Rusun (Glossary)

Rusun is the Japanese name used for the kingdom of Lusung on the island known today as Luzon in the Philippines. It is also rendered as Roson, Rokusan, Roxon, Ruson, etc.

Arai Hakuseki's narrative on the captivity of Pere Sidotti written in 1710 states:

"...Roxon from the time of the So and Gen until now being written Roson, jars that have come from that country are thought convenient by my countrymen to keep tea in, and the name Roson jars is understood by every one..."

The So and Gen mentioned by Hakuseki are the Sung and Yuan dynasties of China. Certainly by the early Muromachi period of Japan (1334—1467), imported tea pottery from the Namban or "Southern Barbarian" regions including Rusun was popular among the upper classes.

It could be argued though that Japan had much longer relations with the South if we conclude that the location of the Fusang Tree in Chinese tradition was found in Southeast Asia, or specifically in Rusun/Luzon. Most of the notices of travel to the location of the Fusang Tree use the kingdom of Wa, the ancient Chinese name for Japan, as a reference point, including the time of sailing from Japan to that southern region.

Also, Japanese legends of fairy lands like Yominokuni, Nenokuni and Tokoyonokuni are linked in the literature with the Chinese locations of the Fusang Tree, the Land of Yellow Springs and Penglai (Horaisan), which were generally envisioned as somewhere beyond the Southeastern Sea of Chinese texts.

This might explain why the tea jars and canisters of Rusun came to be so highly-valued aside from any practical qualities they may have possessed. It was from the earth of a sacred mountain on one of these fairy lands that the Emperor Jimmu was told to make sacred sacrifical jars during his military expeditions.

Japanese legend tells of ancient people from southern Kyushu like the Hayato or "Falcon People" who were a type of dog-man folk said to bark (inugoe) like dogs. Eventually in their role as an imperial guard caste they formally dressed like dogs and performed dog barking rituals to drive away malevolent spirits from the court, or to announce the arrival of the Emperor across provincial borders.

Another people from southern Kyushu, cousins of the Hayato, are said to have sailed to their home along the Kurushio Current. It was this "Black Tide" that brought people from the fairy lands to the Ryukyus and Japan. The Japanese might have retained knowledge of the location of this ancient region, or they just might have surmised the location later as the Kuroshio Current passes along the eastern coast of Luzon.

Rusun and Japanese Christianity

It might come as a surprise to many that Japan's "Hidden Christians" (Kakure Kirishitan) came to view Mary and Jesus as natives of Rusun, as well making Mary the wife of the King of Rusun after giving birth to Jesus!

However this is exactly what is relayed in the Tenchi no Hajimari no Koto "Beginning of Heaven and Earth," the gospel of the Kakure Kirishitan probably first printed in 1823, from earlier oral texts. The oral traditions continued even after the printed form came into being.

There have been various explanations as to why the Christian gospel would be partly localized in Rusun as well as ethnologized to the people of Rusun. The most obvious explanation to this author is the connection with the indigenous Japanese concepts of heavenly "other worlds" like Takamagahara, which they located to the south along the Kuroshio Current.

In the Tenchi, Maruya (Mary) is born in Rusun (Roson), where she eventually comes to be courted by the King of Rusun. However, as she has vowed to remain a virgin, she refuses his advances and instead ascends into Heaven. The king dies of a broken heart, and Mary is asked by God (Deusu) to return to earth so she can bear him as a child. She agrees and on one night Deusa descends in the form of a butterfly and enters the mouth of Maruya, who immediately conceives. She then undertakes a long quest to Bethlehem (Beren) where she gives birth to the child and the story connects somewhat at this time with the orthodox version.

Later, the Holy Mother Maruya asks Deusa to save the King of Rusun, which he does giving the king the title of Zejusu, and marrying Maruya and the King.

The lofty position of Maruya agrees with that of indigenous Japanese belief in Amaterasu. Maruya's ascent into Heaven could derive from the ascent of Amaterasu to Takamagahara "Plain of the High Heaven" where she bears the ancestors of the imperial family with her brother Susanoo.

Interestingly most of the Christian converts in Japan were natives of Kyushu with its traditional ties to the South. When the persecution of Japanese Christians broke out, many fled to Luzon and other parts of the Philippines where many of the missionary orders and groups in Japan were based. Those who stayed behind became the Kakure Kirishitan community of hidden Christians.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Arai, Hakuseki and W.B. Wright (translator). "The capture and captivity of Giovanni Batista Sidotti in Japan from 1709 to 1715," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Asiatic Society of Japan, 1874, pgs. 156-72.

Hooker, Richard. Jimmu Tenno, http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCJAPAN/JIMMU.HTM, 1996.

Seattle Art Museum. International Symposium on Japanese Ceramics: Transcript, Seattle Art Museum. 1973, p. 172.

Whelan, Christal. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: the sacred book of Japan's hidden Christians, University of Hawaii Press, 1996.

Japanese Fairy Lands (Article)

I have agreed in this blog for the most part with Wilhelm Solheim's theory that the Yayoi rice culture and people came to Japan following Nusantao trade and exploration routes.

Japanese linguists have for decades uncovered significant Austronesian influence, mostly interpreted as specifically Malayo-Polynesian influence, in the Japanese language. If we accept Solheim's views that the transfer of Yayoi culture to Japan was a gradual process that took several thousands of years, we must wonder if Japanese mythology and legendary history conveys any information on the Nusantao past.

The "other worlds" of Japanese mythology often double as foreign countries in Japanese literature. The most important were known as Takamagahara "Plain of the High Heaven," Nenokuni (also Yominokuni) "Root Country (or 'Motherland') and Tokoyonokuni "Eternal Land."

Since the Meiji Era, Japanese scholars have attempted to connect these fairylands with known foreign geography.

All these locations are associated with the ocean and long sea voyages in the direction of the South. Furthermore in Okinawa and the Ryukyus, these lands are known by names like Niraikanai, Nirai, Nira, Niza, etc. depending on the location. Again, the semi-mythical locations are said placed in the ocean requiring a long journey and tend to be located toward the South.

In Japan, the southernmost tip of Kyushu, the lands associated with the ancient Kumaso and Hayato tribes were the traditional departure point and port of entry for journeys to and from the "other worlds."

Japanese scholars have sought locations for these lands from Melanesia to South China, Taiwan, Tibet and Korea.

Plain of High Heaven

Takamagahara is the sacred land from where Ninigi, the ancestor of Emperor Jimmu, came to land in southern Kyushu.

Ninigi is connected with the southern Kumaso and Hayato peoples, despite the fact that the Yamato Dynasty later has trouble pacifying their southern lands. One of Ninigi's sons is described as the ancestor of the Hayato people of southern Kyushu.

The Kumaso tribe was closely related to the Hayato or "Falcon People" and appear to have preceded Ninigi in Kyushu. Legend states that the Kumaso came to Kyushu on the Kuroshio or "Black Current" (Japan Current). They are described as having tattoed bodies, shields decorated with hair and bamboo hats.

Ninigi, like the visitors or Marebito from Niraikanai to the Ryukyus, was associated closely with rice agriculture, believed from the archaeological standpoint to have been brought by the Yayoi people. According to Japanese tradition at least, it was not until the day of the Empress Jingo and her expedition to Korea in 200 CE, that imperial influences begin to flow from that country and also from China, either directly to Japan or through Korea.

One might connect the earliest indigenous state culture in Japan with the Kofun burial mounds, the earliest ones generally showing little sign of Chinese or Korean imperial influence. Most of the art at these mounds belong to the animistic Shinto or proto-Shinto tradition.

The three sacred imperial regalia -- the mirror, sword and curved jade jewel (magatama) -- all date back to the Yayoi or Jomon periods. Authentic magatama jewels have been found at Jomon sites. The sword has been linked to Jomon phallic stones and the earliest bronze swords in Japan are probably of Korean origin and date back to the end of the early Yayoi period. However, ritual swords of Japanese origin appear also in the Yayoi era. Mirrors of Chinese and Korean origin date from the Middle Yayoi and probably were soon manufactured locally.


The Ise Shrine housing the sacred imperial mirror relic shows signs of Austronesian-like architecture.


The Atsuta Shrine where the sacred imperial sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi is kept.

Yayoi culture dates at least to about 500-400 BCE, although some of the latest AMS datings suggest it could go back as far as 900 BCE. The latter date would correspond to the traditional dating of Ninigi's voyage to Kyushu, while tradition gives a date of 660 BCE for Jimmu Tenno, the first emperor.

In northern Kyushu, Yayoi burials consist of internment in large jars and stone cist graves, a practice probably derived directly from Korea, but indirectly related to Nusantao movements from further south according to Solheim.

Although there is little archaeological evidence of the existence of a state in the Yayoi period, Chinese texts tell of kingdoms in Wa, the early Chinese name for Japan, dating back to Yayoi times.

Eternal Land and Motherland

Japanese scholar Yanagita Kunio suggested that Nenokuni was a type of Japanese "Motherland" from which early Japanese migrated to Japan. The ne in Nenokuni means "root" and Yanagita has suggested that this refers to the starting-place of these early migrations. He has proposed that the same root is present in the Ryukyu word nirai as in Nirai-kanai and related terms.

Yanagita equated Nenokuni with another placename in early literature, Tokoyonokuni "Eternal Land" and both often are often portrayed as submarine or subterranean underworlds in addition as well as foreign countries. In the Nihonshoki, the word for Tokoyonokuni is rendered with the characters used for Mount Horaisan, the Japanese equivalent of China's eternal Penglai island, with the literal spelling placed in translineal kana.

Yominokuni is another name for Nenokuni, and it corresponds to the Chinese Huangquan "Yellow Springs," the underground river that rises to the surface at the foot of the Fusang Tree.

In the reign of Emperor Suinin, Tajima Mori ventures to Tokoyonokuni and upon returning in the first year of Emperor Keiko he brings back the Tachibana or mandarin orange tree. These lands are also the home of the palace of the Dragon King of the Sea who is visited by the Empress Jingo, Urashima and others according to tradition.

Marebito

The Marebito were "Sacred Visitors" connected with the festivities of the new year. They appear to preserve memories of ancient ancestors who came to the isles long ago.

In the Ryukyus and other parts of Japan, actors play the part of the Marebito visitors from across the sea. Like the ancient Kumaso, the Marebito and their equivalents in other regions were known as good dancers. Bands of singers, minstrels and dancers go from house to house during new year celebrations to bring good luck, especially for the rice harvest.

Some Japanese scholars have suggested that both the emperor and the outcaste class can be seen as descendents of the Marebito as types of "Sacred Visitors." In Japan, the actors who play the role of Marebito traditionally belong to the outcaste group.

Also, rice culture in Japan is connected with Ninigi, the imperial ancestor, who comes as a stranger from Takamagahara, and in the Ryukyus rice-growing comes with sacred visitors from Niraikanai or its equivalents.

Sacred Jars of Heavenly Mount Kagu

Mount Kagu in Yamato is said to have a heavenly equivalent in Takamagahara known as Amenokaguyama. The Nihongi states that Jimmu Tenno was instructed to take earth from Amenokaguyama to make sacred jars and dishes for a sacrifice to the gods.

Jimmu is said to have instituted the Jar Festivals including the Jar Making Festival in honor of the fire, water, mountain, firewood, moor and of course jar deities.

It is tempting to link the valued Rusun jars of the tea ceremonies of both the emperor and shogun, with the sacred jars made from Amenokaguyama earth/clay in Takamagahara to the south of Japan across the sea. Like many early Japanese pots, the Rusun jars were decorated only with cord markings -- the Nawasudare (cord curtain) and Yokonawa (cross cord).

Like early Yayoi jars, the Rusun wares were unglazed, coarse and of a "rusty iron" color.

Rusun jars were also used for yearly festivals and as imports from across the sea they fulfilled the aspect of the "Sacred Visitor."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Blacker, Carmen. The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, Routledge, 1999.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Culture in Contemporary Japan: an anthropological view, Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 44.

Tsunoda, Ryu-saku , Donald Keene, Wm. Theodore de Bary, William Theodore De Bary. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Columbia University Press, 1964.

'Eastern Quest' in Islam (Article)

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

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

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

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

Sea Crossing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Theosophy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

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

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

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

Riddle of faces on Pacific artifacts

Too bad they don't show pictures of the pottery images.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
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Scientists Solve Riddle Of Mysterious Faces On South Pacific Artifacts
Field Museum


The strange faces drawn on the first pottery made in the South Pacific more than 3,000 years ago have always been a mystery to scientists. Now their riddle may have been solved by new research done by two Field Museum scientists to be published in the February 2007 issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

John Terrell, Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology at the Field Museum, and Esther M. Schechter, a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum, have pieced together evidence of several kinds leading to a radically different understanding of the religious life of people in the South Pacific 3,000 years ago.

What archaeologists working in the Pacific call prehistoric "Lapita" pottery has been found at more than 180 different places on tropical islands located in a broad arc of the southwestern Pacific from Papua New Guinea to Samoa.

Experts have long viewed the faces sometimes sketched by ancient potters on this pottery ware as almost certainly human in appearance, and they have considered them to be a sign that Pacific Islanders long ago may have worshiped their ancestors.

John Terrell, Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology at The Field Museum, and Esther M. Schechter, a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at The Field Museum, have pieced together evidence of several kinds leading to a radically different understanding of the religious life of people in the South Pacific 3,000 years ago. Most of these mysterious faces, they report, may represent sea turtles. Furthermore, these ceramic portraits may be showing us ideas held by early Pacific Islanders about the origins of humankind.

Terrell and Schechter say the evidence they have assembled also shows that these religious ideas did not die when people in the Pacific stopped making Lapita pottery about 2,500 years ago. They have not only identified this expressive symbolism on prehistoric pottery excavated several years ago by Terrell and other archaeologists at Aitape on the Sepik Coast of northern New Guinea, but they have also found this type of iconography on wooden bowls and platters collected at present-day villages on this coast that are now safeguarded in The Field Museum's rich anthropological collections.

Terrell and Schechter's discovery suggests that a folktale recorded by others on this coast in the early 1970s--a story about a great sea turtle (the mother of all sea turtles) and the origins long ago of the first island, the first man, and the first woman on earth--might be thousands of years old. This legend may once have been as spiritually important to Pacific Islanders as the Biblical story of Adam and Eve has been in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

"Nothing we had been doing in New Guinea for years had prepared us for this discovery," Terrell explained. "We have now been able to describe for the first time four kinds of prehistoric pottery from the Sepik coast that when considered in series fill the temporal gap between practices and beliefs in Lapita times and the present day.

"A plausible reason for the persistence of this iconography is that it has referenced ideas about the living and the dead, the human and the divine, and the individual and society that remained socially and spiritually profound and worthy of expression long after the demise of Lapita as a distinct ceramic style," Terrell added.

More research needed

Terrell and Schechter acknowledge that more work must be done to pin down their unexpected discovery. Nevertheless, it now looks like they have not only deciphered the ancient "Lapita code" inscribed on pottery vessels in the south Pacific thousands of yeas ago, but by so doing, may have rescued one of the oldest religious beliefs of Pacific Islanders from the brink of oblivion.

"I was skeptical for a long time about connecting these designs with sea turtles," Schechter said, "but then the conservation biologist Regina Woodrom Luna in Hawaii pointed out that some of the designs match the distinctive beach tracks that a Green sea turtle makes when she is coming ashore to lay her eggs.

"Everything made even more sense when we came across the creation story about a great sea turtle and the first man and woman on earth," she added. "This story comes from a village only 75 miles away from where The Field Museum is working on the same coast of Papua New Guinea."

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Millenarianism (Glossary)

Millenarianism can be defined as the belief in a future period of prosperity, happiness, justice, etc. Such beliefs generally involve the concept of cyclic eras or a linear era of birth, decay and rebirth, the latter following an apocalypse or the 'end of the age.' In some cases, the apocalypse is seen ultimately as the end of the world, or even the end of the physical universe.

Nusantao millenarianism

The cargo cults that erupted throughout the Pacific at the time of European contact were not multiple spontaneous inventions, but derive from reactions based on common inherited cultural concepts of a "return to the source."

We can surmise that Nusantao millenarianism is based on ideas of transmigration, reincarnation and generational cycles.

Heroes foretold to return in the future like Lono in Hawai'i and Lumauig in the Philippines have genealogical significance. Studies of East Indonesian cultures have provided valuable clues to the importance of genealogical history that likely apply to broader Nusantao thought processes.

Genealogies provided not only the timeline for the past but also for the future. Among Formosan and Philippine peoples, five or six successive generations were seen as successive parts of the human body. A body of generational time. These generations could both precede and follow the present one.

Using genealogies, marriages were made aimed at future "return" and "unification." Thus, two lineages might be reunited in the future, carefully avoiding taboos, by planning a series of future "courtships." Ancestral heirlooms could be brought back to their original house using the same strategies.

A lack of documentation and the loss of oral traditions accounts for the lack of specific knowledge of but a few pre-colonial Nusantao millenarian traditions. However, we do know that these thrived throughout the region during colonial times. They could be divided into two types, one Southeast Asian and the other Pacific.

Between these two regions, there were common links like the ideas of "return to the source" and reincarnation. In the Pacific, the emphasis was on "cargo" and the return of the "other" -- the one that had left to cross the "pond" or "river."

Southeast Asian millenarianism was characterized by peasant revolutions and hidden royal and/or priestly lineages. The material counterpart of Pacific cargo was found in magical heirlooms and amulets.

Bergano left a clue to the concept of the apocalypse among ancient Kapampangans in his dictionary entry for sucu: Datang mangga quing sucu "hasta el termino, o duracion de las edades" ('Until the end or duration of the ages'). The author noted though that not much was known anymore about the origin of this concept in his time.

Sucu (Suku), which also means 'time and place,' is the name preserved in Kapampangan folklore tradition for the god of Mount Arayat, with the alternate form of Sinukuan (s-in-uku-an).

Sucu may have been a god of time judging by his name, similar probably to Laon, mentioned by the early Spanish writers as a supreme god of the Bisayans of the central Philippines. The word laon denotes the passage or flow of time.

In Timor, the cycle of rebirth was likened to recurring seasonal patterns. The dead souls first entered the ancestral mountain, and after a time they were taken by ship out to sea. From there they rose into the sky as vapors to form the black rain clouds. When the rain of Heaven mixes with the "milk" of the Earth, new life is born.

The recurring cosmic battles between Sucu and his archrival Mallari of Pinatubo were also likened to the monsoon weather pattern with Mallari bringing the storms from the Sambal mountains. In the end, despite the conflict, the son of Mallari and the daughter of Sucu end up getting married renewing the cycle.

Five Phases

Nusantao in Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo, viewed a succession of five generations as analogous to the feet, knees, waist, elbows and head of the human body (or some similar scheme). This idea of time in relation to the human body may also be found in reconstructions of Austronesian words for "body," "year" and "season."

Oracle Bone Inscriptions from China indicate that the Shang had a ritual cycle of five rites conducted throughout the year in honor of the ancestors. These rites may have been based on the order of the Sifang, a five-part view of the world. This conception probably gave rise to the Wuxing or Five Phases view of cyclic time that arises in the Warring States Period. The ritual Wuxing halls of the Han Dynasty had the same general sifang or ya cruciform character shape as the ancestral tombs of the Shang.

Wuxing regulated the cycles of birth, change and dissolution, and gave rise to the concept of "dynastic cycles."

Aspects of previous cyclic turnover are found in Chinese cosmology. In the Huainanzi, Nuwa kills the flood demon Gonggong after a cataclysm involving the gods of fire and water. After repairing the sky, her husband Fu Hsi, belonging to the dog man theme relevant to other apocalyptic traditions, teaches various arts leading to a new golden age. Although this story has some cosmological aspects, neither Nuwa or Fu Hsi represent the first human populations. Before them Chinese tradition tells of the clan of Suiren, who taught people to build houses on trees, and Youchao who taught the art of making fire.

In the Shangshu, it is Yao rather than Fu Shi who is the first emperor, and it is he who conquers Gonggong and ushers in a new world order. Here Yao, and also the Shang ancestor Di Ku, appear to be forms of Shang-ti, the god connected with both dogs and rice. At that time, according to Sarah Allan, the ti character used with the names Yao and Ku referred specifically to Shang-ti.

Ideas of cyclic dynastic change and the periodic arising of new sage movements were already developed in early Daoism and Confucianism. By about the 2nd century BCE, the belief that the sage Lao Tzu (Laozi) would return at regular intervals as the savior Li Hung arose.

Later in medieval times, these millenarian ideas eventually led to the development of the mixed Buddhist-Daoist concept of Prince Moonlight and the King of Light, who engage in all-out war with the forces of evil.

In Chinese Buddhist texts, especially of the Pureland school, we also find the concept of five 500 years periods or a total of 2500 years of decline from the time of the Buddha.

An interesting comparison can be made between the concept of five generations comprising a "body" of time, and the five Chinese ages/phases, with ideas that arose much further to the West. In the second chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read how that prophet interprets the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in which he saw a great image of a metallic man.

31. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

32. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

33. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

-- Daniel 2

Daniel further interprets the image as representing five successive kingdoms. The difference in value in the metals as one goes from the head to the feet corresponds to a period of decline. These kingdoms, with the exception of the gold head represeting Nebuchadnezzar realm, are all projected into future time. This may be recognized as one of the earliest examples of the popular notion of metallic ages or cycles.

The order in time with the head representing the oldest period and the feet the newest is the reverse of that found in the generational scheme further east.

Rgvedic tradition also records the representation of the four castes in what could be considered an "evolutionary" order as parts of the body of the primordial Purusa deity:

11 When they divided Purusa how many portions did they make?
What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?

12 The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made.
His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.

-- Rgveda 10, XC

Here the order from a chronological standpoint could be argued to more closely match that of the Austronesian version of body-time, if one considers an evolution from Sudra to Brahmin.

Earlier in the same hymn, we hear of the annual Purusa sacrifice: "When Gods prepared the sacrifice with Purusa as their offering, Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood."

Reference here is to the year-long Purusamedha sacrifice, which corresponds closely to the Asvamedha horse sacrifice. The body of the Purusa, which translates as "person, man," is linked to the time period of the solar year. In the Philippines, words for "year" (taon, taun, etc.) appear derived from the same root as those for "body" (katawan, ka-tau-an) and "person" (tao, tau, etc.)

India also has a four-ages scheme known as caturyuga, which however is not so strongly linked with metals. A declining cycle of five metal ages -- gold, silver, two of bronze and iron -- is mentioned by the Greek writer Hesiod. The Zoroastrian Bahman Yasht, which was written only in Muslim times but contains older eschatological information, appears to glue on a four-age setup to their older system of ten millennia.

Ancient Egypt and Hermetic Thought

Egypt has the earliest extant texts of clearly apocalyptic literature. The "complaint" texts of the Middle Kingdom dating back to 2000 BCE, tell of the decline of the nation and the coming of a savior king.

The New Kingdom Book of the Dead, chapter 175, tells of destruction of the world by Atum in which Osiris and Horus survive:

You will live more than millions of years, an era of millions, but in the end I will destroy everything that I have created, the earth will become again part of the Primeval Ocean, like the Abyss of waters in their original state. Then I will be what will remain, just I and Osiris, when I will have changed myself back into the Old Serpent who knew no man and saw no god. How fair is that which I have done for Osiris, a fate different from that of all the other gods! I have given him the region of the dead while I have put his son Horus as heir upon his throne in the Isle of Fire, I have thus made his place for him in the Boat of Millions of Years, in that Horus remains on his throne to carry on his work.

In this blog, we have discussed how the Isle of Fire may have been a concept that reached Egypt through Nusantao contacts including those after the establishment of the Punt (Rhapta) spice trade.

Indeed, many aspects of the Isle of Fire can be found in the Middle Kingdom Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor who encounters an island and prince of Punt. Christopher J. Eyre states: "There is a direct comparison here with the island in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor: a place which stands at the edge of the cosmos; where the god survives after cataclysmic fire from the sky; where food and spirit (k3)are found to perfection; where the sailor burns his offerings, and is threatened with destruction by fire; but where he receives assurance of post-cataclysmic order, and a renewal of his life, restoration to the created world following his passage through this place of danger."

Egyptian apocalyptic literature down into Ptolemaic times has themes of both a savior king arising from Egypt and another king who comes "from the East" or "from the Sun." An example of the first king is given in the prophecy of Neferti:

A king will come from the South,
Ameny, by name,
Son of a woman of Ta-Seti (Nubia), a child of Khenkhen (Upper Egypt).
He will take the White Crown,
He will wear the Red Crown;
He will join the Double Crown,
He will please the Two Lords with what they desire,
The land in his fist, oar in his grasp.
Rejoice, O people of his time,
The son of man will make his name for all eternity!

I believe the "King from the East", on the other hand, relates to the imagery of Horus waiting to accomplish his works in the Isle of Fire, at the ends of the earth to the East where the Sun was born. The idea of the primordial location as a waiting area figures also in other millenarian traditions.

Here Horus standing for royalty also symbolizes the establishment of a new order, and enmity with the older regime, represented by Seth. In the Nusantao field of action, Tala represents the new order against the older trading clans, and it is from the fiery sacred mountains that he returns.

The term "King from the Sun" sometimes translated "King from the East" is found both in the Potter's Oracle that has been dated anywhere between the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, and the Sybilline Oracles, a work considered roughly contemporaneous with the Potter's Oracle. In the latter work, following a period of serious decline, "Egypt will increase when the king from the sun, who is benevolent for fifty-five years, becomes present, appointed by the greatest goddess Isis."

In the Sybilline Oracles we read: "And then God will send a king from the sun, who will stop the entire earth from evil war, killing some, imposing oaths of fidelity on others. He will not do all these things by his own plans, but in obedience to the noble teachings of the great God."

In Hebrew tradition, the idea of a people coming from the East in latter times is found in II Esdras 1:

1:36 They have seen no prophets, yet will recall their former state.

1:37 I call to witness the gratitude of the people that is to come, whose children rejoice with gladness; though they do not see me with bodily eyes, yet with the spirit they will believe the things I have said.

1:38 "And now, father, look with pride and see the people coming from the east."

Isaiah 41 also speaks of one who is "stirred up" from the East and a savior who comes from the "rising sun." Although often interpreted differently, the "Kings of the East" in Revelation may refer to the same theme. According to some commentators, Apollyon, the king in Revelation who is usually now interpreted as the Devil, leads the armies of God from the East in Revelation.

Dog and horse imagery

Apollyon's army has been widely compared to the apocalyptic hordes mentioned in the second chapter of Joel and characterized as the camp of heaven.

The Lord raises his voice at the head of his army; For immense indeed is his camp, yes, mighty, and it does his bidding. For great is the day of the Lord, and exceedingly terrible; who can bear it?

In the same chapter, we read of this mighty host: " Their appearance is that of horses; like steeds they run." Revelation 9 also describes the army of Apollyon has having a horse-like look. Imagery of the dog, the horse and also the water buffalo/bull pervade many millenarian traditions. We have already mentioned the dog-related qualities of Fu Hsi and Yao (as Shang-ti).

Hermetic apocalyptic literature makes Hermes Tat (Hermes Thoth) a form of the god Hermanubis (Hermes-Anubis). The latter god has the human body and dog/jackal head of Anubis and the wand and clothing of Hermes. Hermanubis plays also the role of Horus as the opponent of Typhon (Seth). The prophetic literature tell of the dark period brought by the Typhonians before a final cataclysmic battle. Some aspects of Hermanubis including his identity as "Son of God" and "Logos" anticipate Christian beliefs.


Hermanubis


St. Christopher of Egypt, the dog-headed saint.


Horse-headed Kalki

In a strange transformation though, latter Christian illumination of Revelation frequently portrays all the satanic hordes including the seven-headed dragon known as the "Beast" with canine heads. This may be due to the dog's relationship with the Underworld. In Norse myth, the wolf Fenrir is turned loose at the advent of the apocalypse.

Horse imagery seems to step in for the earlier canine theme. In Christian, Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist belief, for example, we find the messianic savior arriving on horseback, and sometimes even depicted as a horse or horse-headed man.

However, canine aspects persist in the Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist saviors although submerged below the surface. Kalki, for example, although an incarnation of Visnu is said to take on the destroying powers of Siva. This destructive aspect of Siva is represented by both Bhairava, a god shown accompanied by dogs and also sometimes depicted as a dog himself, and by Rudra.

Rudra is known in the Yajurveda as Svapati "Lord of the Dogs," and the Arthavaveda says that he is followed by howling dogs, so he seems like an early model for Bhairava. The destructive powers of Kalki are known as Ekadesha Rudra (Eleven Rudras). Similarly, Raudracakrin, the Shambhala savior-king, is known as Rudra with the Discus/Wheel. In Kalacakra texts, he is often said to be aided by Rudra in his battles, and apparently he is sometimes also referred to simply as "Rudra." Such destructive aspects also might be present in Apollyon, the Jewish Greek form of the name Apollo, which translates as "Destroyer." The god was closely associated with the wolf.

An eastern explanation might be found for this dog and horse imagery where both animals are often conflated with the primordial pantheistic god. We have seen this latter being can also be identified with the concept of cyclic time represented by the human body divided into five parts. Therefore we can suggest that the pantheistic God with the accompanying dog/horse aspects is identifiable with cyclic and deified time, thus explaining the animal imagery of the apocalyptic battlefield.

'Paradise Terrestrial'

Many traditions exist of end-times actors waiting patiently in the terrestrial paradise or the 'intermediate heaven' for the coming apocalypse. These persons are often said to have escaped death.

In China, Prince Moonlight and the King of Light reigned on the paradise island of Penglai. The Zoroastrians believed that immortal heroes awaited the final battle in Kangdez, where Bahram Varjavand would organize armies from Hind and Chin to fight the forces of evil.

A popular Christian tradition interpreted verses in Revelation concerning the "two witnesses" as applying to the biblical figures Enoch and Elijah, who never died according to tradition. The two witnesses are described as revealing prophecy and battling with the Antichrist before they are killed by the beast. Enoch and Elijah were said to live in the Garden of Eden until those fateful days.

It can be shown that, starting in the early medieval period and clearly established by the middle of that period, a sacred waiting-place of millennial warriors, both good and evil, was located at the eastern edge of insular and tropical Asia. The same place suggested here that the germ of these beliefs arose.

These locations include Kangdez, the fortress of heroes, and the Vourukasha Sea (Sea of Chin) where the great dragon awaited the last days; the Garden of Eden around which one could find Enoch, Elijah and Prester John; Bratayil, the island of al-Dajjal, the Muslim Antichrist, found somewhere in the East Indies; and Penglai the kingdom of Prince Moonlight and the King of Light.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Eyma, Aayko and C. J. Bennett. A Delta-man in Yebu: Occasional Volume of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum No. 1, Universal Publishers, 2003, pp. 240-4.

Eyre, Christopher J. Cannibal Hymn: a cultural and literary study, Liverpool University Press, 2002, pp. 82-3.

Muller, Kal. East of Bali: From Lombok to Timor, Tuttle Publishing, 2001, pp. 36-39.

News: Following stars into the Unknown

Those living in or visiting New Zealand might be interested in the Auckland Museum's new Vaka Moana exhibit on Polynesian seafaring and migrations:

---
Athena Hale prepares a copy of Abel Tasman's journal for the exhibition. Picture / Paul Estcourt



Following the stars into the unknown

Saturday December 2, 2006
By Angela Gregory

Auckland Museum hopes New Zealanders will do a bit of "way-finding" to discover a ground-breaking exhibition about the Polynesian migration across the Pacific Ocean.

The ancestors of today's Pacific peoples travelled the vast oceans 4000 years ago by a method of navigation traditionally known as way-finding, based on observations of the sea and sky.

The migration story is central to the Vaka Moana exhibition in the new exhibition space, part of the Dome museum extension.

It is the first comprehensive exhibition to explain the latest findings on the origins of the Pacific peoples, and how they migrated by sea, thousands of years before the oceanic forays of the Vikings, Portuguese and Spaniards.

The word vaka, used in Tokelau and elsewhere, is one of the variations of the Polynesian word for canoe including waka (New Zealand) and va'a (Samoa and Tahiti).

Read rest of story...

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Kalacakra Millenarian Timeline (Article)

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

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

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

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

25 Kulika kings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reincarnated ancestors

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

-- Pablo de Jesus Letter to Gregory XIII

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

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

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

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

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

-- Nicholas Tarling, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia

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

Dual ages

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

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

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

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

Narayana (Glossary)

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

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

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

Narayana and Pangu/Panhu

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Horse's head

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

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

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


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


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

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

-- Mahabharata 12:47

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Object of pilgrimage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Messianic kingdom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

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

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

Magadha (Glossary)

Magadha, the ancient state or janapada, located in modern Bihar, East India, was an important location for the development of Indian religion and South Asian urbanization.

Jainism and Buddhism are closely linked with Magadha, and Upanishadic thought in Hinduism flourished in this region and neighboring Videha, the latter location found in modern southern Nepal.

Urbanization is a controversial subject in South Asian studies. The first urbanization phase in the region is found in Harappan civilization of northwestern India and Pakistan. While elements of Harappan culture certainly seemed to have survived into the historic period, the second phase of urbanization at Magadha seems to have evolved separately.

Austric influence on Indian cultural development including urbanization has been studied previously particularly with reference to the Austro-Asiatic peoples. A few scholars like S.K. Chatterji and Waruno Mahdi have also looked at Austronesian contributions.

Urbanization and Buddhism

The history of proto-urban culture in Magadha is found in the writings of the life of the Buddha and the early Sangha, the organized Buddhist community.

The kings of Magadha were able to establish supremacy over other local peoples known as Vajje (Vrjji) by the building of new fortresses and weapons.

In order to understand this we can look at the archaeological picture of the region at the time which consisted of agricultural villages and some modestly-fortified towns. At Rajgir, where Buddhist texts say the first Magadhan capital was erected we indeed find remains of a massive cyclopean wall dating back possibly to the sixth century BCE.


Cyclopean wall of Rajgir, Bihar

Earlier, I suggested that impulses for Magadhan urbanization came from the South rather than from the West as often asserted. This would also agree with Indian tradition.

The Puranas and other historical texts tell us that Manu Vaivasvata, the founder of the historical dynasties of Magadha and other Indian kingdoms came from South India -- from Dravida or the river Kritamala. This tradition of southern origins may even go back to Vedic times as both Yama and the Pitris (ancestors) are associated with the southern direction in Vedic literature.

According to the Mahabharata, one faces south while offering rice balls to the Pitris because that is where Visnu, in the form of a boar, created the ancestors.

South Indian Megalithic

Magadhan urbanization may owe its origin to impulses from the megalithic cultures of Sri Lanka and South India, and the cyclopean masonry of the former.

The cyclopean wall, megalithic burials and rock-cut caves are all represented in the southern megalithic cultures. The polished black ware of the South Indian megalithic may well be related to the Northern Polished Black Ware that characterizes Magadhan urban sites.

Urn burial, the chaitya design, even the brahmi script all have antecedents in the South.

The Sri Lankan site of Anuradhapura extended to 10 hectares by 800 BCE and 50 hectares by 600 BCE. It could very well have been a model for early Rajgir.

Sakadvipa and the South

Some connection of the South with the eastern island of Sakadvipa is also indicated by historical and other texts. Manu Vaivasvata is the son of Vivasvat, a form of the Sun God, often associated with Sakadvipa.

The Maga or priests of Sakadvipa are said to have been formed when the rays of the Sun were pared on Visvakarman's lathe in Sakadvipa. The paring of the Sun here appears as another form of the snaring or shooting of the Sun myth, in which the brightness or heat of the solar orb is reduced.

Maga is the name of the brahmin or priest of Sakadvipa. The Magas seem to have survived as the present-day Sakadwipi brahmins who live mostly around Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The Skandapurana says that the Magas were first brought from Sakadvipa by Dasaratha, the father of the epic hero Rama. Sakadwipi tradition suggests they came indirectly through Sri Lanka. The Skandapurana also states a king named Gaya and his brahmins were afflicted with leprosy and were told by the Sun God to drink water in which Sakadvipa brahmins had washed their feet. They then went to the shores of the Milky Ocean and were cured.

Later the Skandapurana says Krishna brings the Magas of Sakadvipa to India to cure his son Samba of leprosy. The sun priests of Sakadvipa apparently had some talent in treating this disease. Afterward, Krisna persuades the Magas to settle at Sambakhyagram in Magadha.

It may be then this indicates a relationship between the name "Magadha" and "Maga," the name of the priests of Sakadvipa. Magadha is also the name for the kingly caste of Sakadvipa according to classical sources.

The earliest evidence of trade-like contact between South India and Insular Southeast Asia may go back to 1100 BCE-800 BCE when we see perforated ringfoot burial jars in South Indian megaliths. Perforated ringfoot jars are a feature of the Taiwanese Lungshanoid and they are also found in Novaliches, Philippines.

Around the same time we find evidence in Vietnam and the Philippines of agate and carnelian beads, and glass beads that resemble natural South Indian beryl crystals. Radiocarbon dates at the burial urn site of Phu Hoa produced wide-ranging figures of 1408 BCE-38 BCE and 814 BCE-164 BCE. Later around the middle of the sixth century BCE we see a proliferation of tripod vessels and the use of burial urns in Southeast Asia and South India.

Archaeologist Arun Malik and bioanthropologist Pathmanathan Raghavan have studied a massive clay urn burial ground at Adichanallur in South India with 167 urns dated to 2,800 years ago. They found that the osteological evidence suggests the presence of people who resembled Southeast Asian along with peoples resembling the present-day population pointing to an ancient trade or cultural relationship. Some of these jars have undeciphered inscriptions in a script identified as Tamil Brahmi.

Noting these relationships, it may also be that the highly-polished black ware of the South Indian megaliths found in conjunction with the characteristic polished black and red ware, was related to polished black ware further east.

Mainland Lungshanoid culture is characterized by polished black pottery. Musang Cave in northern Luzon (Cagayan Province) has black polished pottery at Layer II dated to 4340 BCE-2530 BCE, and highly-polished black ware is found in some quantites at the Lungshanoid Fengpitou site in Taiwan.

It is also worth noting that the dynasty of Ajatasatru, the king who built the fortress of Rajgir, was known as Saisu-Naga, with "Naga" also appearing as the name of one of the peoples associated with the megalithic/cyclopean works of Sri Lanka. "Naga" appears as a prefix as in Nagadasaka or a suffix as in Sisunaga in the names of Magadhan kings and it may be used as an ethnic indicator.

Saisunaga Dynasty

We can say that the indigenous peoples of Sri Lanka and South India had a black and red pottery tradition that may link either with the north possibly coming ultimately from Africa (Nubia and Upper Egypt), or may come directly from the latter region.

Iron-working traditions of the southern megalithic may have diffused from the Vindhyan region or the neighboring areas of the Ganges River valley. South India also developed a stone and glass bead-making industry.

Sometime before 1000 BCE the southern Dravidian and also possibly Austro-Asiatic peoples came into rather close contact with Nusantao maritime peoples from Insular Southeast Asia (Sakadvipa) carrying Lungshanoid-influenced cultural goods.

The Northern Black Polished Wares may signal the movement of a culturally-mixed group northward into East India including the Magadha region. The black pottery may relate directly to the polished black ware of the South Indian megalithic and even to the Lungshanoid polished black wares.

Puranic tradition vaguely describes these southern migrations in the legendary history of Manu Vaivasvata's journey from Dravida to the Himalayas, and the establishment of the first Magadha dynasty. The newcomers effected the political and cultural climate, but apparently adopted the local languages.

Some of these contacts appear to have persisted until the rise of the Saisunaga Dynasty and possibly some stone workers from the South helped build the fortifications at Rajgir. Thus, we can explain the cyclopean walls, megalithic burials, chaityas, rock-cut caves and urn burials.

Placement of the bones of the deceased in urns, sometimes in underground chambers as in Ajatasatru's tomb, is another point of comparision with the south were stone cist burials were the rule.

These cist burials have sometimes been compared to those of West Asia because a few have porthole openings, but they also show some interesting correspondence with stone cist graves to the East. At Peinan in southern Taiwan, we have the oldest scientifically datable megaliths in tropical eastern Asia dating to about 3000 BCE.

Here more than 1500 stone cist graves have been uncovered, most under the slate slab floors of houses. These houses were often built with corbeled slab walls and stone courtyards. Urn burials in stone cists are also found under house floors in the South Indian megalithic.


Kalamba urn in Sulawesi, source: http://www.moxon.net/indonesia/bada_valley.html


Plain of Jars, Laos, heavily-bombed during Vietnam War, source: http://www.bugbog.com/gallery/laos_pictures/laos_pictures_15.html


Urn field, Sulawesi, source: http://infokom-sulteng.go.id/english/fotos.php?id=8


Burial urns from Adichanallur, South India, source: http://infokom-sulteng.go.id/english/fotos.php?id=8


Burial urns from Univ. of San Carlos Museum, Philippines, click to enlarge, source: http://museum.usc.edu.ph

The raising of the mound or stupa over the cist seems to blend an eastern with a southern practice. According to the Satapatha Brahmana, the Asuras and Easterners built round burial mounds, as compared to Vedic people who built four-cornered mounds.

Sangha and state

Magadha used its new-found power quickly. Rice agriculture, which dominated in this area, was effectively utilized to support the economy.

The Saisunaga rulers forged a close relationship with the new Buddhist religion and its governing councils. The development of the monastic system, first based in rock-cut cave monasteries, necessitated the need for a governmental support system. The kings gladly exchanged their patronage for the endorsement of the Buddhist religious leaders.

Because of the interdependence between sangha and state, the expansion of Buddhism naturally meant the expansion of the state. And with the growth of the state, new techniques of government and management were needed. The resulting requirements for centralization, transporation, irrigation, drainage, etc. lead to the development of urbanizaton.

Thus, the Magadhan urbanization developed independently based on local needs tied to the expansion of a history-making new religion.

Magas and Sakadwipis

Various explanations are given for the name "Maga" describing the caste of brahmins from Sakadvipa. Often it is explained as related to the "Magi" of Persia. It is said that the Maga may have practiced Mithraism since they emphasized worship of the Sun.

However, no formal Mithraic or Zoroastrian doctrine is evident in the historical accounts of the Magas, or the Sakadwipi brahmins. Other than a few modifications of what may have been existing practices in India, the Magas were totally Hinduized.

All their gods and doctrines appear basically as Indian. Their main religious thrust again was to stress Sun worship, but even here they used the Indian sun gods like Surya. Among the present-day Sakadwipi brahmins even Sun worship is no longer of prime importance and many have become Saktas, Tantrics, or worshippers of Rama, Krisna, Radha, etc.

The other castes of Sakadvipa are generally given as Magadha for the Kshatriya caste of India, Manasa for the Vaisya caste and Mandaga for the Sudra caste. Other sources give caste names like Marga, Masaka, Manga, Mansa, Mriga, etc.

It is evident that these caste names are based on the initial syllable "ma." There is something similar in the names of the four Kumaras, Sanaka, Sananda and Sanat and Sanatana where the "sa" syllable is found in the initial position.

Sometimes one hears that the "saka" in Sakadvipa is related to the ethnonym "Saka" meaning "Scythian" which is given as another argument for the Magas as Persian Magi. However, like the continents Jambu (Rose Apple), Kusa (a grass species), Plaksa (fig tree), Salmali (Silk Cotton tree) and Puskara (lotus), the name Saka refers to a plant, in this case the teak tree.

Sakadvipa was located to the East in the tropical Milky Ocean. Svetadvipa, placed on the northern shores of this ocean, appears as a sub-region of Sakadvipa. It may be that the Magas helped promote the importance of Svetadvipa among worshippers of Narayana, a form of Visnu, in early India.

The Kumaras are said to have visited Svetadvipa, which according to the epics was an important place of pilgrimage to meet Narayana himself.

In Kalacakra Buddhism, the extra-South Asian destination of pilgrims to the East is Suvarnadvipa (Shambhala), and this may simply be a continuation of the efforts of the earlier Magas to highlight the spiritual importance of the region. Like the Magas, the kings of Suvarnadvipa had special relations with East India. They were also strongly present in South India and Sri Lanka, and this may also be the case of the Magas given a southern route into East India as discussed above.

The Mahabharata comments that the people of Sakadvipa were known for their egalitarianism:

In these provinces [of Sakadvipa], O monarch, there is no king, no punishment, no person that deserves to be punished. Conversant with the dictates of duty they are all engaged in the practice of their respective duties and protect one another. This much is capable of being said of the island called Saka. This much also should be listened to about that island endued with great energy."

-- Mahabharata, Bhima Parva, 11

It may be of interest to study the relationship of the Vajje (Vrjji) confederacy in Magadha and Kosala during the Buddha's time to see if there could be some Maga influence on regional political relationships. On the whole, Maga influence on religious thinking appears to have been less than the East-West exchange that occured during the formation of Tantric doctrine in East and South India, and eastern and southeastern Asia.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Peregrine, Peter N. (EDT) and Melvin (EDT) Ember. Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Springer, 2001, p. 306.

Tarling, Nicholas. The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia,Cambridge University Press, 1993.