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© Victor
& Victoria Trimondi
The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part II
– 10. The spearhead of the Shambhala war
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
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