China | Gansu Province | Mazong Mountains | Abominable Snowmen

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Jiayuguan I made an Attempt to Visit the Mazong Mountains in northwest Gansu Province. The word mazong, I pointed out, is now translated in most tourism-related ephemera as “horse’s mane,” perhaps a reference to the black appearance of the mountains when seen from distance. Owen Lattimore, who traveled along the northern flank of the mountains with a camel caravan in 1926, maintained however that mazong meant “horse’s hoof-print.”

Having grown up in China Lattimore spoke Chinese like a native, but in 1926 he did not know any Mongolian. In a later 1975 edition of The Desert Road to Turkestan, by which time he had became quite fluent in Mongolian, he elaborated on a new theory about the meaning of the word mazong. Lattimore:

Ma-tsung Shan (mazong in Pinyin) . . . is explained on p. 245 as the “horse hoof-print hills.” This was how the name was explained to me by the caravan men. It was only many years later that I divined the true derivation and meaning of this name. It is from the Mongol Metsin Uul, “Ape Mountains” . . . In other words, what we have here is an extension . . . of the folklore world of the Abominable Snowman of Asia.

The more familiar Mongolian word for Abominable Snowman-like creatures is almas. There is, however, the word мич(mich), which means ape. Used to describe a mountain this word would be spelled мичин (michin), thus Мичин Уул, or Ape Mountains. It is possible then that the Mongolian michin became corrupted in Chinese as Ma-tsung and now in Pinyin style as Mazong? Lattimore would seem to to think so.

However, as far back as the Ming Dynasty, founded in 1368, these mountains were called the Ma Tsung (Mazong) Shan, as pointed out in the Ming Shi, or “History of the Ming Dynasty.” E. Bretschneider, who in his Mediaeval Researches From Eastern Asiatic Sources (London, 1887) translates sections of the Ming Shi, also maintains, like most current commentators, that Ma-tsung means “horse’s mane.” It is possible that the Chinese word was corrupted from the Mongolian as far back as the fourteenth century?

In any case, there were indeed many legends of wild hairy apeman living in these mountains. Are the mountains known as the Mazong Shan actually the Ape Mountains, and thus perhaps one of the abodes of the legendary almas, the Mongolian version of the Abominable Snowman? If so, it would only add to the mystery of these mountains, now inaccessible to foreigners.

For an vastly entertaining tale of the Abominable Snowman of Tibet who steals the Crown of Genghis Khan from Scrooge “The World’s Richest Duck” McDuck only to have it retrieved by Scrooge with the assistance of Donald Duck and his three nephews see “The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan“ in the Greatest DuckTales, Volume 1.

I first read this Scrooge McDuck tale when I was seven years old, at which point I vowed I would someday visit both Tibet, putative home of the Abominable Snowman, and Mongolia, the home of Genghis (Chingis) Khan. At that time Tibet and Mongolia were among the most difficult places in the world for an American to visit, but even then I was confident that in the end I would persevere. I am now happy to say I have been able to fulfill both of these vows.

China | Gansu Province | Jiayuguan | Ming Fort

Jiayuguan Fort is located on a terrace between the Wenshu Mountains on the south and the Heishan (Mountains) on the north, 4.2 miles from the Overhanging Wall.

Wall from the Overhanging Wall to the Fort

The fort was built in 1362 under the command of Ming General Feng Sheng. The craftsman in charge of construction, Yi Kaizhan, ordered all the material needed in advance, and according to legend his planning was so meticulous that when the fort was completed there was only one brick left over. During Ming times the fort marked the westernmost point of Celestial Kingdom, and because many of the various branches of the Silk Road funneled through here the location became known as the “Greatest Pass Under Heaven.”

Jiayuguan FortThe walls of the fort are thirty-five feet high and 3406 feet around the perimeter.
View from instead the Fort

On the eastern side of the fort is the three-storied Guang-hua Men Gate (Gate of Enlightenment). On the western side is the 56-foot-high Rouyuan Men (Gate of Reconciliation), added to the fort in 1506 by General Duanroheng. Those who passed through this gate were leaving China and entering the desolate land of the barbarians. Traders and adventurers who went voluntarily hoped to gain fortune or fame, but for those who went involuntarily passing through the Rouyuan Gate was their worst nightmare.

The Rouyuan Gate

Disgraced officials sent into exile, condemned criminals, fugitives, desperados, and homeless drifters all crossed here into the empty desert beyond. It was the custom for those leaving to write on the walls of the Gate poems expressing their feelings as they left the familiar world of China for the Unknown. Many were the heart-rending tales told here. Also, after passing through the Rouyuan Gate it as a custom for travelers to throw a stone at the western wall of the fort. According to legend, if the stone bounced off the wall the traveler would someday return to China. If the stone hitting the wall also made an echo one’s affair would prosper. If the stone simply fell noiselessly to the ground after hitting the wall one was destined to die in the wilderness beyond.

From the top of the Rouyuan Gate, beyond the much lower Wenshu Mountains in the foreground, can be seen the glacier-capped 18,000 foot-plus Qilian Mountains. To the north, beyond the Heishan, are the black ridges of the Mazong (Horse’s Mane) Mountains, with peaks up to 7500 feet-high.

Another view of the Great Wall from the Fort to the Wenshu Mountain in the near distance.

China | Gansu Province | Jiayuguan | Great Wall

From Beijing I took one of the morning planes to Lanzhou, on the Yellow River in eastern Gansu, 704 miles to the west, and then caught the afternoon puddle-jumper on to Jiayuguan, 369 miles still farther west.

Lanzhou, on the Yellow River

In Jiayuguan I wanted to check out the possibility of making a trip to the Mazong (Horse’s Mane) Mountains to the north and Gobi Desert beyond.

The bus from the airport was not running—there were only about thirty people on the small plane and most of them seemed to be locals who were met at the airport by acquaintances. I had to take a cab for the six-mile trip into town. The cab driver was a woman in her mid-twenties. She delivered me to the Jiayuguan Hotel on the main city square and insisted on carrying my bag inside. I had read that the Jiayuguan Hotel was a dump and was going to stay there only because it was conveniently located. The accounts must have been written before a recent upgrade. The place now is quite up-scale and all the receptionists and even some of the waitresses in the restaurant speak English. The listed price reflected the upgrade—400 yuan for a standard room; more than the venerable Yong An, where I stay in Beijing—but this price was quickly lowered to 200 yuan when I showed signs of heading for the door. Mid-April is the off-season in Jiayuguan. All the while the cab driver was hovering by my elbow. Speaking through one of the receptionists she then offered to take me the next morning to the two most famous local sights—the westernmost extension of the Great Wall of China and the Jiayuguan Fort, on the western edge of town. A price was arrived at and we agreed to meet at nine the next morning.

There was some kind of settlement here in this wide corridor between the Qilian Mountains to the north and the Mazong Mountains to the north since at least Han times some two thousand years ago. More than a thousand tombs dating from the Wei (220-265) and Western Jin ((265-316) dynasties are scattered around the surrounding desert. During the Ming Dynasty the fort here marked the western limits of the Chinese Empire. The Great Wall, starting far to the east at Shanhaiguan on the Bohai Gulf, ended here, and in 1372 a fort was built to guard the border. The nearby town become knowns as “Jiayuguan,” which means “Barrier of the Pleasant Valley.” The city now has a population of some 115,000. Cement and fertilizer factories dominate the town, and iron ore and coking coal are mined in the nearby mountains. Although nowhere near as famous a tourist attraction as Dunhuang, some five hours by bus to the south, a fair amount of tourists stop by to see the Great Wall, the fort, and a smattering of other local sights. All serous Silk Roadies make an obligatory stop here because of its importance as a way-station on the Silk Road.

The day I arrived it had been very overcast and I was not able to be see much of the surrounding area either on the plane’s approach or on the drive into town. The next morning I was a bit startled when I drew back the curtains and beheld the glacier-capped 18,000 foot-plus Qilian Mountains dominating the entire southern horizon.

Qilian Mountains from Downtown Jaiyuguan

The town itself is at an elevation of 5385 feet. In the foreground to the south were in the much lower buckskin colored Wenshu Mountains. It was these mountains to the south and the Heishan to the immediate north and the Mazong beyond that funneled many of the various caravan routes of the Silk Road through this area. That is why during the Ming Dynasty this place was called “The Greatest Pass Under Heaven.”

The driver was right on time the next morning. Her name is Chan. She is in her late twenties I would say, very thin, with a finely chiseled face. I quickly discovered she did not speak a single word of English. For someone who works with the public she seemed intensely shy—or maybe she was just shy around foreigners. She would glance at me out of the corner of her eyes for a microsecond and than intently stare straight ahead, as if she had seen something she really shouldn't have. Our first stop is the so-called Overhanging Wall section of the Great Wall, 6.2 miles from the hotel on the city square. From the fort, 4.2 miles away, the Wall runs across flat desert and ends at the top of a high hill.

The Overhanging Wall

Beyond here the rugged ridges of the Heishan form a natural barrier. A wall was built here probably as early as the Han Dynasty some 2000 years ago but the current version dates from the Ming Dynasty.

The Overhanging Wall

After the fall of Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in 1368 a Ming army led by General Feng Sheng drove the last of the Mongol armies from the region. The existing wall was upgraded and new sections built in an attempt to prevent any further Mongol incursions. The pounded earth wall from the fort to the Overhanging Wall appears to be more-or-less the original version, but the brick section climbing up the spine of the mountain appears to have undergone extensive restoration.

The Overhanging Wall

Nearby is a newly installed suite of granite statues depicting various travelers, pilgrims, and generals who have filed through Jiayuguan over the ages.
Among the more notable is Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, who some sources claim made the first recorded trip through Jiayuguan in the fifth century BC. Lao Tzu was of course the author of record of the Dao De Qing, the seminal text of Taoism. Discouraged that so few people were willing to follow his teachings of The Way he mounted his black buffalo and rode westward. Here at Jiayuguan he left China proper and disappeared into the wilderness beyond and hence into legend. That he was supposedly between 160 and 200 years old when he made the trip brings the historicity of this whole account into question.

Lao Tzu

There is no doubt about the historicity of Xuanzang, the peripatetic pilgrim who passed this way around 630 on his way from Xian in Shaanxi Province to India. I have visited numerous places in Xuanzang’s itinerary, including Lanzhou in eastern Gansu Province; Turpan and Khotan in Xinjiang, Bodhgaya, site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, nearby Vulture's Peak, where the Buddha taught, and the great Buddhist university of Nalanda, all in India; the Big Goose Pagoda in Xian where the Buddhist texts he brought back from India were stored, and his tomb at Xingjiao Temple near Xian.

Peripatetic Pilgrim Xuanzang with his panier of sutras brought back from India

Near the statue complex is Jiayuguan’s only Buddhist temple, which has recently been restored.

Temple

Nearby is another section of wall which is being restored and is not open to the public. When I expressed a desire to see it Ms. Chan took a dirt road to the base of the mountain and then led me up an extremely steep narrow foot path which ended at an opening in the wall where the workmen gained access. I had to admire her pluckiness. She was wearing street shoes and had to climb several of the steep sections of the trail on her hands and knees.

View of the Overhanging Wall, with Buddhist Temple at bottom left

We climbed onto the top of the wall, where several workmen were repairing the brick steps, and proceeded upwards. Ms. Chan really seemed to be enjoying herself. She whooped and hollered as we climbed higher and new vistas were presented to us.

The charming Ms. Chan taking a breather

I got the impression that she had been on the lower part of the wall where the workman were but had never before climbed to the top.

Climbing to the to Beacon Tower

From the tower we were presented with a sweeping view of the mountains to the north and south and the corridor between them which made this place so strategically important.

The Greatest Pass Under Heaven

China | Beijing | Yonghegong

As I mentioned in a previous post there is supposed to be a Shambhala Thangka in the collection of the Yonghegong, or Lama Temple in Beijing. The last time I had been there it was not out on public display, but I decided to pop in again anyhow on the outside chance that it could now be seen.

Yonghegong is the biggest surviving Buddhist temple in Beijing. Completed in 1694, it originally served as the residence of Qing Emperor Kangxi’s son Yong Zheng. In 1725, shortly after Yong Zheng became emperor, he upgraded the complex and gave it the name Yonghegong, meaning “Harmony and Peace Palace.” It was Yong Zheng who some believe ordered the assassination of Zanabazar, the First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia in 1723. In any event, Zanabazar died that year in the Yellow Temple in Beijing. Whatever his role in Zanabazar’s death, Yong Zheng, following the instructions of his father Kangxi, built Amarbayasgalant Monastery in northern Mongolia to hold Zanabazar’s remains.

Stele in the front courtyard recounting the history of Yonghegong in Mongolian and Chinese

In 1744 Yong Zheng’s successor Qian Long turned the complex into a monastery, and along with the Yellow Temple it became an outpost of Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in Beijing. It survived the Cultural Revolution (1966-1977) more-or-less intact supposedly because of the direct intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai. The complex was reopened in 1981. Among the chief attractions now is the sixty-foot-tall Standing Maitreya in the Main Temple. Carved from the trunk of a white sandalwood tree, it is said to be the largest statue in the world made from a single piece of wood (duly certified in 1990 by the Guiness Book of World Records, a Chinese obsession). A whole posse of monks is on hand to prevent people from taking photographs of the wooden Maitreya, so no photos of that.

The Main Temple containing the 60-foot-high wooden Maitreya

Statute of Samantabhadra. One of the Four Buddhist Mountains of China, Emei Shan, is devoted to Samantabhadra.

I found no trace of the Shambhala thangka, which must still be in storage somewhere, so I mosied across the street to the many shops selling religious paraphernalia to stock up on Nanmu incense, made from the wood of the Nanmu tree. Supposedly Nanmu incense was introduced into China by the Panchen Lama of Tibet, who gave some as a gift to the Qing Emperor Qian Long on the occasion of the latter’s seventieth birthday. It quickly became Emperor’s favorite incense. It has the unusual quality of smelling much stronger on rainy days, and is said to clear the nose and sharpen one’s thoughts. It also drives away mosquitoes.

About a block down the street from the temple entrance is a small Tibetan shop ran by a young Tibetan man and woman. They have a nice selection of thangkas, but as one might expect at this venue a little over-priced. The young man was kind enough to restring my mala for me free-of-charge. Next time you are in Beijing and need your beads restrung this is definitely the place to go.

China | Beijing | Maliandao Tea Street

Having exhausted my supplies of Yunnan and Qi Mun black teas and running dangerously low on Puerh tea I had no alternative but to wing down to Beijing to replenish my supplies. The day before I left Ulaan Baatar we were treated to ferocious dust storm and a snow storm simultaneously—Mongolia is of the few places in the world where this can happen—but in Bejing real spring had already arrived, with temperatures up into the low 70s F. Overhead was a faultless dome of blue sky, without a hint of Beijing’s fabled pollution.

I immediately grabbed my local tea consultant, Ms. R, and head for Maliandao Tea Street, one of the world’s greatest tea emporiums. This is a Standard Stop for me in Beijing. Although there are reportedly over a thousand tea stores on the street I always return to the shop of Ms. Na, who has a especially strong selection of black teas.

The estimable Ms. Na showing off a new brick of Puerh

I bought a kilo each of the highest grade Qi Mun and Yunnan Black and three bricks of Puerh.

Ms. R sampling the Qi MunTie Kuan Yin Oolong

Although I am not a big fan of Oolong tea at Ms. Na’s instigation I sampled some new Tie Kuan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy) Oolong which she had just gotten in and ended up buying 250 grams. It is so hard to say no to the entreaties of the charming and gracious Ms. Na!

Ms. R virtually glowing after sampling the Tie Kuan Yin

Another tea seller in the same store

Nice selection of Puerhs

China | Xinjiang Province | Turpan | Jiaohe

Back in Turpan after my Berlin interlude I wandered six miles west of the city to the ruins of the ancient city Jiaohe.

See More Photos of Jiaohe

China | Xinjiang | Turpan | Toyuq

About another twenty miles east of Bezeklik is the small oasis of Toyuq, located right on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The hills around here are riddled with caves which once served as Buddhist hermitages and monastic complexes. Unfortunately these caves are now closed to the public. Since the late fourteenth century the area has been Islamic and is now a favorite pilgrimage site for Moslems from all over Central Asia. Toyuk is known as “Little Mecca,” and a pilgrimage here is considered “half as sacred” as a pilgrimage to Mecca itself. Pilgrims who come here can count themselves as “half-hadji” (pilgrim to Mecca). The oasis is also famous for its elongated white grapes, known as Mare’s Nipple Grapes, which are highly valued as far away as Beijing.

Oasis of Toyuq on the northern edge of the Flaming Mountains

Incredibly lush oasis land surrounded by bleak desert

The Emerald-domed Mosque is the center of “Little Mecca.”

Main Mosque in Toyuq

China | Xinjiang | Turpan | Bezeklik

From Gaochang I mosied up to the nearby Bezeklik Grottos, located in the gorge of the Murtuk River, which flows through the Flaming Mountains. Here there are seventy-some caves dating from the fourth to thirteen centuries. At one time the caves were filled with one of the most staggering collections of Buddhist wall paintings in Central Asia and perhaps the world. Moslem iconoclasts, who arrived in the area in the late fourteen-century, damaged some of the paintings; Western archeologists, including Aurel Stein and Von Le Coq, removed many of the remaining paintings at the beginning of the twentieth century; and what was left was almost completely destroyed by the Mao’s Little Generals, the Red Guards, during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although a dozen or so of the caves are now open to the public almost no of the original artwork, with the exception of some barely visible 1000 Buddhas motifs on the ceiling of one or two of the caves, has survived in situ. Many examples of the wall paintings, “stolen” by Western archeologists such as “the thief Stein” and others—as information signs at the complex are now quick to point out, can however be seen in museums in London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. See Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia for the sordid details on Stein, Le Coq, et. al.

Given the fact that nearby Gaochang is often posited as a possible location of the history Shambhala, it is interesting to speculate the Kalachakra Tantra was composed here or at the many Buddhist monastic complexes tucked away in the adjacent mountains. However, the art work produced here was entirely lacking in any Vajrayana influences, leading one to believe that tantric Buddhism was not practised in this area.

The gorge of the Murtuk River, flowing through the Flaming Mountains. The cave complex is just above here.

The caves were dug into cliffs along the bank of the Murtuk River.
More views of Bezeklik:

Uighur women at Bezeklik

Near where the Murtuk River debouches onto the desert floor is another cave complex known as Shenjinkou, just visible above the curve of the river. This area is now closed to the public.

See More Photos of Bezeklik

China | Xinjiang Province | Gaochang | Shambhala

From Turpan I proceeded about 20 miles east to the ruins of the city of Gaochang, the southern capital of the ancient kingdom of Khocho. Shambhalists have long considered Khocho one of the main candidates for the historical kingdom of Shambhala where the Kalachakra was first composed and taught. Scholar of Indic religions Sir Charles Eliot opined as early as 1921 that, “This country [Shambhala] is seen only through a haze of myth: it may have been in India or it may have been somewhere in Central Asia, where Buddhism mingled with Turkish ideas.” In 1949 Tibetologist-Shambhalist Giuseppe Tucci (Tibetan Painted Scrolls) noted:

It is evidently a pious tale, without the least historical foundation, that the Kalacakra “the wheel of time”, was revealed by the Buddha twelve months after his enlightenment in the mc’od rten at Dhanyakataka, which for the occasion, became dilated until it assumed the proportions of the universe, symbolized by every stupa. The scholar who is said to have given a literary form of this revelation was Zla ba bzan po [Suchandra, First King of Shambhala], an incarnation of P'yag na rdo rje, who put the Buddha's words into writing, and having gone back to his country, Sambhala, and built there a stupa in honour of the Kalacakra, taught his people its secrets. But everything leads us to think that there is much truth in the rest of the narrative; according to it in Sambhala, placed by tradition near the river Sita, (viz. Tarim) many generations of kings succeeded one another and ruled wisely, handing down the secret teaching of the Kalacakra, until their power was weakened by a raid of the Kla klo, coming from Me k'a (Mecca), i.e. the Moslem invasion.

The eminent Shambhalist John Newman also weights in on this issue:

The primary texts of the Kalachakra system came into around the beginning of the 11th century . . . so Shambhala must have existed at that time. The Vimalaprabha (See Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kalachakra Tantra and Kalacakratantra: The Chapter On The Individual Together With The Vimalaprabha) tells us that Shambhala is on a latitude north of Tibet, Khotan, and China, Furthermore, the Vimalaprabha says again and again that Shambhala is north of Sita River. The descriptions of the Chinese traveler, Hsuan tsang [Xuanzang] (7th century) and the Tibetan traveler, Man lungs Guru (13th century), both clearly identify the Sita as the Tarim River in Eastern Turkestan. Thus, “Sambhala” [sic] must be a special name for the Uighur kingdom centered at Khocho that flourished circa 850-1250.

The Uighurs of course originated in Mongolia, where they had their capital at Khar Balgas, in what is now Övörkhangai Aimag. When they migrated en masse to Xinjiang circa 840 a.d. they set up a northern capital at Beshbaliq, on the northern side of the Tian Shan Mountains, and a southern capital on the southern side at Gaochang.

Ur-Shambhalist Edwin Bernbaum (1980) elaborates:

. . . by these criteria, the Uighur Kingdom of Khocho in the Turfan [sic] Depression beneath the Tien Shan Mountains stands out as one most likely places to have been Shambhala. In accordance with the Tibetan guidebooks to Shambhala, Turfan lies north of the Sita, which most Western scholars have identified as the Tarim River. Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish people, around A.D. 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominately Buddhist country with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheism and Nestorian Christianity—two of the three religions with the greatest influence on the Kalachakra. Although few Muslims lived in the Kingdom itself, Islam was certainly familiar as a new and aggressive religion that was supplanting Buddhism elsewhere in Central Asia.

At the time the Kalachakra appeared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization and the highest standard of living of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, religions and languages stimulated each other”s thoughts and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber emsemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed the grace of Uighur society. In Turfan we [see] how a number of religions coexisted in an enlightened kingdom that survived for several hundred years; perhaps a group of dedicated mystics founded a similar, but smaller, community where they went on to extract the underlying wisdom of these religious traditions.

In his 2001 edition of The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas Bernbaum writes that he finally visited Khocho in 1984: “. . . I managed to travel to the heart of Central Asia, to the region most likely to have inspired the myth of Shambhala. There, in the Turfan Depression of western China, at the foot of the Tien Shan mountains, I visited the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Khocho or Gaochang, the most likely prototype for the hidden city itself. Gazing at the extensive walls spreading around me toward the distant mountains, I felt as thought I had come to a place of particular significance on my own journey exploring the many facets of the myth of Shambhala.”

The Indefatigably Peripatetic Pilgrim Xuanzang visited pre-Uighur Gaochang in 629 or 630, at the beginning of his sixteen-year sojourn from China to India and back, when the city was ruled by the half-Chinese king Qu Wentai. The powerful potentate and the pious pilgrim fast became bosom buddies, so much so that Qu Wentai eventually insisted that Xuanzang give up his wandering ways and remain in Gaochang. After Xuanzang staged a three-day hunger strike he was finally allowed to continue on to India, where among other places he visited Bodhgaya and Nalanda.

The Inner City Wall at GaochangMain Temple at Gaochang. Zuanzang gave teachings in the courtyard in front of this temple.

Xuanzang also reportedly gave teachings in this hall.

Ruins of building where Xuanzang supposedly lived while at Gaochang

The famous Flaming Mountains just north of Gaochang, mentioned in the Journey to the West, a fictionalized account of Xuanzang’s life.



See More Photos of Gaochang