Funeral Wisdom of the World

For those who don’t know the embalming is the funeral science and art of preserving the body and help forestall  decomposition. It is one of the earliest surgical procedures and funeral traditions in the history of the humankind.  Nobody really knows who invented this process in the ancient past.  Of course, we are aware of the mummification in ancient Egypt which in turn served as a catalyst of the art of embalming.  We know that ancient Incas and China in the times of the Han dynasty also believed in the preservation of the body after death and developed their methods of embalming too.

Perhaps, the earliest attempt of embalming and mummification is the mummy known to the specialists as “Ginger”.  This body found in the deserts of Egypt is positively dated to 3300 BC which means that it is older than other famous mummies of pharaohs discovered in the pyramids.  Ginger is currently on display in the British Museum, but it is not very well-known to the general public. 

The reason lies in the fact that Ginger’s burial still remains rather enigmatic.  At first specialists thought that the preservation of Ginger occured unintentionally as it happened in the later discovery of Otzi the Iceman.  However, they changed their mind later, as they found pottery and other artifacts in his grave and  on the burial site. Ginger was ideally preserved lying in fetal position which also points out that there were stones on the grave that prevented the body from being eaten by jackals and other scavengers.

If you watched a move about 300 brave Spartans, you know that king Leonidas was one of the most important figures in Greco-Persian wars. But there was also another equally or even more important statesman whose name is is rarely mentioned due to certain reasons that need to be explained.

I am talking about famous Themistocles from Athens. It was him who persuaded Athenians to build a powerful fleet and it is thanks to him that Greek ships defeated the much larger Persian navy and forced king Xerxes I of Persia to retreat. The naval battle of Salamis took place in 480 BC and was the turning point of the campaign, leading to eventual Persian defeat.

After the war Themistocles showed himself as a brilliant statesman again and again by making his native Athens the finest trade place in Greece. But then his life took a really tragic turn. He was accused by his fellowmen of arrogance and taking bribes. That led to the exile of Themistocles from Athens to Argos. Yet, his troubles did not end there. Soon Spartans accused Themistocles of treasonable intrigues with Persia. Subsequently he was proclaimed a traitor in Athens and all his property was confiscated.

As a bitter irony, Themistocles could only find shelter at his enemy whom he fought for so many years. Artaxerxes I, successor of Xerxes I, offered him asylum and took Themistocles under his protection. Artaxerxes even made Themistocles a governor of the province of Magnesia in Asia Minor. He probably was well received in Magnesia and showed his talents there too, because Magnesians worshiped Themistocles as a god.

From what we know, Themistocles died of illness n Magnesia , when he was sixty five. He was probably a broken-hearted man, because there were persistent rumors that his death was not of natural causes but that he committed suicide by taking poison.

When Alexander the Great took over Persian empire, he officialy married Darius’s daughter Stateira II  in 324 BC at Susa. It was a great wedding ceremony, where many officers of Alexander were married to noble Persians.  Alexander’s favorite Hephestion had as his bride Drypetis, sister of Stateira II.

Later, in 327 BC  Alexander also married a Bactrian noble Roxana from Balkh province.  Alexander professed his love for Roxana and took his new wife to accompany him during his military campaign in India.

After the end of campaign Hephestion died leaving Drypetis a widow. Within eight months after his death Alexander died too.  Roxana was pregnant when king died and soon gave birth to posthumous son Alexander IV Aegus.  The empire that Alexander built started collapsing, his generals were successfully tearing it apart. Thus Roxana and her son became the pawn in the intrigues of the generals.

In her own turn Roxana mercilessly murdered Stateira II and her sister Drypteis and ordered to throw their bodies into a well.  For a while Alexander’s mother Olympias managed to protect both Roxana and her son in Macedon. Yet soon Olympias were assassinated by the orders of Cassander in 316 who were seeking kingship over Macedon.
In the end the surviving Alexander’s generals signed the peace treaty recognized Alexander IV’s rights and explicitly stated that when he came of age he would succeed Cassander as ruler.

As the son of Alexander was growing up, his supporters started to declare that he  should now exercise full power and that a regent Cassander was no longer needed. Well, the response of Cassander’s response was extremely swift and definitive because he was not going to say goodbye to his kingdom.  So in 309 BC he commanded to secretly assassinate the 13-year old Alexander IV and his mother Roxana. The orders were carried out, and they were both poisoned. This was the end of the great Argead dynasty, the founders of the Macendon kingdom, to which Alexander the Great belonged.

The only fragile thread of the dynasty was Heracles, an illegitimate son of Alexander the Great, who was born from Persian concubine Barsine.  Heracles was never acknowledged by Alexander the Great, but still he was a threat to Cassander. So Cassander gave a minor bribe to Heracles protector Polyperchon  in exchange for his murder. When Heracles was finished the ancient Argead dynasty terminated completely.

It seems that Alexander the Great not only defeated Darius III and captured his family. He also became the new head of household, replacing the former Persian king. At the time of the Battle of Isis in 333 BC, Darius was married to Stateira I, who was known as the most beautiful woman on Earth. After Darius fled from the battle, Alexander captured his family and treated it with great respect.

Unfortunately, very soon Stateira I died giving birth. It looks like the child that she was pregnant with, was not from Darius but from Alexander. Maybe, that partially explains why , Sisygambus, who was Darius’s mother, refered to Alexander as her only son. It is possible that he took over all household and have assumed the role of a king and husband to Stateira I.

When Alexander the Great died one year later after Stateira’s death, all Darius’s family mourned him as a very close relative. Sources say that they were very much in grief because of this loss. This also indicates personal relationships.

At the decisive Battle of Issus that took place in 333 BC, Darius III and his army were completely defeated by a young Macedonian king Alexander the Great. It was not just any defeat, it was an event that changed the course of history. By losing the battle Darius lost everything, including his family.

It was the habit of Persian kings of those times to carry their harem and all family during the war campaigns. So after Darius’s army was routed, he fled leaving his mother Sisygambis, his wife Stateira I, his children, and many others to the mercy of Alexander

Sisygambis was a very proud woman, so never forgave Darius for his desertion. After all, she was the daughter of king Artaxerxes II Memnon. Alexander captured her but threated mother of Darius extremely well. Sisygambis was so ashamed of Darius that she even refused to mourn his death. When Persian noblemen called upon her with the news, she said that she had just one son Alexander and he was the king of all Persia.

It seems like a true statement, because Sisygambis really experienced maternal instincts towards Alexander the Great. Contemporary sources say that when she learned about Alexander’s death, Sisygambis was so devastated that she did not want to live anymore. She had herself sealed into her rooms and died of grief, starvation and sorrow.

Mother of Alexander the Great, Olimpias was quite a blood thirsty woman. In the movie, Angelina Jolie plays Olympias as all dreamy, dabbling in magic, sensitive lady. Well, in real life she was a real witch, to say the least! Contemporaries claim, that she was the one who provoked Pausanias to kill her husband and Alexander’s father king Philip II. She was angered by Philip’s marriage to Cleopatra Eurydice. Although Philip already had multiple wives, he fell in love with Cleopatra so much that he even divorced Olympias and disowned their son, Alexander.

As you probably know, Alexander the Great crucified Pausanias and left his body on public display for many days. But later, the head of the body of Pausanias was found to have on it a golden crown, supposedly put there by Olympias. She even dedicated a memorial to Pausanias. The sword used by Pausanias to kill Philip was hung in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, per Olympia’s special orders.

Eventually, Olympias got to Cleopatra Eurydice too. In fact, she murdered Caranus, son of Philip and his sister Europa. Obviously, this was not enough for her, because she also forced Cleopatra Eurydice to hang herself. Olympias also killed many others but in the end she was brought to trial for the numerous and cruel executions. She was condemned without hearing and put to death by the friends of those that she killed in 316 BC.

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.