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8th Century AD..Shang Shung annexed to Tibet
8th Century..."Inception of Dzogchen. One of the most controversial traditions of the Tibetan Nyingma and Bon lineages...drawing on such sources as Chinese Chan, Indian Buddhism, Daoism, Tantric Saivism, and indigenous religions. Strikingly antinomian language." (Lopez: 1997...pg 293)...
8th Century......Such masters would most likely have come from the great Buddhist monasteries in the Kabul region of Afghanistan. Many of these monasteries had architectural motifs similar to those in the Kalachakra mandala. For example, the main hall of Subahar Monastery had a zodiac motif on its ceiling and 360 chambers around it, one for each day of the lunar year. The Kabul monasteries also had considerable contact with Tantric Buddhism in Kashmir, where it was often mixed with Hindu tantra. Moreover, Kabul as well had a sizable Hindu population at the time, consistent with the fact that the stated audience for the Kalachakra teachings was mainly the brahman wise men of Shambhala.......The early ‘Abbasad ministers were Muslim descendants of the abbots of the Buddhist monasteries in the Balkh region of northern Afghanistan. They invited Buddhist monk scholars to Baghdad to translate texts, especially concerning astronomy, which plays a prominent role in the Kalachakra teachings. Some time toward the end of the eighth century, al-Fazari compiled in Baghdad a book of tables of planetary positions, thus adulterating and simplifying the Indian systems of astronomical calculations. Manjushri Yashas predicted that such an event would occur
806 The Manichaean presence in the Uighur kingdom had continued unabated. By 806 it was reported that the Manichaeans there drank only water and used no milk or meat in any form. They were also said to not eat until evening.
807 The Chinese government built many temples for the Manichaeans as acts of piety. Two were requested of them on 22nd of February, 807. Also in 807 the Paulicians were given full civil rights under Sergius and Theodotus their leaders.
809 There was a rebellion in the area of Samarqand, in central Uzbekistan, where Manichaeans were calling themselves Sabaeans so as to fall under the Quranic toleration afforded this group, By calling themselves Sabaeans the Manichaeans were being truthful inasmuch as the roots of their order went back to the Sabbaean Baptists sects of the middle east. All were forced to spit on an icon of Mani or be put to death. The Miqlasi Imam of that period was Iazdanbakht, He was known for his dreams and criticized for them in Mihrite Manichaean criticisms.
841 Uighar Kingdom of Manichaeans was overrun and by the next year China had begun to pass laws against them forbidding them to live anywhere except Kansu and Uighur. Uighur Turks were driven out from Mongolia and many settled in the area of the northern Tarim oases, mainly Turfan from 850 to 1250.
843 Religion of Light of Mani was declared totally forbidden, all her books and images were to be burned, her shrines closed, and her members property confiscated. The Manichaeans continued to meet at night and in disguise. During the next seven years the Uighurs scattered south, south west and south east and the kingdoms of Khocho, Kantcheou, Khotan and Yurfan were created, all Manichaean states.
843 70 Manichaeans were killed in Bagdad which caused them to go incognito in the dress of their Muslim neighbors.
845 As the Tang Dynasty declines further, the Imperial government suppresses Buddhism, concerned about the religion's growing power. They destroy 4600 temples and persecute almost 300,000 monks and nuns.
848 Dunhuang taken back from the Tibetans when Chinese rule was restored in 848
860's or 870's a great collection of Manichaean texts were deposited at Turfan whilst these same texts were be condemned and burned in the west under Basil I.
800 AD.....From the 8th century AD onwards, Buddhist beliefs and rituals began to penetrate into Shinto shrines and Shinto shrines came to be built within Buddhist temples.
842 AD...Fall of Tibetan dynasty. Killing of Langdharma (glang.dar.ma) whose name means 'youthful ox'...
850 AD......"The Tarim River in East Turkestan. Thus 'Shambhala' must be a special name for the Uighur Kingdom centered at Khocho that flourished circa 850-1250." (Newman...1985)
861 AD....King Bulan of the Khazars converted his kingdom to Judaism after a series of debates.
800 AD...........The use of Islam to represent destructive threatening forces, however, is understandable when examined in the context of the early Abbasad period in the Kabul region of Afghanistan.
Buddhist-Islamic Relations during the Abbasid Period
At the start of the period, the Abbasids ruled Bactria (northern Afghanistan), where they allowed the local Buddhists, Hindus, and Zoroastrians to keep their religions if they paid a poll tax. Many, however, voluntarily accepted Islam, especially among the landowners and the educated upper urban classes. Its high culture was more accessible than their own and they could avoid paying the heavy tax. The Turki Shahis, allied with the Tibetans, ruled Kabul, where Buddhism and Hinduism were flourishing. The Buddhist rulers and spiritual leaders might easily have worried that a similar phenomenon, conversion out of convenience, would happen there.
The Turki Shahis ruled the region until 870, losing control of it only between 815 and 819. During those four years, the Abbasad Caliph al-Mamun invaded Kabul, forced the ruling shah to accept Islam, and sent a gold Buddha statue from Subahar Monastery there as booty to Mecca. In smashing the idols as the Prophet Muhammad had done, the caliph was demonstrating his authority to rule the entire Islamic world after vanquishing his brother in a civil war. He did not force all the Buddhists of Kabul to convert, however, nor did he destroy the monasteries. After the Abbasad army withdrew to fight against movements for autonomy in other parts of their empire, the Buddhist monasteries quickly recovered.
"Until the eighth century, the country of Zhang-zhung had been an independent kingdom with its own language and culture. It lay in what is now Western and Northern Tibet and the center of the country was dominated by the majestic presence of the sacred mountain of Mount Kailas........ Just to the west of Zhang-zhung there once existed the vast Kushana empire..... an area in which Indian Buddhism interacted with various strands of Iranian religion-- Zoroastrian, Zurvanist, Mithraist, Manichean, as well as Indian Shaivism and Nestorian Christianity. ...... All this suggests that certain trends within Bon actually do go back to a kind of syncretistic Indo-Iranian Buddhism that once flourished in the independent kingdom of Zhang-zhung before it was forcibly incorporated into the expanding Tibetan empire in the eighth century. This "Buddhism", known as gyer in the Zhang-zhung language and as bon in the Tibetan, was not particularly monastic........"
The next period in which the Kabul region came under Islamic rule was also short, between 870 and 879. It was conquered by the Saffarad rulers of an autonomous military state, remembered for its harshness and destruction of local cultures. The conquerors sent many Buddhist "idols" back as war trophies to the Abbasad caliph. When the successors to the Turki Shahis, the Hindu Shahis, retook the region, Buddhism and the monasteries once more recovered their previous splendor.
The Turkic Ghaznavids conquered Kabul in the 980s. It was at about this time that the Kalachakra teachings openly appeared in India, transmitted in visions to two Indian masters attempting to reach Shambhala. Although the Muslim Ghaznavids tolerated Buddhism and Hinduism in Kabul, they smashed the Ismaili Islamic state of Multan in north central Pakistan in 1008. The Ismaili Fatimids in Egypt were the rivals of the Ghaznavids for supremacy over the entire Muslim world. After this victory, the Ghaznavad ruler Mahmud of Ghazni, driven undoubtedly by greed for more land and wealth, pressed his invasion further eastward as far as Madhura, south of Delhi. He looted and destroyed the wealthy Buddhist monasteries that lay in his path. When the Ghaznavad troops pushed northward from Delhi, however, and tried to invade Kashmir, the Kashmiri King Samgrama Raja, a supporter of both Buddhism and Hinduism, defeated them in 1021. This was the first attack on Kashmir by a Muslim army. The Kalachakra Tantra reached Tibet from Kashmir in 1027, the year predicted by the First Kalki.
900-902 At the beginning of the tenth century there were at least 300 Manichaeans in Bagdad. All these, and other Manichaeans were exiled out of Iraq in 902. Some went to Khorassan and some went to Samarqand with their Imam, only to have 500 of their number arrested.
907 China's enlightened Tang Dynasty collapses (907 A.D.). Buddhism declines further, and Central Asia loses its preeminence as the crossroads of Indian and Chinese culture. The Chinese government bans foreign religions. The Uigher people of Xinjiang, who ironically were responsible for the spread of Buddhism into parts of central Asia, now embrace Islam. Kirghiz Turks establish kingdoms in the nearby trading cities of Dunhuang and Turfan.
910 Cathar movement had arisen in the west.
In 930 the Manichaeans had a powerful and successful state in Toghuzghuz with its king Nsar among their converts. This state forced the Khorassan government to cease exiling Manichaeans from its borders, and instead accept a tax from them. Four of Mani's books were known in Bagdad at this time, including Giants, Mysteries, Treasure and Shapur-aqan.
The Turkic Ghaznavids conquered Kabul in the 980s. It was at about this time that the Kalachakra teachings openly appeared in India, transmitted in visions to two Indian masters attempting to reach Shambhala. Although the Muslim Ghaznavids tolerated Buddhism and Hinduism in Kabul, they smashed the Ismaili Islamic state of Multan in north central Pakistan in 1008. The Ismaili Fatimids in Egypt were the rivals of the Ghaznavids for supremacy over the entire Muslim world. After this victory, the Ghaznavad ruler Mahmud of Ghazni, driven undoubtedly by greed for more land and wealth, pressed his invasion further eastward as far as Madhura, south of Delhi. He looted and destroyed the wealthy Buddhist monasteries that lay in his path. When the Ghaznavad troops pushed northward from Delhi, however, and tried to invade Kashmir, the Kashmiri King Samgrama Raja, a supporter of both Buddhism and Hinduism, defeated them in 1021. This was the first attack on Kashmir by a Muslim army. The Kalachakra Tantra reached Tibet from Kashmir in 1027, the year predicted by the First Kalki.
988 AnNadim, utilizing the records extant there, published his account of Mani in his Fihrist. He knew only 5 Manichaeans in Baghdad then, called Achari, but others lived as Sabbaeans in smaller villages.
999 As the century drew to a close, the writer Biruni claimed that it took him 14 years to acquire a copy of Mani's Mysteries. Western Uighur was still mostly Manichaean, as were many in Tibet and Turkestan, but few could be found further west outside of Samarqand.
In 934, during the rule of Satuk Bughra Khan, the Karakhanids embraced the Islamic religion. Thus, in the territory of Eastern Turkestan two Uighur kingdoms were set up: the Karakhanids, who were Muslims, and the Karakhoja Uighurs who were Buddhists.
965 AD...Rus Prince Svyatoslav conquered the Khazar fortress of Sarkel. Conquered Itil two years later.
966 AD...Kalachakra becomes widely known in India
982 AD.......A dynasty of Zarathushti priests, known as Masmoghan - Chief of the Mobeds or Magis, ruled in the mountainous district of Tabaristan during Sasanian times and thereafter as independent rulers under Bav, who later retired himself into a fire temple. These mountainous kingdoms, also called Koh s, were highly fortified and almost impenetrable. An account from an anonymous book written in 982 mentions the Kuh-I-Qarin containing over ten thousand very prosperous Parsi villages. .......Although there are reports that the kingdoms in Mount Demavand were completely routed in the mid-fourteenth century, there is a strong belief held by many Parsis of India today that these Magis, now called Saheb-e-Delans, still exist in these mountains. These highly evolved personages periodically give audience, passing on their ancient religious teachings to selected Parsis. One such person was Mr. Behramshah Navroji Shroff of Surat, who had an audience with these Magis during the latter part of the nineteenth century
987 AD....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)...
990 AD...Khyungpo Nalj
1000 A.D. (5750) Assyrian monks develop a writing systems for Mongolian using the Assyrian alphabet.
There is also a tradition that Dzogchen,and Padmasambhava, come from a place called Oddiyana in Shamballa. Texts from this same Tun huang site identify Oddiyana as "Shamis en Balkh" in modern day Balkh, Afghanistan where many ruins, Buddhist stupas and monasteries exist. This is the town oft associated with Padmasambhava, and Rabia and Rumi as well. Although Padmasambhava is usually thought to be Indian, it is possible that he is from the Afghanistan region also associated with his name.
1025 More orthodox Taoists and Buddhists rejected Mani's two books and returned the canon to its former state.
1038 AD..... To the west and the northwest of Liao were many other Mongol tribes, linked together in various tenuous alliances and groupings, but with little national cohesiveness. In Gansu and eastern Xinjiang, the Tangut--who had taken advantage of the Tang decline--had formed a state, Western Xia or Xixia (1038-1227), nominally under Chinese suzerainty. Xinjiang was dominated by the Uighurs, who were loosely allied with the Chinese.
1047 AD........Furthermore, the Ghaznavid conquest of Gandhara and northwestern India between 1008 and 1021, with its massive destruction of Buddhist monasteries there, effectively ended religious travel to and from India along the Silk Route. For centuries, pilgrims had gone from Central Asia or Han China to the monasteries of India to invite Buddhist teachers and bring back religious texts and relics. The last such visits recorded in Northern Song sources, however, were by Dharmashri, who arrived in Han China in 1027, and Sumanas in 1036. No further religious expeditions to or from India were possible after that.
1400 A.D. (6050) Timurlane the Mongol sweeps westward and destroys everything in his path. The Assyrian Church of the East is completely destroyed. Assyrians are forced to retreat into the Hakkary mountains of eastern Turkey. The Church becomes a small, single nation entity.
1150 Cathari was dominant in southern France and also strong in Italy and Lombardy.
1160 Hong-mai called the Religion of Light, started by Mo-Moni the fifth Buddha, a perverse sect. The fifth Buddha refers to the Maitreya prophesied by Buudha. Manichaeans claimed Mani was this promised savior.
A.D. 1200-1500s Pueblo Indians establish villages along the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
1207 Pope Innocent III had the men of north France go into southern France and destroy the Cathari there. At Bezier's capture 20,000 were massacred. With Carcasonne's fall 400 were burned alive and 50 hanged, and so on throughout the region.
1239 The execution of about one hundred and eighty Cathari at Montwimer in May, 1239, was the death-blow of Catharism in those countries. Southern France, where its adherents were known as Albigenses, was its principal stronghold in Western Europe. Thence the Cathari penetrated into the northern provinces of Spain: Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, and Leon. Partisans existed in the peninsula about 1159. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, King Pedro II of Aragon personally led his troops to the assistance of Raymond VI of Toulouse against the Catholic Crusaders, and fell at the battle of Muret in 1213.
1260 Kublai Khan's mongol hoard destroyed the Manichaean state of Toghuzghuz, but small enclaves of Manichaeans persisted in western Tibet and Khotan.
1258 The last mention of Manichaean books in China took place in 1258.
1285 The banned book Hwa-hu-King which speaks of Mani having incarnated as both Lao-Tzu and Buddha was once again banned. A copy has come down to us from the Dun-Huang cave discovery in 1907.
The period between 1260 and the invasion of Tamurlane in 1400 was one of relative prosperity for Damascus. One after another, the Crusader states fell to the Arabs. In 1400, while the Damascus armies were in the south, Tamurlane took advantage of the cities lack of defenses. His Mongol hordes almost completely destroyed the city .........Tamurlane departed the ruins of Damascus, taking the surviving armorers with him. From thence forward, the famous Damascus swords were to be manufactured in Samarkand.
1323 Most Cathars had been destroyed from Europe.
1368 Edict in China again condemned Manichaeanism and its related sects of the White Lotus and of the Black and White Clouds, followed by one in 1374 and a final one in 1390. It accused the Manichaeans of burning incense to foreign images and icons, practicing magic, and doing unseemly things in the dark of night until dawn.
1420 Some Cathari still existed in Bosnia and Bulgaria.
1446 The Cathari, 40,000 in number, left Bosnia and passed into Herzegovina (1446). They disappeared only after the conquest of these provinces by the Turks in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Only in the 14th century did Samarkand recover its beauty when Tamurlane, the great warrior and emperor, made Samarkand the capital of his huge empire and returned the city to its enchanting appearance. He brought to the city the most famous and talented architects and ordered them to build the most beautiful buildings in the region.
The period between 1260 and the invasion of Tamurlane in 1400 was one of relative prosperity for Damascus. One after another, the Crusader states fell to the Arabs. In 1400, while the Damascus armies were in the south, Tamurlane took advantage of the cities lack of defenses. His Mongol hordes almost completely destroyed the city and killed everyone they could capture. After a ransom of one million pieces of gold was paid, Tamurlane departed the ruins of Damascus, taking the surviving armorers with him. From thence forward, the famous Damascus swords were to be manufactured in Samarkand.
1536............... Cabeza de Vaca, Estevan the Moor and two others reach Culiacdn, Mexico, after possibly crossing what is now Florida, Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico.... and begin searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola....Esteban was First African American...he is Buried at Zuni, New Mexico
1813...........Jamgön Kongtrul the Great (1813–1899) is a giant in Tibetan history, renowned for his scholarly and meditative achievements, but also for his energetic yet evenhanded work to unify and strengthen the different lineages of Buddhism. The Ri-me movement, led by Kongtrul and several other leading scholars of the time, was a unifying effort to cut through interscholastic divisions and disputes that were occurring between the different lineages. These leaders sought appreciation of the differences and acknowledgment of the importance of variety in benefiting practitioners with different needs. The Ri-me teachers also took great care that the teachings and practices of the different schools and lineages, and their unique styles, did not become confused with one another.
1868.....There was an effort in Japan to separate Shinto from Buddhism: "After the Meiji Imperial Restoration of 1868, the new government purged Shinto of Buddhist elements, or ordered to clearly segregate Buddhism from Shinto."
1868......The radicals who overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate in the Meiji Restoration of 1868 took Fukko Shinto as their ideology, and this became the new government's state creed. Shinto and Buddhism were separated by decree in 1868: Buddhist effigies were ordered to be removed from Shinto shrines and all traces of Buddhism were purged from the imperial household. Priests were made state employees, and the Ministry of Religion laid down detailed instructions on doctrine and ritual in a new system termed State Shinto.This concentrated on the more important shrines; folk Shinto practices were mostly left unmolested and various fringe Shinto movements dating from the Edo period were allowed to continue under the rubric Sect Shinto.
1918 A.D. (6668) The Ottoman Empire collapses. Three of four Assyrians (750,000 total) are killed by Turks and Kurds. The surviving Assyrians flee to Iraq and Syria (British and French mandates). The Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimoon is assassinated by the Kurd Simko. A nationalistic movement sweeps through the Assyrians.
1900 The 'Cave for Preserving Scriptures', was discovered by a Taoist monk at Dunhuang, China named Wang Yuanlu in 1900. The cave contains more than 50,000 sutras, documents and paintings covering a period from the 4th to the 11th centuries. It was one of China's most significant archaeological finds. These precious relics are of great historical and scientific value.
1902-1904 original Manichaean documents from Turfan were again published and made available to the world.
1906-1919 Much of the Hand-copied ancient books, manuscripts, literary works, Buddhist and secular decorative art works, and ancient manuscripts were removed from the Dunhuang grottoes by Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Sergei Feodorovich Oldenburg and other archaeologists.
1907 Discoveries of the texts from Dun-Huang caves in western China.
1933 3500 pages of Manichaean material were recovered from Egypt.
1945 On the west bank of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, on or near the site of the ancient town of Chenoboskion were found the Naj' Hammadi (Nag Hammadi) papyri, a collection of 13 codices of Gnostic and Manichaean scriptures.
1927.....Twentieth Rigden King Died...... TWENTIETH KALKI KING.....Mahabala....Toppche....Mahaabala [stobs chen]..... 27. (20) Mahabala, Tobpo Che (1827 - 1927) Who Tames all the False Leaders by Means of the Sound of Mantra
1927........21st Rigden Kind ascended his throne......TWENTY FIRST KALKI KING......Aniruddha,....Magakpa...(21st Kulika King): "the 29th King of Shambhala, Magakpa (ma 'gags pa) who is reigning at the present, ascended the throne in 1927." (Kongtrul: 1995..pg 273)...."the 21st, Aniruddha. (Kongtrul: 1995..pg 273)..."The current Rigden, the 21st Kulika, is said to have ascended the throne in 1927. (Hopkins: 1985..pg 65)......Aniruddha [ma a'gags] ......(21) Anirodha/Aniruddha, Magag Pa (1927 - 2027) Who Draws and Binds the Entire Three Worlds - Current Ruler of Shambala .......The 21st Rigden is alive now and dwelling on the lion throne of Kalapa in his great palace.
The First Kalki predicted that the followers of the non-Indic religion will some day rule India. From their capital in Delhi, their king Krinmati will attempt the conquest of Shambhala in 2424 AD. The commentaries suggest that Krinmati will be recognized as the messiah Mahdi. The Twenty-fifth Kalki, Raudrachakrin, will then invade India and defeat the non-Indics in a great war. His victory will mark the end of the kaliyuga - "the age of disputes," during which Dharma practice will degenerate. Afterwards, a new golden age will follow during which the teachings will flourish, especially those of Kalachakra.
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