"Quests" and The Da Vinci Code

The movie, The Da Vinci Code, is scheduled for release this May. The film covers many subjects also dicussed in this blog, or least the portions of this blog that cover the medieval period of history.

While The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction by Dan Brown, it is based on historical claims made by the Frenchman Pierre Plantard.

Plantard asserted that the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks were descendents of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. According to his testimony, he was of Merovingian lineage himself, and a member of an organization called the Priory of Sion. The latter group linked with the medieval Knights Templar were pledged to protect the "Holy Grail," which he said was actually the Jesus/Mary Magdalene/Merovingian bloodline.

In this blog, we have dicussed aspects of the Holy Grail motif, the Knights Templars, etc. but with relation to the medieval history of the "Indies." Let's review the thesis presented here with regard to this subject matter.

First we presented Wilhelm Solheim's theory of the Nusantao, Malayo-Polynesian maritime traders who established an extensive trade network starting in Neolithic times. Chinese ethnologist Shun-Sheng Ling suggested that the people known in Chinese legendary histories ascribed to this period as Dong Yi were of Malayo-Polynesian ethnicity.

I have asserted that the medieval empires of Zabag (Sanfotsi) and Wakwak (Toupo) originated from the older Nusantao network, as represented in the derivative culture known as Sa-Huynh-Kalanay or in related cultures.

These two medieval trading empires based in Insular Southeast Asia established trade relations throughout eastern Asia and the Indian Ocean. The spice routes through which cinnamon, cloves, aloeswood and similar products were traded depended on Nusantao merchants and seafarers.

I claim that the Nusantao purposely approached political entities beyond their normal ports-of-call during medieval times.

In particular, the kingdom of Zabag was interested in protecting its trading interests against a tide of Islamic expansionism and against the competition of its ancient southern foe, Wakwak.

Zabag was ruled by a king known to Muslim writers as the Mihraj, and I have claimed that the same king was known among Tibetan Buddhists as Rigden and among European Christians as Prester John.

Among the native titles of this king were Pagbansagan and Apung Iru.

Those countries first approached by the king for political and military alliance were China, India and Tibet. In the latter nation, the kingdom of this monarch, known as Rigden, was called Shambhala, which I have connected with the geographical location of Sambal or Zambales on Luzon island, the Philippines.

Further abroad, news of the Caliphate's enemies in the Far West, also reached the Pagbansagan. He sent embassies to the Christian Byzantine and Frankish empires under the name of "Prester John" or Priest John. He was indeed a priest-king in a kingdom that was traditionally syncretic in religious belief even though it had its own spiritual agenda. Prester John's claim of being a "Christian" king should be viewed with this background in mind.

Prester John became known in Europe through his letters to the Pope and local royal families. He also became a character in the chivalric romances such as Parzival whom Wolfram von Eschenbach attributes to one Flegatanis through Kyot of Provence. Connected with these bardic legends are the themes of the Swan Knight and, even earlier, the Quinotaur, founder of the Merovingian dynasty.

Using his established presence in South India and Sri Lanka, Prester John may have utilized the network of Sayabiga established along the northern Persian Gulf shores to eventually make contacts with Christians in Palestine. I have shown how this probably occured via the communication and relationships that existed between the Knights Templar and the Assassins.

At the same time, contacts would have been facilitated through African spice trade linkages eventually entering Europe through North Africa probably via Spain.

Among the propaganda used to lure Europeans into Indian Ocean geopolitics were tales of Lost Eden and the Holy Grail. One of the best accounts of Prester John's interest in European alliances was given at the closing end of the Prester John era by Nicolo di Conti.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Glossary: Fairy kingdoms of Europe

In Parzival, the genealogy of the Angevin dynasty and King Arthur traces their lineage back to the land of Feimurgan, aka Morgan le Fay.

Such a peculiar assertion resonates also with some earlier literature. Morgan is called the sister of Arthur in Chretien's Erec et Enide written in the 12th century. Earlier, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the creator of the modern Arthurian legend, calls Arthur's sister Anna, which may be a veiled hint at Morgan (Morgen).

In Vita Merlini, also claimed by Geoffrey of Monmouth he describes Morgan as a ruler of Avalon who comes to take the injured Arthur back to that island. Here she will use her healing powers to mend his wounds, and here he will stay to return to Britain one day.

In Parzival there is more than enough reason to suspect that the land of Feimurgan is the same as that of Prester John. Cundrie, for example, is a sorceress like Morgan le Fay and Alcina, Morgan's sister in the latter Italian romances.

By the mid-14th century, Avalon was often located in the Indies or the far East. Roman d'Ogier le Danois has the hero Ogier the Dane marrying Morgan le Fay in Avalon which is in the extreme Orient near Paradise. The Danish version locates it explicitely in the Indies. In Le Batard de Bouillon (1350 AD), Avalon is said to be beyond the Erythraen Sea (Indian Ocean) where Arthur and Morgan dwell.

Robert de Boron, of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, states that the Holy Grail was taken to Avalon. In latter Arthurian romances, the Holy Grail is often said to reside with Prester John or the Swan Knight on a mountain in the far Indies.


Mysterious genealogies

The fairy descent of the Angevins and Arthur seems strange enough especially when one considers the efforts of the royal dynasties at this time to tidy up their official genealogies.

Benoit de Sainte-Maure and John de Marmoutier's history and genealogy of the Angevins along with literary works like Roman de Brut appear designed to convey a sense of respectability to the newly-installed Angevins of England (Plantagenets).

There is nothing that would lead us to conclude that early Europeans disregarded the histories of Arthur as fiction. Indeed, latter kings like Henry VII even openly claimed descent from the ancient British king.

The discrepancy of the "official" genealogies with those of the romances has suggested to some that suppression of history had taken place.

Also peculiar is how the farthest Indies and the historical incidences regarding Prester John's communications at this time get caught up in the literature in this part of northern Europe.

Legitimization of Norman invasion

One could look at Geoffrey of Monmouth's work as possibly an attempt to use old Celtic legends and apply them to the Norman overlords of England at that time, and specifically to William the Conqueror.

Like Geoffrey's Arthur who crosses the channel from Brittany to free England from Roman domination, William crosses the same channel to free the Celtic peoples from Anglo-Saxon oppression. William himself was a descendant of Judith, Princess of Britanny and could seemingly claim to be a Celtic hero, despite his Viking background.

However, this does not explain the fairy descent which is never imputed on the Normans.

When they invade England, William of Poitiers states that the people of Brittany, Anjou, Le Mans and Poitiers formed the left flank of the Norman force. They were under the command of Count Brian of Brittany.

Among this group were knights with the appellation l'estrange "the foreigner" attached to their names. This is during a period when surnames were practically unknown. Eventually, the appellation did become a surname for people brought across the channel from Brittany and Anjou to settle in England.

Henry I, in order to counter-balance the power of Norman elites in England brought more of these people from the same locations of Brittany and Anjou. Orderic-Vitalis states that the newcomers were 'de infimo genere,' or of shady descent.

That the fairy connection could lie with these "foreigners" makes sense as Brittany and Anjou are the locations connected with Arthur and the Angevins respectively.

Interestingly, Arthur's fabled victories are in some sources said to have led to an empire that encompassed parts of Scandinavia, Britain and France, seemingly an allusion to the real conquests of the Normans.


What is a fairy?

Aside from the fairy as a mythical forest creature, early researchers like David MacRitchie and W.Y. Evans Wentz have suggested that the fairy also indicated an ethnic type at one time.

Fairies were seen as shorter than Celtic people, but at times very short or very tall, or having the magical ability to become very short or tall.

Despite being known as "fair folk," the fairies are mostly described as brown or dark-skinned. The Brownies and Duine Sith are examples of brown fairies. The Corrigan were described as black-skinned fairies. In the Vulgate Merlin, Morgan le Fay is described as 'very brown of face.'

The words duine "brown" and dubh "black" are used commonly in the most ancient Celtic myths to describe the fairies. Cundrie and Malcreatiure of Parzival are also described as having dark skin.

Evans-Wentz with regard to some vitrified forts and ancient houses assigned to the Piskies and Picts states:

In the district in which they are, the fringe of coast from St. Ives round by Zennor, Morvah, Pendeen, and St. Just nearly to Sennen, are found to this day a strange and separate people of Mongol type, like the Bigaudens of Pont l'Abbe and Penmarc'h in the Breton Cornouailles, one of those 'fragments of forgotten peoples' of the 'sunset bound of Lyonesse' of whom Tennyson tells. They are a little 'stuggy' dark folk, and until comparatively modern times were recognized as different from their Celtic neighbours, and were commonly believed to be largely wizards and witches.

From the European perspective, the fairy physical appearance varied from the otherworldly beauty of the fairy nobles to the repulsive appearance ascribed to the Nains. Malcreatiure's appearance in Parzival appears to stupefy the locals and it is explained that in the Indies there was "a great many of these people with distorted faces, and they bore strange, wild marks."


Arthur as Fairy King

Evans-Wentz, following Sir John Rhys, makes Arthur a king of the Fay, without necessarily giving Arthur any historical reality.

Many good reasons are given for Arthur as fairy king but none so explicit as the Parzival genealogy were he descends from Mazadan and the fairy Terdelaschoye in the land of Feimurgân.

No information is given on the paternal ancestor Mazadan other than he was lured to Feimurgân and stayed on there. However, Arthur's father Uther Pendragon is said also to rule at Annwn, the Celtic Underworld, and often synonomous with Avalon.

Of course, Arthur's sister, a full sister according to Chretien and half-sister in latter tradition, is Morgan le Fay, the fairy Morgan. Many of the knights in Arthur's service have powers that are usually associated with fairies in other literature.

Also impressively the near-dead Arthur returns to Avalon, land of the fairies, guided by his fairy sister until his eventual return.

The idea of supernatural descent is not unusual, but really comes as a surprise in this period and location of history, especially in that it involves the "other." In previous centuries, the Merovingian dynasty was said to be fathered by one Quinotaur a 'beast of Neptune' that encountered the Salian queen as she bathed in the sea.

This tale might be related to a series of "swan knight" stories that held sway in the northern Germanic countries in succeeding centuries. In Beowulf, Scild "the son of the skiff" comes over the sea sleeping in a boat without rudder or sail. He is raised by the locals and eventually becomes king. When near death, Scild asks to be placed in a boat that is guided into the sea by swans.

In other forms of this myth, and in particular the Lohengrin cycle, the swan knight appears as a hero who comes by boat guided by a swan to rescue and marry a princess or duchess. However, he makes her promise that she never ask about his origin and descent, which in all versions his wife is unable to do. The swan knight, on the breaking of the oath, then returns to the sea on the same swan-driven boat never to be seen again. However, he leaves descendants who adopt the swan on their standards.

The fairy descent of the house of Anjou and Arthur is of a more serious type not encountered since the Quinotaur incident some seven centuries earlier. Later this reputation stuck mostly to the Plantagenets, although the house of Bouillon also gets attached to the swan knight tale.

The "Melusine" tradition of fairy descent was so instilled in European thought that Richard the Lion-Hearted was stated to have said his family came from the "sons of demons."


A Melusine of fairy descent with bat-like wings and fish/dragon lower body. The husband of the Melusine must not view here when she bathes her children or she flies away, a restriction similar to that in the Swan Knight relationship. (Holzschnitt aus dem frühesten Druck des Romans; Basel, undatiert, ca. 1474, http://pr-server.unibe.ch/unipress/heft100/beitrag12.html)


Prester John, the Indias and northern Europe

What do Prester John and the Indies have to do with royal families in northern France and Britain?

Von Eschenbach is the first to explicitely mention Ind with regard to the Grail cycle. However, it must be said that Arthurian romances start with the introduction of the completely foreign and distant Avalon, not found in previous literature.

And the development of the Grail and Arthurian cycles takes place in the same two centuries that Prester John historically is said to have been making initial contacts with the Pope and the European kings.

Not only do we hear of historical visits of patriarchs and ambassadors from the Indies to Rome and Byzantinum, but in Parzival and other works there is mention of journeys by Europeans to the East. For example, Feirefiz's migration to the kingdom of Tribalibot near the Ganges.

Such new contacts could easily be understood in context of the conquest of Jerusalem by Godefrey of Bouillon, supposed descendant of the Swan Knight and leader of the First Crusade.

Hypothetically, we might assume that contacts with the Indies and back would travel through the Shi'a corridors in connection with the Sayabiga either to Sind or to the Crusader forts of the Holy Land. From Sind, the journey would proceed to South India and from thence to points East. From the Holy Land, one could venture to points throughout Europe and Byzantinum. The pact between the Templars and the Assassins might also explain how both east and west cooperated in allowing such travel to take place, albeit on a limited basis.

Latter Italian romances such as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso locate the fairy isles quite clearly in the East Indies. In this tale about the love of Orlando, a knight of the Holy Roman Empire, for Angelica, the daughter of the Great Khan of Cathay, a side story involves the island of Alcina, Morgan le Fay's sister.

Somewhere beyond Cathay (North China) and Mangiana (Manzi, South China) lay the islands ruled by three sisters -- the irresistably beautiful and wicked Alcina and Morgan, and their equally beautiful but virtuous and heroic sister Logistilla. A more specific setting for a tradition that had lasted for centuries.

In analyzing fairy descent, we can say that it was definitely related to the "other" but in both positive and negative ways. The fairies could have either very appealing good looks like the still handsome and youthful-looking thousand-year-old King Mider. Or they could appear with the shocking visage of Malcreatiure.

While the Plantagenets always drew suspicion of conspiracy with the Devil, Godefrey and Baldwin claimed descent from the Swan Knight, while the Tudor kings claimed Arthur as their progenitor.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, Courier Dover Publications, 2003.

Le Strange Records 1100-1310, s.v. "Roland le Strange," http://www.asiawrite.co.nz/lestrange/library/records/chap01.html, s.v. "Observations on the Le Stranges," http://www.asiawrite.co.nz/lestrange/library/observations.html

Maddox, Donald and Sara Sturm-Maddox. Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, University of Georgia Press, 1996.

MacRitchie, David. Ancient and Modern Britons: A Retrospect, 2 Vols. 1884; rpt. Introduction by William Preston. Los Angeles: Preston, 1985, 1986.

___. The Testimony of Tradition, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited, 1890.

Glossary: Sapa

Words related to sapa and saba occur widely throughout insular Southeast Asia as placenames were they are derived from a root having meanings such as "estuary, river-mouth, creek, brook, canal, place where fish enter."

The words sapa and saba may be the origin of the Arabic Zabag. Michael Jan de Goeje and Gabriel Ferrand, followed by Paul Wheatley, Roger Blench, Waruno Mahdi and others, believe that Zabag was derived from an earlier Sabag.

Sabag, in turn, was an Arabization of the word Savaka the Tamil name for the people of Zabag. The suffix "-ka" here would be a common one in Sanskrit and Prakrit used to describe a people from a certain locality, thus Yona-ka means "people or person from Yona (Greece)."

Savaka would then mean "people from Sapa/Saba" or "the people who dwell in estuaries or at river-mouths."

De Goeje and Ferrand suggested that a group mentioned in early Islamic texts known as the Sayabidja or Sayabiga, were pre-Islamic settlers in the Sind and Persian Gulf from Zabag. Sayabiga was stated to be the plural form of Saibagi which in one text is said to be pronounced sometimes as Sabag.

The Sayabiga were described as leaders of "marines" in warships, soldiers, prison and treasury guards and mercenaries. They were noted as faithful to those they served.

Apparently they had come from southern India and settled in the Sind where they became closely associated with another group known as the Zutt or Zott. Others were found at various locations along the Persian Gulf coast during the time of Caliph Abu Bakr.

Eventually the Zutt and Sayabiga, both apparently known as buffalo herders, are found at various locations serving mostly in military or police capacity including Bahrain and Basra. Both groups were devout Shi'as.

Sayabiga and the Assassins

Earlier in this blog, it was noted that Nusantao influence in Europe during medieval times may have flowed significantly through the Templars. The Templar connection in the Middle East might have been through the group famously known as the Assassins, a "fanatical" Shi'ite sect holed up in the mountains of Syria.

The Caliph Muawiya settled groups of Zutt and Sayabiga in Antioch after he had deposed the Shah of Iran. These folk acted mainly as buffalo herders and were again forced to move when the Greeks conquered the area.

Some were said to have ended up in Syria. The Zutt of Syria became the Dom Gypsies.

The possible link between the Zutt and Sayabiga with the Assassins has been suggested by Ivanow who noticed the infusion of "Tantric" elements into certain sects of Islam:

"We find numerous parallels in such widely differing ethnic, linguistic and social groups as the sects of Ali-Ilahi of Kurdistan, Nusayris of Syria, and Tantric cults, more particularly those of the worshippers of Shakti in India, in addition to avowedly mobile and wandering darwish organizations. It looks as if there is, after all, a mysterious connection between all these. The Tantric cults are believed to be the remnants of the ancient, pre-Aryan religion of India, gradually submerged, modified and partly re-modeled by orthodox Hinduism, the religion of the invaders."

Ivanow suggested that this influence might be connected with the migrations from the Sind discussed above although he mentions only the Zutt. "Persian darwishes show remarkably strong ties with similar organisations in India, chiefly in Sind, and it is quite possible that certain ideas could have been imported through such channels. It appears, however, that such importations would have been made at an early date."

When the Assassin holdouts in Syria were destroyed by the Mongols, the vast majority of the group went to India where they placed themselves eventually in the service of the Aga Khan.

If some Sayabiga found their way into the Assassin group it could easily explain the Templar link with Zabag. Although admittedly there is no way to know whether these Shi'ite Sayabiga maintained any ties or loyalty to their old homeland.

However, such a relationship would not be any stranger than that which existed between the Templars and the Assassins. The former were consistently accused of conspiring with the latter even though both groups represented what are generally considered as the most fanatic defenders of their respective religions.

Even the Templar founder Hugh de Payens was accused of responsibility in forging the pact between Baldwin II of Jerusalem and the Assassins. When Christian fortunes waned in the Holy Land many in Europe cast a suspicious eye on the Templars.

The historian M. Von Hammer has even suggested that the Templars modeled themselves after the Assassin order. He cites similar organization, dress, and practices. Godfrey Higgins later noted that both groups had certain gnostic and tantric beliefs in common. Both seemed to have deistic and pantheistic leanings.

The two groups had similar colors which had great significance to the heraldry-conscious medieval Europeans. They both wore white garments, the Assassins with a red girdle and the Templars with a red cross. Both orders were divided into three classes: the Assassins into the Fedavee, Dais and Refeek, and the Templars into the knights, chaplains and servers. The Templar master and priors would conform to the Assassin sheik and Dais al-Kebir.

Most controversial was the so-called "tribute" payed by the Assassins to the Templars. Although the latter claimed to have forced the hand of the Assassins in this matter, the question of the payment never failed to raise suspicion.

Whatever the ultimate reason for the destruction of the Templars in France, no doubt their curious relationship with the Assassins had helped in the final decision against them.

If we take it then that the Sayabiga and Zutt were among the members of the Assassins and responsible for Tantric elements in their doctrine, the passing of Nusantao knowledge would have survived mainly in Portugul. It was here that the Templar order was able to persist through nothing more than a subtle name change.

Like the heathen Flegtanis of Toledo who acted as informant of Kyot and, through the latter, Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Sayabiga acted as informants of the Templars.

The Templars of Portugal, or Knights of Christ as they became known after the holocaust in France, constituted the driving force behind the country's advances in maritime navigation.

The Sayabiga hypothesis thus lies on the similarity of the name with Savaka and Zabag, their marine and mercenary nature which closely resembles the behavior of the Luções centuries later in Southeast Asia, their settlements along coastal areas, and their Tantric linkages (Suvarnadvipa/Zabag). The relationship between the Sayabiga and the Assassins and the latter's links with the Templars are fuzzy but this explanation would solve the riddle of Templar and Assassin tantric/Indic influence.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

William and Robert Chambers, "Secret societies of the Middle Ages," Chambers Papers for the People, Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1850.

de Goeje, Michael Jan. Memoires d'histoire et de geographie orientales, No. 3, Leiden, 1903.

Ferrand, Gabriel. E.J. Brill's First Encyclopedia of Islam s.v. "Sayabidja" (p. 200-1), The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1927, 1993.

Ivanow, W. "Satpanth," Collectanea Vol. 1. 1948, Published for the Ismaili Society by E. I. BRILL, Onde Rijn, 33a, Leiden, Holland.

Wasserman, James. The Templars and the Assassins, Muze Inc., 2005.

For Sayabiga, see also: Wheatley, Paul The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, Seventh Through the Tenth Centuries, The University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 44; Blench, Robert and Matthew Spriggs. Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts, Language and Texts, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 271.