The Shadow of the Dalai Lama –
Part II – 10. The spearhead of the Shambhala war
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
10. THE SPEARHEAD OF THE
SHAMBHALA WAR
War in the Tibet of old on a number of
occasions meant the military intervention of various Mongolian tribes into
the internal affairs of the country. Over the course of time a deep
cultural connection with the warlike nomads from the north developed which
ultimately led to a complete Buddhization of Mongolia. Today this is
interpreted by Buddhist “historians” as a pacification of the country and
its inhabitants. But let us examine more closely some prominent events in
the history of Central Asia under Buddhist
control.
Genghis Khan as a Bodhisattva
The greatest conqueror of all humankind, at least
as far as the expansion of the territory under his control is concerned,
was Genghis Khan (1167–1227). He united the peoples of the Mongolian
steppes in Asia and from them formed a horseback army which struck fear
into the hearts of Europe and China just as much as it did in
the Islamic states. His way of conducting warfare was for the times
extremely modern. The preparations for an offensive usually took several
years. He had the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents studied in
detail. This was achieved by among other things a cleverly constructed
network of spies and agents. His notorious cavalry was neither chaotic nor
wild, nor as large as it was often said to be by the peoples that he
conquered. In contrast, they were distinguished by strict discipline, had
the absolutely best equipment, and were courageous, extremely effective,
and usually outnumbered by their enemies. The longer the preparations for
war were, the more rapidly the battles were decided, and that with a
merciless cruelty. Women and children found just as little pity as the aged
and the sick. If a city opposed the great Khan, every living creature
within it had to be exterminated, even the animals — the dogs and rats were
executed. Yet for those who submitted to him, he became a redeemer,
God-man, and prince of peace. To this day the Mongolians have not forgotten
that the man who conquered and ruled the world was of their blood.
Tactically at least, in wanting to expand into
Mongolia Tibetan Lamaism did well to declare Genghis Khan, revered as
divine, to be one of their own. It stood in the way of this move that the
world conqueror was no follower of the Buddhist teachings and trusted only
in himself, or in the shamanist religious practices of his ancestors. There
are even serious indications that he felt attracted to monotheistic ideas
in order to be able to legitimate his unique global dominion.
Yet through an appeal to their ADI BUDDHA system
the lamas could readily match their monotheistic competitors. According to
legend a contest between the religions did also took place before the
ruler’s throne, which from the Tibetan viewpoint was won by the Buddhists.
The same story is recounted by the Mohammedans, yet ends with the “ruler of
the world” having decided in favor of the Teachings of the Prophet. In
comparison, the proverbial cruelty of the Mongolian khan was no obstacle to
his fabricated “Buddhization”, since he could without further ado be
integrated into the tantric system as the fearful aspect of a Buddha (a heruka) or as a bloodthirsty dharmapala (tutelary god).Thus more
and more stories were invented which portrayed him as a representative of
the Holy Doctrine (the dharma).
Among other things, Mongolian lamas constructed an
ancestry which traced back to a Buddhist Indian law-king and put this in
place of the zoomorphic legend common among the shamans that Genghis Khan
was the son of a wolf and a deer. Another story tells of how he was
descended from a royal Tibetan family. It is firmly believed that he was in
correspondence with a great abbot of the Sakyapa sect and had asked him for
spiritual protection. The following sentence stands in a forged letter in
which the Mongol addresses the Tibetan hierarch: “Holy one! Well did I want
to summon you; but because my worldly business is still incomplete, I have
not summoned you. I trust you from here, protect me from there”
(Schulemann, 1958, p. 89). A further document “from his hand” is supposed
to have freed the order from paying taxes. In the struggle against the
Chinese, Genghis Khan — it is reported — prayed to ADI BUDDHA.
The Buddhization of Mongolia
But it was only after the death of the Great Khan
that the missionary lamas succeeded in converting the Mongolian tribes to
Buddhism, even if this was a process which stretched out over four
centuries. (Incidentally, this was definitely not true for all, then a
number took up the Islamic faith.) Various smaller contacts aside, the
voyage of the Sakya, Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen, to the court of the nomad
ruler Godän Khan (in 1244), stands at the outset of the conversion project,
which ultimately brought all of northern Mongolia under Buddhist
influence. The great abbot, already very advanced in years, convinced the
Mongolians of the power of his religion by healing Ugedai’s son of a
serious illness. The records celebrate their subsequent conversion as a
triumph of civilization over barbarism.
Some 40 years later (1279), there followed a
meeting between Chögyel Phagpa, likewise a Tibetan great abbot of the
Sakyapa lineage, and Kublai Khan, the Mongolian conqueror of China and
the founder of the Yuan dynasty. At these talks topics which concerned the
political situation of Tibet
were also discussed. The adroit hierarch from the Land
of Snows succeeded in persuading
the Emperor to grant him the title of “King of the Great and Valuable Law”
and thus a measure of worldly authority over the not yet united Tibet. In
return, the Phagpa lama initiated the Emperor into the Hevajra Tantra.
Three hundred years later (in 1578), the Gelugpa
abbot, Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso, met with Althan Khan and received from him the
fateful name of “Dalai Lama”. At the time he was only the spiritual ruler
and in turn gave the Mongolian prince the title of the “Thousand-Golden-Wheel
turning World Ruler”. From 1637 on the cooperation between the “Great
Fifth” and Gushri Khan began. By the beginning of the 18th century at the
latest, the Buddhization of Mongolia was complete and the country lay
firmly in the hand of the Yellow
Church.
But it would be wrong to believe that the
conversion of the Mongolian rulers had led to a fundamental rejection of
the warlike politics of the tribes. It is true that it was at times a
moderating influence. For instance, the Third Dalai Lama had demanded that
women and slaves no longer be slaughtered as sacrificial offerings during
the ancient memorial services for the deceased princes of the steppe. But
it would fill pages if we were to report on the cruelty and mercilessness
of the “Buddhist” Khans. As long as it concerned the combating of “enemies
of the faith”, the lamas were prepared to make any compromise regarding
violence. Here the aggressive potential of the protective deities (the dharmapala) could be lived out in
reality without limits. Yet to be fair one has to say that both elements,
the pacification and the militarization, developed in parallel, as is
indeed readily possible in the paradoxical world of the tantric doctrines.
It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that the proverbial
fighting spirit of the Mongolians would once more really shine forth and
then, as we shall see, combine with the martial ideology of the Kalachakra Tantra.
Before the Communists seized power in Mongolia in
the twenties, more than a quarter of the male population were simple monks.
The main contingent of lamas belonged to the Gelugpa order and thus at
least officially obeyed the god-king from Lhasa. Real power, however, was exercised
by the supreme Khutuktu, the
Mongolian term for an incarnated Buddha being (in the Tibetan language: Kundun). At the beginning of his
term in office his authority only extended to religious matters, then
constitutionally the steppe land
of Genghis Khan had become a province of China.
In the year 1911 there was a revolt and the
“living Buddha”, Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, was proclaimed as the first head of
state (Bogd Khan) of the
autonomous Mongolian peoples. At the same time the country declared its
independence. In the constitutional decree it said: “We have elevated the
Bogd, radiant as the sun, myriad aged, as the Great Khan of Mongolia and
his consort Tsagaan Dar as the mother of the nation” (Onon, 1989, p. 16).
The great lama’s response included the following: “After accepting the
elevation by all to become the Great Khan of the Mongolian Nation, I shall
endlessly strive to spread the Buddhist religion as brightly as the lights
of the million suns ...” (Onon, 1989, p. 18).
From now on, just as in Tibet
a Buddhocracy with the incarnation of a god at its helm reigned in Mongolia.
In 1912 an envoy of the Dalai Lama signed an agreement with the new head of
state in which the two hierarchs each recognized the sovereignty of the
other and their countries as autonomous states. The agreement was to be
binding for all time and pronounced Tibetan Buddhism to be the sole state
religion.
Jabtsundamba Khutuktu (1870–1924) was not a native
Mongol, but was born in Lhasa
as the son of a senior civil servant in the administration of the Dalai
Lama. At the age of four his monastic life began in Khüre, the Mongolian
capital at the time. Even as a younger man he led a dissolute life. He
loved women and wine and justified his liberties with tantric arguments.
This even made its way into the Mongolian school books of the time, where
we are able to read that there are two kinds of Buddhism: the “virtuous
way” and the “mantra path”. Whoever follows the latter, “strolls, even
without giving up the drinking of intoxicating beverages, marriage, or a
worldly occupation, if he contemplates the essence of the Absolute, ...
along the path of the great yoga master.” (Glasenapp, 1940, p. 24). When on
his visit to Mongolia
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama made malicious comments about dissoluteness of
his brother-in-office, the Khutuktu is said to have foamed with rage and
relations between the two sank to a new low.
Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the eighth
Bogdo-gegen
The “living Buddha” from Mongolia
was brutal to his subjects and not rarely overstepped the border to
cruelty. He is accredited with numerous poisonings. It was not entirely
without justification that he trusted nobody and suspected all. Nonetheless
he possessed political acumen, an unbreakable ambition, and also a
noteworthy audacity. Time and again he understood how, even in the most
unfathomable situations, to seize political power for himself, and survived
as head of state even after the Communists had conquered the country. His
steadfastness in the face of the Chinese garnered him the respect of both
ordinary people and the nobility.
There had barely been a peaceful period for him.
Soon after its declaration of independence (in 1911) the country became a
plaything of the most varied interests: the Chinese, Tsarist Russians,
Communists, and numerous national and regional groupings attempted to gain
control of the state. Blind and marked by the consumption of alcohol, the
Khutuktu died in 1924. The Byelorussian, Ferdinand Ossendowski, who was
fleeing through the country at the time attributes the following prophecy
and vision to the Khutuktu, which, even if it is not historically
authenticated, conjures up the spirit of an aggressive pan-Mongolism: “Near
Karakorum and on the shores of Ubsa Nor I see the huge multi-colored camps.
... Above them I see the old banners of Jenghiz Khan, of the kings of Tibet,
Siam, Afghanistan, and of Indian princes; the sacred signs of all the
Lamaite Pontiffs; the coats of arms of the Khans of the Olets; and the
simple signs of the north-Mongolian tribes. .... There is the roar and
crackling of fire and the ferocious sound of battle. Who is leading these
warriors who there beneath the reddened sky are shedding their own and
others’ blood? ... I see ... a new great migration of peoples, the last
march of the Mongols …" (Ossendowski, 1924, pp. 315-316).
In the same year that Jabtsundamba Khutuktu died
the “Mongolian Revolutionary People’s Party” (the Communists) seized
complete governmental control, which they were to exercise for over 60
years. Nonetheless speculation about the new incarnation of the “living
Buddha” continued. Here the Communists appealed to an old prediction
according to which the eighth Khutuktu would be reborn as a Shambhala general and would thus no
longer be able to appear here on earth. But the cunning lamas countered
with the argument that this would not hamper the immediate embodiment of
the ninth Khutuktu. It was decided to approach the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
and the Ninth Panchen Lama for advice. However, the Communist Party
prevailed and in 1930 conducted a large-scale show trial of several Mongolian
nobles and spiritual leaders in connection with this search for a new
incarnation.
There were attempts in Mongolia at the time to make
Communist and Buddhist ideas compatible with one another. In so doing,
lamas became excited about the myth that Lenin was a reincarnation of the
historical Buddha. But other voices were likewise to be heard. In a
pamphlet from the twenties we can also read that “Red Russia and Lenin are
reincarnation of Langdarma, the enemy of the faith” (Bawden, 1969, p. 265).
Under Josef Stalin this variety of opinion vanished for good. The Communist
Party proceeded mercilessly against the religious institutions of Mongolia,
drove the monks out of the monasteries, had the temples closed and forbade
any form of clerical teaching program.
The Mongolian Shambhala myth
We do not intend to consider in detail the recent
history of Mongolia.
What primarily interests us are the tantric patterns which had an effect
behind the political stage. Since the 19th century prophetic
religious literature has flourished in the country. Among the many mystic
hopes for salvation, the Shambhala
myth ranks as the foremost. It has always accompanied the Mongolian
nationalist movement and is today enjoying a powerful renaissance after the
end of Communism. Up until the thirties it was almost self-evident for the
Lamaist milieu of the country that the conflicts with China and Russia were to be seen as a
preliminary skirmish to a future, worldwide, final battle which would end
in a universal victory for Buddhism. In this, the figures of the Rudra Chakrin, of the Buddha Maitreya, and of Genghis Khan were combined into an
overpowering messianic figure who would firstly spread unimaginable horror
so as to then lead the converted masses, above all the Mongols as the chosen
people, into paradise. The soldiers of the Mongolian army proudly called
themselves “Shambhala warriors”.
In a song of war from the year 1919 we may read
We raised the yellow flag
For the greatness of the
Buddha doctrine;
We, the pupils of the
Khutuktu,
Went into the battle of
Shambhala!
(Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 104).
Five years later, in 1924, the Russian, Nicholas
Roerich, met a troop of Mongolian horsemen in Urga who sang:
Let us die in this war,
To be reborn
As horsemen of the Ruler
of Shambhala
(Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 66).
He was informed in mysterious tones that a year
before his arrival a Mongol boy had been born, upon whom the entire
people’s hopes for salvation hung, because he was an incarnation of Shambhala.
The Buriat, Agvan Dorjiev, a confidante of the
Thirteenth Dalai Lama, about him we still have much to report, persistently
involved himself in every event which has affected Mongolia
since the beginning of the twentieth century. “It was his special
contribution”, John Snelling writes, “to expand pan-Mongolism, which has
been called 'the most powerful single idea in Central Asia in the twentieth
century', into the more expansive pan-Buddhism, which, as we have already
noted, he based upon the Kalachakra
myths, including the legend of the messianic kingdom of Shambhala” Snelling, 1993, p. 96).
The Shambhala
myth lived on in the underground after Communist accession to power, as
if a military intervention from out of the mythic kingdom were imminent. In
1935 and 1936 ritual were performed in Khorinsk in order to speed up the
intervention by the king of Shambhala.
The lamas produced postcards on which could be seen how the armies of Shambhala poured forth out of a
rising sun. Not without reason, the Soviet secret service suspected this to
be a reference to Japan,
whose flag carries the national symbol of the rising sun. In fact, the
Japanese did make use of the Shambhala
legend in their own imperialist interests and attempted to win over
Mongolian lamas as agents through appeals to the myth.
Dambijantsan, the bloodthirsty avenging lama
To what inhumanity and cruelty the tantric scheme
can lead in times of war is shown by the story of the “avenging lama”, a
Red Hat monk by the name of Dambijantsan. He was a Kalmyk from the Volga region
who was imprisoned in Russia
for revolutionary activities. “After an adventurous flight”, writes Robert
Bleichsteiner, “he went to Tibet
and India,
where he was trained in tantric magic. In the nineties he began his
political activities in Mongolia.
An errant knight of Lamaism, demon of the steppes, and tantric in the style
of Padmasambhava, he awakened vague hopes among some, fear among others,
shrank from no crime, emerged unscathed from all dangers, so that he was
considered invulnerable and unassailable, in brief, he held the whole Gobi
in his thrall” (Bleichsteiner, 1937,p. 110).
Dambijantsan believed himself to be the
incarnation of the west Mongolian war hero, Amursana. He succeeded over a number of years in commanding a
relatively large armed force and in executing a noteworthy number of
victorious military actions. For these he was awarded high-ranking
religious and noble titles by the “living Buddha” from Urga. The Russian,
Ferdinand Ossendowski, reported of him, albeit under another name (Tushegoun
Lama) [1], that “Everyone who disobeyed his orders perished. Such a one
never knew the day or the hour when, in his yurta or beside his galloping horse on the plains, the strange
and powerful friend of the Dalai Lama would appear. The stroke of a knife,
a bullet or strong fingers strangling the neck like a vise accomplished the
justice of the plans of this miracle worker” (Ossendowski, 1924, p. 116).
There was in fact the rumor that the god-king from Lhasa
had honored the militant Kalmyk.
Dambijantsan’s form of warfare was of a calculated
cruelty which he nonetheless regarded as a religious act of virtue. On
August 6, 1912, after the taking of Khobdo, he had Chinese and Sarten
prisoners slaughtered within a tantric rite. Like an Aztec sacrificial priest,
in full regalia, he stabbed them in the chest with a knife and tore their
hearts out with his left hand. He laid these together with parts of the
brain and some entrails in skull bowls so as to offer them up as bali sacrifices to the Tibetan
terror gods. Although officially a governor of the Khutuktu, for the next
two years he conducted himself like an autocrat in western Mongolia and
tyrannized a huge territory with a reign of violence “beyond all reason and
measure” (Bawden, 1969, p. 198). On the walls of the yurt he live in hung
the peeled skins of his enemies.
It was first the Bolsheviks who clearly bothered
him. He fled into the Gobi desert and
entrenched himself there with a number of loyal followers in a fort. His
end was just as bloody as the rest of his life. The Russians sent out a
Mongolian prince who pretended to be an envoy of the “living Buddha”, and
thus gained entry to the camp without harm. In front of the unsuspecting
“avenging lama” he fired off six shots at him from a revolver. He then tore
the heart from the body of his victim and devoured it before the eyes of
all present, in order — as he later said — to frighten and horrify his
followers. He thus managed to flee. Later he returned to the site with the
Russians and collected the head of Dambijantsan as proof. But the “tearing
out and eating of the heart” was in this case not just a terrible means of
spreading dread, but also part of a traditional cult among the Mongolian
warrior caste, which was already practiced under Genghis Khan and had
survived over the centuries. There is also talk of it in a passage from the
Gesar epic which we have already
quoted. It is likewise found as a motif in Tibetan thangkas: Begtse, the highly revered war god,
swings a sword in his right hand whilst holding a human heart to his mouth
with his left.
In light of the dreadful tortures of which the
Chinese army was accused, and the merciless butchery with which the
Mongolian forces responded, an extremely cruel form of warfare was the rule
in Central Asia in the nineteen twenties.
Hence an appreciation of the avenging lama has arisen among the populace of
Mongolia
which sometimes extends to a glorification of his life and deeds. The
Russian, Ossendowski, also saw in him an almost supernatural redeemer.
Von Ungern Sternberg: The “Order of Buddhist Warriors”
In 1919 the army of the Byelorussian general,
Roman von Ungern Sternberg, joined up with Dambijantsan. The native Balt
was of a similar cruelly eccentric nature to the “avenger lama”. Under
Admiral Kolchak he first established a Byelorussian bastion in the east
against the Bolsheviks. He saw the Communists as “evil spirits in human
shape” (Webb, 1976, p. 202). Later he went to Mongolia.
Through his daredevilry he there succeeded in
building up an army of his own and positioning himself at its head. This
was soon to excite fear and horror because of its atavistic cruelty. It
consisted of Russians, Mongolians, Tibetans, and Chinese. According to
Ossendowski, the Tibetan and Mongolian regiments wore a uniform of red
jackets with epaulettes upon which the swastika of Genghis Khan and the
initials of the “living Buddha” from Urga were emblazoned. (In the occult
scene von Ungern Sternberg is thus seen as a precursor of German national
socialism.)
In assembling his army the baron applied the
tantric “law of inversion” with utmost precision. The hired soldiers were
firstly stuffed with alcohol, opium, and hashish to the point of collapse
and then left to sober up overnight. Anyone who now still drank was shot.
The General himself was considered invulnerable. In one battle 74 bullets
were caught in his coat and saddle without him being harmed. Everyone
called the Balt with the shaggy moustache and tousled hair the “mad baron”.
We have at hand a bizarre portrait from an eyewitness who saw him in the
last days before his defeat: “The baron with his head dropped to his chest,
silently rode in front of his troops. He had lost his hat and clothing. On
his naked chest numerous Mongolian talismans were hanging on a bright
yellow cord. He looked like the incarnation of a prehistoric ape man.
People were afraid even to look at him” (quoted by Webb, 1976, p. 203).
Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg.
This man succeeded in bringing the Khutuktu,
driven away by the Chinese, back to Urga. Together with him he staged a
tantric defense ritual against the Red Army in 1921, albeit without much
success. After this, the hierarch lost trust in his former savior and is
said to have made contact with the Reds himself in order to be rid of the
Balt. At any rate, he ordered the Mongolian troops under the general’s
command to desert. Von Ungern Sternberg was then captured by the Bolsheviks
and shot. After this, the Communists pushed on to Urga and a year later
occupied the capital. The Khutuktu had acted correctly in his own
interests, then until his death he remained at least pro forma the head of state, although real power was
transferred step by step into the hands of the Communist Party.
All manner of occult speculations surround von
Ungern Sternberg, which may essentially be traced to one source, the
best-seller we have already quoted several times by the Russian, Ferdinand
Ossendowski, with the German title of
Tiere, Menschen, Götter [English:
Beasts, Men and Gods]. The book as a whole is seen by historians as problematic,
but is, however, considered authentic in regard to its portrayal of the
baron (Webb, 1976, p. 201). Von Ungern Sternberg quite wanted to establish
an “order of military Buddhists”. “For what?”, Ossendowski has him ask
rhetorically. “For the protection of the processes of evolution of humanity
and for the struggle against revolution, because I am certain that
evolution leads to the Divinity and revolution to bestiality” (Ossendowski,
1924, p. 245). This order was supposed to be the elite of an Asian state,
which united the Chinese, the Mongolians, the Tibetans, the Afghans, the
Tatars, the Buriats, the Kyrgyzstanis, and the Kalmyks.
After calculating his horoscope the lamas
recognized in von Sternberg the incarnation of the mighty Tamerlan (1336-1405),
the founder of the second Mongolian Empire. The general accepted this
recognition with pride and joy, and as an embodiment of the great Khan
drafted his vision of a world empire as a “military and moral defense
against the rotten West…" (Webb, 1976, p. 202). “In Asia there will be
a great state from the Pacific and Indian
Oceans to the shore of the Volga”, Ossendowski presents the baron as
prophesying. “The wise religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the
west. It will be the victory of the spirit. A conqueror and leader will
appear stronger and more stalwart than Jenghiz Khan .... and he will keep
power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean capital,
shall emerge the king of the world” (Ossendowski, 1924, p. 265).
Here he had uttered the key phrase which continues
to this day to hold the occult scene of the West enthralled, the “king of
the world”. This figure is supposed to govern in a kingdom below the ground
somewhere in Central Asia and from here
exercise an influence on human history. Even if Ossendowski refers to his
magic empire under the name of Agarthi,
it is only a variant upon or supplement to the Shambhala myth.[2] His “King of the World” is identical to the
ruler of the Kalachakra kingdom.
He “knows all the forces of the world and reads all the souls of humankind
and the great book of their destiny. Invisibly he rules eight hundred
million men on the surface of the earth and they will accomplish his every
order” (Ossendowski, 1924, p. 302). Referring to Ossendowski, the French
occultist, René Guénon, speculates that the Chakravartin may be present as a trinity in our world of
appearances: in the figure of the Dalai Lama he represents spirituality, in
the person of the Panchen Lama knowledge, and in his emanation as Bogdo
Khan (Khutuktu) the art of war (Guénon, 1958, p. 37).
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Mongolia
Since the end of the fifties the pressure on the
remainder of the “Yellow Church” in Mongolia has slowly declined.
In the year 1979 the Fourteenth Dalai Lama visited for the first time. Moscow, which was involved in a confrontation with China, was
glad of such visits. However it was not until 1990 that the Communist Party
of Mongolia relinquished its monopoly on power. In 1992 a new democratic
constitution came into effect.
Today (in 1999) the old monasteries destroyed by
the Communists are being rebuilt, in part with western support. Since the
beginning of the nineties a real “re-Lamaization” is underway among the
Mongolians and with it a renaissance of the Shambhala myth and a renewed spread of the Kalachakra ritual. The Gelugpa order is attracting so many new
members there that the majority of the novices cannot be guaranteed a
proper training because there are not enough tantric teachers. The
consequence is a sizeable army of unqualified monks, who not rarely earn
their living through all manner of dubious magic practices and who
represent a dangerous potential for a possible wave of Buddhist
fundamentalism.
The person who with great organizational skill is
supervising and accelerating the “rebirth” of Lamaism in Mongolia
goes by the name of Bakula Rinpoche, a former teacher of the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama and his right hand in the question of Mongolian politics. The lama,
recognized as a higher tulku, surprisingly also functions as an Indian
ambassador in Ulan Bator alongside his
religious activities, and is accepted and supported in this dual role as
ambassador for India
and as a central figure in the “re-Lamaization process” by the local
government. In September of 1993 he had an urn containing the ashes of the
historical Buddha brought to Mongolia
for several weeks from India,
a privilege which to date no other country has been accorded by the Indian
government. Bakula enjoys such a great influence that in 1994 he announced
to the Mongolians that the ninth incarnation of the Jabtsundamba Khutuktu,
the supreme spiritual figure of their country, had been discovered in India.
The Dalai Lama is aware of the great importance of
Mongolia
for his global politics. He is constantly a guest there and conducts
noteworthy mass events (in 1979, 1982, 1991, 1994, and 1995). In Ulan Bator in 1996
the god-king celebrated the Kalachakra
ritual in front of a huge, enthusiastic crowd. When he visited the
Mongolian Buriats in Russia
in 1994, he was asked by them to recognize the greatest military leader of
the world, Genghis Khan, as a “Bodhisattva”. The winner of the Nobel peace
prize smiled enigmatically and silently proceeded to another point on the
agenda. The Kundun enjoys a boundless reverence in Mongolia as in no other part of the world
(except Tibet).
The grand hopes of this impoverished people who once ruled the world hang
on him. He appears to many Mongolians to be the savior who can lead them
out of the wretched financial state they are currently in and restore their
fame from the times of Genghis Khan.
Footnotes:
[2] Marco Pallis is of the
opinion that Ossendowski has simply substituted the name Agarthi for Shambhala, because the former was very well known in Russia as a
“world center”, whilst the name Shambhala
had no associations (Robin, 1986, pp. 314-315).
Next Chapter:
11. THE
SHAMBHALA MYTH AND THE WEST
|