Tibetan Bonpo Muslims: Balti Yul (Baltistan) & Kachee Yul (Kashmir)

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"Nurbakhshis (Islamic Sufi order) are found in Baltistan and Ladakh regions of Jammu and Kashmir as well......Local Muslims, who converted from Bön-po and Tibetan Buddhism still retain many traits of pre-Islamic Bön and Lamaist rituals, which makes Islam of Baltistan and Ladakh unique from other Muslim societies. Swastika (Yung drung) sign is considered auspicious and is carved on wooden planks that can be seen in historical mosques and Khankas. Showing respect to Lha and Lhu (Bön gods) is customary during many village rituals."......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balti_people

"Mosques in Baltistan are mainly built in the Tibetan style.....Small pockets of Bön and Tibetan Buddhist believers that amounted up to 3000 people are found in Kharmang valley of Baltistan and in West Kargil. East Ladakh (Leh district and Zanskar) are predominantly Buddhist.

"Baltistan (Urdu:بلتستان, Balti: བལ་ཏི་སྟྰན), also known as Baltiyul (Balti: བལ་ཏི་ཡུལ་།), is a mountainous region in Pakistan.It is situated in the Karakoram mountains just to the south of K2, the world's second highest mountain. "

Click On The Map To Enlarge

Kashmir.... Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan).........."The Tibetan Muslims, also known as the Kachee (Tibetan: ཀ་ཆེ་, Wylie: ka-che; also spelled Kache), form a small minority in Tibet. Despite being Muslim, they are officially recognized as Tibetans by the government of the People's Republic of China, unlike the Hui Muslims, who are separately recognized. The Tibetan word Kachee literally means Kashmiri and Kashmir was known as Kachee Yul (Yul means Country)......Generally speaking, the Tibetan Muslims are unique in the fact that they are largely of Kashmiri as well as Persian/Arab/Turkic descent through the patrilineal lineage and also often descendants of native Tibetans through the matrilineal lineage, although the reverse is not uncommon. Thus, many of them display a mixture of Indo-Iranian and indigenous Tibetan facial features."....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Muslims

"The appearance of the first Muslims in Tibet has been lost in the mists of time, although variants of the names of Tibet can be found in Arabic history books.... "The Balti people of Baltistan in Pakistan and Kargil are descendants of Tibetan Buddhists who mostly converted to Shia Islam, with a Sunni minority. Their Balti language is highly archaic and conservative and closer to Classical Tibetan than other Tibetan languages......The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan. In addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh, a region of Jammu and Kashmir."

Baltis & Bolor......"Deep in the Karakorum mountains consisting of the arid river valleys of Skardu, Khapulo, Shigar, Rondu and Kharmang lies Baltistan or Baltiyul the historic junction of the Buddhist and Islamic world......European historians suggest that Bolor ( Gilgit and Baltistan) was once a centre of Bon shamanism, the indigenous religion of the High Himalaya and the original inhabitants of western Tibet, Ladakh and Baltistan were these very Aryans.....at one time this area had been under Tibetan, and later Ladakhi rule, the five main valleys of Baltistan ( Skardu, Shigar, Rondu, Khaplu and Kharmang) were more often principalities left to their own rule . The spread of Islam in the area can be traced to Rinchen (or Rinchana Bhoti), a Tibetan prince who ruled Kashmir from 1319-1323. Inspired by a Muslim sage, Bulbul Shah, Rinchen converted to Islam and changed his name to Sadruddin. By the late 1300s, Sufi preachers had begun to arrive from Persia, ushering in the Islamic era in Kashmir and Baltistan .....The inhabitants of Baltiyul living in the valleys of the Indus, the Shyok, and their tributaries, have cultural affinities that stretch from Lhasa to Tehran. The Baltis proudly still claim their pre-Islamic culture that has so much in common with Tibet and Ladakh that earned them the nickname of “Little Tibet “. .....http://www.hindukushtrails.com/tribes-baltis.php

"Balawaristan (Urdu:بلاورستان) is an historical name of Gilgit-Baltistan that has regained some prevalence in recent years. The archaic English spelling for the name was Boloristan, and its first known documented usage is in Chinese sources from the 8th century AD.Gilgit-Baltistan includes Gilgit, Skardu, Hunza, Ishkoman Puniyal and Yasin (see Districts of Gilgit-Baltistan). The regions of Baltistan, and Ladakh (including Kargil) are also considered to be a part of Balawaristan by nationalist parties of Gilgit, and sometimes Chitral is as well......The people of this region have historically been referred to as Balawars (or highlanders), which is said to have come from the term 'Bala', which means high, a reference to the high-altitudes prevalent in this area......

"The Shigar Fort, locally called the Phong Khar, or the fort on the rock, is a major tourist attraction in the Baltistan region, along with the towering mountains and vast glaciers....An interesting aspect of the Fort’s history is that symbols of various religious groups are engraved on its wooden beams at different locations inside the residential palace.....One of those symbols are being presented to show that the region which is now home to a 100 percent Muslim population was once heavily influenced in the past by other faiths and philosophy groups...".....http://pamirtimes.net/2015/03/13/9-fascinating-ancient-symbols-found-in-the-shigar-fort-baltistan/

"Empress Jincheng might have viewed it as Emperor Songtsen-gampo had originally regarded Buddhism, would have been hostile toward the Arab cleric. They would have feared yet another foreign influence， it included only western Tibet. Let us leave aside the issues of the furthest extent of Zhang-zhungs borders，now turned Tibets military ambitions away from that direction and formed an alliance in 705 AD with the Turki Shahis in Gandhara and Bactria， Mangsong-mangtsen ，the ministers declared that the presence of the foreigners and their religious rites in Tibet had been the cause of the widespread epidemic. Gandhara was a reasonable destination for the monks since the Turki Shahis had also been the rulers of Bactria from which many of the monasics undoubtedly hailed. A large number finally settled in the mountainous region of Baltistan to the north of the Oddiyana portion of Gandhara. The power of this xenophobic faction culminated sixteen years later when， Zhang-zhung at one time also spanned the entire Tibetan plateau. At the time of its defeat， did not become an organized religion until after the eleventh century AD， where the Chinese emperor offered him support，but architectural evidence from the period indicate at least inevitably amount of cultural influence from Nepal at this time.".....2014-09-04 .... Editor ：Kmmvc-Divine Land......http://www.kmmvc.com/view-34156-2.html

Siddiqui, Ataullah. (1991). "Muslims of Tibet." The Tibet Journal. Vol. XVI, No. 4. Winter, 1991, pp. 71–85.
Sheikh, Abdul Ghani. (1991). "Tibetan Muslims." The Tibet Journal. Vol. XVI, No. 4. Winter, 1991, pp. 86–89.

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June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Ölmo Lungring & Stag-gzig/Kapisa/Od'i-ana

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Ölmo Lungring .......'ol Mo Lung Ring.....Pronunciation: Ölmo Lungring
"Etymology: clover - female - valley - distant....... It's not clear how the first two syllables go together, but the latter two are clearly the condensed form of lung pa ring po, "distant valley." .........Dictionaries list 'ol mo as a type of medicinal plant, but this is likely a more modern definition, irrelevant to the original place name........ 'ol mo could be a proper name, with the whole name stringing together to mean "The Distant Valley of Ölmo.".....Nation: Allegedly Takzik (stag gzig), somewhere in modern-day Kashmir, Pakistan, Iran, or Afghanistan, though sometimes described as being part of Zhang Zhung or a general description for the area around Mt. Kailash."..https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/wiki/renaissanceold/ol mo lung ring.html

" The mysterious land of Olmo Lung-ring ('ol-mo lung-rings) or Olmoling ('ol-mo'i gling) is said to be part of a larger geographical region to the northwest of Tibet called Tazig (stag-gzig, var. rtag-gzigs), which scholars identify with Iran or, more properly, Central Asia where in ancient times Iranian languages such as Avestan and later Sogdian were spoken. According to the "gZer-mig" the traditional etymology of the name Olmo Lung-ring is as follows: '"ol" means "unborn", "mo" "undermined", "lung" "the prophetic words of Shenrab", and "rings" "everlasting compassion". According to the "gZi-brjid", Olmo Lung-ring was also known as Shambhala in Sanskrit and it continues to be known by this name among Tibetan Buddhists even today."......http://www.surajamrita.com/bon/Shambala.html

"...we would like to draw particular attention to the location of Stag-gzig to the west of Tibet, touching on Gilgit and Yavana (Bactria). ...In the west is the country of Dmu. In the east is the country of China (Rgya). In the south is the country of Mon. In the south east is the country of ’Jang. In the north are Li, Bal and Phrom. In the northeast is the country of Hor, [and] Snowy Tibet (Gang[s]-can Bod). ....’Ol-mo-lung-ring is, as many later sources say, in some way identical with Stag-gzig, we see that Stag-gzig is to the west of Tibet, and is bordered by the smaller areas of Gilgit and Yavana (Bactria)...... This would point to an area stretching from present-day north Pakistan to Takhar (equivalent to Tibetan Tho-gar, which shouldn’t be confused with the Thod-dkar which borders China, although both names seem to come from a single ethnonym, and are in fact occasionally confused in Bon sources) in northeastern Afghanistan, and possibly including areas still further to the south..... in the Mdo-’dus, ’Ol-mo-lung-ring is located to the northwest of western Tibet (where Ti-tse/Ti-se is) and rather to the north of a mysterious country called Dmu (Persia, perhaps?). It is cut by both the Nine Dark Mountains (on which, more soon) and the rivers Pag-shu and Si-ti, which we might very well identify as the Oxus (Vakṣu) and Sitā ..... Here we seem to be dealing with an area that stretches from the Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan, circling (to the right or the left of) the Pamirs.........’Ol-mo-lung-ring is cut by the rivers Pakshu and Si-ta (the Oxus and Tarim?), we must note that other sources, in citations of the same passage from the Mdo-’dus, give the two rivers’ names as Pakshu and Si[n]dhu (Oxus and Indus). Following the citations, rather than the text of the Mdo-’dus, ’Ol-mo-lung-ring would cover the area from the north part of modern Pakistan up to and including at least some part of Uzbekistan....The Meditation Commentary’s mentioning of Ka-pi-ta, which is surely the same as Kapisha, an old center of Gandhara located north of present-day Kabul, is at least generally consonant with the territory of ’Ol-mo-lung-ring as known in earlier sources.."....https://sites.google.com/site/tibetological/-ol-mo-lung-ring

"According to Lopon Tenzin Namdak, the outer door (sgo phyi-pa) is Zhang-zhung itself, the middle door (sgo bar-ma) is Tazig, and the inner door (sgo phug-pa) is Olmo Lung-ring...... From the innermost gate outwards this represents the movement or progress of the teachings of Yungdrung Bon into the outer world and especially Tibet...... At that time Tazig was said to have been inhabited by the "sTag-gzig hos rigs", the royal race (rgyal rigs) of the "Hos" or Persians (the Chinese "Hu")....... But in an even earlier time the people belonged to the lineage of the "rGyal-bu 'thing-ge". ......And in the "Ma-rgyud" is found the story of the emperor Gyer-wer of Tazig who ruled most of the known world."....http://www.surajamrita.com/bon/Shambala.html

".... the sages of Tibet often went to to Olmo Lung-ring in quest of these precious teachings. It is said that they proceeded toward the northwest from Mount Kailas in Zhang-zhung and journeyed for twice as far as Kailas is from the city of Shigatse in Central Tibet. In precise geographic terms, this would put them beyond the Pamirs in Sogdiana."...... OLMO LUNG-RING: THE IMPERISHABLE SACRED LAND.....by Vajranatha

"Location's language.......Possibly Pungyik (spung yig), a native Takzik language.....the Takzik language of the gods, called Pungyik (spung yik)."...https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/wiki/renaissanceold/ol mo lung ring.html
"The land of Ölmo Lungring is one of the most mysterious geographies of Tibetan history. Its mythical status among Bönpos (as a type of Pure Land) and non-Bönpos alike suggests that it not be included in so empirical an exercise as this, but devout Bönpos have long maintained that it is a real place as well, the birthplace of Shenrab Miwo (gshen rab mi bo) and of Bön itself. .......Most descriptions place it in the distant west, beyond the boundaries of the Zhang Zhung kingdom of West Tibet, in the historical region of Takzik, or modern-day Iran or Afghanistan....... Other descriptions place it in the immediate vicinity of Mt. Kailash, otherwise known to the Bönpos as Yungdrung Gutsek (g.yung drung dgu brtsegs)....... In Samten Karmay's edited and translated version of The Treasury of Good Sayings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972, p. xxx), the actual boundaries of Ölmo Lungring are given as Khyunglung Ngülkhar (khyung lung dngul mkhar) to Dangra Khyungdzong (dang ra khyung rdzong) in the east, to Tsang (gtsang) in the south, and Kashmir to the west, thus inscribing it in the center of Zhang Zhung itself, around Mt. Kailash.".....https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/wiki/renaissanceold/ol mo lung ring.html

"...the Bönpos .....It's certainly possible they came from the west. There are intriguing vestiges of Arabic language and iconography in Tibetan culture that might have ancient origins."
"Much of the information about Ölmo Lungring comes originally from the Bönpo source, the Dodü (mdo 'dus), the earliest biography of Shenrab Miwo, a treasure text discovered in the 11th century."

"The kingdom of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring is a non-dualist realm (which means it exists in opposition to Cartesian dualism)."

"In all of the early Bonpo texts Olmo Lung-ring is clearly located to the west and the north of Tibet in Tazig or Central Asia. Moreover, there are two Tazigs, one of a heavenly nature and one quite physical, located in Central Asia. The Kailas mountain and its adjacent region in West Tibet is only a pale reflection of the real Olmo Lung-ring, the original archetype, which exists at the center of the world. According to the "gZer-mig" and other texts, the region around Tise or Mount Kailas is only a copy in Zhang-zhung of the original in Olmoling. Furthermore, according to the "gZi-brjid", Dimpling is the same as Shambhala. It is not necessary to pray and do any meditation practice in order to be reborn in Iran or the Central Asia of the USSR, these are quite ordinary earthly places; but it is necessary to pray and to undergo a purification of mind before one can be reborn in Olmo Lung-ring, or even enter it in this present life, because it is a pure dimension of existence (dag-pa'i zhing-khams). It cannot be seen easily with the ordinary fleshly eye like Iran or Central Asia or even Tibet can. But simply because we dp not see it is no proof that it does not exist, for that is the view of the Lokayatas or materialists. "......http://www.surajamrita.com/bon/Shambala.html

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Olmo Lung-ring ('ol-mo lung-rings) or Olmoling ('ol-mo'i gling) ..... ’Ol-mo-lung-ring is located to the northwest of western Tibet (where Ti-tse/Ti-se is) and rather to the north of a mysterious country called Dmu (Persia, perhaps?). It is cut by both the Nine Dark Mountains and the rivers Pag-shu and Si-ti, which we might very well identify as the Oxus (Vakṣu) and Sitā ......

Tazig (stag-gzig, var. rtag-gzigs)..... in the historical region of Takzik, or modern-day Iran or Afghanistan....Tazig was said to have been inhabited by the "sTag-gzig hos rigs", the royal race (rgyal rigs) of the "Hos" or Persians (the Chinese "Hu")...... emperor Gyer-wer of Tazig who ruled most of the known world......Takzik (stag gzig), somewhere in modern-day Kashmir, Pakistan, Iran, or Afghanistan.....

Kapisha.......Ka-pi-ta, which is surely the same as Kapisha, an old center of Gandhara located north of present-day Kabul, is at least generally consonant with the territory of ’Ol-mo-lung-ring as known in earlier sources.......

Zhang-zhung

Khyunglung Ngülkhar (khyung lung dngul mkhar)....Garuda - valley - silver - castle, "The Silver Castle of Garuda Valley".......it was the capital of Zhang Zhung, that the kingdom's last king, Likmigya (lig my rgya), was the last to reside in the palace, and that it was destroyed by Trisong Detsen (khri srong lde btsan) in his conquest of Zhang Zhung

Dangra Khyungdzong (dang ra khyung rdzong)....The ruined Khyung Dzong, the “Horned Eagle Fortress,” is poised on three ivory-colored limestone mounts overlooking the inviolable waters of Lake Dangra.....

Tsang (gtsang)

Kashmir.... Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan).........."The Tibetan Muslims, also known as the Kachee (Tibetan: ཀ་ཆེ་, Wylie: ka-che; also spelled Kache), form a small minority in Tibet. Despite being Muslim, they are officially recognized as Tibetans by the government of the People's Republic of China, unlike the Hui Muslims, who are separately recognized. The Tibetan word Kachee literally means Kashmiri and Kashmir was known as Kachee Yul (Yul means Country)......Generally speaking, the Tibetan Muslims are unique in the fact that they are largely of Kashmiri as well as Persian/Arab/Turkic descent through the patrilineal lineage and also often descendants of native Tibetans through the matrilineal lineage, although the reverse is not uncommon. Thus, many of them display a mixture of Indo-Iranian and indigenous Tibetan facial features."

Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg ("Edifice of Nine Sauvastikas"), possibly Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Tagzig Olmo Lungting and Mount Kailash.......

Kingdom of Ling (Standard Tibetan: gLing). In Tibetan, gling means, literally, an 'island', but can have, as in Sanskrit dvīpa), the secondary meaning of "continent".......

Bactria.... Fromo Kesaro in overwhelming an intrusive Arab army, sometime between 739-745 AD, may have formed the historic core behind the Gesar epic in Tibet. In the records of the earliest rulers of Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit, whose countries were later overrun by incursive Tibetans, royal ancestry is connected to the Bactrian Gesar.......

Hor......Geser's war against the three kings of Sharaigol (Hor)..... Sharai Gol in Pakistan,......

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"........each of which is associated with one of the eight great rivers as follows:
1. "gTsang-ma lha skad" along the Na-ra-dza-ra river in the east,
2. "Dag-pa lha skad" along the Pakshu river in the the north,
3. "Samskri lha skad" (i.e., Sanskrit) along the Ma-shang river in the west,
4. "Khri-wer lha skad" along the Sindhu river in the south,
5. "Hor ci 'phrul skad" along the Ganga river in the south east,
6. "sPos ci 'phrul skad" along the Sita river in the southwest,
7. "Ci gung 'phrul skad" along the Seng-ga river in the northwest, and
8. "Cung tshe 'phrul skad" along the Serdan (gser-ldan) river in the northeast.
http://www.surajamrita.com/bon/Shambala.html

kha ‘bab kyi chu bo bzhi - the four rivers issuing (from {ma dros pa'i mtsho} into the four directions) 1) ganga 2) sindhu 3) pakhu 4) sit) [IW]
kha 'bab chu bzhi - the four rivers issuing [from {ma dros pa'i mtsho} into the four directions]. 1) Ganges. 2) Sindhu. 3) Pakshu 4) Sita. Syn {kha 'bab chu bzhi} [RY]
kha 'bab chu bzhi - the four rivers [issuing (from {ma dros pa'i mtsho} into the four directions) 1) ganga 2) sindhu 3) pakhu 4) sit ] [IW]
kha 'bab bzhi - from Ti Se snow mt in four directions flowing four rivers [E from a lion’s mouth Ganga, S, peacock, sindhu, W horse, pakshu, = yar klungs gtsang po, N lion si ta] [IW]
rgya gar gyi chu chen bzhi - the four great rivers of India [gangg'a, sindhu, si t'a, pakshu] [IW]
chu bo - 1) river, great water; 2) four [for four gt Indian rivers Ganga, pakshu, SITA, sindhu] [IW]

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Baumer, Christopher. 2002. Bon: Tibet’s Ancient Religion. Trumbull, CT: Weatherhill.
Karmay, Samten G., ed. 1972. The Treasury of Good Sayings: A Tibetan History of Bon. London: Oxford University Press.
Kvaerne, Per. 2001. The Bon Religion of Tibet. London: Serindia.
Martin, Dan. 1999. "‘Ol-mo-lung-ring, the Original Holy Place." In Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places, 1999, edited by Toni Huber, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, pp. 258-301.
Martin, Dan. 2001. Unearthing Bön Treasures. Boston: Brill.

Tibetan Renaissance Seminar.... Jed Verity....https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/wiki/renaissanceold/ol mo lung ring.html

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Shams Al-Marif & the Cabbalistic Sufi Ahmad al-Buni (1200 AD)

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Shams Al-Marif....(The Sun of Great Knowledge)......is the leading text of Islamic Occultism, written by the mysterious Cabbalistic Sufi Ahmad al-Buni...... The Shams al-Ma’arif rivals the Picatrix in importance. Most of the "time-tested" books on sorcery in the Muslim world are simplified excerpts from the Shams al-Ma’arif......http://www.antiochgate.com/9_buni_shams.htm

Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Buni (Arabic: أحمد البوني‎), his complete name is Sharaf al-Din or Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni al-Maliki al-ifriqi...... (died 1225) was a well known Sufi and writer on the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sihr (sorcery) and spirituality, but very little is known about him. .....A contemporary of Ibn Arabi, he is best known for writing one of the most important books of his era; the Shams al-Ma'arif, a book that is still regarded as the foremost occult text on talismans and divination. It was to be banned soon after as heretical by followers of the Islamic orthodoxy.

"Shams al-Ma'arif or Shams al-Ma'arif wa Lata'if al-'Awarif (Arabic: كتاب شمس المعارف ولطائف العوارف‎, lit. "The Book of the Sun of Gnosis and the Subtleties of Elevated Things") is a 13th-century grimoire written on Arabic magic and a manual for achieving esoteric spirituality. It was written by quasi-Qabalistic Sufi Sheikh Ahmad bin Ali Al-buni in Egypt, who died around 1225 AD. The Shams al-Ma'arif is generally regarded as the most influential textbook of its type in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and is arguably as important as, if not more than, the Picatrix in both hemispheres. .....the book consists of two volumes; Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra and Shams al-Ma'arif al-Sughra, the former being the larger of the two. The first few chapters introduce the reader to magic squares, and the combination of numbers and the alphabet that are believed to bring magical effect, which the author insists is the only way to communicate with genies, angels and spirits......While being popular, it also carries a reputation for being suppressed and banned for much of Islamic history......Modern Sufi circles such as the Balkan-based Naqshbandi-Haqqani order have recognised its legitimacy and use as a compendium for the occult, and hold it in high regard........Another title by the same author, namely Manba' Usool al-Hikmah ("The Source of the Essentials of Wisdom"), is considered its companion text.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_al-Ma%27arif

"Picatrix is the name used today, and historically in Christian Europe, for a 400-page book of occult magic and astrology originally written in Arabic under the title غاية الحكيم Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, which most scholars assume was originally written in the middle of the 11th century.....it is a composite work that synthesizes older works on magic and astrology. One of the most influential interpretations suggests it is to be regarded as a "handbook of talismanic magic" & "the most thorough exposition of celestial magic in Arabic"......as indispensable as the Corpus Hermeticum or the writings of Albumasar for understanding a conspicuous part of the production of the Renaissance, including the figurative arts."......The Spanish and Latin versions were the only ones known to Western scholars until Wilhelm Printz discovered an Arabic version in or around 1920.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picatrix

The Bunî Pamphlet....Whereabouts: In an unknown private manuscript collection in Istanbul, according to some rumors this collection is in Beyazit Library.

"Ahmad ibn 'Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni....(died 1225 AD).... was a well known Sufi and writer on the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sorcery and spirituality, but very little is known about him. Al-Buni lived in Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time. He wrote one of the most famous books of his era, the Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra (Sun of the Great Knowledge) which is one of the most widely read medieval treatises on talismans, magic squares and occult practices. This work rivals the Picatrix in importance. This book was later banned by orthodox Muslims as heretical, but continues to be read and studied......His another infamous work is called Bunî Risalesi(the Bunî Pamphlet), which is kept hidden from public and academic knowledge because of its contents. It is told that the 1208 page Bûni Pamphlet explains how to summon and dominate a djinn or a demon with charms and spellsi, the preparations of these spells and charms are also included with every detail. Only a few pages of the manuscript have leaked in 800 years and the very few people, which had the chance to see the original manuscript, has never(or according to some rumors could never) spoke about it."......http://artifactsofistanbul.blogspot.com/

Qalam al-tabli.....The Egyptian Magician al-Buni and His Work... ......http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/mekka-angawi/Witkam-2007-Buni-Gazing.pdf

"Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Buni (Arabic: أحمد البوني‎), his complete name is Sharaf al-Din or Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni al-Maliki al-ifriqi (born in Bône (Annaba), Algeria died 1225) was a well known Sufi and writer on the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sihr (sorcery) and spirituality, but very little is known about him. Al-Buni lived in Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time......A contemporary of Ibn Arabi, he is best known for writing one of the most important books of his era; the Shams al-Ma'arif, a book that is still regarded as the foremost occult text on talismans and divination. It was to be banned soon after as heretical by followers of the Islamic orthodoxy...Al-Buni also made regular mention in his work of Plato, Aristotle, Hermes, Alexander the Great, and obscure Chaldean magicians.."

Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra ..... The Sun of Great Knowledge

Ahmad al-Buni .......Shams al-Ma'airf al-Kubra (the Great Sun of Gnoses), Cairo, 1928.

Magic and the Occult in Islam: Ahmad al-Buni (622H/1225CE?) and his Shams Al-Ma'arif .......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdWHuBexmc......A lecture by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad (Department of Arabic and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo) delivered at the Warburg Institute, University of London, School of Advanced Study, on 1 May 2013.

JINN in Islam: "Beings of airy bodies, intelligent, imperceptible, capable of appearing under different forms and of carrying out heavy labours. They were created of smokeless flame, while mankind and the angels (the other two classes of intelligent beings) were created of clay and light.".....
"The caravan... came at last, at the fall of a certain night, to a column of stone to which a strange being was chained, one half of whose body was visible and the other half deeply hidden in the ground. The upper half seemed to be that of something of monstrous birth imprisoned there by some infernal powers. It was black and large as the trunk of an old and naked palm-tree; it had two great black wings and four hands, of which two were like the taloned feet of lions. A shaggy covering of rude onager-tail hairs moved savagely upon the terrible head, while under the roofs of the sockets flamed two red eyes, and a third shone immovable green like that of a tiger or a panther, between the twin horns of the bull-like brow."....The Book of the Thousand and One Nights

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June 2015

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Padmasambhava in Kapisa/Uddiyana (732 - 786 AD)

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"Uddiyana Until the Eighth Century: A Short Historical Overview.....the ancient Kingdom of Uddiyana; so beautiful a Kingdom, that its very name means "the royal garden" (from the Skt: udyana). With cascading pure rivers splashing down from ice-bound lakes high in the snowy peaks beyond, and quiet pools stocked with fish, with lush meadows, in raiment of every variety of wildflower, Uddiyana truly seemed a paradise on earth. No wonder people from far and wide spoke of it as a magical place, the hidden flower garden of the wise and compassionate Lord Buddha......We today are able to gain a fairly vivid picture of the ancient Kingdom of Uddiyana, because in the year 630 A.D., a renowned heroic Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, known by the name of Huen Tsiang, passed through the heart of Uddiyana on his way to India. .... 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. In the year 1900 the Russian mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff traveled by raft down part of this dangerous river, as part of an expedition led by Prof. Kozlov in search of the ruins of ancient Shambhala......Archaeology6 has shown that the great stupa of Andan Dheri stood 80 feet high (24 metres) and was surrounded by 14 votive stupas. This must have been the location of the famous Shankarakuta Stupa cited by early Buddhist historians in the Dzogchen tradition, the dazzling monument mentioned by Huen Tsiang and which was said to have graced the shore of sacred Dhanakosha lake.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/uddiyana.htm

"According to the ancient, written Ka-ma tradition of the cycle of Vajrakilaya teachings, Padmasambhava was the son of a royal heir, Prince Mahusita of Dhanakosha, in Uddiyana ( O-rgyān, U-rgyān, O-ḍi-yā-n)....... Originally given the name Dhanaraksita, which means " Protector of Charity" , it is stated that he was born in the year of the water monkey (732 A.D.). Thus his mundane birth and status as a prince of Uddiyana may be pinpointed as a fact of history. .....At the age of eight the princely child was adopted by King Indrabhuti (King Ja) and made heir to the throne of Uddiyana. .....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

"Although there was also a historical Padmasambhava, nothing is known of the "obscure 'Indian' sorcerer" apart from him helping the construction of a temple at Samye at the behest of Trisong Detsen and shortly being chased out of Tibet in 774 AD.".....Schaik, Sam van. Tibet: A History. Yale University Press 2011, page 34-5, 96-8.

"Subhakarasimha's ... (637-735 AD) (Indian Buddhist monk)......journey to China which interests us is his brief stay in Uddiyana between the years 714 and 715 A.D (Age 77 years)....an Indian monk who passed through the country early in the 8th century. Subhakarasimha was a monk from Magadha who stopped in Uddiyana on his way to China. Later in China he became famous as a teacher of the Yoga tantras. The Chinese called him Shan-wa-wei. ...Subhakarasimha's father was King Buddhakara of Kalinga....After leaving Uddiyana, Subhakarasimha made his way north over the Hindu Kush into Central Asia. He suffered sickness and attacks by bandits, but survived the difficult journey, arriving in Chang-an, the imperial capital of China, in 716 A.D. .".......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

"Subhakarasimha in Uddiyana between the years 714 and 715 A.D....... Pei, in the Wen-yuan ying-huo reports that he was commissioned to teach the profound Mahavairocana-tantra to the son of the khatun of Uddiyana. The term khatun is a Turkishahiya title for Queen. This implies that the King of Uddiyana, " Ta-mo-yin-t'o-ho-szu," mentioned in the Chinese records for the year 642 AD, was deceased. A Queen, or Khatun, was on the throne, and she had a son and heir-a boy who was sufficiently mature to be involved in the higher scholastic Sanskrit studies of Yoga tantra. This boy must have been the young Indrabhuti, the king of Udiyana who figures so prominently in the biography of Lord Padmasambhava."

"Six years after Subhakarasimha's visit, in 720 A.D., the T'ang Annals state that the Emperor sent ambassadors to Uddiyana to confer the investiture on the new king. Therefore, 720 A.D. must mark the date that King Indrabhuti, the famous adoptive father of Padmasambhava, succeeded to the throne....In the country of Urgyen (or Udyana), westward from Bodh-Gaya, there was the great city of Jatumati, containing a palace called 'Emerald Palace' wherein dwelt King Indrabodhi....we must also remember that Indrabhuti was a factual historical character, and his adopted son, the great saint Lord Padmasambhava, likewise possessed a factual existence." .........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

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"Gilgit is a small state that borders on the north of Uddiyana. Between 720 and 726 the King of Baltistan moved his seat westwards to Gilgit out of fear of the Tibetan advance. It becomes apparent as we sift through the records, that more and more territory on the edges of Uddiyana was being eaten up by the expanding Tibetan Empire during this period."....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

"The Nyingma school possesses two kinds of tantric scrip­ture: the Kah-ma, or "Sacred Word" that has been handed down since very ancient times, and the Ter-ma, or "Sacred Treasure", which in different periods has been discovered or revealed by various saintly treasure finders (Terton). Ter-ma can include both those texts which from time to time are discovered hidden away in old temple crypts, etc., and what are known as books of Revelation."

"The T'ang Annals record for the year 745 AD....the investiture of the King of Kapisa with rulership over Uddiyana.....It is in consequence of the evil act of killing the son of a baron, or the mother and child of a minister, that the young prince Padmasambhava is banished from the Kingdom...Padmasambhava's banishment to foreign lands, reflects the changes wrought when the powerful lords of Kapisa seized, as we know they did, control of the Swat Valley. Uddiyana was defeated and utterly lost its independence. Whatever happened to Indrabhuti we do not know, but it is probable that he was slain, or perhaps as a blind captive, was dragged ignominiously back to Kabul in chains. At any rate Padmasambhava fled in the direction of Kashmir. .........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

745 A.D. when the Chinese Court is suddenly seen to confer upon the king of Kapisa the double investiture of " king of Kapisa and Uddiyana." .......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

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"Padmasambhava's route of escape in 745 AD is fairly evident. There was only one direction for him to go. About 30 kilometres north of the old capital of Mangalapura he must have taken the ancient trail over the Shangla Pass to present day Besham on the Indus River, a 70 kilometre trek. From Besham he would have had to make the long hike up the Indus, past Dassu and the famous Buddhist rock carvings of Shatial and Chilas, until many days later he could have entered the rela­tive safety of Baltistan. The latter country is formed by the long valley of the Indus from where it meets the Karakorum Highway at Gilgit up to Skardu. On this perilous journey Padmasambhava would have skirted around the sandy base of 26,660 foot high Nanga Parvata, the ninth highest peak in the world....Baltistan, or Greater Pu-lu as we find it called in the Chinese annals, was under the protection of Tibet.".........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

Nanga Parbat (literally, Naked Mountain Urdu: نانگا پربت [nəŋɡaː pərbət̪]) is the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 metres (26,660 ft) above sea level. It is the western anchor of the Himalayas around which the Indus river skirts into the plains of Pakistan.

"Mention of tribute from the King of Kapisa in 748 A.D. ascertains that by that date Uddiyana had become a vassal state. As we shall see, it was in the very midst of this turmoil and change that Padmasambhava was born and spent his youth......Nothing is really reported concerning Padmasambhava's life in Kashmir (745-752 AD).... He lived, some say, with wandering yogis and saddhus, in exile from his homeland. Others report that it was during this period that he acquired worldly knowledge and skill in various crafts. Howbeit, in Kashmir he earned the name Sthiramati, the Youthful Genius. ....In the spring of 786 AD by the Tibetan reckoning a Fire Tiger year, the Precious Lord, or " Guru Rinpoche" as he is most commonly known in Tibetan, set forth across the high passes of the Himalaya. On the Tibetan frontier, in Mangyul, he was met by five royal ministers to escort him to the Imperial Palace. In the valley of Tsang he was greeted by a messenger with a white horse. Riding in state to the town of Turdlung, he was welcomed with a grand reception. Then in the Tamarisk Garden near Red Rock, he was royally received by the Emperor. He was about 54 years old."......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

804 AD.... "Prof. Tucci, Preliminary Report on an Archaeological Survey o f Swat, states that " Lankapuri is, as known, Laghman." Laghman, an independent nation prior to Hiuen Tsiang's time, had certainly become a tributary province of Kapisa by 629 A.D. Since Kabul was not overrun - and then only temporarily - by the Moslem invasion until as late as 870 A.D., Laghman's status would still have been that of a Buddhist province of Kapisa (Shambhala) in 804 A.D. The Sanskrit name of the country was Lampaka and Hiuen Tsiang lists it as Lan-po. The sacred mountain in question would be that of Sri Aruna Parvata, Aruna " the Red" , now thought by some to be the Chehel Dukhtaran peak. Eminently logical as Prof. Tucci's argument may sound, Laghman was not Padmasambhava's " Lankapuri." Sometime around 950 A.D., a certain King Indrabhuti of Uddiyana married his sister, Laksminkara, to the " Hindu king of Lankapuri." This latter, a kingdom south of Uddiyana (and definitely not Laghman), we can identify with Hiuen Tsiang's Simhapura in the Salt Range, for just as Ceylon is known as Sri Lanka today, and anciently Lankapuri, so also has it been known as Simhapuri; the names are interchangeable. The actual site of the ancient Padmavabhasa Citadel in the Salt Range is still open to question: it could be near Malot, not far from Ketas (the ancient capital of Simhapura), where now stands the red sandstone remains of some eighth century Kashmiri style temples; or it could have been at Mount Sukesar (4,992 ft), the highest peak in the Range. The latter may be the Arunachala, the " Red Mountain" of Padmasambhava's biography. Near Mount Sukesar, at Amb, are the signs of a ruined Hindu town with fortified walls and temples that go back to the eighth century. Jean Fairly, The Lion River, who visited the Salt Range in the 1970s, talks of " the bald redness of the mountains" rising from the barren yellow desert of the plains. Another but less likely location for the Guru's final residence would be the old fort at Nandana, later occupied by the Hindushahi rulers when they fled from their capital at Wahind after their defeat in 1001 A.D. by Mahmud of Ghazni. "

"Simhapura was a kingdom south of Uddiyana in what today is called the Salt Range. Hiuen Tsiang refers to it as Sang-ho-pu-lo and locates its capital where today stands Khetas. The temples, shrines, fort and bathhouses of Khetas, once sacred to Avalokitesvara and later to the Hindu god Siva, are now deserted. Marriage contracts or engagements were made between the parents of the prospective couple in India at very early ages. Padmasambhava was probably twelve years of age when such a contract was formed. The children are officially married by Indian custom from that point on, but they do not begin living as a married couple until much later. The term "engagement" therefore, in this context, is more suitable than saying "marriage". ".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#departure

Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, Oxford 1954. If Padmasambhava was born in 732 A.D., then he would have been 13 years old when Uddiyana was overrun by the Kingdom of Kapisa. This is confirmed also in another manner: Tsele Natsok Rangdrol says that, " Padmasambhava stayed five years in the royal palace of Uddiyana." He was adopted at eight and he stayed five years, means that he was thirteen when he went into exile.".......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#departure

Tib: Lo-den Chokse..... "If Padmasambhava was born in 732 A.D., then the years spent in Kashmir would have been roughly from the age of 13 to 20. The latter age of 20 is assumed only on the basis that the next event in his life mentioned in the various accounts is his ordination at Bodh Gaya. The full ordination of a Bhikkshu, or Buddhist monk, such as was received by Padmasambhava, is not given until the person has attained maturity. He must therefore have been at least 20 years of age. ".......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#departure

"If Padmasambhava was born in the Water Monkey year of 732 as the sacred texts state, then he would have been 54 years of age when he made the difficult journey into the Land of Snow."

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

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Kapisa/Uddiyana... Historical Timeline 565 - 870 AD

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565 AD......"The Shahi (Devanagari: शाही), Sahi, also called Shahiya or Hindu Shahi dynasties ruled what included portions of the Kabulistan and the old province of Gandhara (now in northern Pakistan), from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century.....The kingdom was known as "Kabul Shahi" (Kabul-shāhān or Ratbél-shāhān in Persian کابلشاهان یا رتبیل شاهان) between 565 and 879AD when they had Kapisa and Kabul as their capitals, and later as Hindu Shahi".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_Shahi

"In 617 A.D. Namri Songtsen, the 32nd King of the peoples of Tibet, had a son named Tri Songtsen Gampo. This young ruler (he was 13 when he ascended the throne in 630) quickly squashed the attempted coup that accompanied his father's assassination and then proceeded with the systematic and bloodthirsty reduction of all traces of opposition to his control over the Tibetan Plateau. Having married his sister to the king of Suvarnadwipa, he conspired with her in the latter's ambush and murder. Following upon the death of the last descendant of the matriarchal dynasty of Suvarnadwipa, the armies of Tibet streamed westward along the Indus and north toward the vast basin lands of the Tarim. .....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

"In 641 the minister Tao-tsung, prince of Chiang-hsia, escorted the Chinese princess Wen-ch'eng as far as the border of Tibet, where she was received by Tri Songtsen Gampo. In Lhasa they were married......Songtsen Gampo, being the founder of the Tibetan Empire and a patron of civilization in that country, and having, due to the prompting of his two wives, initiated the planting of Buddhism in Tibetan soil....Songtsen Gampo died of the plague in 649 A.D."

"In 642 A.D., a "King Ta-mo-yin-t'o-ho-szu" of Uddiyana is said to have sent a gift of camphor and an embassy to the Emperor of China....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

642 AD.... "This is the year that the Arabs succeeded in defeating the King of Kings, Yazdagird 111, of Persia. The latter, fleeing eastward, met his death near Merv in 651. With the death of Yazdagird, last of the Sassanid dynasty, the southern bedouin hordes of Islam for the first time marched onto the soil of Iran and began their great, rapacious advance eastward.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

In 645 AD, when Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang was passing through the Uttarapatha, Udabhanda or Udabhandapura was the place of residence or secondary capital of emperor of Kapisa which then dominated over 10 neighboring states comprising Lampaka, Nagara, Gandhara and Varna (Bannu) and probably also Jaguda. About Gandhara, the pilgrim says that its capital was Purushapura; the royal family was extinct and country was subject to Kapisa; the towns and villages were desolate and the inhabitants were very few. It seems that under pressure from Arabs in the southwest and the Turks in the north, the kings of Kapisa had left their western possessions in the hands of their viceroys and made Udabhanda their principal seat of residence. The reason why Udabhandapura was selected in preference to Peshawar is at present unknown but it is possible that the new city of Udabhanda was built by Kapisa rulers for strategic reasons.[6]....http://www.jatland.com/home/Waihind

649 AD...."Tibet's Songtsen Gampo died of the plague in 649 A.D....his regent Gar Tongtsen, who immediately embarked on a series of campaigns in Central Asia, taking from China the Indo-European kingdoms of Khotan, Kucha, Karashahr and Kashgar. In 666 A.D. Gar Tongtsen returned victoriously to Lhasa, where he died of fever a year later, leaving power in the hands of his son."

"In 650 Abdallah ibn Amr began the yet further push forwards across the desert of the Dasht-i-Lut. He was followed over the years by succeeding Moslem armies which, through continuous raids, massacres and looting, systematically transformed the wondrous flower-garden of Persian civilization and Mazdean or Buddhist culture into a scorched wasteland."...http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

"In 663 A.D. Ibn Samurah fought his way into Kabul, but his success was only temporary........The Turkish Shahi kingdom of Kapisa-(with Kabul on the south as its capital) and the central Afghan massif of Ghor (now the Hazarajat), held against the invader, and for many centuries remained unconquered and primarily Buddhist......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

664 AD....."In the wake of Muslim invasions of Kabul and Kapisa in second half of 7th century (AD 664), the Kapisa/Kabul ruler called by Muslim writers Kabul Shahi (Shahi of Kabul) made an appeal to the Kshatriyas of the Hind who had gathered there in large numbers for assistance and drove out the Muslim invaders as far as Bost......This king of Kapisa/Kabul who faced the Muslim invasion was undoubtedly a Kshatriya."....http://www.jatland.com/home/Waihind

665 AD....."....reading the T'ang Annals, we note that a party of Uddiyanean ambassadors presented themselves at the Chinese Court in 665 A.D., and granting the length and hardships of the journey, it is practical to assume that the embassy's presence was a direct response to Ibn Samurah's raid. Kapisa's strength, backed by the armies of Imperial China, acted as a major bulwark against Islam penetrating the Pamir, and significantly protected Uddiyana."

"In AD 671 when Muslim armies seized Kabul then the capital was moved to Udabhandapura, Modern day Und near modern Attock, also called Waihind by Al Biruni (Wink p 125), where they became known as the Rajas of Hindustan or Hindu Shahi. Udabhanda was the capital of the Shahi dynasty."

"In 672 AD......an Arab governor of Sistan, Abbad ibn Ziyad, raided the frontier of Al-Hind and crossed the desert to Gandhara, but quickly retreated again."

698 AD......"The marauder Obaidallah crossed the Sita River and made a raid on Kabul in 698 only to meet with defeat and humiliation. "

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714 AD....."Subhakarasimha's journey to China which interests us is his brief stay in Uddiyana between the years 714 and 715 A.D...... He was an Indian monk who passed through the country early in the 8th century. Subhakarasimha was a monk from Magadha who stopped in Uddiyana on his way to China. Later in China he became famous as a teacher of the Yoga tantras. The Chinese called him Shan-wa-wei. ...Subhakarasimha's father was King Buddhakara of Kalinga.".......Pei, in the Wen-yuan ying-huo reports that he was commissioned to teach the profound Mahavairocana-tantra to the son of the khatun of Uddiyana. The term khatun is a Turkishahiya title for Queen. This implies that the King of Uddiyana, " Ta-mo-yin-t'o-ho-szu," mentioned in the Chinese records for the year 642 AD, was deceased. A Queen, or Khatun, was on the throne, and she had a son and heir-a boy who was sufficiently mature to be involved in the higher scholastic Sanskrit studies of Yoga tantra. This boy must have been the young Indrabhuti, the king of Udiyana who figures so prominently in the biography of Lord Padmasambhava."........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

719 AD....."The warlike activity and expansion of the Tibetan Empire continued unabated through the reign of the Hsuan-tsung Emperor of China, and we read that the latter, in 719 A.D., was hard pressed to block the advances of the Tibetans, on the one hand, and the Moslem Arabs, on the other.".......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

720 AD....."Six years after Subhakarasimha's visit, in 720 A.D., the T'ang Annals state that the Emperor sent ambassadors to Uddiyana to confer the investiture on the new king. Therefore, 720 A.D. must mark the date that King Indrabhuti, the famous adoptive father of Padmasambhava, succeeded to the throne. ....In the country of Urgyen (or Udyana), westward from Bodh-Gaya, there was the great city of Jatumati, containing a palace called 'Emerald Palace' wherein dwelt King Indrabodhi....we must also remember that Indrabhuti was a factual historical character, and his adopted son, the great saint Lord Padmasambhava, likewise possessed a factual existence. .........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

720 AD......"Gilgit is a small state that borders on the north of Uddiyana. Between 720 - 726 AD the King of Baltistan moved his seat westwards to Gilgit out of fear of the Tibetan advance. It becomes apparent as we sift through the records, that more and more territory on the edges of Uddiyana was being eaten up by the expanding Tibetan Empire during this period.....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

732 AD...."According to the ancient, written Ka-ma tradition of the cycle of Vajrakilaya teachings, Padmasambhava was the son of a royal heir, Prince Mahusita of Dhanakosha, in Uddiyana. Originally given the name Dhanaraksita, which means " Protector of Charity" , it is stated that he was born in the year of the water monkey (732 A.D.). Thus his mundane birth and status as a prince of Uddiyana may be pinpointed as a fact of history. .....At the age of eight the princely child was adopted by King Indrabhuti and made heir to the throne of Uddiyana. ".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

745 A.D....... "As mentioned above, the T'ang Annals record for that year, the investiture of the King of Kapisa with rulership over Uddiyana.....It is in consequence of the evil act of killing the son of a baron, or the mother and child of a minister, that the young prince Padmasambhava is banished from the Kingdom...Padmasambhava's banishment to foreign lands, reflects the changes wrought when the powerful lords of Kapisa seized, as we know they did, control of the Swat Valley. Uddiyana was defeated and utterly lost its independence. Whatever happened to Indrabhuti we do not know, but it is probable that he was slain, or perhaps as a blind captive, was dragged ignominiously back to Kabul in chains. At any rate Padmasambhava fled in the direction of Kashmir." .........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

745 A.D. ..."....the Chinese Court is suddenly seen to confer upon the king of Kapisa the double investiture of " king of Kapisa and Uddiyana." .......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

745 AD......"Padmasambhava's route of escape is fairly evident. There was only one direction for him to go. About 30 kilometres north of the old capital of Mangalapura he must have taken the ancient trail over the Shangla Pass to present day Besham on the Indus River, a 70 kilometre trek. From Besham he would have had to make the long hike up the Indus, past Dassu and the famous Buddhist rock carvings of Shatial and Chilas, until many days later he could have entered the rela­tive safety of Baltistan. The latter country is formed by the long valley of the Indus from where it meets the Karakorum Highway at Gilgit up to Skardu. On this perilous journey Padmasambhava would have skirted around the sandy base of 26,660 foot high Nanga Parvata, the ninth highest peak in the world....Baltistan, or Greater Pu-lu as we find it called in the Chinese annals, was under the protection of Tibet.".........http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

748 AD......"Mention of tribute from the King of Kapisa in 748 A.D. ascertains that by that date Uddiyana had become a vassal state. As we shall see, it was in the very midst of this turmoil and change that Padmasambhava lived....."

750 AD..... By 750 the Tibetans had lost almost all of their central Asian possessions to the Chinese. In 753, even the kingdom of "Little Balur" (modern Gilgit) was captured by the Chinese. However, after Gao Xianzhi's defeat by the Caliphate and Qarluqs at the Battle of Talas (751), Chinese influence decreased rapidly and Tibetan influence began to increase again. Tibet conquered large sections of northern India during this time.

786 AD....."Nothing is really reported concerning Padmasambhava's life in Kashmir (745-752 AD).... He lived, some say, with wandering yogis and saddhus, in exile from his homeland. Others report that it was during this period that he acquired worldly knowledge and skill in various crafts. Howbeit, in Kashmir he earned the name Sthiramati, the Youthful Genius. ....In the spring of 786 AD by the Tibetan reckoning a Fire Tiger year, the Precious Lord, or " Guru Rinpoche" as he is most commonly known in Tibetan, set forth across the high passes of the Himalaya. On the Tibetan frontier, in Mangyul, he was met by five royal ministers to escort him to the Imperial Palace. In the valley of Tsang he was greeted by a messenger with a white horse. Riding in state to the town of Turdlung, he was welcomed with a grand reception. Then in the Tamarisk Garden near Red Rock, he was royally received by the Emperor. He was about 54 years old"......http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

804 AD.... Prof. Tucci, Preliminary Report on an Archaeological Survey of Swat,:....."Laghman, an independent nation prior to Hiuen Tsiang's time, had certainly become a tributary province of Kapisa by 629 A.D. Since Kabul was not overrun - and then only temporarily - by the Moslem invasion until as late as 870 A.D., Laghman's status would still have been that of a Buddhist province of Kapisa (Shambhala) in 804 A.D. The Sanskrit name of the country was Lampaka and Hiuen Tsiang lists it as Lan-po. The sacred mountain in question would be that of Sri Aruna Parvata, Aruna " the Red" , now thought by some to be the Chehel Dukhtaran peak."

"Laghman is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Located in the east of Afghanistan, the capital is Mehtar Lam.....During the invasions of Alexander the Great, the area was formerly known as Lampaka which a series of inscription from Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, who ruled from 269 to 232 B.C. ...Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang, visited the Laghman......(Sidenote: Mihtarlam (Pashto: مهترلام‎, Persian: مهترلام‎), also spelled Mehtar Lam......The tomb of Lamech, father of Noah is believed to be in the area, discovered by Mahmud of Ghazni. A shrine was built there, which is revered nowadays.) "

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"In 801 AD, Tibetans were active as far west as Balkh, Samarkand and Kabul. Caliphate forces began to gain the upper hand, and the Tibetan governor of Kabul submitted to the Caliphate and became a Muslim about 812 or 815. The Caliphate then struck east from Kashmir, but were held off by the Tibetans. In the meantime, the Uyghur Khaganate attacked Tibet from the northeast. Strife between the Uyghurs and Tibetans continued for some time."

"Sometime around 950 A.D., a certain King Indrabhuti of Uddiyana married his sister, Laksminkara, to the " Hindu king of Lankapuri." This latter, a kingdom south of Uddiyana we can identify with Hiuen Tsiang's Simhapura in the Salt Range.....The actual site of the ancient Padmavabhasa Citadel in the Salt Range is still open to question: it could be near Malot, not far from Ketas (the ancient capital of Simhapura), where now stands the red sandstone remains of some eighth century Kashmiri style temples; or it could have been at Mount Sukesar (4,992 ft), the highest peak in the Range. The latter may be the Arunachala, the " Red Mountain" of Padmasambhava's biography.....Another but less likely location for the Guru's final residence would be the old fort at Nandana, later occupied by the Hindushahi rulers when they fled from their capital at Wahind after their defeat in 1001 A.D. by Mahmud of Ghazni. ".... ...http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

1001 AD......"Nandana or Nandna was a fort built at strategic location on a hilly range on the eastern flanks of the Salt Range in Punjab Pakistan. Its ruins, including those of a town and a temple, are present. It was ruled by the Hindu Shahi kings until, in the early 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni expelled them from Nandana. Anandapala, the son of Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, had erected the Shiva temple in Nandana."

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870 AD......"Vincent Smith, in Early History of India, states that the Turkishahiya dynasty continued to rule over Kabul and Gandhara up until the advent of the Saffarids in the ninth century. Forced by the inevitable advance of Islam on the west, they then moved their capital from Kapisa to Wahund on the Indus, whence they contin­ued as the Hindushahiya dynasty. This was in 870 A.D. and marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination." ...http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm

"The Hindushahis recaptured Kabul and the rest of their Kingdom after the death of the conqueror Yaqub but never again maintained Kapisa as their capital."

870 AD......The Shahis of Kabul/Gandhara are generally divided into the two eras of the so-called Buddhist-Shahis and the so-called Hindu-Shahis, with the change-over thought to have occurred sometime around AD 870.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_Shahi

870 AD....."TurkI Shahiya kings had ruled in Kabul until the capture of that city by the Arab general, Yakub-i- Lais in 870 a. d. a After that date the capital was shifted to Ohind, (Waihind ) near Peshawar"

"In 870/871, Ya'qub marched against the Kharijites of Herat, and defeated them. He then marched towards Karukh, and defeated another Khariji leader who was named Abd al-Rahman. Ya'qub then pardoned Abd al-Rahman and made him governor of Isfizar.......His army would later march to Ghazna, Kabul, and Bamyan, conquering these territories in the name of Islam by appointing Muslim governors. From there they moved to north of the Hindu Kush and by 870 AD the whole of Khorasan was brought under their control. The Panjshir Valley was now under Ya'qub's control, which made him able to mint silver coins...... In 873, Ya'qub ousted the Tahirids from their own capital of Nishapur, and captured it's ruler Muhammad ibn Tahir, which led to conflicts with the Abbasid caliphate. During one of Ya'qub's numerous battles, his face was disfigured to where he could only eat through a pipe in his mouth for twenty days."..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%27qub_ibn_al-Layth_al-Saffar

"873 AD...The Saffarids used their capital Zaranj as a base for an aggressive expansion eastward and westward. They first invaded the areas south of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and then overthrew the Persian Tahirid dynasty, annexing Khorasan in 873. By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Sindh, Tocharistan, Makran (Balochistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reached Baghdad but then suffered a defeat by the Abbasids."

879 AD...."Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (يعقوب بن الليث الصفار), or Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari (یعقوب لیث صفاری), born Rādmān pūr-i Māhak (Persian: رادمان پور ماهک‎) (840 – 879 AD), a Persian coppersmith, was the founder of the Saffarid dynasty of Sistan, with its capital at Zaranj (a city now in south-western Afghanistan). He ruled territories that are now in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as portions of western Pakistan and a small part of Iraq. He was succeeded by his brother, Amr ibn al-Layth.....

1010 AD......"Anandapala or Anantpala was the third and last ruler of the Kabul Shahi dynasty in what is now Pakistan. His reign began in 1001 CE and ended in or about 1010. He was the son of Jayapala, whose kingdom used to stretch from Laghman to Kashmir and Sirhind to Multan, with Peshawar being in the center...... The Hindu rulers eventually exiled themselves to the Kashmir Siwalik Hills.....The Sivalik Hills is a mountain range of the outer Himalayas also known as Manak Parbat in ancient times. ..."

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Kapisa: Wahund, Udabhandapura (870 AD)

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"The Turkishahiya dynasty continued to rule over Kabul and Gandhara up until the advent of the Saffarids in the ninth century. Forced by the inevitable advance of Islam on the west, they then moved their capital from Kapisa to Wahund ((Vaihind, Udabhanda, Udabhandapura, Ohind, Und), near Peshawar) , whence they contin­ued as the Hindushahiya dynasty. This was in 870 A.D. and marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination."

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" In 642 A.D., a "King Ta-mo-yin-t'o-ho-szu" of Uddiyana is said to have sent a gift of camphor and an embassy to the Emperor of China. This is the year that the Arabs succeeded in defeating the King of Kings, Yazdagird 111, of Persia. The latter, fleeing eastward, met his death near Merv in 651. With the death of Yazdagird, last of the Sassanid dynasty, the southern bedouin hordes of Islam for the first time marched onto the soil of Iran and began their great, rapacious advance eastward. The kings of the Orient had cause to fear the coming of the Arabs. These southerners were savagely barbarian; a patchwork of desert tribes woven together by the threads of a fanatical monotheism and a religion which encouraged them to slay with the sword those whom they could not convert to their personal dominion. " Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day," says the Koran (Sura 9:29), " ...until they pay you tribute out of hand, having brought them low."
The inexorable expansion of the Arabs spread along two fronts: the first moved through Nishapur to Herat, Merv and Balkh, reducing the northern provinces of Persia; the second passed south by way of Sistan (Sijistan) to the Helmand. In 650 Abdallah ibn Amr began the yet further push forwards across the desert of the Dasht-i-Lut. He was followed over the years by succeeding Moslem armies which, through continuous raids, massacres and looting, systematically transformed the wondrous flower-garden of Persian civilization and Mazdean or Buddhist culture into a scorched wasteland. Today all these lands lie under the yoke of Arabic culture.
The Turkish Shahi kingdom of Kapisa (with Kabul on the south as its capital) and the central Afghan massif of Ghor (now the Hazarajat), held against the invader, and for many centuries remained unconquered and primarily Buddhist. In 663 A.D. Ibn Samurah fought his way into Kabul, but his success was only temporary. Nevertheless, reading the T'ang Annals, we note that a party of Uddiyanean ambassadors presented themselves at the Chinese Court in 665 A.D., and granting the length and hardships of the journey, it is practical to assume that the embassy's presence was a direct response to Ibn Samurah's raid. Kapisa's strength, backed by the armies of Imperial China, acted as a major bulwark against Islam penetrating the Pamir, and significantly protected Uddiyana.
In 672 an Arab governor of Sistan, Abbad ibn Ziyad, raided the frontier of Al-Hind and crossed the desert to Gandhara, but quickly retreated again. The marauder Obaidallah crossed the Sita River and made a raid on Kabul in 698 only to meet with defeat and humiliation. Vincent Smith, in Early History of India, states that the Turkishahiya dynasty continued to rule over Kabul and Gandhara up until the advent of the Saffarids in the ninth century. Forced by the inevitable advance of Islam on the west, they then moved their capital from Kapisa to Wahund on the Indus, whence they contin­ued as the Hindushahiya dynasty. This was in 870 A.D. and marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination. The Hindushahis recaptured Kabul and the rest of their Kingdom after the death of the conqueror Yaqub but never again maintained Kapisa as their capital."
......Robin Artisson......October 5, 2014........From a History of Uddiyana and the life of Padmasambhava

"The Shahi (Devanagari: शाही), Sahi, also called Shahiya or Hindu Shahi dynasties ruled one of the Middle kingdoms of India which included portions of the Kabulistan and the old province of Gandhara (now in northern Pakistan), from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century..... The kingdom was known as "Kabul Shahi" (Kabul-shāhān or Ratbél-shāhān in Persian کابلشاهان یا رتبیل شاهان) between 565 and 879 AD when they had Kapisa and Kabul as their capitals, and later as Hindu Shahi.....The Shahis of Kabul/Gandhara are generally divided into the two eras of the so-called Buddhist-Shahis and the so-called Hindu-Shahis, with the change-over thought to have occurred sometime around AD 870.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_Shahi

https://archive.org/details/earlyhistoryofin00smit......The early history of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan conquest, including the invasion of Alexander the Great.....by Smith, Vincent Arthur, 1848-1920

"TurkI Shahiya kings had ruled in Kabul until the capture of that city by the Arab general, Yakub-i- Lais in 870 AD......After that date the capital was shifted to Ohind, (Waihind).....on the Indus."

Kabul Shahi.....Capital :Kabul....then Waihind (870–1010 AD)....André Wink, Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam: 7th-11th Centuries, (Brill, 2002), 125.

Waihind....Waihind (वैहिंद) (Vaihind, Udabhanda, Udabhandapura, Ohind, Und), near Peshawar, ...Waihind / Udabhandapura (Location almost same as Peshwar)....was the place of residence or secondary capital of emperor of Kapisa....Waihind is near modern Attock, situated about 14 miles above Attock on the right bank of river Indus. Gandhāra (गन्धार) is also known as Waihind (ویهیند) in Persian. . ....http://www.jatland.com/home/Waihind

"Anandapala or Anantpala was the third and last ruler of the Kabul Shahi dynasty in what is now Pakistan. His reign began in 1001 CE and ended in or about 1010. He was the son of Jayapala, whose kingdom used to stretch from Laghman to Kashmir and Sirhind to Multan, with Peshawar being in the center."

"In AD 671 when Muslim armies seized Kabul then the capital was moved to Udabhandapura, Modern day Und near modern Attock, also called Waihind by Al Biruni (André Wink p 125), where they became known as the Rajas of Hindustan or Hindu Shahi. Udabhanda was the capital of the Shahi dynasty......In the wake of Muslim invasions of Kabul and Kapisa in second half of 7th century (AD 664), the Kapisa/Kabul ruler called by Muslim writers Kabul Shahi (Shahi of Kabul) made an appeal to the Kshatriyas of the Hind who had gathered there in large numbers for assistance and drove out the Muslim invaders as far as Bost.....This king of Kapisa/Kabul who faced the Muslim invasion was undoubtedly a Kshatriya." ....http://www.jatland.com/home/Waihind

"The Sanskrit term kshatriya is used in the context of Vedic society wherein members organized themselves into four classes: brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra. Traditionally, the kshatriya constituted the ruling and military elite. Their role was to protect society by fighting in wartime and governing in peacetime....Gautama Buddha was born into a kshatriya family."

"Gesar.....Numismatic evidence and some accounts speak of a Bactrian ruler Phrom-kesar, specifically in the Turkish dynasty in Gandhāra, which was ruled by a Turkish Phrom-kesar ("Caesar of Rome"), who was father-in-law of the king of Khotan, around the middle of the 8th century AD."....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar

"In 645 AD, when Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang was passing through the Uttarapatha..... Udabhanda or Udabhandapura was the place of residence or secondary capital of emperor of Kapisa which then dominated over 10 neighboring states comprising Lampaka, Nagara, Gandhara and Varna (Bannu) and probably also Jaguda....... About Gandhara, the pilgrim says that its capital was Purushapura; the royal family was extinct and country was subject to Kapisa; the towns and villages were desolate and the inhabitants were very few. It seems that under pressure from Arabs in the southwest and the Turks in the north, the kings of Kapisa had left their western possessions in the hands of their viceroys and made Udabhanda their principal seat of residence...... The reason why Udabhandapura was selected in preference to Peshawar is at present unknown but it is possible that the new city of Udabhanda was built by Kapisa rulers for strategic reasons.....http://www.jatland.com/home/Waihind

"Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (يعقوب بن الليث الصفار), or Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari (یعقوب لیث صفاری), born Rādmān pūr-i Māhak (Persian: رادمان پور ماهک‎) (October 25, 840 – June 5, 879), a Persian coppersmith, was the founder of the Saffarid dynasty of Sistan, with its capital at Zaranj (a city now in south-western Afghanistan). He ruled territories that are now in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as portions of western Pakistan and a small part of Iraq......By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Sindh, Tocharistan, Makran (Balochistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reached Baghdad but then suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.....The Saffarid empire did not last long after Ya'qub's death."

From Ameera on the Sutledge River, in the Ferozepoor District, through the Hukra Nawal or Wahund Depression, to Kundawalee.......The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 42

Firozpur district (Punjabi: ਫ਼ਿਰੋਜ਼ਪੁਰ ਜ਼ਿਲ੍ਹਾ) officially spelled Ferozepur district is one of the twenty-two districts in the state of Punjab located in the North-West of the Republic of India.....Firozpur, (Punjabi: ਫ਼ਿਰੋਜ਼ਪੁਰ) officially spelled Ferozepur is a city on the banks of the Sutlej River in Firozpur District, Punjab, India

Sutlej (sŭt`lĕj), longest of the five rivers of the Punjab , c.900 mi (1,450 km) long, rising in the Kailas Range, SW Tibet region of China, and flowing generally west, meandering through the Himalayas in India, then onto the Punjab plain where it receives the Beas River and forms part of the India-Pakistan border; continuing into Pakistan, it is joined by the Chenab River (which received the Jhelum and Ravi rivers). The combined stream, the Panjnad, channels the collected waters of all five rivers of the Punjab into the Indus River.

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Bahawalpur was a princely state, currently part of Punjab province, stretching along the southern bank of the Sutlej and Indus Rivers, with its capital city at Bahawalpur. ....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahawalpur_%28princely_state%29#/media/File:NWIndia_1857_imperial_gazeteer.jpg

"The Hakra is the dried-out channel of a river near Fort Abbas City in Pakistan that is the continuation of the Ghaggar River in India. Several times, but not continuously, it carried the water of the Sutlej and Sarasvati during the Bronze Age period. Many settlements of the Indus Valley Civilisation have been found along and inside the river beds of the Ghaggar and Hakra rivers......According to some paleo-environmental scientists and Archaeologists, between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE some tectonic disturbances caused a tilt in topography of Northwest India resulting in the migration of river. The Sutlej moved westward and became a tributary of the Indus River while the Yamuna moved eastward and became a tributary of the Ganges. The Yamuna shifted its course eastwards, supposedly in the early 2nd millennium BCE, allegedly reaching its current bed by 1st millennium BCE, while the Drishadvati bed retained only a small seasonal flow. The Sutlej shifted its channel northwards repeatedly, and was eventually captured by the Indus system. The water loss due to these movements caused the Sarasvati river to dry up in the Thar Desert."......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar Hakra_River#Hakra_River

"The name "Khorasan" is derived from Middle Persian khwar (meaning "sun") and āsān (or ayan literally meaning "to come" or "coming" or "about to come"), hence meaning "land where the sun rises"...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Khorasan

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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