The Holy Grail III

Many theories have been put forward on the origin of the Grail. Links to Manicheanism, Mandeanism and pre-Christian European religions among others have been suggested.

However, we must remember that Wolfram connects the Grail firmly with the Far East and "India." That is the region where it originated and returned, and from which those most knowing of the relic, particularly Cundrie, have come. Certainly other influences abound in the work.

Cundrie, for example, not only speaks the language of far-off Tribalibot, but is fluent in Arabic and knows the names of the stars in that language.

One interesting study by Henry and Renee Kahane, in collaboration with Angelina Pietrangeli, links the Grail with the Krater of the Corpus Hermeticum. The Hermetic texts are said to be ancient Egyptian works translated into Alexandrian Greek.

The word "krater" from which we get English crater can refer either to a stone mixing bowl, or to the mouth of a volcano. Kahane et al., stress the mixing bowl but the text they use from the Hermetic literature suggests something more like Plato's vulcanic krater which was said to contain the light of the Sun. The following is a conversation between Tat (Thoth) and Hermes taken from the Hermetic texts:

Tat: Tell me then, father, why did God not impart intellect to all men?

Hermes: It was his will, my son, that intellect should be placed in the midst as a prize that human souls may win.

Tat: And where did he place it?

Hermes: He filled a great Krater with intellect, and sent it down to earth; and he appointed a herald, and bade him make proclamation to the hearts of man: "Dip yourself in this Krater, you who are able; you who believe that you will ascend to Him who sent this Krater down; you who know for what purpose you have been born." Now they who have heed to the proclamation and were baptized in intellect, those men got a share of gnosis, and they became perfect men because they received intellect. But those who failed to heed the proclamation, those are they who possess the gift of communication and reasoning, to be sure, but not more, since they have not received intellect and know not for what purpose they have been made, nor by whom they have been made. The sensations of these men are very close to those of beasts without reason, and since their temper is in a state of passion and anger, they do not admire the things worthy of contemplation; they give heed only to bodily pleasures and desires, and believe that man has been born for such things as these. But as many as have partaken of the gift which God has sent, these, O Tat ... they see the Good ... Such, O Tat, is the science of the intellect, which provides an abundant possession of things divine and the comprehension of God, for the Krater is divine.

The Krater as something one would take a dip in reminds one of a lake formed in the caldera of a volcano. It is also obviously a location that one must strive to reach:

Hermes: "...Do you see, my son, through how many bodies we have to make our way, and through how many troops of demons, through which continuous succession, and through how many courses of stars, in order to press on to the One-and-Only?"

As on Heaven, so on Earth and within the Body. The Krater of the volcano represents the alchemical ideal as found on Earth where the elixir is created. To journey to the Krater, and to bathe in its waters, is to self-identify with the Earthly model of what one desires to create within. It is the same type of self-identification that the Tantric practitioner and shaman strive to achieve.

The same purpose would be served by the grail, cintamani, anting-anting or mutya (pearl) in that the object represents the acquisition of the inner goal or desire.

The herald appointed to proclaim the Krater, I would say, is none other than Prester John himself. He is descended from Manalastas "the herald" of rooster totem on his father's side. The way he proclaims it though may be a bit more subdued and subtle than a rooster announcing the rising Sun.

The sacred bath or dip in a lake, river or ocean is a common theme found in examples like the Kumbha Mela of India and the Bayung Danum of Apung Iru. The specific idea of a herald calling people to take a sacred dip reminds us of John the Baptist. We saw that two persons named John from the Indies appear after the start of the Crusades -- one named Patriarch John and the other Prester (Priest) John.

In addition to the explanation given by Mandeville, there were other ideas on how Prester John acquired his name. These include theories connecting him with John the Baptist or the St. John who wrote Revelations.

It's said that not long after the Crucifixion
a man who had never seen death made his way to Asia
where he founded a huge and puissant Christian kingdom.
Some people believe this man was John the Baptist
while others say he was Our Lord's favorite disciple.
All we know is that someplace in Asia he still reigns,
untouched by age, and calls himself Prester John;
and most of us would surrender everything we possess
for the priviledge of entering his settlement.

-- Evan S. Connell, Points for a Compass Rose

The idea of the ageless John may also be behind the name of the "Wandering Jew" - John Butta Deus. However, Prester John may have been like the Baptist in other ways. He mentions in his famous letter of 1165 some fantastic sacred water-spots connected with his kingdom:

Between the sandy sea and the said mountians, in a certain plain, is a fountain of singular virtue which purges Christians and would-be Christians from all transgressions. The water stands four inches high in a hollow stone shaped like a mussel-shell. Two saintly old men watch by it and ask the comers whether they are Christians or are about to become Christians, then whether they desire healing with all their hearts. If they have answered well, they are bidden to lay aside their clothes and to step into the mussel. If what they said be true, then the water begins to rise and gush over their heads. Thrice does the water thus lift itself, and everyone who has entered the mussel leaves it cured of every complaint.

Another location near "Mt. Olympus" is a fountain of youth, and stones that restore sight:

At the foot of Mount Olympus bubbles up a spring which changes its flavor hour by hour, night and day, and the spring is scarcely three days' journey from Paradise, out of which Adam was driven. If anyone has tasted thrice of the fountain, from that day he will feel no fatigue, but will, as long as he lives, be as a man of thirty years. Here are found the small stones called Nudiosi which, if borne about the body, prevent the sight from waxing feeble and restore it where it is lost. The more the stone is looked at, the keener becomes the sight.

And yet another site is linked with a mysterious underground cave system and also special precious stones:

Near the wilderness trickles between barren mountians a subterranean rill which can only by chance be reached, for only occassionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that is gathered under the ground there is gem and precious stone. The brook pours into another river and the inhabitants of the neighborhood obtain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they never venture to sell them without having first offered them to us for our private use. Should we decline them, they are at liberty to dispose of them to strangers. Boys there are trained to remain three of four days under the water, diving after the stones.

The fantastic nature of the claims is rather common in writing of the times, however, we might deduce from Prester John's letter is that he is creating a great desire to visit his kingdom. All the classic temptations to venture to the East are included. Was this a strategic move on the part of the "King of the Three Indias?"

It is also worth noting that the Templars were accused of worshipping John the Baptist. Some claimed the skull known as Baphomet and allegedly revered by the Templars, was believed by them to be that of the Baptist.

The Johannites and Mandeans openly worshipped the Baptist placing him higher than Christ. These two groups have been linked by some with the Qumram community that existed a few centuries before Christ and practiced a ritual baptism of initiation. It may be that Prester John related his own position as priest-king of the holy Krater, as Apung Iru, with that of the Baptist.

The connection of the Christian baptism with the Biblical flood ((I Pet. 3:19-20) reminds us of the Bayung Danum festival celebrated during the yearly flood season. The flooding waters renew the earth for the New Year, and, through self-identification, the waters of the river renew the individual also.

The Krater

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

Badia, Leonard F., The Qumran baptism and John the Baptist's baptism, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1980.

Kahane, Henry and Renée. The Krater and the Grail: Hermetic Sources of the Parzival, University of Illinois Press, 1984.

The Holy Grail II

While the historicity of the romances is certainly open to question, a sober look at works like Parzival reveal an easy link to better-documented historical events.

For example, if Gahmuret is indeed Geoffrey "the Fair" Plantagenet, he is said not to have been heir to a throne, but to have risen to power only through marriage to a widowed emperor. This, of course, was true of Geoffrey who, although a count, claimed a throne only through his marriage to Maud of England, widow of the Holy Roman emperor.

The early romance literature tends to agree in stating that the Grail resided in the West only for a short time -- two or three generations depending on whether the Fisher King is the son or grandson of Titurel. Then it is returned back to the uttermost East. The duration was similar to that of the House of Anjou in Jeruslam, which has been interpreted by many as the Montsalvat or "Mount of Salvation" in Parzival.

That such stories about the Grail and Templars could have circulated so widely -- and the romances were very popular -- at a time when the Templars were still in existence is telling.

Whatever the form of the Holy Grail, in all cases it becomes the object of the quest. Wolfram describes it as a stone that has fallen from heaven -- lapis exilis -- reputedly the emerald that fell from Lucifer's crown during the war in Heaven.

In Kalacakra Buddhism, this reminds us of the Cintamani, the wish-fulfilling fire pearl. The Cintamani is mentioned in Hindu texts as arising out of sea during the Churning of the Milky Ocean. The word "mani" here means "pearl" while "cinta" is "desire, love."

In Tibetan, Mongolian and Korean tradition, the Cintamani is often thought of as a stone that falls or is dropped from Heaven. It is the state jewel of Shambhala in Kalacakra belief, and it is carried out of that realm on the back of a horse known as the "Wind Horse" or the "Best of Horses." The pearl is engulfed in flames representing the inner desires the stone fulfills.



The Tibetan story of 'Indrabhuti and the Wish-fulfilling Gem' has many similarities to the Grail story. Here the "wounded king" is blind and infertile. The infertility extends to the entire kingdom. As his doman sinks into poverty, Indrabhuti makes a decision:

Rather than adopt any policy not in accord with the precepts of the Dharma, the King decided to risk his own life for the good of his people and obtain from the Nagas, who dwelt beneath the waters of the ocean, a wondrous wish-granting gem.

The king sets sail for the "Isle of Jewels," apparently another reference to Shambhala, and after many hardships receives the Cintamani from the "Azure Lady." His infertility and blindness are cured and further yet he is able to see a divine child known as Padmasambhava hidden in a lotus, whom he adopts and makes heir to the throne.

Like the Cintamani, the Grail is credited with giving sight. Not everyone can see and touch the Grail, only those who have reached a certain spiritual level. The Cintamani and Grail fulfill the inner desire (cinta) of the quester but only after they have suffered the necessary trials and learned the important lessons. Simply reaching the destination is not enough.

However the sacred object and the sacred destination are important in their own right as they, like Tantra, provide a "shortcut" to enlightenment. By seeking them one burns through to the inner core to discover what is truly important, and the reality of one's inner desire. At a much earlier period, Gilgamesh also ventures to the bottom of the sea in Dilmun to obtain the flower of immortality but only after a long spiritually and physically ardous journey.

For the Dragon and Bird Clan, in crisis after having reached their pinnacle, the quest also offers a form of political propaganda to help with the geopolitical situation they faced. It was a way of attracting the military/religious elements eastward to head off the Islamic advance.

The relationship between the Grail and the Templars appears inextricably linked with the House of Anjou (Angevins) according to Wolfram. Kyot appears to have had no problem accessing an Angevin genealogy that conflicted with the "official" one and placed the family's origin in the fairy-land of Feimurgân.

The Angevins and the offshoot Plantagenet line were always considered a bit suspect among the high nobility of Europe. Legend says that one of the counts of Anjou had married a half-dragon woman known as Melusine. Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the rule of the Templars, was quoted as saying at the birth of Geoffrey the Fair "From the Devil he has come, to the Devil he'll return."

The existence of the heathen calf-worshipping Flegatanis in formerly Muslim Toledo is equally telling. It was from him that Kyot claimed to have learned about the Grail, but he had to confirm some things in the heathen manuscript by consulting the chronicles of Anjou and other kingdoms.

One is forced to conclude that the fairy descent of the Plantagenets is somehow linked to the their close relationship with the lineage of Prester John as found in the romances, and it is at least partly through Anjou that the Grail and other "treasures" come to the Templars.

If the Plantagenets were a bit offbeat, the Templars followed their example well. While the latter were undoubtedly subject to many false accusations, it's hard not to conclude that they absorbed many more "heresies" than other military orders.

In the 1120s, the order had no major sponsors in Europe until Fulk IV "the Rude" came to Jerusalem for pilgrimage. This was the start of the relationship between Anjou and the Templars. He promised to raise funds for them on an annual basis, and became an associate member. He may have also been responsible for the first major land grant -- the Castle of Baghras between Syria and Asia Minor, an important fortification near the city of Antioch.

In 1128, after the Council of Troyes granted papal approval for the order, the first grandmaster Hugh de Payens visited Fulk from April to May. The council's ruling was the beginning of the extraordinary growth of the Templars.

Recruits and donations poured in at an extraordinary rate. In 1131, Fulk became King of Jerusalem through his marriage with Melisende and was brought closer to the eastern Templar activities.

There is no agreement as to why Philipp IV of France and Pope Clement V decided to eventually destroy the Templars some 200 years after their birth. The other major orders -- the Hospitalers and the Teutonic Knights -- survived to present times. While the official explanation was that the Templars were heretics, other suggestions range from fear of their growing power to the debt owned the order by Philipp.

As noted earlier, the order was cleared of charges in Portugal and their name changed to the Knights of Christ. Here they became deeply involved in maritime exploration. Henry the Navigator became grandmaster of the order, and Vasco de Gama was an ordained knight.

When Columbus sailed to America his three ships displayed the red pattee cross of the Templars, which also could have been interpreted as an emblem of the Bird Clan.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

The Holy Grail

In medieval tradition, Prester John ruled over the Garden of Eden, which was not so much a mythical place as a mythologized one. Europeans linked aromatics such as aloeswood, cinnamon, cassia and ginger with Eden. It was also viewed as a type of El Dorado, a tradition going back to the Old Testament:

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads.

The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

-- Genesis 2

A few centuries after the introduction of the Kalacakra into Tibet possibly by the Shambhala king himself, Prester John sends messengers to the emperors and Pope. At this time, the situation of European Christendom was grave. The expanding Seljuk Turks had administered a crushing defeat to the Byzantime Empire and had even captured Emperor Diogenes in 1091 who was released in an act of magnaminity.

From 1144 to 1187, one Crusader state after the next fell and until Jerusalem, which had been recaptured by the Crusaders, fell in 1187.

Prester John's appearance at this time may have been designed to create hope since that king promised to bring relief to the Christian kings by invading from the East. He claimed to have been Christian, and maybe he was in a syncretic way of thinking. However, Sanfotsi/Zabag had its hands full taking care of things in its own region and was in no position to offer any real assistance.

However, sometimes hope is all that is needed to continue the struggle. In the end, help did come in the form of the great Mongol eruption from Central Asia.

Prester John appears to have created something else designed to psychologically spur the Christian warriors into action. In the romance literature that arose after the letters of the eastern king, we hear of the relic known as the Holy Grail.

Whatever the Holy Grail was, and the literature gives divergent views, it was located somewhere in the farthest Indies. If the Garden of Eden was not enough, surely the Holy Grail could lure the brave soul past Saracen armies to the mysterious East.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the early 13th century, first suggested that Titurel, the grandfather of Parzival, had brought the grail back from somewhere "near the Ganges" and founded an order of knights to guard the relic. These knights were known as Templars according to von Eschenbach. In order to make Prester John more palatable to European audiences, he makes that king none other than the nephew of Parzival.

In the same way, other romances sought to Europeanize Prester John. In Jungere Titurel, Parzival becomes the spiritual son of Prester John and assumes his name and throne. In the Dutch Lancelot, Prester John is the son of Parzival. In the Carolingian cycle, Ogier the Dane becomes the linear ancestor of Prester John through is marriage with the local fairy princess.

These traditions show that it in addition to being Christian, Prester John had to be genetically European, or at least partly so to gain acceptance into the literature.

However, von Eschenbach in particular gives us some of the first examples of medieval European forays into a "multicultural" society. Feirefiz, the half-brother of Parzival and father of Prester John in his version is multi-ethnic and said to be of 'polka dot' complexion.

Three "Indians" figure in the story -- the lovely Queen Secundille of Tribalibot and the dark-skinned siblings Cundrie la sorcière and her brother Malcreatiure. Both of the latter are spoken of usually in unflattering terms for their physical appearance.

In some cases, especially with reference to Malcreatiure the obsession with appearance is startling and von Eschenbach feels need to give an explanation for the two emissaries of Secundille. He states that in Tribalibot there are "a great many of these people with distorted faces, and they bore strange, wild marks."

Our father Adam received from God the art of giving names to all things, both the wild and the tame. He knew the nature of each, and the revolutions of the stars as well, and what forces the seven planets had; and he also knew the virtues of all herbs and what the nature of each one was. When his daughters had acquired the power of years and might bear human offspring, he counseled them against intemperance. Whenever one of his daughters bore a child, he warned her repeatedly and rarely spared the admonition, to avoid eating many herbs which would spoil the human fruit and bring shame on his race: "Other than God appointed when He sat at work over me," as he said, "my beloved daughters, be not blinded as to your salvation."

Despite her uncomeliness, Cundrie plays an important role in the work as prophetess, astrologer and healer. Even Malcreatiure is called "the kinsman of the herb and the stars." The two visitors from Tribalibot have valuable knowledge to give regarding the Grail. One fascinating point is that Richard Wagner, a confirmed Indophile, transforms Cundrie into a beautiful enchantress who even tempts the Fisher King centuries later in his opera Parsifal.

The early romances generally agree in placing the Holy Grail in India or the Indies. It is not until the early 14th century that it is first suggested Prester John might be located in Africa.

Von Eschenbach places the Grail in Tribalibot from which it comes for a time to Montsalvat, only to return again to the Indies with Feirefiz and his wife Repanse de Schoye, the sister of the Fisher King. In Titurel, Parzival together with his knights return the Grail and the other holy treasures back to the Indies.

King Arthur together with the whole Grail chivalry take the relic back to the Indies in the farthest "Orient" in Lohengrin, the "Knight of the Swan."

While the Kalacakra Tantra contained instructions on the "art of war," von Eschenbach states that the Templars resided with and guarded the Grail. Was this simply a device of the author or was there some reason for him to have made this statement?

Wolfram von Eschenbach states that his main source was a Provencal bard named Kyot rather than Chretien de Troyes who composed a similar romance, but with major differences, at around 1180. He was said to have been illiterate and to have dictated the story to a transcriber. It was from the mysterious Kyot, thought by some to a fictional device, that Wolfram claimed to have learned the Grail mysteries, which he states were acquired by Kyot in Toledo.

In Toledo, Jews, Christians and Muslims had lived peacefully for centuries. It was here at the great library that many ancient Greek and Roman works were protected from the Inquisition. The city was captured by Alfonso VI in the 11th century and according to Wolfram, Kyot obtained a manuscript in "heathen writing" there which was the source of his knowledge of the Grail.

The manuscript was said to be written by a "heathen" name Flegetanis. On his father's side, he was said to be descended from a heathen "who worshipped a calf." He was also said to have descent from King Solomon of Israel. Wolfram describes him as a skilled astrologer.

Kyot has been identified by many as Guiot de Provins, a troubadour, Cluniac monk and Templar advocate. Wolfram states that after obtaining the heathen manuscript, Kyot found in the chronicles of Anjou the complete story of the family of "Mazadan." It was from these two sources that he composed his song of Parzival.

Mazadan marries a fairy named Terdelaschoye in the land of Feimurgân and they have two sons, Lazaliez and Brickus. The latter becomes the father of Arthur and the elder, the grandfather of Gandin of Anjou, the grandfather of Parzival.

The name Mazadan is mysterious and suggestions of links from Ahura Mazda to Masada have been made. The land of Feimurgân also known as Fêmurgân diu rîche, Fâmorgân and Fata Morgana has the same name as Morgan La Fay of the Arthurian cycles and has been identified with Avalon.

Comparing this to the "orthodox" royal genealogy of the House of Anjou, we have to go to Fulk IV Rechin who admitted he knew nothing of his ancestors. The 12th century is known to have been a time when many noble or newly-noble families concocted hoary lineages for themselves. If we consider Fulk IV as the first count of Anjou, his son Fulk V who became King of Jerusalem through marriage would be the father of Gahmuret i.e., Geoffrey the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty.

This makes sense since Gahmuret, the father of Parzival, is said to have married the childless widow of the emperor, and indeed Geoffrey's wife was Matilda (Maud Augustus) the childless widow of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.

However, Titurel, the founder of the Knights Templar, would have to be Baldwin II, the father of Geoffrey's stepmother rather than a relative of Matilda (Herzoloyde). Baldwin II accepted the services of the newly-formed Templars in 1118.

So there was a strong connection between the House of Anjou and the Templars. Three generations ruled Jerusalem until the house went extinct and the city passed by marriage to the House of Lusignan. Von Eschenbach's tale is easily related to the historical events and the few inconsistencies may have been inserted to protect him from any accusations.

The lands of Zabag, and the rest of the Indies for that matter, had been cut off from the Christian world within a century of the rise of Islam. However, as the Muslim literature readily attests, the Islamic kingdoms had frequent intercourse with these eastern realms. When the Crusaders managed to capture regions of Palestine and Syria, lines of communication reopened that had been lost for centuries.

We first hear of formal contacts from the east when a certain Patriarch John of India in 1122 visited Rome. Magister Philippus, the papal doctor, encountered emissaries of Prester John while on a trip to the "East." When the Pope sent him back with a letter for the King of the Indies, Philippus was last seen in Palestine in 1177.

One interesting account that comes out in the 14th century is that of the so-called Sir John of Mandeville. The text is thought to be a collection of stories from travelers to the East after the opening of the trade routes by the Mongols.

Mandeville mentions priests of "Ind" (India) in the city of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa:

And on these grees went our Lord when he bare the cross on his shoulder. And under these grees is a chapel, and in that chapel sing priests, Indians, that is to say, priests of Ind, not after our law, but after theirs; and alway they make their sacrament of the altar, saying, PATER NOSTER and other prayers therewith; with the which prayers they say the words that the sacrament is made of, for they ne know not the additions that many popes have made; but they sing with good devotion.

He mentions merchants from India that came by sea to Damascus, but most interesting is what he has to say about Prester John "Emperor of Ind" regarding the origin of his name:

It was sometime an emperor there, that was a worthy and a full noble prince, that had Christian knights in his company, as he hath that is now. So it befell, that he had great list for to see the service in the church among Christian men. And then dured Christendom beyond the sea, all Turkey, Syria, Tartary, Jerusalem, Palestine, Arabia, Aleppo and all the land of Egypt. And so it befell that this emperor came with a Christian knight with him into a church in Egypt. And it was the Saturday in Whitsun-week. And the bishop made orders. And he beheld, and listened the service full tentively. And he asked the Christian knight what men of degree they should be that the prelate had before him. And the knight answered and said that they should be priests. And then the emperor said that he would no longer be clept king ne emperor, but priest, and that he would have the name of the first priest that went out of the church, and his name was John. And so ever-more sithens, he is clept Prester John.

So like the Shambhala king Sripala, Prester John is also said to have ventured abroad personally, and I would say for the cause of the clan! Mandeville states this happened before the Muslim invasion of Egypt, so maybe it is not particularly relevant to the Templars. But notice that according to this work, Prester John also had apparently Western Christian knights in Mandeville's time. This would agree with the letters of Prester John that state the king had Templars in his service.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Kalacakra III

The art of war as taught in the Kalacakra Tantra may have been too late for India where Buddhism eventually vanished. The doctrine though passed on quickly to Buddhist Tibet, a land whose ruggedness presented difficulties to any potential invader.

The passages in the text doubtless refer only to defensive war. Buddhism generally got along well with other religions including those in India and East, Central and Southeast Asia. However, the situation with the Lalos was seen as different.

In particular, the level of violence used by these cultures was addressed.

As for the behavior of the Lalos, whatever country in the world they are in, they have asura (demonic) aspects or proclivities or are of that family, the party of Maara (God of Evil). Dwelling on having power and violent action, without kindness toward sentient beings is the Lalo form or way.

-- Kalacakra Tantra

The lack of compassion of the Lalos was seen particularly in their treatment of animals and in their diet which was described of consisting mostly of nearly raw, bloody meat.

The text describes a situation in which the Lalos conquer all the lands "south of the River Sita." Only Shambhala north of the river is spared although its borders are breached.

After the Kalacakra Tantra reached Tibet, that country had good and active relations with Shambhala despite the ongoing threat of the Lalos. Students and pilgrims are said to have traveled from Tibet to Shambhala, and maybe more importantly, also from Shambhala to Tibet, dispelling doubt that the former was simply a mythical kingdom.

However, only a few decades after the Kalacakra reaches Tibet, the mighty Samudera empire had established itself in insular Southeast Asia. Even a few centuries earlier the smaller Peureulak kingdom had arisen in the region of Aceh. Gradually, Shambhala becomes less of a reality and more of a myth as travel for Buddhist travelers becomes more difficult.

Despite the grim outlook, the text offers hope in the form of a future savior from Shambhala. In the view of the Dragon and Bird Clan, I submit, the cycles in the clan war witness a regular ebb and flow of fortunes with each major decline reversed by the arising of a dynamic clan king. In the great cycle, when in their view the final victory over the materialists must be achieved, a king of equal proportions must arise.

In the Hindu world, this king is known as Kalki who comes from the village of Sambhala on a white horse. In the Kalacakra it is Raudracakrin of Shambhala who also rides a white horse.

The horse may be linked with the Milky Ocean and also with the submarine fire in the shape of a mare's head found in Hindu belief. It would stand for the powers of the Earth, particularly the fiery volcanic energy found under the ocean and the world. In other words, this is the king connected with the great volcanic world mountain.

Such views also made their way into the beliefs of the Zoroastrians of India and Iran. The Bahman Yact speaks of the savior king Kai Bahrám Varjávand who comes from the "eastern quarter" in the direction of "Chinistan" (China) or Hind (South India and the East Indies). The king's exploits are mentioned in several Pahlavi and New Persian texts.

In the Shahnamah, the chronicles of the kings, Kai Khusraw, the eighth and last king in the Kayanian line, journeys to the mysterious subterranean fortess of Kang-Dêz in the East. To reach Kang-dez, he first must travel through Khotan and China before embarking on a seven month sea voyage to the paradisical fortress.

Like Shambhala, the actual directions to Kang-Dêz are somewhat obscured and maybe purposefully so. It is said to lie within the cosmic Mount Qaf, the axis mundi, where the three worlds -- the sky-world, the terrestrial-world and the underworld -- meet and provide access to one another. The inhabitants are classic "Happy Islanders" who live long, carefree and pious lives.

The great kings go to rest in Kang-Dêz to await the final age when the future Saoshyant comes to transform the world into a Golden Age. As with Shambhala, it is not entirely clear whether the final battle of "good" versus "evil" is fought on a spiritual or mundane level. Some say it occurs on both planes but mostly on the former.

The description of Kang-Dêz fits that of the classic mandala. The castle is surrounded by seven walls made of different metals, and by an enclosure of 14 mountains and seven rivers. The lush description matches that of the utopian "Emerald Isle" of the Hidden Imam in Shi'ite belief. The journey to Kang-Dêz is a spirtual one and like most pilgrimages, including that of Gilgamesh to the East, it involves a spiritual recapitulation.

The cosmic cycle is recreated by the pilgrim as in the walking of the Via Dolorosa or the circumambulation of the Patala Palace in Lhasa. However, this does not mean that Kang-Dêz was not a real geographical reality in the Zoroastrian mind. The description of travel over real localities like Khotan and China suggest strongly that they did envision a geographical location from which the "King of the East" would come.

For the Dragon and Bird Clan, the knowledge (or myth) of a future savior created hope to keep up the struggle. We will see this also in the form of Prester John, the "Christian" king who was expected to save Christendom from Islamic invaders.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Kalacakra II

So when Buddhism spread into Southeast Asia it absorbed previous layers of Hinduism, mostly Siva worship mixed with local beliefs centered around sun and goddess worship particularly.

These syncretic Siva-Buddhist elements from Southeast Asia together with those from Mahacina or East Asia helped in formulating the Tantric doctrine known as Vajrayana. From the Vajrayana milieu we see the first evidence of the Kalacakra springing up associated with insular Southeast Asia.

Using the traditions and the process of elimination, it's fairly easy to deduce where the semi-legendary land of Shambhala was located. It was from there that the Kalacakra came into India at about 966 AD, and thus we have only to locate those areas where this doctrine existed before that time. In fact, the only evidence would point toward Southeast Asia. While the Kalacakra later became established in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal and Burma, all this was after the introduction into India.

Again, there is even the tradition of the Shambhala king Sripala from the "Southern Ocean" bringing the Kalacakra practice to India. All the traditions agree that it was first carried to the coastal eastern states of Orissa and Bengal which had documented close relations with Suvarnadvipa at the time including religious exchanges.

The Kalacakra was preserved to the present day mainly by peoples of Tibetan, Mongolian and Nepalese origin. It is from their texts that we have rather abundant information on the kingdom of Shambhala. The Kalacakratantra and its commentaries are among the most important of these texts.

They relate that the Kalacakra was taught by the Buddha himself to the first king of Shambhala named Sucandra. This early dynasty of Shambhala kings were known as Dharmarajas and were said to have been of the same Sakya clan as the Buddha. This may be a legendary device to trace back the lineage to the founder of Buddhism.

Possibly the more historical dynasty linked with the Kalacakra arises 600 years after the death of the Buddha and is known as the Kulika or Rigden dynasty. The names "Kulika" and "Rigden" identify the king as the holder of the clan or lineage.

This lineage was founded by the king Mañjushrikiirti who was said to have folded the four Hindu castes into a single clan (kula) and to have abolished related dining and marriage discrimination.

Interestingly this anti-caste attitude also appears in Hindu literature related to the priests of Sakadvipa.

The traditions vary as to whom was the Shambhala king when the Kalacakra was brought to India. The Dro tradition says it was the 18th Rigden Sripala (Senge) while the competing claim is that this happened during the reign of the 12th Rigden Surya (Nyima). The texts also prophesy the names of future kings of Shambhala indicating that these names were more descriptive or titulary than anything else. According to the Dro tradition we are currently in the reign of Rigden Raudracakrin (Drakpo) while in the competing view the current king is Rigden Aniruddha (Magakpa).

The Kalacakra texts have much to say about the invasions of "barbarians" known collectively as the Lalo. These texts show considerable knowledge of the expansionist wars of Muslims and Christians. They refer particularly to aberrant forms of astrology used by the Lalos.

Many of these texts originate starting only in the 10th century at a time when Muslim invasions were threatening Buddhism in India. By 1194 the great university of Nalanda in eastern India had been destroyed.

The Kalacakra Tantra contains material on who to defend against enemy invaders including instructions on how to build fortresses and various types of weapons. This may relay the importance that the Shambhala kings had placed on stopping the advance of the Lalos.

We read of different types of war machines: stone-catapults, "Naga" swords, chariots, "show-houses," circle cannons, "throwers" and 12 types of "water-leading" devices.

After giving instructions on how to build one type of catapult, the following instructions are given:

Having strong human power those who pull it, pull the ropes and, as it shoots, suddenly they will go quickly into space, and having gone they will accurately and suddenly fall on houses, roads etc., and having struck all those things the rocks ill go below the ground, like a suddenly descending thunderbolt.

One defensive weapon consisted of a wind or water-driven wheel of hooked swords:

"...placed on the lower wheel spokes are sharp swords are put which whirl swiftly. They will cut the bodies of enemies. That machine by which it is made so that the machine's lower wheel's base turns by means of water or wind."

After describing a windmill type of device to protect fortresses, an armored machine to destroy stone walls, and a defensive system of ground-mounted crossbows with iron-piercing arrows, the text tells of a hydraulic device apparently meant to provide water for gardens during times of siege.

The detailed instructions on military weapons in the prime Kalacakra text gives us some idea of the political situation that existed at this time.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

Mipham, Mi-pham on the Kālacakra tantra : a reproduction of the two volumes from the collected works of Jam-mgon Ju Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho dealing with the cycle of the Wheel of Time. Publisher Gangtok : Sonam Topgay Kazi, 1971-1972.

Newman, John Ronald, Jackson, Roder; and Sopa, Lhundup, The Wheel of Time: The Kalacakra in Context, Madison 1985.

The Wheel of Time

Coedes referring to Austronesian practices of burying their dead:

"... in jars or dolmens and for which purpose the megalithic structures
are constructed, throughout not only the island chain but wherever
this system occurred, is characteristic. So also is the cosmological
dualism which is inherent in the system. This dualism is not only of
gods but of the spirits of mountain and sea and of species and
further of mountain and lowland peoples. This system is indelibly
stamped on the Austronesian people, probably the Chinese K'unlun or
the Sanskrit Dvipantera, 'the people of the islands'. These people
had a civilisation that penetrated it and an approximate idea of
this civilisation can still be obtained by observation of some
peoples of the mountains and back country of Indochina and Malaya."

(The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, pp. 9-10)

The dualism mentioned also plays an important role in Tantric doctrine. Tantra claims to offer a "fast track" path to enlightenment or liberation. The practitioner, by identifying with the goal, reduces the time taken to achieve that goal.

In dualistic philosophy, the ultimate reality consists of the splitting of the two cosmic principles and their subsequent interaction, until finally reuniting. This end result is the same goal as that in the minds of the Tantric practitioner, and can be viewed in ways that some might consider profane.

In Tantric Buddhism, or Vajrayana, the initiate visualizes the union of knowledge/wisdom with compassion in the form of corresponding representative deities. These are seen as polarities -- as male and female respectively. Vajrayana means "Way of the Thunderbolt" after the use of the iconic vajra "thunderbolt" in meditation and other rituals.

The vajra, as a male symbol, was used together with the bell, as a female symbol, in rituals aimed at increasing self-identification with a particular deity. In the same sense, the curved knife was used with a skull, as complimentary duals, in shamanic and exorcism rituals.

The vajra was initially in the design of a double-sided spear or javelin with variable number of prongs on each end. According to legend, the Buddha closed these prongs by fusing them to the central shaft, thus creating a "peaceful" weapon.

Vajra with closed prongs and lotuses ornamenting central shaft

Vajrayana bell

Vajrayana curved knife

The phurba dagger used in visualization to subdue demons

The practice of self-identifying with deity or the act of becoming the deity is, of course, very similar to what happens in shamanistic practices. The gods that were the objects of this self-identification are known in Tibetan Buddhism as Yidam deities.

Shamans visualize themselves as a totem, spirit, hero or god. In this visualization a battle takes place between "good" and "evil" forces. We can see from the use of ritual weapons that Tantric visualization also involves something akin to shamanic warfare.

If Tantric Buddhists see the more efficient and effective paths to enlightenment as better, the in the Tibetan world none is better than the Kalacakra "the Wheel of Time."

Time after all is the main thing that separates the disjoining of the polarities from the rejoining, or the seeker from the goal. Time is thus the all-controlling factor and is personified in the Kalacakra Deity. This god takes on the form of the Adibuddha, the "First" or "Primordial Buddha," a pantheistic being from which all things arise.

The cosmic cycles of time are also found in microcosm within one's own body according to Kalacakra principles. By identifying with these cycles and with the Kalacakra Deity one transcends time and attains enlightenment swiftly.

In Kalacakra visualization, mandala's are constructed representing the cosmos. These are forms of the cosmic mountain in the shape of a terraced pyramid viewed from the top.

Sketch of Borobodur pyramid viewed from the top looking down

The Kalacakra mandala

As noted earlier, the Kalacakra practice appears to have originated in Suvarnadvipa, the lands of the Nusantao. And what is interesting about the Kalacakra texts is that they have what has been generally interpreted as strong views against expansionist religions particularly Islam and Christianity.

A type of world conflict is envisioned that we will examine in more detail as we go along.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

A brief look at the merchandise

In 1154, the Arab geographer Idrisi states: "The residents of Zabag go to the land of Sofala (near Beira, Mozambique) and export the iron from there supplying it to all the lands of India. No iron is comparable to theirs in quality and sharpness."

So in addition to tortoise shell mentioned by the Periplus, the Zabag traders were trading iron from Africa in "all the lands of India," which would include India proper and the "East Indies." As mentioned earlier, the tin mentioned in the Periplus in South Indian ports also likely came from Southeast Asia.

The Muslim texts mention among the other products traded by Zabag, at least within its own territories, were: camphor, aloeswood, sandalwood, ivory, a type of lead known as "Cabahi, "ebony," red-wood, nutmeg, mace, aloeswood, cardamom and cubeb.

The Chinese texts mention additionally as the products of Sanfotsi, which we have connected with Zabag: four varieties of gharu-wood, tortoise shell, laka-wood. cardamon and also, although not necessarily native, gold, silver, porcelain, silk, brocades, sugar, iron, samshu, rice, dried galangal and rhubarb.

Idrisi writes that in the 12th century, the Chinese often directed their trade toward Zabag especially during times of trouble (translated by Georges Coedes):

It is said that when the states of affairs of China became troubled by rebellions and when tyranny and confusion became excessive in India, the inhabitants of China transferred their trade to Zabag and the other islands dependent on it, entered into relations with it, and familiarized themselves with its inhabitants bcause of their justice, the goodness of their conduct, the pleasantness fo their customs, and their facility in business. It is because of this that this island is so heavily populated and so often frequented by strangers.

The islands of Wakwak, or Toupo as the Chinese knew them, competed fiercely with Zabag, it's close neighbor. The two were in fact described as continuous with each other with Wakwak situated to the south of Zabag.

Although the Arabic accounts vary somewhat, the reliable traditions agree in placing both Zabag and Wakwak in the "Sea of Champa" or the "Sea of China." That is in the seas directly off the east coast of Champa (southern and central Vietnam) and/or China. Here are some geographical notes on Wakwak from the Muslim texts:

One goes from the sea of Champa to the land of Wakwak
-- Shahriyar

The sea of Champa which is before the China Sea, joins Wakwak
-- Shahriyar

Wakwak lies to the east of China...
-- Ibn Khurdadhbih

It is a land situated south of China
-- Yakut

The islands of Wakwak situated in the China Sea are near Zabag
-- Kazwini

They are in the extreme East
-- Ibn Sa`id

Interestingly, Wakwak is often said to be ruled by a queen known as Damhara. The Chinese texts also mention a queen at one time ruling Toupo.

The ruler of the islands of Wakwak is a woman. She sits nude on a throne, a crown of gold on her head, surrounded by four thousand young slaves also nude.
-- Kazwini and Ibn al-Wardi

The queen is called Damhara, wears a robe woven of gold and shoes of gold.
-- Ibn al-Wardi, Idrisi

The queen sits on a throne with a crown of gold on her head, surrounded by 400 young virgins.
-- Abshihi

(translated by Gabriel Ferrand)

The Chinese chronicles mention Queen Sima of Toupo who struck fear in the heart of the "King of the Arabs."

It seems also women played a major role in Zabag as the tales of Sinbad in the One Thousand and One Nights mention a princess of Zabag who greatly assists her father in ruling over the kingdom.

Like Zabag, Wakwak was also famed for its gold and probably even more so.

The horse bits, and the chains and collars of dogs are of gold
-- Shahriyar

The people make shirts woven of gold
-- Shahriyar

The chiefs have bricks made of gold with which they build fortresses and houses
-- Ibn al-Wardi, Abu Zaid Hasan

The gold is exported in ingots and as dust
-- Idrisi

When the Spanish reached the Philippines, they were surprised at the quantity of gold to be found:

"... the natives proceed more slowly in this ,and content themselves with what they already possess in jewels and gold ingots handed down from antiquity and inherited from their ancestors. This is considerable, for he must be poor and wretched who has no gold chains, calombigas, and earrings."
-- Antonio de Morga


"On the island [Butuan] where the king came to the ship, pieces of gold as large as walnuts or eggs are to be found, by sifting the earth. All the dishes of the king are of gold, and his whole house is very well set up."
-- Pigafetta

"...they possess great skill in mixing it [gold] with other metals. They give it an outside appearance so natural and perfect, and so fine a ring, that unless it is melted they can deceive all men, even the best of silversmiths."
-- Pigafetta

"According to their customs, he [Raja Siaua] was very grandly decked out, and the finest looking man we saw among those people. He wore two large golden earrings fastened in his ears. At his side hung a dagger the shaft of which was somewhat long and all in gold. He had three spots of gold on every tooth , and his teeth appeared as if bound with gold. That island of his was called Butuan and Calagan."
-- Pigafetta

The other products mentioned as coming from Wakwak/Toupo are very similar to those mentioned as coming from Zabag. Pigafetta states that at Butuan and Calagan was found the finest cinnamon in the world known as caumana. The latter word itself looks like a possible ultimate etymological source for "cinnamon" which is derived directly from the Hebrew kinamon.

In the earliest mention of Toupo in the Funan tu su luan of Kang-Tai the pronunciation is Toubak which happens to be same as the old name for the kingdom of Cotabato in the southern Philippines.

Although medieval writings up to Pigafetta describe homes and buildings decorated with gold, great cities seem to be lacking. I Ching describes Foshi, which may be the same as Sanfotsi, as a "fortified town." Muslim writers also describe the location of the Zabag king's palace as a "town." This palace though seems to have been imposing and its legend may have survived to the time of the Age of Exploration.

The king of Zabag was said to have a very heavy crown of gold and jewels, and also to have a golden image of himself for posterity. Offerings of gold vessels were made by the people to this image. This collection of gold was in the form of a shrine known as the "Mountain of Gold and Silver."

The description of the homes in Toupo given by the Chinese is positive:

The dwellings are of imposing appearance and painted in greenish tints. Traders going there are put up in visitor's lodges, where food and drink both plentiful and good (are supplied).

-- Chau Ju-Kua

When Pigafetta arrived, he found that the natives of the Philippines were still conducting long-distance trade and that Magellan's crew was conducted to "their boats where they had their merchandise, which consisted of cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, mace, gold, and other things: and they made us understand by gestures that such articles were to be found in the islands to which they were going."

The Pandanan wreck also gives us an idea of the types of things brought back from these trade journeys. Dated at about 1410, the wreck consisted of 4,722 items stored in seven hull compartments. These were not water-tight compartments and large holes at the bottom of each bulkhead drained bilge water into the bottom of the hull.

More than 70 percent of the cargo consisted of Vietnamese ceramics. Other items included blue and white porcelain wares, celadons and iron cauldrons and gongs.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

The development of Kalacakra

In eastern Asia and various parts of India, particularly in the East and the South, Buddhism and Hinduism began to fuse through the vehicle of Tantra. The texts make clear that the flow of culture was in both directions.

From Tibet, Burma and China, probably known collectively as Mahacina we hear of substantial Tantric influence. The yab-yum philosophy of the Tibetan Bon religion and the related yin-yang doctrine of Taoism are quite evident in Tantric literature including the Mahacinatantra.

The goddess Tara, who was of utmost importance in both Buddhist and Hindu tantrism, shared many similarities to eastern Asian sea goddesses. She was herself the patron deity of seafarers in Tantric tradition.

In Southeast Asia, we see the rise of important Buddhist learning centers. When I Ching visited Foshi in the seventh century, he stated that "the level of the sciences has reached such a state, that one can say all the knowledge of the world flows from this island."

The great Tantric Buddhist teacher Atisha traveled to insular Southeast Asia to study under the master guru Suvarnadvipi.

Tantric forms of Buddhism like Vajrayana and Kalacakra became strongly identified with this region known as Suvarnadvipa "the Golden Isles." This region was part of what what we have described before as Sakadvipa "the Isles of the Saka (Teak) Tree."

These islands form part of the eastern quarter of the world known as Bhadrasva in the Puranic literature. The Sita River was the great river of Bhadrasva and was said also to be one of the rivers of Sakadvipa. The kingdom of Shambhala was said to lie on the north side of this river.

The region was famed as fragrant with the scent of cloves and rich in gold and other precious metals. The The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea a first century Greek work on Indian Ocean trade mentions the commerce between the markets at the mouth of the Ganges and Chryse "the Gold Isle" the very farthest land to the East.

Among the products from Chryse was said to be the finest tortoise shell in all the Indian Ocean trade. Reports of near-by gold mines are also mentioned. The Chryse merchants apparently used "very large" ships known in the text as colandia.

The Tantric doctrine of Kalacakra will play an important role in the history of this area beginning in about the 8th or 9th century. The Kalacakra like all Tantras has strong dualistic elements combined with the predominant doctrine of cyclic time. The supreme Kalacakra Deity is, in fact, a sort of personification of time, particularly time as a destroying and hence rejuvenating factor.

In the Kalacakra doctrine we see a very strong emphasis on messianism and end-times prophecy linked specifically with the kingdom of Shambhala. This was at a time when the Dragon and Bird Clan was maybe at its highest height but also preparing to face its greatest challenge.

A Tibetan representation of the kingdom of Shambhala

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Back East

We will leave Europe for now and go back east to India. It was to here, as we have mentioned, that the Nusantao merchants brought their goods for distribution to points beyond on the Clove Route.

Good relations with India would have been important especially for the Dragon and Bird Clan who mostly controlled this northern route as opposed to the southern transoceanic Cinnamon Route. The gradual migration of Indian religious influences into Southeast Asia helped foster good relations.

While it is difficult to gauge when these influences began, by the time of the Chinese traveler Fahsien in the 5th century, the influece was apparently strongly established. Fahsien mentions that in Ye-po-ti an island on the last leg of the journey from India to China, he found a form of Brahminism in practice. When I Ching traveled to India and back a few centuries later, he found at Foshi, again the last stop from India to China, that Buddhism was flourishing instead .

Indeed, there are some who believe that the syncretic forms of belief that combined Hindu worship of Siva and the Sun together with Buddhism originated in Southeast Asia and were carried back to India.

I suggest in one of my articles that the location known as Sakadvipa to the Indians was in Southeast Asia. In Hindu texts, Sakadvipa is associated strongly with Sun worship.

Indeed, in insular Southeast Asia we find that Siva is combined with local manifestations of the Sun god. Solar worship was and is widespread among indigenous religions of this region and also beyond into the Pacific. Forms of Siva such as Batara Guru and Maharaja Dewa (Mahadewa) are closely identified with the Sun in local forms of Hinduism or Kebatinan, and even in the genie lore of Muslims.

Apparently people from Sakadvipa also migrated to India forming the caste known today as the Sakadwipi brahmins. These Sakadwipis are dispersed mainly in eastern India where we also find syncreticism of Sun and Siva worship as in the Bhairava sect. Orissa on the eastern coast, in particular, becomes a center of Sun worship and pilgrims often visit to worship at Sun temples here.

One of the specific forms of solar worship was to bathe in the sea or to meditate in the forest (vana) and this was recommended especially to be done in Orissa.

The Sakadwipi brahmins became established mainly in Bihar, Bengal and Orissa, and from these places migrated to other regions. This occured during a time of significant recorded contact between East India and Suvarnadvipa (insular Southeast Asia). Specifically we know that Gauda and Varman kings of Bengal were said to have brought Sakadwipi brahmins into their courts. The Sakadwipis of today are often of the Sakta sect, which worships the goddess in the form of the spouse of Siva. They generally are held in low esteem by brahmins who claim North Indian origin (Pancha Gauda).

However, at one time they were leaders in the fields of astronomy and ayurvedic medical sciences. Even today, many are found practicing traditional astrology and healing.

The Sakadwipis are located where Siva/Sakti worship combines with Sun worship as in northern Bihar where the Chhath Sun festival is still of great importance. Here one encounters many syncretic temples combining Siva/Sakti images with those of the Sun god.

Sakadwipis were apparently very important in the astronomical circles around Magadha and latter in Avanti. The great astronomer Varahamihira was a Sakadwipi. It was during the period starting around the fifth century that we see a real flourishing of astronomy and geography in India.

One important feature of this astronomy/geography is found in the relation of the place known as Yamakoti or "Yama's peak." As mentioned previously, Yama is the Indian god of death and the Underworld. According to the astronomical text Surya Siddhanta we find from Lanka "at a quadrant of the earth's circumference eastward, in the clime Bhadrasva, is the city famed as Yamakoti, having the walls and gateways of gold."

Bhadrasva is the eastern region in the Puranas fed by the Sita, the river which also happens to be linked with both Sakadvipa and Shambhala.

Varahamihira states that when it is midnight in Yamakoti, it is sunset in Lanka and midday in Romaka, which refers either to Rome or Alexandria. If we accept Romaka as the latter, then Yamakoti would be roughly at the same meridian as Mt. Pinatubo.

Lanka is said to be on the same longitude as present-day Ujjain or at about 75° East longitude. Alexandria is at about 30° East and Pinatubo is at about 120° East, so they are both separated by about 45 degrees from Lanka.

Of course, 45 degrees is only one half of a quadrant of the earth's circumference. Rome would be much closer to a quadrant although still far off the mark.

We should note that Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy of Alexandria tend to give similar indications in respect to longitude. If you remember, we mentioned that when Magellan landed in the Philippines he was heading for the port known as Cattigara.

In Ptolemy's Geographia, we find that Alexandria, Cattigara and the approximate location as best we can determine of Ujjain, are about proportionately equidistant from one another.


A medieval rendition of Ptolemy's world map by Girolamo Ruscelli in 1561

Marinus of Tyre states that the distance from the Fortunate Isles (Canary-Madiera Islands) to Cattigara was 230 degrees. The actual distance is about half that amount. Thus, both the Indian and Greek astronomers appear to overestimate distance in degrees by the same amount at least a these long ranges.

If Yamakoti mentioned by the Indian astronomers coincides fairly well with the Cattigara of the Greeks and Magellan, then we can see the Mt. Pinatubo would definitely be a good candidate for "Yama's Peak."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

Burgess, Rev. E.(trans), Gangooly, P.(ed.), The Surya Siddhanta: A Text-Book of Hindu Astronomy: Motilal Banarsida Publishers Private Ltd., Delhi, India, 1860 (reprinted in 1935 and 1989).

Varahamihira, Panchasiddhantika, Translated by G. Thibaut and Mahamahopadhyaya Sudhakara Dvivedi. Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1889.

Dolmens II

The dolmens of the world tend to lack any of the markings of the more established religions. Even the more specific known symbols of the pre-Christian religions of Europe rarely find a place on the dolmens. These monuments and other megaliths though do have carvings and other marks quite commonly and the meanings of these symbols has fueled much speculation.

To sort this out we can explore the traditions connected with the European megalithic sites. As noted, the greatest monuments often have only relatively late notices in the literature. Stonehenge is first mentioned only in 1135 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The impressive ruins of Carnac despite rather detailed early descriptions of the surroundng area are only related in 1779 by Sauvagère in Recueil d'Antiquités dans les Gaules who attributes them mistakenly to the Romans.

However, it may be through the folklore linked with these monuments that we can work back and connect with the more ancient literature. In northern Europe, the dolmens and other megaliths are often associated with fairies, elves and other folkloric peoples or creatures. These mythological beings may at one time have been real cultures that over the centuries or millennia became transformed through the telling of tradition.

In the medieval literature, these peoples play a rather distinct role and are often associated with faraway mystical places. In the chansons de geste, Arthurian cycles and other romantic epics, the fairies are linked with the lush paradisical place called the "island of apples" or Avalon.

A land of apples is also found in earlier Greek and Norse myths. In the Greek versions, this place is located "beyond the river Oceanus at the outer limits of the world." As mentioned earlier, the river Oceanus was seen as existing both to the west and to the east. This could be either according to the astronomical view of a globular world or to the popular and medieval one of a flat circular world.

"As for Okeanos, the Greeks say that it flows around the whole world from where the sun rises, but they cannot prove that this is so." - Herodotus 4.8.1

"The unending flow and ebb of Tethys, of the sacred flood of Okeanos fathomless-rolling, of the bounds of Earth that wearieth never of her travail, of where the Sun-steeds leap from orient waves." - Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.115

"[The] rivers [of the world] are many, and mighty, and diverse, and there are four principal ones, of which the greatest and outermost is that called Okeanos, which flows round the earth in a circle; and in the opposite direction flows Akheron, which passes under the earth through desert places." -Plato Phaedo 112E

"The root-fixt bed of refluent Okeanos surrounds the circle of the world and its four divided parts, girdling the whole earth coronet- wise with encircling band." –Dionysiaca 2.247

The golden apples of the Garden of Hesperides were a gift from Gaea during the wedding of Zeus and Hera, have been located in many places including Africa and America. The golden apples in many ways resemble the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden. The tree possessing these apples was said to be guarded by a serpent or dragon sometimes called Ladon.

The serpent Ladon protecting the golden apples

Earlier I mentioned that the forbidden fruit of the Bible has often been equated with the banana. Could this also be the case with the "golden apples." The tree was cared for by the sisters known as the Hesperides. As one of his labors, Hercules went to fetch the golden apples and came to a land known as Hyperborea.

The country of Hyperborea was said to be located in the far north beyond the north wind or the Boreas in Greek (Latin Aquilon).

However, like Avalon, Hyperborea was described as a lush warm paradise where the natives ran naked and carefree. Abaris, a Hyperborean priest, was said to have carried a magic arrow and is linked with the founding of magic and shamanist traditions in Greece and also to a particular school of medicine. It was said that the Sun was worshipped here in the form of Apollo, and both Kronus and Leto, the grandfather and mother of Apollo were stated to have come from Hyperborea.

It was here that Hercules finds Atlas or in some versions Prometheus. Interestingly, Titans alone seemed to know the way to the mystical Garden of the Hesperides.

The Norse myth of Iðunn also mentions golden apples and contains the following motifs: 1) The tree's fruit provides eternal youth to the gods of Asgard, 2) Loki takes the form of a bird to steal Iðunn and the golden apples, 3) Loki and Thor hide the apples in the belly of the Midgard serpent.

You may notice here the combination of the tree, the bird and the serpent that we discussed earlier.

Vennemann believes the Hesperides are linked with North Africa and that even that the name is of Afro-Asiatic origin. He has suggested pre-Indo-European peoples like the Picts and the Scandinvian Vanirs were Afro-Asiatic speakers.

However, like Avalon, the Hesperides and Hyperborea are linked in some ways with voyages to the north as well as the west. While there is some indication of polar days and nights, these lands are thought of as having warm, even tropical climates.

Could we have here some vague recollection of northern journeys that eventually led to the South Seas as postulated by Hornell and others? In the medieval romances, Ogier the Dane was said to have spent a long time in Avalon where he reportedly made many conquests in the "Indies."

We find later too that Prester John becomes entwined in the romance literature connected, for example, with Parzival and Ogier, often with the further geographical link of the Indies. We will discuss this in greater detail later on in the blog.

Vennemann has also suggested that the word "apple" was borrowed into Indo-European from Afro-Asiatic 'abol "genitals." However, Pedersen notes that the apple words like those for "river bank," i.e., German uber and Welsh aber, show an alternation between the letters "a" and "u" and he believes this may be related to Austronesian influence.

Of the symbols found on the megaliths, one of the most common is the cup mark. Monuments in Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Europe, India and other regions all display, often profusely, these concave etchings.

Oppenheimer notes that in Sumatra and eastern Indonesia, these cup marks are found in parallel rows in a pattern similar to a Mancala board game (Sungka in the Philippines). In fact, these cup etchings are actually used to play this Indo-Pacific-wide game locally. Similar patterns have been found on megaliths in Turkey and East Africa, and amongst the rock carvings of Scandinavia. That a game would be played on a sacred tomb should not be thought of as strange. In many ancient cultures, ancestral tombs were looked at as not less than a home away from home, where family activities such as eating and playing were encouraged.

Other cup marks seem to represent something else entirely and are often shown with surrounding concentric rings. In the view of the dragon and bird clan, these symbols might represent the holy volcano in a Mt. Meru design with the concave cup symbolizing the volcanic crater.

Megalithic cup and ring marking from Achnabreck, Scotland

Megalithic cup and ring marking from Ballochmyle, Scotland

In some cases, these cup markings are connected by grooves that follow the natural contours of the stone. They have been thought of in many ways to include outlines of tomb structures and representations of constellations. Some believe the groove system is designed to help drain water off the rock although this is usually not obvious. It may be that the builders saw the stone's contours as a representation of a natural landscape and that the grooves represented water ways leading from one mountain (cup mark) to another.

The early Greeks divided history into different ages of which the first was the Golden Age. During this period, Kronus ruled over the Titans, the Golden Race, in Hyperborea also sometimes described as the "Saturnian isle." After the volcanic overthrow of the Titans, the Golden Age continued in the mysterious otherworldly "Isles of the Blessed." The period was known as one of innocence and natural living.

Plato writing in Cratylus notes that the Golden Race were also known as "demons" although the meaning of that word was different in earlier times. Referring to Hesiod, he states:

And therefore I have the most entire conviction that he called them demons, because they were daemones (knowing or wise), and in our older Attic dialect the word itself occurs. Now he and other poets say truly, that when a good man dies he has honour and a mighty portion among the dead, and becomes a demon; which is a name given to him signifying wisdom. And I say too, that every wise man who happens to be a good man is more than human (daimonion) both in life and death, and is rightly called a demon.

Hesiod described the early Golden Race as "holy demons upon the earth, Beneficent, averters of ills, guardians of mortal men."

It is probably not by coincidence that the word "demon" has come to refer to the "fallen angels" of Biblical lore.

Indeed we have shown that the fallen angel camp "ruled" first through their willingness to exploit the trade routes without moral reservation. However, the eruptions and corresponding alliance of the dragon and bird clans allowed for the "overthrow" of the old regime and their expulsion from "Eden."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

On the folklore of the megaliths

Evans-Wentz, W. Y., The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, 1911.

Dumézil, Georges, “The Gods: Aesir and Vanir,” in Gods of the Ancient Norsemen 3-25 (1973).

MacRitchie, David. Ancient and Modern Britons : A Retrospect, W. Preston, 1986 (reprint).


On Vennemann's and related theories

Linguistic abstracts, http://www.germanistik.uni-muenchen.de/theoretische_linguistik/vennemann.html#abstracts

Dolmens

The worldwide distribution of megaliths has spawned theories of a megalithic culture that spanned the globe at some early epoch. Grafton Elliot Smith was among the first to speculate on such hyperdiffusion.

The concept of moving or raising large stones for purposes ranging from marking boundaries to building tombs is natural enough to have risen independently in many cultures. However, one type of megalith does attract our attention.

The dolmen tomb occurs over a wide distribution in an arrangement that does not lead one to think of independent origin. The dolmen often occurs as a "stone table" consisting of a massive flat capstone lying horizontally on smaller upright stones acting as "table legs."

What make the dolmen unusual is that it usually is found surrounded by a mound or tumulus. Underneath the dolmen, one will again usually find a stone cist containing one or more burials. A large hole in one of the rocks, apparently symbolic in nature, will also be associated with the dolmen. The Marquis of Nadaillac commented on the unlikely possibility of this occuring independently:

We can understand how men were everywhere impelled to raise mounds above the bodies of their ancestors, to perpetuate their memory or to enclose their mortal remains between flat stones to save them from being crushed by the weight of earth above them. We may even, by straining a point, admit the idea that a large cist developed into a dolmen, but when in districts separated by enormous distances we see monuments with the wall pierced with a circular opening or combining an interior crypt with an external mound and dolmen, it is impossible to look upon these close resemblances as the result of an accidental coincidence, and equally impossible to fail to conclude that the men whose funeral rites were remarkable for such close similarity belonged to the same race.

Dolmens in Europe and eastern Asia appear divided mainly into Neolithic and Bronze Age categories. In some cases, iron is found in these tombs but often along with evidence that this metal was deposited only long after the dolmen was erected. This is different than in other areas such as India where megalithic burials are often associated with iron. Heine-Geldern thus thought there were two "waves" of megalith builders in Europe and Southeast Asia who were in fact linked.

The strongest evidence that would suggest the dolmen builders of Europe came from far away in the East is found in the megalithic fields of France. Here burials with jade, nephrite and jadeite (chloromelanite) hatchets and celts have been found.

Jade is not found in Europe and turns up only very far to the east. There is a difference of opinion on nephrite and jadeite. Some limited deposits have been found of both although most experts tend to agree that jadeite was probably imported from an eastern source. Nephrite deposits have been found with workshops in proximity although without evidence that the deposits had ever been worked.

The strongest argument against local mining of these minerals is that their use totally disappears after the megalithic age. Like the hard-fired pottery of Neolithic Iraq and Syria, and the early lashed-lug boats of Scandinavia, the jade tools vanish either due to the loss of a culture or to a lost trading source.

We know as a fact that with the rise of urban China, jade and nephrite became increasingly harder to obtain outside of that country. For example, in the Philippines, the situation with nephrite shows clear signs that the supply diminished over time.

We find jade, nephrite and jadeite tools also among the pile dwellings or "Lake Stations" of neolithic Switzerland. Remains from this culture included perforated clay spindle whorls and net sinkers similar to those found in the neolithic shell mound cultures much further east. The Lake Stations are naturally linked with the nearby pile dwellings of northern Italy.

The dolmen burials also contained tools made of fibrolite, another material not native to Europe, and Indo-Pacific cowries.

The neolithic Shandong and related coastal Korean cultures raised dolmens. Indeed, Korea has more dolmens than all the rest of the world combined. Today, the peoples of Sulawesi and Sumba in eastern Indonesia continue to build dolmen tombs although with some modern touches.

The traditional dolmens of this region often were combined with carved totemic menhirs.

In both Europe and Southeast Asia we find evidence in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of the cult of the axe. Blades with no signs of wear are found, often in large numbers, as burial items. Sometimes these tools appear purposely broken as if due to some form of ritual.

The mounds associated with dolmens can be either artificial or natural, and some of the former are massive having circumferences of thousands of feet and standing over 170 feet high. They remind us of similarly expansive shell mounds that were also used for burial.

In many ways, the dolmen resembles also the houses, and at times, semisubterranean houses built on mounds in the northern regions. The hole found in many of these monuments may represent an opening allowing the souls interned to exit the structure. However, it has also been theorized that dolmens were used to bury entire families using secondary internment, and that dessicated skeletons were placed through the opening. Often the local folklore connected with dolmens views them as homes made by little people, or by giants for little people.


Dolmen with opening from India

Also of interest is the fact that the megaliths of Europe though extensive and spectacular in scale are hardly mentioned at all by the ancient Greek and Roman writers, or even by early medieval chroniclers. They certainly were known as there is abundant evidence especially of Roman intrusion into these monuments. However, it was almost as the memory of these structures was thought to be better forgotten.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Architectural motifs

One can see similarities in architecture and motifs over these vast areas that seems to indicate rather continuous contacts. The interaction was probably linked with the Nusantao trade activity to some extent.

One example is the stave church of the north. Built in a manner similar to Viking ships with all wood joints and no nails. The tongue and groove method is employed. They resemble to a great extent Batak traditional architecture. The stave church is suspended on a low post base protected from soil rot by placement on stones. In the same way, the piles of a Batak home are placed on stones.

Both tend to be tiered and decorated with finials. The frames are pre-fabricated with the rest of the structure then built over the frames.


Model of Batak home


Fantoft stave church, Norway





The decorative motives in northern Europe going back at least to early Pictish times included the strong use of spirals and serpent/dragon coils. We see these also in the east starting at least by the Jomon and Neolithic periods.

The Picts also built houses on piles like the early pile dwellings of Italy, and some of these were suspended over water. The name "pict" refers to the tattoos painted over the entire body by these people.


Serpentine design from Urnes stave church

Borgun stave church

Batak house

Batak house during World War II

Beams of Batak house

Maori taihu canoe prow

Maori taurapa

Gold neck rings, Celtic La Tene culture

Jomon design

Jomon markings

Maori tattoo

Dragon coil on Dongson axe

The "Pictish Beast" entwined from Scotland

Recreation of a Pictish crannog home


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Corded Ware and the Terramara

The Battle Axe folk are also known as the Corded Ware Culture after the cord-marked pottery that suddenly appears around the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition period.

Although scenarios vary, the Battle Axe people have been suggested as non-Indo-European speakers who are invaded or otherwise amalgamate with an early Indo-European folk described as Nordwestblock.

The resulting culture is, in turn, invaded by or met with migrations from Proto-Germanic speaking people.

Cord-marked pottery appears very early far to the east in Asia. In fact, the earliest pottery in the world is that of the Jomon of Japan. The name "jomon" refers to the use of cord-markings. Possibly this practice influenced the later corded horizon in Southeast Asia, which also has relationship to the Hoabinhian tradition.


Distribution of Corded Ware Culture

Among the reconstructions for "jar" in Austronesian are *kundu which appears related to *kundu "gourd." Dempwolff reconstructs *kenD(ih) "pitcher, water jar," and Hayes has Proto-Austric *(kEn)zeh "pitcher".

Pedersen offers the following list of possibly related words:

from Danish Etymological Dictionary:

kanna "pitcher" Old Norse
kande id. Danish
kanne id. Norwegian
kanna id. Swedish
kanna id. Old Saxon
either
loan from
canna "reed, tube; flute" Latin
("clay container with spout" > "pitcher")?
cf., with suffix
cana:lis "canal" Latin
loan from
kánna "tube" Greek
loan from
qanu: Babylonian-Assyrian
gin id. Akkadian-Sumerian
or
*gan(dh)- Proto-IndoEuropean
gann "vessel, container" Middle Irish
*gandhna- Proto-IndoEuropean

kani "plate" Old Norse
kane "boat" Danish dial.
"sleigh" Danish
kane id. Norwegian
kane "bowl with handles",
"scoop" Norwegian dial.
kani "boat" Old Swedish
kana type of sleigh Swedish dial.
kani "small wooden bowl",
"trunk, snout",
type of boat Icelandic
kane "boat" Middle Low German
Kahn id. German
kaan id. Dutch

Pedersen feels these words belong to non-Indo-European Nordwestblock as they do not reconstruct clearly into earlier branches:

The restricted number of IE branches that the root occurs in (Celtic, Germanic, Italic) makes one suspicious that it is not IE, but non-IE Nordwestblock (with two other "container" words in the Germanic languages, and , we can be certain they aren't Germanic; roots in Germanic of the form CVC where the C's are unvoiced stops (p, t, k, kW), would have to be from PIE roots CVC, where the C's are voiced stops (b, d, g, gW), but such roots do not occur in PIE. Further the /a/ of the Latin word makes it likely it was borrowed into Latin too. In my opinion the root can be accounted for much more easily by assuming it travelled as a loanword from SEAsia to Europe.

The natural frozen mummy known as Ötzi found in the Italian Alps and dating to this period might be related to this culture. The pile dwellings or terramarra of northern Italy have been linked with the shell mounds further north. They are also known as pile-middens. Like shell middens, pile-middens are mounds of accumulated rubbish.

The pile dwelling settlements were protected by plank-fortified earthen walls with a moat on the inner side, and the homes built on dry land. The earthen fortress was divided into four parts and usually located near a stream.


Recreation of a terramara

Settlements of nearly exactly the same type are constructed to this day in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (New Guinea). The earthen embankments are strengthened by logs, and middens accumulate under the pile-dwellings just as in early Italy. Even the height of the piles is usually the same. They are built over both dry land and over water.

Ötzi wore a loincloth but had plenty of other clothing to keep warm including leggings, insulated shoes, a bear-skin hat, a skin jerkin and a cape of linden tree bark fibers and feathers. He also had birch bark containers which he used to carry live embers. His stone axe was quadrangular in cross-section. His body had what may have been medicinal tattoos.

Most interestingly though, Ötzi wore barkcloth gauntlets!

Mummy of Ötzi

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

The Torc and the Valknut

The chaining of Prometheus was part of the overall conflict between Zeus and the gods versus the Titans.

According to Hesiod, when the gods overthrew the Titans the forests were set ablaze and the oceans "seethed and boiled." Homer states that Zeus "had also thrust great Cronos down beneath earth and the restless sea" banishing him to Tartaros, the Underworld.

In Greek myth, when volcanoes erupt they reveal the Titans or Giants imprisoned by Zeus beneath the earth.

The conflict in many ways parallels that between the good and bad angels in Hebrew lore with the Titans playing the role of teachers who lead humanity toward their downfall.

In Northern Europe we sometimes find the division of the banks of a river in a manner similar to that found in Austronesia. At Skelbæk, on the Kongeå in Denmark, for example, bronze age mounds are found on one side of the river while homes and agriculture are found on the other.

Torsten Pedersen also believes that the European root for "brother" is related to the word for "to bear, carry," and might be related to relationships that existed on opposite sides of a river i.e., someone who bears something across the river. This could be something in exchange for a spouse or even the spouse him/herself. Linguistic links between Austronesian and Indo-European have long been recognized although at one time they were considered genetic relationships.

Franz Bopp, often called the "father of Indo-European," and Sir William Jones, the person who first suggested a link between European languages and Sanskrit, were two early researchers who thought the Malayo-Polynesian languages and European ones were genetically related. Pedersen's research shows that these links do indeed seem valid but as borrowings rather than inheritance.

Another interesting parallel that we find in these regions separated by half the globe involves the grisly practice of human sacrifice. As noted earlier, this ritual often pops up when we see signs of sharp social stratification. In many cases it is involved directly with funerary rites and in latter times often occurs in state or community rituals.

An artifact linked with this practice is the neck ring or torc. On the island of Nias they make elaborate neck rings, which like the ancient European ones, were plaited with fiber and metal, in this case with coconut fiber and brass.

Traditionally the neck rings or kalabubu were worn only by those who had killed one of the enemy. Tacticus mentioned that the Chatti wore 'iron collars' until they had killed someone in battle.

Oppenheimer following Frazer notes that in Scandinavia the torcs were used for ritual killings. In offerings to Odin, the victims were hung and then stabbed with a spear.

Frazer notes a similar custom in the Philippines in a fertility ritual were the victim is hung and then finished off with a spear to the side. The analogy to the Crucifixion is striking.

The torcs found on peat bog mummies at Lindow, Borromese and Tolland were fashioned into triple knots resembling the valknut motif.


Celtic god Cerunnos wearing and holding neck ring on Gundestrap Cauldron


Ancestor image with neck ring from Nias (EITE)

Although the symbolism of the valknut is not well-known it is believed that it may represent death and it has been connected with the Nornir, the three sisters of fate who weave the destinies of humans. The valknut motif is often represented by three interlinked triangles or by knots forming triangular lattices.

The triangular form is similar to the method of three-way weaving found widely distributed in Austronesia and used for extensively for a variety of purposes from constructing homes to making stick maps. The sipa or takraw a wicker ball used from Thailand to the Philippines is a good example of the three-node weaving pattern. Having twenty nodes with six great circles and eighty triangulated surfaces, the sipa maximizes compression when using tensile materials.

Bunkminster Fuller believed three-way weaving was conceived in Austronesia as a means of imparting tensile strength to flexible wooden structures. In comparision to grid-pattern weaving and structures that tend to collapse, the three-node structure has much greater "bend."

Knots as symbols were used commonly in Austronesia particularly in divination. As noted earlier knots were also used to keep records, and the trigrams created by the legendary Fu Hsi may have originated in knots used to keep weather records by the Dong Yi.

The sipa or takraw three-node wicker ball

The Fenrir wolf bound in a valknut

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento