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Shambhala

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This article is about the mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhism. For other uses, see Shambhala (disambiguation).
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In part of the Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhist tradition, Shambhala (Sanskrit: शम्भल, IAST: Śambhala),[1] also spelled Shambala or Shamballa (Tibetan: བདེ་འབྱུང, Wylie: Bde'byung; Chinese: 香巴拉; pinyin: Xiāngbālā), is a spiritual and mythical kingdom. Shambhala is mentioned in the Kālacakra-tantra.[2][3] The Bon scriptures speak of a closely related land called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring.[4]

The Sanskrit name is taken from the name of a city mentioned in the Hindu Puranas.[1] The mythological relevance of the place originates with a prophecy in Vishnu Purana (4.24) according to which Shambhala will be the birthplace of Kalki, the last incarnation of Vishnu, who will mark the end of the age of darkness and human degradation (Kali Yuga) and usher in a new age of goodness and prosperity (Satya Yuga);[1][5] and the prophesied ruling Kingdom of Maitreya, the future Buddha.[6]

Kalachakra tantra

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Main article: Kalachakra
Further information: Kings of Shambhala
Manjuśrīkīrti, King of Shambhala

The first notable ruler, King Suchandra (sometimes wrongly Sanskritized as "Chandrabhadra," Tib. Dawa Sangpo), is reported to have requested teaching from the Śākyamuni Buddha that would allow him to practice the Dharma without renouncing his worldly enjoyments and responsibilities. In response to this request, it is said the Buddha gave him the first Kālacakra root tantra. By practicing the Kālacakra teachings, the whole Kingdom of Shambhala eventually became an enlightened Buddhist society. King Suchandra was followed by an additional six Dharmarājas (Truth Kings); his eighth successor, Mañjushrīkīrti, was the first of the 25 Kalki Kings (Tib. Rigden, wylie: rigs ldan).

Shambhala is ruled by the future Buddha Maitreya.[6][7] The Shambhala narrative is found in the Kalachakra tantra, a text of the group of the Anuttarayoga Tantras. Kalachakra Buddhism was presumably introduced to Tibet in the 11th century, the epoch of the Tibetan Kalachakra calendar. The oldest known teachers of Kalachakra are Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (d. 1361) and Buton Rinchen Drub (d. 1364).

In the narrative, King Manjuśrīkīrti is said to have been born in 159 BC and ruled over a kingdom of 300,510 followers of the Mlechha religion, some of whom worshiped the Sun. He is said to have expelled 20,000 people from his domain who clung to Surya Samadhi (solar worship) rather than convert to Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) Buddhism. After realizing these were the wisest and best of his people and how much he was in need of them, he later asked them to return and some did. Those who did not return are said to have set up the city of Shambhala. Manjuśrīkīrti initiated the preaching of the Kalachakra teachings in order to try to convert those who returned and were still under his rule. In 59 BC he abdicated his throne to his son, Puṇḍārika, and died soon afterward, entering the Sambhogakaya of Buddhahood.[8][9]

The Kalachakra tantra prophesies that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the 25th Kalki king Maitreya will emerge from Shambhala,[6][7] with a huge army to vanquish Dark Forces and usher in a worldwide Golden Age. This final battle is prophesied for the year 2424 or 2425 (in the 3304th year after the death of the Buddha). Thereafter, Buddhism would survive another 1,800 years.[10]

Western reception

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Portrait of an Altai–Himalayan shaman. Illustration from A Sorceress from Tungusy (1812–1813), by E. Karnejeff.

Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism were largely unknown in the Western world prior to the beginning of the 20th century.[11] The name Shambhala itself, however, was reported as early as the 17th century through the writings of Estêvão Cacella, a Portuguese Catholic missionary who had heard about the existence of a country named Shambhala (transcribed as Xembala), and thought it was another name for Cathay or China. Cacella in 1627 headed to Tashilhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama and, discovering his mistake, returned to India.[12]

Expeditions and location hypotheses

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Russian explorers Nicholas and Helena Roerich led a 1934–1935 expedition in Mongolia aimed at finding Shambhala.[13] They also believed that Belukha Mountain in the Altai Mountains was an entrance to the Kingdom of Shambhala, a common belief in that region.[14]

Inspired by Theosophical lore and several visiting Mongol lamas, Gleb Bokii, the chief Bolshevik cryptographer and one of the bosses of the Soviet secret police, along with his writer friend Alexander Barchenko, embarked on a quest for Shambhala, in an attempt to merge Kālacakra-tantra with communist ideology in the 1920s. Among other things, in a secret laboratory affiliated with the Soviet secret police, Bokii and Barchenko experimented with Buddhist spiritual techniques to try to find a key for engineering perfectly communist human beings.[15] They contemplated a special expedition to Inner Asia to retrieve the wisdom of Shambhala—the project fell through as a result of intrigues within the Soviet intelligence service, as well as rival efforts of the Soviet Foreign Commissariat that sent its own expedition to Tibet in 1924.

French Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh in present-day Afghanistan, also offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala ("elevated candle") as an etymology of its name.[16] In a similar vein, J. G. Bennett, a pupil of the Greek–Armenian mystic and dance teacher George Gurdjieff, published speculation that Shambhala was Shams-i-Balkh, a Bactrian sun temple.[17]

Heinrich Himmler, 4th Reichsführer-SS of Nazi Germany, sent a German expedition to Tibet in 1938–1939 "to contact the Agartha and Shambala", supposedly part of a Nazi esoteric project.[18]

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Shambhala may have been the inspiration for Shangri-La, a paradise on Earth hidden in a Tibetan valley, which features in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton.[19]

In 1969, Shambhala Publications, a book publishing company, was founded by Samuel Bercholz[20] and Michael Fagan, in Berkeley, California.

See also

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Śambhala also Sambhala, is the name of a town between the Rathaprā and Ganges rivers. In the Hindu Puranas, it is named as the place where Kalki, the last incarnation of Vishnu, is prophesied to appear (Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 1899).
  2. ^ Hiltebeitel, Alf (1999). Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics. University of Chicago Press. pp. 217–218. ISBN 978-0-226-34050-0.
  3. ^ The Tantra by Victor M. Fic, Abhinav Publications, 2003, p.49.
  4. ^ The Bon Religion of Tibet by Per Kavǣrne, Shambhala, 1996
  5. ^ LePage, Victoria (1996). Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth Behind the Myth of Shangri-La. Quest Books. pp. 125–126. ISBN 978-0835607506.
  6. ^ a b c Arch. orient. Nakl. Ceskoslovenské akademie věd. 2003. pp. 254, 261. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  7. ^ a b Roerich, Nicholas (2003). Shambhala. Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd. p. 65. ISBN 978-81-7936-012-5. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  8. ^ Das, Sarat Chandra (1882). Contributions to the Religion and History of Tibet, in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LI. Reprint: Manjushri Publishing House, Delhi. 1970, pp. 81–2.
  9. ^ Edwin Bernbaum "The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas" 1980 & Albert Grünwedel "Der Weg nach Shambhala" 1915
  10. ^ Alexander Berzin, Taking the Kalachakra Initiation (1997), p. 33. Lubosh Belka, "The Shambhala Myth in Buryatia and Mongolia", in: Tomasz Gacek, Jadwiga Pstrusińska (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2009), pp. 19-30 (p. 20f).
  11. ^ Lopez, Donald S. Jr. Prisoners of Shangri~La, Tibetan Buddhism and the West, The University of Chicago Press, 1998
  12. ^ Bernbaum, Edwin. (1980). The Way to Shambhala, pp. 18-19. Reprint: (1989). Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles. ISBN 0-87477-518-3.
  13. ^ Boyd, James (January 2012). "In Search of Shambhala? Nicholas Roerich's 1934–5 Inner Mongolian Expedition". Inner Asia. 14 (2). Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers: 257–277. doi:10.1163/22105018-90000004. ISSN 2210-5018. JSTOR 24572064.
  14. ^ Archer, Kenneth. Roerich East & West. Parkstone Press 1999, p.94
  15. ^ Znamenski (2011)
  16. ^ David-Néel, A. Les Nouvelles littéraires ;1954, p.1
  17. ^ Bennett, J.G: "Gurdjieff: Making a New World". Bennett notes Idries Shah as the source of the suggestion.
  18. ^ Childress, David Hatcher (1985). Lost Cities of China, Central Asia, and India: A Traveler's Guide. Lost cities series. Adventures Unlimited Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0932813008. Hitler sent several expeditions to Tibet in the thirties, to contact the Agartha and Shambala, and apparently created quite strong ties with the Shambala [...].
  19. ^ Wood, Michael (17 February 2011). "BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: Shangri-La". BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  20. ^ Midal, Fabrice, ed., Recalling Chögyam Trungpa (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2005), ISBN 1-59030-207-9, p. 475

General references

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  • Media related to Shambhala at Wikimedia Commons
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