Paradesha, Parádeisos, Chahar Bagh: Royal Walled Gardens of Kalapa

"The mythical paradise of Shamballa, sometimes thought to be in a parallel world or dimension , is a land of a thousand names. The Hindus call it "Paradesha" (Paradesa: Sanskrit) (Paradise....Persian: پردیس,.....High Land).....or "Aryavarsha", the land from which the Vedas came from; the Buddhists "Shambala"; the Chinese know it as " Hsi Tien", the Western Paradise of Hsi Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West; the Russians knew it as "Belovodye" and "Janaidar", the Christians and the Jews the "Garden of Eden". In the esoteric literature it has become known as "Shangri-La", "Agarttha" or "the Land of the Living".It has the name of "Forbidden Land"; "the Land of White Waters"; the "Land of Radiant Spirits"; the "Land of Living Fire"; the "Land of the Living Gods" and the "Land of Wonders".....Vedic society... the ancient civilization was Arya-Varsha......Taoist mythology calls it Tebu...Beneath the land of Shambhalla lies a cavernous underworld.. Its summit aligns to the wheeling constellation of Ursa Major, the Seven Stars that circle the Pole. .... The Japanese also have a Shambhalla which they have named ‘Island of the Congealed Drop’. It is situated ‘on the top of the globe' but at the same time 'at the center of the earth'. Its first roof-pillar was the earth's axis, and over it was the pivot of the vault of heaven.......The Chinese actually describe their idea of Shambhalla as the Center of the Earth, directly under Shang-te's heavenly palace, declaring it to be in the polestar. They also call it, ‘The Palace of the Center’. "....IN SEARCH OF SHAMBHALA........Mary Sutherland 2003

A Brief History of the Kalachakra....by John R. Newman....https://collab.itc.virginia.edu

"The word "paradise" entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian *paridayda- "walled enclosure". By the 6th/5th century BC, the Old Iranian word had been adopted as Assyrian pardesu "domain". It subsequently came to indicate walled estates, especially the carefully tended royal parks and menageries. The term eventually appeared in Greek as parádeisos "park for animals" in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BC Athenian Xenophon. Aramaic pardaysa similarly reflects "royal park"."

"Paradise....The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ "to stick and set up". It is reflected in Avestan as pairi-daêza-. The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is "walled (enclosure)", from pairi- "around" and -diz "to make, form (a wall), build". The word is not attested in other Old Iranian languages (these may however be hypothetically reconstructed, for example as Old Persian *paridayda-)."

"Sanskrit: paradise: नन्दन nandana .....Paradesa (Sanskrit) [from para beyond, above + desa region, country] The region above or beyond; said to be the highlands to which the first Sanskrit-speaking people have supposedly been traced. More truly, the cradleland of the first thinking man. It is also the sacred land in Central Asia inhabited by the Dragons of Wisdom or initiates, and in this sense is synonymous with Sambhala. .....'paradise' is believed to have probably come from the Sanskrit word 'paradesa' परदेश meaning 'foreign' land."

"Vedic society of the ancient civilization was Arya-Varsha - a civilization (not just a national culture or people). Arya Varsha translates roughly to 'enlightened world' ......Arya Varsha referred to morally developed regions......Within Arya Varsha, was Bharatha Khanda (Basically South asia), and within that Jambu Dwipa (Indian region), and within that many kingdoms and states......Arya Varsha extended all the way to Ireland the legend goes. South India was definitely part of it......Archeology suggests that there was an advanced Indus valley civilization around the saraswathi river, and at some point there was a massive drought and most cities had to be abandoned, and the population got dispersed. Then when the climate improved, people from the western areas came and settled there. As they settled, they absorbed much of the beliefs and culture of the prior people, and that became the modern system."....https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-advanced-developed-Vedic-Society-in-India-like-Was-there-a-parallel-culture-in-south-India

"Arya (Sanskrit, also ārya; Pāli: ariya) is a term frequently used in Buddhism that can be translated as "noble", "not ordinary", "valuable", "precious",[a] "pure", etc. Arya in the sense of "noble" or "exalted" is frequently used in Buddhist texts to designate a spiritual warrior or hero.....In Chinese Buddhist texts, ārya is translated as 聖 (approximately, "holy, sacred", pinyin shèng, on'yomi sei)......

THEORIES OF PARADISE........"The west first heard of Shambhala in 1627 after Catholic missionaries travelled to Tibet and heard stories about it. Some Buddhists associate it with the mythical land of Olmulungring, an invisible kingdom dating back to the 17th century BC, when its king travelled to Tibet to bring enlightenment. Some scholars think Shambhala is simply a remembrance of earlier civilisations of Central Asia which were known to exist, and had contact with Tibet. Many other scholars and traditions place Shambhala in a variety of locations. Taoist mythology calls it Tebu, a secluded land between Tibet and Szechwan. Blavatsky thought it existed somewhere in the Gobi Desert. Whilst historian Geoffrey Ashe suggested it might be in the remote Altar mountains between Russia and Mongolia. However, other traditions give a more esoteric location, explaining the mythology concerning its disappearance."

"From the time of the Achaemenid Dynasty the idea of an earthly paradise spread through Persian literature and example to other cultures, both the Hellenistic gardens of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies in Alexandria. The Avestan word pairidaēza-, Old Persian *paridaida-, Median *paridaiza- (walled-around, i.e., a walled garden), was borrowed into Ancient Greek: παράδεισος parádeisos, then rendered into the Latin paradīsus, and from there entered into European languages, e.g., French paradis, German Paradies, and English paradise. The word entered Semitic languages as well: Akkadian pardesu, Hebrew pardes, and Arabic firdaws."....Fakour M., Achaemenid Gardens

Pairidaēza....."The central "royal garden" at Pasargadae was designed to reflect this new empire. Recent international collaborative archaeological fieldwork incorporating surface, geophysical, and aerial survey has modified earlier ideas about this formally laid out, irrigated area. Excavations in the 1960s uncovered a system of limestone channels, 25 cm wide and punctuated with a deep square basin every 13 or 14 m, thus dividing the area into two rectangles. The channels probably sat flush with the ground surface. At the edges of this garden were three structures: Palace P, and two smaller pavilions. The main portico of Palace P opened directly onto the garden; a stone throne was fixed at its center, giving the ruler an uninterrupted view over the area. Some scholars have assumed that the central placement of the throne implies a second axial division of the garden into four quadrants. Recent work now indicates that this space may have incorporated a much greater area, including both a pool-like construction crossed by a bridge as well as other monumental structures. In this scenario, the pool would have acted as a channel, whose embankments were also lined with stone, drawing water from the nearby Pulvar River. The classical historian Arrian, writing in the second century a.d., left a snapshot of the park in his description of Cyrus' tomb: located approximately 1 km from the palaces, it was set in a "royal park at Pasargadae, and around it a grove of all kinds of trees had been planted. It was also watered by a stream, and high grass grew in the meadow" (Anabasis, 6.29)."....http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/features/2013/pasargadae

"Charbagh or Chahar Bagh (Persian: چهارباغ, chahār bāgh, "Four Bāghs") is a Persian-style garden layout. The quadrilateral garden is divided by walkways or flowing water into four smaller parts. In Persian, "Chār" means 'four' and "bāgh" means 'garden'.....Was there a connection between the proposed four quadrants and the "four quarters" of Cyrus' empire, to which he referred in the Cylinder text quoted above, as has been suggested by some scholars? Is the royal garden with the fourfold design, or chahar bagh, the earliest example of a feature that became a dominant characteristic of Persian garden design in the ensuing centuries?.......Chahrbagh originated from the time of Achaemenid Persia. Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Xenophon, give extensive accounts of Cyrus the Great's palatial city of Pasargadae and his four-gardens..... The tradition of paradise garden originated among the Mughals, originally from Central Asia, which is found at Babur's tomb, Bagh-e Babur, in Kabul.....

"On a recent trip to Kalapa Valley, Eva Wong, our esteemed feng shui master, felt that this valley held the secret command of the Shambhala vision and that it would affect the energy and spirit of all of our centers. Even though many of us have not seen the land, by receiving it now, Kalapa Valley will have a positive effect on all of our activities. It will have a unique role in our community since it will not be built up into a major practice center. Rather, it will have a pavilion for the practice of the sacred Werma sadhana and sacred gardens for practitioners to visit."....http://kalapavalley.shambhala.org/about/

"HAŠT BEHEŠT ....The description of a palace in the Hašt behešt of Amir Ḵosrow, with four pavilions on the cardinal points around an octagonal basin in a luxuriant garden, represents the clearest literary reconstruction of this model in Persian literature....This cosmological concept is closely connected to Islamic eschatology, in which paradise is conceived as having eight gates and eight spaces, each one decorated with a special precious stone or material. The description of paradise was further elaborated by the philosophers and Sufis who considered the eighth paradise to be the highest garden, that is, the Garden of Eden"....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hast-behest-2

"Genesis describes the Garden of Eden as being "in the east, in Eden" (Gen 2:8). In the Assyrian inscriptions idinu (Accadian: edin) means "plain" and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived. The Garden is described as having "all kinds" of trees growing in it....As with many passages in Genesis, there is debate among Christians whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden should be taken literally or metaphorically......The traditions of its location somewhere in central Asia are numerous and persistent, and naturalists have in the past pretty generally fixed upon the portion of Central Asia stretching east from the Himalayas - often referred to as the roof of the world and from which flow four great rivers: the Indus, the Tarim, the Sur Daria (Jaxartes), and the Ainu Daria (Oxus) - as the original cradle of mankind."....http://www.conservapedia.com/Garden_of_Eden

"Professor S.H. Buchanan, a Biblical scholar during the late 19th century, was one of those believers, who put down in his work The World and the Book:......“Thus everything invites us to place the Eden of the Semites (Aryans) in the mountains of Belurtag, at the point where this chain unites with the Himalaya, toward the Plateau of Pamir... We are conducted to the same point, according to Brunoff, by the most ancient and authentic texts of the Zend-Avesta. The Hindu traditions also contained in the Mahabbarata and the Puranas, converge to the same region. There is the true Meru (Ararat) (of the Hindus), the true Albordj (of the Persians), the true river Arvanda, from which all rivers take their source, according to Persian tradition. There, according to the opinions of almost all the populations of Asia, is the central point of the world, the umbilici, the gate of the universe. There is the Uttarakura; ‘the country of happiness,’ of which Magesthanes writes. There is, finally the point of common attachment of the primitive geography, both of the Semitic and the Indo-European races.” ......The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also hinted that the Garden of Eden had a central Asian location"......http://www.conservapedia.com/Garden_of_Eden

"Uttarakuru (Sanskrit: उत्तर कुरु) is the name of a dvipa ("continent") in ancient Hindu and Buddhist mythology......Uttarakuru country and its people are sometimes described as belonging to the real world, whereas at other times they are mythical or otherworldly spiritual beings.....Aitareya Brahmana makes first reference to Uttarakuru and Uttaramadra as real-life Janapadas. According to Aitareya Brahmana, these two nations lay beyond the Himalayan ranges (Hindukush). The Aitareya Brahmana adduces these two people as examples of republican (vairajiya) nations, where whole Janapada took the consecration of rulership.......Aitareya Brahmana again notes that Uttarakuru was a deva-kshetra or divine land......Uttarakuru also finds numerous references in Buddhist literature, sometimes as a real land and other times as a mythical region.....Ramayana testifies that the original home of the Kurus was in Bahli country. Ila, son of Parajapati Karddama was a king of Bahli, where Bahli represents Sanskrit Bahlika (Bactria)....Bahlika or Bactria may have constituted the Uttarakuru. Mahabharata and Sumangalavilasini also note that the people of Kuru had originally migrated from Uttarakutru. Bactria is evidently beyond the Hindukush.....".....Geographical Data in Early Puranas, 1972, Dr M. R. Singh

"The Aitareya Brahmana (Sanskrit: ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण) is the Brahmana of the Shakala shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns.....The Aitareya Brahmana is dated variously from 1000 BC to 500 BC."

"The Persian Garden......exemplify the diversity of Persian garden designs that evolved and adapted to different climate conditions while retaining principles that have their roots in the times of Cyrus the Great, 6th century BC. Always divided into four sectors, with water playing an important role for both irrigation and ornamentation, the Persian garden was conceived to symbolize Eden and the four Zoroastrian elements of sky, earth, water and plants. These gardens, dating back to different periods since the 6th century BC, also feature buildings, pavilions and walls, as well as sophisticated irrigation systems. They have influenced the art of garden design as far as India and Spain....They reflect the flexibility of the Chahar Bagh (Four Gardens), or originating principle, of the Persian Garden, which has persisted unchanged over more than two millennia since its first mature expression was found in the garden of Cyrus the Great's Palatial complex, in Pasargadae...The word Paradise entered European languages from the Persian root word "Pardis", which was the name of a beautiful garden enclosed behind walls. .".....UNESCO » Culture » World Heritage Centre » The List » World Heritage List......http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1372

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