Early Shambhala Researchers
"SEARCHING FOR SHAMBHALA......by James George
.......The following is an early draft of Searching for Shambhala, an article that was later published in Search: Journey on the Inner Path. James George sent this draft to Chögyam Trunpa Rinpoche in 1976....http://www.chronicleproject.com...."To say that such a centre has existed does not mean that it still exists. Nor does it follow, even if it exists, that it could be located by satellite photography or tracked down by systematic ground expeditions. But so long as there is the remote possibility that such a place is real somewhere in our world, here and now, there will be those who will look for it. We can take Shambhala as the prototype of the object of this search..... in 1968, when we had the now well-known Tibetan teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, staying with us. We had been asking him about the Tibetan tradition of Shambhala. To our astonishment he replied very quietly that, although he had never been there, he believed in its existence and could see it in his mirror whenever he went into deep meditation...... A few months earlier we had been given a Tibetan map of Shambhala by Mr. Tenzing Namdak, the Tibetan Bon scholar and priest who had collaborated with D.N. Snellgrove in writing The Nine Ways of Bon.....the artist believed Shambhala to be located somewhere northwest of Tibet, perhaps in the general area of Khotan.
This is consistent with the Bon tradition that their teachings came from the west and included both Iranian and central Asian shaman elements which have more recently been overlaid by adaptations of tantric Buddhist teachings......As for sham, it could either be connected (for reasons given below) with the Indian God Shiva, if the term is ascribed an Indian origin, or with the word Shamash of Sumerian origin meaning "sun", which comes into modern Arabic as shams. Thus, apart from the Sumerian sun god, Shambash, whose temple was near Babylon, there are known to have been other famous temples dedicated to the sun called shams or shamba (a) in Balkh, the ancient capital of the Bactrian kingdom in northern Afghanistan, and (b) in Multan which according to Alberuni used to be called Shambha-pura (City of the Vision of the Sun) in the pre-Islamic period.
In Multan, the great annual festival of the year was celebrated in honour of the sun and there are descriptions of the golden idol representing the sun to support this identification. Though the temple was destroyed after Alberuni saw it, the sun god Surya in Multan (as in many other Indian temples) is described as wearing "northern" (central Asian) nomadic dress, including in this case red leather boots, though leather is anathema in Hindu temples. Trade routes to Tibet ran through both Multan and Balkh, so the name shams or shambha could as easily have been carried to Tibet as the dress from north of the Himalayas to Multan.......
If then we see a Middle Eastern derivation in the name Shambhala, it would mean "light of the sun" or "vision of the sun." Alternatively, if we spell the word Shambala (as it was spelled in most of the early European references to it), this would mean "the sun above" (from the Persian bala "above"; as in Bala Missar, the fort above Kabul, and many other similar names). Shambhala would then mean "the supernal sun", not merely the ordinary visible sun but the principle of light itself, as coming from the transcendent sun, the source of all light......When we are dealing with sacred places or sacred symbols we are not under the obligation (as we would be in the every-day world) to choose one meaning and reject the others.....© 1976, 2003 by James George.....http://www.chronicleproject.com/james_george_searching_for_shambhala.html
"Tibetans believe that Shamballah is somewhere north of Tibet, in the Kunlun Mountains, or in Mongolia, the Sinkiang Province of China, or Siberia. Others suggest the North Pole or even another planet! Historians and mythographers, on the other hand, have suggested that if the legend has any basis, Shamballah may correspond to the Tarim Basin, West Turkestan, the ancient Kushan Empire, the Greek Kingdom of Bactria, theYarkand, Kashgar, or
Khotan oases, or, finally, the old Uighur Kingdom of Khocho [= "Tcho-tcho"?] in the Turfan Depression beneath the Tien Shan Mountains (Bernbaum, p. 46). Probably the most attractive guess, however, is that of Idries Shah, who believes that "it could be derived from Shams-i-Balkh, the Bactrian Sun Temple, the ruins of which can still be seen at Balkh near the northern frontier of Afghanistan" (J. G. Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, p. 26)."
Csoma de Köros was a full-blown eccentric who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of arcane knowledge. As the Russian Shambhalist Madame Helena Blavatsky noted, "a poor Hungarian, Csoma de Körös, not only without means, but a veritable beggar, set out on foot for Tibet, through unknown and dangerous countries, urged only by the love of learning and the eager wish to shed light on the historical origin of his nation. The result was that inexhaustible mines of literary treasures were discovered." Among the written works unearthed were the first descriptions of the Buddhist realm of Shambhala to reach the West.....http://www.shambhala.mn/Files/csoma.html
"The threat of a Russian invasion in Bokhara induced him to press on to the second of his two destinations, the Tarim basin, north of Tibet. He joined an eastbound caravan to Afghanistan, which passed through Balkh, a village set in the vast circular ruins of the ancient capital of Khurásán, and up the winding paths through the mountains to the Bamian pass, where giant carvings of the Buddha in the rock mark the site of an early outpost of Chinese Buddhism. Seven weeks later, he wrote, “on 6th of January, 1822, I arrived at Kabool.”
"In page 193, of his Grammar, Alexander Csoma has the following passage: —
" The Kdla chakra doctrine of Adi Buddha was delivered by Sakya, in his 80th year, at Sridhanya Kataka upon the request of Chandra Bhadra, a king of Sambhala who in his 99th year visited S'akya there. Upon his return home, he compiled the Mula Tantra, in accordance with what he had heard from S'akya, and two years afterwards he died. This work is the source of all the subsequent voluminous compilations, increased modification and interpolations. In the Mula Tantra, Sakya foretells to Chandra Bhadra 25 kings, who will reign at Sambhala, each for 100 years. The six first of them are called Dharma Rajds and the others are styled EuUka. He foretells also that after 600 years from that date Kulika Kirti (Ya9okIrti or the Ephiphanes of the Greeks ?) will succeed to the throne of S'ambhala, and that 800 years afterwards the Mleccha or Muhamadan religion will rise at Makha (Mecca)."
He conjectured that Sambhala must have been the capital of a kingdom ihat flourished in the early centuries of Christ and that Sridhdnya Kataica was the Cuttak of modern Orissa. The last of tlic kings of Sambhala is, however, njt mentioned in the 3Ju!a Tantra. It is stated that a king named Samudra Vijaya arrived at Sambhala in 618 A.D., and shortly after that the period called, in tlio Tibetan chronology, ^'pi'|'5^^(Me-kha-rgya-Mtsho*, commenced. It is also stated that in 622 A.D., at Makha (Mecca) the Muhamadan religion was established. From what can be gathered from Tibetan histories and works on Kdla Chakrait may be conjectured that this Sambhala, very probably, was the capital of the Bactrian Emjiire of the Eastern Greeks who had embraced Buddhism. It is also conjectured that the modern city of Balkh must have been the site of their latest capital. The name of King Menander {in Sans. Minendra) whq erected a very lofty chaiti/a has been mentioned by the Kashmirian poet Ksomendra, in^ha Avaddna Kalpalatd, a work that was finished iu about 1035 A.D.
Referring to SamudraVijaya, Alexander Csoma in afoot note remarked : "This pretended King's arrival at S'ambhala in 622 A.D., has soma coincidence with Yczifjird, the Persian King's taking refuge in tlie same country; for it is affirmed, that this prince, upon the fall of Seleucia, and the conquest ot Persia by tho Arabs, in G86, retired to Tjans-Oxiana or FeiKhana".
Mipham believed Shambhala to be north of the River Tarim..."One travels north to the region of Khotan (Li Yul). Nearbye is the Tarim River (Shing rta---Sita) which flows from west to east. In this region live the Uighurs (Hor). North of the Tarim lie the Tian Shan mountains that make up the southern boundary of Shambhala." (Cabezon: 1996...pg 488)...
Chatral Rinpoche believes that Gurdjieff spent several years in a monastery in the Swat valley.....first gained access to the central Sarmoun monastery in 1899-1900 and it appears likely that he had a more extended stay in 1906-1907. At the end of 1907 Gurdjieff went to Tashkent to practice healing.... Chitral is drained by the Kunar River which flows southward, through Afghanistan, to meet the East flowing Kabul River, which in times past, was known as the Sita, or White River. In the year 1900 the Russian mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff traveled by raft down part of this dangerous river, as part of an expedition led by Prof. Kozlov in search of the ruins of ancient Shambhala.
Foster, Barbara and Michael. The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel - A Biography of the Explorer of Tibet and Its Forbidden Practices. ISBN 1-58567-329-3; American edition under the title Forbidden Journey - The Life of Alexandra David-Neel, ISBN 0-06-250345-6. This book is based on extensive interviews with David Neel's secretary at Digne and reading her letters to her husband, now published as "Journal de voyage: lettres a son mari."
The Hungarian scholar Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, writing in 1833, provided the first geographic account of "a fabulous country in the north...situated between 45' and 50' north latitude". Interestingly enough, due north from India to between these latitudes is eastern Kazakhstan, which is characterized by green hills, low mountains, rivers, and lakes. This is in contrast to the landscape of the provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang in eastern China, which are high mountains and arid.
In any event, Ossendowski did not invent the story of a fabulous land secreted somewhere in – or under – the vastness of Central Asia, be it called Agharti, Agarttha, Shangri-la, or, most commonly, Shambhala.6 Some believed it to be a physical, subterranean realm inhabited by an ancient, advanced race, while to others it was a spiritual dimension accessible only to the enlightened. The Shambhala legend is firmly grounded in Buddhist tradition which vaguely puts the Kingdom somewhere to the north of India. The legend also proclaimed that a time would come when the King of Shambhala and his mighty hosts would come forth to vanquish evil and usher in a golden age guided by pure Dharma. As noted, Baron von Ungern-Sternberg envisioned himself as the initiator of this “Shambhala War.” So would others.
Roerich brought key knowledge to this mission. In the 1920s it is rumored that he went on a mission to find and return what was said to be part of the sacred ‘Chintamani Stone’, the stone of Shambhala, which was believed to be part of a magical meteorite.....Roerich said this ‘black stone’ appeared at vital moments in human history as an evolutionary force. It seems that FDRoosevelt sent him back in 1934 to recover this Stone once again....In 1935, at the request of Roerich and Wallace and apparently in celebration of their success, FDR abruptly ordered the Great Seal of the United States bearing the All-Seeing Eye symbol stamped on the back of the one dollar bill. To Masons, such as Wallace and FDR, this symbol represents the return of the the Sol Eye....When FDR posted this symbol bearing the phrase NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM – New Order of the Ages - it proclaimed the promised new order or new deal had arrived.
During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder HP Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Madame Blavatsky, who claimed to be in contact with a Great White Lodge of Himalayan Adepts, mentions Shambhala in several places without giving it especially great emphasis.
The first information that reached western civilization about Shambhala came from the Portuguese Catholic missionary Estêvão Cacella, who had heard about Shambhala (which they transcribed as "Xembala"), and thought it was another name for Cathay or China. In 1627 they headed to Tashilhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama and, discovering their mistake, returned to India.
The Sanskrit and Tibetan Shambhala has also been identified by no less an authority than Alexandra David-Neel, who spent years in Tibet, with Balkh – in the far north of Afghanistan – the ancient settlement known as "the mother of cities". Present day folklore in Afghanistan asserts that after the Muslim conquest, Balkh was known as the "Elevated Candle" ("Sham-i-Bala"), a Persianisation of the Sanskrit Shambhala.
RUSSIA...."In 987 AD the Grand Duke Vladimir Red Sun of Rus sent an expedition into the Altai region looking for Belovida (Shambhala)...(Kharatidi: 1996..pg 78)...
The concept of Shangri-La, as first described in James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon, is claimed to have been inspired by the Shambhala myth (as well as then-current National Geographic articles on Eastern Tibet Kham). Shambala appears in several science fiction stories of the 1930s.
Nicholas and Helena Roerich led a 1924-1928 expedition aimed at Shambhala.
Alice A. Bailey claims Shamballa (her spelling) is an extra-dimensional or spiritual reality on the etheric plane, a spiritual centre where the governing deity of Earth, Sanat Kumara, dwells as the highest Avatar of the Planetary Logos of Earth, and is said to be an expression of the Will of God
the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, a Bactrian sun temple...Bennett, J.G: "Gurdjieff: aking a New World". Bennett notes Idries Shah as the source of the suggestion.
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 Kalachakra-tantra and ideas of Communism in the 1920s. 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.
The eminent historian and ethnologist Lev Gumilev (see: Kuznetsov: 1970) became interested in the Shambhala myth while a prisoner in the Siberian Gulag. He is the son of the great Russian poet Anna Akmatova...
"Swedenborg in the 18th century was the first specifically to refer to Shambhala in European literature, if earlier references to Prester John's Kingdom are disregarded as being too vague to be linked to Shambhala. In the next century Madame Helena Blavatsky wrote of her Masters from Shambhala, and then the Theosophists took it up. In the early years of this century Roerich's translation into German of the third Panchen Lama's book was published under the title of The Way to Shambhala. This was followed by what I can only call the Western escapist literature in which people like James Hilton and Lowell Thomas popularized the Shambhala idea as "Shangri-la", the happy kingdom hidden somewhere in the most remote Himalayas where people remained eternally young. Meanwhile, around the turn of the century more serious and more practical research was going on in central Asia, including Afghanistan and Tibet, by a group of Europeans who called themselves "the seekers of truth." Their quest has been most interestingly described in the writings of G.I. Gurdjieff, especially in his more or less autobiographical book Meetings with Remarkable Men. Now that his work, twenty-seven years after his death, is becoming well known in the West (at least among those interested in seeking for ways other than drugs to expand and transform consciousness), there is inevitably a lively interest in his presumed sources in the East. No doubt anticipating the fruitlessness of trying to retrace his steps through central Asia seventy or eighty years too late, Gurdjieff had been careful to throw dust in the eyes of anybody tempted to engage in this kind of exercise, but the few hints he has given suggest that the brotherhoods, communities, monasteries and great teachers whom he describes may have been located in this part of the world. He mentions specifically the Pamirs, Kafiristan, the Afridis and the Hindu Kush, as well as Tibet and the Gobi Desert. He never mentions the word Shambhala but some of his pointers indicate contacts with Tibetan and Sufi masters and with monasteries or brotherhoods in Central Asia combining people chosen from all traditions. Wherever they may have been, the places he describes were exceedingly remote and difficult to access, cut off from the world in high mountain valleys which (from the few clues he has scattered in his writings) could well have been those of this part of the world, stretching through the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. It is suggestive, moreover, that he comes back time and again in the first series of his writings, All and Everything, to the solar language of Shambhala in referring to the Supreme as residing on "the Most Holy Sun Absolute.".....http://www.chronicleproject.com/james_george_searching_for_shambhala.html
"The Shambhala/Agharti myth with its vision of an occult rulership of the world and terrifying apocalyptic narrative, has fascinated Western mystics since the nineteenth century and figures prominently in the thought of the Theosophical Society, the Russian painter and explorer Nicholas Roerich, the French “Synarchist” Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, and the Traditionalist/Sufi philosopher Rene Guenon......http://wavetheblack.blogspot.com/2012/02/rudra-chakrin-king-of-world-tantric.html
Traditionalist/Sufi philosopher Rene Guenon.......In his book Lord of the World, Guenon implicitly identifies the Brahytma with the “Qutb” (axial saint, pole of the age) of Sufism (pg. 19), and puts forth the idea, common in nineteenth and early twentieth century occultism, of Shambhala/Agharti as the true center of all initiatic tradition, with the hidden King of the World as the head of the “highest circle” of the “initiatic hierarchy” (pg. 23). This “highest circle” corresponds to the “secret chiefs” of much of Western occultism (especially prominent in the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), the “Mahatmas” of Theosophy, and the Aqtab of Sufism.....René Guénon (November 15, 1886 – January 7, 1951), also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya, was a French author and intellectual.....
"One missionary, Antonio de Andrade, decided to investigate these rumors himself....A few Portugese traders may have ventured from India over the Himalayas into Tibet before the 1620s, but Andrade was apparently the first European to enter Tibet from India and leave a record of his journey. Andrade was born in Oleiros, Portugal in 1580, entered the Society of Jesus on December 15, 1595.... On November 8 he began work on his account of the expedition, Novo Descobrimento do gram Cathayo, ou Reinos de Tibet, pello Padre Antonio de Andrade da Companhia de Jesu, Portuguez, no anno de 1626. Published in Lisbon in 1626, it was the first account in a European language of the country now known as Tibet - assuming we discount the 1330 travelogue by Friar Ordorico da Pordenone which includes a probably apocryphal description of, as he put it, the land "where dwelleth the Pope of the idolators".......Although Andrade never mentions Shambhala either as a physical or mythical place, I have nevertheless included him in the ranks of the Shambhalists-i.e., people who have made some contribution, directly or indirectly, to the Legend of Shambhala-for the following reasons. First, he lead the way into Tibet, the source of so many pieces in the Shambhala puzzle and the lodestone of subsequent generations of Shambhalists. Also his seminal expedition led directly to another exploratory probe of Tibet by the Jesuits Cabrella and Casels during which they would hear of a place which probably corresponds with Shambhala. Then three centuries later the best-selling book Lost Horizons by James Hilton and also the movie of the same name introduced a Shambhala-like place to the general public under the name of Shangri-La. The fictional hero of the book, Conway, while browsing in the library of the monastery of Shangri-La, comes across a copy of Andrade's Novo Descobrimento do gram Cathayo, ou Reinos de Tibet, pello Padre Antonio de Andrade da Companhia de Jesu, Portuguez, no anno de 1626. We will have to look closer at Lost Horizons and how it contributed to the Legend of Shambhala; for the moment, suffice it to say that Hilton may have included this detail in the book as a hint about his sources for his vision of Shangri-La, which as we will see can be seen as a pop culture version of the Legend of Shambhala. Finally, we shall have to return later to Tsaparang and the surrounding kingdom of Guge, because in the 1990s Shambhalist Charles Bell would claim in his book The Search for Shangri-La that it was precisely this area which was the physical location of the the legendary land of Shambhala.".....http://www.shambhala.mn/Files/jesuits.html
"A visiting Jesuit priest wrote a compilation of the various stories he heard at Akbar's court and organized them into an essay along with a map. This map had only one location for Tibet as it was undiscovered then; Lake Manasarovar with a description noting 'Here it is said Christians live.'....Lake Manasarovar is located at the very NE tip of Nepal, over in Tibet.....This priest's successor, Antonio Andrade, being much younger set out on an expedition to locate this place. He found a wealthy kingdom but no Christians. In 1926 Andrade published 'Discovery of Tibet'. It is this work which likely inspired 'Lost Horizon' the 1933 novel by James Hilton.".....http://kalmiya.hubpages.com/hub/Legend-of-Shangri-La-or-Shambhala
"In such interpretations, then, the journeys take place in the spirit. Then again, this is not the impression gained by leafing through the Shambha la’i lam yig, the famous travel report of the Third Panchen Lama (1738–1780). This concerns a fantastic collection , which is obviously convinced of the reality of its factual material, of historical and geographic particulars from central Asia which describe the way to Shambhala."....http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Part-1-10.htm
"Albert Grünwedel (July 31, 1856 – October 28, 1935) was a German indologist, tibetologist, archaeologist, and explorer of Central Asia. .... According to Grünwedel, in Der Weg nach Shambhala (The Way to Shambhala) (1915), Dorjiev spoke of the Romanov Dynasty as the descendants of the rulers of Shambhala.....Der Weg nach Sambhala des dritten Groß-Lama von bKra sis lhun po bLo bzan dPal ldan Ye ses. Aus dem tibetischen Original übersetzt und mit dem Texte herausgegeben von Albert Grünwedel. (Vorgelegt am 5.Dezember 1914.) München: G. Franz in Komm. 1915. 118 S., 1, 4 Taf. 4° (Abhandlungen der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse.29,3.).....
"During 1925-1926, Nicolas Roerich made extensive tours between Khotan and Kashmir, in search of the kingdom of Shambhala, at the behest of Russia and the United States of America. The British did not lag behind and they asked Lord Gorzon, the Viceroy of India to sponsor the travels of Aurel Stein into the Central Asia. From his base camp at Mohand Marg, Kangan, Kashmir he conducted the most daring and adventurous raids in 1900, 1906, 1913 and 1930 upon the ancient Silk Road Outworldly, the purpose of this and further expeditions was to collect art treasures, manuscripts and curios for the British Museum, London but the hidden object search of the hidden land of Shambhala. Hearing about the treasure hunting activities of Aurel Stein, France and Japan also joined in such ventures and deputed Paul Pelliot and Count Otani into Central Asian region.".....http://fidahassnain.myasa.net/2010/12/shambhala-and-kashmir/
"In about 4 B.C. Apollonius of Greece went in search of this underground world and traveled through Iraq, Iran and India. His travel accounts show that he went deep into the Himalayas, met another explorer, Andrew Thomas and then both met the king of this heavenly kingdom. With a warm welcome, the kind king allowed them to accompany him on a tour of his marvelous kingdom. They saw pillars of light shooting sky wards. The inhabitants eat and drink through the help of robots. On his return to Greece, Apollonius declared that the mysterious way to this hidden kingdom in the Himalayas was shown to him by a boy, who could speak Greek. It is probable that Alexander the Great may have been attracted towards finding this kingdom of God. The Greek anthology speaks about the fierce sea of Oceanus, which was the dividing line between the known world and the unknown world.".....http://fidahassnain.myasa.net/2010/12/shambhala-and-kashmir/
" American Roy Chapman Andrews ....employed at the American Museum of Natural History. ......did Andrews hear the same whispers of Agharti/Shambhala that reached the ears of Ossendowski, Roerich, and Barchenko?. Between 1922 and 1930, Andrews led five expeditions into the Gobi Desert and adjoining regions of Mongolia. All were sponsored by the MNH and made notable fossil discoveries, including the first dinosaur eggs. However, the original goal of the explorations was not animal fossils, but evidence of early man. Andrew’s boss at the Museum, Henry Fairfield Osborn, was convinced that the origins of the human race lay somewhere in Eastern or Central Asia.".....
This research explores the Central Asian origins of the Shambhala Teachings and the region of ancient 'Shamis en Balkh' (36° N 66° E) as the 'historical' location (until the 8th Century AD) of the 'legendary' Kingdom of Shambhala....also known as 'Shams-i-Bala', (Elevated Candle) it was located in the once extremely wealthy and fertile Oxus River region of Bactria and encircled by the great Pamir and Caucasus Asia Mountains......Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring...With Tagzig to the west, Oddiyana to the east, Zhang-Zhung to the south-east, Gandharva to the south, Airyana Vaeja to the north and Uighur/Kunlun to the north east, the legendary Balkh region was an ancient spiritual vortex, the location of a great pre-history Sun Temple and a very important Buddhist, Sufi, Dzogchen, Zoroastrian, Bon, Mithraic center...Shamis en Balkh was a wealthy and rich trading center from 5000 BC, reached it height about 2400 BC, looted and conquered numerous times, destroyed by Ghenghis Khan in 1220 AD, but was still impressive when Marco Polo visited in 1275 AD......
