More time at Chengdu's tea houses

I am putting up a few pics that didn't make the BBC edit. Look to the links on the left bar for more photographs from Tibet and China published on the BBC or HIMAL magazine.

Chengdu's tea houses--BBC story

Sorry for the long silence. I was out and about in Sichuan for a while. Click the Photo links to the left to see all the photos from the tea house story on the BBC. I'm putting here a few other photos that did not make it below from former visits to Sichuan tea houses.

PHOTO of the WEEK May 23--Mickey Gone Buddha

Recognize the natural state
Rest in one taste
Of all that arises
Trumpeting melody
Will announce the blissful union
Of Emptiness and Awareness
Resounding throughout cyberspace
It will be heard by all elongated or rounded ears
Of the Buddha, Mickey and by you
Remain in that one taste.

PHOTO of the WEEK--Rainbow Body at Boudha Stupa

Yet another late-breaking story from Kathmandu: Darren Attains Rainbow Body at Boudanath Stupa in Nepal.

Rainbow body, you ask?

This is when a highly accomplished meditator's bodily substance is transformed into multi colored light. This usually takes place at the time of death of realized masters who have reached the exhaustion of all erroneous grasping and dual fixating, usually through advanced practices in the Dzogchen tradition. The five gross elements that are the constituents of the physical body dissolve back into their essence--that is, rainbow light. Remember, ROY G BIV? That is right, a rainbow of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violent light and they are gone to the Pure Land. Often, only the hair and nails remain on the meditation cushion.

I'll let you do more research. But for short snips on a recent yogi attaining rainbow body, look into Trungpa Rinpoche 'Born In Tibet' or Sogyal Rinpoche's 'Tibetan Book of Living & Dying'.

For now, I will leave you with this image of my buddy Darren attaining Rainbow Body in Kathmandu. Well, actually we met the next evening for pizza at Fire and Ice but I am hedging my bets that all of his retreat in India and in Tibet did him well. So well that he is about ready to, POOOOFF.

photo courtesy Buddhafield, Inc. Hopkins Ltd.

The Tao of Nepal's Revolution

Note: Gratitude to the friend in Nepal who penned this text during curfew hours to help friends understand what is happening behind the barricades of burning tyres......
"What's a revolution?" asked Piglet excitedly, although he didn't know whether he should be.

"It's when the people over throw their Government," Rabbit replied knowingly.
"Sounds like a lot of change to me, and change is bother," Eeyore sighed, dropping his head cynically.

"But why would they do that in Nepal?" Piglet enquired.

"Boredom probably," muttered Eeyore, chewing a thistle out of one side of his mouth.

"No." Rabbit responded sharply, "it's because of a number of complicated reasons. Firstly the country has been engaged in a civil war for over ten years, as a result of Maoist insurgency..." "Taoist philosophy?" Pooh interrupted, lifting his head from a jar of honey, licking his lips and now taking an interest. "Didn't we write a book about that once?"

"Not Taoist philosophy, Pooh, Maoist insurgency," Rabbit said abruptly.

"Oh," said Pooh "hmm, are they related?"
"Well, eer… sort of…. they come from…. the same place," Rabbit stuttered uncertainly, when Owl, much to Rabbit's relief, proclaimed, "Philosophy is engaged in by academics, whereas insurgency is conducted by people with guns…" Pooh had now put down the pot of honey and once again interrupted. "Well, if I remember rightly Taoism is about following the Way. Hmm… I am sure I sang a song about it once," and he started humming and drifted off into his own thoughts again.
"So is revolution about finding your way?" Piglet once again enquired; although he was still not sure he knew exactly what a revolution was and therefore was no closer to the answer to his original question.

At that moment Christopher Robin appeared and everyone turned to him, as he generally new about things like this. Rabbit looked quietly relieved that he didn't have to continue explaining about a situation in a far away country, which he knew little about, had never been to and had no intention of visiting. "Nepal is a beautiful and magical country, with some of the most spectacular mountains and hospitable people in the world," Christopher Robin started, "but it has many complicated political and economic problems at the moment and the current crisis is a culmination of these."

"An accumulation of bees!?!" Pooh gasped in a startled voice, and immediately stopped humming and trying to remember the words to his song about the Way, and started looking around nervously, shielding his pot of honey.

"Let me make it simple for you. The root of the problem is that those people living in the remote mountainous areas are very poor and have very little, whereas those who have governed them have always lived comfortably in the cities, with plentiful food and security. Despite people in rural areas having the least access to basic provisions and services, and therefore needing most help, traditionally the ruling urban elites have not provided them with the support they need to improve the quality of their lives."

"So who's ruling the country?" Piglet asked, hoping this might bring him closer to understanding what a revolution was.

"Good question, Piglet, and arguable currently no one is."

"See, I told you. Boredom. No one is even ruling," Eeyore huffed.

"Prior to 1990 the country was ruled by the King but a democratic government replaced the monarchy following a revolution at that time." Piglet sighed to himself, there had now been two revolutions and he still didn't know what one was. "However the government that replaced the King," Christopher Robin continued "still did not represent the rural poor or increase their access of basic services despite it being the poor who sacrificed the most in the 1990 revolution. As a result those people within the country, who believed in the political thought of Mao, started a quest…"

"Like ours one to find the North Pole or catch a Heffalump?" Pooh inserted.

"Sort of…. a quest to capitalise on the disillusionment among the rural poor," Christopher Robin continued "and encourage them to take up an armed struggle against the government for their rights. The fighting has spread across the country and led to many people being killed, the erosion of human rights and the crimpling of the rural economy."

"It doesn't sound like it is helping the rural poor very much," Piglet said in a concerned voice.

"Civil wars mostly have the greatest negative impact on those that they claim to be trying to bring justice to," Rabbit said confidently, pleased he was able to engage in the discussion again.

"Certainly in the short term, Rabbit. Then in February 2005 after over a decade of fighting between the Government and the Maoists a dramatic event happened, the King seized power back from the government claiming they were not doing enough to tackle the Maoist insurgency and in doing so become an authoritarian ruler…"

"An author? With a tartan ruler?" Pooh interrupted in a confused tone, once again removing his head from now even deeper inside the honey pot.

"An authoritarian ruler is one that takes control without the will of the people and governs without checks on his power, normally resulting in abuse of their position," Christopher Robin explained. "As a consequence of this, during the last year a strange pact has formed between the Maoists, representing the rural poor, and disposed government, made up of the urban elite, as both desire the removal of the King, with the former wanting a Republic and the later a return to democracy." Christopher Robin paused for breath, by now even Rabbit and Owl looked a little lost. "In recent months both the Maoist and the democratic parties have been carrying out an increasing number of activities to disrupt daily life and unsettle the current regime, in the form of strikes, protests, road blockades and in the case of the Maoist more brutal and concentrated violence. This has culminated in the mass protests, violence and disruption of the last few weeks, which has seen both groups join together and mobilise a significant number of people onto the streets, bring the country to a stand still and demanding a change of regime and a new constitution in Nepal – the start of a revolution."

"But how will people know when the revolution is over," asked Piglet, who now was a little clearer on what a revolution was, but was not sure whether it was a good or bad thing as yet.

"Well if successful, the demands of the revolutionaries have to been met, i.e. the King must steps aside and a new leader has to be identified to bring stability back to the country through a new constitution," Christopher Robin stated.

"But the revolutionaries are only united over the removal of the King. With the King now saying he is willing to pass power to the people, won't their conflicting demands and ideologies and the fact there is no obvious leader among the revolutionary movement, or at least no one everyone will agree on, mean that Nepal will drift into anarchy." Pooh suddenly interjected.

"I told you, bother, a whole lot of bother!" Eeyore groaned.

"Sounds like revolutions are more about getting lost, than finding the Way – I think we should stick to Taoism," Piglet concluded, picking up his bunch of violets, "come on Pooh, let's go and play Pooh Sticks, which at least has a clear objective and a winner."

April 25--Nomad Photo Journal on BBC

A photo journal of mine just went up on the BBC web site entitled, 'The Life of a Tibetan Nomad' with about a dozen photos. I worked with the BBC to walk through a day in the life of Jigme and his family who I stayed with for a couple weeks. Check it out. Paste this into your brower:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/asia_pac_tibetan_nomads/html/1.stm

The last time I had an on-line photo journal, which is a stark contrast to the current BBC series of nomad photos, was a few years back in HIMAL magazine. You can check those out by pasting the link http://www.himalmag.com/2002/september/# into your browser and click on the Tibet Special Photo Gallery (photos by Scruffy Squirrel Prints).

Th Philosopher Has Escaped-Piatagorski

I recently heard of a Latvian film entitled 'A Philosopher has Escaped' which received top award at an International Film Festival...well, the festival was in the Russian outpost Anapa... but still, the documentary film, "Filozofs Izbedzis" (A Philosopher has Escaped) from the "Lokomotive" film studio and directed by Uldis Tirons, was awarded first prize in the CIS and Baltic Film Festival.

The film is about my crazy professor of Indian philosophy Alexandr Piatagorski who I referred to in the Hungarian Csoma de Kőrösi blog from a few weeks back. 'A Philosopher has Escaped documents the eccentric and paradoxical life of the Russian Piatagorski, a specialist in Buddhist and ancient Indian philosophy, who was a legendary figure in Russian intellectual circles.

In trying to track down the film, which I have not so if anyone can help please send me information, I came across his most recent book, 'Who's Afraid of the Freemasons'. Check it out.In the eighteenth century, Freemasonry was seen to be a force of enlightenment, yet it has come to be regarded as a sinister influence in public life. This definitive study reveals more about Masonry and the way it functions than any other work. Professor Piatigorsky considers the institution from the points of view of both Masons and their critics. In the first section, he gives an outline of Masonic history, from the foundation of the Grand Lodge in London's Covent Garden in 1717, through the extraordinary role of Masonry in Enlightenment Europe and the American Revolution, to the present day. In the second part, he describes Freemasonry's rituals and symbolism, within which all Masonic religious ideas find their place. It is here that Piatigorsky's wide knowledge of the world's religions comes into its own.

PHOTO of the WEEK April 24--Flavor Flav spotted in Tibet

Yeeaahhhhhh Boooooyyyyyyy. You found it here Under The Same Moon. Flavor Flav was spotted on the Tibetan plateau! He just exchanged his Clock for a similarly ridiculous sized Dzi-Stone.

It took the Oolong-aficionado turned Private-Eye Joe Wagner, known in Haiku circles as 'Wood-Cutter-Up-Yonder', to track Flavor Flav down in on the windy Nangchen plains in Eastern Tibet. "I had to sort through many butter-stained Tibetans trying to pass themselves off as ex-Public Enemy rappers," Joe said, granting exclusive rights of this photo to this Web-blog. "But, I will tell you this," Wagner continued, "The Flav has it goin' on."

It became known late last year that Flav is part of the US Witness Re-location Program after secret testimony in the Enron hearing. "We want to keep the Flav safe," an unnamed kevlar-vest wearing spokeperson from the US Vice-President's office told us. "There aren't many rappers who are so punctual."

If you thought that this (see second photo) look-a-like is the real Flavor Flav these days livin' it up in Beverly Hills, think again Holmes, it's all part of that surreal thing they have going on in Hollywood. But here is the real story: the lovely lady with the green hat and matching purse and fuzzy robust top, that is actually Private Eye Joe Wagner on another assignment. Stay tuned.

Costa Rica, Poem: Furry Pillow Covers

I landed into San Jose, Costa Rica a bit ago. Perhaps this appropriately follows the last Yak Head Posting? Anyway, a long lost friend hooked me up with an acquaintance of hers for the evening in San Jose so I wouldn't have to drop any cash at a hotel. My host: American expat interior designer with way too much cash who had been living in Costa Rica for a couple decades and obviously loved her German Shepard dog, a lot....perhaps a bit too much. So, here it goes...
FURRY PILLOW COVERS

Aging Costa Rican canine off duty in living room
New Jersey-born interior designer
Drop two star shaped ice cubes
Into her tall crystal glass of Chablis

She slides across the teak floor
Nestles onto her leopard skin couch
Invites me to join her to stroke
The many fuzzy rabbit pelt covered pillows

The animal skin trade
In San Jose backstreet market
She explains,
Makes for, 'Oh so inexpensive decor.'

A bit of rhino wrap on the kitchen counter top
A trim of ivory on the living room mantle
A wolf hide carpet in the landing
Really can, 'make the difference.'

Lamenting the troubles of her time
Husband’s infidelity
Those “dark skinned” violent ways
The cost of pain free waxing
Now, the time has finally come
To pack her palace
And move back home.


Her loyal hip displaced guard dog
Lulled to sleep by her nightly monologues
Contently sighs next to polished toe nails

But there are more uncertainties
She continues
with a hair flip,
Unable to pay transport cost of her canine watch dog
She explains whilst caressing the German Shepard ears
maybe he too can become furry pillow covers.

PHOTO of the WEEK April 11--A Few Yak Heads

Song of Advice for Giving Up the Eating of Meat

by Nyala Pema Duddul

When I think about the suffering that meat-eating brings,
I can not bear it and I feel pain and anguish in my heart.
Om mani padme hum hrih!
Out of emptiness and compassion, you are the one who guides beings,
Noble Avalokiteshvara, to you I pay homage.

Without having trained in love and compassion myself,
I ate the flesh of my mothers whilst lecturing about cause and effect.
Without realizing the absolute, I wandered on the path of empty words.
I, the parrot-like beggar of White Rock,
Practised austerities and ‘extracting the essence.’
Then, one day, while meditating on Lord Avalokiteshvara,
According to the union of stages from the Khanyam Rangdrol,[1]
My own body and everything around me suddenly disappeared,
Transforming into the light body of the Great Compassionate One,
Who appeared as a vision in the sky before me.
As I looked from a state of luminous self-awareness,
I saw the inconceivable miseries of the lower realms.
(to continue reading the complete translation, paste http://www.lotsawahouse.org/id6.html in your browser)

But, In case you are late, the previous long articles I blogged entitled "The Hidden Shrine & Empty Picture Frame" and "Tolerance & Totalisation", well...they have taken the same path as these unfortunate yaks--on order of the Travel & Editorial Department of the Lower East Side. In case you want to still read the articles, just email me, grab your wheat grass juice and wait to get them from me personally. In the meantime, study the Photo of the Week here, and then read above the excellent translation (by the head Ninja of the ever-increasing Wu Tai Clan) of Nyala Pema Duddul's visonary prayer. Then, go fry up a tofu-pup and eat a blue-corn chip!

PHOTO of the WEEK, April 4--Drolma Lisa

Mona Lisa? Well, kind of...We like to call this "Drolma Lisa". Chinese beatniks are experimenting in Lhasa these days. This piece and other similarly engaging works were hanging in a house that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama's family, now converted into an art cafe.

France: The Tao of Bluegrass Strummin'

Chia Tao wrote a poem in the 8th century China entitled 'Seeing a man off on the Way'. Part of it went something like this:
When I find you again,
it will be in the mountains;
this morning, I lose you
once more to farewell.

Free of attachment
in heart and mind—
is why you can go
Ten thousand miles alone

to places with such
little human warmth,
where, when you meet someone,
they speak an ancient tongue?

Traveling without disciples,
you have only
a white dog
for company..............

.........But this week, we are in southwest France…

François Montes is a white-haired charcoal sketch artist who lives within the granite stone walled village of La Couvertoirade. Walking around the four sentinel towers of this ancient town takes less than twenty minutes. Within the thirty or so stone houses including Francois’ small two room drawing guild, single Church, and a few wine cellars, most of the towns’ residences fell to the swords of the marching Crusaders in the early 1200s. The crusaders arrived on Pope Innocent the III’s order to root out this strong bastion of a heretical religion in similar small towns and fortress like La Couvertoirade. The heretics were the Cathars. However, François was not too bothered to explain any of this when we sat down next to him and his white poodle. In fact, he did not bother to look up, as he was content playing a bluegrass-sounding ditty on an oddly shaped 6-string zither instrument, the épinette.

This small village of La Couvertoirade sits in the middle of the southwestern French region known as Languedoc. Historically, the boundaries of Languedoc were marked by the Occitan language (langue d’Oc). Occitan was the lingua franca that flourished during the Middle Ages along the Mediterranean from the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees to the Italian Alps, and spreading north towards Savory and west along the Atlantic coast. In this’ corner of Languedoc, the landscape is as dramatic as its history. From the coastal area around the Mediterranean Gulf de Lyon, to the arid limestone plateau where Lerab Ling and Francois’ small village are found to the huge river gorges and completely depopulated areas of the Causses, to the rugged Cévennes mountains, it has rough quality to it. For centuries, much of the area off of the coast was impenetrable, and even now it retains something of an air of mystery. Near the coast, however, you will find the lazy hills hosting as far as the eye can see fields that produce the local wine and olives.
It was in the harsh inland environment of the hills and plateaus, where most inhabitants lived in fortified towns that the Cathar religion flourished. Catharism was a variant on ancient Persian beliefs combined with Christianity; a dualistic creed which portrayed the material world as an invasion into the realm of Light by the powers of Darkness—sounds like Star Wars but for sure there was more killing taking place here than in any George Lucas film. Propagated by men dissatisfied with the indulgent Catholic bishops and clergy, the Cathars were lead by those who took vows of poverty and tried to emulate the austere Apostles of Christ. Catharism believes that God reigns over the spiritual world, the Devil created all matter, and Christ was God’s messenger through whom human souls could be united with the Divine and attain immortality. This belief posed a number of problems for the Roman Catholic Church. Firstly, Cathars denied the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, and insisted that the Catholic faithful, in worshiping any Creator (of matter), were in fact worshiping the Devil. They were immaterialists by definition and asceticism was seen as the only pathway to redemption. They were also pacifists who condemned the Crusades.

After his election to in 1198, Pope Innocent the III began to pressure the local nobility in this region to reign in the heretical Cathars and bring them back into the Catholic fold (Dominican and Franciscan preaching friars had already failed in their efforts some years before). When the papal legate in the area called a meeting with the previously excommunicated, but still popular Cathar Raymond VI of Toulouse, an argument broke out and Raymond sent the pope’s representative’s head rolling—literally—with a swing of his sword. When news got back to the Innocent the III, a crusade was called—the Albigensian Crusade—against the Cathars. The seasoned crusader Simon de Montfort, and powerful Cistercians monastics turned swashbuckling monks arrived in waves over the next 15 years in various attempts to root out Catharism, and in return getting their loot and booty. In 1209, an army led by the archbishop of Narbonne and the papal legate Arnaud Amaury invaded Languedoc, with a heavy contingent of English mercenaries in its ranks. At the city of Béziers, local Catholics refused to reveal to the pope’s representative who amongst their own still held secretly onto their Cathar beliefs. In true Crusader style, the city was besieged and its entire population—numbering over 20,000—was massacred. When asked how the Catholic citizens were to be distinguished from the heretics, Amaury replied, “Kill them all, God will recognize his own.”

The final chapter to the Cathars was played out in the mid 13th century when the infamous Inquisition burned at the stake the last believed 225 Cathar in a mass pyre at Mirepoix. Yet, four Cathars are said to have escaped the heat and took with them the Cathar ‘treasure’ from a nearby cave, which some in this area believe was in fact nothing other than the Holy Grail, and the Cathars themselves were the true Knights of the Round Table.

As I was studying this Cathar belief system and history, François kept playing his zither while his white poodle ran around our feet. After the second cup of coffee, I mentioned to François that his music sounded like country bluegrass. His 70-year old eyes lit up and said with the strongest French accent available in Languedoc, ‘Mais, tu connais Granpa Jones—But, you know of Grandpa Jones?’ Kinder spirits uniting under the banner of bluegrass, we were both feeling like brothers. ‘Le bluegrass vient veraiment du coeur—Bluegrass music is truly from the heart,’ he exclaimed. He spent the next two hours alternating between explaining the history of his (originally Norwegian) string instrument, giving me a few lessons, and even breaking out his 1979 special tape recorder and playing along with some authentic Grandpa Jones and Frank Stanely from the album, “Let Me Rest On A Peaceful Mountain.”

As we approached mid-day, it was time to take our leave but not before François decided I should have my own 6-string Norwegian zither at home. Taking me into his guild, he covered his leather fingers with black charcoal. Then, laying out a beige paper over the épinette, he rubbed his musical instrument, taking particular care to note the spacing of the frets as this gives the distinctive three-octave scale for the instrument. Handing me the charcoal tracing, he instructed me what kind of wood to use for the top and sides, and then said, ‘now that you have had your first lesson, go back and make your own épinette, and then return for another lesson.’

Chia Tao also wrote in the 8th century:

Not having to be alone
is happiness;
we do not talk
of failure or success.

Japan: Meeting the Grandfather to modern day Tibetan Translators

I walk on a thin layer of fresh snow through Tokyo’s Uedo Park. I have a meeting of sorts with a man I greatly admire. Many years before while studying at the School for Oriental and African studies, I heard of this man—a Hungarian who walked from Europe to India in search of his ancestors. Individuals who set off on cross-continental sojourns to check out their ancestral roots—these are the kind of folk I like to meet in my own travels. Indeed this Hungarian, who happened to become the first translator of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, would be one such character I would like to meet. Not because of the superior intellect he exhibited, although I deeply admire his ability to master in the course of his life not only Tibetan but seventeen other languages. Rather, I am drawn to this bold Hungarian’s sense of solitude, and the purity with which he travelled. He was a traveller in the truest sense—one who leaves home with no thought of returning. Travelling with no need ever to return brings a kind of inner strength. This strength comes from knowing one is ultimately completely alone in the world in which one travels. And for these travellers the movement of travel itself brings with it the deepest solitude—a solitude that does not mean having to be alone. This Hungarian, who left his Transylvanian home and never returned, dying in Darjeeling, never came to Japan. But this winter day I find myself searching for him in Tokyo…

Back in February 1819, it appeared as if Alexander Csoma de Kőrösi was going for a chilly mid-morning stroll along the riverbanks of his Hungarian village. A bit of dark rye bread and cheese in the leather satchel and walking staff in hand, Csoma de Kőrösi certainly did not appear to be setting off from his homeland in search of the origins of the Hungarian race. Certainly if one wants to learn about one’s heritage, one may venture to the local university library for the afternoon, or perhaps just to the local café to ask a few old timers about grandpa’s grandpa—but, such a local, perusal approach was the antithesis of that taken by Csoma de Kőrösi. He felt no boundaries when travelling and left no query unanswered in his research.

We have to admire Csoma de Kőrösi’s ambition. At the time of his departure in February 1819, his only geographical reference for the goal of setting foot in his ancestral homeland was a chance classroom remark he had heard in his Gottingen University years before. Theologian and orientalist J.G. Eichhorn had mentioned in a lecture how “certain Arabic manuscripts which must contain very important information regarding the history of the Middle Ages and of the origins of the Hungarian nation are still in Asia.” Vague as it sounds, this was all the encouragement Csoma de Kőrösi needed to begin studying Arabic and tracking down maps in the dusty cartography department.

Later, during his studies of Arabic in Germany, Csoma de Kőrösi came across a work by the 7th century Greek historian Theophylact Simocatta that claimed the Turks defeated in 597 a people known as the Ugars. Because of the linguistic similarity of the word Ugars to Ugor, Ungri, Hungar and Hongrois, it was thought by Csoma de Kőrösi and others that the Ugars could be a long-forgotten tribe who were likely ancestors of the present day Hungarians. Some histories Csoma de Kőrösi studied also erroneously tied the Huns and a people in Central Asia known variously as Ouars, Oigurs, or Yugras. These were the putative theories which led Csoma de Kőrösi to believe that his Hungarian ancestors were to be found in the Tarim Basin in Central Asian, very likely among the present day Uigyurs in East Turkistan (Chinese: Xingjian).

So it was that on 20 February 1819 Csoma de Kőrösi set out on foot to China via Moscow, intending to enter East Turkistan from the north. Count Teleky met Csoma de Kőrösi on the road that morning and asked him where he was going. Pausing briefly, a truly beatific Csoma de Kőrösi replied unambiguously, “I am going to Asia in search of our relatives.”

The first I heard of Alexander Csoma de Kőrösi was from Professor Piatagorski, an eccentric Russian lecturer of Indian Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. I suppose Professor Piatagorski was fond of Csoma de Kőrösi because of their comparable mad brilliance, and similarities in their respective efforts involving painstakingly exhaustive research.

Dr. Piatagorski mentioned that Csoma de Kőrösi, in his life-long search for the origins of the Hungarian race, was the godfather to all current day translators of Tibet’s tantric literature. And, it was through Csoma de Kőrösi writings on the Kalachakra tantra that the West first learned of the mythical land of Shambhala. But in fact, translating tantric Tibetan texts was only a side project, a support, for the Hungarian who never wavered from the goal of finding the origins of his ancestors.

The final word I remember from Dr. Piatagorski on Csoma de Kőrösi hinted at a unique statue of the Hungarian in meditation posture somewhere in Japan. Dr. Piatagorski said the statue was called ‘Choma in the aspect of a Bodhisattva’, and chuckled, it was “as if the Hungarian chap was immersed in the contemplation of the vast cosmology of the Kalachakra, or tired there from…”

Csoma de Kőrösi’s travel plans changed as soon as he left Hungary. He never made it to Russia, nor to China. Instead, after stopping in Croatia to study Slavic and perfect his Turkish (adding to his linguistic rucksack which already included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French, English and Romanian), he moved onto Constantinople from where he hoped to head north to Moscow. Because of an outbreak of the plague, he turned south instead by ship to Egypt and then to Syria. Desert trekking to Mosul, he caught a boat down the Tigris to Baghdad where he continued alongside camels in a caravan to Tehran. In a letter from Tehran, Csoma de Kőrösi prophetically described his life’s journey, “Both to satisfy my desire, and to prove my gratitude and love for my nation, I have set off, and must search for the origin of my nation according to the lights which I have kindled in Germany, avoiding neither dangers that may perhaps occur, nor the distance I may have to travel.”

During the next three years of solo travel for this European Christian along the Silk Road—from the middle east to Bukhara, past the Bamian Buddhas and Kabul, and into Pakistan and Lahore—Csoma de Kőrösi changed his appearance and dress, spoken tongue, name and identification papers to suit, and indeed, survive the notoriously dangerous roads.

Having passed through Srinagar and Amritsar in 1823, Csoma de Kőrösi walked into the walled fortresses of Leh, the capital of Ladakh. Learning that his only option north to East Turkistan would be to go where no other westerner had ever been before—that is, trek over the 18,000-foot mountain passes of the Karakorum and Kun Lun mountain ranges. Csoma de Kőrösi decided to turn back to Srinagar. It was a choice that led Csoma de Kőrösi not to East Turkistan, the assumed home of the Hungarians, but rather to an encounter with the seminal Great Gamer, William Moorcroft.

Moorcroft, a horse-breeder turned voyager turned spy, immediately took to Csoma de Kőrösi and he knew that British intelligence agents in Simla would have plenty of work for a linguist of Csoma de Kőrösi’s calibre—especially given the need to translate confiscated correspondence from Russian and other languages in which the Hungarian could work. The only existing European dictionary of Tibetan at that time was the Alphabetum Tibetanum, published in Rome in 1762 after the work of A. A. Geeorgi, a Capuchin friar. With the Great Game in full swing, and the British at a loss for Tibetan speakers, Moorcroft and the East India Company offered to pay Csoma de Kőrösi to prepare a Tibetan dictionary.

Moorcroft was part of a handful of British imperialists connected to the East India Trading Company who can in large part be credited with the recovery of India’s architectural history of Buddhism. They were mostly young men who excelled in linguistics, archaeology, and downing stiff scotch—they were not the type of colonialists who sat around in their Raj tea gardens, they preferred traipsing through the jungle.

Lighting candles at Dhanyakataka Stupa at Amaravati on full moon

Three months ago, I found myself at Amaravati, one such historically significant Buddhist site ‘re-discovered’ in Andhra Pradesh by Colonel Colin Mackenzie in 1797. I had joined over 200,000 other pilgrims for the Kalachakra initiation by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Significantly, Amaravati’s great stupa of Dhanyakataka is said by most sources to be the first place the Buddha taught the Kalachakra tantra. Csoma de Kőrösi noted in his textual research that a highly accomplished 99-year old tantrika by the name of Suchindra travelled from Shambhala to Amaravati where he was taught the Kalachakra by the Buddha—about 2,530 years ago. Thereafter, Suchindra returned to Shambhala, celebrated by his pious devotees as a great Dharma King, and passed on the holy teachings. So began the unbroken lineage of Dharma Kings who are still enthroned in Shambhala today.

Translating the deeds of benevolent Shambhalic kings ruling over esoteric lands of realized meditators and multi-faced deities was still only a secondary task—Csoma de Kőrösi was after hard logistics to plot the map to his homeland. Thus he continued the ardent task of cracking more codes to unlock the door to the origins of the Hungarians. And so, Csoma de Kőrösi spent the next eleven years engaged in Tibetan studies, living the life of a hermit with ascetic-like discipline. His efforts led to the publishing in the mid 1830s of his Tibetan dictionary, a grammar, and short accounts of Tibetan literature and history. In particular, using the ancient woodblock at Yangla monastery in Ladakh, Csoma de Kőrösi outlined the basic themes of the Kalachakra tantra and the Kingdom of Shambhala. His research on the Kalachakra represented the totality of westerners’ knowledge of the subject for nearly a century.

One night whilst studying in his room in Ladakh, Csoma de Kőrösi discovered a passage in a commentary on the Kalachakra tantra that he believed not only pinpointed his ancestral homeland, but also identified it as none other than Shambhala, which he portrays as ‘the Buddhist Jerusalem’. Csoma de Kőrösi wrote, “the mentioning of a great desert of twenties days’ journey, and of white sandy plains on both sides of the Sita, render it probable that the Buddhist Jerusalem (I so call it), in the most ancient times, must have been beyond the Jaxartes [in current day Uzbekistan], and probably the land of the Yugurs.” Csoma de Kőrösi believed that the Kalachakra tantra was his esoteric passport to his native soil in East Turkistan. Csoma de Kőrösi was not of the view that the Shambhala he was studying was a description of an imaginary landscape, a contemplative playground, or some sort of passageway to a Buddhist metaphor—he believed literally that these tantric scriptures gave the latitude and longitude markings for Shambhala, which was none other than the land of the Yugurs, or Uigyurs, from which flowed his ancestral lineage.

Upon completion in 1837 of the dictionary and grammar, Csoma de Kőrösi decided to remain in India to continue his study of Sanskrit and related dialects, still preparing himself linguistically for his journey via Lhasa to his believed homeland to the north. Csoma de Kőrösi felt further study of Sanskrit was the key needed to open the meaning of many of the scriptures found in the great monastic libraries in Lhasa—which would provide further clues to the ancient Uigyur Kingdom. By this time, Csoma de Kőrösi had mastered eighteen languages, and while Tibetan was in his repertoire, he still had not set foot in Tibet proper—although Ladakh is often included geo-culturally as Western Tibet.

In late March 1842, Csoma de Kőrösi made his way from Calcutta, still on foot, through the Terai jungle to the hill stations in Darjeeling. He immediately forged relationships with Dr. Archibald Campbell, a British agent based in Darjeeling. The diplomat set up the diplomatic necessities enabling Csoma de Kőrösi to travel through Tibet. But his journey through the jungle had taken its toll and by the first week of April, Csoma de Kőrösi was running a high marsh fever, likely malaria. Dr. Campbell wrote of Csoma de Kőrösi, “…all his hopes of attaining the object of the long and laborious search were centred in the discovery of the country of the ‘Yoogors’…to reach it was the goal of this most ardent wishes, and there he fully expected to find the tribes he had hitherto sought in vain.”

On 11 April 1842, Csoma de Kőrösi died peacefully. Campbell noted that the Hungarian’s only possessions were, “four boxes of books and paper, the suit of blue clothes he always wore, and in which he died, a few sheets, and one cooking pot.”

Csoma de Kőrösi’s journey wanders through my mind as I stare at him wrapped in his meditation shawl, hands resting in his lap. This twenty centimetre bronze statue, with his sorrowful downcast eyes, speaks volumes—of a quest for knowledge, of journeys into the unknown, and of the stark reality that death may come at any moment. It may seem tragic that Csoma de Kőrösi’s pursuit to reach East Turkistan, land of the Uigyurs, was off the mark, that it was not the ancestral homeland he believed. Still, it is indeed admirable to bear witness to such a devoted quest of this solitary traveller—and it would seem that Csoma de Kőrösi quest for his Shambhala was a life well spent.

19 February 2006 Tokyo, Japan



Photo caption: The Japanese named the 20 centimetre bronze statue simply, “Choma in the aspect of Bodhisattva”, after it was gifted to the then Imperial Museum in 1931 by Hungarian journalist, Dr. Felix Va’lyi.