12. BUDDHIST INFLUENCES IN THE NEAR EAST.12. BUDDHIST INFLUENCES IN THE NEAR EAST. IT is now fairly common knowledge that following the campaigns of Alexander the Great, newideas started pouring in from Central Asia and India. It is fair to say that most competent studiesof Gnosticism begin with the details of Alexander's travels. What if, however, the influence ofIndia on "Western Spirituality" dates back, not to Alexander, but to a time more distant, a timeprior to the reign of Akhnaten, the heretic?We have completed a survey of the survival of the Sumerian tradition, in our first number of theongoing series entitled Readings in the Authentic Tradition. For example, the cult of the twinsmay have Egyptian analogues, in Horus contending with Set, but it goes back much farther east,to India. This is interesting, since one of the largest churches devoted to St. Thomas is in India. Thomas, as you might already know, means "twin." The cult of the Asvini-kumaras, the twinmedical deities who ride in the golden chariot, travelled from India to Socotra, on the Incenseroute, and made its way to Saba, to Ethiopia, and down the Nile to Egypt. It travelled across theMediterranean Sea to the Greek Isles, where it became known as the cult of the Dioscuri. In fact,Socotra was named the isle of the Dioscuri. This cult became merged with the Samothracian cultof the Cabiri, which had its origins in Phoenicia. These in their turn exerted an influence on otherMystery Cults, and upon Gnosticism and early Christianity. In fact, Essenism was influenced bythis cult more than any other perhaps, since the idea of John the forerunner and John the follower,as well as the 28 pillars relating to the moon cycle, had for their origin the cult of the twins. Inlater Roman usages, this cult of the twins became known as the Penates. Later than that, thePenates became related to Sts. Cosmo and Damiana, known to be identified with Priapus, byscholars such as Richard Payne Knight.The Asvini-kumara were known to the Mitanni people, since they are mentioned in the now-famous inscription in the Amarna letters to Akhnaten the heretic. Indeed, Indian deities had aprofound influence on the heretic king, though he misread the runes badly, and created a cultworthy of such infamous false messiahs as David Koresh. It is a point worth considering verythoroughly that the present-day occupation with Akhnaten the heretic as a forerunner of Jewishmonotheism is a trend which should be avoided like the plague, since in the time of Moses,Hebrew religion was not what we are told to believe it was. Hebrew religion always employedimages, an ancestor cultus, worship of external images which were veils of the Eternal, UnseenOne, Blessed be He, since the Eternal is the Cause of all things, "La Source," there is no way itcan communicate as people understand the idea of communication. People being what they are,need symbols with which to relate to things which cannot be described easily. The priests know,but they're not talking. Returning to the Alexandrian period, then, we now present a few notes on the influences ofBuddhism on the birth and development of the Gnostic tradition in the West. We might addTantrikism, too, since Gnostic practices reflect a Tantrik origin more clearly than a Buddhist one. But, this is possible, since Buddhism at the time under discussion was likely to have includedTantrik elements. We recommend our Reader, for the most detailed documentation on thissubject and its relation to the birth and development of Gnosticism in the West. Legge, inForerunners and Rivals of Christianity, tells the story:"Whether for good or ill, it is certain that the Greeks after Alexander's death never returned tothe simple faith in their national gods which had sufficed for their forefathers."This is a point that it is important to remember, because without it, it is hard to understand thepassion for innovation in religious matters which seems for the next three centuries to possessunchecked sway over mankind. It appeared as if Alexander, who indeed had made all things new,had set free the gods of the ancient world to wander from one end of his Empire to the other, andthe desire to proselytize appears for the first time in the world's history. Buddhism must havebeen prevalent in India for nearly a century before Alexander; but when it became the religion ofthe state in the reign of Asoka, grandson of that Chandragupta or Sandracottus who had talkedwith Alexander face to face, the Indian king boasted that he had sent out missionaries for thepropagation of his new faith to the courts of Antiochus of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus ofMacedonia, Magas of Cyrene and Alexander of Epirus. Whether the Indian missionaries everreached the kings to whom they were sent may be doubted, and it is certain that these last did notpay the attention to them that Asoka claims; but it is quite possible that to the impulse givenby such missions may be attributed some of the practices of the Jewish sect of the Essenes,and perhaps the monastic seclusion effected by certain worshippers of the Alexandrian godSerapis."(1)It is a matter of historical record that Emperor Asoka was responsible for Buddhist missionaries to the West during his reign in the middle of the second century B.C.E. It is from the Buddhists that the doctrines of the Gnostics, in our survey, and other groups like the Sabians of Harran ultimately derive. The doctrines of the Carpocratians and Barbelo-gnostics are pure Tantrikism with a Western Varnish. In fact, the Gnostic idea of becoming liberated from entrapment in matter as a result of one's parents following the commands of Ialdabaoth to be fruitful and multiply is similar to the teachings embodied in the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha. It is perhaps worth commenting here on Tantrik practice. Tantrikism is a subject that has beenvirtually ruined by Western commentators. It has been particularly ruined by those who dwellexclusively on the sexual aspects of the teachings. While we are dealing with very differentdoctrines, in Gnosticism, Qabalah, and Tantrikism, the object of each is identical: Union with theEternal, through symbols, through ritual, through meditation, through ascetic practices, throughthe breaking of taboos. Also, the cultivation of the revelation, in the practitioner, of specialknowledge, which confers liberation from the endless round of rebirth. Knowledge of the secretsof Divinity is liberating knowledge. In Tibetan Tantra, for example, we have the Dzogs-Chenschool, exemplified by the teachings of Longchen Rabjampa. And this Dzogs-Chen teachingbelongs to the same family tree that Zen Buddhism descends from. It is not out of character tostate that even the teachings of the late Anton Szandor LaVey in some respects are faithfulrenditions in the language of a carnival barker of these teachings. When one is in possession ofthe teachings which the teachers learn, one no longer is merely a student.In classical Tantra, the practitioner performs gestures, invocations, dances, rituals, meditationpractices, visualizations, and so forth in order to become one with the Deity which is the totem ofthe particular cultus. So, if that deity is Shiva, then all gestures, invocations, dances, rituals,meditation practices, and visualizations pertain to and are dedicated to the idea of Shiva. Thetemple space itself is a home made worthy of Shiva's indwelling by these practices. At first, it isthe worshipper worshipping the worshipped. As the practice progresses, the worshipper becomesthe object of worship, to the point that images are no longer necessary. At that point, theworshipper is no longer ignorant, no longer chained in matter, subject to endless rebirths,wandering aimlessly in the Sangsara. In Buddhist Tantra, the practitioner achieves Enlightenment. This is the Buddha Nature. In Tibetan Buddhism, this enables one, if successful, to Identify withthe Clear White Light of the Void in the first Bardo Vision during Transition. In order to get tothis exalted state, various ascetic practices are necessary, so as to discipline the mind. Notnecessarily to be able to achieve a state of consciousness where one has visions or sees spirits orthought-form projections (Tulpas), but to achieve a state of consciousness in which one canappreciate the unity of all things, the At-One-Ment spoken of in Buddhist texts. To know andunderstand that the Mind is the director of the movie one tends to call reality, and this in itself iswhat constitutes Reality.Buddhism brought a lot of the ascetic disciplines to the West. These, combined with the practicesof the colleges of Egyptian priests, such as the priests of Amun, and with the ascetic practices ofthe Pythagoreans and other Greek schools. Buddhism ultimately did not catch on in the Westduring the Classical period, it took nearly 2,000 years for it to generate an interest in the West --however, its methods did take hold and were deemed attractive to a certain class of men.Charles W. King, in The Gnostics and their Remains, Second Edition, tells about the Buddhistinfluence on the Gnosis. After giving a very brief synopsis of the Buddhist schema, he speaks ofits influence on the West:"The promulgation of these Indian speculations from so remote a source -- a difficulty at firstsight insurmountable -- may nevertheless be readily explained. The spirit of this religion was thespirit of proselytism; the Buddhists from the very beginning sent out their missionaries (some ofwhose narratives, full of interest, are extant and have been translated from the Chinese) with allthe zeal of the old Propaganda. From the mainland they converted Ceylon, Japan, and therecesses of Tartary; and penetrated into regions where their former presence and toleratedexistence are now little dreamed of. That Buddhism had been actually planted in the dominions ofthe Seleucidae and the Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the former) before the end of the fourthcentury, at least, before our era is shown by a clause in the Edicts of Asoka. This prince wasgrandson to Chandragupta (the Sandracottus of the Greeks, contemporary and friend of SeleucusI), who, at the head of an army of 60,000 men, had conquered all India within the Ganges. Asoka,at first a licentious tyrant, had embraced the newly preached doctrines of Buddhism, aBrahmanical Protestantism, and propagated them by persuasion and by force through the lengthand breadth of his immense kingdom, with all the usual zeal of a new convert."The Edicts referred to are graven on a rock tablet at Girnuri in Guzerat. To quote the words of the Indian Archaeologist Prinsep, to whom the discovery is due, (article xvii, 'Indian Antiquities'). -- "I am now about to produce evidence that Asoka's acquaintance with geography was not limitedto Asia, and that his expansive benevolence towards living creatures extended, at least inintention, to another quarter of the globe, that his religious ambition sought to apostolize Egypt,and that we must look hereafter for traces of the introduction of Buddhism into the fertilevalley of the Nile, so productive of metaphysical discussions from the earliest ages. The linewhich I allude to is the fifth from the bottom.'AND THE GREEK KING (YONI RAJA) BESIDES, BY WHOM THE CHAPTA(EGYPTIAN) KINGS, PTOLEMAIOS, AND GONKAKENOS (ANTIGONUS GONATAS)HAVE BEEN INDUCED TO ALLOW THAT BOTH HERE AND IN FOREIGNCOUNTRIES EVERYWHERE THE PEOPLE MAY FOLLOW THE DOCTRINE OF THERELIGION OF DEVANIPYA, WHERESOEVER IT REACHETH.'"The Essenes, so like to Buddhist Monks in many particulars (for which see the minute description of this ascetic rule as given by Josephus, 'Antiq. Jud.' XV. 10), had been established on the shores of the Dead Sea for 'thousands of ages' before Pliny's time. 'On the West its shores, so far as they are unhealthy, are shunned by the Esseni, a solitary race, and wonderful beyond all others on the globe; without woman, renouncing all usual enjoyment, without money, associates of the palm-trees, from day to day they are recruited by the flocks of new-comers: all those flocking in numerously whom the world drives from itself, all tempest-tossed by the waves of fortune. In this way, incredible to tell, the race wherein no birth ever takes place, has endured for thousands of years, so prolific for them as other people's disgust at the world.' -- (Hist. Nat. V. 15). The great naturalist's 'thousands of years' must be allowed as one of his favourite oratoricaltropes, but nevertheless serves for testimony to the belief in the great antiquity of the Sect. Perhaps they may have been a continuation of those early ascetic associations known as the'schools of the Prophets.'"The influence of Jewish Essenism upon primitive Christianity (as to rules of life at least) is a thing that will not be disputed by any who have read, with a wish to learn the truth, not to evade it, the account of it given by Josephus. But over the semi-Christian Gnostics of Syria, such long-established authority must have had a still stronger influence. It is easy to discover how the source of the slavish notions about the merits of asceticism, penances, and self-torture (of which Simon Stylites is the most conspicuous illustration), was the same one whence the Indian Fakirs drew their practice -- for even in their methods they were identical. Simon's celebrated life-penance (which gives him his title), undergone upon the summit of a lofty pillar, had been practiced in the same region many generations before his time. The pseudo-Lucian, in his amusing description of the famous Temple of the 'Syrian Goddess' at Emesa ('De Dea Syria'), particularly notices the phallus or obelisk, 300-feet high, planted in front of the edifice, upon the apex of which the devotee sat without sleep for one and twenty days and nights, keeping himself awake by constantly ringing a hand-bell. Ideas like these pervade the Christianity of the Lower Empire, nay, they constitute the very essence of the religion. Neither is it difficult to see upon how many points Manes, with his rigid Buddhist tenets, came into collision with the humane and rational law of Zoroaster (the brightest system of natural religion ever promulgated),(2) and what good causes Varanes, with his spiritual advisers, had for condemning his heresy." (...) "As for the profundity of the philosophical speculations of the Orientals, even at a very lateperiod, the Byzantine Agathias quotes a very remarkable example. Chosroes (better known to usas Nushirwan the Just), besides giving an asylum, as to his brethren, to the last Athenianphilosophers, when expelled from their Chairs by the stupid bigot Justinian, caused all Plato'sworks to be translated into Persian, and professed to be himself able to comprehend even themysteries of the 'Timaeus'. The Greek sophist is naturally indignant at the impudence of theforeigner who could pretend that 'his own barbarous and rustic language' was capable ofexpressing the divine thoughts of the Athenian sage; for he little suspected that the great king, orat any rate the Magi and 'Sufis' about him, were masters of the sources whence Plato may haveultimately drawn his inspirations whilst planning that inscrutable composition. The religiousinstruction of the Persian princes had from the beginning been carefully attended to, andproficiency therein was a matter of pride: thus Cyrus the younger puts forward his superiorknowledge of theology (in his manifesto upon claiming the Kingdom) as a just cause why heshould be preferred to his elder brother..."The facts adduced in the foregoing sketch will suffice to indicate the manner in which the germsof the various Gnostic doctrines were imported from the East, how they were engrafted uponpreviously existing notions, and how vigorously they flourished when transplanted into the kindlysoil of Alexandria and Ephesus."(3)How much influence Buddhism ultimately had upon the Schools of the West can only beconjectured about. It is likely that Buddhism itself did not last long in the Graeco-Roman world. From the teachings we have received, it is clear that there was a two-way communication processin effect. Lamaism, for example, does not become known to us until 747 c.e., when PadmaSambhava arrives in Tibet and brings Lamaistic Buddhism to its people. Padma Sambhava is saidto have come from North-West India/Afghanistan, the land of Udyana. Prior to that, it is said thatLamaism had its birth and development in the Tarim Basin. At the same time this is taking place,Manichaeism reaches the Tarim Basin, due to missionary activity, due to the rise of Islam. Insome Manichaean texts from this region, it is clear that the scribes wanted to graft Manichaeismwith Lamaism, for some of the most important deities of the Lamaistic pantheon are mentioned. Also, thanks in part to the Lamas of the Monastery of Balkh, the Barmakids, Lamaism reachedBaghdad when Harun al-Rashid took the abbot of the monastery and his sons in as teachers to theroyal court. It is said that Buddhism had an influence in Sufism, and that Sufism had an influenceon Isma'ili philosophy, and all of these had an influence on the Western Esoteric Tradition.It is no longer sufficient to parrot the Theosophical Society's lines that the Essenes were reallyesoteric Buddhists, and that Christ was schooled in the ancient wisdom of the East, and theInvisible Lords of the Flame of the 7th Ray control us all like the bad witch and her monkeys in theWizard of Oz from some secret white mountain in the Gobi Desert. The actual history is plain tosee, and we do not need this esoteric bunk in order to vindicate ourselves or justify our beliefs. As we have outlined above, the Indian influence upon Western Religions began to take place farearlier than the foundation of the Essene communities. The truth behind it all is that humankind'sancestors, the Nephilim, perpetuated themselves, in us, through these sometimes circuitousroutes, in order that the Light never be entirely buried. The DurAnKi, Bond Heaven-Earth, has along and interesting history, and is the subject of another work of ours, entitled The Code of theEternal.One group which exhibits connections to the Gnostic Tradition, to the Johannite Tradition, and to the ancient Sumerian religion, is the subject of the next chapter. This group's religious and magical practices go back farther than anything we have yet examined, definitely to Sumer. Yet they claim to have come from Egypt, whose religion their doctrines have little in common with (save for the after-death doctrine). And they class John the Baptist as the true Messiah. We are speaking, of course, of the Mandaeans. NOTES. 1. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, I:20.2. This is King's opinion at least, though not our own, nor that of the Authentic Tradition.3. C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, Second Edition, pp. 50 - 56. | [HOME] | [CONTENTS] | [PREVIOUS] | [NEXT] | [ |
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