More on millenarian Spain at time of Columbus

In the article Columbus, Magellan and the "Hidden King,"  the millennial environment that existed in Spain during the time of Columbus and Magellan was discussed.

The kingdom of Valencia, where I have suggested that Sayabiga elements had settled during Moorish times, turns out to be an epicenter of influence that created an environment in Spain favorable both the expeditions of both Columbus and Magellan.  Not only did Valencia host the Sayabiga, but it was also a center of post-Templar influence in Spain.

According to the theory presented here earlier, the "Gypsy" peoples known as the Zutt, who were possibly a Jat group from the Sindh in South Asia, and the Sayabiga from Zabag moved along with their rice farming and buffalo herding through the Middle East.  Probably they were the ones that introduced both rice and the buffalo to Egypt, and from there on to southern Spain.  The rice culture there involves a tidal wet system and the Japonica strain, and I have suggested this rice was farmed by the Sayabiga.


Adoration of the Magi, Northern Spain, 1125-40 (Source: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/50921)

Much of the agriculture in Moorish Spain did come from Egypt both dry and irrigated types.  Tidal rice was also planted by the Sayabiga in southern Mesopotamia, but they would have used regular wet rice agriculture in the Nile Valley before leapfrogging across North Africa to use the tidal system again in places like Lake Albufera in Valencia.

These Sayabiga in Spain, I have suggested, were an important link in the diplomatic efforts of "Prester John" of Zabag in Europe.  They would have been the "Indians" or "fairy people" mentioned by Wolfram von Eschenbach and other medieval writers, and linked with the Plantagenet family and the Holy Grail.


Gypsies in Spain 

The Gypsies in Spain are known as Gitano, a word that had been suggested to have been derived from "Jat," but most likely is a shortened form of Egyptiano "Egyptian."

Like the Romani Gypsies in other parts of Europe, the Gitano show linguistic traces of their origin from India.  Therefore it is quite likely that they are descendants at least partly of the aforementioned Zutt.  At one time, it was widely thought in Spain that the Gitano were descendants of Moriscos -- Muslims who had been converted to Catholicism.  However, after the language relationship with the Romani was discovered, many suggested that the Gitano had migrated into Spain after the Romani appeared in Eastern Europe.

However, researchers like Susan G. Drummond have shown that the evidence suggests two streams of Gypsies into Spain.  A Romani one in the north, and an older Gitano one in the south that dates to Moorish times.  The Calo language of the Gitano displays a large number of Hispano-Arabic words, and their Flamenco music shows similar influence, both of which are absent among the Romani.


Adoration of the Magi, Fuentiduena Chapel, Castilla-Leon, 1175-1200 (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterjr1961/2937556978/sizes/l/)

The presence of the Gitano can be seen as evidence of the migration of Zutt during Moorish times, and their ethnonym would agree with the suggestion that they came directly from Egypt.  Also the fact that they show no signs of Orthodox Christianity would suggest that they converted in Spain, i.e. that they were Moriscos or conversos.

Quite possibly the Gitano were once Zutt buffalo herders, which could explain their wandering ways.  The Zutt and their buffalo were moved to Syria and Anatolia to deal with the lion populations there -- a job that might have required a lot of movement from place to place.  Since the Zutt and Sayabiga tended to move around together, they probably migrated from that region to Egypt with the Sayabiga engaged mainly in farming.  The Sayabiga in Spain would have been rice farmers, and thus sedentary.  Also, the literary evidence would suggest, according to theory suggested here, that they were less endogamous as compared to the Gitano and freely intermarried.


Royal Morisco link from Valencia

Interestingly, both Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs of Spain who supported Columbus' voyage, both descend from a Morisca from Valencia.  Her name was Zaida, the daughter-in-law of al-Mutamid, the emir of Seville.  Zaida is sometimes referred to as the daughter of al-Mutamid in latter works, but contemporary Muslim sources state that she was his daughter-in-law of unknown ancestry. She lived in Denia in the Alicante, which was then part of the Kingdom of Valencia but now forms its own province. Like Valencia, Alicante is noted for its rice production.

Zaida, a contemporary of the first "fairy" count of Anjou, Fulk IV,  converted to Christianity and was either married to or was the concubine of Alfonso IV, king of Castile and Leon.  Both Ferdinand and Isabella descend from Zaida through Alfonso Fernandez, King of Castile, who descends through Constance de Hohenstaufen from Constance de Hauteville, the daughter of Elvira Alphonsez.  The latter was in turn was the daughter of Zaida.

Both monarchs may also descend from Zaida through Henry II's mother, a descendant of Zaida's other daughter Sancha Alfonsez,  but this genealogy is less secure.

A Valencian clan that claimed royal descent was the Borgia family, which rose to great heights during the Renaissance.   Accounts beginning in the early 17th century claim that the Borgias descend from King Ramiro of Spain, but the genealogies differ.  The actual documentation from Valencia and Aragon suggests instead that the Borgias trace their origins to one Gonzalo de Borja, who had no formal title.

The surnames Borja, Borge, Borgia, etc. come from the name of the Moorish town, and the surname is found on lists of Morisco surnames.  Evidence suggests that the Borgia clan, or at least their paternal ancestors, came originally from Borja in Aragon, but had been settled in the huerta of Valencia for some time before rising to prominence.

The first Borgia to gain fame was Alfonso from Canals, Valencia who became Pope Callisto III (Callixtus III) in 1455.  Alfonso had once served as an ambassador for the Aragonese kings.  He and the rest of his family became famed for their corruption and he appointed his nephew Rodrigo de Borgia, from Jativa, Valencia, as cardinal.

Rodrigo would become Pope Alexander VI in the same year that Columbus sailed on his first voyage.  As Pope, he granted the coveted rights to the Americas to Spain after a request from King Ferdinand, who had helped bring Rodrigo to power.

The children of Alexander VI and others in the Borgia clan quickly gained titles of nobility including Duke of Gandia in Valencia, and a number of titles in Italy.  Alexander VI's son Cesare Borgia became Duke of Valentinois, and inspired Machiavelli's work "The Prince."

Annio of Viterbo, possibly with the consent of Alexander VI, created a genealogy for the Borgias that claims the family descends from the Egyptian god-king Osiris -- interesting given the Zutt and Sayabiga's Egypt connection -- although Annio makes these links ancient and extends them to Italy.



The Borgia coat of arms with the bull representing Apis as an aspect of Osiris. (Source: Wikipedia)


Templars in Spain

When the Templars were disbanded, those in Portugal took refuge among the Order of Christ.  The Templars in Spain joined the Order of Montesa in Valencia.  Both of these orders play a part in the navigation to the Indies and the voyages of Columbus. Earlier in this blog, I suggested that the Templars had a political relationship with Prester John via Sayabiga/Assassin intermediaries. 

The Order of Christ knights were used by Prince Henry of Portugal, himself the Grandmaster of the organization, during his voyages of discovery.

An interesting possible direct connection between the Order of Montesa, which was located in the Kingdom of Valencia, and Columbus comes through Carlos de Viana (Charles of Viana). 

Carlos was a prince of Aragon, the son of the future John II, and himself the heir to the crown of Navarre. He also held the title of Prince of Viana.  According to one theory, Prince Carlos was actually Christopher Columbus' father!   A team of geneticists lead by Jose A. Lorente and Mark Stoneking had set out to test whether this theory was valid and they were expected to release results in 2005.  However, I have not seen anything further published on this research.

One of Prince Carlos' sons, Felipe, Count of Beaufort, and possibly a half-brother of Columbus, quit his position as Archbishop of Palermo in 1485 to become Grandmaster of the Order of Montesa.

A member of the Borgia family -- Don Pedro Luis Galceran de Borgia -- would become the last Grandmaster of the Order of Montesa in 1572.


Rise in millenarianism

In Columbus' "Book of Prophecies" (Libro de las profecias), the discoverer claims that he had found the Biblical lands of Tarshish, Cathyr and Ophir.

Likely one of the main reasons that both Columbus and Magellan were able to find fertile ground in Spain while failing elsewhere lies in the millennial environment that existed in the area at the time.  The Valencian alchemist Arnold of Villanova (1235-1311) was probably the first person responsible for popularizing the millenarian views of Joachim of Fiore in Spain.

He modified Joachimite prophecies combining them with earlier material from Pseudo-Methodius and others, and claiming that the Last Emperor who would reconquer Zion would come from Spain.  After Arnold of Villanova, another Valencian, Francesc Eixemensis further popularized these millennial views both in Valencia and throughout Spain.  Peter of Aragon, a member of the royal family and a Franciscan also helped promote the idea in the late 14th century that the King of Aragon would retake Jerusalem.

During the period of King Ferdinand V, the belief that this monarch was the prophesied one were widespread throughout Spain.  Given that Columbus himself was also deeply interested in prophecy, and also apparently considered himself a divine instrument in prophetic fulfillment, he was destined to eventually come to the monarchs of Aragon and Castile.

In the introduction to the Book of Prophecies, Columbus also mentions that the islands he had discovered were the same archipelago of 7,448 islands off the coast of South China (Manzi) mentioned by Marco Polo.  In the millenarian views of the time, islands were seen as important elements in the fulfillment of prophecy.  The conquest of the islands at the end of the earth was widely seen as an important mission of the millennial king in the last days.


Message from Prester John

The millenarian environment helped fuel the thirst for exploration, but it was information from the far east that provided the geographic knowledge necessary for Columbus to set off on his journey.

Nicolo di Conti and the eastern ambassador who came together with the entourage of papal envoy Alberto de Sarteano provided that knowledge.  Previously, I have suggested that the eastern delegate came from the kingdom of Prester John, which Conti claimed to have spent much time at during his Asian travels.  The ambassador claims to have come from a Nestorian kingdom in "Upper India" about 20 days from Cathay, i.e., the kingdom of Prester John.

The knowledge they provided completed a set of influences that appear to have convinced Columbus and others of the feasibility of the western voyages.  The other influences were:

• Marco Polo's account of the eastern islands off South China and their richness in gold, which Columbus apparently equates with Biblical gold of Ophir.
• The book attributed to John of Mandeville in the mid to late 14th century suggests that circumnavigation of the world is possible.  Columbus refers to Mandeville's work as having a great influence on him. Mandeville described Prester John's eastern realm as follows:
  
  

  "Toward the east part of Prester John's land is an isle good and great, that men clepe Taprobane, that is full noble and full fructuous...Beside that isle, toward the east, be two other isles. And men clepe that one Orille, and that other Argyte, of the which all the
  land is mine of gold and silver. And those isles be right where that the Red Sea departeth from the sea ocean."

  Orille and Argyte are the Chryse and Argye, the islands of gold and silver mentioned by Ptolemy who  locates them beyond the Golden Chersonese (Malaya Peninsula).
  
  At the extreme east of the kingdoms was the land of Eden:
  
  
  

  "And beyond the land and the isles and the deserts of Prester John's lordship, in going straight toward the east, men find nothing but mountains and rocks, full great. And there is the dark region, where no man may see, neither by day ne by night, as they of the country say. And that desert and that place of darkness dure from this coast unto Paradise terrestrial, where that Adam, our formest father, and Eve were put, that dwelled there but little while: and that is towards the east at the beginning of the earth. But that is not that east that we clepe our east, on this half, where the sun riseth to us. For when the sun is
  east in those parts towards Paradise terrestrial, it is then midnight in our parts on this half, for the roundness of the earth, of the which I have touched to you of before."

  Mandeville then describes the journeys on the 'other half' of the globe that involve "coasting" from the lands of Prester John:
  
  

  "From those isles that I have spoken of before, in the Land of Prester John, that be under earth as to us that be on this half, and of other isles that be more further beyond, whoso will, pursue them for to come again right to the parts that he came from, and so environ all earth. But what for the isles, what for the sea, and what for strong rowing, few folk assay for to pass that passage; albeit that men might do it well, that might be of power to dress them thereto, as I have said you before. And therefore men return from those isles above said by other isles, coasting from the land of Prester John."

Columbus learned of the testimony of Conti and the eastern ambassador at least from the letter of astronomer Paolo Toscanelli to Fernao Martins in 1474.  If the second letter of Toscanelli to Columbus is authentic, Columbus was also told to expect to find Christians on a journey to the East Indies.  Francis Millet Rogers has suggested that Columbus was additionally familiar with Conti through the work of Pero Tafur. If so, then he might easily have connected Prester John as mentioned in Tafur with the eastern ambassador from the Nestorian kingdom in Upper India.  Conti also mentions Nestorians in India, and in Tafur's account he describes the subjects of Prester John saying that "they know nothing of our Romish Church, nor are governed by it."

Tafur suggests that Prester John had an interest in the Christian world: "I learnt from Nicolo de' Conti that Prester John kept him continuously at his court, enquiring of him as to the Christian world, and concerning the princes and their estates, and the wars they were waging, and while he was there he saw Prester John on two occasions dispatch ambassadors to Christian princes, but he did not hear whether any news of them had been received."  Since the king was interested in making contact with Christendom logically he would have sent an ambassador along with Conti.

Upon analyzing the itinerary of Conti as supplied to papal secretary Poggio Bracciolini, Columbus probably noted that Conti's long sojourn with Prester John must have taken place sometime after the former had visited Champa.  That was the period before Conti began his journey back to India and Europe, and the one in which he spent most of his time in Asia. 

Therefore, Columbus quite logically would place Prester John's kingdom somewhere in Southeast Asia, in the same eastern archipelago mentioned by Marco Polo as lying off the coast of South China.  In this location, Columbus, venturing to an unknown part of the world, could expect to meet the friendly Nestorian Christians of Prester John's kingdom.   And Conti's testimony appears to have convinced many including Toscanelli and Columbus that the East Indies could be reached by sailing west from Europe around the globe.

Thus, Columbus' sailing course toward the equatorial latitudes, of which he expected to land in the East Indies, is not surprising.  Magellan also folllowed a similar course, and we know from his notes that he also appeared to be searching for the islands of Tarshish and Ophir.

By the time of Columbus, Valencia had become the commercial capital of the Crown of Aragon, and it was through the city's port that Spain controlled much of the trade that occurred in the European part of the Mediterranean.  Valencia provided the first round of funding for Columbus voyage as financiers like Jewish converso Luis de Santangel responded to Queen Isabella's call for financial backing.

After Prester John of Zabag sent letters to Western Christendom in the latter part of the 12th century, he became relatively quiet.  Maybe the conquests of the Mongols eased the urgency of dealing with expanding threats along the trade routes. However, by the mid-15th century Islam began to expand quickly in Southeast Asia with the establishment of the Sultanate of Aceh, and with Islamic kingdoms already existing in Kedah and Pasai by 1380.  At this time, the remnants of old Zabag were now consolidated into a kingdom known widely as Luzon. So the interest that "Prester John" showed Nicolo di Conti in the goings on of Christian nations in the West is logical.

Spain, for reasons that extend back to the original Prester John of Zabag, was the natural kingdom to have supported Columbus' millenarian plan to reach the fabled islands of Tarshish and Ophir.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Columbus, Christopher, Kay Brigham, and Kay Brigham. Christopher Columbus's Book of Prophecies. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Clie, 1991.

Constable, Olivia R. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, Ser. 4, 24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Dandelet, Thomas James. Spanish Rome, 1500-1700. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Lorente, Jose A. DNA challenges posed in attempting to solve Christopher Columbus misteries [sic], http://www.promega.com/GENETICIDPROC/ussymp14proc/oralpresentations/Lorente.pdf, 2003.

Reeves, Marjorie. The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages A Study in Joachimism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Rogers, Francis Millet. The Quest for Eastern Christians. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.

Tafur, Pero and Malcolm Letts (translator). Pero Tafur: Travels and Adventures (1435-1439), New York: Harper and Brothers, 1926.

Tompsett, Brian. Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/genealogy/GEDCOM.html, 2005.

Watts, Pauline Moffitt. "Prophecy and Discovery:  On the Spiritual Origins of ChristopherColumbus's 'Enterprise of the Indies'," American Historical Review, Feb. 1985, 73-102.

West, Delno C. "Medieval Ideas of Apocalyptic Mission and the Early Franciscans in Mexico," The Americas vol. XLV, Jan. 1989, no. 3, 292-313.

Tidal Farming and Fishing System

Earlier in this blog, I described the water control system in Pampanga, Philippines. This type of tidal farming practice extends along the coastal borders of old Pampanga, which included the coasts of modern Bulacan, Tondo, and the bay shore side of much of the Bataan peninsula. A much smaller version of this system can also be found in and near Lingayen in Pangasinan to the north. Still smaller remnants are seen rarely here and there in the Philippines mostly on the island of Luzon.

I also have suggested that related systems were used by the Sayabiga in Iraq and the Moors, possibly also through a Sayabiga sub-population, in the Spanish autonomous communities of Valencia and Murcia. There is also something that looks quite the same found in the Halong Bay area of Vietnam. Whether this region is actually directly related to the others is unsure. One would think there is at least some idea stimulus involved. I have wondered if there might be a link with the Chinese notices of Fo-lo-an on the Western Ship Route during the Sung Dynasty. However, historically the Halong Bay area should have been squarely under the control of the Dai Viet empire at that time. So I'll have to leave any possible connections for further research.


View Larger Map
Tidal rice farming on Cat Ba island in Halong Bay, Vietnam.


This system of farming and fishing found in Pampanga and other parts of Luzon, and also in Iraq and southern Spain can be described as a Tidal Farming and Fishing System (TFFS).

As the name suggests, the area of agriculture and fishing is located in a tidal zone, and there is dependence on tidal action. The area will extend all the way to the mouth of rivers at the ocean, and upstream so far as there is still sufficient tidal flow. Here is an outline of some of the important features of this specific TFFS:

• The TFFS utilizes reclaimed land, i.e., marshes, swamps, lakes, etc., so very extensive earth works are involved.
• The intertidal zone is also used and dikes, channels, canals, etc., help to extend the system through irrigation beyond the intertidal zone.
• Tides play an important role in irrigation. The flood tide pushes water into the fields and ponds, and sluice gates keep a certain quantity of the water from flowing back to sea during the ebb tide.
• The tides are also important for local fishing practices.
• In some areas, rains help flush saltwater toward the sea allowing seasonal farming in areas where the water is too salty for farming during the dry season.
• The principle crop is short-grain, wet paddy rice (Oryza sativa var. japonica). Probably the type of Japonica rice grown in these regions has a higher salinity tolerance than more typical rice grown elsewhere.

The fishing techniques in the TFFS often revolve around fish and other aquatic/sea creatures that follow the tides in and out of the irrigation system. One trick is to place traps in narrow canals, for example. Fish caught in tidal pools and ditches could be stunned with fish poison, speared, or simply scooped up by hand. Fish poisons used in the Philippines, known as tuba, were usually either of the Derris or Tephrosia species. In Iraq, Digitalis and Datura species were used, while in southern Spain they used Verbascum species.

Much attention is focused on catching migratory fish and crustaceans. In the Philippines, the main catch was the bangus, which migrated from the sea into brackish water to spawn. Eventually, possibly after observing bangus spawn in their rice field ponds, an aquaculture system was developed that was mainly centered around the bangus. In Iraq, whitefish species -- khatan and shabut -- along with pomfret, shad and shrimp are caught during migration periods. In the Albufera in Valencia, they concentrated on migratory eels, which actually live in inland waters and migrate out to sea to spawn.

The water buffalo is associated with the TFFS in the Philippines and Iraq, and possibly also in southern Spain during Moorish times. However, there are some differences between the use of the buffalo in the two former regions. In the Philippines, the buffalo is a draft animal, but in Iraq it is used mainly for milk as in India. The marsh arabs do not train their buffalo as work animals. However, the Iraqi buffalo has many types of characteristics that resemble both the Southeast Asian swamp buffalo as well as the Indian river buffalo.

The older water buffalo shown in this region during Sumerian times looked exactly like a swamp buffalo. The modern Marsh Arab buffalo, which was probably reintroduced during medieval times, looks more like a cross between a swamp and river buffalo. However, its habits are mainly that of the swamp buffalo in that they tend to wallow in the marshes.


Water buffalo along the Euphrates near Najaf (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Buffaloes swimming in Iraqi marshes
http://www.toreigeland.com/iraq_marsh-arabs/images/W8688-Iraq-Marshes.jpg


Curious culinary link

One interesting correspondence between the TFFS in Pampanga and that found about a third of the way around the globe in Valencia is the popularity of local rice casserole dishes -- Paella or Arroz Valenciana in Spain, and Bringhe in Pampanga.

Many believe that as Pampanga was colonized by Spain, Bringhe must have been adopted from Paella. However, Corazon S. Alvina and Felice Santa María note there are indications that Bringhe is at least partly indigenous.

Bringhe resembles a native dish found among the Muslims of Mindanao known as Koning, which is usually served during special occasions. Bringhe is also primarily a food served during festivals. Koning consists of the sticky form of glutinous rice (Oryza sativa var. glutinosa) cooked with coconut milk and colored yellow either with turmeric or a type of yellow ginger known as galingale.

Now, Bringhe also is made with glutinous rice, known locally as malagkit, that is always cooked with coconut milk and is tinted in modern times also with turmeric. Previously, a spice known as cachumba or safflower as it is known in the West, was probably used. Cachumba, for example, is mentioned as a condiment by Antonio de Morga in the early 17th century.

However, what about all the other ingredients that are mixed together in both Bringhe and Paella, such as meat, vegetables, legumes, etc.?

Well, in the case of Bringhe, another local type of dish may have been combined with Koning to produce Bringhe. According to Bergano's 18th century Kapampangan dictionary, local people would cook rice together with vegetables to make Quisa. Today, legumes, vegetables, sweet potato, etc., are added to rice while cooking to "extend" the rice especially among the poor. However, a dish that more closely matches Bringhe is known as Binulu.

Binulu is an ancient type of cooking still popular among the Aita of Pinatubo. It is also featured yearly at the Binulu Festival in Porac, Pampanga. However, as Bergano lists this type of cooking in his dictionary, it probably was more popular among Kapampangans of those days. Binulu consists of rice and viands stuffed and cooked together in a thin, hollow, green bamboo known as bulu (Schizostachyum lumampao). The variations of Binulu are just as great as those found among Paella and Bringhe dishes and can include meat, vegetables, beans, legumes, fish/shellfish, fruits, etc.

Quite possibly, Bringhe evolved originally out of a fusion of Koning with Binulu for festive occassions, which was instead cooked in clay pots, or possibly in coconut leaf baskets known as patupat. In modern times, Bringhe is usually prepared in a vessel lined with banana leaves. The modern dish can include the addition of completely foreign elements, but the stable ingredients are glutinous rice, coconut milk, and a tinting condiment, usually turmeric.


Bringhe


Arroz Valenciana
(both images from http://www.nestle.com.ph)



Spain's TFFS and the Grail Myths

I have discussed previously how the Sayabiga could have been the mysterious "Indians" mentioned in the Grail literature, and how they might also be connected with the medieval diplomatic contacts of "Prester John" in Europe.

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the author states that his ultimate source for his story was a mystic known as "Flegatanis" who lived in Spain (Toledo). The envoys from India in Parzival -- Cundrie and Malcreatiure -- apparently come directly to Anjou from Spain. Cundrie, for example, recites the names of stars in Hispano-Arabic.

Albrecht von Scharfenberg, about a half century after Wolfram, places the Grail family in northern Spain, probably Galicia, an area that they migrate to after helping with the conquest of Jerusalem.

Valencia, during this time, was an important center of Eastern medicine and alchemy. A number of important medical/alchemical works were translated from Arabic into European languages, especially by the alchemist Arnaldus de Villanova (Arnau de Vilanova) in the 13th century. Another important alchemist during this period was Ramon Llull (Raymond Lull) who hailed from island of Mallorca to the east off the coast of Valencia. The majority of the population of Valencia during Moorish times spoke Arabic as their primary language. Many elements of the Grail legends show "Eastern" and even Tantric influences that may have filtered in from the Persian Gulf traveling along with the Sayabiga and the TFFS.



Flat-bottomed punt-type boats known variously as barquet, barquetot, pastera, etc. in the Albufera rice-growing area in Valencia. (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/14171706)


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Alvina, Corazón, and Felice Sta. María. Halupi: Essays on Philippine Culture. Quezon City: Capital Pub. House, 1989.

The Muslim Letters of Prester John

We have examined how Prester John sent letters to the Papacy and the Christian kingdoms of the West.

Equating Prester John with the historical king of Zabag known as the Mihraj, we have also seen how the latter king reached out to the kingdoms of Tibet, India and China, by sending gifts and supporting building projects abroad. Prester John, likewise, had proposed building projects in his message to Pope Alexander III.

The Mihraj was also in the habit of sending letters to the emperor of China, and the Sung Dynasty annals state that his kingdom used Chinese characters when sending such official correspondence. Two such letters are mentioned explicitely in the annals -- one in 1017 to the emperor and cast in "golden characters," and the other in 1080 from the king's daughter, in Chinese characters, addressed to the superintendent of trade. The latter however would not receive the letter but instead forwarded it to the emperor.

As discussed previously, in this author's opinion these overtures were part of the king's attraction policy that took on a special emphasis when Zabag's trade routes were infringed upon by expanding Muslim influence.

However, there may have been a time when the Mihraj also attempted to reach out to the Sunni Muslim juggernaut at the very beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate. S. Q. Fatimi has analyzed two letters from the "Mihraj" to the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiyah in in 661 CE, and to the caliph Umar ibn abd al-Aziz (717-20). Fatimi marshals evidence to show that this king of "al-Hind" is, in fact, the ruler of Zabag. The very title "Mihraj" or "Mahraj" was used specifically in Muslim texts for the monarch of Zabag.

The first letter is recorded by al-Jahiz (783-869) in Kitab al-Hayawan. According to Jahiz, Abd al-Malik b. Umayr (822-3) saw the letter from the diwan (secretary) of Mu'awiyah and it was passed from him to Abu Ya'qub al-Thaqafi who relayed it to al-Haytham b. Adi, the source of al-Jahiz.

Unfortunately, Jahiz only records the greeting of the letter from the king of al-Hind "in whose stables are a thousand elephants, (and) whose palace is built of bright gold and silver, who is served by a thousand daughters of the kings, and who possesses two rivers, which irrigate aloes plants, to Mu'awiyah..."

The second letter is found in Al-Iqd al-Farid by Abd Rabbih (860-940) who gives as his source Nu'aym b. Hammad.

Nu'aym b. Hammad wrote: "the king of al-Hind sent, a letter to Umar b. Abd al-Aziz, which ran as follows: From the King of kings [Malik al-Amlak], who is the descendant of a thousand kings, in whose stables are a thousand elephants, and in whose territories are two rivers which irrigate plants of aloes, odoriferous herbs, nutmeg, and camphor, whose fragrance spreads the distance of twelve miles -- to the king of the Arabs, who does not associate other gods with God. I have sent to you a gift, which is not much of a gift but a greetings and I wish that you may send to me someone who might teach me Islam and instruct me in its Laws."

Similarities with Prester John's letter

Now we can immediately note some resemblances of these two letters with those sent centuries later by Prester John to the Christian emperors and kings.

First, there is the mention of the gift, which is not unusual in communication between kings. There is also the flowery, somewhat pompous, self-introduction of the king. In particular, the Mihraj uses the title "King of Kings" or Malik al-Amlak just as Prester John refers to himself as Rex Regnum "King of Kings." Both monarchs claim to have many elephants at their command, and there is also the mention from both the Mihraj and Prester John of a palace constructed with precious metals.

In Prester John's communication with Alexander III, he asks for instruction in the Catholic religion, and we see the same request, but this time with reference to Islam, in the second letter of the Mihraj.

Ibn Tighribirdi (1410-1470) gives another version of the second letter, on the authority of Ibn Asakir, in which he adds a sentence near the end: "I have sent you a present of musk, amber, incense and camphor, Please accept it, for I am your brother in Islam." This would imply that the Mihraj had accepted Islam, and Fatimi suggests that the king may have converted, but that the religion was latter rejected by his descendants. Another possibility, of course, is that Ibn Tighribirdi's late account uses unreliable sources. In either case, there is no evidence that Islam was practiced widely in Zabag at any point in its history.

However, we do see that the Mihraj follows a similar pattern of open patronage of multiple religions that we have suggested earlier was part of a long-standing royal policy of Zabag.

With reference to the "two rivers" mentioned in the Mihraj's letter, we note again the suggestion that one title for the king of the isles dating from ancient times was "Lord of the River." Fatimi, who holds that Zabag should be equated with Srivijaya, thinks that rivers mentioned are the Batanghari in Jambi and the Musi in Palembang.

The two rivers, in my view, would represent the primary drainage courses for the two sacred mountains, Pinatubo and Arayat. The Pampanga River, although it has its source further north, passes very close to Arayat and right through the town called Arayat, and thus was associated with that mountain. The river of Pinatubo could have been the Guagua River, but also the Masantol river which joins the Pampanga River in Masantol, where I have suggested the Zabag emporium was located. Visitors and merchants would have entered into the emporium by sailing up the Pampanga River and registering at the royal palace at Malauli before preceding further upstream.

In the Mihraj's letters, he mentions the spices of his kingdom including nutmeg, which was found only in the islands around and including Maluku (the Moluccas) and Mindanao. Nutmeg along with clove buds, which was found only in Maluku region, were traded mainly along the "Clove Route," which lead to the northwest along what the Chinese called the "Eastern Ship Route." I have suggested that this trade route was controlled primarily by the Mihraj.

The letters of the Mihraj can be viewed as early examples of a tradition of correspondence used by the king of Zabag to accomplish geopolitical goals. The timing of the letter coincided with the accounts of the Sayabiga, the natives of Zabag that I have suggested acted as agents of the Mihraj in latter times. However, the course of history would suggest that a "friendly" outcome was not achieved, and the kingdom of Zabag would later have to pursue other courses of action.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Fatimi, SQ. "Two Letters from Maharaja to the Khalifah", Islamic Studies (Karachi), 2, 1 (1963), 121-40.

Rost, Reinhold. Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Indo-China. London: Trübner & Co, 1886, 188-91.

Introduction of rice and tropical crops into Moorish Spain

Rice may have been introduced into Moorish Spain as early as the late 8th century. By the time of Hakam II in the mid-10th century, we learn from his secretary Arib bin Sa'id that tropical crops like rice (Ar. al-ruz, Sp. arroz), sugar cane (Ar. al-sukkar, Sp. azucar), ginger, banana, watermelon, oranges (Ar., Sp. naranja), lemon (Ar. laimun, Sp. limon) and other citrus were grown in Spain. This general type of agriculture involving these crops was known as filaha hindiyya or "Indian agriculture."

While I'm not aware of any detailed exposition of the transfer of rice agriculture across North Africa to Spain, the general spread of rice in the western Muslim regions during this period is linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as discussed before. In the early 8th century, these groups were relocated from Mesopotamia to Antioch in Syria where up to 8,000 water buffalo were transported. As mentioned in the previous blog, at the ascension of Hakam II, there is some evidence of domestic water buffalo in Muslim Spain. The 9th century ruler of Egypt and Syria, Tulun, was said to have died from dysentery after drinking too much buffalo milk while in Antioch, so at least by this time we could expect the buffalo to have reached North Africa.

The rice agriculture of Spain like that of the Shatt al-Arab was of the wet paddy type in which the plant was raised entirely in submerged fields. These fields were built in areas that normally flooded, like the Albufera lake region in Valencia, using dikes, canals and in some cases terraces. Most of the rice and sugar cane fields were located on the eastern coast in areas like Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. Also interesting is the apparent introduction of the use of verbascum as a fish poison during the Moorish periods. The use of verbascum fish poison appears in Arab literature in the medieval period known by the name mahi zahraj or mahi zahre.



Irrigated fields in the Albufera region, Valencia, Spain. Abundant rice and sugar cane fields can still be seen in some areas of Valencia and Murcia. Click image for full view.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Dymock, William, Charles James Hislop Warden, and David Hooper. Pharmacographia Indica. A History of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin, Met with in British India. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ld; [etc.], 1890.

Imamuddin, S. M. Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Muslim Spain, 711-1492 A.D. Medieval Iberian Peninsula. Texts and studies, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1965.

Mez, Adam, S. Khuda Bukhsh, and D. S. Margoliouth. The Renaissance of Islam. 1973.

O'Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

More on the Fee of Europe

Not long after the time of Serlingpa, we read in Europe about Prester John of the Indies -- of his exploits or of his visit to Rome, or of the arrival of his envoys.

During the same period, rather peculiar stories crop up that link up certain noble houses with the Fee -- the Fairies or Fay -- of Brittany; and at the same time with far-off India, or more correctly, the Indies.

Generally the trend has been to dismiss these suggestions as fantastic elements added to legendary history -- a literature though that was taken quite seriously in many circles from commoner to royalty. However, as I have discussed before there is evidence that the medieval epic literature was used, at least in some cases, as a form of political commentary, or as a means of conveying non-politically correct historical events. It's a good time given the previous posts to expand on this whole thesis.

Previously I have suggested that Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival actually alludes to the Angevin and Plantagenet history (House of Anjou). The first person to suggest this connection, I believe, was Jessie Laidlay Weston. Let's look at some of the parallels:

Wolfram's Angevins	Historical Angevins
Son of Angevin count gains throne by marrying widowed empress, a queen of two countries	Geoffrey V, son of the Count of Anjou, marries widowed Empress Matilda, queen of England and Normandy
The son of the empress and Angevin is deposed by a knight and two brothers	Henry Fitz-Empress, son of Matilda and Geoffrey V, is usurped by the brothers Theobald and Stephen of Blois.
The Angevin husband of the empress descends from the king Mazadan, who is said to marry the fairy Terre-de-la-schoie, this latter name possibly a reference to Morgan la Fay. Mazadan is also Arthur's ancestor according to Wolfram.	Angevin tradition recorded by Gerald of Wales and others states that one of the early Angevin ancestors married a woman of "demon blood." This tradition was passed on among the Plantagenets themselves.
The Angevin's first heroic deed is to defeat in single combat Heuteger, the Scotchman, who appeared every morning before the gates of Patelamunt, to challenge the besieged knights.	This appears to throw back to the Angevin count Geoffrey I who, during the siege of Paris by the Danes, is said to have defeated Ethelwulf who had daily offered challenges simiilar to those of Heuteger.
Nantes is made Arthur's chief city and both the Round Table and his capital are located there	Brittany and Anjou had a long conflict over possession of Nantes, which lied within the borders of Brittany.
The bard Kiot claimed to have searched the records of France, Britain, Ireland and Anjou to find the story of the Grail.	Henry Fitz-Empress was King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Lord of Ireland.

Now previously I have claimed that many of the Grail and Arthurian romances had used older Celtic legends to cast the Norman invasion of England as liberation of Celts from their Anglo-Saxon oppressors. Also the fairy descent ascribed repeatedly to both the rulers of Anjou and Brittany (Arthur) is directly related to repeated appearance of the Indies and its inhabitants in the same literature.

However, before I continue let me first give some background on the historical sources leading up to this period.


Dissolution of the Carolingian empire

During the Carolingian empire, strangers were protected by the empire through reciprocal treaties like that with the Danes in 873. The poet Theodulf, for example, mentions Arab traders at Arles in 812.

As the empire crumbled, a black hole of literature and historical records ensues particularly throughout the 10th century. Brittany had allied with the Vikings against the Franks in the 8th century, and eventually also Anjou finds itself in the Norman orbit.

The Vikings were a motley lot who readily accepted strangers into their fold. In the east, they carried on a brisk trade with Muslims and the Byzantine empire. People of all backgrounds could be found among them both slave and free. There is also some evidence that they may have traded with Moorish Spain. In 845, Abd al-Rahman II sent an embassy to the King of the Vikings for reasons that are not spelled out. Mas'udi claimed that the Rus, a term thought by many to refer to Varangians and Northmen, carried their trade as far "as Spain, Rome, Constantinople, and the Khazar." This period would have been a prime opportunity for foreigners, even from very distant lands, to settle in the areas of Brittany and Anjou.

As the Frankish empire broke up, the comital families that had acted as regional military governors under imperial appointment began to make sovereign claims on their territories. The counts of Anjou were one such family. Before Count Fulk IV in the 11th century, nothing was known of the Angevin family.

Fulk IV himself wrote a family history and encouraged the monks of St Aubin in the capital of Angers to create genealogies for the house of Anjou. He is also believed to have encouraged archdeacon Renaud to write a history of the family for the annals of St. Aubin. Like most genealogies and histories of other counts, those of Fulk IV were drawn from memory.

For example, although Fulk IV claims not to have known about the earliest Angevin counts, the chroniclers expand his genealogy back to the Carolingians and following the Merovingian dynasty back to the ancient Trojans. Many details and family members are added, by different writers, and these vary widely from one version to another. Relationships between noble families suddenly appear out of nowhere. In other words, there is little to vouch for much that is recorded before Fulk IV.

Many of the genealogies and histories including the legendary histories were designed to help the comital families gain recognition and acceptance of their sovereign claims. In such an environment, it would make little sense to link one's lineage and family history with fairies, demons and far-off India and the Indies. There are other good reasons to look at these connections as reality rather than fable.

First, the Grail and Arthurian literature appears at the same period that we begin to hear of actual visitors from "India" in Europe. Geoffrey of Monmouth was probably the first of the pro-Norman-Angevin-Briton writers. He was a subject of Henry II (Henry Fitz-Empress Plantagenet) and thus could be expected to be favorable to the House of Anjou. His key works, Prophecies of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain came out around 1135 and 1136 respectively.

Earlier in 1122, we hear that a certain 'John, Patriarch of the Indies' had visited Calixtus I at Rome. The audience is preserved in two different sources -- the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium and in a letter by St. Remy abbot Oddo to a Count Thomas, --this letter forming part of Mabillon's collection Vetera Analecta. Oddo actually witnessed the meeting between Patriach John and Calixtus I, with the former describing the 'communion of St. Thomas.'

Patriarch John is first combined with Prester John as early as the end of the 12th century in the Narrative of Eliseus, and in the 15th century the earliest publication of Prester John's letter includes the account of Patriarch John in a Latin chapbook.

About a decade after Geoffrey's works, Hugh of Gabala reports of Prester John's military exploits in Persia recorded by both Albericus and Otto of Freising. Then in 1165, Albericus reports that Prester John had sent envoys with letters to many Christian kingdoms and particularly to Emperors Manuel I and Frederick Barbarossa. In 1177, Pope Alexander III's physician Philippus meets envoys of Prester John while traveling in the east and carries a message, possibly in the form of a letter, to the Pope.

We can consider that some if not all these envoys of Prester John were from the "Indies," and that possibly even the king himself had visited Rome if we accept the account of 1122 and its identification of Patriarch John with Prester John!

The next reason to believe in the reality of the foreign elements in the literature is that we see therein a host of "Orientalisms" especially with reference to the Holy Grail beliefs. One could assign these to the random flow of eastern influence that occurred after the start of the Crusades and the fall of Toledo. However, I have attempted to show that these elements surrounding the Grail legend have a specificity that links very well the suggestions made in this blog.

Lastly, the linkage with Prester John, although not found in the very earliest works, very readily gives a motive for such long-range contacts that agree with the campaign of the King of the Isles in the furthest Indies. The kingdom of Zabag, I have suggested, started intensely increasing its normal policy of attraction starting at least in the 10th century if not a few centuries earlier. This intensification came as a response to new competition along the martime spice routes caused by Sunni Islamic expansion. Prester John offered the hope of an ally who could supposedly usher all the forces of the East and India to aid the West in defeating a common foe.


East meets West

Epic literature of the 12th and 13th centuries abounds with references to India, which again defines the general geographical region of the Indies, the region furthest east in the known world of medieval Europe. Princes, princesses, messengers and others from India are an integral part of the literature, and they are not found so much in the East as in the European setting.

If India and its inhabitants are not mentioned, then one can be assured that fairies and the fairy kingdom will be found. And in no small number of these works, the Indies and the fairy kingdom are equated either explicitly or implicitly.

Let's take, for example, the possibly first pro-Angevin writer of this genre, Geoffrey of Monmouth. He has the wounded Arthur taken to the island of Avalon where he is healed by Morgen.

At this time, Avalon was an unknown element, so Geoffrey is taking the Celtic hero and placing him in a foreign land or otherworld location. There has been a great deal of speculation as to what Geoffrey meant by Avalon ranging from the Fortunate Isles (Canaries) to India and the Americas. The best information is that gleaned nearest to Geoffrey's own time or as near to it as possible.

The chanson de geste Huon of Bordeaux is generally dated either to the final third of the 12th century or the first half of the 13th. According to the earlier dating the author could have been a contemporary of Geoffrey. His hero ventures to India in the farthest East to a fairy kingdom known as Momur and ruled by the dwarf king Oberon. That this Momur is the same as Geoffrey's Avalon is evident in that both Arthur and Morgan la Fay are found living there.

However, we can get even closer to Geoffrey's time and milieu. Gerald of Wales, who wrote during the late 12th and early 13th century was actually a royal chaplain of Henry II Plantagenet. He wrote that Avalon was actually found at Glastonbury, not far away at all.

Gerald though, despite his Norman and Welsh descent, was a known anti-Angevin. In works that were composed through much of his career but published only later in life, Gerald harshly criticized the Angevins, much preferring the Capet family of France. In 1216, about seven years before his death, he supported a plan during the First Baron's War to put Louis VIII of France on the English throne in place of the Plantagenets.

He was also the one who characterized the strange blood of the Angevins as coming from the Devil in contrast, say, to von Eschenbach's positive account of descent from the fairies Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. And it was Gerald of Wales who attempted to extinguish the strongly-held Celtic belief in the returning Arthur, the once and future king, by reporting that the coffins and bones of King Arthur along with Guinevere had been found at Glastonbury, in what may be the world's earliest known case of fake archaeology. And finally, Gerald had strongly attacked Geoffrey's works on the history of Britain.

Now, there is an even better source, in this case pro-Angevin, in Etienne de Rouen who wrote Draco Normannicus between 1167 and 1169.

Etienne's work is a purported letter from Arthur to Henry II during the latter's campaign in Brittany during 1167. Arthur, who is ruling in Avalon together with his sister Morgan, warns Henry II against invading Brittany threatening to return with his own army from Avalon. Henry responds by defending his right to Brittany and promising out of reverence for Arthur that he would rule Brittany under Arthur's law. That law is the fatorum lege, which might be translated as "fairy law" from fata "fairy" marking the first connection of Avalon with the Fee.

What is interesting about Etienne's account is that he repeatedly refers to Avalon as the Antipodes, a region known from ancient Greek sources. In the older conception of a flat earth, the Antipodes was thought of as the southernmost quarter of the world. However, Etienne describes the Antipodes as the "other side of the earth" and the "lower hemisphere," suggesting something quite different -- a world divided into halves rather than quarters. He also equates the Antipodes with the Underworld. Mildred Leake Day says about the term "lower hemisphere":

This does not mean Africa or the other continents not yet discovered by Europeans. Etienne is specific that the Antipodes are living on the other side of the world, not below the equator but in the far east. The reality of a spherical earth had been known since ancient times from the simple observations of the disappearing horizon at sea and the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the moon. The circumference of the earth was assumed in most cases India and the Spice Islands were considered in educated views to be on the opposite side of the earth.

Day may be alluding here to the Celtic belief that the Sun enters the sea at night with the sea often closely linked with the Underworld in the same mythology.

Chretien de Troyes in Eric and Enide tells of a noble king of the dwarfs called Bilis who rules in the Antipodes in the lower hemisphere and visits the court of Arthur. Recall that the fairy king Oberon who, according to Huon of Bordeaux rules in India, and the Indian Cundrie's brother Malcreatiure along with herself at times, are also described as dwarfs.

The idea of the Antipodes lying in the far east (or west) is found in latter times, for example, Dante in the early 14th century placed Mt. Purgatory in the Antipodes 180 degrees East or West of Jerusalem. It was on Mt. Purgatory that the Terrestrial Paradise was found. The text of John of Mandeville supports the idea that Judea lies midway between Paradise and the Antipodes of Paradise stating that, according to John's own reckoning while traveling in the East, Judea sits 96 degrees to the west of Paradise.

More relevant though, as it was published before Geoffrey of Monmouth's time, is the Liber Floridus of Lambertus Audomarensis written in 1120. Lambertus places the Terrestrial Paradise in the extreme East with the Antipodes of Paradise in the extreme West stating: "Here live our antipodes, but they have a different night, and days which are contrary to ours, and so for the setting of the stars." Obviously this gives a spherical view of the earth with the hemispheres divided into east and west. Etienne appears to place Britain at the center when referring to the lower hemisphere as the 'other side of the world,' and thus the lower hemisphere would begin at 90 degrees to both the east and west.

Analyzing the literature from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Wolfram von Eschenbach we can suggest an attempt to use legendary history, which was taken very seriously at the time, as a backdrop to legitimize the Norman invasion and resulting Angevin ascendancy in terms of a Celtic liberation from Anglo-Saxon dominance. There is also a quite obvious attempt to legitimize and even to romanticize some strange or foreign element in the Angevin lineage that is linked with "India" and/or the fairy race -- a connection that also extends to the legendary Arthur.


No shortage of Indians

In the Welsh epic, Peredur seeks his promised love in the Indies. In Tandareis und Flordibel (mid-13th c.), Flordibel, who visits the Knights of the Round Table reveals that she is an Indian princess.

Wolfram's Willehalm has the Indian King Gorhant fighting in the battle of Alischanz. In Der Jüngere Titurel, the Holy Grail is transported to India, the land from which the Grail Maiden also hails, and in Lohengrin, the Swan Knight himself declares that he has come from the Indies. Both of these works are from the late 13th century.

In the Dutch Walewain (1350), the hero embarks on a distant journey to fetch the fair Ysabel, daughter of Assentijn, King of the Indies. And these are just a few examples.

While Indian characters like Secundille and Flordibel are portrayed as beautiful, some of the Indians in the poems are described in stark contrast. Thus, while Peredur's amour of fairy descent s described as the fairest damsel, the sorceress Cundrie, the loathly damsel, is portrayed in much different terms:

...they saw a girl coming on a tawny mule, clutching a whip in her right hand. Her hair hung in two tresses, black and twisted: and if the words of my source are true, there was no creature so utterly ugly even in Hell. You have never seen iron as black as her neck and hands, but that was little compared to the rest of her ugliness: her eyes were just two holes, tiny as the eyes of a rat; her nose was like a cat's or monkey's, her lips like an ass's or a cow's; her teeth were so discoloured that they looked like egg-yolk; and she had a beard like a billy-goat. She had a hump in the middle of her chest and her back was like a crook ... She greeted the king and his barons all together...

-- Chrétien, Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal


And thereupon they saw a black curly-headed maiden enter, riding upon a yellow mule, with jagged thongs in her hand to urge it on; and having a rough and hideous aspect. Blacker were her face and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch; and her hue was not more frightful than her form. High cheeks had she, and a face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils. And one eye was of a piercing mottled grey, and the other was as black as jet, deep-sunk in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow were they than the flower of the broom. And her stomach rose from the breast bone, higher than her chin. And her back was in the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony. And her figure was very thin and spare, except her feet and her legs, which were of huge size. And she greeted Arthur and all his household except Peredur.

-- Peredur

The fairy folk also are alternately described as beautiful and ugly. Some are short and even dwarfs, while others are described as tall. They can be either fair or dark-skinned. Morgan la Fay, for example, is herself sometimes described as beautiful, and ugly at other times.

Melusine is a typical beautiful fairy found in folktales and made popular in the 14th century by the writer Jean d'Arras. Said to have been a descendant of the kings of Brittany, Melusine may have been claimed as an ancestress by the counts of Lusignan, Luxembourg, Forez and Lorraine.

The equation or linkage of fairies with Indians, or fairy land with the Indies is found repeatedly in the epic literature. Again, Huon of Bordeaux finds fairy land and its king Oberon in India, something Spenser recreates much later in The Faerie Queene. The sister of Flordibel's father, King of India, is said to be a fairy. Jean d'Arras places fairy land in the Indies as does Boiardo and Ariosto. Roman d'Ogier le Danois and Le Batard de Bouillon both place Avalon in the Indies near the Terrestrial Paradise.


The way thither

That visitors from afar would come into Europe after the beginning of the Crusades is not that unusual. There is the testimony regarding the Patriarch of the Indies, and John of Wurzburg tells of Christians from India among the inhabitants of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem around 1165. Sicily under Frederick II is also described as a very diverse society.

However, if we take seriously Wolfram's genealogy explaining the fairy/demon descent of Parzival, i.e., Henry Fitz-Empress, then he would descend in five generations from Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. That would be two generations back from Fulk IV who is said to have been born in 1043 before the First Crusade, and before the Crusader route to Jerusalem was open.

Probably the easiest way to Europe before that time would be along the North African trade routes to Moorish Spain. Wolfram seems to suggest this journey for Feirefiz, for example, and he has Cundrie listing what some identify as Hispano-Arabic star names.

A wide range of products flowed into Andalus from the Indies including aloeswood, musk and camphor. Aloeswood is used in Parzival to fumigate the festering wound of Anfortas, the Fisher King. Indian traders in Islamic Spain, or at least the Jewish ones, often used the nisba surname al-dajaji or al-dajjaj meaning "chicken dealer." The ports of Seville and Almeria were designated as refuge for foreigners "to which people come from all regions" according to the 11th century geographer al-Udhri.

Water buffalo may also have been brought from the East to turn irrigation wheels like the saqiya. Twenty buffalo horns were presented to al-Hakam II on his enthronement that were not included on a list of foreign gifts suggesting that they were domestic. The movement of water buffalo, at least in early times, was linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as I have described previously in this blog.

The geographer Al-Mas'udi gives an interesting account with reference to Spain during his time that is worth investigating -- a similar story had been given earlier in the 9th century by the traveler Sulaiman.

In the Mediterranean, not far from Crete, planks of vessels of Indian plantain wood have been found, which were well cut and joined with fibres of the cocoa nut tree. It was evident that they were of wrecked vessels, and had been a long time in water; vessels of this description are only found in the Abyssinian sea, for the vessels of the Mediterranean and of the West are all joined with nails. In the Abyssinian sea, iron nails would not be applicable for ship building, for the water of that sea corrodes the iron, and the nails become thinner and weaker in the water; hence the planks are joined with fibres and besmeared with grease and quicklime. This is a proof that the seas have a communication. The sea towards China and the country of es-Sila goes all round the country of the Turks, and has a communication with the sea of the West (the Atlantic), through some straits of the great ocean.

Now if we take the fairy kingdom of Mazadan as the land of Prester John -- identified as the same as Suvarnadvipa, Sanfotsi, etc. -- we know from the last posting that Serlingpa ruled there in the early part of the 11th century. His successor was on the throne by 1028, so going back two generations from Fulk IV who was born in 1043, we have the possibility of a descent through Serlingpa!

So if we look at the background of the First Crusade from the "Prester John" standpoint of origin, many of the families involved in that campaign had at least legendary links with the fairy folk. They include Godfrey de Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, who supposedly descends from the Swan Knight, the son of King Orient. The connections of the Swan Knight with the fairy lineage have been discussed earlier. Godfrey's brother Baldwin I, was the first king of Jerusalem, and his cousin Baldwin II, the second Jerusalem monarch. The Angevin link has already been discussed, and then there were the Lusignans who were closely linked in legend with the Melusine, and provided the last king, Guy de Lusignan.

The families involved in the early crusades tended to come more from northern France and many had close blood relationship with each other. Pope Urban II who called for the First Crusade hailed from Champagne in the same region of northern France. Champagne was ruled by the House of Blois, one of the leading families involved in the First Crusade.

In the east, the king who would become "Prester John," according to this analysis had already been working diplomatically forging relations with the Sung Dynasty, the Palas and Cholas of India, and the kingdoms of Tibet in an effort to protect his part in the spice trade routes. He may already have had sealed a similar relationship with the Nizaris who had organized into the Assassin brotherhood in 1090. If so, the Crusaders would have had an "ally" waiting for them in the East when they arrived later in the decade through the work of Prester John, who would have been distantly related to some of the leading comital families involved.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Constable, Olivia R. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, Ser. 4, 24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Day, Mildred Leake, and Etienne. Latin Arthurian literature. Arthurian archives, 11. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2005, 50-2.

Echard, Siân. Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition. Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 85-8.

Higgins, Iain Macleod. Writing East: The "Travels" of Sir John Mandeville. The Middle Ages series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, 142.

Imamuddin, S. M. Muslim Spain 711-1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Medieval Iberian Peninsula, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1981, 97-8.

Lichtblau, Karin, and Christa Tuczay. Matière de Bretagne. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005.

Owen, Henry. Gerald the Welshman. London: D. Nutt, 1904, 135-141.

Remy, Arthur Frank Joseph. The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany. New York: AMS Press, 1966.

Verhulst, Adriaan E. The Carolingian Economy. Cambridge medieval textbooks. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 105.

Vernon, William Warren, Benvenutus, and Dante Alighieri. Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante. Macmillan Co, 1897.

Wolfram, and Jessie Laidlay Weston. Parzival, A Knightly Epic. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co, 1912, 291-4.

Prester John and the Assassins

In 1145, Otto of Freising wrote that in the previous year Hugh, bishop of Jabala in Syria, came as an emissary of Prince Raymond of Antioch to the court of Pope Eugene III in Viterbo to call for the Second Crusade.

He told Otto, in the pope's presence, that Prester John had routed the brother monarchs of the "Medes and Persia" and captured the city of Ecbatana "not many years ago."

Scholars have generally attributed Hugh's news to the victory of the Karakhitai empire over the Great Seljuk Sultan Sanjar near Samarkand.

However, this interpretation has also been rightly criticized on various grounds. First, the Karakhitai victory occurred a good thousand miles away, as the crow flies, from Ectabana, which is identified as the modern Hamadan in northwest Iran. Hamadan was never in any danger from the Karakhitai. Also, Hugh's account does not mention the victories in the areas where the fighting actually took place between Sultan Sanjar and the Karakhitai.

Sultan Sanjar's brothers were dead by 1141 when the battle with the Karakhitai occurred, so there was no question of any brother monarchs. P. Bruun has rightly suggested that the brother monarchs mentioned by Hugh must have been the Hamadan Seljuk Sultan Mas'ud and his brother Sultan Da'ud.

Mas'ud became sultan in Hamadan and ruled most of the territory of the ancient Medes.

In 1143, the Assassins killed Sultan Da'ud and defeated Mas'ud's army at Lamasar and other areas in the Rudbar. They also assassinated the qadis of Hamadan, Tiflis and Quhistan.

Bishop Hugh may have been referring to these victories, although they would have occurred just the year before his visit. Possibly Sultan Mas'ud after his defeat may have even temporarily withdrawn from Hamadan allowing the Assassins to claim a brief hold over the city. Certainly the Assassin victories come much closer geographically to Bishop Hugh's relation even if the event occurred more recently than suggested by Otto's account.


Assassins and Sayabiga

Now previously in this blog it was suggested that there was a link between the Assassins and the Sayabiga, who would have originated from Zabag. This latter kingdom, according again to the theory laid out here, was the actual realm of "Prester John" as known during this period.

The Assassins belonged to the Nizari sect of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'a Islam. The Isma'ilis had apparently adopted many "dervish" elements that are thought to have come from the East and have been linked by some with the Zutt and Sayabiga peoples who were present in the region when Muslims overthrew the Sassanian empire.

Interestingly, one etymology for the word "assassin" comes from "al-sasani." Farhad Daftary mentions a saying in Tripoli, not far from former Assassin strongholds, that suggests such an origin. However, "sasani" here refers not to the Sassanian rulers but to the Banu Sasan, the Islamic underworld.

The Sasan here is the ancient one, the son of Bahman, who was forced to raise sheep after his father bequeathed his kingdom to his sister. From that point onward, sasan became a word denoting beggars, street entertainers, con-artists and the like.

As noted earlier in this blog, the Banu Sasan had their own jargon that contained words believed to be of "dervish" origin and which have also been linked to the Zutt and Sayabiga. Thus, the same types of spiritual and cultural undercurrents can be found in both among the Isma'ilis, and thus the Nizari Assassins, and the Banu Sasan.

In the One Thousand and One Nights, we hear that one of the main characters, Shariyar, is called "King of Kings of the Banu Sasan, the Isles of India and of China." The term "king of the isles of India" was often used to describe the Mihraj, the ruler of Zabag, who was not of course also the ruler of China. However, if we look at the latter dominion as literary exaggeration, the link of the "King of the Banu Sasan" with the "King of the Isles of India" could be explained by the presence of the Sayabiga as an important element of the Banu Sasan.

In this regard we can also take the text of John Mandeville, whether such a person existed or not, as evidence of a confirming tradition. Mandeville states that the "Old Man of the Mountain," the European term for the ruler of the Assassins was under the "lordship of Prester John." Bruun notes that a German text of this period, latter than that of Otto, calls Prester John the "King of Armenia and India" with Armenia located in the ancient region of the Medes.


Silence of texts

Besides the possible origin of the word "assassin" and the curious account of the Arabian Nights, one might wonder why no Isma'ili or Sunni texts mention a relationship between the Nizaris and the Mihraj.

However, according to the position taken in this blog, the silence is not that problematic. The King of Zabag (Mihraj), known in Europe as Prester John, became involved in the region to protect his interests on the old sea trade routes from Sunni Muslim expansion.

The Shi'ite Nizari Assassins were natural enemies of the Sunnis as were the Christians. The Mihraj then would have naturally desired to acquire these two as allies to help curb Sunni expansion.

As this included bringing on another crusade, it was natural that any such conspiracy be kept secret by the Nizaris. Even though there was no love loss between Sunni and Shi'a, it still may have been viewed as unacceptable to openly cooperate with "infidels" against fellow Muslims.

Previously in this blog it was also suggested that Prester John attempted to work partly through the Knights Templar in reaching Christian Europe. The Templars likewise would wisely have to conceal any relationship that would have involved cooperating with the Assassins, for which they were in fact often under suspicion.

Prester John, the Isma'ilis and Templars all stood to benefit by curbing Sunni expansionism, but the latter two also needed to work secretly.

Islamic merchant ships headed eastward normally sailed from Basra stopping at the port of Daybul in the Sind (modern coastal Pakistan) before venturing on to other parts of India, Southeast Asia and China. The Sind is an important area because of its connection with both the Zutt and Sayabiga. The Fatimid had established an Isma'ili presence in the Sind in 883, which has lasted to this day.

Bernard Lewis has suggested that the Fatimid Isma'ili intended on monopolizing the eastern sea trade by diverting shipping from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. He states that the Fatimids had sent agents to attempt gaining control of the coasts of Baluchistan and Sind for this purpose. Although they did not appear to win over the actual coastlines, a Fatimid Isma'ili principality was established in Upper Sind with its capital at Multan. Ibn Hawqal mentions that Baluchis of Kirman and Sijistan also had accepted the Isma'ili faith. Prester John may have offered the Isma'ili an opportunity to realize their dream of trade dominance at a time when the Fatimid empire had been reduced to the confines of Egypt and when the Nizaris were under heavy persecution.

Now as suggested earlier in this blog, Prester John would have been a patron of Nestorian Christianity along with other religions, and he had no qualms in representing himself as a "Christian king" especially as this also suited his mundane ambitions. A Metropolian of Dabag, the Nestorian name for Zabag, had been established since at least 410 CE.

Possibly Prester John's Christian overtures through Sayabiga-Assassin agents may account for the curious testimony of both William, Archbishop of Tyre (c. 1130 – 1185) and Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre. (c. 1160/70 – 1240 or 1244). Both had claimed that the chief of the Assassins had converted to Christianity. Daftary believes this confusion may have arose from the authors' misunderstanding of the doctrine of qiyama, which relieved believers from the tenets of shari'a law. However, another explanation is that the two clergymen were aware of Templar dealings with the Assassins and had assumed or been led to believe in the latter's conversion.

Now it is worth noting that Raymond of Antioch, who sent Bishop Hugh as his emissary to the Pope, had granted the Amanus Mountains in his territory to the Knights Templar, and John Kinnamos records Templars fighting for Raymond when he was attacked by Byzantine emperor John Comnenus. Raymond apparently was not much liked by his enemies as Nur ed-din had his skull, after the prince was killed in battle, covered with silver and sent as a present to Baghdad's Sunni caliph. Sayabiga families had been previously specifically relocated to Antioch with their water buffaloes to help curb the lion population problem.

Wolfram von Eschenbach directly connects Prester John and the Templars in his historical romance possibly obtaining his information at the Angevin archives, which he claimed to have researched. The Angevins, of course, were heavily-involved both in Jerusalem and directly with the Templars. Albericus of Tres-Fontaines records that in 1165 envoys of Prester John brought letters to the courts of both the Byzantine and Holy Roman emperors. In 1177, Pope Alexander III writes in Indorum regi sacerdotum santissimo of a letter brought to him by his physician Philippus who had encountered emissaries of Prester John while traveling somewhere in the "East." In these letters, Prester John actually claims to have Templars in his service, although he criticizes them or those unfaithful among them who have allied themselves with the Muslims.

There are Frenchmen among you, of your lineage and from our retinue, who hold with the Saracens. You confide in them and trust in them that they should and will help you, but they are false and treacherous...may you be brave and of great courage and, pray, do not forget to put to death those treacherous Templars.

We might view Prester John's disclaimer of the Templars "who hold with the Saracens" as a strategic deception to avoid any appearance of his own connection with the Nizaris.

So to sum up, the Sayabiga had established themselves on the coasts of the Persian Gulf in pre-Islamic times and after the Muslim conquest converted to Shi'a Islam. Many found work as mercenaries while some others drifted into the underworld groups known as the Banu Sasan. Still others later became associated with the Nizaris. These Sayabiga likely still communicated with their former homeland of Zabag via the maritime spice routes.

As the fortunes of the Fatimid Isma'ili empire waned seriously in the late 11th century, the Sayabiga may have helped initiate contact with the Zabag empire and its king. The latter kingdom had already been involved in making alliances with China and India-Tibet as sea changes were occurring along the old maritime trade corridors.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Daftary, Farhad. The Ismāʻı̄lı̄s: Their History and Doctrines, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Howarth, Stephen. The Knights Templar, New York: Dorset Press, 1991.

Maclean, Derryl N. Religion and Society in Arab Sind, Monographs and theoretical studies in sociology and anthropology in honour of Nels Anderson, publication 25. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989.

Sayabiga and Rice Agriculture in the Middle East

The recent posts on irrigation provide an opportunity for a segue to the question of the Sayabiga that has been discussed earlier in this blog.

M. J. de Goeje in 1894 first suggested that the Sayabiga, mentioned in medieval Muslim texts, came from the kingdom of Zabag in Insular Southeast Asia. De Goeje was later followed by and expanded upon by G. Ferrand in 1934. I have located the kingdom of Zabag in the same pampang area discussed in some recent postings.

Now, the medieval records state that the Sayabiga were living along the Persian Gulf coast during the reign of the Sassanian king Bahram V (420-38). After the Muslim conquest, the Sayabiga along with a group known as the Zutt, who were probably related to the modern Jats of Sindh, were relocated by the Caliph to the marshlands around the present-day Shatt-al-Arab. The Zutt and Sayabiga, along with the Zanj from coastal southern Africa, worked on draining the swamps in this area.

The two groups, the Zutt and Sayabiga, were said to raise water buffalo that put the "lion to flight," and to have introduced rice farming into the area. Rice became popular in the area at the time and came to form the staple in the Shatt-al-Arab and nearby areas from that period until the present day. Later on, because of the problems with lions in Antioch, the Zutt and Sayabiga along with their water buffalo herds were moved to that region to rid the area of lions.

What is interesting is the rice agriculture system present today along the Shatt-al-Arab.



View Larger Map

The area around Basra and the Shatt-al-Arab in southern Iraq where the Zutt and Sayabiga were settled.



The irrigation system here is controlled by a system of mud dikes. The areas furthest from the river remained relatively dry and is planted with wheat and barley. The middle area, which was irrigated by the tides, is cropped with millet and maize. The area closest to the Shatt-al-Arab remains wet all the time and is planted with rice i.e. wet rice agriculture.




View Larger Map

Close-up of diked fields, some in disuse, along the Shatt-al-Arab. This area has been famous for its canals since medieval times.

Another interesting area of research here would be to compare tidal fishing methods to see if there is any sign of Sayabiga influence. Some of the fish traps like the valve room trap, the mud dam trap and the milan trap (see: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/MarinaMesopotamica/2006/pdf/2006OL_0101pp001037.pdf), look quite similar to methods used far to the east in Pampanga.

There has also been a suggestion that oculi or boat's eyes painted on the bow as amulets and found on medieval Arab dhows were brought to the region by the Sayabiga (see Peabody Museum of Salem, The American Neptune, p. 42; also Waruno Mahdi "The dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean," IN: Roger Blech, Matthew Spriggs, Archaeology and Language: Artifacts, Language and Texts, Routledge, 1999, 162.)

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

More on Tantric Influence in Grail Legend

Let's take a deeper look at the suggestion of "Tantric" influence on the Holy Grail legend.

Much research exists on the "Oriental" influences in Grail literature. German scholars have long supported the idea that the Grail epic was modeled on one or more Persian tales. Most of the theories involved pre-Islamic influences. One of the champions of direct Islamic influence was P. Ponsoye in his book L'Islam et le Graal.

Various etymologies were suggested, all open to question, for the unusual names in the Grail legend. The 19th century German writer Josef von Gorres suggested that Parzival was derived from Arabic Parsi-fal meaning "Pure Fool," a suggestion later followed by the composer Richard Wagner. Fridrich von Suhtshek explained the true form of the name as Parsi-wal meaning "Persian flower" or "pure, chaste flower."

Suhtshek also offered Persian prototypes for just about every other character in the Grail epic. Max Unger and Theodore Baker suggested that word "grail" was derived from Persian gohar "pearl" compounded with al "coruscating color." The latter also identify the location of the Grail Castle with the Persian fortress of Kou-i Kouadja. Swedish scholar Lars Ivar Ringbom suggested the Takht-i-Suleyman "Throne of Solomon" in Azerbaijan, which closely matched the descriptions given by Albert von Scharfenburg in Jüngere Titurel written around 1270.

Henry Corbin and Pierre Gallais have done an enormous amount of work equating the Grail with the Iranian Xvarenah jewel, and seeking roots of Grail concepts in Persian dervish-inspired Islamic mysticism.

Other Near Eastern influences have been suggested, but possibilities from further East are treated only more rarely. Alfred Nutt in the 19th century explored the possibility that the Holy Grail originates from the Patra, the Buddha's alms dish. Scholars though have generally avoided comparisons of Grail mysticism with Tantric beliefs except to mention such possibilities. There is however a fair amount written on this subject in popular and "New Age" literature.

One though can piece together two different areas of research to construct a framework for such influence. The area of origins and exchange between Islamic mysticism and Tantra is dealt with fairly thoroughly. In the same sense, the links between Shi'ite, Sufi, Ismaili and similar Muslim groups with European culture at the advent of Grail literature and the direct impact on the latter is equally well-studied.


Indian Influence on Dervishes

Many a scholar has suggested that the Persian dervish, rather strange to ancient Iranian religion, originates from the begging ascetic of India.

W. Ivanow suggested that the group known in Islamic literature as Zutt, originally from the Sind in India, helped spread these practices throughout the Middle East. The Zutt are thought to be related to the present-day Jats and are almost always mentioned in the literature together with the Sayabiga, a group thought to have originated in Zabag but to have domiciled in the Sind and along the Persian Gulf.

The Zutt have been linked both with the Islamic underworld group of entertainers, artisans and con artists known as the Banu Sasan, and with the origin of the Dom Gypsies. Ivanow found an element of Dervish jargon words used both among the Banu Sasan and all Middle Eastern Gypsy groups. The Qasida Sasaniyya of Abu Dulaf mentions that the Zutt were members of the Banu Sasan and we see a number of Indian words mixed in with this jargon speech.

Groups of Zutt and Sayabiga were relocated to the region of Antioch by the Islamic Caliphate, just north of the area that would later become the stronghold of the Syrian Assassins. This fact will become important when we examine the time frame of the first Grail stories.

Previously in this blog, it was suggested that the people of Zabag, or Suvarnadvipa as it was known in India, were deeply involved with groups in Tibet and India in the development of the Kalacakra Tantric doctrine. Thus, the Sayabiga along with the Zutt would have played a role in diffusion of Tantric-like ideas in the Middle East.

In India, where the Sind region was the early major stronghold for Islamic mysticism in South Asia, the mingling of Tantrism with both Sufi and Ismaili sects is historical and beyond doubt, but the early story in the Middle East is more fuzzy.

We find that one of the most important elements in Tantric doctrine in India is the importance of the feminine principle as compared to the situation in the previous brahmin-dominated system. In the Mahacinatantra, it states:

According to the Brahmayamalatantra, after meditating for a thousand years on the shore of the ocean Vasistha was visited by Devi who told him "he had adopted an altoghter wrong path; her worship was unknown in the Vedas; it was known only in the country of Mahacina; and that Vasistha would gain his object if he received instruction from Vishnu now residing there as Buddha.

The word "Devi" above refers to the female divinity, which in the Tantric view was not sufficiently recognized in Vedic religion. In Tantrism we also find a more important place for women in ritual, and just an overall better treatment of women in general.

We can see then that the most powerful male Tantric deities, including the supreme Kalacakra Deity, appear in icons embraced together with their female consorts. In addition, there are important independent female deities like Tara and Prajnaparamita, and a host of lesser goddesses like the Dakinis that are considered important for spiritual development. In many places in India associated with Tantrism, the worship of the goddess Sakti prevails especially among the royal families and in the villages.

While the place of women in Tantric religious ritual has declined, due probably to the "shocking" nature of some rites, a few more politically-correct remnants survive. For example, among the Newars of Kathmandu we find the ritual marriage of the specially-chosen goddess-child known as Kumari to the King of Nepal was practiced until very recently. Also found among the Newars is the symbolic marriage of young virgin girls known as Gauris to Suvarna-kumara of Suvarnabhumi (Golden Land), the latter represented by a bel tree fruit or a golden coin.

While there was no universal dictate against the disabilities that existed for women at the time, in many areas women achieved rights nearly equal to men in areas where Tantrism dominated. However, in some other areas, only marginal changes were made despite the increased stature of women in religious life in which all areas of initiation and worship were open to them.

Further to the West, we find that the Sufi mystics focused much more attention on the feminine principle in theology than was previously the case. Sufism produced great women saints like Rabia, a tradition that continued for centuries. The importance of marriage for both men and women was stressed less than in orthodox Islam. However, it was among the Ismaili sects that we witness some of the most marked developments in divine feminine thinking. Here we see the recognition of the dual principles -- the Kuni as the female and the Qadar as the male principle. Kuni was predominant and she is said to actually create Qadar from her own light. Ismaili women in many areas can lead prayers and religious ceremonies, and they pray and worship alongside their men.

Now even farther to the West, with the advent of the romance cycles we find that the Holy Grail, that was seen by some as a relic of Christ or as a manifestation of Divine Grace, was tended by Grail Maidens and borne in procession by a female Grail Bearer. Even the Grail itself as a cup, chalice, bowl, platter or stone had a decided female imagery. Even more important may be the identity of Cundrie, the woman from the East Indian kingdom of Tribalibot, as the Grail Messenger. Cundrie teaches, chastises, guides and even at times sustains not only the quester Parzival but also the entire Grail company.

Although this outlook as found in Grail literature had little impact on the role of women in the Catholic Church, the rise of "courtly love" and chivalry as present in medieval epics did signal a generally more favorable position and better treatment at least for women of the noble classes.


Human Body as Microcosm of Cosmos

Earlier in this blog, the Kalacakra belief that cosmic time cycles were mirrored in the human body was discussed. This is part of a strong Tantric belief that the human body represents the universe in microcosm.

We find the same sentiments in Islamic mystic tradition. Corbin discusses various beliefs that can be categorized as pantheistic, panentheistic, monist, etc. among the Dervish-inspired sects. Self-realization can be described as discovering one's own Oneness with the Cosmos and even with the Deity.

Among the Ismaili we find a belief in a pattern of history that is both cyclic and linear. There are seven Ismaili eras, each inaugurated by a prophet known as Natiq. Each era was further subdivided into periods related to a Samit "Silent One" and seven Imams, the last of which becomes the Natiq of the new Era. The seventh Imam of the seventh Era is the Mahdi or Qa'im who ushers in the Resurrection. The six previous Natiqs are Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, 'Isa, and Muhammad.

In Kalacakra Tantrism, although there is an underlying belief in infinitely repeating time cycles as found in classic Buddhism and Hinduism, the predominant focus is in the progression of Kulika Kings each connected with a century long period. The final Kulika King or "Rigden" conquers the evil forces of the world bringing in a new Golden Age.

Both the Kalacakra and Ismaili cycles are rife with astrological linkages. In Kalacakra thinking, the planetary cycles are further mirrored within the human body. The Muslim astrologer Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, known in Europe as Albumasar, developed a concept of world ages based on conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. These ideas were translated into European languages from Muslim Spain beginning in the mid-12th century with the works of John of Seville, not long before the first Grail stories appeared.

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, one of the most highly-lauded scenes occurs when Cundrie relates Parzival's destiny through the seven planets using Latino-Arabic nomenclature.

"Mark now, Parzival:
The highest of the planets, Zval,
And the swiftly moving Almustri,
Almaret, and the bright Samsi,
All show good fortune for you here.

The fifth is named Alligafir.
Under there the sixth is Alkiter,
And nearest us is Alkamer.

I do not speak this out of any dream. These are the bridle of the firmament and they check its speed; their opposition has ever contended against its sweep.

"For you, Care now is an orphan. Whatever the planets' orbits bound, upon whatever their light is shed, that is destined as your goal to reach and to achieve. Your sorrow must now perish. Insatiety alone will exclude you from that community, for the Grail and the Grail's power forbid false friendship. When young, you fostered Sorrow; but Joy, approaching, has robbed her of you. You have achieved the soul's peace and waited amid sorrow for the joys of the flesh.

These verses have been interpreted widely as applying to everything from the announcement of a new age marked by the World Year to the declaration of world dominion for the new Grail King. More to the point for this work, Cundrie's words are thought by some to imply that Parzival's destiny represents a microcosm of events in the greater cosmos. Whatever the case, given that Wolfram admits his use of an Oriental source from Toledo, it seems likely that at least there are some connections with the ideas of Albumasar if not with those of the Ismailis.

Now is a good time to return to the theory offered here for the transmission of the Grail legend, or at least the related source materials, from East to West.


Sources for the Grail Epics

Three authors are connected with the beginning of the Grail literature -- Chretien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach.

All three appear to have been contemporaries to some extent as they all wrote their works around the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Chretien's work is generally thought to be the oldest, and Wolfram mentions it in his own book. However, some scholars have suggested that Boron had no knowledge of Chretien and he does not mention either of the other two authors.

All three attribute their works to external sources. Chretien states that he based his version on a book given to him by Philip, Count of Flanders. Boron states that he received a "great book" from "great clerics." Wolfram mentions the bard Kyot who obtained the story from Flegatanis, a "heathen" from Toledo. He also claims to have researched the archives of the House of Anjou.

There is some linkage between Chretien's source and Wolfram's research in Anjou. Earlier it was already suggested that von Eschenbach's tale contained veiled references to the House of Anjou with Gahmuret representing Geoffrey Plantagenet with Parzival as his son Henry II. Gahmuret was an Angevin not in the line of succession who becomes a king through his marriage to the emperor's widow.

There was of course one historical Angevin who fits this description -- Geoffrey Plantagenet.

As it turns out, Philip the Count of Flanders was the son of Sibylla de Anjou, Geoffrey's sister. Philip ventured to Jerusalem to visit his first cousin, Baldwin IV, the last King of Jerusalem from the House of Anjou, a leper with no male heir. He came with the express purpose of marrying his vassals to Baldwin IV's daughter but was rejected and insulted by competitors among the nobility of Jerusalem. He left the city to fight the Muslim enemy in the principality of Antioch instead.

When Philip returned to Europe, he employed Chretien to render his mysterious source book into verse. Using the hypothesis offered here, Wolfram's Anfortas, the Grail King of Montsalvat (Jerusalem) would be Baldwin IV's father, Amalric I of Jerusalem. Baldwin IV, the heir-less king and last Angevin to rule the city would then be represented symbolically by the wounded leg of Anfortas. Wolfram probably threw in some inconsistencies as to maintain a degree of deniability that his story applied to real people. Thus, it is Gahmuret rather than his wife who is a sibling of Anfortas.

Parzival states that the celibate knights who guarded the Grail are Templars and that the first Grail King Titurel established the order. Thus it would have been Baldwin II of Jerusalem, who first accepted the Knights Templar, who answers to Titurel. The latter's son Frimutel is Fulk V, who in reality was the son-in-law of Baldwin II becoming the Angevin King of Jerusalem through his marriage to Melisende.

When Chretien wrote his Grail work between 1180 and 1191, Baldwin IV may have already died and Jerusalem may have fallen to Saladin (1187), although the fall of the city is never hinted at in any of the three early Grail books. Instead we find the development of a cycle of literature that introduces a new concept -- that of the Holy Grail.

Grail kingship is linked originally with the title of King of Montsalvat-Jerusalem, and King of the Grail Temple/Palace in the same location. The Grail was guarded by Templars and previously in this blog it was noted that the object had some of the same characteristics of the pusaka or sacred heirlooms of Southeast Asia tied to the succession of royalty, chiefs and clan leaders. The Grail kingship had hereditary components but was not entirely linked to male primogeniture. One fascinating similarity is the animistic character of both the Grail and the pusaka heirlooms.

Like the talking jars of the sultans and datus of Insular Southeast Asia, the Grail communicated with and guided those in the Grail company. This is one facet that did take hold as much in South Asia or the Middle East. However, it may be that such ideas were retained by the Sayabiga who along with the Zutt were relocated to Antioch. These Sayabiga may have maintained some contact through the trade routes with their former home of Zabag. The Templars appear to have borrowed much in terms of their own organization and structure from the Ismaili Assassins of Syria located directly to the south of Antioch principality. They also maintained unusually close political relations with the Assassins. In 1165, emissaries from Prester John, who is linked here with the King of Zabag, delivered a letter from the latter king to the Pope and Christian emperors. Parzival and other Grail legend authors closely connect Prester John with the Holy Grail, albeit anachronistically.

Even Chretien seems to have borrowed from Prester John's letter, which mentions a table in the king's palace with legs of ivory. Parzival and Jüngere Titurel describe the table bearing the Holy Grail in the Grail Castle as having ivory legs. Chretien says the same table has ebony legs and an ivory top. The palace of Prester John, like that of the King of Shambhala and the Grail Castle, have strong mystical links.

The round churches of the Templars were said to have been modeled on the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, sometimes referred to as the 'Temple of Solomon.' The Templar headquarters was originally located in or next to this mosque in Jerusalem. Ringbom has shown, quite conclusively I think, that the Grail Temple as described in Titurel was inspired by the Takht-i-Suleyman, the "Throne of Solomon" in Azerbaijan. In both cases, we find round, domed and lavish buildings with the stars, marked by rubies in the Takht and red jewels in Titurel, and heavens displayed on the domed ceiling. In both cases, the buildings have only three entrances, and the outer circle of the building is divided into 22 parts each marked by an ornamental tree. The temple described in Titurel was probably inspired by the Takht as partially rebuilt by the Shi'ite and heavily Sufi-influenced Ilkhanate dynasty in the 13th century.

Ringbom has also shown that both the Grail Temple and the Takht are types of mandalas. A mandala is a representation of the universe used in Tantric ritual. It usually consists of a circular design on the outside with usually a square design within, but also at times another circle. There usually is at least one instance in a mandala where an outer design is replicated in smaller form within the mandala, an example of the macrocosm-microcosm principle.



Grail Temple plan after Ringbom (A. A. Barb, 1956: 34) following descriptions in Titurel. Note mandala-like replica of building structure at central sanctum where Holy Grail was kept. The domed ceiling was said to display the celestial vault further giving the idea of a cosmic representation. Ringbom also found mandala-like features in the sanctuary of the Ismaili "Old Man of the Mountain," the leader of the Assassins at Alamut.

Now with the Grail acting as the token of the holy kingship, even the looming loss of Jerusalem would allow a 'sacred lineage' to prevail at least in the eyes of those closely connected with the House of Anjou. Thus, it may not be entirely by coincidence that Henry II's son and heir (by force) Richard I would lead the efforts of the Third Crusade to retake Jerusalem, although he was forced by election to accept Conrad of Montferrat as King of Jerusalem. When the latter was killed by Assassins before his coronation, Richard was widely suspected in the plot. He married his nephew Henry II of Champagne to the widow Isabella eight days after the death making Henry II the pretender King of Jerusalem. Angevin hopes for the Holy City though ended as they could not persevere against Saladin's forces.

Quite likely some type of Holy Grail really existed, maybe first among the Templars who had shown they were quite amenable toward Eastern mysticism. However, such ideas may not have been strange either to the House of Anjou.

Robert de Boron's "great clerics" who authored the source of his Grail book may very well have been Templar clerics. The Templar bond with the House of Anjou in Jerusalem was natural. The sources found by Wolfram at the county seat in Anjou may have consisted of the same or similar works as found with Boron. Philip, Count of Flanders, who gave Chretien his source book had obvious enough ties with Anjou through his mother Sibylla. He also helped mediate disputes between Henry II, on the one hand, and Louis VII of France and Thomas Beckett on the other. Henry II of course in addition to being the English king was also the Count of Anjou at the time.

Philip had shown keen interest in establishing marital ties with the Angevins in Jerusalem, at which time he could have easily come across the same source materials as Boron and Wolfram. It might be worth noting also that Henry II had close relations with the Templars and was the first to grant them land in England, and that Guy de Lusignan, the king who succeeded Baldwin IV in Jerusalem was Henry II's vassal.

From the Angevin and Templar connections, we can suggest that the eastern links of the Grail literature are quite likely. The Tantric influences would have come from the same sources that influenced Ismaili and other Islamic mystic traditions.




Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Barb, A. A. "Mensa Sacra: The Round Table and the Holy Grail," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 19, No. 1/2. (Jan. - Jun., 1956), pp. 40-67.

Bosworth, C. E. The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: The Banu Sasan in Arabic Society and Literature, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976.

Corbin, Henry. Temple and Contemplation, translated by Philip Sherrad & Liadain Sherrad, London: KPI & Islamic Publications, 1986.

__, The Voyage and the Messenger, translated by Joseph Rowe, Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 1998.

Daftary, F. The Ismailis. Their History and Doctrines, Cambridge, 1989.

Galais, Pierre. Perceval et l'Initiation, Paris: Editions Sirac, 1972.

Ivanow, Wladimir. "On the Language of the Gypsies of Qainat (in Eastern Persia)," J(R)ASB, N.S. 10/11, 1914, 439-55. Idem. "Further Notes on the Gypsies in Persia," J(R)ASB, N.S. 16, 1920, 281-91. Idem, "An Old Gypsy-Darwish Jargon," J(R)ASB, N.S. 18, 1922, 375-83. Idem, "Jargon of Persian Mendicant Darwishes," J(R)ASB, N.S. 23/1, 1927, 243-45.

Nutt, Alfred. "The Legend of the Buddha's Alms Dish and the Legend of the Holy Grail," Archaeological Review 3 (1889), 267-71.

Ponsoye, Pierre. L'Islam et le Graal étude sur l'ésotérisme du Parzival de Wolfram von Eschenbach, Éditions Arché, 1976

Ringbom, L. A. Graltempel und Paradies. Beziehungen zwischen Iran und Europa im Mittelalter, Stockholm, 1951.

Suhtshek, F. von. La Traduction du Parsiwalnama par Wolfram d'Eschenbach," Forschungen und Fortschritt, nr. 10, Berlin, 1931.

Woodroffe, John. Shakti and Shakta, Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1975.