“Sucandra is the King of Shambhala region, in the north of river Sīta, where 96 crores villages are distributed.”–Nāropa in Sekoddeśa Tikā (commentary on fifth paṭala of root Kālacakra tantra)
“While the Tantras aim to spread clarity of mind, these contemporary lamas have spread smoke [in relation to the location and origin of Kālacakra Tantra].”–Niraj Kumar
“In conclusion, the 3rd Panchen Lama’s biased Presentation on Shambhala text (with his polemical attacks on Jonang, Zhen-tong and Tāranātha) is unreliable and unsubstantiated, and as Templeman (2021) asserts “rather a reflection of a bitter, sectarian triumphalism.”–Adele Tomlin
Introduction
For the auspicious full moon today, here is an article on the location of the ‘mystical’ land of the Kālacakra Tantra, Shambhala (शम्भल,Śambhala, བདེ་འབྱུང, De Jung, which means source of bliss). A place considered important not only as the origin of the Kālacakra teachings, but in terms of a special place itself. In terms of the history of Shambhala, it is often described by western scholars as a kingdom somewhere in Central Asia, surrounded by snow-capped mountains that resemble the Himalayas.
Yet, in his introduction to the Volume I of the Kālacakra Tantra, Indian scholar-translator, Niraj Kumar considers the location of the place according to Indian and Tibetan source literature and debunks and disproves the Central Asia suggestion and shows that it is much more likely to have been along the Bay of Bengal/Arakan coast (contemporary Myanmar) and that the person who got the Kālacakra teachings from Adhi-Buddha there, was Tīlopa a former Candra King of Arakan region during the 10th Century.
In any case, the Wikipedia entry for Shambhala is totally wrong and needs correcting (not that the Wiki editors care about accuracy as I have also discovered!) as it wrongly states that Shambhala is ruled by the future Buddha Maitreya and that when the world declines into war and greed, he will emerge from Shambhala. According to Kumar, the last Kalki King according to the Tantra is 25th, Rudra-Kalki and is prophesised to happen in 2427 (in the 3304th year after the death of the Buddha). Guru Padmasambhava prophesised that he would emanate in the form of this Kalki King.
One of the main Tibetan guidebooks to Shambhala (lam-yig) was written by the highly esteemed Jonang and Shangpa Kagyu lineage holder, Jetsun Tāranātha. History sources tell us that Tāranātha’s name and monastery were violently taken over by the Gelugpa-Mongolian forces from the 17th Century onwards, and even took over his tulku lineage, by declaring that the Khalka Jetsun Dampa’s were Tāranātha’s incarnations.
In any case, I recently translated Tāranātha’s Kālacakra masterpiece and manual on Kālacakra, according to the Dro lineage, Meaningful to Behold and One Hundred Blazing Lights. I also translated another important text by Tāranātha giving his Zhen-tong view on the Heart Sūtra Commentary and explained in the Introduction to that book how the Jonang and their view of emptiness and ultimate reality was treated with hostility and censorship by the Gelugpa rulers.
This Gelug sectarianism, and blatant hostility can also be clearly seen in the 3rd Panchen Lama’s ‘anti-intellectual’ treatment of Tāranātha’s writing and translation on Shambhala, which the scholar David Templeman (2021) (the leading expert and translator on Tāranātha’s life-stories (biographies and autobiographies)) recently asserted in his interesting essay Shambhala’s Boundaries: The Contested Visions of Tāranātha and the Third Panchen Lama (in Crossing Boundaries: Tibetan Studies Unlimited, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2021).
In this article, I will first briefly outline and consider Niraj Kumar’s overview of the source literature on the location of Shambhala and the Candra King, Tīlopa who transmitted the Kālacakra teachings, to his renowned student, Nāropa (the author of the written verses of Kālacakra). Before giving an overview of the 3rd Panchen Lama’s “bitter and triumphant sectarianism” in his own text on Kālacakra.
In conclusion, the evidence seems clearly to point to Arakan (Bay of Bengal coast/Myanmar) as the physical location of Shambhala, and Tīlopa as the King who first got the Kālacakra teachings there from the Adi-Buddha. This is a major intellectual and ‘spiritually relevant’ breakthrough in many respects, and if the Gelugpas and Tibetan Buddhists who practice Kālacakra are really interested in the Tantra and commentaries on it, as well as the ‘physical’ location of Shambhala, they should be congratulating and rejoicing at Kumar’s work and ideas.
Interestingly, the name Arakan was recently mentioned in international news coverage in that region, as one of the most powerful ethnic minority armed groups battling Myanmar’s army has claimed the capture of the last army outpost in the strategic western town of Maungdaw, gaining full control of the 271-kilometer (168-mile) -long border with Bangladesh. The capture by the Arakan Army makes the group’s control of the northern part of Rakhine state complete, and marks another advance in its bid for self-rule there. Another Shambhala arising there one hopes in an area where Islamism is also slowly starting to become more and more dominant [1].
However, Kumar has effectively been targeted by a persistent gang of Gelugpa/Tibetan sectarian thugs who seek to not only smear his name, work and reputation but hound him out of Indian government office. That is not in the spirit of the great Nālanda tradition they so often say they are following, nor is it in the spirit of just being decent, ethical and honest human beings open to debate and disagreement. In fact, it is a symbol and symptom of how they have operated in Tibet against any kind of dissent regarding their absolute power and rule, and also against their biased (and incorrect) ultimate view of Prasangika Madhyamika.
Although it may not be popular to say so, ironically if anyone could be accused of having non-expertise of lack of knowledge on the Kālacakra and Shambhala from the source texts themselves, it is the Gelugpas such as 3rd Panchen Lama and 14th Dalai Lama who have taken ‘ownership’ of Kālacakra and its empowerment and transmission in response to political events and seeking to maintain worldly power and popularity.
In that respect, I dedicate this short article to Kumar and other scholars, whose work challenges and debunks wrongly held assumptions and views about the history of Tibet, Buddhism, Kālacakra and more, and who literally shine a ‘brave yet lone light’ on the overwhelming darkness of sectarian ignorance that has mis-used the precious Kālacakra Tantra, its teachings and practices to maintain power, popularity and control for worldly purposes.
Music? Kālacakra mantra and Bengali Classical Music.
Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 15th December 2024.
European Tibetologists wrong assertions about origin of Kālacakra and Shambhala in central Asia
In his introduction, Niraj Kumar discredits and debunks western academia’s false conclusions, based on work of Alexander Csoma de Kőrö called “A Note on the Origin of the Kālacakra and Adi-Buddha System” (1823) that Shambhala (the place it is said the Kālacakra Tantra originated) is located in central Asia, 48 to 50 degrees north of the Sīta river, as being the wrong latitude (it should be 31 degrees according to the text and is clearly in the Indic region). Kumar also cites the Japanese scholar Yukio Ohashi (2000), who states that Csoma’s suggestion is textually not supported either. Kumar then cites a list of western scholars who based their work on this erroneous interpretation, such as Hoffman, Tucci, Newman, Orofino and others, and have all wrongly asserted that Shambhala is in Central Asia, or even Kashmir.
Kumar then moves onto one of the most famous (but certainly not only) guidebook accounts to Shambhala by the third Panchen Lama, which as will be explained below, states that Shambhala is located north of Bodh Gaya (the vajra seat). Not only is this incorrect but (as will be discussed below) is a biased Gelug sectarian attack on another famous guidebook by the Jonang and Kālacakra master, Jetsun Tāranātha’s text on Shambhala. Kumar asserts that (like locating Oddiyana) a lot of the misinterpretation by European scholars, lies in their not knowing the differences between Indic and contemporary western geography, and how north and south are calculated.
Origin of Kālacakra and Shambhala in tropical climate of Bay of Bengal region/East India
Kumar then reviews how some contemporary western scholarship points to Kālacakra and Shambhala being in the East of India, particularly in the Bay of Bengal area. Kumar also gives Indic sources such as the Padmani-Nama-Panjika (a short guide on the Kālacakra Tantra by the Kālacakra-Mahapada himself) that Shambhala is in the south of Himavata (the Himalayas). To a traditional geographer, this points to the Bay of Bengal area, facing the Vajrasana (Bodh Gaya) as the East.
Kumar then briefly discusses some Tibetan accounts such as that by Buton, and the Blue Annals, as also pointing to a region in Eastern India. Having pinpointed Oddiyana as being in Java, and Guru Padmasambhava as a man of Javanese origin (see my article about visiting the lake Rewa in Java, said to be the lake where Padmasambhava was born).
Kumar also considers the forty-eight sacred sites listed in the Tantras about Kālacakra and there is a density of them around the Bay of Bengal area but none are mentioned in Central Asia (Harikela is mentioned twice).
Kumar also provides a fascinating discussion of references to animals (such as musk deer), birds, aromatic plants and flowers (like the Utpala), medicinal substances and so on) that support the fact it is must have been in a tropical climate of Bengal/East India, and not in Central Asia and outside of the Indic region.
Shambhala as located on Arakan (Myanmar) coast
Based on these various reasons, Kumar points to the Bay of Bengal area of Arakan coast, and cites various Indic and Tibetan sources to show that key figures connected to Kālacakra sailed to Shambhala, and that it was next to the ocean and also near mountains.
It is mentioned in the Kālacakra Tantra that King Sucandra was preached the Kālacakra by Adi-Buddha, and that the King was a resident of the place Kālapa, in the Shambhala region, north of the River Sīta, which according to source texts is somewhere along the coast of SE Asia.
Kumar writes that: “In traditional Buddhist geography, the front is the east, the right is the South, the left is North and back is west. Once we identify the River Sīta, we can then easily identify Shambhala as on the left hand side.” Kumar identifies the river Irrawady, that runs along the coast of Myanmar and empties into the Bay of Bengal, as most likely the river Sīta. Kumar (2021: 96-97) elaborates that:
Arakan, the Shakyamuni Buddha and the Mahāmuni face
According to Kumar and source texts, Arakan was ruled by the Candras for a thousand years and was famous for the Mahāmuni statue, said to be the truest representation of the Buddha’s face, after it is said the Buddha Shakaymuni preached to the Candra King, Candasuriyā there and built an exact replica of his face.
In addition, the Kālacakra tantra was said to have been preached in Sri Dhanya to King Sucandra. Kumar then asks the following questions:
The answer to these questions, seems to be affirmative (see below).
The last Candra/Shambhala King as Indian Mahasiddha, Tilopa who passed it onto his student, Nāropa
Kumar (2021:101) then proposes a reasonable possibility that the Indian Mahasiddha, Tīlopa was the last Candra King and the person who introduced the Kālacakra Tantra in Odisha and later to Magadha:
As I wrote about here before, in relation to locating Oddiyana and the lake and place where Guru Padmasambhava came from and resided, Kumar also reasons that this is likely to have been in Java, Indonesia, and not Kashmir or central Asia as Tibetologists have suggested. In fact, as Kumar points out, depictions of Guru Padmasambhva suggest his physical ethnicity is from that region and not from central India. Kumar, and other scholars have also suggested that it is very likely that Nāropa, the Indian mahasiddha was the author of the written Sanskrit verses of the Kālacakra Tantra.
In which case, Kumar’s excellently reasoned suggestion (based on Indic sources, astrology and geography) that the Candra Kings of Arakan were the Kings who were first taught the Kālacakra, and that the last Candra King was Tīlopa himself who abidcated from the throne, also seems likely and reasonable. After all, Tīlopa would have given the transmission of Kālacakra teaching to his student, Nāropa himself.
Kumar then considers a brief interview of the 14th Dalai Lama conducted by Gelugpa biased scholar, Dr. Alexander Berzin, about the location of Shambhala according to his own experience, and some of the source texts, and it is clear that he really has not read the literature in any great detail (certainly not in Sanskrit) nor even the Tibetan source literature. However, this would not be the first time a Gelugpa teacher would not know its whereabouts. As can be seen in the case of the 3rd Panchen Lama.
Jetsun Tāranātha’s Translation of Kālapatāvara and the Third Panchen Lama’s sectarian dismissal of Taranatha, Jonang and the Shentong view in his Presentation on Shambhala
To end this article, I will briefly look at how Shambhala was treated by the Gelugpa lineage prior to the twentieth century, and the 3rd Panchen Lama’s glib and sectarian dismissals of the work of Jetsun Tāranātha (one of the leading masters of Kālacakra in Tibet then and now) on Shambhala, who did not claim to have physically gone there, but to have seen the landscape and place in visionary/dream experiences.
As David Templeman (2021) explains, Tāranātha translated from Sanskrit (with an Indian pandita, Krishnabhatta, who came to Tibet in 1624) a very important guidebook to Shambhala called the Kalāpāvatāra[i] which the 3rd Panchen Lama uses extensively in his own text, Presentation on Shambhala (ཥམབྷལའི་རྣམ་བཤད་):
However, as Templeman (2021) concludes, the 3rd Panchen Lama loses his ‘intellectual objectivity” by first using Tāranātha’s translation of the Indian text and accepting it as valid and authentic, but then complains that as Tāranātha did not “physically” go to Shambhala (and uses accounts of Indian panditas he met who had gone there) as a reason to take a Gelugpa sectarian pot shot at him, the Jonang and the Zhentong view. Even though the 3rd Panchen Lama had never physically visited Shambhala himself! He even accuses Jetsun Tāranātha of being anti-Nagārjuna simply because he does not ascribe to the Gelugpa’s faulty readings of the Prasangika Madhyamika vs Mind-Only and Yogacara view.
Templeman (2021: 53-54) then gives details regarding Taranatha’s visionary experiences of Shambhala in his secret autobiographies, which it is not clear if the 3rd Panchen Lama ever read or not:
In conclusion, we can say that the 3rd Panchen Lama’s polemical and emotionally biased Presentation on Shambhala text (and its polemical attacks on Jonang, Zhen-tong and Tāranātha) is thus unreliable as being unsubstantiated, and as Templeman (2021) asserts “rather a reflection of a bitter, sectarian triumphalism.”
Sources
Kumar, Niraj (2021) Kālacakra Tantra (Volume One).
Templeman, David (2021) “Shambhala’s Boundaries: The Contested Visions of Tāranātha and the Third Panchen Lama”, in Crossing Boundaries: Tibetan Studies Unlimited, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2021.
3rd Panchen Lama, Presentation on Shambhala.
Endnotes
[1] I was also informed that the Indian government are also using the terminology and concepts of Kālacakra, such as Shambhala and Kalki in their political discourse and activities. The Indians know better than anyone else the horrific effects on the indigenous Hinduism and Buddhism, when the non-indigenous Islamism is allowed to flourish without limit.
[2] Tāranātha. “dPal ldan ka lā par ʼjug pa zhes bya ba yul rnams kyi mchog tu gyur pa sham bha lar ʼgro tshul gyi lam yig ʼphags pa don yod lcags kyus gsungs pa.” gSung ʼbum tā ra nā tha (ʼdzam thang par ma), vol. 20, pp. 741–75. Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW22276_FBA0B3. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024. [BDRC bdr:MW22276_FBA0B3]
This is a great article that challenges traditional views and gives new inspiration to perceive Sambhala properly.
Thank you!
WHERE WAS PADMA BORN? TEARING APART RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OR RESPECTING RELIGIOUS PRACTICE TRADITIONS?
Regarding where Padma was born, during a seminar from 23–26 June, 2023 on Buddha-Dharma in Kashmir that was held during the Vitasta Festival in Srinagar, Niraj Kumar served as a moderator and repeated a core thesis in his own book, ‘The Kalachakra Tantra: Translation, Annotation and Commentary, Volume I’, that Padmasambhava’s fabled Oddiyana homeland was not in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, but actually in modern-day Budgam, in Kashmir. [https://teahouse.buddhistdoor.net/niraj-kumar-and-the-kalachakra-tantra-a-lifes-work/].
Now, we read in Adele’s recent post: “I have worked for several years to finally find that Oḍḍiyāna is the synonym of Java in the tantric literature and it is not some unknown hidden land of Ḍākinīs. Since, sailing to Java required navigation skill guided by the sky, term Oḍḍiyāna became a popular epithet for the place.” –Niraj Kumar (2023).
Now, is Padma’s birth to be moved from the mystical realm, in the ‘Northwest realm of Uddiyana on pistols of a lotus blossom stem’ to to be placed in some speculated samsaric reality, such as in Kashmir, Java, or other speculated location such as Orisha, as proposed by Prabir Kumar Pattanaik, a retired labor social worker, in his new book, Uddiyana Guru Padmasambhava: The Second Buddha?
According to Buddhist Door Global, Niraj Kumar is an Indian civil servant – he is not a scholar, practicing Buddhist, or monastic or Rinpoche. With all due respect for Mr. Jiraj’s hobby, yet here Adele raises his status to that of a scholar, boasting about his speculations as ‘the new truth’. Really?
As much as we appreciate Adele’s enthusiastic revelations of repeated patriarchal inequalities and sectarian-political lineage in-fighting, might we please leave sacred scripture to practice rather than bantering then about under intellectual speculations by under-qualified however well-intending beings?
Perhaps with equal zest to lambast, Tsele Natsogk Rangrol, comments, in ‘A Clarification of the Life of Padmasambhava in ‘The Lotus-Born, The Life Story of Padmasambhava’, composed by Yeshe Tsogyal, revealed by Nyang Ral Nyima Öser (1993), states:
“The teachings of the Secret Mantra of the Early Translations
are profound, extensive, and marvelous. Unfortunately their followers fool
themselves with pursuing the upkeep of livelihood and attainment of temporary
aims, instead of endeavoring through practice to gain realization. Leading
the life of a householder, they neither belong to the category of sutra
nor tantra. They are nothing but a dishonor to the Early Translations.
This is exactly the reason why followers of the Sarma Schools, both learned
and ignorant, not only expel the teachings and followers of the Nyingma
School from the confines of Buddhism, but find them as loathsome as beholding
a pool of vomit. Due to these circumstances, the flawless words of Padmakara,
the Second Buddha, have been corrupted by people’s individual corrections,
omissions, additions, presumptions, and guesswork. The Secret Mantra has
become like precious sandalwood turned into charcoal for trade.
In this dark age it seems that no one engages in teaching,
studying, or practicing the flawless older termas. The volumes of books
have become worms’ nests. The teachers waste their lives chasing after
the novelty of so-called new termas or anything that resembles a terma,
which nowadays proliferate like mushrooms on a summer meadow. On seeing
this sad state of affairs, an old ignorant monk like me can do nothing
but shed tears.”
Above notes prepared by Söpa Wangpo, an incipient old-school yogin.
Normally, I do not allow or respond to ‘armchair critic’ comments by people who do not engage with the actual content of a writer/scholar and just attack, like the 3rd Panchen Lama did against Taranatha, with ad hominem/personal accusations against the writer. Your Tibetan pseudonym alone clearly shows you are someone without the courage to say clearly who you are. Are you a scholar? Have you read any of the source texts in Tibetan or Sanskrit? Are you aware that Guru Padmasambhava is not Tibetan? Seems like the answer is NO to all these questions judging by your flaky comment and cited source.
You also refer to yourself as an ‘old-school yogin’, that is hilarious, anyone who is realised would never have the arrogance to label themselves that way, what makes you qualified to say that about yourself. Perhaps you are more a ‘hobby yogi’ as you accuse Kumar of. You also refer to ‘we’, who is that, the royal ‘we’? ha ha ha or do you have multiple personalities?
I will respond to your other points, for the sake of others who might read them and share similar views to you, that are in dire need of correction and rational debate.
If (as you assert) Niraj Kumar is not a scholar-translator (which he clearly is), and just a mere ‘hobbyist’, that really is quite exceptional and extraordinary level of hobby indeed. After all, what hobbyist do you know who have been able to translate Volumes of the Kalacakra Tantra from Sanskrit into the original while doing a senior Indian government job at the same time? In addition, his Introduction to the first volume is expertly reasoned and sourced, unlike many contemporary sources on Shambhala/Kālacakra that many people (such as yourself) follow without question.
The fact that you think someone has to be a monastic or Rinpoche to be a scholar, shows how utterly flawed and biased your view of scholarship is too.
If expertise and substantive knowledge is important to you, why don’t you attack the 3rd Panchen Lama and the 14th Dalai Lama, who have clearly been shown to lack important knowledge and expertise on both Shambhala and Kalacakra? As well as doing mass empowerments for political and social purposes and in alliance with the Chinese, and not in accordance with the instructions of the Kalacakra Tantra and its commentaries? Or is it because Niraj Kumar is Indian that you have such a personal issue with his work and scholarship on Sanskrit texts? Do you only accept the work of Tibetans, Europeans or North Americans on the subject, even when their Sanskrit abilities, expertise, premises and assumptions have been proven to be faulty and incorrect?
These are rhetorical questions only. Please do not respond, it will not be published, for the reasons I already gave above.