Capital of Great Tartary. Part 2. Shambhala

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

When it became clear to me that Khanbalu was the capital of Tartary, I was struck (and heard) the clear similarity of its name with the name of the sacred country of Shambhala. Of course, “it's just a similarity,” you say.

But is it a similarity that both Khambalyk and Shambhala, according to the descriptions of contemporaries and ideologists of that time, should be located practically in the same place - next to the Gobi desert?

On old maps, the Gobi Desert is designated as “Desert Lop”, that is, “Desert Lop”. And it is almost certainly possible to establish that “Gobi” came from a change in the sounds in the word “Lop”, “Lopi”. On later maps - yes, indeed - instead of the Lop Desert, the Gobi Desert appears in the same place.

On the first Japanese Buddhist map of 1701, Shambhala is located west of the Gobi Desert, and Ordos (then it was already - since 1694, according to my cartographic research) - to the east. Considering the size of the Earth, and the fact that cities and regions with similar names can be thousands of kilometers from each other, it is very difficult to believe in the coincidence of such proximity between Shambhala and Khambalyk, to put it mildly, and to be honest, almost impossible.

What is known about Shambhala? Let's read the generally accepted interpretation:

"Shambhala is a mythical country in Tibet or other surrounding regions of Asia, which is mentioned in several ancient texts, including the Kalachakra Tantra."

Here's another interesting passage:

“The first mention of Shambhala in Buddhist texts is found in the Kalachakra Tantra, - hereinafter the 10th century AD is declared. e., but taking into account the constant time shifts in the official version of history (relative to real dates), here you can safely put the Middle Ages - which, as they say, has survived from the time of the king of Shambhala Suchandra - that was the name of the ruler of Shambhala, who received the Kalachakra teachings from Buddha Shakyamuni. According to another legend, Shambhala was a kingdom in Central Asia, not necessarily in Tibet. Its king Suchandra traveled to South India to acquire knowledge. After the Muslim invasion of Central Asia in the 9th century, the kingdom of Shambhala became invisible to human eyes, and only the pure in heart can find a way to it.”

Shambhala disappears. And Khambalyk / Khanbalyk disappears. The capital of Tartary on the maps until 1680 stands between the Lop (Gobi) desert (it stretched west of the Tartar capital) and Beijing (it was located to the east). Since 1680, there is no Khanbalik on most maps of the world and Asia. No, no matter how long you look. The city of Tamerlanku appears almost immediately, although it has never been there before. It is strange that a mention of Tamerlane appears in these parts, because everyone knows that Samarkand was his small homeland and beloved city.

In 1694, a map of Asia was published in Europe, on which a whole region-province of Ordos appears out of nowhere. Ordos is said to be a Mongolian word and means “Palaces”. Simultaneously with the appearance of Ordos, the city of Tamerlanka disappears from all maps. Having studied the topographic landmarks near Khambalyk (for example, the city of Camul, Lake Chandu (Xandu), I come to the conclusion that yes, Khanbalu / Khambalyk / Khanbalyk is first Tamerlanka, and then, after 10-15 years - the region and the town of Ordos (“Palaces”). The description of this city means that Ordos is a small settlement. Why it was named with such a majestic name, explains the history of the city.

It turns out that there were tents here (well, yes, in the spirit of modern historians) of Genghis Khan! So, stand! What kind of tents? It is clearly stated: "PALACES!" And further. The word "Ordos" is very much like the word "Horde". On many old maps, approximately from the 16th to the 18th centuries in the territory historically occupied by Tartary, you can see a huge number of hordes of different nationalities: Circassian, Cossack, Kalmyk … Hordes were like regions, state subjects. Especially many of them are indicated on the maps of a later period - starting from the 18th century, when Tartaria was divided and the capital disappeared; physically, Hanbalu fell into the Chinese Tartary, which was already dependent on Beijing, as well as Tibet with the Lama's residence (this is known from several maps of the 18th century).

Tartary and early Buddhism

According to the reconstruction of Fomenko and Nosovsky, the Great Khan and his retinue professed the local branch of early Christianity. On the Catalan Atlas and other early maps, flags with three crescent moons on their backs are hung over about half of all cities in Asia. But it is important to know that crescents are sometimes found in early Christian paintings as completely Christian symbols. For example, according to ancient written sources, the Arabs made tattoos on their foreheads and bodies in the form of a six-pointed star, and on the maps of the XIV century, you can see flags with the same symbol (now called the Star of David) over the traditionally Muslim cities of modern Turkey.

But why am I doing this? To the fact that approximately in the period from the 1000s to the 15th century, world religions have not yet acquired clear symbolic, ideological, conceptual boundaries. And it is quite possible that things were the same in Tartary. And almost certainly many sacred (and not so) texts were written during this period.

If we accept that the birth of Christ took place in the X-XII centuries, it becomes clear why some events in world history occur, as it were, too late, with a delay, while others stretch over hundreds of years.

If the Buddhist stories about Shambhala date from the official version of history to the 10th century, and Chaldea and Babylon are placed in ancient antiquity, although these two countries existed and flourished in the 15th century (for example, on the same Fra Mauro map of 1450 or on the Catalan atlas of the world in 1375), then it is quite logical that the texts about Shambhala were written approximately in the same period or even later, at least at the end of the same XVII century, that is, after 1670-80, when Khambalyk / Khanbalyk disappears from the maps and from books by Western scholars. Several hundred years pass, and the West makes attempts to date the Indian Vedas and the legend of Shambhala. And, of course, it pushes Buddhist and Hindu scriptures back into antiquity.

The 1903 English version of the travels of Marco Polo, who allegedly lived in Tartary in the XIII century (most likely, he lived in the XIVth century) narrates: the Tartars “say that there is the Most High God of heaven, whom they worship every day with a cry and incense, but they pray to him only for the health of mind and body. However, they have [also] some [other] of their God, called NATIGAY (or NATAGAY), and they say that he is the God of the Earth, who looks after their children, cattle and crops”.

In the book of a European geographer in 1683, the Great Lama is named the religious leader of Tartary. That is, Buddhism (or its early form) was the official religion of the country at least until 1680. The European author writes that the Great Lama is as important in his religions as the Pontiff in Christianity. The book says that the Lama sits in the kingdom of Barantola (which is part of Great Tartary), or rather in the fortress city of Bietala. That is, this place is something like the Vatican in the Tartars (of course, not all the peoples of the country, in Tartaria had various local beliefs, remember at least the cult of the Golden Woman among the Obdorts).

In this book, the Great Lama is depicted as a boy or youth, in front of whom a man and a woman, both with European appearance, knelt down and beat their foreheads.

Having rummaged in old books, I found the source of this picture:

Here we see that next to the Lama is a statue of the Khan, King Tanguth, who is worshiped as a god. Here is another illustration of the Tartar beliefs of that period, that is, the 17th century:

These pictures are taken from the 1667 book on Asia and China by Athanasius Kircher. Here he also depicts the idolatry of the tartarus:

In the background, the local nature is visible - always these are young trees, sometimes planted in even rows on the hills or between them. Young and sparse vegetation is depicted in other illustrations of Tartary, and in that book, and in other publications. In the next part we will try to understand the reason for the sudden disappearance of the capital of Tartary.