Sambatyon River (Article)

The Sambatyon River is described in Jewish and Christian literature as a river of sand and rocks that stops flowing or solidifies on the Sabbath day. A similar river known as the Wadi al-Raml "River of Sand" is found in Islamic literature. This river was closely linked with the "lost" Ten Tribes of Israel.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the first use of the name "Sambatyon" occurs in the Targum of pseudo-Jonathan to Ex. xxxiv. 10: "I will remove them from there and place them beyond the River Sambation."

Some think the name "Sambatyon" may be related to an earlier Sabbaticus river mentioned by Josephus and Pliny described as flowing according to a weekly schedule but Josephus states the river flows only on the Sabbath opposite what is said in other traditions. Neither Pliny or Josehphus describe a river of sand or stones. Josephus links the river with Jews during the time of Titus but not specifically with the Ten Tribes. Since the earliest times there has been disagreement on whether the Sambatyon and Sabbaticus rivers were related.

The first mention of a river of sand and stones connected in some way with the "lost tribes" actually occurs in Islamic literature. A group known as the "people of Moses" is mentioned in the Quran, and the commentator Muqatil bin Sulayman (767 CE) associates them with the lost tribes. He further places the people of Moses, numbering 70,000, beyond a river of sand in China. Several hadith tell of how the people of Moses dug a tunnel from the Temple Mount to or beyond China where they lived pious lives, and where Muhammed introduced them to Islam during his "night journey."

Muqatil b. Sulayman called the land of the people of Moses by the name Ardaf. The name resembles the location Arzaf mentioned in 4 Ezra 13 as the place to which the Ten Tribes escaped.

And, whereas, thou sawest that He gathered another peaceable multitude unto Him; those are the Ten Tribes which were carried away out of their own land in the time of Osea (Hoshea) the King whom Shalmaneser the King of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so they came into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they should leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country. where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into the Euphrates by the narrow passage of the river; for the Most High then showed signs for them, and held still the flood till they were passed over. Through that region there was a long way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that country is called Arzaf [Latin Arzareth]. "Then they dwelt there until the last times; and now, when they are about to come again, the Most High will stop the channels of the river again, so that they may be able to pass over."

Ezra has a dream where a fire-breathing messianic figure arises from the stormy sea and carves a great mountain for an apocalyptic battle. After vanquishing a great host that had come against him on the mountain with a stream of fire from his mouth, the savior figure calls another "peaceable" multitude, an event widely interpreted as indicating the return of the Ten Tribes.

The Jewish traveler Eldad Hadani around the ninth century CE, mentions the people of Moses (beney Mosheh) living beyond the river of sand giving a complete tale combining many elements of the Hebrew and Islamic versions. Again, the Sambatyon River acts as a barrier sequestering the Ten Tribes and preventing their return to Israel.

Jewish texts like Pesikta Rabbati and Genesis Rabbah mention the tunneling story but in this case it is God who creates a tunnel from the land beyond Sambatyon which allows the Ten Tribes to return to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Eldad Hadani describes the thunderous noise made by the Sambatyon:

"...the river is full of large and small stones, thundering with stormlike, deafening noises by day and by night; it can be heard a day's journey away. The river flows with its noisy stones and sand all the six days of the week; on the Sabbath it ceases and rests until the termination of the Sabbath."

This and similar descriptions have led researchers like David Kaufmann to suggest that the flowing sand and stones were caused by volcanic action. In Ma'ase Nissim, Gershon Halevi states while traveling in India that two days from Seviliah he encountered the Sambatyon:

At some locations, I noticed a fire burning; other places appeared as rising smoke, and I was told that this is the smoke of the Gay Hinnom, like the mountains of Sicily in Italy. As we approached the town, which is near the Sambatyon, we heard turbulent, thundering noises. The closer we came to the town, the more deafening the noises became. Upon my inquiry I was told that this was the roar of the Sambatyon.

The belief that the Ten Tribes were held back both by the Sambatyon and also the Euphrates, and were able to cross these rivers only with the intervention of God brings to mind verses in Revelation which tell of the drying of the Euphrates to make way for the Kings of the East. In some accounts of Prester John, who is closely linked with the Ten Tribes beyond the river of sand/stones, it is said that his failure to reach Jerusalem was caused by his inability to cross the Euphrates.

Google satellite view of a modern-day "river of sand," the
Pasig River near Mt. Pinatubo south of Clark Field.



Pictures of the Sacobia-Bamban river

http://www.clarkab.org/photos/a35.jpg

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/punong1/fig9b.jpg
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Singer, Isidore; Alder, Cyrus; (eds.) et al. The Jewish Encyclopedia, Funk and Wagnalls, New York, 1901-6.

King of the East (Glossary)

Jewish, Zoroastrian, Christian and to a lesser extent Muslim traditions all possess a theme of the "King of the East" as a key player in apocalyptic times.

The ultimate origin of this belief in the region may come from the Egyptian concept of the throne on the "Island of Fire" i.e., Ta-Neserser. On this island was found the Primeval Hill from which the Sun and the Bennu Bird rise in the furthest East, and it was here that the dead traveled by ship where they entered the opening to the Underworld.

The food and herbs of Ta-Neserser filled the body with "magic," and at least by the Middle Kingdom period, the aromatics and products of Punt appear connected in some way with the Island of Fire. The throne in the latter location is associated with a serpent or cobra, and the Lord of Punt in the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which in this case refers to the location of spices like cassia and cinnamon, appears as a giant snake. Aromatics like cassia and cinnamon continued to be associated with an eastern Paradise or "Elysian Fields" in regional cultures influenced by Egypt for thousands of years.

The Book of the Dead depicts what might be called a "volcanic apocalypse" of fire and flood after which renewal begins again from the throne of the Island of Fire. As discussed in this blog, the theme of one or a few survivors after a cataclysmic flood repopulating the earth is quite a familiar theme in Southeast Asian mythology.

Concepts of cyclic change that began at least by the Middle Kingdom in Egypt appear to have contributed to Egyptian millennarianism in the first few centuries before the era among gnostic and Jewish apocalyptic sects. Interestingly at about the same time in China to the East, ideas of a future millennarian age initiated by a reincarnation of Laozi also come to fore. This was at about the same time that the Fangshi wizards preached the wisdom of venturing to Penglai, the isle of immortals. During this period, there is evidence of contact between East and West both overland via the Silk Road and by sea via the maritime spice routes.

Concepts of both a savior king and a destructive king of the "antichrist" type are clearly present during this period.

King from the Sun

The Potter's Oracle and the Sibylline Oracles both refer to a messianic "King from the Sun" who conquers Rome, which many interpret to mean a "King from the East," i.e., the direction of the sunrise.

This identification is strengthened by other works of around this time like the Oracles of Hystaspes and Phlegon's account in Mirabilia.

Phlegon tells of how the slain Syrian Bouplagus after the defeat of Antiochus III at Thermopylae appears to the Roman soldiers warning them that an angered Zeus would send a "bold-hearted race" to bring their defeat and contrition. Another prophecy tells of the the Roman general Publius who went into a prophetic frenzy foretelling the destruction of Rome and conquest of the world by peoples coming from "Asia where the sun rises." According to the story, Publius also foretold that he would be eaten by a wolf, which comes true except that his head is left to declare his prophecies about Rome would also come to past.

Hystaspes is mentioned by Lactantius, Justin, Clement and Aristokritos. He is sometimes said to be the father of Darius, but in another account he is a Median who lives before the "Trojans were born." According to Ammianus, Hystaspes went to study with the Brahmins of "Upper India" where he learned about astronomy, astrology and other mysteries. All the sources agree that Hystaspes tells of Rome's descent into a time of trouble, while Justin refers to the destruction of the world by fire before the coming of an oriental savior king.

The Oracles of Hystaspes have so much in common with the apocalyptic Bahman Yasht of Persia that F. Cumont and G. Widengren have suggested an Iranian source for the former. It is worthwhile to note here that the Bahman Yasht more specifically locates the King of the East in the "direction" of China and the Indies, something dealt with in greater detail in Pahlavi and New Persian messianic literature.

The Persian connection is important because it was from Iran that both Zoroastrian and Nestorian Christianity expanded in the Sassanian period. The Nestorian synod of 410 CE mentions a "Metropolitan of the Islands, Seas and Interior of Dabag, Chin and Machin" (Zabag or Insular Southeast Asia, China and mainland Southeast Asia), who was seated at the Iranian port of Bushehr.

King of the East in Christianity

Not surprisingly there arose some counter propaganda to the Jewish, gnostic and Persian oracles against Rome.

One example is the Tiburtine Sibyl of the fourth century CE that prophesied a King of the Romans and Greeks known as Constans who conquers the world for Christianity before the coming of the Antichrist. Such oracles later morphed into beliefs of a French Catholic king who would bring the world to Rome culiminating in the 16th century book of prophecies Mirabilis Liber.

The King of the East was contrarily often associated in Christian millennarian works with the Antichrist, and this concept is not foreign to earlier works like the Potter's Oracle. That both destruction and renewal would be associated with the Orient agrees well with the Egyptian descriptions of the cyclic Island of Fire.

However, Christian millennarian also adopted and adapted the earlier views of the King of the East as savior. Commodian, for example, writes of "Nero redivivus," the reincarnated Nero who brings misery to Rome and the world as the Antichrist but is vanquished by King Apollyon of the East.

The general concept of ex Oriente lux "From the East, the light; from the East, the Saviour," was a powerful theme that helped bring about the latter popularity of Prester John, the King of the Indies.

Sambatyon River and the Ten Tribes

The tales of Prester John were closely associated with a legendary river known as the Sambatyon beyond which supposedly were found the lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

By at least the fourth or fifth century, we find in the rabbinical literature and the Alexandrian Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes mention of a river of sand and/or stones that ceases flowing on the Sabbath day.

Early Muslim sources also mention the river of sand and connect it with the "people of Moses" (qawm Musa). The people of Moses are mentioned twice in the Quran (7:159, 17:104) as living at the edge of the world and who in the future will be reunited with the other children of Israel.

Latter commentaries on these verses state that Muhammed converted the people of Moses on his trip to heaven, and that they will ally themselves with Muslims against Rome in the end-times. Muqatil b. Sulayman (767 CE) commenting on 17:104 states that the people of Moses live in China on the far side of a river of sand that solidifies on the Sabbath, and gives them the name Ardaf or Ardaq.

Against this tradition, was a version which has Dejjal, the Muslim Antichrist arising in Bartayil (also Bartail, Bratayil, etc.) an island where clove buds are found situated in or near Zabag. Dejjal is supposed to lead an army of renegade Jews in a final war against Muslims. Thomas Suarez believes the strange horse from the sea, a familiar apocalyptic motif connected with Bartayil, is linked with the Chinese sea-goddess Kuanyin who often takes the form of a horse. Kuanyin in her final incarnation as Miao Shan was the daughter of the King of Hsing Lin, whose empire stretched from the western boundary of India eastward and south of Siam through Insular Southeast Asia.

A parallel Jewish tradition to that of the "people of Moses" developed in the beney Mosheh "children of Moses" said to have been transported to the edenic land of Havilah in the East where they live on the east side of the Sambatyon River flowing with sand and rocks but congealing on the Sabbath. To this was added the story that on the Sabbath a great wall of fire formed around the river.

One belief arose claiming the beney Mosheh possessed a written form of the Torah superior to the Rabbanate oral traditions and copied according to some from the stone tablets of Moses himself.

Centuries later, Prester John, in the various letters attributed to him, regularly claims both the river of sand and the Ten Tribes belong to his empire. In the same sense, he lays claim to another apocalyptic people, the biblical nations of Gog and Magog.

The Ten Tribes are sometimes described as vast in number having 10 cities to every one in Prester John's realm. So much so that the king found it necessary to station garrisons at the river of sand to prevent the Israelites from conquering the world. At other times they are said to ally themselves with Prester John in his battles against Muslims and others. They frequently send friendly traders to the king's land.

Jews in the West had various opinions about Prester John, some considering him an enemy holding back the Ten Tribes from reunification with the Jews. Many associated the coming of the lost tribes with the advent of the Messiah.

In the middle of the 15th century, at about the same time we hear of the de Conti's last reports of activity from a Prester John of the East Indies and also a possible embassy from that king to the Vatican, Jewish writings circulated about wars between the Prester John and the Ten Tribes.

In that year [1454], on the third day of the month of Nissan [early spring], there arrived here to the holy city of Jerusalem wise and respected elders from the lands of the Children of the East, and also men from the land of Babylonia, from the lands of Persia and Media, from India, from China, and from Yemen...which is as far from Jerusalem as the place of the Children of the East, five months' journey; and from there to our brothers, the Children of the Sambatyon River, is five months. They brought us letters from the heads of communities in the above-mentioned places...Know that the Sambatyon river stopped flowing altogether in the year 1453, at the beginning of the year, on the very first day of the month of Tishri. Our brothers are there battling the war of the blessed God, and they have a great and pious and exceedingly strong king who fights the battles of the Lord every single day with the great Christian king, Prester John of India. The great and pious king of our people captured many lands from him, and killed many thousands of his people...So gird yourselves and strengthen others in the name of the Lord God, for the Redeemer has been revealed, and he is about to redeem us with the help of blessed God.

Numerous explanations have given for what historical facts, if any, may explain the beliefs in the Ten Tribes and the Sambatyon River. The need to link these motifs with a king in the east may simply relate to the fact that both the Ten Tribes and the King of the East themes are integral to apocalyptic beliefs in the region.

It may be there is some connection with the Jewish communities in the more remote areas of China -- the southern coastal cities of Quanzhou (Zaiton), Canton, Ningpo and Yangzhou. Merchants from Fujian Province and other parts of South China settled at trading posts like the Parian in Manila and other Southeast Asian ports, and it may be these merchants were conflated with the Chinese Jews, if no real association existed.

Although the information on the King of the East as a savior or as antichrist is often confused, a consistent theme linking the monarch with the geography, aromatics, cosmology and other characteristics of the "East Indies" persists through the ages from the earliest times.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Buitenwerf, Rieuwerd. Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and Its Social Setting, Brill Academic Publishers, 2003, pp. 273-5.

Goldfish, Matt. The Sabbatean Prophets, Harvard University Press, 2004, p. 31.

Halkin, Hillel. Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel, Houghton Mifflin Books, 2004, p. 109.

MacGing, Brian C. The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, Brill Academic Publishers, 1986, pp. 103-4.

Mingana, Alphonse, "The early spread of Christianity in India," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library X 1926, p. 455.

Reeves, John C. Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, SBL, 2005.

Werner, E.T.C. Myths and legends of China, Courier Dover
Publications, 1994, p. 253. The manuscript containing the story of Miao Shan was given by the abbot of Hsiang-shan monastery to Chiang Chih-ch'i, the Ju-Chou prefect, in 1100 CE. The abbot had received the work from a monk who had come on pilgrimage to Hsiang-shan.

Sambali

Now to review the clan situation in the traditional camp, we first have the union of the dragon/serpent and bird clans resulting in a lineage whose emblem is the dog. The joining of other clans to this confederacy may be symbolized by the marriage of a dog with an ancestral goddess.

One such union of great import is that involving a group of peoples having a bull emblem.

The Chinese texts state that Chiyou's totemic clan was divided into nine tribes with each tribe divided into nine sub-tribes. The Juili appear to have had an atomic structure similar to that known in Austronesian societies. The autonomy of the smaller social divisions was apparent to the Chinese observers.

Among the Sumerians and Hebrews the eastern sages from Dilmun and Eden are governed by a king associated with the mountain of God. In Sumerian lore, the mountain is associated both with Heaven and the Underworld. The image is that of a volcano shrouded with clouds around an entrance leading to the underground sweet waters -- the Abzu or Apsu.

The Abzu was envisioned as the source of all rivers and a type of river itself. The leader of the sages is the Lord of the River, the Lord of the Mountain and the Lord of Dilmun.

In the same sense, the leader of the angels in Hebrew legend is the "Prince of the Presence." He is closely associated with the fiery mountain of God in Eden.

In traditional Austronesian society, organization of districts and regions is ritual based as we have discussed earlier. The Nusantao organization appears similar. So closely was Chiyou associated with ritual that he is said to have founded religion in Chinese texts.

The hereditary ritual officers of the holy mountain logically set up the rules and protocol used by the traditional trading clans. The trade in itself is a spiritual enterprise, part of the great dual conflict. In this sense we see among the people even today a type of "cargo cult" mentality.

We can imagine, using known examples in this region, that such rules were minimal -- only those needed to foster the healthy workings of the confederacy. These were largely "thou shall not's" -- prohibitions and taboos deemed necessary to allow the clans to work together. Otherwise, the numerous subdivisions had significant autonomy to run their own administrations and the trade in their regions.

The "King of the Mountain" motif thus derives from the dog lineage which is itself derived from the high priestly clans of the fiery mountain of Eden, the entrance to the underground waters of life. The law is a ritual law that pervades the mundane world as trade was also a spiritual enterprise. Exchange is a means of expansion of the message.

Symbols are important and the holy volcano is represented by the spiral, the symbol of the dragon/serpent daughter of the Sun. The spiral is stylized into a series of concentric rings known as the Mt. Meru or Mt. Mandara motif in anthropological literature. Meru and Mandara are the mountains of the Gods in Indian religion.

Image Gallery

In latter times, the lore of the great "King of the East" continued in Hindu-Buddhist tradition. The Hindus knew the place of this tradition as a village (grama) called Sambhala. In Tibetan Buddhist belief it is called Shambhala, a mountain kingdom.

The location of Shambhala has been the object of much controversy. The Tsar of Russia at one time claimed to be the King of Shambhala. Imperial Japan also took on the mantle of Shambhala during its drive for expansion in Asia. For more on the location of this mysterious place, see the article below:

Great Shambhala

The mountain of Dilmun/Eden is a strong central focus for the traditional clan confederacy. It is a place of pilgrimmage associated with immortality. Gilgamesh ventured there in search of the waters of life. The messengers of Eden are also the guardians of the holy volcano -- part of the camp of Heaven.

Their opponents expelled from the mountain apparently set up their own camp initially somewhere to the east, probably to the southeast.

The land of the holy mountain is known as Sambali, and the kingdoms associated with it include Zabag, Sanfotsi, Mishima, Lusung and Rusun.


The eruption of Mt. Pinatubu from http://www.whoa.org/pinatubo/

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento