Funeral Wisdom of the World

Somewhere, beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas lies a mythical kingdom Shambhala. The kingdom is a society, where all the inhabitants are enlightened. Its capital city is Kalapa. Shambhala is ruled by a line of king known as Kaliki kings. When the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the twenty-fifth Kalki king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish “Dark Forces” and usher in a worldwide Golden Age. It will happen somewhere in 2424 AD. This is what I found from Kalachakra tantra, while researching myths and legends for my web analytics company.

This beautiful story came to us from Tibetan Buddhist tradition. According to this legend, Buddha taught the Kalachakra tantra in Shambhala upon the request of King Suchandra. So, part of Buddha’s teachings is still preserved in the kingdom.Word Shambhala itself is derived from Sanscrit which means place of tranquility and happiness. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including Kalachakra tantra and the ancient text of the Zhang Zhung culture that even predated Tibetan Buddhism. As with many concepts in the Kalachakra Tantra, the idea of Shambhala has alternative” meanings. Shambhala is not an ordinary country. It exists as a physical place, although only individuals with the appropriate karma can reach it and experience it as such. One can not actually arrive there, unless he has the merit and the actual karmic association.

Various cultures place Shambhala in central Asai, north or west of Tibet. Some texts identify it with the Sutlej Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Mongolians name the location of Shambala at certain valleys of southern Siberia. But they all see Shambhala kingdom as enlightened society that people of all faiths can aspire to and actually realize. The path to this is provocatively described as the practice of warriorship — meeting fear and transcending aggression, and of secular sacredness — joining the wisdom of the past and one’s own culture with the present.  Shambhala teachings inspired numerous educational, artistic, and spiritual institutions, including Naropa University, Shambhala Training, Shambhala Sun, the Shambhala School, Shambhala Institute, and many others.

Tibet was largely closed to outsiders until very recently, 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 Catholic missionaries João Cabral and Estêvão Cacella who had heard about Shambala and thought it was another name for China. In 1627 they headed to Tashilhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama and, discovering their mistake, returned to India. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. There were numerous Tibetan expeditions to discover Shambhala, but all in vain.

This news caused quite a stir in the Western world. Augustus Le Plongeon, a nineteen century traveler, writer, and antiquarian just returned from the Maya ruins in Yucatan peninsula. Upon his return he made a sensational announcement. He stated that he managed to translate ancient Mayan writings. These writings showed that the Maya of Yucatan were older than later civilizations of Egypt and Atlantis. They also told the story of even older continent of Mu, which had perished like Atlantis and, that its survivors founded the Maya civilization. During my research in local web analytics company, I learned that Le Plongeon mistranslated the writings, to put it mildly.

This is, basically, how the myth of the hypothetical lost continent Mu started. Very soon, this myth got second birth: it was popularized in the serious of books written by James Churchward. In a short time he created New Age type of a book Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Man. It was followed by the book The Children of Mu, then by The Lost Continent Mu and The Sacred Symbols of Mu. These books enjoyed wild success at the times, and even now have their devotees.

One can say, that even nowadays the search for a lost continent of Mu is still in progress. There were multiple researches on Mu and expeditions to various locations. Some called Easter Island a mountain top of a submerged continent of Mu. One well-known institute even suggested that underwater structures off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, were the ruins of Mu without any real scientific evidence. Some marine biologists stated that they identified the ruins of an ancient city off the coast of Japanese Yonaguni island as the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis and, that it was sunk three thousand years ago during an earthquake.

Agartha is a legendary city that is said to reside in the Earth core. My coworkers from from web analytics company told me that today the word Agartha is related to the Hollow Earth theory and is a popular subject in esotericism. Agartha is one of the most common names cited for the society of underground dwellers. While once a popular concept, in the last century little serious attention has been paid to these conjectures, and the theory is not supported by modern science. The idea of subterranean worlds may have been inspired by ancient religious beliefs in Hades, Sheol, and Hell. For several centuries, there appeared theories that named various locations of the entrances to Agartha. Among them Great Pyramid of Giza, Brazilian Mato Grosso and Manaus, North and South poles, Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

Since 19 century, the myths of Agartha tricked into fictional works. An early source for the belief in underground civilizations is the book The Smoky God written by Willis George Emerson in the beginning of 20th century. It claims to be the biography of a Norwegian sailor named Olaf Jansen. The book explains how Jansen’s sloop sailed through an entrance to the Earth’s interior at the North Pole. For two years he lived with the inhabitants of an underground network of colonies who, were a full 12 feet tall and whose world was lit by a “smoky” central sun. Their capital city was something like the original Garden of Eden. While Emerson does not use the name Agartha, later works such as Agartha - Secrets of the Subterranean Cities have identified the civilization Jansen encountered with Agartha, and its citizens as Agarthan.

According to Secrets, one of the underground colonies, was also the seat of government for the network. While the whole place is an inner continent, its satellite colonies are smaller enclosed ecosystems located just beneath the Earth’s crust or discreetly within mountains. Cataclysms and wars taking place on the surface drove these people underground. The Sahara, Gobi, the Australian Outback and the deserts of the southwestern US are said to be but a few examples of the devastation that resulted. The sub-cities were created as refuges for the people and as safe havens for sacred records, teachings and technologies that were cherished by these ancient cultures.

The inhabitants of Agartha are said to have scientific knowledge and expertise far beyond that of the people who live on the surface of the planet, and lost technology from the days of Atlantis. They all follow what is known as the Ancient Path and do not interfere in the lives of humans that live above the surface. Nor is there any interaction between them. All entrances to Agartha from any other part of the planet are hidden safely. They are secured by illusory technology that is beyond the comprehension of modern science.

One of the most controversial tales of inner-Earth-dwellers is the so-called Shaver Mystery. In 1945 a story was published by some Richard Shaver, who claimed he had recently been the guest of what remained of an underground civilization. Although few really believed the story, Shaver always averred that his story was true. He contended that the Elder Race, or Titans, came to this planet from another solar system in our prehistoric past. After a time of living on the surface, they realized our sun was causing them to age prematurely, so they escaped underground, building huge subterranean complexes in which to live. Eventually, they decided to seek a new home on a new planet, evacuating the Earth and leaving behind their underground cities populated by artificial beings: detrimental robots and integrated robots. It was these beings that Shaver claimed to have met. Despite the enormous popularity of the Shaver Mystery the location of the entrance to this underground world was never divulged.

We often use word Shangri-la in a similar context to Garden of Eden, It means for us some kind of a perfect paradise that exists hidden from modern man. In some cases we use it as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought by man in the form of love, happiness, or Utopian ideals. Shangri-la has its place with other mythical and famous examples such as The Holy Grail, El Dorado, The Fountain of Youth. But, in fact, this word came to us from… fiction. This word first appeared in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, Shangri-La is a mystical, harmonious valley, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. The novel was so popular, that this word became synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia. From my web analytics company archives I found, that the author based the story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

It is getting funnier, though. As years rolled by, several locations in the Buddhist Himalaya between northern India and Tibet claimed to be the basis for Hilton’s legend, largely to attract tourism. A popularly believed inspiration for Shangri-La is the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, close to the Tibetan border, which Hilton visited a few years before Lost Horizon was published. Being an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, enclosed on the western end of the Himalayas, it closely matches the description in the novel. A Shangri-La resort in the nearby Skardu valley is another popular tourist attraction.A number of modern Shangri-La pseudo-legends have developed since 1933 in the wake of the novel and the film made from it. Even crazy Nazis had an enthusiasm for Shangri-La, where they hoped to find an ancient master race, similar to the Nordic race, unspoiled by Buddhism. They sent one understandably unsuccessful expedition to Tibet in 1938.

As of today, various places in China still claim the title, including the tourist destinations of Lijiang and Zhongdian. Sichuan and Tibet also claim the real Shangri-La was in its territory. In 2001, Tibet Autonomous Region proposed that the three regions optimise all Shangri-la tourism resources and promote them as one. Also in 2001, Zhongdian County in northwestern Yunnan officially renamed itself Shangri-La County. Country of Bhutan, which was until now isolated from outside world and has its unique form of Tibetan Buddhism, has been hailed as the last Shangri-La.

As I continue my story about mythical lands, continents and cities, I can’t pass by the legend of Thule. In Classical sources Thule is a place, usually an island located either in the far north, often northern Great Britain, possibly the Orkneys or Shetland Islands, or Scandinavia.  In the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance the location of Thule was thought to be in the west and north, often Iceland or Greenland. My coworkers from web analytics company suggest that the name also denotes any distant place located beyond the borders of the known world. The Greek explorer Pytheas was the first who wrote of Thule after his travels between 330 BC and 320 BC. Strabo in his Geography written in 30 of our era, mentions that Thule is a six days’ sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea. Half a century later in 77, Pliny the Elder mentions Thule again and even describes it as a place in which there be no nights at all. Other late classical writers and post-classical writers keep on mentioning Thule over and over again. Some of them state that Thule is a large island in the north inhabited by twenty-five tribes.

During the Middle Ages the name was sometimes used to denote Greenland, Svalbard, or Iceland. A municipality in North Greenland was even formerly named Thule after the mythical place. The Thule People, A paleo-Eskimo culture and a predecessor of modern Inuit Greenlanders, was even called Thule people. Nowadays Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island group is overseas territory of the United Kingdom and uninhabited. The concept of Thule was so popular that this mysterious island lent its name to lends its name to the 69th element in the periodic table, Thulium.

It is interesting to note that Nazi occult mystics believed in a historical Thule and Hyperborea as the ancient origin of the Aryan race. They wrote a pile of material stating that mythical Thule, a Nordic equivalent of the vanished culture of Atlantis. They thought that a race of giant supermen lived in Thule, linked into the Cosmos through magical powers. And these inhabitants had psychic and technological energies far exceeding the technical achievements of the 20th century.

Everybody who is familiar with the famous Arthurian legend, heard this magical word Avalon. It sounds mysterious and has its origin from the Celtic word that means “apple”. In the legend, it is an island somewhere in Britain, famous for its beautiful apples. When it comes to facts, though, not much is know about the exact location of the island and existence of its inhabitants. During the research at my local web analytics company , help came to me unexpectedly from a reader who supplied me with additional facts that allowed me to decode the past with much less difficulty.

Avalon is the place, where King Arthur is taken to recover from his wounds after his last battle with Mordred at Camlann, and where his sword Excalibur was forged. Welsh and Breton tradition claimed that Arthur had never really died, but would return to lead his people against their enemies, but some later writers were less credulous, and said that Arthur had in fact died there. Although primarily known in connection with King Arthur, Avalon is sometimes referred to as the legendary location where Jesus visited the British Isles with Joseph of Arimathea and that it was later the site of the first church in Britain. This location of the Isle of Avalon is usually associated with present day Glastonbury. Avalon also plays a role in non-Arthurian French literature, such as the stories of Holger Danske, who was taken there by Morgan le Fay in a medieval romance, and in the story of Melusine. A nearby valley is named the Vale of Avalon.

Since Middle Ages people were trying to find the location of the mysterious island. For example, by the 12th century Avalon became associated with Glastonbury. Monks at Glastonbury abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and his queen. Though no longer an island at the time, the high conical bulk of Glastonbury Tor had been surrounded by marsh. During the reign of English king Henry II the abbot of Glastonbury, Henry of Blois, commissioned a search of the abbey grounds. After a lot of deep digging, the monks discovered a massive oak coffin and an iron cross bearing the description: “Here lies King Arthur in the island of Avalon”. Inside the coffin were two bodies, presumably of Arthur and his queen. In 1278 the remains were reburied with great ceremony, attended by king Edward I and his wife, before the High Altar at Glastonbury Abbey, where they were the focus of pilgrimages until the Reformation. However, scientists generally dismiss the authenticity of the find, attributing it to a publicity stunt performed to raise funds to repair the Abbey, which was mostly burned down in 1184.

Throughout the times there were many other places competing to be called Avalon. For example, Ille d’Aval on the coast of Brittany, and Burgh by Sands, in Cumberland, which was in Roman times the fort of Aballava on Hadrian’s Wall.. Other candidates include the Bourgogne town of Avallon, and Bardsey Island in Gwynedd, famous for its apples and also connected with Merlin. There were also claims that the most likely location to be St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, which is near to other locations associated with the Arthurian legends.

I had to gather bits and pieces of information about the myth of the lost kingdom of Lyonesse. Even my research for local web analytics company did not help. There just was not much to write about. Luckily a funeral director came to my rescue. In his letter he wrote that the legend of a sunken kingdom Lyonesse appears in both Cornish and Breton mythology. In Christian times it even came to be viewed as a sort of Cornish Sodom and Gomorrah story. Lyonesse is identified as a sunken land lying off the Isles of Scilly, to the south-west of Cornwall. Lyonesse is a fictional country in Arthurian legend, birthplace of the knight Tristan. In the medieval story, after Battle of Camlann, that took place supposedly in 537, King Arthur’s men fled west across Lyonesse. They were pursued by Mordred and his men. Arthur’s men survived by reaching what are now the Isles of Scilly, but Mordred’s men perished in the inundation.

Other versions of the medieval story mention that Lyonesse is the home of Guinevere, a small land situated between Camelot and Malagant’s territory. This kingdom was ruled by Guinevere’s father until his death, after which Guinevere received the title of the Lady of Lyonesse. Lyonesse has been also used as a setting for many modern fantasy stories. J. R. R. Tolkien drew some of his inspiration for the lost kingdom of Númenor from the legends of Lyonesse; one of the kingdom’s many names in his mythos is called Westernesse.

There is evidence that in Roman times the Isles of Scilly were one large island.. According to legend, Lyonesse stretched from Scilly to Land’s End at the westernmost tip of Cornwall, and once had some 140 churches. Its capital was the City of Lions, located on what is now the treacherous Seven Stones reef. The names of the traditional kings of Lyonesse are derived from Welsh and Arthurian myth. It is often suggested that the tale of Lyonesse represents an extraordinary survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Scilly. Cornish people still believe strongly in a sunken forest in Mount’s Bay. And there is archaeological evidence of the forest. The remains of it is evident at very low tides, where petrified tree stumps become visible.

Ys is a Celtic word for a mythical city. According to the legend it was built in in the Douarnenez bay in Brittany by Gradlon, King of Cornouaille, for his daughter Dahut. .Ys was built below sea level, protected from inundation by a dike. The only keys of the gate in the dam were held by Gradlon. I had to spend some hours on Internet and in my local web analytics company to find what this story was about. In my research help also came from the my.

Satan made Gradlon’s daughter Dahut steal them and give them to him. He then opened the gate and Ys was flooded. In some versions of the story, Satan was sent by God to punish the city, whose inhabitants were becoming decadent. Other versions tell that Dahut stole the keys either at her lover’s request or in order to open the gates of the city to let her lover in. The only survivor was the King Gradlon, who was advised to abandon his daughter. Everyone who lived in the city died, while the souls of the dead children were then swallowed by the ocean as a punishment. The legend claims that, one can still hear the bells of Ys, warning of a storm. Gradlon then founded Quimper and on his death, a statue representing him on horseback looking in the direction of Ys was erected on the Saint Corentin Cathedral and still stands there. French Bretons have also a longer version of the legend, that says that Ys was the most wonderful city in the world, and that Lutèce was renamed Paris after Ys was destroyed.

The most mysterious factor in the legend of Ys is that the location of the city is well defined. There is the statue of Gradlon looks at it, most of the localities mentioned exist. Also several ancient Roman roads actually lead into the sea, which strenghtened the belief that they lead to Ys. So, in fact, this myth could depict the real engulfment of a real city during the fifth century. Some specialists consider the story of Ys as the way to describe the victory of Christianity over Celtic gods. In the legend king Gradlon was converted by Saint Winwaloe over druidism, while Gradlon’s daughter Dahut and most inhabitants of Ys were worshipers of Celtic gods. However, a Breton folktale version states that Gradlon met, spoke with and consoled the last Druid in Brittany, and oversaw his pagan burial, before building a chapel in his sacred grove.

So, let’s start with the “lost continent” Lemuria. Did it really exist? For centuries people pinpointed the location of this lost land either in Indian or Pacific oceans. All accounts share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of geological cataclysmic change. Current specialists think that although sunken continents do exist, there is no geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria. At the library of my local web analytics company I found that the name of this land was adopted by occult writers and some Tamil writers of India.

Where did the name Lemuria come from? Our readers state that , modern lemurs are only found in Madagascar, several surrounding islands and nowhere else. Nevertheless, archaeological evidence shows that other extinct lemurs used to inhabit the area from Pakistan to Malaysia. In the 19th century geologist were really puzzled by the presence of fossil lemurs in both Madagascar and India, but not in Africa nor the Middle East. That is why they proposed a theory that Madagascar and India had once been part of a larger continent, which they named “Lemuria” for its lemurs. Other scientists hypothesized that Lemuria had extended across parts of the Pacific oceans, explaining distributions of species across Asia and the Americas.

Although in the next century scientists completely dismissed the idea of Lemuria, some strange events took place. In 1999 a research vessel in the Indian Ocean discovered evidence that a large island, the Kerguelen Plateau, was submerged about 20 million years ago by rising sea levels. Samples showed pollen and fragments of wood in a 90 million-year-old sediment. This might lead one to expect similarity of dinosaur fossil evidence and will help to understand the breakup of the Indian and Australian land masses.

Occult writers went much further than scientists hypothesizing about Lemuria. In 1880, one of them, Madam Blavatsky claimed that she had seen an ancient, pre-Atlantean Book. According to Blavatsky, Lemuria was occupied by mysterious humanoid species that were about seven foot tall, sexually hermaphroditic, egg-laying, mentally undeveloped and spiritually pure. The gods, aghast at the behavior of these mindless species, sank Lemuria into the ocean and created people endowed with intellect on Atlantis.

Madam Blavatsky book was followed later by other creations of the occult writers. One of them claimed that survivors from a sunken continent Lemuria were living in or on Mount Shasta in northern California. The Lemurians lived in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain and occasionally were seen walking the surface dressed in white robes. Later popular novels also repeated the belief that Lemurians inhabit Mount Shasta. Some of the writers linked Lemurians to Ancient Egypt, UFOs and a method of travel called vortex portals to sacred places on Earth and points unknown in the universe. There were other fantasy descriptions of the lost continent and its inhabitants . For example, Lemuria was posted as the homeland of a reptilian race of creatures, often identified with dragons or nagas. Various bits of mythology and folklore were assembled in support, such as the Cambodian naga traditions. Folkloric claims of Australian aborigines sighting dinosaur-like creatures were also often viewed as evidence.

In my previous blog entry I was telling my readers about lost lands, lost places and lost cities. Well, as our reader correctly pointed out, we can also call them mythical or mythological places. I am easy and will not argue about terminology. The most important thing to me is that these places might have existed in earlier times but their actual location is now lost. After all, there is often some scientific, historical or archaeological evidence, as well as myths and legends that indicate such places may have existed or are awaiting discovery, or, the way I put it, rediscovery. It was not an easy task to compile the list of such places. I would not be surprised that I missed some of these names as well. Some kind souls from my local web analytics company were pro-actively helping me to compile the list. I will, probably, try to tell you about each of these lost lands (or “mythological places) in my future blog entries. So read on. And by the way, the list is down below.

• Agartha. A legendary city that supposedly resides in the Earth’s core.
• Annwn. The “afterworld” of Welsh mythology.
• Atlantis. The legendary lost continent that was supposed to have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean; there are many differing opinions on what and where Atlantis was.
• Avalon. Legendary Island of Apples in the British Isles. It is believed by some to be the final resting place of King Arthur.
• Ayotha Amirtha Gangai. An instrumental river in Ayyavazhi mythology.
• Biarmaland - A mighty kingdom described in Norse sagas as lying to the north of Russia
• Camelot - Supposedly the city from which King Arthur reigned.
• City of the Caesars - A city between a mountain of gold and another of diamonds supposed to be situated in Patagonia.
• Cockaigne - In medieval mythology, it is a land of plenty where want does not exist.
• Garden of Eden - The original birthplace and home of humanity according to Abrahamic religions. The first humans were banished from it after disobeying God and it was destroyed in a Deluge.
• El Dorado - Rumored city of gold in South America.
• Hawaiki - The ancestral island of the Polynesians, particularly the Māori.
• Heaven - According to many religions, the place in which noble souls reside.
• Hell - According to many religions, the place in which evil souls reside.
• Lemuria - A supposed “lost land” that was found in either the Indian or Pacific Ocean.
• Lyonesse - A fingerlike spit of land that was many believe once branched off the southwestern coast of Cornwall in England.
• Mag Mell or Tir na nÓg - The afterworld of Irish mythology; it is similar in many respects to the Norse Valhalla.
• Mu - It is believed to be a sunken continent in the Pacific Ocean. It is often confused with Lemuria.
• Nibiru - A mythological planet described by the Babylonians.
• Phaeton - A hypothetical planet between Mars and Jupiter that was suggested by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers. He supposed that the planet’s destruction formed the Asteroid Belt. Some scientists refer to this proposed planet as Tiamat.
• Quivira and Cíbola - Two of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold supposed by Spanish conquistadors to have existed in the Americas.
• Kingdom of Saguenay. In Algonquin Indian belief, it was a rich city of blonde men that existed in Canada prior to the French colonization of the landmass. It is currently believed to have been a city of early, unrecorded European colonists.
• Kvenland. Land next to Sweden at the northern shores of Baltic sea, probably ancient Finland or some of its parts
• Shambhala. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this kingdom is hidden somewhere in the Himalayas.
• Shangri-La. A peaceful, isolated land in the Himalayas suggested by British author James Hilton.
• Terra Australis Incognita. The great unknown southern land that cartographers believed occupied most of the southern hemisphere until Captain James Cook discovered and circumnavigated Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.
• Thule. An island that was supposed to have existed somewhere in the belt of Scandinavia, northern Great Britain, Iceland, and Greenland.
• Thuvaraiyam Pathi. In Ayyavazhi mythology, it was a sunken island some 150 miles off the south coast of India.
• Ys. A city located in Brittany, France that was supposedly built below sea level, protected by a dam, and eventually destroyed when the Devil released the water held back by the dam.