic worship); but the original temple is at least several centuries older than this, as attested to by various Achaemenid Persian-era relics.....Takhti Sangin is also the place where the famous "Oxus treasure" was discovered in the British colonial era (most of the treasure can be found on display at the British Museum to this day)..... Takhti Sangin has been studied only sporadically by modern archaeologists.....Forgotten realms of the Oxus region...http://greenash.net.au/

"In Dancing With the Sacred, Karl Peters proposes that the sacred is the dance of life (a form of god). He develops an understandable naturalistic theism in which the Universe is not governed by a personal supernatural God. This determination is not atheistic, for the concept of the divine is preserved in a system of non-personal processes within the natural world. Nature produces variations that generate new aspects of existence that are creative but without design.".....Dancing With the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God - Trinity Press International, 2002,

"The Oxus River, identified as the world river that descends from the mythological High Hara.....Hara Berezaiti, "High Hara", the mythical mountain that is the origin of the *Harahvatī river.....Harahvati Aredvi Sura Anahita, the source of all waters in the world that descends from the mythical Mount Hara.....Another source of spiritual home that made Bactria sacred was a great temple of the ancient Iranian goddess, Anahit (in Pahlavi or Middle-Persian) and Anahita (Ânâhitâ) in the Avesta hymns. The temple was so rich that often it attracted the needy Syrian kings who sat out to plunder it....Anahita is a water goddess whose origins go back to Central Asia from where her worship spread through Persia all the way to the Middle-East....According to the Avesta, the water goddess Anahita was the mother of the god of Victory known as Mithra...The female protectress of Balkh, Anahita goddess of the Oxus, in Alexander’s day. Anahita’s magnificent gilded statue had been gifted by one of Darius’s predecessors, Artaxerxes II. Thousands had come to licentious rites in the precinct of the ‘High girdled one clad in a mantle of gold, on her head a golden crown with rays of light and a hundred stars clad in a robe of over thirty otter skins of shining fur’….. "......http://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/balkh.php

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Dilbarjin, the Balḵāb River & the Greek Dioscuri Temple (2500 BC)

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Dilbarjin: (2500 BC) A large urban site surrounded by city walls....dominated by a fortified enclosure and citadel (Kala) in the center, and has a vast unfortified urban area to the east and south of the city walls.

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"Dilbarjin (Delbarjin) is the modern name for the remains of an ancient town in modern (northern) Afghanistan. The town was perhaps founded in the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Kushan Empire it became a major local centre. After the Indo-Sassanids the town was abandoned.......The town proper was about 390 x 390 m big. Dilbarjin had a city wall built under the Kushan rule. In the middle of the town there was a round citadel, built at about the same time. In the North-East corner of the town was excavated a temple complex. Here were found many wall paintings, some in a purely Hellenistic style. Originally the temple was perhaps dedicated to the Dioscuri. Outside the city walls there were still substantial buildings. Finds include inscriptions in Bactrian, most of them too destroyed to provide any historical information. There were fragments of sculpture and many coins.".......Warwick Ball: Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan : Catalogue des sites archéologiques d'Afghanistan, Paris 1982, p. 91-92

"DELBARJĪN, urban site 40 km northwest of Balḵ, on the northern limit of an oasis irrigated by the Balḵāb, near a defensive wall built during the Greek period (ca 329-130 B.C.) to protect the oasis. It was probably founded in the 5th century B.C. and flourished up to about the 6th century AD...... Study of the fortifications excavated by a Soviet-Afghan mission (c. 1969-77) suggests that the earliest stage of the citadel may date from the Achaemenid period, as the closest parallels to the construction methods and ceramic finds are of that period (Dolgorukov)...... It was, however, only in the final phase of Greek hegemony (ca. 150 B.C.), when the city may have been known as Eucratideia (Strabo, 11.11.2; Ptolemy, 6.11.8), or at the beginning of the Kushan period (ca. the beginning of the common era) that the site assumed its final configuration: a city protected by a quadrangular rampart (383-93 m2), with a circular citadel in the center. The northeast corner of the walled enclosure was occupied by a temple precinct (Figure 11/I, II), and suburbs of considerable size lay south and east of the city (Dolgorukov; Puga-chenkova, 1984). The earliest city wall consisted of a rather thin curtain of paḵsa (tamped earth mixed with water) and unbaked brick, built on a glacis of paḵsa and pierced with arrow slits, with hollow quadrangular towers at intervals. At the beginning of the Kushan period a second wall, also with towers, was constructed outside the original rampart, forming an interior gallery typical of Central Asian fortifications.".....

Catalogue of the National Museum of Afghanistan, 1931-1985.......By Tissot, Francine...Click on the map to enlarge

"BALḴĀB (Bactros of the classical authors), the river of Balḵ (locally pronounced Balḵaw). This perennial river is a major feature of the geography of northern Afghanistan....Baxl Rōd (the modern Balḵāb)...... It is called the “river of Balḵ” by the author of Ḥodūd al-ʿālam......a name often applied to the Oxus (Jeyḥūn) by early Muslim geographers "

The Dioscuri at Dilberjin....."The present article deals with a wall painting representing the Dioscuri, which was found in the main temple of Dilberjin (Southern Bactria.... near Balkh). .....On the grounds of a comparison with the Graeco-Roman iconographic repertory of the Divine Twins (a particular attention being paid to compositional schemata) there are reasons to reject the chronology (the 2nd century BC) proposed by I.T. Kruglikova, the 2nd (or 3rd) century AD seeming a more reasonable date for its execution. As to the function of the Twins, they are hardly to be thought of as the main object of the cult, whereas a number of clues suggest that they might have figured as assistants or guardians of a major, possibly female, deity. This is a pattern widespread in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire (the "Dioscuri with a Goddess"), but rooted in the local religious background as well (the Indo-Iranian Twins often associated with a female deity). A painting representing the Brahmanic couple Siva-Pârvatî, found in the same temple but pertaining to a later phase, is also taken into consideration as a further possible clue to a female cult. "....Lo Muzio, C, “The Dioscuri at Dilberjin (Northern Afghanistan): Reviewing their Chronology and Significance“, Studia Iranica, n°28-1 (1999), p. 41-71......https://frombactriatotaxila.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/the-dioscuri-at-dilberjin-northern-afghanistan-reviewing-their-chronology-and-significance/

"In Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux were twin brothers, together known as the Dioskouri. Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters and half-sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.......In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores..... When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire, and were also associated with horsemanship.......They are sometimes called the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids.....The Dioscuri were regarded as helpers of humankind....

BACTRIAN KING, EUKRATIDES, 171-135 BC........Helmeted bust r./The Dioskouroi.

"We know some wall paintings from the early medieval period, which in the opinion of Gulyamov reached their highest degree of development in the 6th – 8th centuries AD as far as mural size, wealth of scenes, realistic and rich colors of images are concerned......Such paintings were discovered in Dilberjin (near Balkh), Balalyk-tepe , Adzhina-tepe (a Buddhist monastery of the 7th century AD, 12.5 kilometers east of Kurgan-Tube) , Kafyr-qala (Kurgan-Tube district in Tajikistan), Kalai Kafirnigan (80 km to the south-west of Dushanbe) , Kalai Shodmon and several others. The subjects of the images are essentially religious in nature, excluding the image of Balalyk-tepe, where there are secular topics. Art historians have identified a number of painter’s schools for the period. The Tokharistan school was represented by Balalyk-tepe, Adzhina-tepe, Kafyr-qala; the northern Tokharistan school in the Buddhist Temples of Kuva and in Semirechye; the School of the “western edge” with monuments in Sogd, Khorezm...."....http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000007165/01_Text.pdf

"In the late 60’s - mid 70’s of the 4th century AD.... Shapur II twice fought with the “Kushans”, who had their capital in Balkh. We know the events form these wars from the work “History of Armenia” by the Armenian historian Fawstos Buzand (end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th c. AD). The first war was begun by the “King of Kushans”..... Shapur II personally led the Sasanian army, but it did not help the Persians: “…the K’ušan army defeated the Persian forces exceedingly. It killed many of them, took many prisoners, and drove part of them into flight”......The war of Shapur II in the east is dated by the last years life of the Armenian king Arsak, captured by the Persian shahinshah in AD 367......".......http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000007165/01_Text.pdf

"Among the objects found over more than a century and a half in the territories that today correspond to the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union and with Afghanistan and Pakistan only few can be attributed to a purely Hellenistic archeological context. The main examples are the sanctuary of the god Oxus at Taḵt-e Sangin and the remnants of the capital of eastern Bactria, namely Āy Ḵānom/Aï Khanum (q.v.) in northern Afghanistan. At Āy Ḵānom, Macedonian political power was upheld from the beginning of the Seleucid period to the disappearance of the city around 145 B.C. under the attacks of the Saka nomads from north, followed by that of Yüeh-chih (Yuezhi). ".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/greece-viii

"....Supporting the early date of Buddhism in Bactria is a ceramic reliquary from the Kunduz area; it carries a kharoṣṭhī inscription which says that there was a Buddhist vihāra in the vicinity and that the teaching of the Dharmaguptaka sect was widespread there. The inscription is dated to the 1st-2nd centuries AD (Fussman, 1974). A “Buddhist platform” at Sorḵ Kotal, dated, together with the statues, to the 2nd-3rd century AD, is an outstanding monument (Schlumberger, Le Berre, and Fussman, 1983, pp. 75-81). The foundation of a Buddhist monastery at Kunduz can be probably dated to the end of the Kushan period (Hackin, 1959, pp. 19-22). Additional Buddhist temples are found in Dilberjin, Haibak, and other places.......Systematic archeological research in northern Bactria (that is, north of the Amu Darya, in the south of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) has revealed numerous Buddhist monuments, mainly concentrated at Termez."......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/buddhism-iv

Diagram of the Dilbarjin Kala (Click to enlarge)

"Dilbarjin......Variant Name: Dalbarjin.......Jauzjan Province. 40 kilometers northwest of Balkh and 20 kilometers northeast of Aqcha.
Dates: Achaemenid, 6th-4th century BC
Kushan, 1st-3rd century AD
Kushano-Sassanian, 1st half of the 5th century
A large urban site surrounded by city walls re-inforced with rectangular salients. It is dominated by a fortified enclosure and citadel in the center, and has a vast unfortified urban area to the east and south of the city walls. Mounds to the southeast and southwest mark two probably monumental buildings. There is also a temple, of two main periods of construction,, that contained many frescos of the Bamiyan style, a Shiva-Parvati fresco with inscription, a marble Bactrian inscription, many sculptural fragments and many coins. Local pottery production is evident from kilns producing many wasters.
Source: Warwick Ball, Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan, 1982, n. 265, 295

"Eucratideia was an ancient town in Bactria mentioned by a few ancient writers. It was most likely a foundation of Eucratides I who is the more important ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom with the name Eucratides. Not much is known about this city and it might be just a renaming of an already existing town rather than a new foundation. Renaming of cities was a common practise in the ancient world......The location of Eucratideia is disputed. Some proposed locations are:
Dilbarjin
Ai-Khanoum...at the confluence of the Oxus river (today's Amu Darya) and the Kokcha river
Qarshi; the 1923 work "The Encyclopaedia Metropolitana: Or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge" states: "Eucratidia, named from its ruler, (Strabo, xi. p. 516.) was, according to Ptolemy, 2° North and 1° West of Bactra." As these coordinates are relative to, and close to, Bactra, it is reasonable to disregard the imprecision in Ptolemy's coordinates and accept them without adjustment. If the coordinates for Bactra are taken to be 36°45′N 66°55′E, then the coordinates 38°45′N 65°55′E can be seen to be close to the modern day city of Qarshi.

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Sīta, Sītā, Śīta, Shita, Sita: Daughter of the Earth Goddess Bhūmi

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Sita:.......Sanskrit......सित ....sita .....(adj.) 1. white....... 2. depending on; attached. (nt.), a smile. || sīta (adj.), cool; cold. (nt.) coolness; cold. sītā (f.) a furrow...... Sīta, Sītā, Śīta, Shita, Sita. .... Source: BuddhaSasana: Concise Pali-English Dictionary

"White Tārā is also known as Sita Tārā - the Sanskrit sita simply means white or pure, and is also a name for the planet Venus."

Sita (Nepali:सीता, also spelled Sîta, Seeta or Seetha.....is the central female character of the Hindu epic Ramayana.....She is the consort of the Hindu god Rama (avatar of Vishnu) and is an avatar of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and wife of Vishnu. She is esteemed as a paragon of spousal and feminine virtues for all Hindu women. Sita is known for her dedication, self-sacrifice, courage and purity......Sita is described as the daughter of the earth goddess Bhūmi and the adopted daughter of King Janaka of Mithila and Queen Sunayna. In her youth, she marries Rama, the prince of Ayodhya."

"Chitral is drained by the Kunar River which flows southward, through Afghanistan, to meet the East flowing Kabul River, which in times past, was known as the Sita, or White River.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/uddiyana.htm

"The Sita of the Ramayana may have been named after a more ancient Vedic goddess Sita, who is mentioned once in the Rigveda as an earth goddess who blesses the land with good crops. In the Vedic era, she was one of the goddesses associated with fertility. A Vedic hymn (Rig Veda 4:57) recites:
“Auspicious Sita, come thou near;
We venerate and worship thee
That thou mayst bless and prosper us
And bring us fruits abundantly."
Rig-Veda Samhita (c. 1200 BC) is the oldest of the four vedas and consists of 1028 hymns praising the ancient gods.

"In the Harivansha Purana, Sita has been invoked as one of the names of goddess Arya:
“ O goddess, you are the altar's center in the sacrifice,
The priest's fee
Sita to those who hold the plough
And Earth to all living being.

"The Ramayana tells the story of Prince Rama who was sent into exile in the forest with his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshamana......Sita was abducted by the evil demon Ravana but ultimately rescued by Prince Rama with the help of the Monkey God, Hanuman......The story is written in 24,000 couplets, a Sanskrit epic poem ascribed to the Sanskrit poet Valmiki.....It is regarded as one of the two great works of Indian literature, along with the Mahabharata.....The story's original version in Sanskrit is known as Valmiki Ramayana, dating to approximately the 5th to 4th century BC....The names of the characters (Rama, Sita, Daśaratha, Janaka, Vashista, Vishwamitra) are all known in late Vedic literature. "

SitaRamJPG

Mount Sikaram (aka: Sita Ram) 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......Mount Sikaram ... Safed Koh Range, Hindu Kush Mountains (aka: Caucasus Indicus).........Nearby towns: Khost, Gardez, Baraki Barak.........Coordinates: 34°2'18"N 69°54'8"E......

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Click on the text to enlarge

"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 Sita Ram (aka: 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.....The Khyber Pass crosses a spur of the Safēd Kōh range. The closest city near the Safed Koh is Parachinar of Pakistan.....Forests of pine and deodar cedar thrived on the main range."..........http://www.eosnap.com/tag/mount-sikaram/

"The basin of the Kabul river is enclosed at the head by the Paghman range, an offshoot of Hindu Kush, which divides the Kabul valleys from the Helmand. Up the head-waters of the stream that passes Kabul, leads the chief road to Turkestan, crossing for a brief space into the Helmand basin by the easy pass of Unai (11,320 feet), and then over the Koh-I-Baba, or western extension of Hindu Kush, by the Hajjigak passes (12,190 and 12,480 feet), to Bamian.......The most conspicuous southern limit of the Kabul basin is the Safed Koh, Spin-gar of the Afghans (White Mountain," not to be confounded with the western Safed Koh already named), an alpine chain, reaching, in its highest summit, Sita Ram, to a height of 15,622 feet, and the eastern ramifications of which extend to the Indus at and below Attok. Among the spurs of this range are those formidable passes between Kabul and Jalalabad in which the disasters of 1841-42 culminated, as well as the famous Khybar passes between Jalalabad and Peshawar. This southern watershed formed by the Safed Koh is so much nearer the Kabul river than that on the north, that the tributaries from this side, though numerous, are individually insignificant."

There are 49 cosmic hymns in the Rig and the Yajur Vedas whose meanings have not been explained. But one particular hymn from Vedanga Jyotish informs us that the longest day of the year, or summer solstice, comprised 18 periods of daylight and 12 of night. Day and night are of equal length on the Equator; in the higher latitudes, summer days are longer than nights.......The latitude at which the proportion of daylight and darkness is 3:2 is 34 degrees North. It is worth noting that the cities to be found around this latitude today are Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan. In other words, the place and time of the composition of the Vedanga Jyotish is the same as that of Vedic Afghanistan and Iran. This second piece of evidence offered by Rajesh Kochhar further strengthens the perception of the location and time of the Rig Veda......In search of the rivers.......Kochhar has deconstructed the Rig Veda in search of the Saraswati and the Sarayu, the two rivers also mentioned in the Ramayana. Here too our current history has come in the way.....Kochhar believes it is the 650-km river known as the Hari-Rud in Afghanistan, whose source is in the Hindu Kush mountains. It flows past the city of Herat and then for 100 km along the Iran-Afghanistan border before disappearing in the Karakom desert of Central Asia.....http://scroll.in/article/723351/was-the-ramayana-actually-set-in-and-around-todays-afghanistan

"In other Zoroastrian Pahlavi texts the White Xyōn are named among the enemies of Wištāsp who are doomed to final destruction because of their wickedness...... they may have been the people referred to as the White Huns......for parallels from Indian litera­ture: śveta-hūṇa or sita-hūṇa = White Huns, hala-hūṇa = dark, or Red, Huns).".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chionites-lat

Sita or Seetha Rivers:
In Western Ghats of India in Karnataka state, near Hebri......
The Tarim River (Mandarin Tǎlǐmù Hé, 塔里木河; Uyghur: تارىم دەرياسى), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā is the principal river of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China.......
Kabul River, or Kabal River (Persian: دریای کابل), is a river that rises in the Sanglakh Range in Afghanistan...."The marauder Obaidallah crossed the Sita River and made a raid on Kabul in 698 AD........"
"Tibetan texts mention that the Kingdom of Shambhala is located north of the river Sita…"

Shweta (hindi : श्वेता) is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian feminine given name, which means "fair", "fair one", "lovely" and "white"......

"Sita Ram is that form of the Shila where Lord Ram is present with Sita Mata. ....Ram and Sita represent an ideal pair with immense love, affection, feeling of sacrifice for each other and respect for each other existence."

"Goddess Sita Maa is the consort of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. Sita is the one of the most popular goddesses of Hindu religion. Devi Sita is regarded as the incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi.....There are two places named identically as Sitamarhi. One is in Bihar where Sita, the wife of Lord Rama sprang to life out of an earthern pot, when Raja Janak was ploughing the field somewhere near Sitamarhi to impress upon Lord Indra for rain. It is said that Raja Janak excavated a tank at the place where Sita emerged and after her marriage set up the stone figures of Rama, Sita and Lakshman to mark the site. This place is in Bihar near Nepal Border.......The other place is one where Sita Maa goes underground after spending the life in forest in Valmiki Ashram after the Ramayana war in Uttar Pradesh ."......http://www.ghumakkar.com/sitamarhi-sita-samahit-sthal/

Hindu Kush Mountains....."Kusha or Kush (Sanskrit: कुश)......and his twin brother Lava, were the children of Lord Rama and his wife Sita, whose story is recounted in the Hindu epic Ramayana. He was the elder of the two and is said to have wheatish complexion like their mother, while Lava had black complexion like their father....Ramayana by Valmiki says Sita gave birth to both Lava and Kusha at the same time. The line of kings which ruled Kashi and the Mauryan dynasty, an empire that ruled the Indian sub-continent from 320 BC to185 BC claimed descent from Kusha. Kusha belongs to Ikshvaku clan or Suryavansh Dynasty of Kshatriyas in Vedic civilization"....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusha_%28Ramayana%29#cite_ref-1

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

October 2015

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Anionic and Anthropomorphic Greco-Bactrian Buddhist Art (250 BC)

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"No representations of the Buddha were made for about four or five centuries. It is sometimes said that prior to this time it was 'forbidden' to make statues or pictures of the Buddha, but this is unlikely and there is no evidence of such a prohibition. A more likely explanation is that until then symbols of the Buddha (stupas, footprints, an empty throne etc.) and written descriptions of him were deemed sufficient. Whatever the reasons, the first Buddha statues were produced in about the 1st or 2nd century AD in Bactria (Afghanistan and northern Pakistan) perhaps as a result of Greek influence....".....http://www.buddhanet.net

The Kingdom of Ghandara lasted from the early 1st millennium BC to the 11th c. AD.... In 327 BC Alexander the Great conquered Gandhara....Click on the map to enlarge.

"One of the distinguishing features of the Gandharan school of art .... is that it has been clearly influenced by the naturalism of the Classical Greek style. Thus, while these images still convey the inner peace that results from putting the Buddha's doctrine into practice, they also give us an impression of people who walked and talked, etc. and slept much as we do. I feel this is very important. These figures are inspiring because they do not only depict the goal, but also the sense that people like us can achieve it if we try" (The Dalai Lama, foreword to Echoes of Alexander the Great, 2000).

"Anionic....not employing or permitting images, idols, etc...... When enforced by the physical destruction of images, aniconism becomes iconoclasm. The word itself derives from Greek εικων 'image' with the negative prefix an-....Buddhist art used to be aniconic: the Buddha was only represented through his symbols (an empty throne, the Bodhi tree, the Buddha's footprints, the prayer wheel). This reluctance towards anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha, and the sophisticated development of aniconic symbols to avoid it (even in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear), seem to be connected to one of the Buddha's sayings, reported in the Digha Nikaya, that discouraged representations of himself after the extinction of his body......Although there is still debate, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha himself are often considered a result of the Greco-Buddhist interaction."

Click on the map to enlarge

"Foucher's most famous work was L'Art Gréco-Bouddhique du Gandhara in which he described how Buddhist art prior to Pan-Hellenism was principally aniconic .representing the Buddha by depicting elements of the Buddha's life instead of depicting the Buddha himself. Foucher argued that the first sculpted images of the Buddha were heavily influenced by Greek artists. He coined the term "Greco-Buddhist art".......Foucher especially considered Hellenistic free-standing Buddhas as "the most beautiful, and probably the most ancient of the Buddhas", assigning them to the 1st century BC, and making them the starting point of the anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha ....archeological discoveries in Central Asia however (such as the Hellenistic city of Ai-Khanoum and the excavation of Sirkap in modern Pakistan), have been pointing to rich Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek civilizations in these areas, reviving the Hellenistic thesis."....the Greco-Buddhist bas-reliefs.......The Beginnings Of Buddhist Art.....by A.Foucher......

"Kushana coins present some of the earliest images of the Buddha......Gold coin of Kanishka I with a representation of the Buddha (c.120 AD).......Kanishka standing..Kushan-language legend in Greek script ϷΑΟΝΑΝΟϷΑΟ ΚΑΝΗϷΚΙ ΚΟϷΑΝΟ ("Shaonanoshao Kanishki Koshano"): "King of Kings, Kanishka the Kushan"......Reverse: Standing Buddha in Hellenistic style, forming the gesture of "no fear" (abhaya mudra) with his right hand, and holding a pleat of his robe in his left hand. Legend in Greek script: ΒΟΔΔΟ "Boddo", for the Buddha. Kanishka monogram (tamgha) to the right."

Greek Buddha Face

"Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, and the Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD. Greco-Buddhist art is characterized by the strong idealistic realism and sensuous description of Hellenistic art and the first representations of the Buddha in human form, which have helped define the artistic (and particularly, sculptural) canon for Buddhist art throughout the Asian continent up to the present. It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions......The origins of Greco-Buddhist art are to be found in the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250 BC- 130 BC), located in today’s Afghanistan, from which Hellenistic culture radiated into the Indian subcontinent with the establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC-10 BC). Under the Indo-Greeks and then the Kushans, the interaction of Greek and Buddhist culture flourished in the area of Gandhara, in today’s northern Pakistan, before spreading further into India, influencing the art of Mathura, and then the Hindu art of the Gupta empire, which was to extend to the rest of South-East Asia. The influence of Greco-Buddhist art also spread northward towards Central Asia, strongly affecting the art of the Tarim Basin, and ultimately the arts of China, Korea, and Japan."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art

"Some of the oldest Buddha statues were recorded in the city of Gandhara.....in the northern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan, Gandhara was the center of Hindu culture and Greco-Buddhist culture..... Gandhara culture took a height of a peak during the reign of the Great Kushan King Kanishka (128-151).....A remarkable example of Greco-Buddhist Statuary which was built in Gandhara is The Standing Buddha Statues which reside in the Tokyo National Museum. The statue is dated around 1st or 2nd Century CE......“the most beautiful, and probably the most ancient of the Buddhas”.....These statues can be said as the starting point of the anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha."

The Seated Buddha from Gandhara is one of the early Buddha statue built which was discovered at the site of Jamal Garhi in ancient Gandhara.

"The exact date of the Buddha's birth is disputed, with Nepalese authorities favoring 623 B.C., and other traditions favoring more recent dates, around 400 B.C.......Regardless, by 249 B.C. Lumbini had became one of the four sacred centers of Buddhism, marked by sanctifying inscriptions and a pillar left there in 249 B.C. by the Indian emperor Ashoka, who helped spread Buddhism across Asia."....

"Buddhist Shrine (550 B.C.)......the earliest ever Buddhist shrine. This 6th century timber structure was found underneath of Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini......The center of the shrine was unroofed, the team found, and contained mineralized tree roots, surrounded by clay floors worn smooth by visitors. It was likely an ancient bodhigara, or tree shrine......The tree roots appear to have been fertilized, and although bodhigara are found in older Indian traditions, the shrine lacked the signs of sacrifices or offerings found at such sites......It was very clean, in fact, which points to the Buddhist tradition of nonviolence and nonofferings....excavations at the site point to its cultivation starting around 1000 B.C., followed by the development of a Buddhist monastery-like community by the sixth century B.C......The new evidence from this project shows that this ritual activity was taking place centuries prior to the Asokan levels, and this is really significant and interesting,"....Oldest Buddhist Shrine Uncovered In Nepal May Push Back the Buddha's Birth Date ...By Dan Vergano, National Geographic.......2013

"Gāndhāra, a district traditionally placed in the extreme northwest of the Indian subcontinent. It was located along both banks of the Indus, around the famous cities of Takshaśilā (Taxila) and Pushkalāvatī (modern Charsada, northeast of Peshawar).....Gandhari in the Rigveda, along with the Balhikas (Bactrians) ...The name Gandhārī first occurs in the Rigveda (I, 126,7; late 2nd millennium B.C.E.) in the phrase Gandhārīnām avikā (ewe of the Gandharans), and also in the somewhat later Atharva Veda. The name is used, around 400 B.C., by Pānini, who himself probably hailed from Gāndhāra."...http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gandhara-

"As soon as the Greeks invaded India to form the Indo-Greek kingdom, a fusion of Hellenistic and Buddhist elements started to appear, encouraged by the benevolence of the Greek kings towards Buddhism. This artistic trend then developed for several centuries and seemed to flourish further during the Kushan Empire from the 1st century AD.....Greco-Buddhist art depicts the life of the Buddha in a visual manner, probably by incorporating the real-life models and concepts which were available to the artists of the period......The Bodhisattvas are depicted as bare-chested and jewelled Indian princes, and the Buddhas as Greek kings wearing the light toga-like himation. The buildings in which they are depicted incorporate Greek style, with the ubiquitous Indo-Corinthian capitals and Greek decorative scrolls. Surrounding deities form a pantheon of Greek (Atlas, Herakles) and Indian gods (Indra).".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art

"GANDHĀRAN ART: The region attained its peak of prosperity in the Kushan period (1st to 3rd centuries AD), when it became one of the strongholds of Buddhism, and developed an advanced urban life where the Gandhāra art flourished.... In the 1st century AD, Parthian and Roman merchants brought in the art and culture of their respective lands and local Hellenistic art tradition, and Buddhist missionaries the elements of Buddhist art. This last factor was developed into a synthesis combining eastern Hellenistic and Bactrian styles with the Indian art of anthropomorphic representations of the Buddhist personages.".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gandharan-art

"Buddha (Śākyamuni/Gotama/Shaka) (buddha/bodhisattva; Indian; Male).....Also known as: Śākyamuni; Shakyamuni; Buddha; Sakamano Boudo (Bactrian spelling); Boddo; Dharmacakra; Gautama; Gaudama; Siddhartha (Prince); Shaka (Japanese); Gotama (Pali).....The historical Buddha, whose clan name is Śākya and whose personal name Siddhartha. Son of Queen Maya (q.v.) and King Suddhodana."

" Of the numerous divinities depicted on the coins of Kanishka I and Huvishka, most are given Iranian names, e.g., ardoxšo (Av. ašiš vaŋuhi), aθšo “fire,” farro (Av. xᵛarənah-), lrooaspo (masc.; cf. Av. drvāspā-), mao “moon,” miiro (in many spellings; Av. miθra-), nana (Sogd. nny), oado “wind,” oaxšo “Oxus,” oēšo (Av. vayuš, conflated with the Indian Śiva, ōoromozdo (Av. ahurō mazdǡ), orlagno (Av. vərəθraγna-), and teiro (Mid. Pers. tīr)........ The coinage of Kanishka includes issues portraying boddo “Buddha,” sakamano boudo “Śākyamuni,” and mētrago boudo “Maitreya”......while that of Huvishka attests foreign gods and demigods such as ērakilo “Heracles,” sarapo “Sarapis,” maasēno “Mahāsena,” and skando komaro “Skanda Kumāra.” After Huvishka the repertoire of reverse types contracts sharply, the only deities named on the coins of the last Kushans being ardoxšo and oēšo."......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bactrian-language

".... The difficulty of assigning a single origin to the Gandharan art...... three different interpretations have arisen:
1.) .....the Greeks had exerted a primary impact on the making of the Gandhāran art, and connected it with the rise of the Greco-Bactrian state and, following its fall, the influx of Greek population into northwest India.
2.).....influences from the west, namely, Roman, Palmyran and Parthian.
3.).....the roots of Gandhāran art exclusively in India.
In recent decades, excavations at Ai-Khanum and the Oxus temple (c. 280 BC ) considerably strengthened the position of those scholars who advocate the theory of Greek influence coming from Bactria and of Bactrian contribution. At the same time, the Oxus temple provided archaeological evidence for the presence of considerable Roman influence. All these trends integrated with Indian artistic foundation within the frames of Buddhist ideology. A rapid standardization of Buddhist iconography took place. It started, as demonstrated by materials from Taxila and Butkara I, as early as the 1st century BC. Local architects, sculptors and artists familiar with the Hellenising tradition combined these elements of different origin to create their own artistic repertoire, canons and models, and this development represent the Gandhāran style.".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gandharan-art

"Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12, Verse 5, ...'it is much more difficult to focus on God as the unmanifested than God with form, due to human beings having the need to perceive via the senses.'.....'For those whose minds are attached to the un-manifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied.'.....http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-12-04.html

"Bharhut (Hindi: भरहुत) is a village located in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, central India. It is known for its famous relics from a Buddhist stupa. The Bharhut sculptures represent some of the earliest examples of Indian and Buddhist art......The Bharhut stupa may have been first built by the Maurya king Ashoka in the 3rd century BC, but many works of art were apparently added during the Shunga period, with many friezes from the 2nd century BC.....In conformity with the early aniconic phase of Buddhist art, the Buddha is only represented through symbols, such as the Dharma wheel, the Bodhi tree, an empty seat, footprints, or the triratana symbol......"

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

October 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Uddiyana Kurukulla & Vashya-Karma Magic

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Uddiyana Kurukulla or Uddiyanodbhava, the Kurukulla who comes from Uddiyana. ...a female, peaceful to semi-wrathful Yidam.

Uddiyan od bhava.....bhava (not bhāva) is the continuity of life and death.....Sanskrit: bhāva, 'state, condition'......When Buddha was dying, his last utterance in this world was,'APPO DEEPO BHAVA' -- 'Be a light unto yourself.' .....bhav(a): mental attitude, feeling, purity of thought.....

Kurukulla or Kurukulle (Tibetan: ཀུ་རུ་ཀུ་ལླེ་, Wylie: ku ru ku lle, ZYPY: ku ru ku le.....(Skt. kurukullā; Tib. རིག་བྱེད་མ་, rikjéma; Wyl. rig byed ma) ....

"Buddhaguptanatha (1514-1610 ?)...about 1580 AD Buddhaguptanatha locates Urgyan (Uddyana) in Ghazni, about 50 miles south of Kabul in modern Afghanistan, which is in contrast with the traditional location of Urgyan in the Swat area......Tāranātha (1575–1634) gives a detailed description of the country and Dumasthira, the capital city of Uddyana....the focal location of the magic dakini women.........Buddhagupta describes the women of Uḍḍyāna as being of the various types of ḍākinīs, all posessing different types of magical abilities.".... They are powerful in their exercise of mantras and they know how to both help and hinder with them. They are skilled in adopting various physical forms and they have the ability to work with the mystic gaze.....They displayed various magical abilities involving birds and my master, Buddhaguptanatha, saw these miracles with his very own eyes and he told me of them. He said that previously when he was in Upper Hor [Muslim territories]… he was fully protected by the mantras that he had received from those dakinis in Urgyan, as well as by his own physical powers. Urgyan is surrounded to the east, the south and the west by three large lakes. When he crossed over the pass he came into the Hor Mleccha land of Balkh [northern central area of modern Afghanistan]......"Buddhaguptanatha and the Late Survival of the Siddha Tradition in India D Templeman

"Kurukullā is possibly an Indian tribal deity who was assimilated by Buddhists. She became associated with Tārā and is sometimes called Red Tārā. Incidently she was also adopted into the Hindu pantheon. In many ways she is similar to the ḍakiṇī figures such as Vajrayoginī. ....Kurukullā is particularly associated with the Red Rite, the Tantric Rite of Fascination or Subjugation (vaśikaraṇa). She is red in colour, dancing on a red lotus and as Lokesh Chandra says "she beams with love in all the freshness of youth". The Red Rite is on the mundane level associated with attracting lovers, and on the transcendental level relates to the Sameness Wisdom of Amitābha. Her seed syllable hrīḥ emphasises her relationship to Amitābha. There are some variations in her iconography but she is always shown with a pulled back bow and arrow both covered in flowers. The flowery arrow will remind westerners of Cupid, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Eros, who is depicted as a cherub who goes about shooting people with arrows that make them fall in love. She also often holds an elephant goad and a noose, both of which are used to help to subjugate lovers. ....http://www.visiblemantra.org/kurukulla.html

"Kurukulla Abhisheka.....Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has invited Kurukulla into the Shambhala mandala as an adornment for this stage in the community’s growth. A retinue practice, the Kurukulla Sadhana is done incidentally, at times when we need to enact a karma to benefit the world or to increase the effect of that activity within our life. The Sakyong wishes for his students to make a personal relationship with the Kurukulla sadhana, but there are no mantra requirements nor is there a number of sessions to do...... The Kurukulla abhisheka is open to practitioners who have established the Werma Sadhana as their main practice for more than one year. It is also open to all Vajrayogini sadhakas in the Shambhala mandala who have a connection to the Sakyong..... Kurukulla is a well-known dakini, or female wisdom deity, in the Tibetan and Indian tradition. She is a central figure associated with the activity of magnetizing people, wealth, and energy to virtuous dharmic endeavors. Kurukulla practice has a specific role to play in our community: to draw people with a connection to warriorship to Shambhala. The Werma and Shambhala Sadhanas will remain the central liturgical practices in the Shambhala tradition, and the Kurukulla sadhana will play the role of a "retinue practice" ­- assisting the community’s primary purpose of creating enlightened society......Kurukulla belongs to the padma family of deities, which includes Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara, Padmasambhava, Hayagriva, and the other deities mentioned in Jamgön Mipham Gyatso’s short chant entitled Great Clouds of Blessings: Supplication for Magnetizing the Phenomenal World, which is practiced daily at our land centers. Often she’s referred to as Padmadakini, which reflects her connection to the padma family and is her name when she manifests as one of the four wisdom dakinis in the retinue of Vajrayogini. Her name in Tibetan is Rikchéma (rig byed ma), which literally means ‘she who gives knowledge’."......http://www.karmecholing.org/program.php?id=5315

"Kurukulla was likely an Indian tribal deity associated with magical domination. She was assimilated into the Buddhist pantheon at least as early as the Hevajra Tantra, which contains her mantra. Her function in Tibetan Buddhism is the "red" function of subjugation. Her root tantra is the Arya-tara-kurukulle-kalpa (Practices of the Noble Tara Kurukulla)..... It was translated by Ts'ütr'im jeya, a disciple of Atiśa."....Shaw, Miranda (2006). "Kurukulla: Red Enchantress with Flowered Bow". Buddhist Goddesses of India. Princeton University Press.

"One Buddhist Dakini originating from the country of Uddiyana is the goddess Kurukulla. The name Kurukulla is translated into Tibetan as Rigjyedma (rig-byed-ma), “she who is the cause knowledge.” She is associated with a king of Uddiyana named Indrabhuti...... there exists a sadhana text attributed to him for the red Kurukulla......she is generally known as the Uddiyana Kurukulla. Most modern scholars believe this indicates that Kurukulla was originally a tribal goddess, much like the Hindu goddess Durga had been in India, who later, because of her popularity, became associated with the Buddhist great goddess Tara. For this reason, Kurukulla is often called the Red Tara (sgrol-ma dmar-po) or Tarodbhava Kurukulla, “the Kurukulla who arises from Tara.”......KURUKULLA: The Dakini of Magic and Enchantments by John Myrdhin Reynolds

"Gods and goddesses are frequently described with objects of power known as "attributes." Often, they are depicted wielding weapons. ....One of the 12 Nidanas, or "links of dependant arising," on the outer ring of the Wheel of Existence depicts a man pierced through the eye by an arrow. This imagery symbolizes the power of our senses as vectors of attraction (and also, repulsion.) The hum of the nearly invisible swift-flying arrow does not afford any warning, and the accomplished archer can let loose a multitude of death- dealing points in a single encounter. Gods whose domains are the realm of the senses all wield the bow. Consider Artemis and Eros (Diana and Cupid, to the ancient Romans,) Kama the Hindu god of desire, and the Buddhist deity, Kurukulla. ".....http://www.khandro.net/mysterious_objects.htm

"A text like the Arya Tara Kurukulla Kalpa contains many ritual practices of lower magic to accomplish specific goals..... In one Kurukulla Sadhana found in the Sadhanamala(No. 72), there occurs a list of eight great siddhis or magical powers acquired through her practice:....the power to be invincible in battle with a sword......the power to remove ordinary lack of sight by using a magical ointment.....the power to be swift of foot .....the power to become invisible......the power of rejuvenation and long life.....the power to levitate .....the power to move freely through solid walls.....the power to have command over the spirits of the underworld (patala)."....http://vajranatha.com/teaching/Kurukulla.htm

Sadhana texts speak of the four magical actions or magics:
1. White magic or Shantika-karma (zhi-ba’i ‘phrin-las) has the function of calming and pacifying conditions and healing. White Tara is an example of a deity that specifically has this white function.
2. Yellow Magic or Paushtika-karma (rgyas-pa’i phrin-las) has the function of increasing wealth, prosperity, abundance, merit, knowledge, and so on. Vasundahara and Jambhala are examples of deities with these functions. Hence they are yellow in color.
3. Red Magic or Vashya-karma (dbang gi phrin-las) has the function of bringing people under one’s power, of enchanting, bewitching, attracting, subjugating, magnetizing them. This is the primary function of Kurukulla and hence her red color.
4. Black Magic or Raudra-karma (drag-po’i phrin-las) has the function of destroying evil and obstructions to the spiritual path. This is the specific function of many wrathful manifestations such as the Dakini Simhamukha who is dark blue in color.
http://www.khandro.net/mysterious_objects.htm

"......her association with the magical function of enchantment (dbang gi ‘phrin-las) or the bewitching of people in order to bring them under one’s power (dbang du bsdud). More than any other figure in the Buddhist pantheon, Kurukulla becomes the Buddhist goddess of love and sex, corresponding to the Western gooddesses Aphrodite and Venus. She is depicted as a voluptuous and seductive nude sixteen year old girl. Among the attributes she holds in her four hands, four arms being her most common manifestation, are the flower-entwined bow and arrow, reminiscent of the Western Eros and Cupid, although as the goddess of witchcraft, she is more akin to Diana.".....http://vajranatha.com/teaching/Kurukulla.htm

"....the chief canonical source for the goddess, found in the Tantra section (rgyud) of the Kangyur, is the Arya Tara Kurukulla Kalpa (‘Phags-ma sgrol-ma ku-ru-ku-lle’i rtog-pa), “The Magical Rituals for the Noble Tara Kurukulla.” This text was translated into Tibetan by Tsultrim Gyewa, a Tibetan disciple of the great Indian master Atisha (982-1054). ".........http://vajranatha.com/teaching/Kurukulla.htm

"There is also a two-armed white form of Kurukulla known as Shukla Kurukulla in the Sadhanamala (No.185). She has a single face that is calm and beautiful and the Buddha Amitabha adorns her crown. Her two hands hold a mala or rosary and a bowl full of lotus flowers. Her two legs are in vajrasana position.......in Hinduism for her name is found among the one thousand epithets of Mahadevi in the Lalita-sahasra-namah. She is represented as a dancing beautiful maiden or kumari. "...........http://vajranatha.com/teaching/Kurukulla.htm

Drupon Rinchen Dorje......http://tempxyp2440ym0wn.blogspot.com/2011/05/white-kurukulle-wisdombliss-empowerment.html

"The Hevajra Tantra, a yoginītantra of the anuttarayogatantra class, is believed to have originated between the late 8th and the late 9th or early 10th centuries......another lineage, mentioned by Kongtrul, goes from Vilāśyavajra to Anangavajra to Saroruha and thence to Indrabhuti."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hevajra

Yantra-Mantra Tantra and Occult Sciences......By Bhojraj Dwivedi

"The Goddess Kurukulla is invoked for the controlling activities of subjugating, magnetizing, and attracting. She is extremely seductive: her red color and subjugating flower-attributes emphasize her more mundane activity of enchanting men and women, ministers and kings, through the bewitching power of sexual desire and love (Skt. vashikarana). ".....http://www.bhsmc.org.tw/en/node/276

"...an interesting Dakini... she shoots flowers and is another form of TARA : Kurukulla, the "Enchantress"......deity in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra who is often invoked in works of subjugation, enchantment and magnetising people to you. Her name is Kurukulla (pronounced "Koo-roo-koo-lay" according to Jason Miller). In Buddhism she is an aspect of Tara who is often called the "Red Tara" and is considered the heart of Tara herself. In Hindu Tantra she is said to contain the energies and presence of the Mahavidyas Tara, Tripura Sundari (in her maiden form as "Bala Tripura Sundari") and Matangi. She is the combined energy of these three goddesses. Many Tantriks also believe that she is an aspect of the Mahavidya Chinnamasta. The *Lalita Sahasranama Stotram* mentions her name as one of the many names of the goddess Lalita Tripurasundari and in the Sri Vidya Tradition she is associated with the energies of the Full Moon. The Tantraraja Tantra gives a theory of 15 Lalita Nityas which are energy rays of the goddess Lalita connected with the lunar phases and Tara Kurukulla is said to be the mother of these energies. In the Shaktisamgana Tantra she is the fourth Nitya and a mantra is given for her......."Kuru means "harsh sound," and kulla means "family." ......http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=2149.10;wap2

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

August 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Bactrian Bagolago, Devakula & Kushan Divine Kingship

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"Bagolago is a Bactrian term.....the Bagolago at Mat (Mathura)......equivalent Prakit term 'devakula' appears in the inscriptions....the Mat site is one of three certain complexes (others are Surkh Khotal and Rabat) which are part of the same sort of ritual activity....There may be many more similar sites....as many as eight sites.......There is no way for certain what a Bagolago was....The sites have several features in common. They are not public spaces...have an association with water...had erections of both Kings and Gods....unclear if the kings attended the gods or vice-versa......there served some dynastic purpose but terms such as 'dynastic shrine' or 'dynastic cult' may be too strong....the presence of the Bagolago at Mat emphasizes the importance of Mathura....Mathura was the capital of Surasena which the Kushans ruled....http://www.academia.edu/2078818/The_Mint_Cities_of_the_Kushan_Empire

" The meager remains of Bactrian so far described are usefully supplemented by some identifiable Bactrian loanwords in other, better-known languages. As well as words already attested in Bactrian (e.g., Pers, xidēv < Bactr. xoadēo “lord,” Kroraina Prakrit personal name Vaǵamareǵa < bago “god” plus marēgo “servant”) these include some new vocabulary".....bagolaggo [-ŋg] “temple”),..... most of the “Bactrian” legends are virtually identical in vocabulary and phraseology to their Pahlavi equivalents. A legend such as bago pirōzo oazarko košano šauo “Lord Pērōz, great Kušānšāh” may be compared with the Pahl.....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bactrian-language

"..... 'devakula' in Mathura we will return to this type of site later. ..... the only Jain Stupa known from the period; and most important, the Bagolago at Mat."

Kula-Deva (Sanskrit) ......Domestic god

कुल ...kula: chief ...family ...inhabited country ...residence of a family ...seat of a community ...lineage [ family ] ...clan ...high station ...caste ...race ...noble or eminent family or race ...tribe

"Kanishka...........SHAR had many meanings in the ancient cultures of the Near East, it meant both celestial bodies and master. UONONKCHE, which can be also read as VONONTE, was the name of a number of historical personalities - for example the Parphian king Vonones, its successor Vonones, the second name or more exactly - the title of the conqueror of Bactria - the Kushan ruler Kanishka, called Uanando Bagolago. All names stem from the epithet Vanand ('victorious, presented with the grace of the Gods'), which is of very ancient origin with roots in the Sumero-Accadian and from there in the Sanskrit culture. Since the eastern Iranian languages replaced "o" with "a" (which is also characteristic to the modern Mundjan and Tadjik languages), in Old Parphian this epithet was pronounced as VONONES, while for the Kushans - as UANAND.. ".....http://ashrafonline.net/vb/showthread.php?p=316003

Канишки (Канишка) звучало Uanando Bagolago

نصف الأبجدية الهركليفية 14/28 اكتشفت من طرف العلماء العرب في ... ......The best example is a stamp of Tervel, where next to the face of the ruler are ... the conqueror of Bactria - the Kushan Ruler Kanishka, called Uanando Bagolago....http://ar.cyclopaedia.net/wiki/Kushan_Ruler

"Kanishka I (Sanskrit: कनिष्क; Bactrian: Κανηϸκι, Kaneshki; Middle Chinese: 迦腻色伽 (Ka-ni-sak-ka > New Chinese: Jianisejia), or Kanishka the Great, was the emperor of the Kushan dynasty in 127–151 AD.....famous for his military, political, and spiritual achievements. A descendant of Kushan empire founder Kujula Kadphises, Kanishka came to rule an empire in Bactria extending from Turfan in the Tarim Basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain during the Golden Age of the Kushanas. The main capital of his empire was located at Puruṣapura in Gandhara (Peshawar in present Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan), with two other major capitals at ancient Kapisa (present Bagram, Afghanistan) and Mathura, India. His conequests and patronage of Buddhism played an important role in the development of the Silk Road, and the transmission of Mahayana Buddhism from Gandhara across the Karakoram range to China."

Iranian/Indic phase.....Following the transition to the Bactrian language on coins, Iranian and Indic divinities replace the Greek ones: ΜΑΝΑΟΒΑΓΟ (manaobago, Vohu Manah ).......Vohu Manah is the Avestan language term for a Zoroastrian concept, generally translated as "Good Purpose" or "Good Mind" (cognate with Sanskrit vasu manas), referring to the good moral state of mind that enables an individual to accomplish his duties.

Surkh Kotal...... 36.03N, 68.55E......."That Surkh Kotal was a major site of direct importance to the Kushan dynasty is beyond doubt. It is the site of a bagolago, a dynastic shrine associated with the period from Wima Kadphises to Huvishka........http://www.kushan.org/sources/coin/sites.htm......Ball, 1982: no.1123 ....Ball, W (1982) Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan, Catalogue des Sites Archaeologiques D'Afghanistan. 2 Volumes.

"The Rabatak inscription is an inscription written on a rock in the Bactrian language and the Greek script, which was found in 1993 at the site of Rabatak, near Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan. The inscription relates to the rule of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, and gives remarkable clues on the genealogy of the Kushan dynasty."

"Jamal Garhai is ancient Gandharan site located 13 kilometers from Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northern Pakistan. Jamal Garhi was a Buddhist monastery from the first until the fifth century AD at a time when Buddhism flourished.....The most remarkable find in Jamal Garhi is the circular stupa situated on high ground to the west of the main clump of edifices. The stupa is surrounded by a ring of cubicles that may have either served as shrines housing images of Buddha or prayer chambers for the devout. The superior stonework and symmetry of the stupa are notable..... The Central Asiatic Kushans, originally fire worshippers, had embraced Buddhism and followed their new faith with the customary zeal of recent converts. In fact, Huvishka’s predecessor, the great Kanishka, is commemorated to this day for his ardent pursuit of ordering some of the most monumental stupas ever to be raised...........http://odysseuslahori.blogspot.com/2014/10/Jamal-Garhi.html

"The Kushan empire emerged as one of the most powerful empire empire during first century A.D. in central Asia.....Kushanas had very unique system of administrative system. King was highest level of administration. King and kingship was linked with divine rule.The Kushana kings generally used exalted titles like maharajadhiraja (king of kings), daivaputra (son of heaven), soter (Saviour) and kaisara (Caesar). The Kushans had appointed ksatrapas and mahaksatrapas for different units of the empire. There were other officials performing both civil and military functions, called dandanayaka and mahadandanayaka.......The Kushans seem to have followed the earlier existing pattern of the Indo-Greeks and Parthians by appointing ksatrapas and mahaksatrapas for different units of the empire. There were other officials performing both civil and military functions, called dandanayaka and mahadandanayaka. At village level, gramika and padrapala– both signifying ‘village headman’, who collected the king’s dues and took cognizance of crimes in his area."......

"It seems that the Kushans, upon becoming masters of Bactria, at first continued the traditional use of Greek as a medium of written communication. As a spoken language they had adopted Bactrian, the native idiom of the country, which they afterwards elevated to the status of a written language and employed for official purposes, perhaps as a result of increasing national or dynastic pride. The earliest known inscriptions in Bactrian (the “unfinished inscription” from Surkh Kotal, cf. A. D. H. Bivar, BSOAS 26, 1963, pp. 498-502, and the Dašt-e Nāvūr trilingual) belong to the reign of Vima Kadphises. A few decades later, early in the reign of Kanishka I, Bactrian replaced Greek on the Kushan coins. After this period Greek ceased to be used as an official language in Bactria (although later instances of its use by Greek settlers are known, cf. P. M. Fraser, Afghan Studies 3-4, 1982, pp. 77f.)."....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bactrian-language

Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress.....Page 138 ...By John R. Hinnells

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

July 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Yum Chenmo & Shenlha Okar

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The Four Transcendent Lords (bde gshegs gtso bo bzhi)....
1. Yingkyi Yum Chenmo (dbyings kyi yum chen mo).........aka: Satrig Ersang, Lhamo (sa trig er sangs, lha mo: Goddess)....Great Mother of Wisdom, Yum Chenmo......
2. Lhachen Shen lha Okar (lha chen g.shen lha 'od dkar, Lha chen)...
3. Sid pa Sangpo Bumtri (srid pa sangs po 'bum khri)...
4. Tonpa Shenrab Miwo (ston pa g.shen rab mi bo)....
These four are also known as: Lhamo, Lhachen, Sidpa and Shenrab (lha mo, lha chen, srid pa, g.shen rab)......http://www.himalayanart.org

gShen-lha od-dkar......."In Tibetan Bon-religion, the god of the 'white light' who forms with the goddess Yum-chen-mo the primeval pair of gods. All the other gods are their descendants. In Lamaism he is the god of wisdom........In Tibet Prajnaparamita is known as Yum Chenmo or the “Great Mother” and features prominently in the Chod dharma system created by one of the most well known yoginis Machik Labdron (approx. 1055-1150 AD) who is considered to be an emanation of Yum Chenmo.....Jerome Edou quotes Machik's biography in his book Machig Labdron and the foundations of Chod with this description of Yum Chenmo given to Machik Labdron by the Bodhisattva Tara Herself to explain why she manifests in an anthropomorphic manner: "The Primodial Mother, Yum Chenmo, is the ultimate nature of all phenomenon, emptiness, suchness [Skt. Dharmata], free from the two veils. She is the pure essence of the sphere of emptiness, the insight on non-self. She is the matrix that gives birth to all the Buddhas of the three times. However, to give beings the opportunity to accumulate spirtual merits, she manifests as an object of veneration."....by Micha F. Lindemans.....…..http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/shen-lha_od-dkar.html

"Satrig Ersang, ས་ཏྲིག་ཨེར་སངས། The Mother of Space, Supreme Deity of the Bön religion of Tibet, also called Yum Chen Mo, Great Goddess, and Byams-Ma ("The Mother of Tender Compassion").".....

"In the Bön religion, Sipe Gyalmo, the Queen of the World, is the most wrathful manifestation of the peaceful Goddess, Sherab Chamma – Loving Mother of Wisdom, who is the principal meditational form of Satrig Ersang of the Four Transcendent Lords. Sherab Chamma, also called in Tibetan language “Thugje Chamma”, (the loving mother of compassion) is considered in the Bön tradition to be the Gyalyum (rgyal yum), the Mother of all Buddhas. She embodies the perfection of wisdom. In the Buddhist tradition of India Chamma is called Prajnaparamita or Tara, the ‘saviouress.'” ...https://journeyingtothegoddess.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/

Mantra Video on Youtube..........https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRgXItEe5bw

"Satrig Ersang.......(Tibetan: sa trig er sangs): the principal female deity of the Bon Religion. Satrig Ersang ranks with the highest of Bon Deities/Gods being included as one of the four Transcendent Lords and named first among them. She is typically only depicted in the company of the Four Transcendent Lords and together they form a set of paintings, sculptural figures or murals that are generally found in each and every Bon temple or shrine. In paintings she is commonly surrounded by the two hundred and fifty sanggye (enlightened ones) .... all female. Each of the four Transcendent Lords is surrounded by a similar group making a total of 1000 sanggye of the Bon Tradition. In the West this assembly of 1000 has often been mistaken for the 1000 Buddhas of the aeon according to the Buddhist -Mahayana Tradition........Description: Peaceful in appearance, female and beautiful, Satrig Ersang has one face and two hands. Typically she has the two hands held at the heart holding the stems of two flowers supporting a yungdrung on the right side and a mirror on the left above the shoulders. The two legs are in a tight cross legged posture. Sherab Chamma is another form of Satrig Ersang and can be thought of as an activity manifestation of Satrig Ersang where she takes on the roles of a meditational deityy, a deity of healing such as Yeshe Walmo, and in her most horrific of appearances as Sipai Gyalmo ... the principal protector of the Bon Religion......".....http://www.scribd.com/doc/205934311/Satig-Ersang-Bon-Deity#scribd

"Yum Chenmo/Prajnaparamita/The Great Mother......Yum Chenmo, or Prajnaparamita in Sanskrit meaning Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom. She is depicted in feminine form because it is this perfect wisdom which gives birth to all of the Buddhas, as well as the bodhisattvas, those who are striving for enlightenment to benefit all beings. Yum Chenmo represents the union of primordial wisdom and the skillful means of compassion......Prajnaparamita is often personified as a bodhisattvadevi (female bodhisattva). Artifacts from Nalanda depict the Prajnaparamita personified as a goddess. .....

"Shenlha Ökar...... (Wylie: gshen lha 'od dkar) or Shiwa Ökar (Wylie: zhi ba 'od dkar) is the most important deity in the Yungdrung Bon tradition of Tibet. He is counted among the "Four Transcendent Lords" (Wylie: bde bar gshegs pa) along with Satrig Ersang (Sherab Chamma), Sangpo Bumtri, and Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.......Shenlha Ökar means "wisdom gshen of white light;" the variant Shiwa Okar means "peaceful white light." The Bon term gShen can mean "priest or shaman" or possibly in this case "deity who is a priest." In some accounts he is considered the sambhogakāya form of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche, the founder of Bon (the nirmāṇakāya aspect). In other accounts, he is visited by Shenrab Miwoche when Miwoche is in a prior incarnation known as Salwa. Additionally, some categorize him as "corresponding exactly to the Buddhist category of dharmakāya."......Shenlha Okar is said to have created the world with the help of nine brother gods or nine cosmic gods (See: The Golden Dot text by Chogyam Trungpa)..... (Wylie: srid pa'i lha) who appear as war gods or drala (Wylie: dgra bla). He is also considered a god of compassion with many parallels to Avalokiteśvara and also with Amitābha....Shenlha Okar is depicted with a white body "like the essence of crystal," ".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlha_Okar

"Sherab Chamma, the Wisdom Loving Mother, is the embodiment of loving compassion......Yum Chen Sherab Chamma (The Great Wisdom Loving Mother) is known as the Mother of all Enlightened Ones and source of all love and Compassion.......All Bön deities come from Chamma, she is the compassionate and wise mother of all. Chamma is the feminine counterpart to Shenlha Odkar. Her body is also “dzo ku,” the body of perfection. Chamma is available to everyone for comfort, guidance and healing as she has the power to dispel all obstacles such as fear, sickness, sadness or negative impact of demonic forces. She is thereby able to prolong life. Chamma holds a mirror in her left hand. This mirror represents the purity of Chamma heart as reflected in a perfect understanding of the karma and suffering of all beings. The vase in her right hand contains the essence of the potential hopes, dreams and accomplishments of all who are committed to Chamma. Her throne is supported, like Shenlha Odkar, by two snow lions representing her supremacy over all life."......http://kwling.org/bon/dieties/

"BÖN DEITIES.......Enlightened beings are often depicted as deities, although they are not seen as gods (lha), who are still within the samsaric cycle of existence, but rather as fully enlightened buddhas. They may appear in either peaceful form or in wrathful forms, and are the focus of deity yoga meditation practice and invocations for protection......
THE FOUR SUGATAS.......Within the Bön tradition, there are Four Principal Sugatas (Conqueror Buddhas), referred to as the Four Peaceful Deities:
1. Sangpo Bumtri: the Creator Dharmakaya Deity
2. Sherab Chamma: the mother of all Buddhas. She embodies the perfection of wisdom and love. She is also known as Satrig Ersang, her Zhang Zhung name.....Yum Chen Sherab Chamma (The Great Wisdom Loving Mother) is known as the Mother of all Enlightened Ones and source of all love and Compassion......All Bön deities come from Chamma, she is the compassionate and wise mother of all. Chamma is the feminine counterpart to Shenlha Odkar. Her body is also “dzo ku,” the body of perfection. Chamma is available to everyone for comfort, guidance and healing as she has the power to dispel all obstacles such as fear, sickness, sadness or negative impact of demonic forces. She is thereby able to prolong life. Chamma holds a mirror in her left hand. This mirror represents the purity of Chamma heart as reflected in a perfect understanding of the karma and suffering of all beings. The vase in her right hand contains the essence of the potential hopes, dreams and accomplishments of all who are committed to Chamma. Her throne is supported, like Shenlha Odkar, by two snow lions representing her supremacy over all life..
3. Shenlha Okar: the God of Compassion, a Sambhogakaya emanation of Sangpo Bumtri’s love in the world working within Lord Tonpa Shenrab.....the Deity (lha) is Shenlha Odkar....the deity of Supreme Compassion. Out of his compassion the Bon teachings and practices have grown to assist all sentient beings on the path to liberation. He is the master teacher of all teachers and teaching has become his primary activity. Odkar means ‘white light’ and his body of light is pearlescent, the body of perfection (dzog ku). Shenlha Odkar is always dressed in elaborate, ceremonial robes with his hands in the meditation mudra. He sits on a throne supported by two snow lions, which represent Shenlha Odkar’s supremacy over all life forms.
4. Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche (Lord Buddha Tonpa): the Nirmanakaya Buddha and World Teacher.
http://bonsociety.com/?page_id=93

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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