Exopolitics Journal
3:4 (June, 2011). ISSN 1938-1719
www.exopoliticsjournal.com
Come Carpentier de Gourdon,
“
Indian Cosmology Revisited in the Light of Current Facts
”
276
Kailash. They are also aerial beings whose ancestor or ruler is said to be the great musician
rishi
Narada.
If the Apsaras evoke both the Naiads, Nereids and Valkyries to the western imagination by their
appearance and connection with water and heaven, the kimpurusas are lion-faced anthropomorphic
creatures and the kinnaras are horse-headed like Hayagriva, the Hindu and Buddhist “demonic”
icon who is often called their leader. They have a clear etymological link with the greek Centaurs
(kentauri). Their consorts, the kinnaris, however are half-bird, half -woman The ganas are dwarfish,
often misshapen beings who are associated with underground minerals and secrets, like their
Western equivalents (leprechauns or goblins) and their name relates them to the Arab Jinns, said to
be “made of pure fire without smoke” (astral light, possibly).
On a higher plane are the higher “gods”, the Rudras, Maruts, Adityas and Vasus who dwell in
subtler realms. Significantly one of the
Adityas (children of
Aditi: infinite space) is
Tvastr, the
architect and builder of the universe and the carpenter of the flying vehicles that carry the gods
across heaven. Among the Asuras, the powerful rivals of the “shining ones’, is Maya (“the maker”),
another cosmic demiurge who crafted the Pushpaka Vimana, described in the Ramayana as the
flying chariot of Kubera “resembling a bright cloud in the sky”, taken from him by his envious and
ambitious brother Ravana, king of the Rakshasas of Lanka. The rakshasas are also super-human
beings who have all sorts of magical and prodigious powers. Their name comes from the root raksh:
to protect, indicating that, although they are regarded as generally cruel and destructive forces in
classical Hinduism, (though capable of “redemption”) originally they were ambivalent as are most
other kinds of divine or supra-human beings.
Even more enigmatic are the vidyadharas (holders of wisdom), semi-divine beings, often located in
remote Himalayan regions and described as possessors of many fantastic abilities like flying,
changing shape and becoming invisible. They are sometimes cited as attendants of Rudra Shiva, the
Cosmic Mountain Lord who is “The Destroyer of worlds”. Their monarch is Kandarpabali,
according to the Hitopadesha and they are the guardians of tantric wisdom and “supernatural”
science.
Exopolitics Journal
3:4 (June, 2011). ISSN 1938-1719
www.exopoliticsjournal.com
Come Carpentier de Gourdon,
“
Indian Cosmology Revisited in the Light of Current Facts
”
277
Many of those beings are indeed associated with the great mountain ranges which border India on
the North and surround the polar Meru according traditional geography. While many scholars
interpret this nomenclature as describing, in a mythological garb, to tribal populations and
kingdoms located in the upper Himalayas and on the Tibetan high plateaux, others tend to see them
as imaginary creatures with which poetic fantasy populated the inaccessible snowy fastnesses that
lay on the horizon. However one can also consider the possibility that there may have been groups
of beings “descended from above” or from their boreal abode on those highlands, as the original and
pre-Buddhist shamanistic tradition of the Bon religion of Tibet records. The Bon books trace their
origins to Dropa Shenrab Miwoche who, more than 18,000 years ago came from the hidden realm
of Shambhala flying on the Tagzig Olmo Lug Rig (space) and taught the original form of the Vedic
religion handed down to him by his own teacher Shelha or Shiwa Okar (perhaps the Indian Shiva).
The Bon myth about the initial source of all wisdom
seems to have inspired the Buddhist doctrine of the
hidden Kings (or Kulikas) of Shambhala who have
their seat in the wondrous city of Kalapa where they
preside over the secret rite of the Wheel of Time
(Kalachakra). In all there will be thirty-two lords of
Shambhala, each one ruling for one century, from the
first, Suchandra (Dawa Sangpo in Tibetan) to the final
one, Raudra Chakrin or Trakpo Cholkhorchen who
will come in the twenty-fourth century of the common
era, with the contemporary one being Aniruddha or Nagakpo, the 21
st
in the line.
In the Tarim basin of Chinese Turkestan and outlying areas as well as in Mongolia, there are many
related legends about Shambhala and Agartha and some intriguing archeological remains have been
found (dropa stones and mummies at Baian Kara Ula), leading Chinese archeologists to speculate
about “out of this world” origins. It is in that broad region that Taoist cosmology situates the Hsi
Tien, the Western Paradise of the Lady of the golden plums of immortality Hsi Wang Mu. It is said
to be the Central Asian Holy Land of Belovodye described by the Orthodox Old Believers,
Raskolniki.