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Download pdf Book : http://ia600407.us.archive.org/9/items/tibetmysterious00holduoft/tibetmysterious00holduoft.pdf

this one is beautiful

Younghusband's expedition was a disaster politically shortly therafter, and I am sure it may have affected the Librarian Mao Tse Tung's decision to invade Tibet half a century later...

Mr Roy ~ You are quite right ~ the ' Younghusband expedition' was something of a fiasco. Apart from vague fears of Lhasa falling under the influence of Imperial Russia, the British had no very clear objective in mind when the sought to bring Tibet into their orbit... any potential economic benefits were entirely nebulous. I have seen (but cannot immediately put my hand upon a copy) an interesting cartoon from an edition of 'Punch' magazine (November 1903) in which Francis Younghusband is depicted as a British Lion holding a tray of goods and a pair of revolvers, saying : " I've come to bring you the blessings of Free Trade ! " To which the Dalai Lama ( represented as a Llama of the South American variety) replies: " I am a Protectionist. Don't want 'em !" "Well, you've got to have 'em !" threatens Younghusband.....

It was a disaster through and through...Tibetans were massacred, the Chinese were revealed to be impotent, it may well have led to Mao's ideas about Nehru being a new Curzon and how Tibet belonged to China not the British sphere of influence...

... Perhaps ... although such a direct link or influence does seem a rather tenuous argument to put forward ... Re: " Nehru being a new Curzon " Well the former is said to have had a certain, grudging admiration for the latter ... although the one being a product of Eton and Oxford, and the other of Harrow and Cambridge, I'm sure that if they had ever met, such divided personal loyalties would have proven insurmountable ...

It is hard to deny the fact that Tibet has historically been under the Chinese sphere of influence. Their adoption of Buddhism is relatively recent (as compared to the Central Asians, Chinese, Koreans, Sri Lankans, Southeast Asians etc).

@ Asad Ahmed: You wrote; > It is hard to deny the fact that Tibet has historically been under the Chinese sphere of influence. Their adoption of Buddhism is relatively recent (as compared to the Central Asians, Chinese, Koreans, Sri Lankans, Southeast Asians etc).< Koreans also ? This is new to me.

Ranajit: The chronology of the spread of Buddhism from India is: 3rd century BC: to Sri Lanka 1st century BC: to Central Asia 1st century AD: from Central Asia to China; India to Java 4th century AD: from China to Korea 6th century AD: from Korea to Japan 7th century AD: India (Buddh Gaya) to Tibet Regards

I was fortunate to have stayed in the same abode (now a hotel) in Kalingpong where Younghusband did while he was in the Doars before he commenced on his ill fated expedition to Tibet via Sikkim. In fact I honeymooned there. The place has played host to the Dalai Lama , HM the king of Bhutan and Richard Gere who made Tibet’s plight of the systematic obliteration of their culture and identity well understood and ‘fashionable’ in Hollywood. There is a school of thought that Tantra came to Bengal/Assam from Tibet. Tantra’s seat today is in Kamakhya in Assam and Bengal. Hadn’t Tibet invaded China in 1912 ?

I do not know if the Tibetans ever invaded the Chinese directly, but they were spiritual guides to the later Mongols in their wars with the Chinese.

The idea that Buddhism spread to Tibet from Bodh Gaya in the 7th century AD must be considered vis-a-vis the fact that Tibet was adjacent to Nepal where Gotama is said to have been born in the 6th century B.C. This shows the absurdity of the Nepal story.

Mr Asad,you are wrong,Zen Buddhism directly spread from India to china by BoddhiDharma,who was a south Indian Buddhist.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma

The Wikipedia is more often wrong than not in respect to ancient Indian history. I am saying that Hermaeus was the great St. Thomas. His ally were the Chinese who must have noted the similarity of his religion with Mahayana. This shows that the dates given above are school text-book class and are mostly wrong. Asoka is said to have taken Buddhism to Khotan which is discounted by R. Thapar because she sees him as a man from Patna.

Writers such as Pratapaditya Pal, R. Thapar and Dilip Chakrabarti (of Cambridge Univ.) make the elementary mistake of identifying early Buddhist art with Greco-Indian Buddhist art which dates from a later period. This was known to Sir Aurel Stein, D. Schlumberger and Karl Fischer. What R. E. Emmerick writes about Buddhism in Iran is wholly wrong. Emmerick has no idea that the Persepolis tablets mention Tissa, Sakka, Mandumatis, Kokamukha and many other Buddhist and Hindu names.

Are you referring to the Gandhara school of art in the first part of your assertion? Pls elaborate about the connection/ influence between Hinduism. Buddhism in Persepolis.

In 1916 Stein identified an ancient shrine at Kuh-e Khwaja in Seistan as Buddhist. Roman Ghirshman wrote that the murals of Kuh-e Khwaja are the precursors of Gandhara art which shows its great antiquity. Nearby Dahan-e Ghulaman which is given an absurd interpretation (slaves gate) by Iranians echoes the name of Gotama. Kokamukha and many other Hindu names are also in the Persepolis inscriptions. It has to be borne in mind that this was a kind of an archive and the location of Kokamukha need not be nearby. But the art objects from Gour near this area show clear affinity with Ajanta art. I have published a paper in the journal Mithras Reader III where I have more.

Much ink has flown on the location of Matezzis which Pierre Bryant and others place near Persepolis. Hallock disagreed with this and I also think Bryant is wrong. To me this appears to be a city of the Indians and was probably near Patali and Kohnouj.

Darius ( Cyrus’s grandson) controlled what was virtually a world empire and assumed the title of ‘king of kings’.The gold daric ( a coin named after him) became international currency.Darius founded two new capitals to replace Pasargadae : Susa close to the thriving centres of Mesopotamia and Persepolis (now takht-e-Jamshid) in the remote plain of Marv Dasht in the Persian homeland.This city’s role was ceremonial – to reinforce the majesty of the Achaemenid dynasty. T he sun was shining bright on the Persian Empire when Persepolis was commissioned as they had subjugated all the early civilizations of the middle-east. On bas-reliefs the peoples of 31 nations can be seen offering homage to the might of Persia.The roll call of the defeated is impressive includes the Egyptians, Libyans,Thracians, Cicilians and the people of Cyprus. All having been overcome in a hurricane of conquest ! Whether it is the majestic apadana, Tripylon or the forest of columns or the graves in Naksh-e-Rostam 13 km north of Persepolis the king of kings is depicted as worshipping a sacred fire burning at an alter and above him is the soaring figure inside the winged disc symbol of the dynasty blessing him :this winged figure if Ahura Mazda (the wise Lord) personification of divine goodness. The depiction of the king shaded by a parasol and Hindu / Buddhist sounding names in my opinion does indicate an Aryan connection. Much as the Aryan invasion theory may be debunked today fact remains that the ancient Persians were Aryans and their influx could certainly not have halted in modern day Iran so the customs (fire worship etc) and names may be Aryan and not necessarily Hindu / Buddhist. Be that as it may and those names may indeed be Hindu/Buddhist as Darius was a king of kings and may have had Indian representation in his court for all we know as I stated above in the bas relief are 31 nations depicted bowing to the supremacy and indeed all must have accepted his suzerainty. In 331 BC catastrophe struck and dealt a death blow to the Persian empire when a young Macedonian general named Alexander led an invasion from Greece with 40,000 men and in a series of spectacular victories Alexander took Asia minor and the Mediterranean coastlands thrusting into Mesopotamia. Babylon, Susa fell and Persepolis was torched in revenge of Persian burning of Greek temples. Persepolis did not get destroyed entirely and today it stands merely as an outpost of Alexander the great’s empire. The ruins of the citadel remain as an epitaph to the ancient ceremonial capital of the Persian king of kings.

Most writers discount the name Rama (Arya Ram anna) in the ancestor-list of Darius but this is short-sighted. The Sasanians also gave a Ram-like name as their ancestor. The Buddhist texts also mention the Ikshaku kings (Okkaka) as their ancestor.

The importance of Matezzis can be seen from that gold was strored at Matezzis, at Persepolis. at Susa and at Ecbatana.

Yes there is indeed a school of thought that Lord Rama may have been an Iranian. If we subscribe to that then Ayodhya , the Sarayu and Lanka would not be the same as they are supposedly believed to be today. Indra,Varuna, Maruta, Vishnu and indeed Brahma were Aryan Gods while Shiva was a Dravidian one. The confluence of these cultures on account of the Aryan conquest of north India led to the concept of trinity in Hinduism. But then Romila Thapar's version is not a universally accepted one at all There is certainly nothing wrong in the Buddhist texts mentioning Ikshvaku as their ancestor as most among them are converts from early Hindus only. In place of massacres and deportations Cyrus and later Darius introduced tolerance and the rule of law. They administered their empire through satraps (governors) and each territory was required to pay tax in local produce, precious metal or in the west in gold coinage. Between Susa and Persepolis which were the twin hearts of the mighty empire, the Persians constructed a royal road from Sardis near the Ionic coast all the way to Susa a distance of more than 2570 km (1600 miles) an eastern extension of which led to Persepolis. Mounted couriers operated a relay system along the highway, switching horses 111 post stations and covering the whole distance in less than a week. Understandably the gold reserves of the empire must have been impressive given that the empire’s expanse was huge with the fertile Mesopotamia , Iran and even the ancient Greeks contributing land revenue which was the bedrock of all empires till the industrial revolution ushered in the modern manufacturing age. In my personal observation it is noteworthy that even if tolerance may not have been the foundation stone of the world’s greatest empires but that has been their cornerstone or hallmark of governance if they were able to sustain themselves for extended periods of time.

Mr Amit Kumar: My information about the spread of Buddhism in its original form is taken from a book on world religions which I found to be accurate and informative. Also, all archaeological and historical evidence supports the view that Buddhism entered China from Central Asia, not from India directly. I cannot say anything about Zen Buddhism, however.

Rama may have been an Iranian but I am not sure. India in those days was very wide area. He may even have been a man from Sindh/Hind. Rehma was an area of Sindh.