Shambhala - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...

tradition, Shambhala (also spelled Shambala or Shamballa; Tibetan

Tibetan language

The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

: བདེ་འབྱུང་; Wylie

Wylie transliteration

The Wylie transliteration scheme is a method for transliterating Tibetan script using only the letters available on a typical English language typewriter. It bears the name of Turrell V. Wylie, who described the scheme in an article, A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription, published in 1959...

: bde 'byung, pron. De-jung) or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

hidden somewhere in Inner Asia

Inner Asia

Inner Asia has a range of meanings among different researchers and in different countries. Denis Sinor defined Inner Asia broadly as the homelands of the Altaic peoples and the Uralic peoples .German makes a distinction between "Zentralasien", meaning Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and...

. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including the Kalachakra Tantra

Kalachakra

Kalachakra is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism that literally means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles".The spelling Kalacakra is also correct....

and the ancient texts of the Zhang Zhung culture which predated Tibetan Buddhism in western Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

. The Bön scriptures speak of a closely related land called Olmolungring

Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring

Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring is a non-dual spiritual realm of the Bon tradition which resides beyond dualism. It is understood to be a timeless perfected realm where peace and joy are the very fabric of being....

.

Whatever its historical basis, Shambhala gradually came to be seen as a Buddhist Pure Land

Pure land

A pure land, in Mahayana Buddhism, is the celestial realm or pure abode of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. The various traditions that focus on Pure Lands have been given the nomenclature Pure Land Buddhism. Pure lands are also evident in the literature and traditions of Taoism and Bön.The notion of 'pure...

, a fabulous kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as physical or geographic. It was in this form that the Shambhala myth reached the West, where it influenced non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist spiritual seekers — and, to some extent, popular culture in general.

In the Buddhist Kalachakra teachings

Sambhala (this is the form found in the earliest Sanskrit manuscripts of Kalacakra texts; the Tibetans usually transliterated this as "Shambhala"; Tib

Wylie transliteration

. bde 'byung) is a Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

term of uncertain derivation. Commonly it is understood to be a "place of peace/tranquility/happiness". Shakyamuni Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

is said to have taught the Kalachakra

Kalachakra

Kalachakra is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism that literally means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles".The spelling Kalacakra is also correct....

tantra

Tantra

Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

on request of King Dawa Sangpo of Shambhala; the teachings are also said to be preserved there. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened, actually a Buddhist Pure Land

Pure land

, centered by a capital city called Kalapa

Kalapa

Kalapa, according to Buddhist legend, is the capital city of the Kingdom of Shambhala, where the Kulika King is said to reign on a lion throne. It is said to be an exceeding beautiful city, with a sandalwood pleasure grove containing a huge three-dimensional Kalachakra mandala made by King...

.

The Buddhist myth of Shambhala is adaptation of the earlier Hindu myth of Kalki of Sambhala found in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. The Buddhist version may be a mythologization of an actual culture, whose geographical location can be found either in Central or Far Eastern Asia (China).

Shambhala is ruled over by a line of Kings of Shambhala

Kings of Shambhala

In the Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, there are thirty-two Kings of Shambhala, a mythical kingdom.The first notable king of Shambhala, King Suchandra , was the one who requested teaching from the Buddha. In response to his request, the Buddha gave the first Kalachakra root tantra...

known as Kalki

Kalki

In Hinduism, Kalki is the tenth and final Maha Avatar of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time...

Kings (Tib. Rigden), monarchs who uphold the integrity of the Kalachakra

Kalachakra

Kalachakra is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism that literally means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles".The spelling Kalacakra is also correct....

tantra

Tantra

Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

. The Kalachakra prophesies that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the 25th Kalki king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish "Dark Forces" and usher in a worldwide Golden Age

Golden Age

The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...

. Using calculations from the Kalachakra Tantra, scholars such as Alex Berzin put this date at 2424 AD.

Manjushri Yashas (Tib. Rigdan Tagpa) is said to have been born in 159 BC and ruled over a kingdom of 300,510 followers of the Mlechha (Yavana or "western") religion, some of whom worshiped the sun. He is said to have expelled all the heretics from his dominions but later, after hearing their petitions, allowed them to return. For their benefit, and the benefit of all living beings, he explained the Kalachakra teachings. In 59 BC he abdicated his throne to his son, Puṇdaŕika, and died soon afterwards, entering the Sambhoga-káya of Buddhahood.

As with many concepts in the Kalachakra Tantra, the idea of Shambhala is said to have "outer", "inner", and "alternative" meanings. The outer meaning understands Shambhala to exist as a physical place, although only individuals with the appropriate karma

Karma

Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....

can reach it and experience it as such. As the 14th Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...

noted during the 1985 Kalachakra initiation in Bodhgaya, Shambhala is not an ordinary country:
There are various ideas about where this society is located, but it is often placed in central Asia, north or west of Tibet. Ancient Zhang Zhung texts identify Shambhala with the Sutlej Valley in punjab. Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

ns identify Shambala with certain valleys of southern Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. In Altai

Altay people

The Altay or Altai are an ethnic group of Turkic people living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai and surrounding areas of Tuva and Mongolia. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirat/Oirot.The Uriankhai people were...

folklore Mount Belukha is believed to be the gateway to Shambhala.http://www.altaiassistanceproject.org/travelenmek.html. Modern Buddhist scholars seem to now conclude that Shamballa is located in the higher reaches of the Himalayas in what is now called the Dhauladhar

Dhauladhar

The Dhauladhar range is a southern branch of the main Outer Himalayan chain of mountains. It rises spectacularly from the Indian plains to the north of Kangra and Mandi...

mountains around Mcleodganj. The current Dalai Lama manages the Tibetan government in exile from Mcleodganj.

The inner and alternative meanings refer to more subtle understandings of what Shambhala represents in terms of one's own body and mind (inner), and the meditation practice (alternative). These two types of symbolic explanations are generally passed on orally from teacher to student.

The first Kalachakra masters of the tradition disguised themselves with pseudonyms, so the Indian oral traditions recorded by the Tibetans contain a mass of contradictions with regard to chronology.

Western receptions

The Western fascination with the idea of Shambhala is surprisingly great, and has often been based upon fragmented accounts from the Kalachakra tradition. Tibet was largely closed to Westerners until the twentieth century, and so what information was available about the tradition of Shambhala was haphazard at best.

The first information that reached western civilization about Shambhala came from the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

Catholic missionary Estêvão Cacella

Estêvão Cacella

Estêvão Cacella was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.-Life:Cacella was born in Aviz in 1585, joined the Jesuits at the age of nineteen, and sailed for India in 1614 where he worked for some years in Kerala...

, who had heard about Shambhala (which they transcribed as "Xembala"), and thought it was another name for Cathay

Cathay

Cathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. It originates from the word Khitan, the name of a nomadic people who founded the Liao Dynasty which ruled much of Northern China from 907 to 1125, and who had a state of their own centered around today's...

or China. In 1627 they headed to Tashilhunpo

Tashilhunpo

Tashilhunpo Monastery , founded in 1447 by Gendun Drup, the First Dalai Lama, is a historic and culturally important monastery next to Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet....

, the seat of the Panchen Lama

Panchen Lama

The Panchen Lama , or Bainqên Erdê'ni , is the highest ranking Lama after the Dalai Lama in the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism...

and, discovering their mistake, returned to India.

The Hungarian scholar Sándor Kőrösi Csoma

Sándor Korösi Csoma

Sándor Kőrösi Csoma , born Csoma Sándor, also known as Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, was a Hungarian philologist and orientalist, author of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book. He was born in Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania...

, 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

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, 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.

The concept of Shangri-La

Shangri-La

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains...

, as first described in James Hilton

James Hilton

James Hilton was an English novelist who wrote several best-sellers, including Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.-Biography:...

'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).

Shambala appears in several science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

stories of the 1930s.

During the 19th century, Theosophical Society

Theosophy

Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...

founder HP Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

enthusiasts. Madame Blavatsky, who claimed to be in contact with a Great White Lodge

Great White Brotherhood

The Great White Brotherhood, in belief systems akin to Theosophical and New Age, are said to be supernatural beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans. The members of the Brotherhood may be known as the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or the Ascended Masters...

of Himalayan Adepts, mentions Shambhala in several places without giving it especially great emphasis. (The Mahatmas, we are told, are also active around Shigatse

Shigatse

Shigatse is a county-level city and the second largest city in Tibet Autonomous Region , People's Republic of China, with a population of 92000, about southwest of Lhasa and northwest of Gyantse...

and Luxor

Luxor

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...

.)

Later esoteric

Esotericism

Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...

writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood

Masters of the Ancient Wisdom

The Masters of the Ancient Wisdom are reputed to be enlightened beings originally identified by the Theosophists Helena Blavatsky, Henry S. Olcott, Alfred P. Sinnett, and others. These Theosophists claimed to have met some of the so-called Masters during their lifetimes in different parts of the...

whose members labor for the good of humanity. Alice A. Bailey claims Shamballa (her spelling) is an extra-dimensional or spiritual reality on the etheric plane

Etheric plane

The etheric plane is a term introduced into Theosophy by Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant to represent one of the planes of existence in neo-Theosophical and Rosicrucian cosmology. It represents the fourth[higher] subplane of the physical plane , the lower three being the states of...

, a spiritual centre where the governing deity

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

of Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

, Sanat Kumara

Sanat Kumara

According to the post-1900 publications of Theosophy, i.e. the writings of C. W. Leadbeater, Alice A. Bailey, and Benjamin Creme, as well as the Ascended Master Teachings of Guy Ballard, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Geraldine Innocente, Joshua David Stone, and other Ascended Master Teachings teachers,...

, dwells as the highest Avatar

Avatar

In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....

of the Planetary Logos

Logos

' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

of Earth, and is said to be an expression of the Will of God. Nicholas

Nicholas Roerich

Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...

and Helena Roerich

Helena Roerich

Helena Ivanovna Roerich was a Russian philosopher, writer, and public figure. In the early 20th century, she created, in cooperation with the Teachers of the East, a philosophic teaching of Living Ethics . She was an organizer and participant of cultural and enlightened creativity in the U.S.,...

led a 1924-1928 expedition aimed at Shambhala.

Inspired by Theosophical lore and several visiting Mongol lamas, Gleb Bokii

Gleb Bokii

Gleb Ivanovich Bokii was an ethnic Ukrainian Communist political activist and revolutionary in the Russian Empire. Following the October Revolution of 1917, Bokii became a leading member of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police...

, 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.

Among other things, in a secret laboratory affiliated with the secret police, Bokii and Barchenko also experimented with Buddhist spiritual techniques, trying to find a key to engineer perfect communist human beings Similarly, Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

and Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...

sent a German expedition to Tibet in 1930, and then again in 1934-35, and in 1938-39. Some later occultists, noting the Nazi link, view Shambhala (or the closely related underground realm of Aghartha) as a source of negative manipulation by an evil (or amoral) conspiracy.

Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.Recognized...

, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, used the "Shambhala" name for certain of his teachings, practices, and organizations (e.g. Shambhala Training

Shambhala Training

Shambhala Training is a secular approach to meditation developed by the late Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa and his students. It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as realizable by people of all faiths through...

, Shambhala International, Shambhala Publications

Shambhala Publications

Shambhala Publications is an independent publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Many of its books deal with Buddhism or related topics...

), referring to the root of human goodness and aspiration. In Trungpa's view, Shambhala has its own independent basis in human wisdom that does not belong to East or West, or to any one culture or religion.

The French Buddhist Alexandra David-Neel

Alexandra David-Néel

Alexandra David-Néel born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners...

associated Shambhala with Balkh

Balkh

Balkh , was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan...

in present-day Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

.

The 2009 video game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an action-adventure platform third-person shooter video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to the 2007 game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It was first shown and announced on December 1, 2008...

is largely based around the protagonist's hunt for the Cintamani Stone, a treasured jewel taken from Shambhala.

External links

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In the Buddhist Kalachakra teachings

Western receptions

See also

Further reading

External links