More on Anglo-Israelism and the Philippines

In the the article "British-Israelism, America and the Philippines" and other posts, I have discussed the issue of how Anglo-Israelism helped influence America's decision to colonize the Philippines.

Throughout this blog, I have suggested that the region now known as the Philippines and the surrounding areas were thought of by various cultures far and wide as the location of cosmically important sites including the axis mundi, navel of the sea, world tree, paradise and the like.  Nusantao seafarers and later the medieval kingdom known Sanfotsi and Zabag helped to spread such ideas.

When Columbus and Magellan sailed for the East Indies and Cathay, they hoped to find the biblical lands of Tarshish and Ophir.  Columbus appears to be the person who sparked the idea that the acquisition of the gold and "almug trees" of Ophir were important prophetic requirements leading up to the reconquest of Jerusalem and to the Second Coming.

Shortly after the Spanish colonization of the Philippines had begun, most European writers believed that Tarshish and Ophir were located in the East Indies. 

Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of Virginia for Queen Elizabeth I and the architect of England's colonization in the "New World," wrote in 1614:

And by the length of the passage which Solomon's ships made from the Red Sea (which was three years in going and coming [to Ophir]), it seemeth they went to the uttermost east, as the Moluccas, or Philippines. Indeed, those that now go from Portugal, or from hence, finish that navigation in two years, and sometimes less; and Solomon's ships went not above a tenth part of this our course from hence....Neither was it needful for the Spaniards themselves (had it not been for the plenty of gold in the East India islands, far above the mines of any one place of America) to sail every year from the west part of America thither, and there to have strongly planted and inhabited the richest of those islands, wherein they have built a city called Manilla. Solomon, therefore, needed not to have gone farther off than Ophir in the East to have sped worse; neither could he navigate from the east to the west in those days, whenas he had no coast to guide him.

However the English were not particularly happy with Spanish claims to prophecy nor their denial of  non-Catholics of the empire that became known as the "Spanish Main."   The Ophirian Conjecture started as a debate largely between the English and the Spanish over proper interpretation of biblical prophecy.


Anglo-American Israel

In the mid 19th century, Americans began to strongly embrace the idea that their nation was included in the prophecies of the Bible.  They largely drew on the older ideas of British Israelism that had been percolating for some time.

One can sense in the early writings on this topic, a continued antagonism with Spain.   The Methodist minister Samuel Davies Baldwin, for example, admitted that the Spanish represented the biblical "ships of Tarshish" that according to him were prophesied to discover the Americas.

However, the main purpose of Spain's discovery, according to Baldwin, was "opening the way to the emigration of God's people," i.e., the Anglo-Saxon settlers of the United States.  Fountain Pitts, another Methodist minister, stated that the Spanish were only interested in gold and silver, but that the Anglo-Saxon colonists came to claim the 'New World' for God.

In religious circles, the idea that America would evangelize the world as a prelude to Armageddon became widespread.

So when the Spanish-American War broke out, whatever the real cause of that war might have been, church writers quickly brought up the old antagonism between England and Spain in relation to the Ophirian conjecture and to prophecy.  Now the Anglo-Israelists had departed from the old Catholic ideas that the "Far East" harbored the Garden of Eden, Prester John's kingdom, and golden Tarshish and Ophir.  Again, they considered that Spain represented the nation known as Tarshish in the Bible.  Of course, the also rejected Spain's old claim to be the nation that would reconquer Jerusalem and herald the return of Christ.

"Thou brakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind"

Religious minds of the time were quick to see America's defeat of Spain as a fulfillment of prophecy, and as a final settling of an old score with their Ophirian rival.

A. Maurice Low, an American working for the London Chronicle described 1898, the year of the Spanish American War, as "annus mirabilis in American history."   While Martin Lyman Streator extended this "wonderful year" not only to American history but to the entire history of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Streator was a pastor of the Disciples of Christ, who worked as Pennsylvania State Evangelist for that organization before becoming chief missionary of the Christian Women's Board of Missions for the state of  Montana.  He was a prolific writer and two of his books, The Anglo-American Alliance in Prophecy in 1900 and The Hope of Israel in 1903 became very popular and favorably reviewed in Protestant religious circles. He writes in the former work:

The providential victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and the war in the Philippines, projected the American Republic in spite of ourselves into the great world of European and Asiatic nations. This should teach us that the God of nations and the ages intends that "the Company of Peoples" in the " strong nation " of prophecy in the United States shall have an influential voice in determining the destiny of the world in "this great epoch in the history of man." We cannot shirk this duty and avoid this destiny even if we desired to do it. The God of our fathers has set before us an open door in the Orient which no man can shut. He has given us a coign of vantage for the impending crisis.

In the conclusion of his sketch of one phase of our diplomacy before and after the war with Spain," Mr. Low says:

" It explains in a measure why those in authority have now, as they have had for the last two years, a feeling of gratitude toward England; it explains how, when in our extremity we needed a friend, the only friend we found was England, who stood by us loyally, manfully, and courageously, braving the displeasure of all the world because of the ties of blood ; it explains why there is to-day a solidarity of the English-speaking people: a union stronger, better, more powerful than any other union the world has before known; which does not exist by the favor of treaties or the grace of rulers, but which has come into being because it is a union that makes for the peace, the progress, the civilization of the world, which lends encouragement to the people still struggling for liberty and who know that to the Anglo-Saxon they must look for their inspiration and their deliverance.

"So long as the Blood endures,
I shall know that your good is mine, ye shall feel that my strength is

yours:

In the days of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all,
That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall." (P. 261.)

Men of thought and discernment already are perceiving that we are entering "the days of Armageddon," and that Our Race must stand together in " the last great fight of all." This we will do if we are the elect race of Israel. If we are not the House of Joseph, to whom the God of the covenant promised the dominion of the world, then we will fall never to rise again in the impending war of nations and races. If you accept the Bible as a revelation from the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, then open your eyes and see what he declares concerning the origin, the course, and the destiny of Our Race. He is fulfilling day by day in the chosen people of Our Race, now scattered over the world, the promises which he gave of old to the fathers concerning the dispersion, the expansion, the gathering, and the triumphant and glorious destiny of the children of Jacob and Joseph. The manifestations of sympathy and harmony between the two great branches of Our Race, which are the most notable characteristics of recent years, are the development of the eternal purposes of the living God towards his people.

John Patrick Brushingham, A Chicago Methodist pastor, wrote an article "American Protestanitism and Expansion" in The Methodist Review that connects the American victory with Isaiah's prophecy about the far off isles of the Gentiles.  The Methodist Review was at the time the nation's oldest religious review, although a different publication tham the journal of the same name that exists today.  Brushingham wrote in 1899:

"The isles shall wait for his law," sang Isaiah. "America is the world's evangelist," said Senator Davis, of the Peace Commission.

When Captain Gridley of the good ship Olympia tired that first gun at Cavite, by permission and order of the great admiral on May 1, 1898, it was heard round the world and became a revelation and a prophecy. When Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet and cut the cable to Hong Kong, there was placed upon the shoulders of our American republic a new burden of responsibility, and there was opened up before it a wide door of opportunity to give the blessings of a modern form of government and Anglo-Saxon civilization to islands hitherto considered to be at the ends of the earth. The distant echo of Dewey's guns was a prophecy that under God, and baptized by the divine Spirit, we are equal to the responsibility of this great providential opening. Let us take counsel of our hopes rather than our fears, believing that the genius and virtue of our American Christianity are adequate to the emergency. Dr. John Henry Barrows in a personal note says: " Those who have courageous hearts and the Christian spirit of missions, and the spirit of a world-wide evangelism, see God's hand and hear God's voice in recent events."

In another important religious journal of the time, The Homiletic Review, the editorial section in the July 1898 edition connects Dewey's victory with another prophecy of Isaiah that tells of the defeat of the ships of Tarshish, the nation that again was interpreted by Anglo-Israelists as referring to Spain.  These sentiments were also echoed in other writings of the time.

The naval battles have been marvels that would almost be pronounced miracles, and incredible by skeptics, if found written in the Bible. In the days of the Invincible Armada there seemed to be a literal fulfillment of the divine Word, in Psalm xlviii. 7: "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind." The providential interpositions of the recent months have been almost as wonderful. In a little over one hundred days of actual war, most of which time has necessarily been devoted to preparation, everything for which this country contended has been gained—and more. Assuredly there is reason for peculiar gratitude and special thanksgiving. And now begins the greater task of the nation in carrying out unselfishly and to the end the purposes of humanity and freedom for which the war was entered upon. It will need wise statesmanship and the sustaining influence of a tremendously powerful moral and Christian sentiment to keep the nation from being swept into the unrighteousness of a mad ambition for territorial expansion and imperialism. It will require just is potent moral and Christian forces to lift the nation up to the comprehension and attainment of the new destiny in the world's future, markt out for it by the events of the year 1898.

Philippines as 'ends of the earth'

Columbus believed that Spain would fulfill prophecy as the chosen nation of God by carrying the Christian faith to the farthest corners of the world -- that in his mind meant the far east where Cipangu and Cathay were located.   To this end, the most important geographical goal of his journeys was the island of Ophir.

Anglo-Israelists appear to have co-opted Columbus idea but with America bringing "true" Protestant Christianity to the 'ends of the earth.'  In this sense, the Philippines was again linked with biblical prophecies speaking of the far east and the rising of the sun -- the last place on earth to be evangelized.

Here is how Streator interprets statements by President William McKinley on the "just war" with Spain and the colonization of the Philippines.

President McKinley characterized our recent war with Spain as "A just war for humanity." Concerning it, and the new issues growing out of it he said :

"Some things have happened which were not promised, nor even foreseen, and our purposes in relation to them must not be left in doubt. A just war has been waged for humanity and with it have come new problems and responsibilities. Spain has been ejected from the Western Hemisphere, and our flag floats over her former territory. Cuba has been liberated, and our guarantees to her people will be sacredly executed. A beneficent government has been provided for Porto Rico. The Philippines are ours, and American authority must be supreme thruout the archipelago. There will be amnesty broad and liberal, but no abatement of our rights, no abandonment of our duty. There must be no scuttle policy. We will fulfil in the Philippines the obligations imposed by the triumphs of our arms and by the treaty of peace; by international law; by the nation's sense of honor; and more than all by the rights, interests, and conditions of the Philippine peoples themselves. No outside interference blocks the way to peace and a stable government. The obstructionists are here, not elsewhere. They may postpone, but they cannot defeat the realization of the high purpose of this nation to restore order to the islands and establish a just and generous government, in which the inhabitants shall have the largest participation for which they are capable. The organized forces which have been misled into rebellion have been dispersed by our faithful soldiers and sailors, and the people of the islands, delivered from anarchy, pillage, and oppression, recognize American sovereignty as the symbol and pledge of peace, justice, law, religious freedom, the security of life and property, and the welfare and prosperity of their several communities."

This language of the President of the great Republic is in harmony with the teaching of the oracles of God concerning the mission and work and destiny of his chosen people Israel. The Messianic King of Israel breaks in pieces the oppressor by arming his chosen people who hate oppression with the weapons of war whereby they break in pieces the feet of the image of Gentile empire, and break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. American Israel has been doing this on a stupendous scale since the beginning of this era of crisis in 1898. Compare the language of our President with the following oracle in Isaiah:

"According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay,

Wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies (such as the Spaniards) ;

To the islands he will repay recompense.

So shall they fear the name of Jehovah from the west (as in the West Indies),

And his glory from the rising of the sun (as in the East Indies):

When the adversary shall come in like a flood (as in the Boxer revolt in China),

The spirit of Jehovah shall lift up a standard against him." (13a.59:18,19.)

What standard is this but the standard of the chosen people appointed of God to execute his will? I do not claim that the instances cited as above in the parentheses exhaust the meaning of the prophecy, but select them as notable examples of its fulfilment. The context shows that the oracle relates to events belonging to the time of the end. It was not the design of American statesmen to take possession of the West Indies and the East Indies at the beginning of this crisis, for as President McKinley said: " Some things have happened which were not promised (in the political platform), nor even foreseen (by the wisest statesmen)." But they were foreseen of God, and they were promised by his holy prophets. The marvelous things in the great naval victories in Manila Bay and off Santiago were foretold in these words of the prophet Micah:

"As in the days of thy coming forth out of the land of Egypt Will I show unto him marvelous things.

The nations (Gentiles) shall see and be ashamed of all their might."

(Mi. 7:15, 16.)

Those victories arrested the attention of the world, and filled the Gentiles with astonishment and dismay at the might of the American Company of Peoples. The war in the Philippines is accurately described in the next sentences. I quote the language from Lesser's Translation as more definite in meaning.

"They shall lay their hand upon their mouth,
(In token of their astonishment at the victories of Israel),
Their ears shall be deafened (by the roar of Israel's cannon).
They shall lick the dust like a serpent;
Like those that crawl on the earth,

Shall they come forth trembling out of their close places
(As they are doing in the Philippine Islands):
Unto the Lord our God shall they hasten in dread,
And shall be afraid of thee." (Mi. 7: 16, 17.)

Biblical interpretation in the Philippines

While America had one interpretation of events in relation to biblical prophecy, the revolutionaries of the Philippines had their own view of the same writings.

The Philippine Revolution had begun two years before the Spanish American War, and one of the chief propagandists of the movement, Pedro Paterno, had reintroduced older views like those of Father Colin and Antonio Galvão that the Philippines was the location of Tarshish and/or Ophir to which the navy of Solomon ventured.

Paterno's interpretation would be repeated frequently by Filipino writers over the decades up to the present times, especially in popular publications.

Similar views also seemed to have penetrated into the Iglesia ni Cristo, the largest independent church of the Philippines and a powerhouse in politics.  Due to their ability of delivering a solid block vote, the Iglesia ni Cristo has been credited by many local experts with electing a number of Philippine presidents.

Felix Manalo, the founder of the church in the early part of the 20th century, used biblical passages like Isaiah 43:5-6 and Isaiah 46 to claim that the "true" church of God would be reborn in the Philippines.  He claimed that the Philippines was the location referred to as the "east" or "far east,"  and as the "end of the earth"  in these prophecies. According to one school of thought, Manalo was influenced by the Disciples of Christ, who were also known as the "Church of Christ."   The name "Iglesia ni Christo" translates to "Church of Christ."  If this view of Manalo's influences is correct, then his views may have been directly influenced by the writings of Streator, a Church of Christ minister, with some reinterpretation of course.

So to this day, in important intellectual and religious circles in the Philippines, these old ideas still play a major role in shaping the national identity of the country.


Anglo-Israelism today

As discussed in earlier postings, Anglo-Israelism survives today in the United States as the movement known as Christian Zionism.  Indeed, the Anglo-Israel movement has played no small part in shaping the present day Arab-Israeli conflict.

On the other side of the pond, Queen Victoria had shown a penchant for Anglo-Israelism.  Streator quotes a news article published in the Pittsburgh Daily Post of Sept. 10, 1899 in which the queen claims to be a descendant of King David:

London, Sep. 10th. Queen Victoria, it is reported, has sent to Emperor William a prized copy of her family tree, showing King David at the top.  A pet idea entertained by the Queen is that she is descended from the Psalmist thru Zedekiah's eldest daughter, and it is said that Emperor William's conviction of his divine origin is greatly due to his grandmother's foible."

Just as the Spanish had used extra-biblical works like Pseudo-Methodius to bolster their claims as heirs of prophecy, the Anglo-Israelists used works like the Celtic Book of Tephi to support their own arguments. According to that work a prophet arrived in Ireland in ancient times with a daughter of King David to continue the royal lineage.

Queen Victoria's favorite prime minister Benjamin Disraeli was the nation's first and only person of Jewish ancestry to hold that office. He was raised by Victoria to the peerage becoming the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield.  Although baptized as a teen into the Anglican Church, Disraeli wrote what was probably the first modern Zionist novel.

When Theodor Herzl, generally considered the father of modern national Zionism, was asked to give a list of profiles to the newspaper Die Welt of "representative exponents of the Zionist idea," he placed Disraeli's name at the top.

The First Zionist Congress took place in 1897, the year following the start of the Philippine Revolution and the year preceding the Spanish-American War.  In 1899, near the end of Queen Victoria's reign, the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland  was established.

Decades later in 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour would send the Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild for conveyance to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Balfour Declaration, of course, declared the British policy of establishing a homeland for Jews in Palestine.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Raleigh, Walter. The History of the World.: In Five Books. Viz. Treating of the Beginning and First Ages of Same from the Creation Unto Abraham. Of the Birth of Abraham to the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time of Philip of Macedon. From the Reign of Philip of Macedon to the Establishing of That Kingdom in the Race of Antigonus. From Settled Rule of Alexander's Successors in the East Until the Romans (Prevailing Over All) Made Conquest of Asia and Macedon. Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and sold by all Booksellers, 1820, 99.

Streator, Martin Lyman. The Anglo-American Alliance in Prophecy: Or, the Promises to the Fathers. London: Werner, 1900.

The Methodist Review vol. LXXXI. New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1899, 585.

The Homiletic Review vol. 36, July 1898. New York: Funk & Wagnalls], 286.

British-Israelism, America and the Philippines (Article)

With the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first British settlement in the Americas, commemorated today, we can explore the link of this event with the theme of our blog.

When Philip II united the Spanish and Portuguese empires under Spain, many thought he had become the prophesied Last World Emperor, a veritable second Solomon. However, in 1587 the Protestant princess Elizabeth ruined the king's hopes of placing a Catholic monarch on the English throne.

Elizabeth I became the queen of Protestant England and supported Dutch Protestant rebels against Spain. This set up the Anglo-Spanish War which outlasted both Philip II and Elizabeth I and led to the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Spain, only shortly after reaching its greatest height, now began a slow decline.

England, on the other hand, had imperial ambitions of its own as expressed by authors like Samuel Purchas and John Dee.

Dee, the sometime-astrologer of Elizabeth I, had weighted in on the "Ophirian Conjecture," and had even devised a plan for a new British empire in Europe and throughout the world.

Unlike the Catholics before them, the rising Protestant movement looked at the Jews in a favorable light and even sought association with the Jewish people. In the late 1600s, works like Abasalom and Achitophel brought to light analogies between the British and Jewish peoples.

In 1714, John Toland propounded a common descent of the British and the Hebrews. This might be considered the rise of what is known today as British-Israelism or Anglo-Israelism, the belief that the British were, like the Jews, God's Chosen People.

By the mid-1700s, British-Israelism had taken hold not only in Britain, as in 1783 the book The United States elevated to Glory and Honor by Ezra Stiles shows that the theory was also taking root in Anglo-America.

"Ophirian Conjecture"

The British-Israelists adopted Catholic ideas of Tarshish and Ophir to some extent while rejecting the idea of a Last World Emperor or Great Monarch that was so popular among Iberians, the French and the Catholic Germans/Austrians.

In the British view, Tarshish of the prophecies was not in the East Indies, but was a reference either to Britain or Spain. According to the former theory, Britain was Tarshish and its colonies particularly the United States were the "young lions of Tarshish" mentioned in biblical prophecy.

The other view, which seems to have become more prominent, stated that Spain was Tarshish and according to the theory was related to the ancient Iberian port of Tartessos. The "ships of Tarshish" mentioned in the Bible refer to the Spanish discovery of the Americas, which were supposedly known as the "isles."

"The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents" (Psalm 72)

The Anglo-Saxons, according to the theory, were descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes who had assimilated with the Scythians, and the British kings were said to be related to the Davidic line of Judah.

American believers in this world-view asserted that the United States would fulfill a role in end-times prophecies as the modern Tarshish that confronts the Antichrist in Ezekial's prophecy.

Of course, to some extent this required wresting Spain's title as the great Ophirian empire.

Ideas of Anglo-Saxon supremacy helped in the development of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the justification for American world expansion. Among Protestant, and especially Methodist ministers in America, the idea of America's prophetic calling was loudly trumpeted in the 19th century.

Methodist ministers like Lorenzo Dow, Fountain Pitts and Samuel Davies Baldwin spoke of America's part in the final battle of Armageddon.

"Surely the isles shall wait for me and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far." --- Isa. lx...America answers to the term "isles," and "the ships of Tarshish first," to the discovery of America by the ships of Spain, opening the way to the emigration of God's people, to form a nationality in "the isles."


-- Samuel Davies Baldwin, Armageddon: Or, The Overthrow of Romanism and Monarchy; the Existence of the United States

In an address at the U.S. Capitol on the anniversary of Washington's Birthday in 1857, Fountain Pitts delivered two discourses on "Defence of Armageddon, or, Our Great Country Foretold in the Holy Scriptures."

The waiting isles of Isaiaih are a sublime announcement of our great country and its early occupation by European emigrants. "Surely, the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring my sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord they God, and to the Holy One of Israel."

Pitts told of the last war with Gog and Magog, the monarchies of Russia and England, but in which "Republicanism every where prevail, and nations learn war no more. Then sets in that millenial day, when science, commerce, manufactures and the arts would spread, the religion of the Son of God have sway, "righteousness and peace among the people walk, Messiah reign, and earth keen jubilee a thousand years."

A book based on Pitts sermons sold in four editions and was highly popular.


Methodist views, William Mckinley and the Philippines

William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, the leader who fought the war against Spain, the other Ophirian candidate from Europe.

McKinley was a Methodist and would have been exposed to the American Israelism of Methodist ministers like Dow, Pitts and Baldwin.

Spain had sought Tarshish and Ophir in the Philippines and other islands of the East Indies and the West Pacific. When McKinley chose to take possession of the Philippines as part of the "white man's burden" he later explained his decision to a delegation of Methodist ministers.

Hold a moment longer! Not quite yet, gentlemen! Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business. I have been criticized a good deal about the Philippines, but don’t deserve it. The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. When the Spanish War broke out Dewey was at Hongkong, and I ordered him to go to Manila and to capture or destroy the Spanish fleet, and he had to; because, if defeated, he had no place to refit on that side of the globe, and if the Dons were victorious they would likely cross the Pacific and ravage our Oregon and California coasts. And so he had to destroy the Spanish fleet, and did it! But that was as far as I thought then.

When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large map on the wall of his office), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!

In the the 1898 edition of American Monthly Magazine published by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mary S. Lockwood explained the American victory in the Spanish-American War as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy:

"Howl ye ships of Tarshish, for your strength is laid waste."

We know the disasters that befel the ships of Tarshish and the above quotations are prophetic of disasters that have fallen upon Spanish fleets, which have floated on the Spanish waters that have laved the shores of Guadalquivir since the days that Hiram brought the ships of Tarshish to Solomon...to the day that the Spanish flag was struck over the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay and "Old Glory" floated over the waters at the command of Dewey. The great naval expedition planned and sent out by King Philip of Spain against England in the days of Queen Elizabeth, known as the invincible armada, was collected at Cadiz...Admiral Drake made a dash into the harbor of Cadiz and destroyed one hundred ships, with abundant arms and stores, repeating the prophecy, "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish."

Lockwood noted that Anglo-Saxon America and Britain should now take the world stage as divinely-ordained protector of humanity.

Now, what is our duty? To establish a solid, orderly government and to occupy these islands until such an government obtains, if that means that "Old Glory" shall forever float over them. Our second duty: Let us make an alliance of hearts if not of hands with our kinsmen over the sea. The God of their battles has been the God of our battles, their prophecies have been our prophecies. We are of one tongue, one blood, one purpose -- the uplifting of humanity. Cruel as is war, its results, it is well if out of it comes a day when "the Star-Spangled Banner" and the Union Jack float together protecting the human side of the world.

America had willingly assumed the Ophirian mantle, the culmination of centuries of Anglo-Israel thought development.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Baldwin, Samuel Davies. Armageddon: Or, The Overthrow of Romanism and Monarchy; the Existence of the United States, Applegate, 1863.

Dow, Lorenzo and Peggy Dow. History of Cosmopolite, Or the Four Volumes of Lorenzo Dow's Journal, J. Martin, 1848.

Lockwood, Mary and Daughters of the American Revolution. The American Monthly Magazine, R.R. Bowker Co., 1898, pp. 326-329.

Pitts, Fountain E. A Defence of Armageddon, Or Our Great Country Foretold in the Holy Scriptures: In Two Discourses, J. W. Bull, 1862.

Weinbrot, Howard D. Britannia's Issue: The Rise of British Literature from Dryden to Ossian, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 419-422.

Jonitus and the development of Prester John

Medieval Syriac works like the Book of the Cave Treasures (6th century CE) and Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius (7th century CE) introduce us to the character of Jonitus, the fourth son of Noah.

Although not mentioned in biblical texts, the Jonitus figure becomes very important in latter European Christian apocalyptic tradition. The name occurs in many variations including Jonitho, Ionitus, Ionitum, Ionton, Yonton (Jonathan), Yoniko, Yoniton, Maniton, Baniton, etc.

For centuries, commentators have linked the origin of Prester John's name, Joannes or Johannes in Latin, with that of Oannes, the maritime sage mentioned in the Mesopotamian works of Berossus.

Various theories find the origin of the name "Oannes" in forms like U-khan-na "Lord of the Fish," or Ea-khan "Ea the Fish" in the Akkadian language. Oannes shares attributes of the fish-like god Ea/Enki and also of the sage Adapa.

It becomes apparent that if some form of these Akkadian originals Eakhan or Ukhanna had been preserved in the Middle East along with "Oannes" that they could serve also as a source for the name "Ionton."

The connection of Ionton/Jonitus with Oannes has been previously proposed (see Stephen Gero below). According to tradition, Ionton like Oannes is located in the very far east across the ocean and brings the art of statecraft and the sciences including astronomy to Mesopotamia. In the case of Ionton, he passes on these arts, which he receives directly from God, to Nimrod, the king of "Babel."

Jonitus is generally known to have been born after the Flood, although latter tradition including probably the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Sceaf appears to interpret Jonitus as the ark-born son of Noah.

Noah sent Jonitus to the farthest East, to the hiliu chora, which would mean either the "Region of the Sun (regio solis)," or the "Fire of the Sun," where the Sun is said to rise. This region, according to Pseudo-Methodius, is the same as, or includes, the biblical land of Nod, east of Eden.

Many theories exist as to why a fourth son of Noah was created. At least one of the reasons appears to be the need to account for the pre-Christian idea of the Earth as divided into four quarters or "corners." One son of Noah establishes a kingdom in each of these corners of the Earth.

Lineage of Jonitus
Pseudo-Methodius writes that at the end of the world a king of the lineage (cognatione) of Jonitus, the son of Noah, would reunite the four corners of the world into a single world empire.

The author also mentions in the end-times a king who shall trace his descent to Chuseth, the daughter of King Phul of Ethiopia, who shall rise from the Ethiopian Sea (Indian Ocean) and become emperor of the Greeks and Romans.

It is unclear whether this is the same person as the Jonitus king. In previous tradition, I have mentioned that as early as Middle Kingdom Egypt, there may have been dual apocalyptic traditions, one involving an eastern king of the "Isle of Fire" and the other associated with eastern Africa, south of Egypt, a royal descendant of a "daughter of Ta-Seti (Cush/Nubia)."

In late ancient and medieval tradition, Tarshish and Ophir become associated with the East Indies, and in biblical end-times prophecies like Psalm 72 and Ezekiel 38, Tarshish is often mentioned in conjunction with Sheba and Saba. These latter locations in medieval times were generally conflated with "Ethiopia" and "Abyssinia."

Prester John was a king of the Indies, the latter geographical concept covering the region from Southeast Asia to East Africa. Even in Pseudo-Methodius, the terms hendu and hendwaie are often used for "Ethiopia" and "Ethiopian."

Like the coming king of Jonitus lineage, Prester John had apocalyptic attributes. It was this latter king who would release Gog and Magog and the Ten Tribes in the last days.

In the famed letter of Prester John to the Christian emperors, he claims that one of his sons, a future Prester John, would accept the Christian empire of Europe after saving the region from Gog and Magog:

"These accursed fifteen nations will burst forth from the four quarters of the earth at the end of the world, in the times of Antichrist, and overrun all the abodes of the Saints as well as the great city Rome, which, by the way, we are prepared to give to our son who will be born, along with all Italy, Germany, the two Gauls, Britain and Scotland. We shall also give him Spain and all the land as far as the icy sea. The nations to which I have alluded, according to the words of the prophet, shall not stand in the judgment, on account of their offensive practices, but will be consumed to ashes by a fire which will fall on them from heaven."

Here we have a reference to the "Last World Emperor," a concept that developed in medieval times from works like the Tiburtine Sybil and Pseudo-Methodius.

Thus, the "John" in "Prester John" could refer to the prophesied king of the line of Jonitus, both names linked with Oannes and Joannes possibly through an Akkadian original form Eakhan or Ukhanna.

Prester John is a priest or priest-king (presbyter) of the Jonitus family, one of whom will figure in apocalyptic events. The idea of the the sage transformed to that of the the priest was a natural one, or the idea of priesthood may have been preserved directly from Oannes who taught and performed priestly rituals.

Pseudo-Methodius wrote during a time when Muslim invaders had conquered much of Christendom in Asia and Africa. In latter periods, there arose a series of Byzantine millennial prophecies of the Last World Emperor whose great duty was to vanquish the Muslim enemy. This theme also caught on in Western Christendom.

Centuries later, Prester John was viewed as the Eastern king to fulfill this role and reconquer Jerusalem.

It seems not unlikely that Pseudo-Methodius and those who followed him took earlier themes like the fourth son of Noah, and combined them with the prophetic Rex Orientis "King of the East" of late antiquity to construct a Christian savior from Muslim onslaught who eventually becomes the medival Prester John.

The title Prester John is used to describe, at first, an East Indian king (of Sanfotsi or Zabag) who is worried about Muslim interference in the spice trade routes between Southeast Asia and eastern Africa.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References
Aerts, Willem Johan, George A.A Kortekaas and Pseudo-Methodius. Die Apokalypse Des Pseudo-Methodius: die ältesten griechischen und lateinischen Übersetzungen, Peeters Publishers, 1998.

Gero, Stephen. "The Legend of the Fourth Son of Noah," The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 73, No. 1/2, Dedicated to the Centennial of the Society of Biblical Literature (Jan. - Apr., 1980), pp. 321-330.

Hill, Thomas D. "The Myth of the Ark-Born Son of Noe and the West-Saxon Royal Genealogical Tables," The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 80, No. 3 (Jul., 1987), pp. 379-383.

Su-Min Ri. Commentaire de La Caverne Des Tresors: étude sur l'histoire du texte et de ses sources, Peeters Publishers, 2000.

Kalacakra Millenarian Timeline (Article)

Kalacakra millenarian views of history and the future as found in Tibetan Buddhism center on three key dates. The first is the transmission of the Kalacakra doctrine to Sucandra by the Buddha. Historians tend to look at this as a legendary event.

According to Kalacakra tradition, Sucandra brought the Kalacakra system to Shambhala where it was passed on by seven kings of the Sakya dynasty in that country.

Then comes the next key date when the Kulika dynasty arises with the Rigden King Manjushrikiirti. One of the most noteworthy deeds of this first Kulika king was to merge the different castes into a single equal "vajra" caste.

Next, the Tibetan Calendar begins in 1027 CE when the Kalacakra system is brought to India and Tibet by either the 12th or 17th Kulika king according to different traditions. The texts state that the calendar starts 403 years after the leader of a people known as the Lalos institutes a new type of astrology. This takes us to the year 624 CE or about two years after the Hijra of the Islamic calendar.

25 Kulika kings

Kalacakra texts state that 25 Rigden kings will reign before an apocalyptic war that ushers in a new golden age. The antagonists are the Lalos, apparently a term for peoples who expand their religious systems through violence.

Each Rigden is given an approximate reign of 100 years, so the full period of the Kulika Dynasty is approximately 2500 years.

A period of 25 reigns of 100 years each can find some basis in the native mensuration systems found in the Philippines and also possibly more broadly in early Austronesian society.

Ifugao peoples retained a quinary (base 5) counting system that they used together with a base 10 system. The quantity of five was known as hongol. When counting base 5, after one reaches five sets of five, one must had a new word to a word number and a new digit to a numeral. Five fives or 25 is known in the Ifugao system as dalan.

Dalan is an interesting word that normally means "way, path, road." So after one counts five fives, the "way" of counting is finished and one starts over again. The imagery is linear although the counting is cyclic.

Remnants of base 5 counting can also be found among the Christianized Filipinos in the dry measure system where five gantas equal one pati, and five pati or 25 ganta equal one caban.

The number five is of importance in Philippine social systems also because most clan genealogies include five generations. These five generations are often visualized in the form of a human body.

Among the Kapampangans, the great-grandparent is known as apung qng tud "grandparent of the knee." The great-great-grandparent is known as apung qng talampacan "grandparent of the sole of the foot." The Tagalogs knew the great-grandchild as apo sa tuhod "grandchild of the knee" and the great-great-grandchild as apo sa talampakan "grandchild of the sole."

Ilocanos saw the present generation as likened to the waist area, while the two preceding generations were characterized as the shoulders and head, and the two successive generations as the knees and soles.

According to researchers, the Ifugao usually kept genealogies going back from 15 to 30 generations. It may be at one time, that it was common to keep at least 25 generations in memory i.e., one dalan or circuit of generations. Noble families may have kept longer genealogies as the Spanish mention the 'genealogies of gods,' which likely refers to the chiefly families tracing their alleged divine descent.

The dalan unit (also daan) in the indigenous decimal systems denotes a quantity of 100. There is some evidence that dalan also referred in early times to one's "path of life" to mean both the course and the duration. For example, the term dalan sa kinabuhi "path of life" in Sugbuanon.

Samosir Batak has the term dalan ngolu literally "path of life" but also meaning "field" to express an agricultural mode of living.

In Tongan, the cognate word hala can mean "death, especially that of the king," in the sense probably of death as the completion of life's path.

If the 100-year reigns of the Rigden Kings are viewed as decimal dalan, then a quinary dalan consisting of five "bodies" of five reigns each would equal 25 reigns lasting 2,500 years.

So, the Kulika Dynasty could be seen as a quinary dalan of decimal dalans.

Reincarnated ancestors

Some of them worshiped a certain bird, others the crocodile; for holding the same fancy regarding the transmigration of souls as was held by Pythagoras in his palingenesis, they believed that, after certain cycles of years, the souls of their forefathers were turned into crocodiles.

-- Pablo de Jesus Letter to Gregory XIII

De Jesus letter on beliefs of tranmigration in the Philippines rightly mentions the crocodile which was known as nunu and dapu "grandfather." The early Filipinos believed in the return of great heroes, for example, the culture-hero/god Lumauig was believed by Igorot peoples to one day return and restore the old order.

During revolutionary times, different peasant leaders claimed to be reincarnations of heroes like Jose Rizal or Father Jose Burgos. Felipe Salvador, who led a sectarian peasant revolt in Central Luzon, declared he was the second coming of Christ.

In addition to reincarnation, there was a belief in the inheriting of the spirit-double of -- or guidance by the spirit of -- a deceased ancestor. In Kapampangan this is known as mana ning kaladua.

The mid-17th century hermaphroditic priest Tapar of Panay, who wore the "garb of a woman," claimed that he was under the command of the nonos, the departed ancestors. He called himself "Eternal Father" and appointed among his followers persons known as the Son, Holy Ghost and "Maria Santisima."

Throughout Southeast Asia the belief that even a person of humble origins could acquire extraordinary powers and claim a special relationship with the supernatural could give rise to sudden eruptions of localized religious movements when prophecies, dreams, magic, amulets, claims of invulnerability and secret revelations provided a potent weaponry.

-- Nicholas Tarling, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia

The "humble origins" mentioned by Nicholas Tarling above could also mask a submerged ancient lineage as in the prophecies of Ratu Adil and Satria Piningit "Hidden Warrior" in Indonesia. The rural messiah is also indicated by Hindu texts that declare Kalki would be born in a "village" known as Sambhala. Some Kalacakra traditions also claim that both the king and kingdom of Shambhala would be unknown initially to the Lalos, despite the latter having gained control of much of the earth.

Dual ages

If we look at the 2,500 period from the standpoint of the dualistic views held in the region, it would be logical that this period would have a dual counterpart age. Thus the two periods would be equal to 5,000 years.

Buddhist tradition does mention that the period of decline after the death of the Buddha would last 5,000 years consisting of five 1000 year periods. However, after the ordination of women, this period was cut in half to five 500 year periods equaling 2,500 years! We might view this from the dualism standpoint as indicating that the ordination of women allowed the cancellation of the female half of the period of decline. Chinese millenarian sects often saw two ages before the golden age. Among some of these sects, these ages were known as the Blue Sun and the Red Sun, indicating respectively yin and yang.

Some Kalacakra traditions also mention a 5,000 year period but in this case broken up into the 700-year Sakya Dynasty of Shambhala, the 2,500 year Kulika Dynasty, and a 1,800 year golden age after the final battle with the Lalos.

Concepts of generational time perceived in the form of a human body has other reflexes in the Philippine region. In the Tagalog language, for example, the words tao "people," katawan "body," and taon "year" are all derived from the same root. The Kapampangan word banua can mean "heaven" as a place inhabited by the gods, stars and planets, but originally from an early Austronesian word denoting a territory inhabited by people. Banua also means "year" in Kapampangan.

The Bisayan god Laon, was a god of time, and laon denotes the passage of time. He is often described with pantheistic traits as pervading all things or forming the substance of all things.

Aspects of genealogical and solar time were obviously important in the region, but it was also suggested previously that there were may have been some pragmatic reasons involved in the formation of the Kalacakra timeline. Muslim traders began establishing themselves increasingly along the eastern African coast progressively moving southward during the 10th century and threatening the spice trade of Shambhala (Suvarnadvipa). It was about in the late 10th century that we see evidence of propaganda efforts by Suvarnadvipa to draw other political entities into the fray.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Blair, Emma Helen, James Alexander Robertson, Edward and Gaylord Bourne. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803;: explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands..., The A.H. Clark Company, 1903, vol. 36. p. 318; vol. 38, p. 218.

De Beuclair, Inez. Three genealogical stories from Botel Tobago: A contribution to the folklore of the Yami, ND, http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~dlproj/article/ET-t/ET23.html (Chinese Traditional Big5 encoding).

Conklin, Harold and Pugguwon Lupaih. Ethnographic Atals of Ifugao: a Study of Environment, and Society in Northern Luzon, Yale University Press, 1980, p. 11.

Narayana (Glossary)

The deity Narayana appears as a form of the Hindu god Visnu fused together with the Vedic primordial being known as Purusa. Narayana is often depicted as floating on a bed of serpents in the Milky Ocean, an imagery found also in the Vedas were a cosmic Yaksha (tree spirit) floats on the primordial waters prior to creation.

Narayana can be broken down etymologically into nara "man" and ayana "coming, arrival," in reference to the deity as the cosmic man and pantheistic cause of creation. The word "nara" might also refer to water and Narayana's association with the ocean.

During the rainy season in the summer months, Narayana is said to fall asleep on the Milky Ocean, connecting his name also to the coming or arrival of water i.e. the summer rains.

Narayana and Pangu/Panhu

Like Narayana in the form of Purusa, the Chinese primordial being Pangu is portrayed as a cosmic being from which the world is created. Panhu, the dog king, is probably identical with Pangu, both having the same father Hundun -- the cosmic dumpling or gourd that floats on the ocean.

The dog-shaped Hundun, and the imagery of Panhu swimming across the flood, or over the ocean to the Dog Tumulus Country (Quan-feng-kuo), brings to mind Narayana's floating over the Milky Ocean.

Indeed, the dog imagery associated with Pangu, appears as horse imagery in association with Narayana. While Narayana as Purusa is closely linked with the Asvamedha horse sacrifice, the lei dog sacrifice to Shang-ti has some related pantheistic aspects.

Shang-ti refers to the Shang dynasty kings' sacrifice of their ancestors and was specifically connected with the location of the Fusang Tree. Instituted by Shun (Di Jun), the Shang-ti ritual was closely connected with dogs and rice, and the lei sacrifice mirrors some of the imagery of the Pangu/Panhu story of dismemberment during the world's creation.

In the Asvamedha, a swimming dog is sacrificed during the opening ceremony. Rice also plays an important part in the Vedic horse ritual. Wendy Doniger notes the rice links mentioned in the Satapatha Brahmana:

The Adhvaryu cooks the priests' mess of rice; it is seed he thereby produces...For when the horse was immolated, its seed went from it and became gold; thus, when he gives gold (to the priests) he supplies the horse with seed...For the ball of rice is seed, and gold is seed; by means of seed he thus lays seed into that (horse and sacrificer) (SB 14.1.1.,1-4)

During the Mahisi ritual of the Asvamedha sacrifice, fried rice grains are thrown at the horse. Rice also plays an important part in an Assam horse ritual in which a dance with a horse image lasts throughout the night after which the body of the image is thrown into a river and the head preserved for another year. During the river ritual, rice is eaten by the participants.

Horse's head

There are various tales of Visnu having a horse's head and human body. Not surprisingly these horse forms are closely linked with Narayana-Purusa.

Narayana is said to have taken the form of the sage Vadavamukha, the submarine mare's head that devours the salty waters of the ocean turning them into fresh water. He also is associated with Hayasiras, the horse-headed deity who saves the Vedic texts after they are stolen by demons.

Kalki, the final avatar of Visnu, is also associated with Narayana and often portrayed with a horse's head.


Kalki with horse's head, source: http://www.karma2grace.org/encyclopedia/Kalki.html


Narayana as horse-headed Hayagriva, source: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/vasu/cambodia/museeguimet/hayagriva.htm

Thus did the blessed Hari [Visnu] assume in days of old that grand form having the equine head. This, of all his forms, endued with puissance, is celebrated as the most ancient. That person who frequently listens or mentally recites this history of the assumption by Narayana of the form equipt with the equine head, will never forget his Vedic or other lore.

-- Mahabharata 12:47

In China, Panhu, the culture hero who brings rice agriculture, and his descendents in Quan-feng-kuo are often described as having dogs' heads. In medieval times, the Dog Tumulus Country is conflated with Fusang, where we now find the dog-headed men together with the associated kingdom of women.

That this is not a coincidence is also supported by the fact that both Narayana and Panhu are located in the same general region, and at times in the same specific area. If we equate the Vourukasha Sea with the Milky Ocean as we have done previously using the story of Trita, then we know that at least in medieval times these oceans were identified with the "Sea of Chin."

Malaysia and the Philippines retain concepts, now confined to the area of demonology, that could explain the theme of animal and bird-headed humans. The Penanggalan in Malaysia and the Manananggal in the Philippines are now a type of vampire known to detach their heads from their bodies. These heads, often trailed by the person's entrails, fly around at night and come back to rejoin the body during the day.

Thus, the flying detached heads are quite similar to the principle of the kaladua or spirit-double but with a more anthropomorphic twist. The names of both head-detaching creatures are derived from the word tanggal which means "to detach or remove." As the kaladua spirit roams away from the body mostly at night so the detached head flies from the body of the Penanggalan, Manananggal and the Asuang.

In the case of a bird or animal double, the head represents the person's other self. So for the Asuang, the detached head is in principle that of a dog. While in modern Christianized culture, the Asuang has become an enemy of children and childbirth, originally it can confidently be said that the situation was reversed. The dog was seen as a protector of children, something that still survives in the use of dog-teeth necklaces to protect young ones from evil, including protection from the Asuang!

Indian lore often explains the horse's heads of gods and sages as coming after the original head is cut off. Various explanations are given for this procedure. In some cases, the human head is seen to represent bodily desire, while the horse's head contains the knowledge of the Vedas. Some view the horse's head as a symbol of the Sun.

However, even with other animal incarnations of Visnu, we see often that they are sometimes represented as humans with animal heads. This indicates the idea of a double nature.

Sa-Huynh-Kalanay bicephalous pendants may connect with this idea of the double self. There are other indications of dual thinking in this culture including the lingling-o earrings with decorations at each of the four quadrants, and the hexagonal and octagonal cut jade beads.

Object of pilgrimage

Classical sources mention journeys to the eastern island of Svetadvipa to visit Narayana by personages such as Narada, Trita, Rama, Ravana, and the four Kumaras.

Such pilgrimages may link with the Tibetan Buddhist journeys to Shambhala, which in Hindu tradition is linked with horse-headed Kalki. Indeed the Garuda Purana mentions Shambhala as a pilgrimage destination:

"...the village of Shambhala is a good place of pilgrimage. The sanctuary of Narayana is a great shrine, whereas a pilgrimage to holy forest Vadarika leads to the emancipation of self."

Despite the number of Tibetan guidebooks for journeys to Shambhala, the location is not specifically mentioned in the Kalacakratantra as a pilgrimage destination. It may have been included in the location of Suvarnadvipa, that is listed as one of the pilgrimage sites known as upamelapaka in the Kalacakratantra.

Mention has been made of expeditions by Chinese emperors and kings to find the fabled island of Penglai. In messianic Buddhist-Daoist texts that started appearing in the sixth century CE, savior kings known as Prince Moonlight (Yueguang tongzi) and the King of Light (Mingwang) came into being. Writings like the Scripture of the Monk Shouluo and the Scripture of the Realization of Understanding Preached by the Boddhisattva Samantabhadra told of voyages to Penglai to visit Prince Moonlight's kingdom.

The messianic king of Penglai may be the same as the Rigden king of Shambhala, who also figured in millenarian prophecy. Penglai is frequently mentioned together with Fusang in Chinese texts, and the latter seems to be fused with Dog Tumulus Country in the latter literature. Today, for example, Chinese often ascribe the origin of Taiwan's indigenous people either or equally to Panhu and/or the inhabitants of Penglai, as the related locations are hard to distinguish from each other.

Shambhala's rigden kings were identified with incarnations of Visnu in Kalacakra texts. For example, the commentator Mipham says Rigden Manjushrikirti is the same as the Matsya or fish incarnation of Visnu. So, the Shambhala kings are easily connected to Narayana also and to the savior Kalki.

Messianic kingdom

Hindu texts say that Kalki, the last avatar of Visnu, comes from the village of Sambhala (Shambhala), and many researchers equate this with Tibetan prophecies of the messianic king Raudracakrin, the 25th Rigden of Shambhala.

Both Raudracakrin and Kalki are said to arrive on horseback, and Kalki is often portrayed as a horse or as a human with a horse's head. Raudracakrin defeats his enemies using the meditation of the "best of horses." Prince Moonlight also marches into the final battle on a "dragon-horse."

"Kulika," the name of Raudracakrin's dynasty and also possibly the name "Kalki" are derived from the words kaula and kula, derivatives of which can refer to "family" and "birth" and also mean "dog."

kulika -- "one of good family, noble birth"
kauleya -- "sprung from a good family, a dog"
kauleyaka -- "sprung from a noble family, pertaining to family, a dog"
kauleyakuTumbini -- "dog's wife, bitch"
kauleyakah -- "dog" (kula + dhakan, Panini As.t.a-dhya-yi- 4.2.96)

Chinese millenarian views date back at least to the sage Mencius who claimed that about every 500 years a sage would arise to restore the natural order. Daoists fused their seer Lao Tzu with the primordial Pangu/Panhu and beliefs arose that Lao Tzu would reincarnate periodically as the savior Li Hong during degenerate times.

Li Hong evolved together with the Buddhist-Daoist Prince Moonlight and the King of Light, the latter two possibly being the same person. These beliefs came to incorporate also the doctrine involving the coming Buddha known as Maitreya. Predicted dates for the coming of Li Hong and Prince Moonlight often matched.

According to the prophecies, a time of cosmic decay would arise leading eventually to a great final battle between divine and demonic troops. Prince Moonlight appears from his kingdom in Penglai, predicting the coming events and instructing in the means of salvation. Those elect few who hear his words are saved as Prince Moonlight leads them to Penglai, or in other versions to the Tushita Heaven, to escape the coming tribulation.

Some have claimed the millennial conflict betrays Manichean influence although cataclysmic dualistic battles are found in some of the oldest Chinese literature. In the Yaodian, which Joseph Needham has dated to between the eighth and fifth centuries BCE on philological grounds, but with astronomical data going back to the third millennium BCE, Emperor Yao battles the flood-ravaging demon Gong-gong. After defeating Gong-gong the earth is titled toward the Southeast causing rivers to flow into a maelstrom and hole in the Earth located in the Southeastern Ocean and known as the Weilu.

Likewise in the Huainanzi of the Han Dynasty, we hear of the battles of the fire and water gods before Nu Gua raises the sky from the earth.

After Prince Moonlight's apocalyptic victory, a new world is reconstructed having great peace and opulence.

The advanced millenarian movements in China were concentrated mostly in the South, with the first center at Nanjing. Cults like the White Lotus tradition were concentrated mainly in northern Fujian and northern Jiangxi. Later the messianic movements became strongly centered in southeastern coastal regions like Fujian and eastern Guangdong.

Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese millennial beliefs thus tend to cluster around Narayana or his cognates, and around the specific locations of the Milky Ocean and Svetadvipa, which act as a backdrop for the Visnu incarnations and as birthplace for the final messianic avatar. The geographic reference is of great importance and like Penglai and Shambhala the precise location is somewhat "hidden" adding to its mystery and allure.

Prester John's communications starting in the 12th century laid claim to the Indies including the Garden of Eden, which in the view of the Ptolemaic astronomers of Muslim Spain, would rest 180 degrees east of the Fortunate Isles in the Sea of Chin. According to Prester John himself, it was from his kingdoms that the final battle would break out, and there one could find both the lost Ten Tribes and apocalyptic Gog and Magog nations. A descendent of Prester John would lead the battle ushering in the Second Coming. Such messages sparked a new wave of voyages in search of the Milky Ocean and the island of Narayana.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Doniger, Wendy. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts, University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 155.

Ownby, David. "Chinese Millenarian Traditions: The Formative Age," The American Historical Review 104.5 (1999): 38 pars. 14 Nov. 2006 <http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr//104.5/ah001513.html>.

Glossary: Conjunctions and Astrology

In Moorish Spain universities arose in cities like Toledo, dominated by Moor and Jewish scholars, with great emphasis on the fields of astronomy and astrology.

By the 12th century, European Christians also attended these centers of learning and began translating Arabic works, including some of the lost Greek works preserved only in Arabic. Gerard of Cremona translated Ptolemy's Almagest in Toledo, which was the world's foremost translation center of Arabic works into Latin.

So it should come as no surprise that Wolfram von Eschenbach claimed that the bard Kyot had translated Arabic texts that he obtained from the "heathen" known as Flegatanis.

The heathen Flegetanis could tell us how all stars set and rise again...With his own eyes, the heathen Flegetanis saw and told of hidden secrets, that he was shy to speak of, in the constellations. He declared the Grail, whose name he read in the stars..."

-- Parzival

In Parzival itself, Cundrie the prophetess from near the Ganges recites the names of the stars in Latino-Arabic revealing that such knowledge as found in Toledo was possessed by von Eschenbach himself.

Conjunctions of stars and planets signaled the advent of new cycles and holy messengers according to the Muslim astrologer Albumasar. First translated by Joannis Hispalensis (John of Seville) in the mid-12th century, his works al-Madkhal al-kabir (Introductorium maius) and Dalalat al-ashkhas al-ulwiyya (De magnis coniunctionibus et annorunt revolutionibus) had great influence on Western thinking.

In particular, Albumasar introduced the idea that the great religions or philosophies were all revealed after special conjunctions of Jupiter with one of the six planets. He also created an Islamicized version of the 'three Hermes' legend found in the Greco-Egyptian Hermetic tradition.

According to Albumasar, various incarnations of Hermes visit the earth to introduce new religions or philosophies. In the west, the first Hermes was Idris known in the Old Testament as Enoch. The second was Budhasaf of Babylon and the third Aris (Horus) of Egypt. Interestingly all these prophets were said, by either Albumasar or his followers, to have originated in, or to have learned their arts in the Indies (al-Hind) or China.

An eastern connection is not surprising when you consider that Albumasar hailed from Balkh in Afghanistan and was probably familiar with medieval Zoroastrian millennarianism.

Roger Bacon and Pierre d'Ailly, following Albumasar, propounded that five prophets corresponding to five of the six planets had already appeared on earth during conjunctions with Jupiter. Each had introduced a major world religious or philosophical system.

The last (false) prophet in their view, the Antichrist, would come with the grand conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon.

Indian tradition also links the last age with a conjunct Jupiter-Moon but in reference to the savior king Kalki rather than the Antichrist.

At this time the Lord will incarnate in a brahmin family in the village known as Sambhala, and will be known as Kalki. With unrivalled majesty he will soar across the sky, destroying millions of brigands in ruler's disguise. Then will the Satyayuga [Age of Truth] commence -- an age of righteousness and holiness. Satyayuga will begin when the Sun, Moon and Jupiter rise together in the same house with Pushya asterism in the ascendant.

-- Bhagavata Purana 12:2

Albumasar popularized as well the concept that regular conjunctions of the two slowest-moving planets -- Saturn and Jupiter -- heralded grand world events, both good and bad. Beginning in about the 14th century, these Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions were of great interest to Europeans particularly in light of the frequent plagues that ravaged the continent. People from royalty to the peasantry payed close attention to publications of conjunction-linked prophecies by astrologers like Cristoforo Landino, Marsilio Ficino and Roger Bacon.

By far the most famous of these prophets was Michel de Nostradamus of Provence, France. In his writings, he may have referred to the last prophetic conjunction of Jupiter with the Moon when he mentions "the sixth bright celestial splendor" (C1:Q80).

Frequently Nostradamus tells of a king or other significant person of the East quite reminiscent of the Zoroastrian prophecies of the savior king from Kangdez. And he mentions a king linked with line of Hermes:

Long awaited he will never return
In Europe, he will appear in Asia:
One of the league issued from the great Hermes,
And he will grow over all the Kings of the East.

-- Les centuries C10:Q75

Given the state of affairs in European astrology at the time, this could certainly be a reference to the Hermes of the sixth Jupiter conjunction described by Bacon and d'Ailly.

Astrological conjunctions throughout the world

Astrological conjunctions also appear at the beginning of new epochs in India, China, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica.

In India, China and Mesopotamia, all planets are said to have been aligned in the same location at the start of the great age. The sexagenary cycles of China and India appear to originate from the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction cycle. As discussed earlier in the blog, such cycles may also have influenced the Mayan calendar.

The conjunction of the Sun with the Moon, Venus, the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius is widely observed in many cultures. The ancient Polynesians saw conjunctions as signs and omens, and the navigator Hawai`iloa was advised to sail toward an auspicious conjunction involving Jupiter during his discovery voyage to Hawai`i.

Many Austronesian peoples looked for auspicious times for battles and other events in the conjunction of the Moon with certain fixed stars or planets.

According to Chinese accounts like the P'ing-chou k'o-t'an, the inhabitants of Sanfotsi were expert astronomers, and especially skilled in the prediction of eclipses.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

McCluskey, Stephen C. Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 4, Spagyric..., Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 412.

Selin, Helaine and Sun Xiaochun. Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy, Springer, 2000.

Glossary: Letters of Prester John

When analyzing the letters of Prester John, we should distinguish between those said to have been received by the Popes or kings of Europe, and those circulated for general public consumption.

Obviously some of the latter were designed more for entertainment purposes than anything else.

However, when we learn that the Pope sent his personal physician, Magister Philippus, on a mission to Prester John, the completely fictional character of the king becomes a more difficult proposition.

Although many copies of the original letters exist, there are numerous variations in the manuscripts.

Actual specimens of letters addressed to the "Emperor of Rome" and the "King of France" are stated to be preserved at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (Beazely, p. 278).

Pope Alexander III in Indorum regi sacerdotum santissimo (1177) told of Philippus' encounters with the emissaries of Prester John in the East, and the eastern king's desire to learn about the Roman Catholic Church.

Interestingly, while traveler's reports claiming to have found Prester John's kingdom in Central Asia or Ethiopia are seen as authentic, the accounts of this kingdom in "further India" are viewed as completely fictional and/or fraudulent. This includes the original letter attributed to Prester John, the story of John Mandeville and even the account of Nicolo de Conti given centuries after the first letter.

However, as we have noted, two geographically vast trade empires existed in further India at the time that are certainly deserving of consideration. All the more so when we consider that evidence exists that at least one of these empires appears to have had a long-term strategic policy of courting new allies.

Requests for assistance from the Sung emperor by the king of Sanfotsi against his enemies to the south began in the late 10th century. During the same general period over several centuries, Suvarnadvipa engaged in what apparently was an effort to strengthen political ties with eastern and southern India and Tibet. The Srikalacakra Tantra, having links with Suvarnadvipa gurus, contains not only interesting hopeful prophecies of Buddhist victories against invading hordes, but even a manual of the "art of war" as part of its contents. The presence of Suvarnadvipa influence (Sanfotsi/Zabag) in South India and Sri Lanka is also confirmed by independent Chinese and Muslim sources during this period including Ma Tuan-lin and Chau Ju-Kua.

We know that prior to the initial Prester John letters there had been visits by an "archbishop of India" to Constantinople, and by a "Patriarch John" from the same country to Rome in 1122. These visits are confirmed by two apparently independent sources, one anonymous and the other from Odo of Reims who was in Rome during the event.

These accounts confirm that people at least claiming to be authorities from India were able to venture to the West some 50 years before the first Prester John letter. As we know that merchants and even kings from Suvarnadvipa were journeying to India during this period, the necessary linkage existed.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, published only about 35 years after the first letter, was the first in a series of Grail epics that sought to give European roots to the eastern king and to link him with a sacred relic known as the Holy Grail. In this literature, the Grail almost invariably returns to a mountain in far India.

If the letters had some hints of being penned by a Nestorian, this would not automatically effect its authenticity. Cosmas Indicopleustes refers to Nestorians from Siam as early as the 6th century CE. The Persian writer Abu Saliah mentions during the 7th century, a Nestorian church at Fansur (Sumatra or Borneo).

John of Marignolli says that he encounters "Christians" at Sabah during the 14th century, when travelling from China to India.

Even the letters themselves tend to imply they were written by someone in Prester John's service, which according to the king included 'Frankish' knights. We might relate this to Nicolo de Conti's claim much later of having served in the the court of Prester John during his 15th century travels to Asia.

After the Mongol conquests, as Europeans began traveling again to India, and particularly to South India, two advocates of the establishment of a Christian navy in the Indian Ocean arise in Europe. They were Jordanus of Columbum and Marino Sanuto, both of whom located Regnum Joannis Prebyteri in the far Indies. Their world maps though were still Ptolemaic in fashion showing the easternmost islands as part of the Asian continent.

Sanuto wrote an appeal to the Pope for a new crusade known as Secreta fidelium crucis "The Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross."

In this work, Sanuto included many maps, apparently the work of Pietro Vesconte, that were the first to show significant advances over earlier Christian maps. They were known as portolanos, discussed previously in this blog in relation to Austronesian wind compasses, and were valuable new additions to the navigational repetoire of European seafarers.

A pattern of contact, of which I have endeavored to lay out in this blog, continues up to the arrival of Portuguese fleets in the 1500s. The flow of knowledge from the East may be coded in von Eschenbach's account of the visitors Feirfez, Cundrie and Malcreatiure from the kingdom of Tribalibot "near the Ganges." The author even credits the tale of Parzival to a mysterious "pagan" from Toledo. The Grail itself may also allude partly to this new knowledge from the Far East.

It is impossible to say whether Luções "helpfulness" to the Portuguese had strategic rather than purely mercantile or mercenary motivations. However, the situation in Lusung certainly paints a picture of a kingdom in flux.

The land granted to Chinese migrants on the Pasig River, the first major foreign Chinese settlement in history, may have been a conscious policy to curry protectorate sentiments with Ming emperors.

Lusung at the arrival of the Spanish was divided between Islam and the indigenous religions. While the king in Tondo, Lakandula, appeared indigenous by his name, his close neighbor Soliman of Manila was a "Moro."

In the end, one can say that according to the thesis of this blog the lords of the dragon and bird clan succeeded in halting the Muslim juggernaut and the threat from the South, but only at great costs. The letters of "Prester John" worked. However, the land ended up colonized anyway and at one point the Lusung lords could not even conduct trade from village to village with each other under Spanish rule.

However, from the standpoint of the old trading clan the situation could be seen as profound according to their own worldview that I have attempted to reconstruct. Two conflicting exclusive ideologies, from the same root, meeting full circle back at the place where it all started, after nearly a millenium of intense warfare.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Beazely, C. Raymond (Editor). The Texts and Versions of John de Plano Carpini and William de Rubruquis, London: The Hakluyt Society, 1903.

Coedes, G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, 1975-06.

Manansala, Paul. The Kingdom of Prester John, http://asiapacificuniverse.com/pkm/presterjohn.htm, 2003.

The Long Count

The Kalajnana uses the Kaliyuga era starting in 3102 BC to predict events in the future. The dates of 5101 (1999) and 5105 (2003) are given for the return of Kalki to establish "Viradharma," a South Indian form of Siva worship (Virasaivism). The Indian year starts in spring, so 5101 would last from spring 1999 to spring 2000.

In Nostradamus famed collection of prophecies known as Centuries, one of his most well-known quatrains (X. 72) reads:

In the year 1999, in the seventh month
the great king of terror shall come from the sky
he shall resurrect the great king of the Angolmois
before and after Mars rules

This quatrain has been linked by some with the coming golden age alluded to in other Nostradamus prophecies, although it's vagueness has given rise to some disagreement.

Nostradamus saw the period from creation to the end of the world lasting 8,000 years and ending in 3797 AD, but he also envisioned lesser cycles similar to that of the Great Week. Using the above data, Nostradamus would have the world begin in 4203 BC, although one of his writings, possibly due to some error, results in counts indicating 4757 or 4758 years before the common era.

European Christian tradition usually follows Eusebius of Caesarea who gives a date of about 3947 BC.

The most common used dating for the start of the Mayan calendar is 3114 BC and the calendar lasts for about 5,125 years. So if we take the date of 1999 in Nostradamus quatrain as proximate to the end/start point in a system of ages, we have:

	Start date	End Date	Duration
Mayan	3114 BC	2012 AD	5,125 years
Nostradamus	4203 BC	1999 AD	6,202 years
Kalajnana	3102 BC	1999/2003 AD	5,101 (5,103) years

I suggested earlier that the start of these cycles may have originated from knowledge diffused by the Nusantao starting in the fourth millennium BC. The difference in precise dates may be due to the fact that the original dates were astrological in nature rather than calendar counts. Different systems used in calculating back to the astronomical phenomenon resulted in varying but still generally close dates.

The Biblical estimates come from the sums of genealogy lists and confusion in this regard may have lead to considerable error. However, considering that the ante-diluvian genealogies appear related to Sumerian king-lists, an astronomical date from the latter tradition is warranted. I believe that would coincide with the period when Spica was located over the latitudes marking the Anu and Enlil path junction. The orientation of building toward this star would resemble in some whay the Qiblah of a mosque oriented toward Mecca, or the Jewish synagogue oriented toward Jerusalem.

The start of the Egyptian calendar varies according to views on what is known as the Sothic cycle. However, from the astronomical viewpoint, the calendar would be calibrated with the coincidence of the heliacal rising of Sirius and the summer solstice at around 3300 BC.

But what of the duration of these cycles? The year 1999 in Nostradamus presumably could have been borrowed from the Kalajnana. An interesting theory offered by scholar Rudy Cambier suggests that Nostradamus borrowed his Centuries from the work of 14th century Cistercian monk Yves de Lessines.

While we will not discuss Cambier's theories on the meaning of the Centuries, he does suggest a connection with the Templars. As you may remember, I mentioned previously a Cistercian abbey in Portugal where an early world map was found. The Cistercian order had close ties with the Templars since the time of Bernard de Clairvaux who had helped to obtain the order's rule. When the Templars were persecuted many sought refuge at Cistercian monasteries.

Did Yves de Lessines have access to Kalajnana traditions through some Templar intermediaries? Unfortunately, there is little more information to make a guess on this one.

However, we can say that the general duration for these cycles does appear to have an astronomical link. In the various traditions, the idea of a conjunction or alignment particularly with regard to the planets is apparent.

According to Berossus, the Great Year ends when the planets come together in one constellation. In Indian tradition, the Kaliyuga started when all the planets were aligned near the star Revati. The savior Kalki comes during a conjunction in the lunar asterism Pushya.

Indeed, with regard to the traditional date for the start of Kaliyuga, the planets did form a very loose conjunction near Revati. It was not the exact alignment suggested in the literature, but then again such precision does not seem to have been the major concern.

The Mayan calendar is fairly clearly set forth. The Mayans had various calendar counts that involved both planetary cycles and the Mayan sacred number counts.

The sacred counting system involved recurring cycles of counts of 20 and 13. Their astronomical observations mainly were concerned with the synodic periods of planets, i.e., the time period between conjunctions of each planet with the Sun. However, the Mayans payed much attention to Venus and had additional counts for this planet.

Conjunctions of these various calendar counts were considered holy to the Mayans. And the grand conjunction of nearly all of them made up their entire sacred calendar known as the Long Count.

The Long Count consisted of 5,200 tun, the Mayan year of 360 days, which converts to about 5,125 solar years. In order to get all their cycles to coincide neatly, the Mayans rounded off planetary cycles and sometimes added an extra day. Again, precision was not as important as the value of achieving a nice round sacred number.

Therefore in 2012, if one accepts the common start date of 3114 BC, the following list of calendar counts will coincide for the first time in 5125 years:

Cycles coinciding at end of Long Count

Cycle	Duration	Total in Cycle
Baktun	144,000 days, 400 tun	13
52 Tun/72 Almanac Cycle	18,720 days	100
Katun	7,200 days, 20 tun	260
Nine Sacred Almanac/Twenty 117-Day Cycle	2,340 days	800
Triple Sacred Almanac[Mars Synodic Period]	780 days	2,400
585-Day Cycle[Venus Synodic Period]	585 days	3,200
Double Sacred Almanac Triple Lunar Half-Node Cycle	520 days	3,600
400 day cycle[Jupiter Synodic Period?]	400 days	4,680
Tun	360 days	5,200
Tzolkin	260 days	7,200
Venus Visibility as Evening Star	250 days	7,488
Cycle Associated with Rain God [Mercury Synodic Period]	117 days	16,000
Venus Invisibility at Superior Conjunction	90 days	20,800
Five Trecena Cycle	65 days	28,800
Haab Calendar Round	52 days	36,000
30-Day Lunation	30 days	62,400
Uinal	20 days	93,600
Trecena	13 days	144,000
Venus Invisibility at Inferior Conjuction	8 days	234,000
Glyph G Cycle Lords of the Night (Bolon-ti-ku)	9 days	208,000
Two, Three and Five Day Cycles	various	various

The table above suggests the Long Count is based on a "great" version of the short count with the katun as the specific unit: 20 X 13 = 260 katuns or 5,200 tuns. All the synodic periods, used to calculate heliacal risings, coincide except that of Saturn. So we might look at the Long Count as timed to a mutual rising of five of the planets from behind the Sun's bright rays coinciding with the sacred number calendar rounds.

The astrologers of the Kalajnana searching for a conjunction similar to that near Revati in 3102 BC, probably used methods like those of the Mayans in finding the least common multiples of the various planetary conjunctions. Apparently this landed them on the date of Kali 5101 or 1999-2000.

That year was not far off the mark as 5101 ended in spring 2000 about a month before a seven planet conjunction near Revati. This conjunction like that of 3102 BC was not very precise however with an orb (error) of about 35 degrees.

The Long Count (5,125 years) and the Kalajnana cycle (5,101 years) are relatively close to a fifth of the precession or about 5,156 years. The Nostradamus cycle (6,202 years) is less accurately a fourth of the precession or about 6,445 years.

Of the planets that come into alignment at the coming new age, Venus stands out in many cultures. Quetzalcoatl, Isis, Inanna and Ishtar all have close association with Venus. The stars Sirius and Spica are likewise linked with this planet. Tala, as the Morning Star, heralds the renewal of the great cycle.

A Kiribati sky dome or maneaba (maneapa) used to teach children about the sky and stars

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento