Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772 AD) Tantra, Kabbalism & Shambhala

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Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772 AD) .......a Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator, and mystic..........Renowned most of his life for his contributions to the natural sciences, Swedenborg had a spiritual awakening in his 50s and published what is now his most famous work — a description of the afterlife called "Heaven and Hell."...(1758 AD)...Highly regarded after his death by philosophers and mystics, Swedenborg claimed he could visit heaven and hell at will and that his ideas about spirituality, God, and Christ came to him in dreams and visions.....

"Swedenborg was fascinated with the 'Shambhala' myth, and under cover of employment for the Swedish East India Company and his appointment to the Swedish Court as Master Ironmaster and Miner...... his interest in India and Central Asia, and the sexual rites that went with his New Jerusalem Society, later to be frequented by William Blake....Swedenborg became intrigued by the similarity of Yogic Tantra techniques of mediatation and sexual magic to Kabbalistic techniques....Swedenborg argued that the Yogis of Central Asia discovered the secrets of Kabbalism long before the Jews....Gershom Scholem also noticed that, already in the thirteenth century, in the Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia, (1240- 1291 AD) the techniques used 'to aid the ascent of the soul, such as breathing exercises, the repition of divine names, and meditations on colours, bear a marked resemblance to those of Indian Yoga and Muslim Sufism."....Page 137.....Black Terror White Soldiers: Islam, Fascism & the New Age.....By David Livingstone

"The Swedish East India Company (Swedish: Svenska Ostindiska Companiet or SOIC) was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with the Far East.....In 1736 Swedenborg wrote to King Frederick, requesting a 3-4 year leave of absence to travel to the Continent.... he presented a different rationale than his actual complex agenda.....his mission included political-military intelligence work, Moravian-Masonic contacts, and Kabbalistic-Hermetic research.....while in Hamburg, Swedenborg pursued his investigations in Jewish mysticism....he later recorded that he achieved a signigicant psychic breakthrough in August 1736, while in Amsterdam.....perhaps he learned somthing of Kabbalistic brathing and meditaion techniques from the Jews in Hanover or from Moravians living in the Jewish community in Amsterdam. Swedenborg noted that he began to experiment with breath control.....In August 1736 he moved on to Paris where he lived for 19 months....his journal was interspersed with dream sequences and he was involved with Masonic and Freemasonry in Paris....in 1738 he left Paris and was on his way to Italy.....in Lyon, he visited the Library of the Jesuits, where Chevalier Ramsay had earlier studied the mystical manuscripts brought from China by Jesuit missionaries....Ramsay was assimilating Chinese notions of the 'Heaven Man' into Kabbalistic notions of 'Adam Kadmon, the Grand Man....themes that he wove into Masonic philosophy.....he arrived in Turin in March 1738....of further interest to Swedenborg would be Rehbinder' alchemical studies and contacts.....he contacted some Jesuits who dabbled in alchemy....Swedenborg learend of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher's Kabbalistic interpretation of the Tabula Isiaca, which drew heavily on the Sepher Yetzirah and Zohar..........Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven: Jacobites, Jews and ...edited by Marsha Keith Schuchard......https://books.google.com/books?id=RzvBUj_gvecC&pg=PA221&lpg=PA221&dq=Swedenborg+Swedish+East+India+Company&source=bl&ots=gOGynliT1s&sig=9k2hjYyl_ub1kn_I1Pb17OhpgZ4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDyOCS_tbLAhXBtIMKHcXfCBMQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q=Swedenborg%20Swedish%20East%20India%20Company&f=false

"D. T. Suzuki, the Japanese scholar who would later become world-famous for his many books on Zen, was introduced to Swedenborg sometime during his years working with Paul Carus in Illinois (1897-1908). ......A correspondence with Swedenborgians in the Philadelphia area led to an invitation to translate Heaven and Hell into Japanese, which was accomplished during a Christmas-time visit to London. Upon returning to his homeland Suzuki introduced Swedenborg to Japan by publishing that translation in 1910, followed by Divine Love and Wisdom and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine (both 1914), and Divine Providence (1915). In addition, he published his own study in Japanese entitled, simply, Swedenborg (1915). Much of this was compiled from English sources but the introductory first chapter was original and notes that: 'The theological doctrines presented by Swedenborg have some similarity to those of Buddhism... True salvation rests upon a harmonious unity of what one believes with what one does. Wisdom and Love are the manifestation of the Divine, and Love has more depth and breadth than Wisdom. The Divine Providence reaches into the minutest things in the universe. There must not be any occurrences that happen by accident.....In 1927 Suzuki published a nine-page article suggesting that Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences may be compared with the Shingon doctrine that phenomena are aspects of Mahavairocana Buddha's ceaseless teaching."......The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Buddhist Perspective.....By David Loy

"The notion of an “Oriental Kabbalah” began with Swedenborg... and was especially promoted by the Chevalier Michael Ramsay of the Hindu Tantra as an expression of an 'Asian Kabbalah'......Page 77.....By David Livingstone......Transhumanism: The History of a Dangerous Idea

"While associating with Moravian and Jewish mystics in London, the 56 year old Swedenborg learned how to perform the mystical Kabbalistic marriage within his mind, through the sublimatin of his sexual energy into visionary energy. By meditating on the male and female potencies concealed in the vessels of Hebrew letters, by visualizing these letters in the forms of human bodies, by regulating the inhalation and exhalation of breath, and by achieving an erection without ejaculation...the Kabbalist could achieve a state that elevated him to higher realms.....Marsha Schuchard has found that grail of researchers - original documents that confirm suspicions about her subject. In this case they are surviving records of the unworldly Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane showing how William Blake's family were worshippers at this shrine of eroticism...She gives a close reading of the more rewarding poems such as "The Crystal Cabinet" and "Long John Brown and Little Mary Bell". These, she says, suggest sex practices aimed at visionary breakthrough, while Swedenborg's belief that "the great toe communicates with the genitals" is demonstrated by Blake's self-portrait "William", showing his body flung back while a flaming star descends toward his left foot. Weird stuff, indeed.."........Marsha Keith Schuchard: Why Mrs Blake Cried...Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision.....

"The secret and mystical sexual practices at the heart of William Blake’s creative and spiritual life ......Reveals newly discovered family documents connecting Blake’s mother and Blake himself to Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation ......Shows Blake had access to kabbalistic and tantric techniques of psychoerotic meditation, which used sexual arousal to achieve spiritual vision..... Marsha Keith Schuchard shows that Blake and his wife, Catherine, were influenced by secret kabbalistic and tantric rituals designed to transcend the bonds of social convention. Her exhaustive research provides a new context for understanding the mystical practices at the heart of Blake’s most radical beliefs about sexualized spirituality and its relation to visionary art." ...William Blake's Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision by Marsha Keith Schuchard (2008)

"Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686 – 1743 AD), commonly called the Chevalier Ramsay, was a Scottish-born writer who lived most of his adult life in France. He was a Baronet in the Jacobite Peerage.....Ramsay's works include:.......Les voyages de Cyrus (London, 1728; Paris, 1727): Engl. 'The travels of Cyrus to which is annexe'd a discourse upon the theology & mythology of the pagans' – a book composed in avowed imitation of Fenelon's ''Les avantures de Télémaque''........http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/ramsay_biography_oration.html

"William Blake’s desire for concubines, following the example of Biblical Patriarch Abraham, which reportedly made his wife cry, prompting Blake to give up the plan. .....Sanctified sexuality, however, never left his imagination and it went far beyond Biblical concubines and included the Jewish esoteric beliefs of the Kabbalah, ‘celestial marriage’ practised by the Moravians and Swedenborgians, as well as Indian Yogic and Tantric traditions of sacred sex. And it all began at home, when his parents became members of the Moravian Congregation of the Lamb in Fetter Lane, London...The Moravians, who originated in Czechoslovakia and migrated to Saxony, were a sectarian fellowship under eccentric German nobleman Nicolaus von Zinzendorf. ."

"The Moravian Church is one of the oldest Protestant denominations in the world, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century.......their heritage began in 1457 in Bohemia (and its crown lands, Moravia and Silesia), then an autonomous kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. This region today is part of the Czech Republic.....The first printed edition of the Gesar epic was published in Beijing in 1716 in a Mongolian version. It was this text which formed the basis for the first Western-language translation, a Russian version published by the Moravian missionary Isaac Jacob Schmidt in 1836. A German translation followed in 1839. Another Moravian missionary, August Hermann Francke, collected and translated a version from Lower Ladakh between 1905 and 1909.....At first the Moravians had no intention at all to evangelize Tibet......... and the Lower Ladakhi version of the Gesar saga that was edited by her husband....A Russian translation of the Mongolian Geser texts, which had been printed in Beijing from 1716 onwards, was published by the Moravian missionary Isaak Jakob Schmidt in 1836; a German translation followed in 1839."

"Abraham Abulafia (1240- 1291 AD).....in his later writings, the founder of prophetic Kabbalah produces a synthesis between Maimonides’ Neoaristotelian understanding of prophecy as the result of the transformation of the intellectual influx into a linguistic message and techniques to reach such experiences by means of combinations of letters and their pronunciation, breathing exercises, contemplation of parts of the body, movements of the head and hands, and concentration exercises.".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Abulafia

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Okar Research is an informal online review of published materials exploring the history, myths, legends, languages, geography, terms, practices, teachers and teachings of the ancient Central Asian 'Kingdom of Shambhala'.

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Click Here to view the Okar Research Index

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John Hopkins.....New Mexico
Email: okarresearch@gmail.com

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Yungdrung Tharpaling...Lamayuru Monastery & Mahasiddha Naropa (11th c. AD)

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"Lamayuru or Yuru Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་མ་གཡུང་དྲུང་དགོན་པ་, Wylie: bla ma gyung drung dgon pa "Eternal Monastery", Lama Yungdrung Gonpa......Urdu: لمیرو گومپا‎) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lamayouro, Leh district, India. It is situated on the Srinagar-Leh highway 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the Fotu La ....A. H. Francke states that, "according to popular tradition," it was originally the foremost Bon monastery in Ladakh; its name means sauwastika and is a popular symbol in Bon for "eternity". .....Yungdrung is the name of the most popular school of Bon..... It is currently affiliated with the Drikung Kagyu school of Buddhism....Francke, A. H. (1977). A History of Ladakh. (Originally published as, A History of Western Tibet, (1907).

Click on the map to enlarge

"Lamayuru......Yungdrung Tharpaling (g.yung drung thar pa gling), known today as Lamayuru, is the most ancient monastery of Ladakh.... LamaYuru, a vast monastery complex on a steep outcrop of earth..... Legend has it that the region where Yungdrung Tharpaling is situated today, approximately 127 km to the west of Leh, the capital of Ladakh, at the time of Buddha Shakyamuni was under a big lake, which was home to many Nagas. Rising prominently from the eastern part of the lake was a little dry hill which was locally called Skambur. It is said that the Arahat Madhyantika, when he visited the lake at Lamayuru and made water offerings to the Nagas, made a crack into the ground of the lake with his walking staff to leak out the water. He also pronounced the prophecy that in the future, the teachings of Sutra and Tantra unified will flourish in this place.."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"Mahasiddha Naropa (c. 1016–1100) visited Lamayuru coming from Zanskar...... He spent a long time in strict retreat in a cave there and turned the place into a sacred land. The cave still exists, well preserved and forms part of the main shrine of Lamayuru Monastery.......When Naropa was a great yogi, that he visited Kashmir. He came to Sani in Zanskar and to Lama Yuru in Ladakh.....at Sani the stupa here was built 2,500 years ago they say. It is called Kaniska or Sani Kaniska.....Guru Rinpoche came some 1300 years ago and mediated here establishing the cremation grounds and many springs. Then 1000 years ago came Naropa who meditated in front of the Kaniska Stupa."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru......http://naropa.edu/documents/programs/ma-environmental-leadership/footsteps.pdf

"Later in his life Naropa stayed in Phullahari, where he died aged 85 (c. 1040 AD)....One of the few reliable historical accounts of him comes from a Tibetan translator named Ngatso Lotsawa, who made an effort to visit Naropa at the monastery of Phullahari while waiting to visit with Atiśa at Vikramashila:......' I thought I would go see the Lord Naropa, since his reputation was so great.... On the day I arrived, they said some feudal prince had come to pay homage. So I went to the spot, and a great throne had been erected. I sat right in front of it. The whole crowd started buzzing, "The Lord is coming!" I looked and the Lord was physically quite corpulent, with his white hair [stained with henna] bright red, and a vermilion turban on. He was being carried [on a palanquin] by four men, and was chewing betel-leaf....So, there I saw the Lord's face, but did not actually hear his voice."......Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism. pg 317. Columbia University Press, 2003.

"In 1038 the great translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055) built five temples at Lamayuru. These were among the 108 temples and stupas he erected in Spiti and Ladakh. One of the five temples at Lamayuru is still in perfect condition."...... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"The Lamayuru monastery, which is around 125 kms away from Leh. During the Yuru Kabgyat Festival, the monks perform mask dances, prayers and rituals in order to get away from any kind of disaster and for bringing in peace in the world. This is a pre-historic monastery, which is called Yuru Gonpa by the locals. This festival is dedicated to Yuru Kabgyat and his mythical connection...The main objective behind this masked dance drama is to appease the deity.....The Yuru Kabgyat dance consists of Chams in which the Lamas dance in the form of circles with large colorful masks. This circular movement is often accompanied by drum beats, long pipes and cymbals. The masks are usually made from paper mache and there is also a thin coat of plaster enveloping it.....The main figures portrayed are the Yama or the Lord of Death and Padmasambhava..... At Lamayuru in Leh, this dance is a renowned dance drama which is held every year during the Yuru Kabgyat festival, (held around July –August.) This dance drama concludes with sacrificial offerings......http://www.lehladakhindia.com/festivals/yuru-kabgyat-festival/

"Zanskar (“bzang-dkar”, meaning good (or beautiful) and white).......Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet......The majority of Zanskaris are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-European origins; notably Changpa, Dard and Mon.... It is suspected that an Indo-European population known as the Mon might then have lived in this region, before mixing with or being replaced by the next settlers, the Dards. Early Buddhism coming from Kashmir spread its influence in Zanskar, possibly as early as 200 BC. The earliest monuments date from the Kushan period. After this eastward propagation of Buddhism, Zanskar and large parts of the Western Himalaya were overrun in the 7th century by the Tibetans, who imposed their Bön religion.......Buddhism regained its influence over Zanskar in the 8th century when Tibet was also converted to this religion. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, two Royal Houses were founded in Zanskar, and the monasteries of Karsha and Phugtal (see picture) were built. Until the 15th century Zanskar existed as a more or less independent Buddhist Kingdom ruled by between two and four related royal families..".....Namgail, T. (2004). "Zangskar: mystic land". Sanctuary Asia 24: 44–47.

"Guge was an ancient kingdom in Western Tibet. The kingdom was centered in present-day Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. At various points in history after the 10th century AD, the kingdom held sway over a vast area including south-eastern Zanskar, Upper Kinnaur district, and Spiti Valley, either by conquest or as tributaries. The ruins of the former capital of the Guge kingdom are located at Tsaparang in the Sutlej valley, not far from Mount Kailash and 1,200 miles (1,900 km) westwards from Lhasa.....Guge was founded in the 10th c. AD.....Nyi ma mgon, a great-grandson of Langdarma, the last monarch of the Tibetan Empire, established a kingdom in Ngari (West Tibet) in or after 912 ADand annexed Puhrang and Guge. He established his capital in Guge.....

'A Summer Ride Through Western Tibet......1906.......By Jane E. Duncan..... FranckeAntiquitiesPNG.....Antiquities of Indian Tibet: Personal narrative.....Page 80.....By August Hermann Francke

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Okar Research is an informal online review of published materials exploring the history, myths, legends, languages, geography, terms, practices, teachers and teachings of the ancient Central Asian 'Kingdom of Shambhala'.

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Click Here to view the Okar Research Index

**************************

John Hopkins.....New Mexico
Email: okarresearch@gmail.com

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The Nine Ways of Bon & Iranian Central Asia

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"The teachings of Yungdrung Bon did not solely originate in Zhang-zhung, but were said to have been brought from Tazik, that is, Iranian speaking Central Asia, to Zhang-zhung in Western and Northern Tibet by a number of mysterious white-robbed sages long before the political events of the seventh and eighth centuries.........".....http://vajranatha.com/articles/traditions/bonpo.html?showall=1

"..... it now appears likely that before Indian Buddhism came to Central Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries, Zhang-zhung had extensive contacts with the Buddhist cultures that flourished around it in Central Asia and in the Indo-Tibetan borderlands. Just to the west of Zhang-zhung there once existed the vast Kushana empire which was Buddhist in its religious culture. It was an area in which Indian Buddhism interacted with various strands of Iranian religion-- Zoroastrian, Zurvanist, Mithraist, Manichean, as well as Indian Shaivism and Nestorian Christianity. This was also true of the oasis cities of the Silk Route to the northeast of Zhang-zhung .... the Kalachakra Tantra is said to have been brought from Shambhala in Central Asia to Nalanda in India ....certain trends within Yungdrung Bon, rather than being later plagiarisms and imitations of Indian Buddhism concocted in the tenth century, actually do go back to a kind of syncretistic Indo-Iranian Buddhism "......http://vajranatha.com/articles/traditions/dzogchen.html?showall=1

"Nine different ways, or vehicles..... even though one is a practitioner of a higher ‘Way’, this does not exclude the practice of one or more of the lower ‘Ways’ should the need arise. Although the methods differ, all of the Nine Ways have compassion as their base..... three different classifications of the Nine Ways of Bön according to the region in which the texts were found after being hidden. These three are referred to as The Southern Treasures (terma texts revealed in Bhutan and the southern area of Tibet)...... The Northern Treasures (terma texts revealed in Zhangzhung and northern Tibet)...... and The Central Treasures ( terma texts revealed in central Tibet close to Samye)......The Nine Ways of Bön"...http://texts.drupal-test.shanti.virginia.edu/node/11463#

"It is held that Tonpa Shenrab first studied the Bon doctrine in Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring, at the end of which he pledged to Shenlha Okar, the God of Compassion, that he would guide the peoples of this world to liberation....The ultimate souce of their teachings is sTag-gzigs , a country situated rather vaguely still further to the west... "....https://collab.itc.virginia.edu....Nine Ways of Bon

The Nine Ways of Bon according to The Southern Treasures: (David Snellgrove’s 1961 translation remains the only extended translation of the Nine Ways that is available!)

IX. THE SUPREME WAY (bla-med theg-pa)..... The Unsurpassed Way: This Way is primarily focused upon the practice of Dzogchen, or The Great Perfection. This Way does not rely upon antidotes of any kind, ritual or practice with a meditational deity. It is concerned with the realization of the true nature of one’s own mind.....The categories and ideas elaborated in this IXth Vehicle are usually referred to as the teachings of the 'Great Perfection' ( rdzog-chen ).....the Way of Dzogchen (khyad par chen po'i theg pa or rdzogs pa chen po, abbreviated rdzogs chen) .....In general, the Dzogchen teachings are found only in the old unreformed Tibetan schools of the Buddhist Nyingmapas and the non-Buddhist Bonpos...

VIII. THE WAY OF THE PRIMEVAL SHEN (ye-shen theg-pa)......The Way of the Primordial Shen: This Way is primarily focused upon higher tantric practice......This deals with the need for a suitable master, as suitable partner, and a suitable site. The preparation of the mandala is then described in detail together with important admonitions not to forget the local divinites ( sa-bdag ). The process of mediation (known as the 'Process of Emanation'-in Sanskrit utpattikrama) is recounted. The last Part of this section describes the 'Proces of Realisation' (Sanskrit nispannakrama), which is the 'super-rational' state of the perfected sage. His behaviour might often be mistaken for that of a madman....(ye gshen theg pa) renders the guidelines for seeking a true tantric master and the commitments (dam tshigs, parallel to the Sanskrit samaya) that bind a disciple to his tantric master

VII. THE WAY OF PURE SOUND (a-dkar theg-pa)......The Way of the White AH: This Way is primarily focused upon tantric practice using visualization..... It gives a very good account of the tantric theory of 'transformation' through the mandala......It then goes on to refer briefly to the union of Method and Wisdom as realized by the practiser and his feminine partner.....Way of Primordial Sound (a dkar theg pa) charts the integration of an exalted practitioner into the mandala of highest enlightenment;

VI. THE WAY OF THE GREAT ASCETICS (drang-srong theg-pa).....specifies the proper conduct for those who are fully ordained practitioners.....drang-rong translates rsi which in India refers to the great seers of the past.......Drang-rong is used by bonpos to refer to fully qualified monks, corresponding to the buddhist term dge-slong (= bhiksu ). This is the way of strict ascetic discipline....... The Way of the Fully Ordained: This Way specifies the proper conduct for those who are fully ordained practitioners.....Way of a Monk (drang srong theg pa) codifies monastic rules and regulations;

V. THE WAY OF THE VIRTUOUS ADHERERS (dge-bsnyen theg-pa).......specifies the proper conduct of lay person taking vows.....dGe-bsnyen is the normal Tibetan term for upasaka which in India referred to the Buddhist layman. Similarly, here it refers to those who follow the practice of the ten virtues and the ten perfections, and who build and worship stupas....... The Way of the Virtuous Lay Practitioners: This Way specifies the proper conduct of lay person taking vows....Way of a Lay Follower (dge bsnyen theg pa) contains the ten principles for wholesome activity...

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The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ways are classified as The Causal Ways, or the Bön of Causes. ....Tibetan Shamanism is found in the first four causal ways. Shamans in Tibet take a very earthy and dualistic approach to life, healing the disturbances and illnesses in this life without being concerned about the next life.....These first four causal ways of the native Tibetan shamans’ paths, are called: Chashen (The way of the Shen of Prediction), Nangshen (The Way of the Shen of the Visible World), Trulshen (The Way of the Shen of ‘Magical’ Illusion), and Sichen (The way of the Shen of Existence).....shamanism, healing, magical rites of exorcism, astrology, and divination (these practices belong to the four lower or Causal Ways among the Nine Ways of Bon

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IV. THE WAY OF THE SHEN OF EXISTENCE (srid-gshen theg-pa)...... This Way is primarily focused upon rituals for the dead and methods to promote longevity for the living......This deals with beings in the 'Intermediate state' ( bar-do ) between death and rebirth, and ways of leading them towards salvation......Way of Existence (srid gshen theg pa) details funeral and death rituals....Working with the soul of the living and the dead is the most important feature of the fourth way, Sichen, which contains a detailed explanation of the principle of the la (soul), yid (mind), and sem (thinking mind). “The la is the karmic trace, which is stored in the kunzhi namshe, (or base consciousness). The sem follows the karmic trace and produces blissful, painful and neutral experiences which are experienced by the yid....When a living person’s soul is lost, shattered, or disordered, there are practices to recall and reinforce its energy, such as soul retrieval. In relation to the dead, there are explanations of 81 different types of death, such as accidental death, suicide, murder, and sinister death....following these kinds of death, it is very important to perform appropriate rites....one of the most important practices performed by Tibetan shamans of the sichen path is soul retrieval – Lalu (literally redeeming, or buying back the soul), and Chilu, (redeeming the life-energy)..”

III. THE WAY OF THE SHEN OF ILLUSION (hprul-gshen theg-pa).....This Way includes venerating a deity or master and then applying mantra and mudras in order to accomplish a goal such as requesting assistance from natural energies.....This is concerned with rites for disposing of enemies of all kinds. The rites described here are to be found in the bon tantras, e.g. those of dBal-gsas and the khro-bahi rgyud drug .....Similar practices are referred to in Buddhist tantras, e.g. Hevajra -Tantra...... The Way of the Shen of Manifestation...Way of Illusion ('phrul gshen theg pa) explains the rites for the dispersal of adverse tulpas, entities and energies.....Shamans of the third way, Trulshen, go where there is strong, wild energy, where they perform practices to conquer the spirits and demons that inhabit those places, subjugating them into their service. One achieves this through practising mantra (words of magic power), mudra (meaningful hand gestures to communicate with gods and spirits), and samadhi (meditation), while performing sadhanas (devotional practices) to engage various wrathful goddesses such as Walmo and Chenmo."

II. THE WAY OF THE SHEN OF VISUAL WORLD (snang-gshen theg-pa).....The Way of the Shen of the Phenomenal World: This Way includes rituals dealing with communication with external forces such as rituals of protection, invocation, ransom of the soul and life-force, and of repelling negative or harmful energies.....It is concerned with overpowering or placating the gods and demons of this world...Way of the Visual World (snang shen theg pa) details the psychophysical Universe....Nangshen, comprises various rituals for purification to summon energy and enhance prosperity, to suppress and liberate negative forces, and to invoke and make offerings to powerful deities and pay ransoms to demonic spirits.... In ransom rites, an effigy is prepared which represents the beneficiary of the rite, or the shamanic practitioner who is performing it....people often make life-size effigies dressed it in her clothes, so that it was very lifelike and resembled her closely.....

I. THE WAY OF THE SHEN OF THE PREDICTION (phyva-gshen theg-pa)......This Way includes divination, astrology, various rituals, and medical diagnosis.....four methods of prediction: (a) divination, sortilege (mo)......(b) astrological calculation (rtsis).....(c) ritual (gto).....(d) medical diagnosis (dpyad)....Way of Prediction (phyva gshen theg pa) codifies ritual, prognostication, sortilege and astrology....Chashen, the first way, comprises medical diagnosis and healing, as well as various ancient divination and astrological rites performed by the shaman to determine whether the person who needs to be healed has an energetic imbalance, or is being provoked by a demonic spirit, or negative energy.....

"... if the causal means of shamanism were practiced widely in the world, it would be of great benefit for the environment and the world community......It would be of even greater benefit if all nine vehicles were practiced.".......Shamanism in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet-By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.....http://entheology.com/peoples/shamanism-in-the-native-bon-tradition-of-tibet/

http://ravencypresswood.com/2013/02/24/what-are-the-nine-ways-of-bon/

"In 1961, Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, Geshe Lungtok Tenpa’i Nyima Rinpoche, the future abbot of Menri Monastery, and Geshe Samten Karmey were invited to England by David Snellgrove. During this time, Yongdzin Rinpoche suggested the translation of excerpts of the Nine Ways based upon the Southern Treasures. Yongdzin Rinpoche personally selected the passages that David Snellgrove translated. In 1967, these excerpts were published as The Nine Ways of Bön. At that time, very little was known about the Yungdrung Bön tradition among Western scholars. There was a great deal of theorizing and conjecture. So, although Snellgrove’s translation of the text is quite accurate, his own personal conclusions as to the origins and influences of the Yungdrung Bön should be taken within the context of the time in which he was writing. However, to-date, his translation remains the only extended translation of the Nine Ways that is available."

"The ultimate souce of their teachings is sTag-gzigs , a country situated rather vaguely still further to the west... " ......The Nine Ways of Bon: Excerpts from Gzi-brjid". Edited and Translated by D.L. Snellgrove, pp.1-23 London Oriental Series , Vol 18, Oxford University Press 1968......http://paganscholarscorner.homestead.com/The-Nine-Ways-of-Bon.html

"In the Tibetan Bon traditon.....the first 4 of the Nine Ways are Shamanic Levels of Ordinary Elemental Magic.......the the next 3 are Tantric Transformation Levels.....and the highest 2 are Dzogchen Direct Experience Levels...in all nine levels of Bon the connecting deity is Shenlha Okar."

"Tibetan Bonpo in ancient times appeared to cover a number of different types of practitioner, whether shaman, magician, or priest. Here there seems to be a strong parallel of the role of the Bonpo in ancient Tibet with that of the Druid in ancient pre-Christian Europe. Just as the Druidic order was divided into the three functions of the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids, who were singers, soothsayers, and magicians respectively, so the ancient pre- Buddhist kingdom of Tibet was said to be protected by the Drung (sgrung) who were bards and singers of epics, the Deu (lde'u) who were soothsayers and diviners, and the Bonpo (bon-po) who were priests and magicians."(John M.Reynolds)

"The Nyingma classifies the teachings into 9 yanas or vehicles for realisation. These are all equally precious and each is complete within itself with a ground, a path and a fruit." ...http://www.nyingma.com/The%20Nine%20Yanas.htm

"According to the Nyingmapa school, the various systems of teachings are subdivided into the following nine paths or “vehicles” culminating in purified Maha Ati awareness. The first three generally teach the way of renunciation (spong lam), the second three teach purification (sbyong lam), and the last three the way of transformation (sgyur lam):
1. The worldly vehicle of divinities and men (‘jig rten Iha mi’I theg pa), including all non-Buddhist religions.
2. The vehicle of the shravakas (listeners) and of the pratyekabuddhas –those who seek enlightenment solely for their own sake, i.e.; Hinayana Buddhism.
3. The vehicle of the bodhisattvas, consisting of the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.
Next appear the three vehicles known as the External Tantras. These teachings and practices are concerned with purification and preparation to receive the wisdom teachings of realized beings that follow. These vehicles are known as: 4. Kriya Tantra; 5. Ubhava Tantra; and 6. Yoga Tantra. Concerning the next three vehicles, strictly speaking only 7. Maha-yoga, and, 8. Anu-yoga, are known as Internal Tantras. Classed as tantras, they are teachings and practices involved primarily with the transformation of the individual into the pure dimension of realization.
9. Ati-yoga, the self-liberated state, is based on the direct experiential knowledge of the primordial state, the joining (or realization of the inseparability) of what is known as the Path (or: Child) and Mother Luminosity.".....http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/05/maha-ati-natural-liberation-through-primordial-awareness/

http://vajranatha.com/articles/traditions/dzogchen.html?showall=1

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March 2016

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

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

Click on the map to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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February 2016

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Avestan Geography: The Mixture of Mythical and Historical Elements

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

Click on the map to enlarge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on the map to enlarge

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February 2016

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The Bairam-Ali Manuscript & the Gyaur Kala near Merv

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

Click on the map to enlarge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

February 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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