Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan

Once again let me urge you to visit the show of classic sculpture from India now at the De Young Museum. This is an experience not likely to be repeated in your lifetime. My colleagues in reviewing the show have mentioned the Greek, or at least Hellenistic, influence which is apparent in several of the pieces. It is not generally known that after Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire to its eastern limits at the Indus River he established a number of Greek, or Greek garrisoned, cities in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan. Cut off from the rest of the Greek world, Greeks ruled here until the beginning of the Christian Era.
This was the Bactrian Kingdom which at one time included most of Afghanistan (Bactria is the Afghan city of Balkh), Turkestan, Pakistan, and even, for a while, a large section of India south of the Indus.
We know little of the rulers, but they left behind their faces on the coins, the finest examples of portrait coinage ever done. Their subtle, arrogant faces look much like the British gentleman adventurers of the East India Company who were to come after them in 2000 years. Eucratides even wears something remarkably like a pith helmet.
Here Mahayana Buddhism grew up, flourished, and spread across Asia to Japan. With it went artists and decorators who filled the temples and monastic caves of Further Asia with paintings and sculpture that derive their plastic inspiration from the far away Greek Mediterranean. Their artistic output was incredible: its limitless bulk staggers the imagination. Although I suppose it was what we would call today a kind of commercial art, the product of studios organized on a modern production basis, it is nevertheless unquestionably the finest expression of the Greek genius after the days of Alexander, except possibly for some work done for the Romans during the reign of Augustus.
This is one of the most fascinating episodes of history, and it is tantalizing because we know so little about it and what we do know is so extraordinary.
We know that the plays of Euripides were performed in courts that looked out from the Hindu Kush over the deserts of Central Asia. We know that Hercules and Vishnu, Bacchus and Shiva were confused on their coinage. We know that Buddhism, originally a kind of atheistic religious empiricism, was turned into a Mystery Religion of the Mediterranean type.
A Mahayana Sutra, The Questions of Milinda, has as interlocutor the adventurer Menander who, driven out of Bactria by invading barbarians, conquered a sizable piece of western India. Here and there along the coasts as far south as Bombay are gravestones with Greek names. Some dedicate the dead man’s soul to Buddha and his Bodhisattvas, some to the Hindu gods, some to the deities of the homeland, half a world away.
All this has little enough to do with the main body of Indian art. Modern Indian critics and historians, intensely chauvinistic, resent any implication that they owe anything whatever to the West, at any time, ever. It is true that the main India tradition in sculpture had its origins northeast of the Ganges and in the non-Aryan south, and in the course of time came to push aside all Hellenistic influence from the northwest.
Had this been a show of the art of Pakistan, the story would have been different. It is there that most of this Greek-inspired sculpture — called, by the way, Gandharan art, after a place in Pakistan — is to be found.
A last detail — for a long time philologists were puzzled by an Aryan language spoken by a few savage, murderous, filthy robber bands in the mountains and valleys of the Northwest Border. They were certainly the most debased and intractable of all the inhabitants of an intractable region. Then somebody pointed out that the language was simply a degenerate form of the language of Plato.
A friend just asked me, “Is this sort of thing good newspaper copy?” Why not? I can’t be controversial three weeks running. I get elastic fatigues, like a tired bridge. It is unusual and fascinating information. And it is relevant and bears pondering. Amongst what sort of savages in what lonely mountains do you suppose English will survive two thousand years hence?




by KENNETH REXROTH, appeared as one of Rexroth’s semiweekly columns in the San Francisco Examiner (21 June 1964).

.

Ancient Vedic Predictions And Prophecies

.




Symptoms of the Kali Yuga


Writing itself is a symptom of the Kali Yuga. If you think about it, humans beings have been on planet Earth far longer than we have any record of any written word. However there are a few ancient writings which give us some idea of the other three ages. These were orally transmitted, memorized texts which were handed down from generation to generation and later written in Sanskrit down during the Kali Yuga. We no longer possess this remarkable command of memory. Imagine memorizing complete books! Most of us can barely remember the grocery list!


From the Sanskrit text the Linga Purana:

Some of these ancient texts actually predicted the conditions which now in exist the Twilight of the Kali Yuga. Remember, these are predictions! The ancients who bothered to write these prophecies down did so because they considered them to be abnormal, unheard-of, and outrageous.

Thieves will become kings, and kings will be the thieves.

Rulers will confiscate property and use it badly.

They will cease to protect the people.

Base men who have gained a certain amount of learning (without having the virtues necessary for its use) will be esteemed as sages.

There will be many displaced persons, wandering from one country to another.

Predatory animals will be more violent.

Fetuses will be killed in the wombs of their mothers.

People will prefer to choose false ideas.

No one will be able to trust anyone else.

People will be envious.

There will be many children born whose life expectancy is no more than 16 years.

People suffering from hunger and fear will take refuge in "underground shelters."

Young girls will do trade in their virginity.

The god of clouds will be inconsistent in the distribution of the rains.

Shopkeepers will run dishonest businesses.

There will be many beggars and unemployed people.

Everyone will use hard and vulgar language.

Men will devote themselves to earning money; the richest will hold power.

The state leaders will no longer protect the people but, through taxes, will appropriate all wealth.

Water will be lacking.

And my favorite quote:

"Pre-cooked food will be readily available!"

The fact that our food supply contains very little nutrition and is full of toxins also tells us something about the frequencies of Time we live in.

(The source of this information is a wonderful book entitled: While the Gods Play: Shiva Oracles and Predictions on the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind, by Alain Danielou; Inner Traditions International Ltd., paperback, 1985.)


The End of the World

From the Sanskrit Puranas and the Mahabharata


At the end of each Kalpa

There are three kinds of what we call the "end of the world" (paralaya): the first induced (naimittka); the second natural (prakrita); the third immediate (atyantika). Induced destruction (which concerns all living beings on earth) takes place at the end of each Kalpa [cycle of the Yuga(s)]. It is called either accidental or induced (naimittka).

Natural destruction (prakritka) is that which concerns the whole universe. It takes place when the divine dream which is the world ends. Matter, space, and time then cease to exist. It takes place at the end of time (parardha). [Vishnu Purana 1.3.1-3]

The third destruction, called immediate (atayantika), refers to the liberation (moksha) of the individual for whom the visible world ceases to exist. Immediate destruction therefore concerns the individual, induced destruction all living species on earth, and natural destruction the end of the universe.

Accidental or induced destruction (Naimittika Pralaya)

To put an end to the disastrous and unplanned increase in the number of living beings.

What is called accidental or provoked destruction (of living species) (naimittika) takes place at the end of...the cycle of Yugas. Therefore it concerns the human species. It takes place when the creator can no longer find any remedy apart from a total destruction of the world to put an end to the disastrous and unplanned increase in the number of living beings. [Mahabharata 12.248.13-17]

This destruction will start with an underwater explosion called Vadava, the mare, which will take place in the southern ocean.

"It will be proceeded by a hundred year drought during which the people who are not robust will perish. The seas, the rivers, the mountain streams, and the underground streams will be drained.

Twelve suns will cause the seas to evaporate. Fed by this water, seven suns will form which will reduce the three worlds to ashes; the earth will become hard like a turtle's shell.

The underground serpent will burn the lower worlds A fire from the mouth of the underground serpent will burn the lower worlds, then the surface of the earth, and will set the atmosphere ablaze. This mass of fire will burn with a great noise. Surrounded by these circles of fire, all animate and inanimate objects will be destroyed.

The destroyer god will breathe enormous clouds, which will make a terrible noise.

A mass of clouds charged with energy, destroyer of all (sarvantaka), will appear in the sky like a herd of elephants. [Vishnu Purana 1.8.18-31]

When the moon is in the constellation of Pushya (Aquarius), invisible clouds called Pushkara (cloud of death) and Avarta (cloud without water, nirjala) will cover the earth. [Shiva Purana 5.1.48-50]

Immense clouds will darken the sky Some of these clouds will be black, others white like jasmine, others bronzed, others gray like donkeys, others red, others blue like lapis or sapphire, others speckled, orangish, indigo. They will resemble towns or mountains. They will cover all the earth. These immense clouds, making a terrible noise, will darken the sky and will shower the earth in a rain of dust which will extinguish the terrible fire.

Then, by means of an interminable downpour, they will flood the whole earth with water. This torrential rain will swamp the earth for twelve years, and humanity will be destroyed. The whole world will be in darkness. The flood will last seven years and the earth will seems like an immense ocean. [Vishnu Purana 1.7.24-40]

Refuge in the extraplanetary world of Mahar When the dissolution of the world seems immanent, some people abandon the earth during the last days of the Kalpa and take refuge in the world of Mahar [the extraplanetary world] and from there will return to the world of life" (janaloka). [Linga Purana 1.4.39-40]

Seven humanities must again succeed each other on earth, and when the Golden Age reappears, seven sages will emerge to again teach the divine law to the few survivors of the four castes. [Shiva Purana 5.4.40-70]

Those few humans who survive the holocaust will be the progenitors of the future humanity (Danielou).

The world dissolves into the imperceptible The destruction of the world is implied in the very event of the creation and follows the reverse process in the thoughts of the Creator. When the force of expansion (tamas) and that of concentration (sattva) equalize, the tension (rajas), which is the primary cause, the substance (pradhana) of the universe, ceases to exist and the world dissolves into the imperceptible.

All vestiges of creation are destroyed; Pradhana and Purusha become idle. The earth, the atmosphere, the planetary and extraplanetary worlds disappear. Everything that exists is united into one single liquid mass, an ocean of fire in which the world dissolves. It is in this immense cosmic ocean (ekarnava) that the organizing principle, Bramha, sleeps until, at the end of the night, he awakens and, taking the form of a wild boar, raises a new world out of the waves. [Linga Purana 1.4.36-61]

The duration of the universe is expressed by a number having eighteen figures. When the end of time has come, the principle of smell (gandha tanmatra) disappears and, with it, solid matter. Everything becomes liquid.

All that remains is the vibration of space Then the principle of taste (rasa tanmatra) disappears and with it the liquid element. Everything becomes gaseous. Then the principle of touch (sparsha tanmatra) disappears and with it the gaseous element. Everything becomes fire. Then the principle of visibility disappears, all that remains is the vibration of space, which in turn fades.

Like a void of spherical shape All that remains is space like a void of spherical shape where only the vibratory principle exists. This vibration is reabsorbed in the "Principle of the Elements" (bhutadi), that is, the principle of identification or of individuality (ahamkara), which is part of the force of expansion (tamas), which itself dissolves into a great principle (mahat tattva), which is the principle of consciousness (buddhi).

The plan (purusha), indestructible, omnipresent, which is emanation of Being, returns to its origin. [Vishnu Purana 1.8.9]

The game (lila) of the birth and the disappearance of the worlds is an act of power of the Being who is beyond substance (pradhana) and beyond the plan (purusha), beyond the manifest (vyakta) and the unmanifest (avyakta), and beyond time (kala). The time of the Being has neither beginning nor end. That is why the birth, duration, and disappearance of the worlds never stops.

Apart from Being, nothing exists any longer At the time of the destruction neither day nor night, space or earth, darkness or light, nor anything else exists any longer, apart from Being, beyond the perceptions of the senses or thought. [Vishnu Purana 1.1.18-23]

From: While the Gods Play, Shaiva Oracles & Predictions on the Cycles of History & the Destiny of Mankind by Alain Danielou, 1987, Inner Traditions




By Susan Ferguson.

.