Mongolia | Ulaan Baatar | Lam Rim Temple

Wandered up to Lam Rim Monastery, on Zanabazar Street just below Gandan Monastery in Ulaan Baatar. I have gone here many times over the years but I never really knew the story behind the founding of this monastery. The other day I dropped to see Bayantsagaan, the director of the monastery, and by chance his daughter Erdenetsetseg was there. She lived in Malaysia for several years and speaks near perfect English, so with her help I was able to get some background information.

Erdenetsetseg

Lam Rim Monastery

Bayantsagaan

Lam Rim Monastery was founded in 1990 by Erdenetsetseg’s father S. Bayantsagaan. Originally from Khovd Aimag in western Mongolia, Bayantsagaan studied the Lam Rim Teaching and Buddhist philosophy at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the Zanabazar Institute in Ulaan Baatar. He has a Geshé degree from the Zanabazar Institute and is fluent in Tibetan. In the early 1990s he played an active role the democratic movement in Mongolia and for much of the 1990s he worked as the director of the Mongolian Believers Association. During this period about seventy monasteries and temples were activated under his leadership. He has also initiated and strengthened communications between Mongolia and Tibet and in recent years has organized visits of the Dalai Lama to Mongolia.

Lam Rim Monastery was founded to promote the Lam Rim Teaching of Tsongkhapa (Mongolian=Bogd Zonkhov), who in the fifteen-century founded the Gelug Sect in Tibet.

Bogd Zhonkov

Bogd Zhonkov is author of one of the primary Lam Rim texts, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment. Bayantsagaan would like to emphasize that the Lam Rim, or Graduated Path, is not just for monks, but for all practitioners who wish to proceed on the path to Enlightenment. The three main Protectors of the monastery are Gombo, Namsrai, and Choijoo, three deities who have promised to protect Bogd Zonkhov’s teaching wherever it may be.

Interior of Lam Rim Temple

Interior of Lam Rim Temple

Ninety-six year old monk, the oldest at Lam Rim Monastery

Lama Gombo, a mere stripling at ninety-five years old

New Generation of monks at Lam Rim

Monks giving blessings

Lam Rim Monastery also specializes in the Kalachakra (Mongolian = Duinkhor) Teaching believed to have come from the Kingdom of Shambhala. Kalachakra ceremonies are performed here on the 10th and 25th day of the Lunar Month. One of the goals of the monastery is to prepare people for the eventually arrival of the 25th Kalkin King of Shambhala under whose reign Buddhism will flourish throughout the entire world.

Kingdom of Shambhala depicted on Thangka at Lam Rim Temple

One of the Thirty-Two Kings of Shambhala on display at Lam Rim Temple
Get your Free Lam Rim Temple Brochure Here.

Dubai | Mahdi | Shambhala

Back in 2005 during a Visit to Dubai I wrote:

According to an alleged hadith (a saying of the Prophet Mohammad not included in the Koran), one of the signs of the approaching Apocalypse is that "you will see barefoot, naked, destitute bedouin shepherds competing among themselves in constructing tall buildings." According to some commentators, the bedouins who will build the buildings will come not from the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula, that is the western part which contains Mecca, Medina, etc, but from the eastern part, which includes what is now Dubai and the other Emirates. In the days of the Prophet the people of what is now Dubai may have been barefoot, naked, and destitute. They are no longer. The city is awash in money from petroleum-related trade and tourism. And as if in fulfillment of the Prophet’s prophecy Dubai is now constructing the world’s tallest building, specifically designed to outclass every other skyscaper in the world. This is the building known as the Burj Dubai, tentatively scheduled for completion in 2009. It will reportedly be 160 stories—2213 feet— high.

Well, the Burj Khalifa, as the tallest building in the world is now known, was officially opened yesterday in Dubai amidst great fanfare.

Does this mean the the Apocalypse and/or the Appearance of the Mahdi will occur soon?

According to the Prophesy in the Kalachakra Tantra the Shambhala War will occur sometime after the appearance of eight teachers: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, The “White-Clad One,” (often identified as Mani), Muhammad, and the Mahdi. All have already appeared except the Mahdi, whose imminent arrival is Expected by President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and many others in positions of authority.

Sources in Mongolia have been predicting for several years now that the Shambhala War will begin in 2012. Could the Mahdi possibly appear by then? Or Has the Mahdi Already Appeared?

General Hanuman on a Shambhala Thangka

According to Mongolian tradition the Last Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia will be reincarnated as General Hanuman in the army of the Raudra Chakra, the 25th King of Shambhala in the final war against the Barbarians.

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Winter Solstice | 2009-2012

You are no doubt aware that the Winter Solstice is rapidly approaching. Here in Ulaan Baatar the solstice occurs at exactly 1:47 am on the 22nd. I am not yet quite sure what I will do that night, but if you see a light flickering on the top of Öndör Gegeenii Uul do not be alarmed, it is just me huddling around a fire (the temperatures have been going down to minus 35ºF / -37ºC at night). I do not know what you have planned for the Solstice, but as I alway do on these occasions I am asking people to refrain from making any Animal or Human Sacrifices.

As can be seen here the Waxing Crescent Moon sneaks by Jupiter around the Solstice. As an added bonus you should be able to see the usually elusive Mercury if you go out in the early hours of the evening after sunset.

Jupiter and the Waxing Crescent Moon should be putting on quite a show on the night of the Winter Solstice. Graphics courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

In case you were wondering it is exactly 1095 days, 17 hours, 25 minutes and 14 seconds from the 2009 Winter Solstice to the 2012 Winter Solstice (if you are keeping track that is 94,670,714 seconds), when as many people suspect the World is going to end. Indeed, the movie 2012 recently opened here in Ulaan Baatar, in English with Mongolian subtitles. I know of at least one company whose employees went en masse to see the show. Apparently they are working the date into their business plan. One of these people, who is also a professor at the Mongolian National University, opined that the movie was based on “scientific data.” Since I have not seen the movie I will not comment on that.

There are several Shambhalists here in Ulaan Baatar who are predicting that the Final War between the Forces of Shambhala and the Barbarians will also begin in 2012. They swear up and down that this has nothing to do with the whole Mayan Calendar Business. According to these sources, the signal in our three-dimensional world that the War would begin in the near future was the Destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in March of 2001. These same sources note that Chingis Khan, after invading Afghanistan, left a detachment of troops in the Bamiyan area to protect the Bamiyan Buddhas. The descendants of these people, known as Hazaras, still live in the region. Subjected to intense persecution by the Taliban, they were unable to fulfill their duty and the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed.

Bamiyan Valley, with the Buddha niche visible in the cliffs to the left

Bamiyan Buddha before destruction by the TalibanBamiyan Buddha niche after destruction of the statue

Keep in mind that even if the Shambhala War does begin in 2012 we will probably not notice any immediate effects in our three-dimensional world. The War will be fought in another dimension, and subsequent events in our mundane world will be a mere shadow play of a much vaster cosmic conflict.

See Stars Over Washington for the inevitable connection between the Winter Solstice and the continuing war in Afghanistan.

By the way, the first person from the Occident ever to see the Bamiyan Buddhas was the eccentric Hungarian Wanderer-Scholar Csoma de Koros, who is also responsible for introducing the Shambhala Mythologem into the Occidental World.

I have made my own preparations for 2012, come what may. I have hidden 15 kilos of Puerh Tea in a cave on Bogd Khan Mountain, the location known only to myself and one other person. The tea was five years old when I hid it and so will be ten years old in 2012. If the world does end I intend to enjoy the spectacle while sipping suitably aged Puerh tea. If the world does not end the tea should serve as a valuable hedge against inflation and the rapidly devaluing dollar.

Turkey | Silk Road | Chintamani | Carpets

Earlier I speculated on how the Shambhala Mythologem may have Arrived in Istanbul Via the Silk Road. Now the carpet cognoscente at the scintillatingly entertaining and informative Tea and Carpets Blog are pointing out what may be Buddhist influences in Ottoman Court Carpets:

Some of the most striking carpets of the Ottoman era are as white as a painter’s canvas and covered with finely drawn, mysterious icons. The never-changing symbols repeat in array after array, like waves building strength, creating a powerful, mesmerizing effect The mysterious icons are the “chintamani,” three balls hovering over a pair of cloud-like wavy lines. And for much of the 16th and 17th centuries, they held a special fascination for Ottoman court artists.

In carpet literature, the design is often said to derive from a Buddhist emblem. The word chintamani itself comes from Sanskrit and in Buddhist philosophy signifies a treasure ball or wish-granting jewel. A Buddhist background for the design is an appealing argument because it also recalls the distant past of the Turkic tribes who migrated to Anatolia from Central Asia and created the succession of dynasties that culminated in the Ottoman Empire.

A Chintamani Carpet from the Ottoman Era

According to one definition of Chintamani:

Cintamani, also spelled as Chintamani (or the Chintamani Stone), is a wish-fulfilling jewel within both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In Buddhism it is held by the bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara and Ksitigarbha. It is also seen carried upon the back of the Lung ta (wind horse). Within Hinduism it is connected with the gods, Vishnu and Ganesha.

The Chintamani Symbol is of course also connected with notorious Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich.

Three circle motif in Roerich’s painting “Oriflamma”

Chintamani motif in Roerich’s painting “Sign of Chintamani”

The connection between the Sufis of Istanbul and Shambhala is still under investigation. In the meantime, since The Ottomans are Back might we soon see a resurgence of Chintamani Carpets?

Mideast | Yezidis | Shambhala

Temple of the Yezidis in northern Iraq

Now it appears the Yezidis, practitioners of arguably the oldest religion in the world, are claiming that the Kings of Shambhala are actually a manifestation of their Peacock Angel:

In Tibet the Peacock Angel appears to be manifest as Amitibha, the peacock-riding dhyani buddha who sits upon his Peacock Throne in the heaven of Sukhavati and occasionally takes a physical incarnation as the King of the World in legendary Shambhala, the land of immortals that flies the Peacock Flag. Shambhala, meaning the “Place of happiness,” is a place designed as eight territories or “petals” and recognized to be the heart chakra of planet Earth. In the center of the planetary heart chakra is the palace of the King of Shambhala, who thus functions as not only planetary monarch but soul of the world (just as the human soul resides within the human heart chakra). According to one legend, the Peacock Angel not only spread his colors around the globe but additionally merged his spirit with that of the Earth and became the world soul. Thus, his physical body is the Earth and his will is reflected in the actions of all creatures that live upon the face of the Earth.

Peacock Angel of the YezidisShambhala

See The Truth about the Yezidis and also News about the Yezidis. As you no doubt already know Yezidis have Come Under Attack by Fundamentalist Jihadis in Iraq.

Also see Secrets of the Knights Templar and the Peacock Angel and Gurdjieff and Yezidism. You don’t need me to connect the dots here.

Yezidis from the Nineteenth Century

Turkey | Istanbul | Caravanserais | Shambhala

Update: If you are unfortunate enough to be in New York City you can swing by the American Museum of Natural History for their new Silk Road Exhibition, which features several of the places listed below, including Xian and Turpan.

From the Sultanahmed Koftesi I walked up Divan Yolu and turned right at Constantine’s Column onto Vezirhani Street. This neighborhood, which includes the Grand Bazaar, is the repository of many old hans, or caravanerserais, which offered lodging and warehousing to foreign merchants and traders, some of whom plied the Silk Road. Istanbul was of course the western terminus of at least two of the overland branches of the Silk Road. Burak Sansal summarizes these:

The caravan routes transporting silk, china, paper, spices and precious stones from one continent to the other followed several itineraries in Asia before arriving in Anatolia, which served as a bridge linking it to Europe via the Thrace region. These caravan routes later acquired the name of silk roads and Anatolia constituted the crossroad of these routes. The major cities lying on the Silk Road Anatolia were, in the north: Trabzon, Gümüshane, Erzurum, Sivas, Tokat, Amasya, Kastamonu, Adapazari, Izmit, Istanbul and Edirne; and in the south: Mardin, Diyarbakir, Adiyaman, Malatya, Kahramanmaras, Kayseri, Nevsehir, Konya, Isparta, Antalya and Denizli. Another frequently used itinerary is known to be the one between Erzurum, Malatya, Kayseri, Kirsehir, Ankara, Bilecik, Bursa, Iznik, Izmit and Istanbul.

The Vezir Han, one of the more venerable of the caravanserais in the Grand Bazaar area, is located not far from the corner of Vezirhani Street and Divan Yolu. The entrance does not seem to be marked, but this might well be the portal leading to the inner courtyard. The han itself was built sometime in the fourteenth century, and thus may have caught the tail end of the trading boom that accompanying the Pax Mongolica established by Chingis Khan and his successors, most of whom favored free trade. In his Guidebook to the Silk Road, written just before the Black Plague of 1348–50, Balducci Pegolotti wrote that you could travel from Khanbalik (Beijing) to the Black Sea in 300 days. “The road you travel . . . to Cathay (China) is perfectly safe, whether by day or by night, according to what the merchants say who have used it,” he wrote.

Just down the street, a gateway on the left leads to the Nuruosmaniye Mosque and the Grand Bazaar. The mosque is now undergoing renovation and was not open on the day I was there.

Nuruosmaniye Mosque, started in 1748 by Mahmut I and completed in 1755 by Osman III: the first large mosque to incorporate the Baroque style then popular in Europe.

The passageway past the Nuruosmaniye Mosque leads to the famous and indeed notorious Grand Bazaar, one of the world’s oldest and largest markets, founded in 1461, with more than 58 covered streets and over 1,200 shops. I will be returning here before I leave Istanbul, but for the moment I am hot on the trail of caravanserais.

One of the main entrances to the Grand Bazaar

Alongside the Grand Bazaar are ancient shopping arcades which may well date back to Silk Road times.

Old stone building near the Grand Bazaar

Just down the street is the Mahmud Pasha Mosque, one of the oldest private mosques in Istanbul. It was built in 1463 by Mahmud Pasha, the Grand Vizier of Sultan Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople in 1453, turning it into Istanbul. He eventually fell out with Mehmed and was executed in 1474. His tomb, directly behind the mosque, is said to be decorated with some of the oldest existing Iznik Tiles in Istanbul, which must offer him some consolation. Unfortunately, on the day I was there the tomb was locked.

Mahmut Pasha Mosque

From the Mosque Mahmut Pasha Yokusu (Hill) the street drops down to the Spice Market and the shore of the Golden Horn.

Street dropping down from Mahmut Pasha Yokusu

This street is lined with various hans, including the Kurkchu Han, said to be the oldest caravanserai in Istanbul. This han specialized in people involved in the fur trade. It is now fronted by nondescript sheds, but the gateway, although covered with thick paint and topped by a new sign, is said to be the original. Behind the gateway can be seen the ancient stone walls of the old caravanserai.

Kurkchu Han

Another khan on Mahmut Pasha Yokshu

Wandering about down this street lined with hans I could not help but wonder about the people who washed up here over the centuries and what they may have brought with them besides the material goods in which they were trading. In additional to being a trade route the Silk Road was of course also a conduit for ideas, philosophies, and religious beliefs. We have already seen how Nestorian Christianity moved eastward into China, establishing a Beachhead in Xian, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road (notwithstanding the contention of our Beloved Peony that in fact the eastern terminus was in Japan), in the eighth century if not earlier, and how a Mosque in Xian had been built in 742, a mere 120 years after the Hegira (we are of course speaking here of the 622 AD Hegira and not the twentieth-century Hippy Hegira).

The Eastward Advance of Buddhism from India into China is well-known; the dispersion of Buddhism westward less so. Did the traders and travelers who arrived here at these hans from the East bring with them the teachings of Buddha, either in written form, formal oral transmissions, or traveler’s tales? More specifically, did the Shambhala Mythologem, as first expounded in the Kalachakra Tantra and later elaborated on by many commentators, ever reach these ancient cobblestone streets?

As you know, according to legend the Kalachakra Tantra was first taught by the Buddha to Sucandra, the First King of Shambhala. Also according to legend, pilgrims to Shambhala brought an abbreviated version of the Kalachakra Tantra back to India in the tenth century or so, and from there it was disseminated into Tibet and later into Mongolia. More literal minded, beady-eyed scholars have bypassed the legendary origins of the Kalachakra Tantra altogether and contend that it was written in the tenth or eleventh century. Exactly where remains a matter of great dispute. Some scholars in the past have suggested that it was written in the Turpan Basin, on the north side of the Tarim Depression, still other in Khotan, on the south side of the Tarim Depression. Both of these cities were of course famous stops on the Silk Road. Could the Kalachakra Tantra and attendant Shambhala Mythologem have been carried the whole way westward to the terminus of the Silk Road in Istanbul?

The Tarim Basin as Shambhala. Branches of the Silk Road ran along both the north and south sides of the basin. See Enlargement of Map

Also, we know that the Kalachakra Tantra reached the court of Khubilai Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire, in what is now Beijing in the late thirteen century. Khubilai Khan may have himself taken the Kalachakra Initiation (this is a matter of contention). We know for sure a copy of the Kalachakra Tantra was made to commemorate his death in 1294. This copy still exists and I myself had digitized copies of it distributed in Mongolia. Thus the Kalachakra Tantra and attendant Shambhala Mythologem could also have move westward on the Silk Road from Beijing.

Just how far did Buddhism itself extend its influence westward? In the 1250s Khülegü Khan (1217–1265), grandson of Chingis Khan and brother of Khubilai Khan, invaded what is now Iran and in 1256 destroyed the stronghold of the Ismaili Sect at Alamut. In 1258 He Sacked Baghdad, overthrowing the 500 year-old Islamic Abbasid Dynasty, and in the process reopening the Silk Road. Khülegü was a Buddhist, at least in his later life, but his wife Doquz Khatun and his mother, the legendary Sorghaghtani Beki, were Christians.

One of Khülegü’s successors, the Il-Khan Arghun, eventually made the city of Tabriz, in the northwest corner of what is now Iran, just west of the Caspian Sea, his capital, and here Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam were all said to flourish, at least at first. From here Buddhism might well have moved further westward. As is turned out, Tabriz may mark the the limits of Buddhist expansion to the west, at least until the late twentieth century and the Tibetan Diaspora. The Mongol Il-Khans soon converted to Islam, and what is now Iran eventually became a predominately Islamic country. Buddhism virtually disappeared from Persia, thus cutting off the lands further to the west from the wellsprings of Buddhism in the East.

But while Buddhism as an organized religion may not have traveled the whole way west on the Silk Road traders and travelers may well have brought texts and tales with them, including accounts of the legendary realm of Shambhala. There is, as we shall soon see, a persistent connection between Sufis, practitioners of a mystical brand of Islam, and Shambhala. Indeed, just before I came to Istanbul, a pandita in Ulaan Baatar informed me that a considerable percentage of the current population of Shambhala are in fact Sufis. Could Sufis have learned about Shambhala from Silk Road travelers, or had Sufis themselves plied the old trade routes and brought back to Istanbul knowledge of the legendary Kingdom? Could they then have used their knowledge to locate a Portal here in Istanbul? Of course Istanbul was in the past a hotbed of Sufism. My next stop is the old Mevlevi Tekke in Galatea, on the other side of the Golden Horn, once home to the Whirling Dervishes, one of the most famous Sufi sects.

Turkey | Byzantium | Shambhala

For years I have heard rumors in Mongolia that Istanbul, or Turkey in general, was somehow connected with Shambhala. It’s difficult to say exactly when and how this variant of the Shambhala Mythologem arose. The Third Panchen Lama of Lama (1738-1780), who wrote what is perhaps the most famous guidebook to Shambhala, reportedly stated that the final battle between Buddhism and the infidel unbelievers will take place in Rum, the old name for ancient Byzantium and modern Turkey; he does not seem to equate “Rum” with Shambhala itself. In any case his guidebook was widely distributed in Mongolia and readers may have assumed from his references to Rum—Byzantium—that it was somehow connected with Shambhala. The Mongolian lama and teacher Ishbajor (1704–1788), wrote in a work entitled Zaxidal Xariltsaa that the realm of Shambhala was to the west of “Küngküri,” by which he meant Anatolian Turkey. Istanbul of course lies to the west of Anatolian Turkey. Then the nineteenth-century chronicle Erdeni-yin Erike stated that the fourth son of Chagatai, himself one of Chingis’s sons, “was made King of Rum, and so dwelt in the great city of Shambhala.” This is obviously an historical inaccuracy; no son of Chagatai’s ever ruled as the King of Rum, i.e, Byzantium. This statement does show, however, the persistent identification of Turkey and more particularly Istanbul with Shambhala.

Also, the Mongolian historian Damdinsüren (1908-1986) intimated “that Küngker may have, at one time, been thought of as both Shambhala and Istanbul, thus identifying Shambhala and the Turkish city.” Küngker is a common term for Turkey and/or Istanbul: it frequently pops up on old texts and older lamas in Mongolia use it in conversation to this day. In the Bolor Toli, or Crystal Mirror, a encyclopedic account of Buddhism by the ethnically Mongolian but Tibetan-named lama Nyima Chokyi Thuken (1737–1802), we read that “Going ten day’s journey in the direction of the setting sun from the River Volga, there is the city of the King of Küngker.” But the text does not seem to imply that Küngker is synonymous with Shambhala. It does state that to the west of Küngker “is a great lake called Tinggis [the Mediterranean],” and to the south of Küngker “is a blue stone known as Meka (Mecca), the shrine of the Tirteki [Moslems].” This Mecca is identified as the homeland of the infidel enemies of Shambhala. West of Mecca the Mongolian chroniclers were entering terra incognita, the realms of people with horses heads, antlers, and sexual organs on the soles of their feet.

Despite all these references to Istanbul and Turkey the connection of these places with Shambhala remains nebulous at best. Yet where there is smoke there may indeed be fire. I decided I better continue my researches on the ground. Between the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, both of which I had already visited, is the so-called Miliarium Aureum (Golden Milestone), erected by Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD. This stele served as the geographic center of Byzantium, the point from which the distances to all other cities and towns in the far-flung Byzantine Empire were measured. Basically it served the function of those posts we see at popular tourist locations with signs pointing to distance cities, as in “London: 5427 miles.”

The Golden Milestone, once the center of the Byzantine Empire; still located in the very heart of modern Istanbul.

It has occurred to me that we pay far too little attention to the Byzantines. Go ahead, admit it—you probably don't think of Byzantium more than two or three times a day. The word itself has become synonymous with mystifyingly intricate bureaucracies and devious, underhanded intrigue, but beyond that what do we really know about the Byzantines? Yet the Byzantium Empire lasted over 1000 years, much longer than the 400 or 500 year-duration of the Roman Empire that Edward Gibbon had such Wet Dreams about.

Recently there has been a spate of books about Byzantium and its capital Constantinople. Why, you ask? Since most of these books are by Americans I can only surmise that consciously or unconsciously Americans are questioning their own Empire-building endeavors and looking for pointers from the past. Debate rages about when America became an empire rather than a republic, but for the sake of argument let’s say that the late 1940s marks the turning point. America had emerged from World War II dominate on the world stage while at the same time the English Empire disintegrated with the loss of India and other Asian possessions. So maybe America has been an empire for sixty years at best. Compare this with the 1000-year span of the Byzantine Empire. Does anyone seriously think America will still be an empire 1000 years hence? Already we are witnessing the classic symptoms of decline: foreign wars sucking off vast amounts of money, a rapidly devaluing currency, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of tiny elite whose actual contribution to the common weal is by no means clear. And as the future becomes more and more uncertain we see the proliferation of fundamentalist religions and the rise of Wild-Eyed Cults which attract those who formerly would have been the bedrock of society. But I digress . . .

Here is a sampling of books about Byzantium currently in my Scriptorium. I can recommend any of them if you want to get up to speed on the Byzantines:

It may or may not be significant that just a hundred yards or so from the Golden Milestone is a restaurant which back in the 1960s and 70s served as the western terminus of the Hippie Hegira, also known in some circles as the Hash Highway, through Central Asia, Afghanistan and on to Kathmandu, where as Janis Joplin noted, the road ended for some, or still farther on to Goa and other notorious hangouts in India. Gunj, my host here in Istanbul, apparently made this trip herself. As usual, she is being very coy, but she has hinted that she herself may have located a Portal in Kashmir.

But what about Istanbul? What is Istanbul’s connection with Shambhala? Was there a Portal here in the past and if so does it still exists? It is important to remember that when Mongolians refer to a place in the four dimensional world as Shambhala they are generally referring to a location where a portal to Shambhala can be found, not Shambhala itself. At these places a warp in the time-space continuum may provide access to the Kingdom of Shambhala. Needless to say, opinions vary on this matter, but some knowledgeable Mongolians maintain that Shambhala exists in a seven-dimensional universe which intersects with the four-dimensional world that we all know and love only at very special places known as Portals. One such place is Khamariin Khiid in Mongolia. There are a few others. The location of this portals is not fixed, but can open or close due to various factors. Thus there may have been a Portal in Istanbul previously but now it could be closed. One factor in the location of a Portal may well be the number of people at a given location who are actually attempting enter it. Through the focusing of their energies they may indeed be able create a Portal. Istanbul has been the focus of vast amounts of energy for two millennia; whether it is the kind of energy which results in the creation of a Portal is still uncertain.

Just a stone’s throw from the Million Stone is the entrance to the underground Basilica Cistern. Could this opening into the physical earth also mark the location of a multidimensional Portal? In any case, I remember the Cistern well from its use as a location in the 1963 James Bond flick From Russia with Love and was anxious to see it.

This immense man-made underground cistern, 410 feet long by 210 feet wide, was built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine the Great in the Fourth Century AD and later enlarged by Emperor Justinian in the 450s. It provided water for the Great Palace of Constantinople—during Byzantine times located near the site of the current Blue Mosque—and to the nearby Topkapi Palace during the Ottoman Era. Its ceiling is held up by 336 thirty-foot high marble pillars in twelve rows of twenty-eight columns each. Water was piped into the cistern via an aqueduct built during the reign of Emperor Justinian from the Belgrade Forest some twelve miles away. When full the cistern could hold up to 27 million gallons of water. According to one account the cistern fell into disuse towards the end of Ottoman times and amazingly enough its existence was completely forgotten, even though it was located in the heart of Istanbul and thousands walked right over its ceiling every day. It was rediscovered in the twentieth century and occasionally used for special events like the James Bond flick. After repairs and renovation it was opened as a tourist attraction in 1987.

Walkway through the Cistern. There is currently only a foot of water in the cistern. When actually in use the cistern it could be filled to the top.

View of the Cistern

View of the Cistern

At the northwest corner of the cistern two of the columns rest on huge blocks of stone featuring the visage of Medusa, one of the three Gorgons. It is not quite clear why they are portrayed sideways and upside down.

Medusa upside down

Closeup of Medusa upside down

Medusa sideways

Closeup of Medusa sideways

I received no vibration indicating that the Cistern was a Portal to Shambhala. It did occur to me, however, that there may be some out there who view the Cistern as an entrance to Agharta, the underground Kingdom described by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Ferdinand Ossendowski. But despite the best attempts of Nicholas Roerich and the host of New Age Nut Bars who followed in his wake to conflate Agharta and Shambhala there is no real connection between the two. So I retired from the Cistern and had tea at the nearby Kervan Guesthouse, where I had quite an interesting, to say nothing of animated, discussion about carpets with its owner, the estimable Turgut Baturay. But the subjects of Turkish Tea and Carpets deserve posts of their own . . .

Mongolia | Gandan | Dhanyakataka Stupa

Tashchoimphel Temple at Gandan

Wandered by Gandan Monastery and took a peek at the Dhanyakataka Stupa Thangka in the Tashchoimphel Temple. Although Taranatha, Zanabazar’s previous Incarnation (See Incarnations of Javzandamba), wrote extensively about the Kalachakra and translated one of the most famous guidebooks to Shambhala from Sanskrit into Tibetan, Zanabazar Himself, the First Bogd Gegen, apparently showed little if any interest in the teachings. It was the Fourth Bogd Gegeen who first introduced the Duinkhor, or Kalachakra Teachings, into Mongolia in 1801. In 1803 he made a trip to Lhasa and brought back with him a large collection statues and books, including material connected with the Kalachakra. According to ethnologist A. M. Pozdneev, “In 1806 he set up a special datsang for the school of Duinkor [Kalachakra]” and services were performed here in 1807. "In the same year 1807, the Gegen ordered a yum written in gold from Tibet . . . Moreover, being devoted to the task of developing Duinkor, the Gegen decorated the temple of Dachin-kalbain-Sume, gilding its roof, and in its courtyard he established his personal residence.”

He also reportedly commissioned a thangka showing the Dhanyakataka Stupa in southern India where by tradition Shakyamuni Buddha first taught the Kalachakra Tantra to the first King of Shambhala. This is the thangka which can now be seen in the Tashchoimphel Temple.

Thangka of the Dhanyakataka Stupa

Close-up of the thangka showing Buddha emanating as the Kalachakra Deity inside the stupa. It was in this form that he taught the Kalachakra Tantra to Suchandra, the First King of Shambhala.

By tradition the Dhanyakataka Stupa is located at Amaravati, in south India, where the Dalai Lama gave a Kalachakra Initiation in January of 2006.

Ninety-two year-old Lama Gombo (left) was kind enough to point out the Dhanyakataka Thangka to me.

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | New Books

Polar Star Books, a wholly-owned subsidiary of World Wide Wanders, has four new releases: two by Nicholas Roerich and two by his wife Elena.

On the cover of this book is 10,994-foot Belchir Uul in Khövsgol Aimag, an area which with some justification can be called The Heart of Asia.

Cover of Foundations of Buddhism by Helena Roerich, Nicholas Roerich’s wife:

We also did a Russian language version of Foundations of Buddhism:

Cover of Russian Version

Shambhala: Perhaps Roerich’s most famous book

All four titles are available at outlets in Ulaan Baatar, including the Ikh Nomiin Delgüür (Big Book Store), just north of the Ulaan Baatar Hotel.