'Eastern Quest' in Islam (Article)

Shi'ite, Sufi, Nizari and other forms of Iranian-influenced Islam introduced Zoroastrian concepts of the "Eastern Quest" into their theosophical systems.

Although the Eastern Quest in Islam spoke more of an inward, spiritual journey, it was derived from beliefs that also outlined a geographical reality for the spiritual pilgrimage. In Persian literature, this can be found, for example, in Kai Khusrau's final journey to Kangdez in the Orient. This voyage portrayed in works like the Shahnama is an historical matter involving also geopolitical relations with the kings of Turan, Chin, Machin, etc., and not merely a mythical adventure.

In the East is the Malakut, which can mean the "Realm of Angels" or the "Realm of Kings" from the root malak meaning either "angel" or "king." Malakut is generally thought of as a bridge between Mulk, the mundane world, and Jabarut, the divine kingdom. Although most often thought of by Western interpreters as "imaginal," and in Islamic commentaries often as beyond the perception of physical senses, Malakut has some aspects of an axis mundi.

Nurbakhsh compared the journey to the Malakut and through its various stages with the pilgrimage to Mecca, the journey from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to Jerusalem, and other sacred earthly journeys.

Sea Crossing

The ancient Egyptian story of the Shipwrecked Sailor tells of a meeting between the sailor and the Lord of Punt in an island in the middle of the sea. Punt, which could be used as a general name for regions that traded with Egypt, in this case probably refers to the sources of spices and perfumes that the Lord of Punt claims were products of his isle. So Punt was the (Nusantao) eastern source of the aromatics that came into the port later known to the Greeks as Rhapta.

The Eastern Quest in Islam also involves crossing oceans, either metaphysical or real in nature. In the Sufi masterpiece Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar, thousand of birds set out toward the East to find the Simurgh, the King of Birds. They meet many obstacles along the way and by the time they reach the island of the Simurgh, only thirty birds are left. They find out at the end that what they were seeking was themselves, as si murgh means "thirty birds" in Persian. However, this journey toward self-realization also involved a physical "return to the source."

Punt, or the eastern location with that name, had many of the characteristics we find in other earthly paradise lands. It was wanting of nothing, and on the isle was found a friendly and hospitable king. It was a land rich in aromatics and precious metals. And it was located in a fiery island on the sea.

But Punt for all its idyllic conditions is a real place, a real source of trade products. As with Penglai and Dilmun, there appears to be some attempt at attracting people to visit the region. The fangshi wizards, for example, in China encouraged voyages to Penglai. The equivalent of the fangshi among Islamic mystics would be the Ishrâqîyûn "Easterners" or "Eastern Theosophers."

According to our supposition of a long-standing Nusantao trading war, the rival kings followed polices of attraction in a conflict fought on both mundane and spiritual planes. That the opposing kings might have, on occasion, portrayed themselves as divine or divine incarnations is not that unusual for the time or place involved.

Aspects of divine kingship in this region can be found at all levels. For example, in eastern Indonesia, there are numerous kings of small domains, who have lofty titles like "Great Lord," "Lord of the Earth," "Head of the Earth," "Descendent of the Sun," etc. These kings represent or, more accurately often embody, the local deities of the people.

Among the Austronesian reconstructions for "king, prince, chief, etc." is the prototype for datu, which probably originally meant either a leader of a village or network of villages, or a captain of a ship or fleet. "Datu" might be related to similar words meaning "to reach a destination, to arrive" or more revealingly "to be able to reach a destination." The datu, thus as a ship captain, was required to span space and time -- in the form of ikat or canoe-days -- to reach the target of the navigator. This model of the "sea king" or royal guide/captain is also found widely in quest-type literature. Prester John, for example, in the original version rules on an island in the Indies, and it has been argued here that a real East Indian king took on the role of geographical and navigational informant to encourage nations into his trading regions.


"The Concourse of the Birds" from The Conference of the Birds, painted by Habib Allah in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Circa 1600. (www.answers.com)

A journey to the East is a return to place of the origin of life, the world and even physical matter as opposed to spiritual essense. Esoterically, the Eastern Quest is an inward pilgrimage to find the true or original self.

Theosophy

In the ancient kingdom of Lusung, the interchangeable words malak and malay mean "awareness, knowledge," and someone with these qualities is a "knowing one."

The Ishrâqîyûn propounded a dualist philosophy with deep eschatological beliefs. Although the Eastern Quest for them was a metaphysical affair taking into account the required pilgrimages of Islam, it can be argued that they still stressed the geographical importance of the East (Mashriq). We might find the historical reality of the Ishrâqîyûn in relation to the notices of the Sayabiga and Zott along the Persian Gulf coasts during the early centuries of Islam.

Iranian theosophical thinking penetrated into medieval Europe primarily through the works of Albumasar and the al-Balkhi school of astronomy and philosophy. Albumasar was known as the "auctor in astronomia" in Europe, and translations of his work began in the early 12th century, or just shortly before Prester John first appears on the scene.

Grail literature that arises near the end of the 12th century tells in many accounts of the origin of the Holy Grail in India or the Indies, and of its eventual return to that land. The location of the Grail in the Indies also compels one toward the Eastern Quest -- toward Eden and the land of aromatics -- in a manner that appealed to the knighthood societies of Europe at the time.

As in the Conference of the Birds, the Grail is primarily the object of the quest, and it is through the quest itself that one attains knowledge.

One can view the Eastern Quest then as a return to the place of primordial origin. That location can be the inward source of one's own origin, but to people for whom time and place had great meaning, returning to the actual physical location accomplished a more intimate and complete reunion often thought of as simultaneous with inner realization.

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside

-- Mantiq at-Tayr (Conference of the Birds) by Farid ud-Din Attar (1177 CE)

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Baldick, Julian. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism, I.B.Tauris, 2000.

Corbin, Henry and Joseph H. Rowe (translator). The Voyage and the Messenger: Iran and Philosophy, North Atlantic Books, 1998.

al-Din Attar, Farid . The Conference of the Birds: a philosophical religious poem in prose, Penguin Classics, 1984.

Menzies' maps explained

Below is a copy of a recently sent press article

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---

Meet Menzies' real mystery map-makers

Gavin Menzies went off-course when he failed to consider Southeast Asia's influence on the age of discovery, contends researcher and sambali.blogspot.com blogger Paul Kekai Manansala.

He is referring to Menzies million-selling book, _1421: The Year China Discovered the World_, that asserts a Chinese fleet led by Admiral Zheng He circumnavigated the globe about a century before Magellan.

"Menzies' book, while filled with much easily-debunked material, makes valid and important points about the appearance of revolutionary maps in the fifteenth century.
The map revolution, in fact, started about a century earlier with the appearance of the portolan maps in the 14th century -- charts used by mariners to navigate the seas," Manansala said.

Zheng He's treasure voyages were impressive and he may well have traveled further than he is normally given credit for, Manansala notes. "Menzies' assertion that the 1420 voyage past the Cape of Good Hope, mentioned by the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro, refers to Zheng's fleet is not without merit." The vessel involved in the voyage is described as a 'ship or junk' and the Chinese admiral was sailing in the Indian Ocean at the time.

"Menzies though has ignored in his research the influence of Southeast Asia in the appearance of new navigational charts, and in particular Southeast Asia's influence in transmitting these maps to Europe."

Spice trade

The story starts many centuries before the time of Zheng He with the establishment of the spice trade, especially the Cinnamon Route from Southeast Asia to the coast of Southern Africa.

"Trade in spices dates back to ancient times, and Muslim writers mention ships traveling back and forth between Southeast Asia and Africa after the rise of Islam. They were simply confirming what had been written centuries before by Greek authors about the same Indian Ocean trade."

Aloeswood, cinnamon, cassia and other aromatics made their way from Southeast Asia to African ports and then went north to North Africa and the Middle East, and eventually to Europe.

Manansala contends that with the rise of Islam these ancient trade routes were seriously threatened for the first time by Muslim military and economic expansion.

"Sea empires known as thalassocracies in Southeast Asia decided to take a proactive stance against the new development. They attempted to recruit other political allies to help curb Muslim influence in the Indian Ocean, and they often made their appeals on the basis of common religion."

The Southeast Asian kings involved, Manansala says, were patrons of many religions, a situation not uncommon in the region during that period. "They basically became extreme examples of realpolitik and didn't hesitate to alternately represent themselves and their kingdoms as belonging to one religion when talking to one group, but to another religion when approaching someone else."

For example, he says that when the Insular Southeast Asian thalassocracy approached the Tantric Buddhist kingdoms of Tibet and Eastern India they sent Tantric Buddhist emissaries. These emissaries brought a messianic philosophy that placed the Hijra, the date on which Muhammad and his followers fled to Medina, as the beginning of the decline of the ages.

"Basically to the spice trade empire, the loss of their trade routes may have been viewed as apocalyptic in character. To Christian Europe, the Eastern king that controlled the spice trade was known as Prester John, and the latter king portrayed himself and his empire as Nestorian Christians based in a location known to Nestorians as Dabag."

Letters of Prester John

The original Prester John was from the East Indies, but in latter times the emperor of Ethiopia is also considered as "Prester John," Manansala said. However, only the Ethiopian Prester John is usually considered historical while many Western historians dismiss Prester John of the Indies as a hoax.

"Actually, the eastern Prester John sent envoys to the Vatican and to Christian emperors and kings, just like the Negus of Ethiopia, and for many centuries. While many fradulent letters did pop up during this time, most of the hoaxes appeared in published form only. It would have been dangerous to have presented oneself at the court of a medieval Christian potentate with a faked letter."

Emissaries and correspondence from the eastern Prester John were the first part of a strategy to attract Christian kingdoms into the Indian Ocean with the aim of countering Muslim influence. Eventually this evolved into the transmission of geographical and navigational knowledge, including maps.

Prester John's first letter to Europe appeared in the 12th century, but it wasn't until centuries later after Mongol conquests enabled European voyages to the Indian Ocean that we see the start of a map revolution.

The Portolan maps

In the early fourteenth century, a Venetian named Marino Sanuto submitted a book entitled "Secretum Fidelium Crucis" to the Pope outlining a plan for a crusade to capture the Indian Ocean trade routes. In this book was contained a world map by Pietro Vesconte, whose mariner's charts are the oldest surviving examples of portolan map-making.

"The historian Joseph Needham in his massive work on Chinese science has suggested that the portolan chart came as part of a package along with the magnetic compass, sand clock, stern rudder, zig-zag tables known as marteloio and other nautical inventions. The Chinese do appear to have invented many of these technologies but that doesn't mean they were necessarily the ones that transmitted them elsewhere. And the Chinese never used portolan marine charts."

The portolan is distinguished from modern maps, with their orderly grid arrangement of longitude and latitude, by a hodgepodge of crisscrossing directions known as rhumb lines. The rhumb lines radiate from circular wind compasses dispersed at various locations on the chart. They were the first European maps widely used as mariner's charts.

"Wind compasses were used by indigenous navigators in both Insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific in a manner similar to rhumb sailing using portolans. They were used by Pacific islanders -- the Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians -- to explore and settle the Pacific. In both Southeast Asia and the Pacific, wind compasses have survived until modern times."

Needham had suggested that Chinese maps showing directional instructions in text form near map destinations later involved into rhumb lines.

But were mariner's charts marked with rhumb lines ever used in the East? According to Manansala, such maps were mentioned and at least one with rhumb lines occurs in a 16th century Portuguese account.

"Marco Polo twice mentions the use of mariner's charts in the Indian Ocean in his famous travel journal. Marco Polo was a contemporary of Sanuto and Vesconte -- the two people linked with the earliest portolan maps."

When Portuguese explorers began plying the waters of the Indian Ocean nearly two centuries after Polo's account, they came upon a few important indigenous mariner's charts.

"Three charts encountered by the early Portuguese were deemed worthy of mention. One each from India and Brunei or Buru in the East Indies had rectangular grid systems similar to modern maps. The other was from a Javanese pilot written in the Javanese language which was covered with rhumb lines," Manansala said.

Some years after the Javanese world map was discovered by the Portuguese pilot Francisco Rodrigues, he notes, an exceptional portolan map of the world was presented by the Turkish cartographer Piri Reis to Sultan Selim I in Cairo. According to Reis, his new chart was constructed using many different maps including "four new Portuguese maps drawn using the geometric methods of the Indies and China."

The borrowed "geometric methods" mentioned by Reis would include, according to Manansala, the rhumb lines as shown on the Javanese chart.

Maps drawn mainly for foreigners?

Pilots in Southeast Asia during that time did not normally use charts as they had more ancient methods that were effective and not so costly, Manansala avers. "It's possible that some of these maps were drawn specifically to present to Europeans and others they wanted to attract to the region."

"When the British cartographer Alexander Dalrymple came to chart these regions centuries later for the British crown, he encountered suddenly many maps, and informants willing to draw maps. This occurs though after voyager after voyager before him reported that local pilots in the region used neither chart or compass. So, basically it was only during the periods when the Portuguese, and later the British, first appeared on the scene looking for assistance that we see these indigenous maps crawl out of the woodwork."

"Unfortunately, the lack of practical map use in the region may be why none of the early Insular Southeast Asian charts have survived into the present. The map discovered by Francisco Rodrigues, though, can be partially reconstructed using the book of rutters, or sailing directions, written by Rodrigues."

When the Portuguese first began their explorations on the sea, they apparently uncovered some hidden and very revealing maps. These charts mentioned by Antonio Galvão in the 16th century form part of the basis of Menzies claims on the circumnavigation of Zheng He.

Some scholars have claimed that Galvão's account of a world map in the possession of Dom Pedro, the brother of Prince Henry the Navigator, is confirmed by an official document of King Alfonso V of Portugal.

"The problem with Menzies claim is that the Galvão maps are dated to 1408 and 1428 and could not have been delivered to Dom Pedro by Nicolo de Conti as claimed by Menzies. De Conti was still traveling in Asia in 1428 according to all accounts," Manansala said.

He believes the maps may have actually been Templar charts that they obtained through Prester John before the Templar order was destroyed in the early 14th century. The Templars are closely associated with Prester John in medieval literature.

"There was a group known in Muslim writings as the Sayabiga, who are believed to have come from Insular Southeast Asia. Many of the Sayabiga became Shi'ites in the Middel Eastern region, and I think it is through them that Prester John of the Indies made contact with the Templars. Some Sayabiga may have penetrated into order of Assassins who were known to have direct relations with the Templars."

"When the Templar order was banned, many Templars along with their possessions took refuge in Cistercian monasteries. The 1408 map mentioned by Galvão was found in the archives of the Alcobaza, a Cistercian abbey where they also discovered a copy of the Templar oath."

In Portugal, the local Templars were found free of guilt after the banning of the order and the group was renamed the Order of Christ, which inherited all the Templar possessions. Later, the monarchy of Portugal was invested with the Grand Mastery of the Order of Christ, and Prince Henry the Navigator himself became a Grand Master. Dom Pedro, Henry's brother who discovered the other Galvão map in Italy was also a member of the Order of Christ.

New view of the world

The maps mentioned by Galvão were said to show a world much different than that of previous European maps.

The Cape of Good Hope was shown as passable, and even the Strait of Magellan in the "New World" was supposedly displayed a century before Magellan. "Up until that time, Europeans did not believe one could pass into the Indian Ocean by sea."

However, in the East, the Mongol Atlas and the still-surviving Kangnido Map from Korea do show a very accurate and passable continent of Africa. They don't display anything though that would correspond to the "Western hemisphere."

The first Asian map to show something from the Western hemisphere was the afore-mentioned Javanese map of Francisco Rodrigues. Alfonso de Albuquerque said the Javanese map 'was the finest thing he had ever seen' and apparently the chart contained much information unfamiliar to the Portuguese in 1512.

"Many scholars have interpreted the Javanese map as an example of how the news of European discoveries was penetrating even to far-off Java, but the chart might instead explain the earlier mysterious Galvão charts," Manansala said. "Those charts were said to contain navigational information for sailing the Indies, that is, they were mariner's charts, just like the Javanese map. They may have been marked with rhumb lines like the Javanese chart."

The 1428 map of Dom Pedro may have helped encourage the early Portuguese navigations, but those voyates proceeded only with extreme caution. The maps were dusty and disconnected from reality according to Manansala. The Portuguese apparently interpreted notes on Prester John as relating to Ethiopia rather than the Indies.

It was not until a European witness returned from traveling in the Indian Ocean had confirmed this earlier information that the most daring voyages occured. This European witness was Nicolo de Conti.

"After de Conti returned to Europe you began to see maps and globes appearing reguarly showing the Western Hemisphere. This information probably did not come out of nowhere. Fra Mauro mentions a journey by a ship or junk from the Indies through the Cape of Good Hope around 1420. Supposedly that voyage covered a total of 32,000 kilometers. There probably were other similar journeys around the same time, if not well before."

One of the key pieces of evidence used by Menzies to prove that Zheng He sailed around the world is a stash of artifacts known as metates and manos found in a ship wreck off the coast of the southern Philippines. Menzies claims the metates and manos were exclusive to the Americas.

"Menzies' critics often respond that metates and manos were also found in very ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic China, but these arguments are really out-of-sync. The appearance of these artifacts in the Pandanan wreck is very unusual and definitely worthy of investigation. As evidence, they are really the only hard artifacts that Menzies offers presumbly from the New World but located in the Old World."

The location of the Pandanan wreck is telling according to Manansala because it was near his suggested base of operations of Prester John during the Ming dynasty.

"Yes, Prester John was still active at that time and Nicolo de Conti claimed not only to have met him but that he was married to a woman of that country by the king! During the Ming dynasty, Prester John kingdom was known as Lusung, from which we get the name of the modern island of Luzon in the Philippines."

"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.