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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.
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).
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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