What the British Did For Buddhism

The feet of the Boodha at Boodha Gaya, an iconography that predates physical representations of Boodha Sakyamooni. 

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I would to-day, in these columns, respectfully invite the vast and intelligent British public to forget, for a little while, home weather and home politics, and to accompany me, in fancy, to a sunny corner of their empire... and will also show them how the Indian Government of Her Majesty, supported by their own enlightened opinion, might, through an easy and blameless act of administrative sympathy, render four hundred millions of Asiatics for ever the friends and grateful admirers of England. . .

- Edwin Arnold, 1893

Some splendid years ago the author had the opportunity to visit the magnificent and massive basalt tantric Boodhist complex at Borobador in Java. The story of the complex is a famous one. After the Mahometan conquest of the Indonesian islands, which entailed the savage eradication of both Boodhism and Hindooism in every guise, the great stepped temple at Borobador fell into complete obscurity and was swallowed by jungle and buried beneath volcanic ash. It remained that way for centuries. It was only after the British took control of Java for a brief tenure of colonial rule under Govenor-Gneral Raffles that the temple complex was accidentally rediscovered. British explorers, penetrating the dense jungles of the island, chanced upon the remnants of the temple and thereafter cleared the copious vegetation, tonnes of dust and yards of rubble under which it had been concealed. The Mahometans had no use nor recollection of it. It was British archaeologists who brought this extraordinary architectural gem, an encylopedia of Boodhist iconography in stone - in fact, the largest and most intact Boodhist temple outside of Asia - once again to the light of day. 

The Mahabhodi Temple

An eventuality similar to this, but even more auspicious, also occurred in the Indian state of Bihar, not far from the undistinguished town of Gaya. In 1810, the explorer and geographer Mr. Francis Buchanan, pushing his way through tiger-laden jungles near the river Falgoo, chanced upon a huge abandoned temple that had been devoured and buried by vegetation and silt. It was of no interest to the local Hindoos who could relate very little about it. But Buchanan quickly determined that it was a Boodhist complex from a very early date and he surmised, correctly, that it had been left to ruin after the decline of Boodhism in the Indian subcontinent in the Middle Ages. Indeed, he determined that this was none other than the long lost Mahabodhi Temple, once revered by Boodhists as marking the very place that the Boodha, Sakyamooni, achieved Enlightenment under the Peepel Tree. It had once been a place of Boodhist pilgrimage. Even more, it had once been regarded as the very centre of the Boodhist cosmos, the pivot of the Boodhist world, the axis of Boodhist spirituality. As in Java, the temple had fallen into disuse after the Mahometan invasions had eradicated the Boodhist faith. Neither the Mahometans nor the Brahmins cared for it. It was lost and forgotten.*

(*This is disputed by the Hindoos. They point out that after the departure of the Boodhists from the Gaya region, the local Brahmins gave the temple at least residual occasional care for several centuries.) 

A representation of the Mahabodhi Temple as it was found by Buchanan.

Subsequently, decades later, the British led the archaeological survey of the site and then its restoration. They determined that the temple had been built in the time of Ashoka in the third century BC, which made it one of the earliest surviving examples of Indian religious architecture. From inscriptions, coins and other evidence, they pieced together the history of the place and - with the assistance of Boodhists from Burma - cleared, cleaned and rebuilt it, returning it to its original purpose. A first restoration was somewhat shabbily done, but a second effort led by Sir Arthur Cunningham was more perfect. Cunningham wrote a thorough account of the complex which he published in 1892. His work led the restoration of this sacred place to the Boodhist religion. 

The restored temple. The four corner towers are controversial. Some believe they were not a feature of the original complex. 

Floor plan of the temple complex. 

Unfortunately, though, in law the site belonged to an Indian Mahant, and as soon as the British cleaned up the buildings it was reclaimed by the Hindoos who pretended to be puzzled by its iconography. (There is a nearby Shiva Temple and the Hindoos furthermore attempt to appropriate the Boodha as an incarnation of Vishnoo.)  This situation was what greeted the zealous Ceylonese Neo-Boodhist reformer Anagarika Dharmapala who went there on pilgrimage in the late 1800s. Along with the British Theosophists, and the ager support of the Orientalist Mr. Edwin Arnold, he founded a movement to restore the site once more to Boodhism and to remove the Hindoo intruders. Since the Mahant owned the site (part of some 11,000 acres of land he owned around Gaya), and since possession is nine tenths of the law, a protracted legal battle ensued and continued right through until after the end of British rule. In 1949 Hindoos and Boodhists were given equal rights over the site and it was again open to Boodhist pilgrims. This was not, and still is not, an entirely happy situation, but the temple is now also under the protection of UNESCO and so the unimpeded access to it by Boodhist pilgrims is guaranteed.* 

(*Disputes concerning the use of the temple are on-going. There is a Shiva lingham at the site that Boodhist purists seek to have removed. But as the present author saw for himself, the nearby Shiva temple complex is now abandoned. The Boodhist revival has displaced the Hindoos, perhaps unfairly. Boodhists can be difficult.)

Thus here, as in Java, the British colonialists rediscovered and then restored a major site of Boodhist sanctity. The importance of the Mahabodhi Temple for Boodhists can hardly be over stated. This is the very place where the Boodha achieved liberation from the round of existence. In fact, in Boodhist theology, it is said that all Boodhas of every era - past and future - attained liberation at this place. For Boodhists it is synonymous with nirvana. It is the place of ultimate sanctity. It is to Boodhists what Mecca is to Mohametans and what Kashi is to the Hindoo. In this, as in other ways, the British rule of India has allowed the restoration of Boodhism in its historical homeland after the ravages of the Mahometans and the chauvinism of the Hindoos in earlier times. 

The author has been in Boodha Gaya - the small town that now surrounds the Temple - for several days. The weather is warm; the shade of the Peepel Tree is soothing. On the road in is the sign 'Welcome to Bodh Gaya, the Spiritual Centre of the Buddhist World'. It was the British, let it be known, who gave the Boodhist world back its spiritual centre. Some photographs of the temple as it is today are to be viewed below.

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We note that Boodhism, from the outset, was essentially anti-Brahminical. ("Not by birth" - tell it to the Dalai Lama!)

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

De Koros - a Buddhist Saint

Just outside of Darjeeling, on a downhill road towards the tea gardens and army base at Lebong, is the old cemetery once used by the English and other Europeans in the time that the town was the primary summer hill station of the British Raj, then centred in Calcutta. The cemetery is small and these days untended, except for the quite prominent grave marker of the Hungarian linguist Alexander Csoma de Koros which, when the present author visited the site, had been recently cleaned, cared for and decorated. There is an informative plaque there commemorating de Koros' life and work and explaining that the grave had been established by the Royal Asiatic Society and had been tended by money from authorities in Hungary. 

As well as this, closer into town, just around the bend from the Raj Bhavan (the Maharaja's winter residence), there is another marker also tended by Hungarian authorities, this time an abstract wooden statue (pillar) in the Boodhist manner dedicated to de Koros and standing among a row of statues to other notable citizens of the town. De Koros, therefore, has two markers dedicated to him and both are looked after by authorities in far away Eastern Europe. It comes to pass, in fact, that Hungarians not only tend these markers but are known to travel here in order to visit them, such is the repute of de Koros in his native land. He is regarded as one of the great sons of the Magyar people and his grave in Darjeeling is a place of solemn pilgrimage for Hungarians. 

The esteem in which he is held is not limited to his fellow nationals, however. De Koros is a hero in Hungary, but in Boodhist Japan he is nothing less than a Bodhisattva, which is to say a saint of the first order, a semi-divine being who has attained liberation but vowed to remain in the wheel of existence in order to assist other sentient beings to the same end. He was given this status by the Boodhist authorities in Japan in 1933. On the occasion, a large statue of him sitting in the lotus position was installed at the Tokyo Boodhist University. See thus:

So who, exactly, was Alexander Csoma De Koros and what did he do to deserve such high praise and sanctification? He is not a well-known figure in the Anglosphere outside of the narrow field of Tibetan linguistics and other obscure byways of academia. His hagiography is as follows:

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Born in Koros, Transylvania, in the 1780s - the exact date is disputed - he was a painfully shy and inward character who devoted his life to the study of languages, for which he had an unusual gift. By the time he was in his mid twenties he had acquired mastery of over a dozen languages including English, Latin, Greek, and others more exotic. In 1820, just in his forties, he set out to travel eastwards, his reason being to trace the origins of the Hungarian language in the Orient. We have a full account of his travels in the form of a letter he composed at one point, since he travelled without official sanction and was sometimes questioned about who he was and what was his purpose. He travelled largely on foot, walking from Constantinople overland to British India. There he met the explorer William Moorcroft with whom he travelled to Ladakh in order to investigate the languages of Tibet. Moorcroft assisted him and wrote him a recommendation which he needed at a later point because he was detained by the British on suspicion of being a spy. This matter was resolved, however, and the British then offered him every assistance. A Captain Kennedy, who first took him into custody, wrote of him that he "... declines any attention that I would be most happy to show him, and he lives in the most retired manner.” 

This retired manner was his most notable trait. He devoted himself entirely to study and otherwise lived as a hermit. In Ladakh, however, he was tutored by a Lama named Sangs-Rgyas-Phun-Tshogs and quickly mastered the Tibetan tongue, one of the first Europeans to do so. He furthermore immersed himself in the esoteric teachings of Tibetan Boodhism by reading the two great encyclopaedias of Lamaism,  the one hundred volumes of the Kangyur, and the two hundred and twenty-four volumes of the BsTangyur. The Tibetans gave him the name Phyi-glin-gi-grwa-pa, meaning "the foreign student". Tibetan Boodhism became his great love. He had set out in search of the roots of his own language and instead found a spiritual tradition high in the Himalayas. Mr. Edward Fox wrote an account of this journey in the 2006 book The Hungarian Who Walked to Heaven. 

De Koros spent many years compiling a dictionary of Tibetan and an account of Tibetan grammar and when this work was completed he headed for Calcutta to see it published. There he was welcomed by the Royal Asiatic Society who unanimously inducted him as an honorary member and organised a stipend upon which he could live. From 1839 to 1842 he worked as a librarian for the Society while his dictionary, grammar and other works were readied for publication. (Having established that this vagabond with a strange European accent was not a spy, the British were remarkably supportive and encouraging to De Koros, let it be said.)

Then, in 1842, he determined to set out for Lhasa. This journey was interrupted, however, when he contracted malaria. He was on his way to Lhasa when he died of fever in Darjeeling on April 11 1842. Thus was Darjeeling his last resting place, and thus he is today a celebrated figure in the town. 

De Koros, then, is, in the Buddhist firmament, a scholar saint. His claim to sainthood is founded in his extraordinary dedication to learning. (There was once a time when extraordinary intellectuals qualified as saints. Alas, in our own time, it is only do-gooders and social workers who qualify.) His story is one of a remarkable journey, as if he was drawn across the world, to the very roof of the world, to his destiny. A map of his travels - one of the most extraordinary intellectual and spiritual adventures ever undertaken by a European Orientalist - is illustrated below:

Yours,

Harper Mc Alpine Black

Mr. Pallis of Kalimpong

Among the silliest things His Holiness the Dalai Lama is inclined to say to fawning cameramen these days is that Boodhism is not, whatever else it might be, a religion. No? Well, what utter nonsense! It is an assertion that is plainly and demonstrably untrue. What is one to make of a religious leader who wants to say that his religion is not a religion?

The present author was reminded of this bizarre distortion while sitting in a shared jeep on the road to Kalimpong recently, squeezed in against an overweight Tibetan monk in maroon robes on his way to the same destination. At every point that the jeep (an eight seater carrying fourteen people and two chickens travelling on precipitous roads with four bald tyres) went past any even slightly Boodhist landmark – a grave, a stupa, a flag, a monastery, a road to a monastery – the overweight monk raised his hands in a gesture of fervent prayer, closed his eyes and muttered solemn incantations in Tibetan. One wonders exactly what game the Dalai Lama is playing, but on such evidence Boodhism sure looks like a religion to this author!

Accordingly, this author was expecting Kalimpong to be a hotbed of the aforementioned religion, and the presence of the monk on the journey promised it to be so, but in fact, on arrival, the town hardly presented a Boodhist face. It so happens that the monasteries there are on hilltops well out of town, and in town itself there is little obvious evidence of the Boodhist presence. The author only had five or six hours to look around, but during that time he encountered two splendid Hindoo mandirs, an elegantly bulbous green Mahometan mosque and a stately but stern Scottish Church. There were no maroon monks about nor anything else that was overtly Boodhist save a few prayer flags here and there and an old sign to the Tibetan Medicine And Astrology Centre.

This was somewhat disappointing because the author had journeyed there under the impression that Kalimpong – about two hours drive through the hills and forests from Darjeeling – was, or is, a major Boodhist centre. It certainly has that reputation. Clearly, though, this applies to the caliber and renown of the near-by monasteries and not to the town itself. A former British hill station with its share of remaining British architecture, it is unfortunately somewhat over-run with Indian commerce. The streets are busy and congested, noisy and cluttered, much like any Indian town. Moreover, the author was there just in time to witness a large street demonstration of local rabble agitating for Kalimpong’s administrative independence from Darjeeling and West Bengal. Standard Indian stuff.

The other reason the author had reason to suppose that the town would offer a distinctly Boodhist ambience, was that it was formerly the home of the traditionalist writer on Boodhist matters, Mr. Marco Pallis. Mr. Pallis is the author of several excellent books, two of which the present author has read and very much valued, namely, Peaks & Lamas, and A Buddhist Spectrum. The former is a celebrated account of the Tibetan world that Mr. Pallis encountered in the mid-twentieth century. Rousing. Inspiring. It was one of the first authentic accounts of the Tibetan tradition written for European readers and remains one of the best. 

The latter – which this author found more useful to his particular needs – is a perspicuous and highly lucid account of the great variety and types and sects and schools of Boodhism, from the Tibetan to the Pureland. As the title suggests, Mr. Pallis proposes that Boodhist religion – yes, it’s a religion! - constitutes an entire spectrum of positions, and he sets out to inform his readers of the great wealth and variety of the same. It is a book that the present writer recommends without hesitation. Indeed, it stands as one of the very best books on Boodhism in general, in his opinion. Readers will certainly learn more from reading Mr. Pallis than from any of the volumes of sentimental tripe to which His Holiness the Dalai Lama has seen fit to attach his name in recent years. Pallis is an excellent writer. His work does due honour to the beauty and wealth of the entire Boodhist tradition and to Lamaism in particular. 

He lived in Kalimpong in the 1950s. At the time it was an enclave to which Tibetans were escaping from the overbearing moves of the communist Chinese in Lhasa and thereabouts. He there became familiar with members of the Dalai Lama’s family and other Tibetan dignitaries – he was a very well-connected man and possibly the foremost Tibetologist of his time. He was a mountain climber, too, and an accomplished musician, and a linguist, amongst other things. The Traditionalists (so-called) were not generally well-disposed to Boodhism at first, since the pneumatic leader of the Traditionalist ‘school’ Mr. Rene Guenon – a vedantist – once dismissed it as a “Hindoo heresy”. More than anyone else, Marco Pallis worked to challenge this one-sided miscalculation. One wonders what he would make of the decidedly non-traditional New Age direction in which the Fourteenth (and last?) Dalai Lama has taken Tibetan Boodhism of recent times? The present writer spent a pleasant and useful day enjoying the environs in which Mr. Pallis had lived and worked, even if the atmosphere was not nearly as Boodhist or as traditional as he had understood.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

A Nyingma Monastery at Aloobari

What is one to make of the Dalai Lama these days? His Holiness, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Boodhists, has reduced his fourteenth incarnation to the unabashed spouting of puerile New Age cliches. It is a tragedy. His smile is so sweet and confected it would put an honest man into a diabetic coma. The night before last the present author had the misfortune of watching His Holiness speaking during an hour-length documentary, ostensibly on the origins of Boodhism in ancient India, and was simply appalled at the manner the fourteenth Bodhisattva of Compassion blatantly trivialised his entire tradition in order to pander to the lowest soft-brained prejudices of mushy Western liberals. It was an hour of sugar-coated pop psychology, pseudo-science and the cheesiest of liberal nonsense. One could not help but retire from it thinking that the great wisdom of Tibet has, like other traditions – alas! - lost all its integrity and been mutilated by modernity into a vapid travesty of itself.

Thankfully, though, this is not to be a lasting impression. Today, rising early, the author set out from Darjeeling, where he currently resides, and trekked along the ridge three or four miles towards Ghoom and – after getting lost in forests of rhododendron - encountered on his travels the beautiful little monastery at Aloobari, officially the Mak-Dhog monastery of the Tantric Nyingma sect. The encounter was a suitable antidote to any suggestion that the Tibetan tradition is devoid of a living spirit. 

Recently renovated following earthquake damage in 2011, this monastery is a jewel set among the forests and tea gardens and against the mighty backdrop of the eastern corner of the Himalayas. The young monks in attendance, who had trained in caves in Nepal, they said, gave an excellent account of the Dharma, and a knowledgeable layman who fetched the keys to the gompa offered a tour of the building with its icons and majestic decorations. It is perfectly clear that the tradition lives on and that, the Dalai Lama’s rhetorical patter for Westerners notwithstanding, the arcane and esoteric, not to say occult and magickal, practices of Lamaism still prevails. 

Aloobari is the name of the village on the ridge. It means “The Potato Field”, and it is usually as “Aloobari Monastery” that the location is known. The name “Mak-Dhog” means “warding off war” (or similar) and alludes to the fact that the monastery was first built in 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War and so was, from the outset, dedicated to peace. It is perhaps not widely appreciated that an earlier incarnation of the Bodhissatva of Compassion, just like the well-known Mr. Fourteenth, had fled to India following troubles with the Chinese, and in 1910 took up refuge in Darjeeling. The Tibetans who came with him needed places of worship. The Aloobari Monastery was made for that purpose, namely to service the Tibetan enclave. 

The authoritative text on gompas such as this is Himalayan Architecture by Ronald M. Bernier, which text includes an extensive account of Aloobari. “It is one of the most unusual monuments to be treated here,” he writes, “largely because it is a hybrid that mixes several styles.” He explains that, “It is not an early building, and it is likely that European/Chinese contact inspired its inclusion of open balconies with metal grillwork for railings.” It is, he says, “a most unusual building, at least on the outside,” – which even I ncludes some Islamic elements - although the iconographical program of the interior, including the ceiling mandalas, are more or less traditional. 

Wall painting, lower chamber. 

Bernier’s account, however, is of the building prior to its renovation. As older tourist reports relate and photographs show, the building had been in some disrepair. The earthquake then caused an entire wall of the lower floor to collapse. The building has now been reconstructed, reinforced and repainted and so it looks perfectly new, although the upper level’s interior remains as before. This upper chamber is old and somewhat dank, but quite mysterious for that, and the wall paintings - said to have been done with primitive grass brushes in a unique manner – are faded with water damage. The lower chamber, in contrast, is spectacularly fresh and clean and clear with glowing colours of celestial scenery. It has the same iconographical program described by Bernier, but now redone. “The walls are covered with hundreds of painted images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas as enlightened Buddhas-to-be, teachers and saints,” he writes. “They make up a kind of family album or family tree of those imbued with the pure truth of the Buddhist way.” 

A view of the old monastery, prior to renovation. 

Its Chinese elements are especially evident.

The statues, too, are the same as Bernier describes, but have been replaced since the main altar in particular was crushed in the earthquake. The central figure on the main altar is Avalokitesvara who Bernier describes as “the most compassionate of the Buddhas-to-be and ‘he who looks down’ with compassion on the world.” He is many-armed and many-headed, the many signifying the symbolic number one thousand. “The elaborate form is quite usual in the hills [around Darjeeling]” Bernier explains, “where multiple arms indicate omnipotence and multiple heads show omniscience.” This is just how it was described to the present author who saw its new rendering.

Lower (renovated) Chamber.

Upper (unrenovated) Chamber.

Despite its peculiarities, the whole building, as Bernier further explains, “is one of thousands of constructed mandala forms.” He gives a useful general account of its function that conforms exactly with what this author was fortunate enough to see. “Its interior is spacious and high-ceilinged as it provides halls with rooms for assembled monks to gather for prayer, chanting, reading from the sacred books and instruction from high Lamas.” What Bernier does not detail, since it does not pertain to his interest in architecture and decoration, is that Aloobari contains an impressive collection of very old or even ancient sacred Boodhist texts. These are held in glass cabinets on the upper floor and were thankfully not damaged by the earthquake. Regrettably, the kind gentleman who gave the tour of the upper chamber was unable to give an account of just what texts were in the collection, but he did relate that some are rare and early. 

Sacred texts in glass cases, Upper Chamber. 

All of this – beauty, solemnity, tradition, form, ritual – is a testament to the great and continuing wealth of Lama Boodhism. It is encouraging to learn that it has not, after all, succumbed to the driveling sentimentality that the Dalai Lama feels the need to put on whenever he is in front of a camera.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Place of the Thunderbolt

Called the ‘Queen of the Hill Stations’, Darjeeling, where the writer resides at present, is a town developed around the precincts of an ancient Boodhist monastery that once stood upon the site now called Observation Hill. The hill, just off the town’s central square and marketplace, is called thus because it is the highest vantage on this particular ridge and so affords direct observation of the mighty Kangchenjunga, which mountain stands snow-capped at over 28,000 feet and is barely fifty miles away. The site was once heavily forested, but from the hill one can obtain an unimpeded view of the sacred mountain. The monastery, it is said, was called ‘Dorje Ling’, a Tibetan name signifying ‘The Place of the Thunderbolt’, and it is from this, it is said, that the name Darjeeling has been derived. The ‘Queen of the Hill Stations’ known to the British, therefore - and most famous for her exceptional tea gardens - was, or is, ‘The Place of the Thunderbolt’ according, that is, to its original Boodhist inhabitants.

Suprisingly, though, this signification has continued under subsequent Hindoo occupation in a remarkable way; it has done so to the extent that it is here in Darjeeling that one finds a particularly unique synthesis of Hindoo and Boodhist sanctity. Where in other places the two creeds are parted, in Darjeeling they not only exist side by side but actually share sacred places with Brahmins and Boodhist Lamas working in concert as if theirs is a single religion. This is most notably the case in the splendid temple, the Mahakal Mandir, which is now found on Observation Hill. The Boodhist monastery that was supposedly once on the site in ancient times has now been relocated further down the slope, and where it was once supposed to stand there is a temple of Shiva, only this temple fully accommodates Boodhist devotions as well. Indeed, the central temple on the site is a combined Hindoo/Boodhist affair featuring the iconography and devotional supports of both religions in undivided combination. At the entrance one finds Tibetan lions along with the Hindoo bull Nandi. The Shiva temple is decorated with Boodhist dragons. Around the outside one find icons of Hindoo deities, Shiva and Ganesh and co. along with Boodhist prayer wheels inscribed with Tibetan mantras. 

The present writer has been assured that this syncretism is very unusual, and he has certainly not encountered it elsewhere. To be frank, it is quite odd. In the inner sanctum sit Lamas on the right and Brahmins on the left. The Lamas chant Boodhist scriptures and at the very same time the Brahmins recite Vedic mantras. In the outer courts are small temples to Kali and other Hindoo gods right next to Boodhist reliquaries and stupas. The entire thing is smothered in a wild array of Boodhist prayer flags. Devotees from both faiths make their way there and revere it as a place of special sanctity. 

So what, one wonders, is going on here? How did this unique synthesis come about? What historical development led to it and, more importantly, by what symbolism and what doctrine are the two religions united in this particular location? It is a very special place, certainly. It is both stunningly picturesque and palpably holy. Evidently, it was a sacred site since earliest times, both the hill (with its view of Kangchenjunga) and – let readers note here – a cave that is found beneath it. Why, when, in the course of its history, it changed hands from Boodhist occupation to Hindoo, was there such a degree of assimilation? This writer has marched up the steep hill several times now and spent hours there, exploring, watching and pondering. Very slowly, the secrets and the meaning of the place have become apparent.

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The first key to this place is to be found in the story of the Shiva temple that is now central to it. While there is really no historical evidence that there was ever a Boodhist monastery on Observation Hill, or that the current monastery lower down the slope was ever on Observation Hill, the Shiva temple’s origins are historically exact and revealing. In 1782, it is said, three Shiva lingams miraculously manifested on the site of the current Temple. This is the date at which the Boodhist occupation gave way to the Hindoo, and in effect the date of the founding of the Mahakal Mandir as it is. It is the date at which the name Mahakal was given to the site, the date at which it became a Hindoo holy place with Shiva claiming it over its pre-existing Boodhist associations. The three lingams are now at the very core of the complex. The stones themselves, though, are not visible, since they are encased in an alloy of eight metals called astdhatu. They represent, respectively, the triunity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and in that, therefore, the three prongs of Shiva’s trident. The devotions of both Boodhists and Hindoos at Mahakal are focused upon these lingams. 

To understand the transition from and the synthesis of Boodhist symbolism to Hindoo/Shaivite in this case, it is simply necessary to appreciate that the trident of Shiva is here a substitute, or rather a parallel to, the vajra of Tibetan symbology. The weapons are interchangeable, and that is what has happened here. The Tibetan vajra is the Boodhist thunderbolt. Vajra is a cognate term for darje = thunderbolt. But in 1782, this Boodist order of symbolism was replaced, or subsumed, by a parallel symbolism from Hindooism, namely the trident of Shiva. When it is said that three Shiva lingams suddenly manifested on Observational Hill in 1782, we are to understand that it was, so to speak, struck by the trident of Shiva in the form of a thunderbolt, real or symbolic. The Temple marks the place where Shiva’s trident – his thunderbolt – struck and marked the ground. Thus, Dar + jeeling = the place of the thunderbolt – was now the place of Shiva’s thunderbolt, Shiva’s trident being to Hindooism what the vajra is to Lamaism. Ordinarily, the parallel made in Hindoo mythology is to Indra’s thunderbolt, but here the assimilation has been done through Shiva’s trident, the trishula. It is a parallel noted by Mr. A. K. Coomaraswamy in his commendable work The Elements of Buddhist Iconography. The town of Darjeeling has a Boodhist name, but the temple is devoted to the equivalent and corresponding cultus in Hindooism. The only odd thing is that the Boodhist elements were retained. 

As for the name Mahakal, it means “the Great Death” or the “Great Time” with the “Great Death” implied. This signifies the particular spirituality of vajraism, if we may put it thus. Namely, the notion of “thunderbolt” here refers to that form of spiritual awakening which is sudden and complete. One may think of St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. There is a particular mode of enlightenment which is like a thunderbolt. Boodhists speak of the sudden falling away of the ‘self ‘ – or the illusion of ‘self’ – and the Tibetans specifically call it the “Great Death” as distinct from the lesser death that occurs at the end of a mortal life. This is to what the temple’s name refers. The “mahakal” – the Great Death – is the annihilation of the illusion of self. In the spirituality typical of this temple, devotees seek the “thunderbolt” of conversion, the sudden rupture of illumination, the death of the ego in a blast of enlightenment. Just as Shiva’s trident struck Observation Hill like a thunderbolt in 1782, so adherents hope to be struck with sudden transformation. 

The second key to understanding this remarkable place is to appreciate that the Shiva Temple – complete with its Boodhist iconography – is oriented very deliberately to the sacred mountain of Kangchenjunga. It is perhaps not so obvious today because of extra buildings and the profusion of prayer flags, but it is a certain fact that the temple points directly to the mountain, as can be checked on any clear day. The association is made explicit by a folkish wall painting in enamel paints on the back of the temple wall which shows the mountain with the trident and cobra of Lord Shiva. The mountain is what is really sacred here. The temple on Observation Hill is only sacred by extension, as it were. This is a key because it reveals the actual operations of the temple from a geomantic point of view and thus the full significance of the site. The entire symbolism, we realise, is axial in the primordial sense. The sacred mountain is the universal axis. The viewpoint from Observation Hill has been made a temple (a platform for seeing in the Latin sense) and acquires this axial significance. Thus do devotees to Mahakal Mandir circumambulate the Shiva Temple thrice. In fact, they are circumambulating the mountain. The temple represents the mountain and the whole iconography of the temple draws out the axial symbolism and significance of the mountain. 

This extends to the cave below, or rather inside, the hill. According to legend there is a ‘Lost Valley of Immortality’ on the slopes of Kangchenjunga. The mountain has its secrets. The secrets of the mountain – also the “esoteric” path to enlightenment – is symbolized by the cave, the inner dimension, the heart. It is, like any cave, a mysterious thing. One must crawl into the narrow opening. The present author did so but was reluctant to go too far into the darkness, lit as it was by only one or two votive candles. It is said, besides, that those who go too far into the cave never return. There is no telling how deep it goes. It clearly extends directly under the temple. There is an interesting local story about a British couple, a man and woman, who ventured into the cave one day and were never seen again. Can it be a coincidence that this story has a direct parallel in the Upanishads with the story of “two who entered the cave”? The two, as Mr Rene Guenon notes, are paramatman and atman, the universal and the individual self. Monsieur Guenon's exposition of the relevant symbolism in his essay The Heart and the Cave is, as usual, profound. It is worth quoting in this context:

..What resides in the heart is both from the standpoint of individual manifestation, and unconditioned Atma or Paramatma from the principial point of view; the distinction between individual and principle is no more than an illusory one; it only exists with regard to manifestation, but they are one in absolute reality. These are the 'two who have entered into the cave' and who at the same time are also said to 'dwell on the highest summit', so that the two symbolisms of the cave and the mountain are here united.


The symbolism of cave and summit are, in a sense, interchangeable. The cave and the temple are assuredly connected. The story illustrates the actual process of the steps to enlightenment. The exoteric adherents pray for the thunderbolt of enlightenment – in this life or in some other – in the temple on top of the hill, leaving their offerings of rice and incense and rupees, but the esoteric process (undertaken by only a few) is illustrated in the symbology of the cave below.

* * * 

There is, of course, much more that might be said about this. The symbolism of mountain and cave is extensive and rich, and this location gives an almost textbook case of its application. It would be possible to write an entire exposition on the symbolism and meaning of Mahakal Mandir in Darjeeling. The present sketch, however, is enough to set out the main lines such an exposition would need to explore. The first thing is to explain the unusual synthesis of Hindoo and Boodhist systems in this place. The second is to show the relation of the place to the sacred mountain that looms on the horizon only forty or so miles from Darjeeling and that can be seen with particular clarity from Observation Hill.


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Nicholas Roerich

Speaking of Russian orientalists (see previous post about Vasily Vereshchagin) one cannot go past the great Nicholas Roerich. He is, by general agreement, the greatest of the Russian spiritual artists who turned his gaze and journeyed to the east. The present writer recalls his great enthusiasm when he first encountered Roerich's work. It was like finding a painter about whom he had dreamed; Roerich painted pictures that the author had sensed and imagined before he had seen them, works that he felt belonged in the world, works with an innate correctness. He remembers introducing these works to an acquaintance and she was merely ho-hum about them, underwhelmed. She was wrong and petty. What a lost opportunity! These are glowing works with an exceptional quality. They are works to which the present writer keeps returning again and again. Most recently, through a long chain of associations, he came back to Roerich's picture of Lord Krishna. It remains a favourite - archetypal Roerich:

Roerich occupies a special place in Russian cultural history - he was a passionate defender of Russian heritage. The October Revolution and the rise of Lenin and his philistines, however, saw him exiled to Finland, then London, then America before undertaking the so-called "Asian Expedition" in the years 1925 to 1929. Along with his wife Helena, Roerich toured through vast areas of Asia. The itinerary took them through (in Roerich's words)  "Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Orygot regions of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam and Tibet." The paintings from this expedition and later paintings inspired by this expedition are especially wonderful. Here are a few:

No one captures the spiritual power of the Himalayas and the Central Asian plateau like Nicholas Roerich. Painting in tempera, these are works of great spiritual depth. There is a superb collection of Roerich's mountain paintings in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

He was, all the same, a man of eccentric ideas. Quite apart from his artistic undertakings, his stated mission during the great Asian Expedition was to rouse the Boodhists of the region into creating a utopian society allied, oddly enough, to the Soviet Union. He seems to have been assisted in this by the Soviet Secret Service, a peculiar episode in the Great Game. He was not especially political in his motivations; rather he harboured mystical views about a new civilisation arising from Central Asia. It was not an uncommon view in his time, promoted by  Madame Blavatsky and other Russians of a mystical bent. The idea of Tibet and Central Asia as a great repository of the spiritual heritage of mankind was a persistent theme in European and Russian ideas throughout the 19th C. and in fact up until recent times. In part, it underpins the contemporary popularity of Tibetan Boodhism in the West.

Roerich and his wife borrowed ideas from Theosophy and crafted them into their own idiosyncratic philosophy. It still survives in the form of "Agni Yoga" the headquarters of which remains in New York city. See here: http://agniyoga.org/

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black