Mongolian tangents
Huck wrote:
"if you don't mind, I would like to add the content of your post as a link at the starting page for "Very early References to Playing cards" (at trionfi.com) as "John Meador's Link Collection about early Tibetian use
of Initiation Cards" with the link leading to a page with your content in the general style of Trionfi.com.
Do you agree?"
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Yes, Huck that is a good idea.
There is also some useful information/pictures in the files section at TarotL (which the internet Explorer on my computer refuses to permit me to access) on a Bonpo death ritual utilizing tsakali in a card by card process leading the deceased individual to Liberation.
"... under the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a group of Chinese workmen set up a papermaking establishment in Samarkand. Their product quickly spread by trade and imitation, and paper soon supplanted other writing materials in most of western Eurasia."
http://www.silkroadproject.org/teachers/sourcebook.pdf
On a different tangent:
". . And when the Tartars go to war, they load their houses upon chariots and take them with them, as men [elsewhere] do tents or pavilions. . . . "-Chapter XXVI John Mandeville's Travels
CHAPTER XXVI
OF THE LAW AND THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARIANS DWELLING IN CATHAY. AND HOW THAT MEN DO WHEN THE EMPEROR SHALL DIE, AND HOW HE SHALL BE CHOSEN
"...at that journey he <the new Khan> shall have more than sixty chariots charged with gold silver, without jewels of gold and precious stones, that lords gave him, that be without estimation, and without horses, and cloths of gold, and of camakas, and tartarins that be without number."
-The Travels of Sir John Mandeville< first appearance in French around 1356-57 >
http://www.romanization.com/books/mandeville/index.html
Autobis asks:
"...(ca. from 1356 - 1374) he wrote the poem ITrionphi (Trionfi) in six chapters: Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, Eternity...
Did give Petrarca birth to the whole Trionfi-idea or did he express with his poem only a generally trend of his time?
Triumphal processions were already part of the life in old Rome, so Petrarca didn't invent anything..."
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cach...nfi.html+trionfi+petrarch+rome&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
-However, why would Petrarch laud a Roman custom:
" Petrarch, like his contemporaries, identified papal Avignon with Babylon; and Rome was similarly identified."
http://www.pbk.org/pubs/Keyreporter/Autumn99/Weber2.htm
"Marco Polo thought that Gog and Magog were the Mongols. According to him, the native names were "Ung and Mungul"- the Gog lived in Ung, and the Tartars lived in Mungul. "
http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/gog_and_magog.htm
Could Petrarch, perhaps having read John Mandeville, intended his Trionphi chariots to be popularly perceived as a "conquering counterpoints" to those of the Mongols?
And yet another tangent:
"The eleventh to thirteen centuries witnessed the florescence of Buddhism in Tibet. Within this ferment most the various traditions of the Kalachakra continued to be practised. ... One of the main expounders of the Kalachakra within Sakya school was Kunga Gyalten, better known now as the Sakya Pandit (1182-1251). When Tibet was threatened with invasion by the Chingisid Mongols in the early thirteenth century Sakya Pandit travelled to their court and attempted to appease the Mongol rulers. His nephew Pak-ba remained in the Mongol entourage after the death of Sakya Pandit and eventually gained the ear of Kublai Khan, Chingis Khan's grandson and founder of the Yüan Dynasty. Kublai was so impressed by Pak-ba and Tibetan Buddhism in general that he finally granted the Sakya school virtual control of Tibet, and Sakya lamas came to came as spiritual advisors to both him and the succeeding Mongol khans. The Kalachakra was first introduced to the Mongols at this time..."
http://www.shambhala.mn/Files/transmission.html
"...Kublai Khan, ardently supported Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, Sakya Pandita’s
nephew. Phagpa also invented a new Mongolian script which allowed writing of the Mongolian language. Kublai Khan himself converted to Buddhism and presented Phagpa with the de facto rule of Tibet. Thus Phagpa was the first Tibetan to gain religious and secular authority over the whole country.For nearly 75 years after Phagpa’s demise (1280), the Sakya lamas continued to serve as viceroys of
Tibet on behalf of the Mongol emperors, until the Sakyapas lost both powerful protector and patron when the Chinese Emperor subjugated the Mongols. Political power was then lost to the ascending Phagmo Drupa Kagyü."
http://www.kalachakra-graz.at/kalachakra/eng/eng_spir/sakya1.html
"Jononba . Jonangpa
Tradition in Mongolia, Tibet and India. Entered Mongolia at around 1200 and was there merged with shamanism. Because of this Mongolian and Tibetan Jononba traditions would be rather different. ...Connecting Indian Buddhism with Bönpa"
http://mongoluls.net/buddhism/buddhgloss.shtml
"In addition to the shen-teng doctrine, the Jonangpa had an special interest in the Kalachakra."
http://www.zanabazar.mn/Life/zanabazar.11.html
Kalachakra Mandala-
"The Body Mandala forms the ground-level basis of the 5-storey mandala...
PROTECTORS OF THE BODY MANDALA
"Inside the entrance gates, located on chariots pulled by seven animals each, are a total of 4 pairs of Protector deites, and also above and below the mandala are protectors."
http://kalachakranet.org/mandala/body_deities.html
I do not yet know if there existed Kalachakra tsagli.
We learn further that both the game of polo and Dzogchen/Bon are suspected having come to Asia from Persia, and that Kalachakratantra may bear Manichaean roots...
-John
