Shambhala
Part ofa serieson |
Tibetan Buddhism |
---|
![]() |
InTibetan Buddhisttradition,Shambhala(Sanskrit:शम्भल,IAST:Śambhala),[1]also spelledShambalaorShamballa(Tibetan:བདེ་འབྱུང,Wylie:Bde'byung;Chinese:Hương ba kéo;pinyin:Xiāngbālā), is aspiritualkingdom. Shambhala is mentioned in theKalachakra Tantra.[2][3]TheBonscriptures 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 theHinduPuranas,probably in reference toSambhalin Uttar Pradesh.[1]The mythological relevance of the place originates with a prophecy inVishnu Purana(4.24) according to which Shambhala will be the birthplace ofKalki,the next incarnation ofVishnu,who will usher in a new age (Satya Yuga);[1][5]and the prophesied ruling Kingdom ofMaitreya,the futureBuddha.[6]
Kalachakra tantra
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Rigdan_Tagpa.jpg/220px-Rigdan_Tagpa.jpg)
Shambhala is ruled by the future BuddhaMaitreya.[6][7]The Shambhala narrative is found in theKalachakra tantra,a text of the group of theAnuttarayoga Tantras.Kalachakra Buddhism was presumably introduced toTibetin the 11th century, the epoch of theTibetan Kalachakra calendar.The oldest known teachers of Kalachakra areDolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen(d. 1361) andButon 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 theMlechhareligion, 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 theKalachakrateachings 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 theSambhogakayaof Buddhahood.[8][9]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Alti-Himalayan_Shaman_-1812-1813.jpg/220px-Alti-Himalayan_Shaman_-1812-1813.jpg)
The Kalachakra tantra prophesies that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the 25th Kalki kingMaitreyawill emerge from Shambhala,[6][7]with a huge army to vanquish Dark Forces and usher in a worldwideGolden Age.This final battle is prophesied for the year2424 or 2425(in the 3304th year after the death ofthe Buddha). Thereafter, Buddhism would survive another 1,800 years.[10]
Western reception
[edit]Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism were largely unknown in the West prior to the beginning of the 20th century.[11]The name itself, however, was reported as early as the 17th century, by way ofEstêvão Cacella,thePortuguesemissionarywho had heard about Shambhala (transcribed asXembala), and thought it was another name forCathayor China. Cacella in 1627 headed toTashilhunpo,the seat of thePanchen Lamaand, discovering his mistake, returned to India.[12]
The Hungarian scholarSándor Kőrösi Csoma,writing in 1833, provided the first geographic account of "a fabulous country in the north...situated between 45' and 50' north latitude".[citation needed]
Theosophy
[edit]During the late 19th century,Theosophical Societyco-founderHelena Blavatskyalluded to the Shambhala myth. Blavatsky, who claimed to be in contact with aGreat White Lodgeof Himalayan Adepts, mentions Shambhala in several places, but without giving it especially great emphasis.[citation needed]
Lateresotericwriters further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by ahidden mystic brotherhoodwhose members labor for the good of humanity.Alice A. Baileyclaims Shamballa (her spelling) is an extra-dimensional or spiritual reality on theastral plane,a spiritual centre where the governingdeityofEarth,Sanat Kumara,dwells as the highestAvatarof the PlanetaryLogosof Earth, and is said to be an expression of the Will of God.[13][better source needed]
Expeditions and location hypotheses
[edit]NicholasandHelena Roerichled a 1924–1928 expedition aimed at Shambhala. They also believed thatBelukha Mountainin theAltai Mountainswas an entrance to Shambhala, a common belief in that region.[14]
Inspired byTheosophicallore and several visiting Mongol lamas,Gleb Bokii,the chief Bolshevikcryptographerand one of the Boss es of theSoviet secret police,along with his writer friend Alexander Barchenko, embarked on a quest for Shambhala, in an attempt to merge Kalachakra-tantra and ideas of Communism in the 1920s. Among other things, in a secret laboratory affiliated with the secret police, Bokii and Barchenko experimented with Buddhist spiritual techniques to try to find a key for engineering perfect 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 theSoviet Foreign Commissariatthat sent its own expedition to Tibet in 1924.
French BuddhistAlexandra David-Néelassociated Shambhala withBalkhin present-day Afghanistan, also offering the PersianSham-i-Bala,"elevated candle" as an etymology of its name.[16] In a similar vein, theGurdjieffianJ. G. Bennettpublished speculation that Shambalha wasShams-i-Balkh,aBactriansun temple.[17]
Hitler sent several expeditions to Tibet in the 1930s "to contact theAgarthaand Shambala ", supposedly part ofNazi esotericism.[18]
In popular culture
[edit]Shambhala may have been the inspiration forShangri-La,a paradise on Earth hidden in a Tibetan valley, which features in the 1933 novelLost Horizonby British authorJames Hilton.[19]
In 1969,Shambhala Publications,a book publishing company, was founded by Samuel Bercholz[20]and Michael Fagan, inBerkeley, California.
Daniel Moorewrote the song "Shambala"that in 1973 was recorded by bothB. W. StevensonandThree Dog Night.
Shambhala appears as a mini-dungeon in thePC-98gameE.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution.The dungeon is a network of tunnels that act as the entrance to bothAtlantisandMu.
Much of the plot ofThomas Pynchon's 2006 novel,Against the Day,revolves around Shambhala, with some characters seeking an actual city by that name, a site of unique and exploitable power, and others treating it as a great figure for the transcendent.
In 2009, the mythical city was depicted in the video gameUncharted 2: Among Thieves.The game follows treasure hunterNathan Drakein search of the lost city.
Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballamainly takes place in an alternate version of Earth in 1923, specifically Germany. The parallel world that serves as the main setting in theFullmetal Alchemistseries is a secondary setting. Said parallel world is believed to be Shamballa by the movie's villains, a group of Nazis led by Dietlinde Eckhart (based on the historicalDietrich Eckart), who desire to open an inter-dimensional portal between the two worlds so as to harness Shamballa's technology to help Hitler take control of Germany.
Shambala also features in the 1996 Scrooge McDuck comic "The Treasure of the Ten Avatars" by Keno Don Rosa. In this comic, Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and his nephews discover Shambala and try to find its treasures.
In 2012, a trilogy named 'Sambhala' was published by a Bangladeshi writer.
In the 2016 movieDoctor StrangebyMarvel Studios,'shamballa' is used as the wifi password at Kamar-Taj, the place whereStephen Strangefirst learns to do magic.
The 2019 Indian animated filmLittle Singham Aur Shambhala Jhambhalafeatures a villain named Shambhala who wants to become anAsura.
In Nintendo's 2019 tactical strategy gameFire Emblem: Three Houses,Shambhala exists as an extremely technologically advanced subterranean city of an ancient people called the Agarthans looking to overthrow and reclaim the surface. The player can visit and fight through Shambhala in chapters 20 and 21 in the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes, respectively.
In 2021, CanadianExperimentalSoundscapeartist "MU Simulacra" released a 12-minute track entitled "Shambhala" for his 24-hour acoustic epicArt as an Expression ofRta.The song sonically explores the inward journey of finding Shambhala as a non-spatial destination or dimension. Repetitive tones, melodies and loops that are purposely familiar yet ambiguous are utilized in order to demonstrate theeffect of state of mind on interpretive processes. In 2024,it was mentioned in Indianscience fictionaction filmKalki 2898 AD
See also
[edit]- Agartha
- Himavanta
- Kingdom of God
- Kumari Kandam
- Lost city
- Sagala
- Shambala (disambiguation)
- Shangri-La
Citations
[edit]- ^abcŚambhalaalsoSambhala,is the name of a town between the Rathaprā and Ganges rivers, identified by some withSambhalin Uttar Pradesh. In thePuranas,it is named as the place whereKalki,the last incarnation of Vishnu, is to appear (Monier-Williams,Sanskrit-English Dictionary,1899).
- ^Hiltebeitel, Alf (1999).Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics.University of Chicago Press. pp. 217–218.ISBN978-0-226-34050-0.
- ^The Tantra by Victor M. Fic, Abhinav Publications, 2003, p.49.
- ^The Bon Religion of Tibet by Per Kavǣrne, Shambhala, 1996
- ^LePage, Victoria (1996).Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth Behind the Myth of Shangri-La.Quest Books. pp. 125–126.ISBN978-0835607506.
- ^abcArch. orient.Nakl. Ceskoslovenské akademie věd. 2003. pp. 254, 261.Retrieved11 May2020.
- ^abRoerich, Nicholas (2003).Shambhala.Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd. p. 65.ISBN978-81-7936-012-5.Retrieved11 May2020.
- ^Das, Sarat Chandra (1882).Contributions to the Religion and History of Tibet,inJournal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,Vol. LI. Reprint: Manjushri Publishing House, Delhi. 1970, pp. 81–2.
- ^Edwin Bernbaum "The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas" 1980 & Albert Grünwedel "Der Weg nach Shambhala" 1915
- ^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).
- ^Lopez, Donald S. Jr.Prisoners of Shangri~La, Tibetan Buddhism and the West,The University of Chicago Press, 1998
- ^Bernbaum, Edwin. (1980).The Way to Shambhala,pp. 18-19. Reprint: (1989). Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles.ISBN0-87477-518-3.
- ^Bailey, Alice A,A Treatise on Cosmic Fire1932 Lucis Trust. 1925, p 753
- ^Archer, Kenneth.Roerich East & West.Parkstone Press 1999, p.94
- ^Znamenski (2011)
- ^David-Néel, A.Les Nouvelles littéraires;1954, p.1
- ^Bennett, J.G: "Gurdjieff: Making a New World". Bennett notesIdries Shahas the source of the suggestion.
- ^Childress, David Hatcher(1985).Lost Cities of China, Central Asia, and India: A Traveler's Guide.Lost cities series. Adventures Unlimited Press. p. 31.ISBN978-0932813008.
Hitler sent several expeditions to Tibet in the thirties, to contact theAgarthaand Shambala, and apparently created quite strong ties with the Shambala [...].
- ^Wood, Michael (17 February 2011)."BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: Shangri-La".BBC.Retrieved28 February2018.
- ^Midal, Fabrice, ed.,Recalling Chögyam Trungpa(Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2005),ISBN1-59030-207-9,p. 475
General references
[edit]- Rock opera"Szambalia"( "Shambhala" ) (2014). Official premiere in Poland, Warsaw (24.06.2014)
- Rock song "Halls of Shambala" byB. W. Stevenson,covered and popularized by the rock bandThree Dog NightShambala (song)
- Berzin, Alexander(2003). Study Buddhism.Mistaken Foreign Myths about Shambhala.
- Martin, Dean. (1999). "'Ol-mo-lung-ring, the Original Holy Place ". In:Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places In Tibetan Culture: A Collection of Essays.(1999) Edited by Toni Huber, pp. 125–153. The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, H.P., India.ISBN81-86470-22-0.
- Meyer, Karl ErnestandBrysac, Shareen Blair(2006)Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game And the Race for Empire in Central AsiaISBN0-465-04576-6
- Bernbaum, Edwin. (1980).The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas.Reprint: (1989) St. Martin's Press, New York.ISBN0-87477-518-3.
- Jeffrey, Jason.Mystery of ShambhalaArchived2008-05-17 at theWayback MachineinNew Dawn,No. 72 (May–June 2002).
- Trungpa, Chogyam.Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.Shambhala Publications.ISBN0-87773-264-7
- Znamenski, Andrei. (2011).Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia.Quest Books, Wheaton, IL (2011)ISBN978-0-8356-0891-6.
- Dr. S. D'Montford. "Tibetan Buddhist Atrocities and Propaganda". Happy Medium Publishing. Sydney. 2004
- Allen, Charles.(1999).The Search forShangri-La:A Journey into Tibetan History.Little, Brown and Company. Reprint: Abacus, London. 2000.ISBN0-349-11142-1.
- Znamenski, Andrei.Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia.Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2011.ISBN978-0-8356-0891-6
- Martin, Dan. (1999)."'Ol-mo-lung-ring, the Original Holy Place ". In:Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places In Tibetan Culture: A Collection of Essays.(1999) Edited by Toni Huber, pp. 125–153. The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, H.P., India.ISBN81-86470-22-0.
- Symmes, Patrick. (2007). "The Kingdom of the Lotus" inOutside,30th Anniversary Special Edition, pp. 148–187. Mariah Media, Inc., Red Oak, Iowa.
- Meurois, Daniel et Anne Givaudan (1987).Le Voyage a Shambhalla. Un pèlerinage vers soi.Ed. Le Passe-Monde.
External links
[edit]Media related toShambhalaat Wikimedia Commons