Siege of Baghdad

Battle of Baghdad
Part of the Mongol invasions
Hulagu's army attacks Baghdad.
Date January 29-February 10, 1258 Location Baghdad, modern-day Iraq Result Decisive Mongol victory
Belligerents
Mongol Empire Armeno-Mongol alliance	Abbasid Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Hulagu Khan Baiju Kitbuga Koke Ilge Guo Kan	Caliph Al-Musta'sim
Strength
120,000 total (40,000 Armenian infantry, 12,000 Armenian cavalry, and Mongol, Turkish and Georgian soldiers)	50,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown but believed to be minimal	50,000 soldiers, 90,000-between 800,000 and 2 million slaughtered civilians

The Battle of Baghdad in 1258 was a victory for the Mongol leader Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. Baghdad was captured, sacked, and burned.

Background

Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid caliphate, an Islamic state in what is now Iraq and parts of Iran; it was ruled by Al-Musta'sim, the Abbasid caliph. The Abbasid caliphs were the second of the Islamic dynasties, having defeated the Umayyads, who had ruled from the death of Ali in 661 until 751, when the first Abbasid acceded the throne . At Baghdad's peak it had a population of approximately one million residents, and an army that was 60,000 strong, though its power and influence had decreased by the mid-1200s. Once mighty, the Abbasids had lost control over much of the former Islamic empire and declined into a minor state. However, although the caliph was a figurehead, controlled by Mamluk or Turkic warlords, he still had great symbolic significance, and Baghdad was still a rich and cultured city.

Composition of the besieging army

The Mongol army, led by Hulagu (also spelled as Hulegu) Khan and the Chinese commander Guo Kan in vice-command, set out for Baghdad in November of 1257. René Grousset tells about not only Hulagu's Buddhist faith, but also about that of the top brass of his army as well. His forces were made up of a composite assembly, comprising not only non-Islamic troops but also Muslim ones. This was thus not an Islam-versus-the world battle. The split Islamic front is outlined by several modern authors. But it must be underlined also that the Muslim alliance under Hulagu, was so vast that it was not merely Sunnite, but covered all the sects of Islam as well, and thus also divided all within Islam, with no one excepted. Thus, one sees not only "the flowering of Islam snuffed out" (Steven Dutch), indeed disrupted and divided by internecine feuds at the outset, but exactly the same on the other side as well, for Buddhism and Christianity, torn apart by interrivalling wars, at this central period of world history, after which nothing will ever be the same again in the universe. While Christianity and Islam explained their engagement in the warfare in religious terms, the compassionate creed of Buddhism threw it into an unacceptable moral quandry (See the "Quandary of Morality to Buddhism" below.). One saw kin fighting kin, brother against brother, in an inhuman, horrific event. Family drank the blood of family here. Hulagu marched with what was probably the largest army ever fielded by the Mongols. By order of Mongke Khan, one in ten fighting men in the entire empire were gathered for Hulagu's army (Saunders 1971). The attacking army also had a large contingent of Christian forces. The main Christian force seems to have been the Georgians, who took a very active role in the destruction.. According to Alain Demurger, Frankish troops from the Principality of Antioch also participated. Also, Ata al-Mulk Juvayni describes about 1000 Chinese artillery experts, and Armenians, Georgians, Persian and Turks as participants in the Siege.

The siege

Hulagu demanded surrender; the caliph refused, warning the Mongols that they faced the wrath of Allah if they attacked the caliph. Many accounts say that the caliph failed to prepare for the onslaught; he neither gathered armies nor strengthened the walls of Baghdad. David Nicolle states flatly that the Caliph not only failed to prepare, even worse, he greatly offended Hulagu Khan by his threats, and thus assured his destruction. (Monke Khan had ordered his brother to spare the Caliphate if it submitted to the authority of the Mongol Khanate.)

Prior to laying siege to Baghdad, Hulagu easily destroyed the Lurs, and his reputation so frightened the Assassins (also known as the Hashshashin) that they surrendered their impregnable fortress of Alamut to him without a fight in 1256. He then advanced on Baghdad.

Once near the city, Hulagu divided his forces, so that they threatened both sides of the city, on the east and west banks of the Tigris. The caliph's army repulsed some of the forces attacking from the west, but were defeated in the next battle. The attacking Mongols broke some dikes and flooded the ground behind the caliph’s army, trapping them. Much of the army was slaughtered or drowned.

Under Guo Kan's order, the Chinese counterparts in the Mongolian army then laid siege to the city, constructing a palisade and ditch, wheeling up siege engines and catapults. The siege started on January 29. The battle was swift, by siege standards. By February 5 the Mongols controlled a stretch of the wall. Al-Musta'sim tried to negotiate, but was refused.

On February 10 Baghdad surrendered. The Mongols swept into the city on February 13 and began a week of massacre, looting, rape, and destruction.

Destruction of Baghdad

Hulagu (left) imprisons Calif Al-Musta'sim among his treasures to starve him to death. Medieval depiction from "Le livre des merveilles", 15th century.

Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors.

• The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.

• Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed with abandon. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died (Sicker 2000, p. 111). Other estimates go much higher. Wassaf claims the loss of life was several hundred thousand. Ian Frazier of The New Yorker says estimates of the death toll have ranged from 200,000 to a million.

• The Mongols looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground.

• The caliph was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth was offended if touched by royal blood. All but one of his sons were killed, and the sole surviving son was sent to Mongolia. (see Abbasid: The end of the dynasty)

• Hulagu had to move his camp upwind of the city, due to the stench of decay from the ruined city.

Typically, the Mongols destroyed a city only if it had resisted them. Cities that capitulated at the first demand for surrender could usually expect to be spared. The destruction of Baghdad was to some extent a military tactic: it was supposed to convince other cities and rulers to surrender without a fight, and while that worked with Damascus, it failed with Mamluk Egypt, which was inspired to resist, and subsequently defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 - a battle that saw the first real unavenged defeat of the Mongol Empire.

Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several centuries and only gradually recovered some of its former glory.

Comments on the destruction

• "Iraq in 1258 was very different from present day Iraq. Its agriculture was supported by a canal network thousands of years old. Baghdad was one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. Already Islam was turning inward, becoming more suspicious of conflicts between faith and reason and more conservative. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out. Imagining the Athens of Pericles and Aristotle obliterated by a nuclear weapon begins to suggest the enormity of the blow. The Mongols filled in the irrigation canals and left Iraq too depopulated to restore them." (Steven Dutch)

• "They swept through the city like hungry falcons attacking a flight of doves, or like raging wolves attacking sheep, with loose reins and shameless faces, murdering and spreading terror...beds and cushions made of gold and encrusted with jewels were cut to pieces with knives and torn to shreds. Those hiding behind the veils of the great Harem were dragged...through the streets and alleys, each of them becoming a plaything...as the population died at the hands of the invaders." (Abdullah Wassaf as cited by David Morgan)

Destruction or salination?

Some historians believe that the Mongol invasion destroyed much of the irrigation infrastructure that had sustained Mesopotamia for many millennia. Canals were cut as a military tactic and never repaired. So many people died or fled that neither the labor nor the organization were sufficient to maintain the canal system. It broke down or silted up. This theory was advanced by historian Svatopluk Souček in his 2000 book, A History of Inner Asia and has been adopted by authors such as Steven Dutch.

Other historians point to soil salination as the culprit in the decline in agriculture. [6] [7]

Complicity of the Shi'a?

One author, Reuvan Amitai-Preiss, has alleged that the Mongols were aided by Shi'a Muslims who bore a grudge against the Sunni Abbasids. But another, David Nicolle, alleged that most of the Shi'a who joined the invaders did so out of fear of being slaughtered, as all those who resisted were being killed. Any force that surrendered at once, as had virtually all of southern Persia and what is today northern Iraq, were allowed to live but, as Mongol vassals, had to provide troops for the invaders. Later, as Il-Khan, Hulagu, in organizing his domains, integrated these troops into his army more thoroughly, though the vast majority of his troops were Mongols -- one Mongol in ten had been drafted for his army -- and Turkic nomads who had submitted to the Mongols.

Aftermath

The year following the fall of Baghdad, Hulagu named the Persian Ata al-Mulk Juvayni governor of Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia, and Khuzistan. At the intervention of the Mongol Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife Dokuz Khatun, the Christian inhabitants were spared. Hulagu offered the royal palace to the Nestorian Catholicus Mar Makikha, and ordered a cathedral to be built for him. Further aftermath is to be seen in far different reaches which are those concerning Hulagus Buddhist faith.

Shock waves after the battle within the Mongol Empire

Three writers enable to examine the impact of these events of the Mongol empire within its Tibetan sphere. (This is an all-important aspect in this article because it thus links Hulagus Iranian empire to his family members' other Mongol empires):

1. Frank Wong, speaks about the Buddhist presence...that can still be traced through archeology ...in Iran today .

2. Alex Berzin sums things up saying that Hulagu was most likely to have been a follower of a Tibetan Buddhist school named Drigung (or Drikung) Kagyu.

The historical context of this alliance is this: it entails the relation between Hulagu and his cousin Kubilai Khan, and the Sakyapa followers that he, Kubilai, supported in Tibet, after being refused by the Drigung masters of Hulagu.

2. The third writer is Jean Dif, head-lecturer at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, gives a long summary of the chronology of events and the fight between Drigungs and Sakyapas: "...1260: Phagpa (note: Sakyapa) (1235-1280), of the Khon lineage, was appointed as imperial preceptor by Kubilai when he became Khan. The head of the Karmapas was forced to flee. His pursuers could not catch him because he had the power to change into a rainbow...";"...1282: The hierarch of Dripoung (note: it should be Drigung), a Kagyupa, allied with the Mongols of Iran, to counterbalance the Sakyapas..." "...1285: The Kagyupas of Dripoung, with the support of the Mongols of Iran, went to war with the Sakyapas..." "...1290: The Sakyapas triumphed over the Kagyus of Dripoung. Its monastery was burnt...." Larger reference is also given in Alex Berzin's site, about the chronology, although Jean Difs is more researched as for this subject.

See also this good reference to that alliance between Hulagu and Drigung.

Historical background behind the alliance between the Mongol Hulagu and the Tibetan Buddhist Drigung School

What background lead to this ? Sakya Pandita's repute of great erudition made him be invited by the Mongol prince Godan in 1244. Kubilai Khan, in turn, invited Drogön Chögyal Phagpa to his court in 1253, and asked him to invent a new script (the Phagpa Script) to replace the chinese signs. In 1264, he empowered him with the administrative supremacy over the three Tibetan provinces, making him the first religious head to hold the viceroy position over the whole of the country. The Sakya Lamas held this position until the middle of the 14th cent. despite a revolt by the Drigung Kagyupas around 1290. This last event ended by the burning of the Drigung monastery by the Sakyapas. This marks an important chapter in the history of Tibet, but moreover for the history of the world, because it heralds the breaking away between the Buddhist empires of China of Khubhilai Khan, the Sakyapas' protector, to the East, and that of Chagatai in the centre, and that of the Ilkhanate empire in Persia, who were the protectors of the Drigungs. (i.e. the "Mongol Period") The vast Persian Mongol empire thus lost its Buddhist power outside, by the rise of Khubhilai's weapons, but also it's spiritual power-base, by the fall of the Drigungs under the Sakyapas' blows, inside Tibet. These events are generally occulted or omitted in history books, although the major international impact is nevertheless great, as for the spiritual direction that was taken by regions, as vast as those of the empires of the children and grand-children of Genghis Khan, and thus in a world that, at that time, encompassed the largest empire that the world ever had seen, and ever will see. But this is to be explained by the terror of the Mongols that those that were under their power lived in, for centuries, and who thus preferred to not speak about these events, for fear of reviving ancient conflicts. This part of history is indeed omitted in his "History of Buddhism in India and Tibet", written in the beginning of the 14 th cent. by the famous Sakyapa scholar, Buton Rinchen Drup. The fear of the Mongols and the discretion of the historical records, is also to be explained by the fact that the Mongol Ilkhan protector of the Drigungs, who was named Hulagu Khan, was responsible for the worst massacre of the worlds history, the Sack of Baghdad, at this time (1258), and the numbers of which, when updated in present day numbers, would range in several tens of millions. Buton is also the principal author of the present-day texts of the Kalachakra, and this silence about these events in his above mentionned historical work, are also reflected in the omissions and errors, be they intentionnal or not, in the Kalachakra lineage, which is shrouded in secrecy, as it has been underlined by Prof. Helmut Hoffman in the article about this. Fear thus of being exterminated by the wrathful Mongols, dictated for the official histories written in Tibet, to keep mum about Baghdad. But the histories of the Mongols are much more eloquent as to how one saw alliances and enmities and the interlocking of faiths in Mongol ecumenicism: such as seen later in the Kalachakra religion, later in this article, and as related to the Mongols and Arghun It should be reminded thus that Arghun was a son , grandson of Buddhists, the brother and competitor of a Muslim brother Teguder, and father to a Buddhist turned Muslim son, Ghazan !!! So if this isn't ecumenical by modern standards, what is ? The interlinking of faiths and conflicts based upon family fighting about faith, thus spelt out the pages the history of the Mongols previously to Baghdad, during and after it. One must also take into consideration the unfolding of events throughout the empire of the Ilkhanate, and thus not just the battle of Baghdad isolated as one single event. Indeed, the worst massacre in the world's history in Baghdad, could not have happened without a precursory pattern in Mongol mentality. Nor could it have occurred without creating grave, profound ripple-effects throughout the dynasty of rulers that followed, nor in the subsequent Mongol descendants that still influence the world through descendants today (see the Aftermath of Battle of Baghdad and following chapters below).

Unity stance about Hulagu's sack of Baghdad

Perspective of the massacre's numbers

Speaking of massacres , the Battle of Baghdad in 1258, clearly emerges as unique in history. Hulagu Khans Sack of Baghdad and the killing of between 90000 and 2 million victims, is among the most horrendous murders ever seen in the world (updated in modern figures it rises to dozens of millions, that were killed in just one week. Actually, modern Wikipedia listing seems to point to this being the most vicious of all historical massacres.) This may nevertheless be matched by Mongol massacres in China . The figures and scope of all these events must be put in correct scientific perspective with other comparable massacres . As isolated events, massacres cannot be put on par with wars and disasters. Likewise it is not identical with other categories, that also cover long periods of time, such as war disasters and genocides . This indeed makes massacres, being isolated events, all the worse in their horror. This is important to underline so as to correctly broach the extent of the Battle of Baghdad's singularly horrible nature.

The paradox of its understanding

The paradox is that the three religions of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all saw the Sack of Baghdad as positive at one point or another, even going so far as seeing it as a divine or supernatural sign.

A. In the Prester John mythology, it is clearly outlined how the role of saviour was consistently attributed to the murderous Mongols. And the worse the carnage wielded upon Islam, the better that seemed to those believing in him. This was also the view widely held by Christians at the time of the Sack both Eastern Christians and of other Christian faiths. This came on the heels of a long period of seeking Mongol alliances by Western Christians as well . But the Mongols swerving alliances in religion made them also appear as saviours to other faiths as well .

B. In Islam, the sources that originate from the very eye-witnesses of the Sack of Baghdad, and of numerous Mongol campaigns by Muslim high-ministers of the Mongols themselves, prove a likewise ambiguous and fascinated allure of the Mongols, upon these Muslims, and in fine, the divine wrath which they also, as do the other faiths, see in these invaders . Although the Mongols punished Islam in some cases, they then changed around shortly thereafter, even from one generation to another, if not even in mid-life, as was the case of Hulagus great-grandson Ghazan, converting to Islam after being Buddhist previously, which was the faith of his father Arghun, uncle Gaykhatu and grandfather Abaqa. The Mongols thus appeared as saviours to Islam indeed, when they later converted to Islam. Then, when changing allegiancy, they would start punishing Christians and all other faiths without exception such as Buddhism etc... So one sees that they appeared as horror or hope-inspiring, depending on ones side of the religious divide, and this even within the same religion. This happened when they switched from one Buddhist school to another, from Hulagus Drigung support to Khubilais Sakya support, and the same can be said later about Sunni to Shiite support. In this way, given the long history of such switching back and forth of Mongol religious faiths and alliances, it seems obvious that amidst all of it likewise, not only did Hulegu and all his Mongol family support Shiite Islam, but also the full gamut of other schools, such as Sunnism under all various forms, whenever benefit could be derived from it, although the reasons for convrting were certainly not only self-interested. Ghazan and Oljeitu Khans , Hulegu's great-grandsons, converted to Sunni Islam for example so that evidently the Mongols were rulers that were greatly tolerant and curious of, and open to all faiths with no excpetion.

Non sectarian reasons for the sacking of Baghdad.

Baghdad was not destroyed for religious reasons but for mercantile reasons . Their tolerance of all religions and that were protected under them is well-known.

C. Now Buddhism is different for the following reason: Buddhist religion practises a principle which is compassion for all beings that prevents it from carrying out war in it's name such as one has seen other religions do, but one can still seemingly see an occult reference to Hulegu in it's faith. Indeed, at the time of Hulegu and his direct successors, a hidden teaching, Kalachakra, emerged to take more importance, and which heralds the coming of a terrible Warrior King, who brought the whole world under his sway by his war. That this be reference to Hulegu is of course purely conjecture but the time period and description is noteworthy. Kalachakras was largely developped in it's treatise by the opposing school to the Buddhist supporters of Hulegu, under the pen of the celebrated lama Buton Rinchen Drup. Although this does not speak about the Mongols, it also echoes, exactly mirroring, the idea and tone of the Christians and Muslims when speaking of divine intervention when speaking about the Mongols and Hulegu. This also comes at the same period of insecurity, popular fervour and religious revival. This King in the Kalachakra prophetical work, the King of Shambhala is indeed ressembling to the other faiths. He is a reincarnated person, not "divine" as in the other faiths, but one who likewise to them, does carry out the mission of delivering the world of evil. The three religions thus each have a view of the Mongols that occasionnally clearly veres from bad to good. This, of course, comes from the Mongols partly adhering to, protecting or converting to their religions.

The three religions thus seem to have all espoused the idea that in one way or another, the Mongol invasion was a plague sent from a higher force so as to guide the world.

Looking at the research upon historical sources, of proven and trusted scholars one does indeed see that the three religions of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all converge on the point and espouse the idea of having seen this clearly as "divine" (or for Buddhism that recognizes no God, as some higher, supernatural force such as seen in Kalachakra).

What is the paradoxal side of the Battle of Baghdad ? It is that in the ruins of Baghdad, all the world's religions seem to clearly (by the references provided above) have found their Light separately combined, beyond divides, each for themself.

Quandary of Morality to Buddhism

While it is clear to see how both Christianity and Islam could see a messianic Light in the Battle of Baghdad, that would transcend their faiths in bringing about the divine Will, and that those two faiths can accept such events, integrating them into their beliefs through such concepts as holy war, religious war, Crusades, Jihad, revering martyrs etc... nothing is like that in Buddhism. If so, it is through a thorough Tantric transmuting and renaming into Shambhala . Indeed, quite to the contrary, by remaining a hidden secret creed for seven hundred fifty years, and never being revealed, it has preserved anyone from ever being harmed by this truth. This occultation has made it protect all living beings.

A paradoxal situation there is to be seen. Buddhism cannot indeed accept the principle of the good of mankind coming from such murderous and terrible events as in the Battle of Baghdad, the subject of this page. It is contrary to it's basic moral precepts, that include first of all, that of rejecting any kind of killing. No war can be lead in Buddhism's name. The Mongol warfare of Hulagu Khan cannot, thus, find any approval from religious sides within Buddhism.

To understand the outcome of this moral quandary within Buddhism, one must take into account the secret nature of Buddhism's Teaching, contained within the sacred skillful means that is named Tantrism. This corpus of precious and ancient teachings comprise occult learning, that can only be bestowed upon initiates, and when they are deemed ready for them by a guru, a qualified expert, realised teacher, who alone can see the inner, hidden qualities of his student.

The moral paradox of seeing good in evil, of changing what is base to what is pure, is part and parcel of Tantrism. Early In Buddhism, there are many examples of this in Buddhism shown by Buddha himself first of all. This quandary of how to deal with evil was first of all broached frontally by Buddha when confronted with students who were ex-murderers, like Angulimala, or who carried out impure and morally soiled lines of work, in the puritanical context of Hindu religion that Buddhism lived side by side with. Tantrism particularly, due to it's powerful skillful means, and which englobe Yoga, Mantras, Alchemy and many other fields of practise, is the way that Buddhism devises to attain a rapidly changed reality to be perceived and experienced. But it is, as said, a secret path, slowly revealing to the student the stages of ascending levels of realisation.

This secrecy is what one saw within Tibet concerning the historical records of the Tibetan involvement with the Mongols in Baghdad. How could Buddhist Tibetans accept and reveal the events that not only would shame them of having partaken in murder at the largest world scale; but which would evidently plunge them straight into the deepest hells if one follows the Buddhist belief in the law retribution of deeds?

Indeed, following the massacre of Baghdad, under the pen of Tibet's foremost historian Buton (mentionned above), who followed these events shortly afterwards, one sees a cover-up of all sources concerning this event and which clearly points to a black-out of all memory and historical account of it. But this must be put in context of the Tantric creed of Tibet's dominating Buddhist belief, and thus the traces of secret accounts is in fact readily to be found, and one that indeed preserves the account of events, but reserves it in so doing to a chosen few erudites, and that can decipher them.

The Saviour seen in Hulagu Khan's work by Christianity and Islam, is thus to similarly be seen possibly in the secret Teaching that is hidden within the Kalachakra myth of the Shambhala King, because this can be explained

1. by the wish to occult the Buddhist responsability in the world's worst massacre to date, in Baghdad, and

2. the wish thereby also to match the creed in a messianic dimension of the battle of Baghdad massacre, that the other faiths held, and like them, that believed in a quasi-miraculous transforming of great joy emerging from great suffering, such as one can see in all the numerous references above, of Christians and Muslims, that likewise, pin high spiritual hopes of divine grace upon the blood-soaked madman Hulagu Khan.

Different approaches are thus to be seen between the three faiths, which as for Christians and Muslims, are based upon faith alone, while Buddhism, Tantrism and Kalachakra are based upon a path of secrecy, techniques to attain Nirvana, and skillful means.

The path chosen for attaining the chosen land of Shambhala, which may indeed be the same as those chosen lands of Islam and Christianity, are rooted in the greatest evil on earth which is the terrible heritage of the Mongols, but the roads followed by the four great religions of the world (Hindu and Buddhist Tantra are conjoined faiths) to gain them, are indeed seemingly different.

All Confessing , Repenting, Atoning and Repairing

Such a fearsome transmuting of hell on earth into heaven above, can seem as as hair-raising as one can possibly imagine, so that it is indeed all the more astonishing to see it backed up by the many clear testimonies of this belief, in the references gathered on this page. It is clear that all the faiths of the Sack of Baghdad's time believed in this miraculous event. That of something beautiful, something that can be the highest thing to happen in the whole world... divine, supernatural Salvation... arising from the world's worst event, the Massacre of Baghdad, something that is clearly the worst event to ever ram Humanity, being classified the worst massacre of the world, albeit maybe only "bested" by the early massacre of Romans .

Explaining Tibet's changing in alliances

To shed another different, additionnal light upon these events it is maybe necessary to sum up some of the geo-political context of the Battle of Baghdad in th eastern direction of Hulegu's Il Khanate Empire at this time.

The paragraph before this has explained the wish to hide the Buddhist responsability in Baghdad's massacre on the spiritual grounds of the faith, but also the wish to match the messianical dimension that the other faiths, Christians and Muslims, were pinning upon it. But this cannot be said, without explaining a simply political view of events at that time, as well.

Indeed, complicated geo-political reasons lead the Tibetan overlords to wish their involvement in Baghdad's Sack to be covered up.

Precisely, Hulegu Khan's alliance with the Drigung Kagyu Tibetan School fell apart rapidly when, on Möngke Khan's death, Hulegu's other brother Kubilai gained supreme position in 1260, within the Mongol empire. Thus, the new Sakyapa lords of Tibet, went about rapidly rewriting history with their best erudite Buton, and erasing the Kagyu proud (!) heritage of having slayed Baghdad, and the Arab Abbasid "foes". The creating of a large Kalachakra and Shambhala cycle of teachings and writs at that time, was thus a reasserting,- under the form of merely emblems,- the maintaining as precious things, (as a venerated deity and a realm), of the very war-spoils of the Kagyu past, and that had been gained by Sakya and Kubilai following the Hulegu-Kubilai (Mongol) shock, and the Drigung-Sakya (Tibetan) shock.

And these spoils were ardently revendicated by the triumphant Sakyas and Kubilai Khan, but nevertheless they required to be hidden in historical accounts, because that past was not Sakya's past. For Sakya, asserting openly the facts of Baghdad in their writing of History, would have been giving credit and paying tribute to the Kagyus and Hulegu for those events, and thus evidently would then have been allowing Sakya's glory be stolen.

The present revealing of this shameful past is thus a self-shaming present by Sakya to eternity, that it preserved preciously within it's deity Kalachakra. It is also furthermore, a deed of atoning for past sins, by all Buddhist faithful, a common sign of confession.

Thus the hiding and occultation of the real secret behind Kalachakra and Shambhala, upon which it is hereby shed light, is indeed explained very easily behind these three reasons: 1. hiding the Buddhist responsability in the massacre, 2. creating a Messianic counterpart to the Muslim and Christian ones, and 3. taking over the Drigung and Hulegu heritages of Baghdad destruction.

There is no surprise that Tibetans, since the time of the Battle of Baghdad, have pinned such great faith in Kalachakra, as indeed, the other religions have likewise pinned enormous faith in those same events, in that the sources say that they all without exception chose in one way or another, to see it as a divine act of God or fate. Kalachakra thus merely echoes an equally enormous faith in a perfect absolute.

Those that know Sakya know that several prophetical omens have been expressed about this coming about of events. Thus, the revealing of the role of Kalachakra is also seen, as it is by the other faiths, in the Battle of Baghdad, as something of a divine presence come to earth for the good of humanity.

Buddhism's aftermath of the Battle

Following the massacre of Baghdad, Buddhism continued in the realm. The Sakya Buddhist influence in it then went ascending, following the Sakya defeat of the Drigung masters of Hulegu. This was the founding-period leading up to the writing later, by Buton, of the vast Kalachakra literature. Indication of the new ideas of tolerance, (later to be fully expressed in the Kalachakra...), being formulated at this time was the religious searching following the harrowing destruction that this geographic realm had witnessed already in 1258 with Baghdad's Sack. An example of this quest is recorded by testimony of the idea to found a new religion at the top of the state by the main minister and putting the king of state as it's presiding deity that occurred in the Buddhist empire of Arghun Khan, Hulegu's grand-son. One sees thus that the Buddhist descendant of the victor of Baghdad had reached the spiritual state of appointing himself as a god. This novel idea is one that one curiously also finds integrally in the Kalachakra cult of Tibetan Buddhism, which speaks of a western realm ruled by the spiritual king of Shambhala, but which remains enigmatic in true Tantric secret manner. The Kalachakra was indeed composed in it's fullest form just a few years later, Buton being born in 1290, and Arghun having precisely died in 1290. It remains to be seen now if Arghun Khan was not the model for the full-fledged Kalachakra that thus may have taken as example Shambhala in the form of the Buddhist domains of the Mongol Empire that Arghun represented at that time. Was not Shambhala a gift of divinity to him, just as since then, and previously as well, Mongol and Chinese lords for example, were declared incarnations of Mahakala, or other deities, such as Chana Dorje, which gift was made by his Sakya teachers ? Indeed, this appears certain because Sakya's power lasted until 1280, just four years before Arghun came to power and started defending Buddhism with fervour and forcefully. But Sakya supremacy lasted into the 14th cent. and thus Arghun's exposure to their teachings was continuous, throughout this period. One can imagine that Arghun was setting up his own theocracy on the model of Sakya's in Tibet, where the Sakya Lamas had a holy status as incarnations of deities, and as said, it is known that it was customary for the Tibetans to attribute divine status as incarnations to all their allies be they in China, Mognolia or etc... And one can likewise think that the Sakyapas thus mirrored his powerful realm, paying hommage to their powerful disciple, by creating a politically skillful deity in his image, that would incarnate him: Kalachakra and it's Shambhala Realm on Earth, a mirror of his vast omnipotent empire in Persia.

From ruins of Baghdad to a vision of Love

The immediate aftermath's resulting effect on the Mongol Empire is clear to be seen and the arising of a faith that englobes all the world's faiths in it in a tolerant eucumenical brotherhood is nothing else than the same attitude that one can see throughout the Mongol Empire, which always showed a surprising openness to all faiths, and lack of sectarian Extremism. The openness of the Mongol rulers is well known in the references that exist from Genghis Khan to Hulagu to Arghun among others. The natural outcome of a universal religion for all faiths was thus the natural result of the Mongol attitude towards the matters of belief. To the Mongols there were no right nor wrong faiths but just varying beliefs that were all valid. Differences leading to conflict were thus the only aspects that were negative to them, - (and conflict was something they were familiar enough with) - and these conflicting aspects of religions should to them be erased and all merged into one.(and this is what Hulagu did first of all in his typical mad manner, but he alone was not mad, it must be admitted that the Mongols were mad men all of them, no matter how one looks at them.) The most evolved of all such unitarian faiths is indeed the Kalachakra that was most developped under the Mongol time and it's ecumenical rulers.

Ilkhanate Divinity, Mongol Eucumenism, World Domination

The knock-on effect of the Battle of Baghdad upon the thinking of the Mongols is evident as they established a philosophy in world dominion, a globalized world already at thgeir time, (the first of such kind in history, already a pioneering blue-print of today's modern global world). The Mongols indeed, subsequently established with Arghun, a creed that was based upon the Buddhist belief that Hulegu - who devastated Baghdad - held. That was the dominant faith within the Empire, that was dominated by the Oriental Buddhist branch of Kubilai, swaying away from Hulegu's Tibetan Drigung masters, to Kubilai's later Sakyas.

Furthering their philosophy, the Mongol dynastic rulers, and Arghun particulary, thus based themselves upon that Buddhist victory, but also acknowledged the debt to what had swept them to victory which was a Islamo-Buddhist-Christian alliance.

And the syncretical deity that they thus relied upon, was the united new faith that Friar Giovanni speaks about(note 38). The world domination that Arghun thus evolved with a new religion with himself at its head, was thus based upon the idea of the forces that had been harnessed under his empire, and that came from the banners of all faiths and beliefs in the world. Reversedly, to see the same situation through that ruler's eyes, his world domination was, from his opinion, certainly a pyramidal system of hierarchy.

Arghun's role as centre of the universe, Tibet as his mouth-piece, and the other Khans as his drum of war.

Just as one can imagine the Vatican's way of functionning i.e. being within Italy on one hand, it also then spans out into the world upon a dominion of the faithful worldwide, likewise Arghun's vision would be that his role as the Vatican equivalent for this new world religion, would be that he would be the centre of the universe as the master of the Kalachakra faith.

That faith itself would be the spiritual centre of attention within Tibetan Buddhism (like the Vatican within Italy),(but here Arghun, surrounded by hostile Christian and Muslim subjects was not in Tibet's favorable field such as Kalachakra was, and thus also the Vatican comparison was no longer favorable to Arghun either, he who rapidly was overflowed by the Muslim tide).

But in Arghun's view of geo-political, military, but also spiritual (his new religion) conquest, his grandeur would then span out into all of the Tibetan Buddhist world's realm and subjects (like the Vatican's dominions that spreads upon the faithful worldwide like an hidden, invisible but tangible kingdom) which was that of Khan Kubhlai, the world's most powerful, and widely spread, ever-to-appear kingdom on the face of Earth. By his family links thus, Arghun saw himself as the overlord and teacher of Humanity, new spiritual god-father, universal monarch and god, but that is referenced historically to also have comprised some surprisingly idiotic downsides, like taking a long-life remedy that killed him at thirty, hahaha!)Arghun, in this logical construct, surely considered that he could make short thrift of all religious difference and opposition among Islam and Christianity within his own part of the Mongol empire, merely by the tolerance and compassionate eucumenism that Mongols showed towards other faiths , contrary to the ruthless attitude that was shown in battle . But Arghun's short-sightedness and political errors within the Buddhist ranks underlined in the paragraph below of "All demons and gods: all at once", show how his attitude towards the official Tibetan power lead him to his ruin as a political player in Asia, and certainly confiscated his religious prestige and lucky charm i.e. enjoying the blessings of supernatural omens from the faith's main seats of power and their deities.

Redeeming qualities: the qualities that lead from Utter Damnation to Total Redemption

The vision of the Mongols refelcted in sources vary from bad to excellent depending on the sectarian divide of the witness and cannot in any way be relied upon wholesaledly in any case. But if one takes Mmarco Polo's eulogy-filled vision of an employee covering his bosses with praise, or else the Christian testimonies of victims amidst the ruins of their torturing, nothing can be compared with equality. Fanatical bigotted missionnaries cannot be compared with fanatical holy-war martyrs either. Nor can be so the motivated agendas of all the various camps.

But the systematic ignorance and stupidity of all the Mongol khans descended from, and inclusive of Genghis Khan does merit mention. Indeed, albeit oriented research by modern research (despite modern scientific biased sectarism against all traditional sciences) as to the mediocrity and systematical decline, corrruption and decadence of the Mognol dynasty, is noteworthy for the outline it draws. A Khan like Arghun displays a personality that is split, a madman, and imbecilic. From a mad murderor, he alternates to visions of delusional grandeur, to god-complex atc....A kind of medieval Nero, who had not even the slightest grip on reality, he appears as a childish and imbecilical no-brainer.

While one usually speaks of decadency or ruin in terms of falling from top to bottom conversely, there are also those rare cases of risings forth, and that lead from rags-to-riches, from ruin to fame, from hell to heaven. How he could imagine that he could attain to Heaven and Nirvana, without study, by drinking his "longevity" poison of sulphur and mercury is a vibrant tribute to stupidity. How could such idiocy make such an imbecile understand the principle s of religion, and how to attain Nirvana, Freedom, without studying and practising the very means, the skillful Tantra's Mantra and Yoga ? How could such an ignorant think that just by thinking so he could be the god of his new religion ? This would be like thinking that one went to a place simply by thinking so, without treading the road leading there ! Utter stupidity, the like of a four-year-olds !

How thus could Arghun have become the ideal king that models the Kalachakra Tantra-prophecied King of the Shambhala realm, just a few decades after his death ? He must have some qualities that redeem for his ignorance, stupidity and cretinity as well as that of all his kin. One can indeed say that all worldly positions of people that seek power and fame, are ignorant and imbecilic as they turn away from seeking the absolute that would provide spiritual salvation and that instead they seek merely worldly exultation,- but among all such evil, the Mongols were certainly the worst that the world has ever seen and ever will see. What good can be eked out of this ? How can one glean out the Salvation of the world from this ?

Indeed, one speaks often of rising from the ruins, of being reborn from one's past, of redeeming oneself, but this was certainly not the case of arghun, who brunt out prematurely and died young but just as young idealists leave an enduring example and ideal of ungflinching idealism he must have left this youthful and innocnet idealism and hope that makes the Bible's saying that "Those that are like children will enherit the earth" ring true. He thus incarnated the youthful heroic ideals that one also sees in heroic figures such as Hercules, Hermes, Achilles or popular youthful heroes dead early such as Jimi Hendrix or others.

The endearing quality that redeems him and bequeathes him this purported power to gain immortality and salvation is the incrantion of the mongol ideal of a naive will to untie all the Mongol realm's fiaths in one large brotherhood of tolerant respect.

This was thus a chimerical and illusorily beautiful kingdom, a glimpse of heaven for a few short years, that had appeared through the progressive merging of the Mongols' murderous intent and the flowering of the Buddhist ideal of peace through the Mongol conquest and the Mongol faith-syncretism and tolerance, but one that was short-lived. This was Arghun's empire of the mind, that lasted all of the seven years of his reign, ending with his early thirty-year-old death. One must still imagine that he brought it to flowering throughout his formative years and that environement of his family with Buddhist parents and relatives that were very interested in religious topics, must all have made this be a purely Mongol phenomenon and one that was not born by chance, but was the result of causes and directly flowed from the battle and horror of Baghdad, such as also, Ashoka's horror at his own killing in Kalinga (Orissa), had wrought the greatest political ruler-propagator of Buddhism to date. Asoka's example surely shown upon Arghun who also certainly wanted first of all to emulate the example of Buddha, he who brought his initial role as a king into being the spiritual Lion on Earth that he became or as he was known: the "Lion Among Men".

It is thus Arghun's youthful ignorant innocence that illustrated what is often mentionned in religious texts which is that truth is to be found in the mouth of children, and this thus shows that as example and role-model for the Kalachakra's Shambhala Kingdom he fit the task at hand.

Like a tigre badly wounded in battle it, Arghun's ideal, was devoured by its enemies, because living dangerously, under him it hadn't learnt to hide itself. But its hide is still cherished and its spots remain the symbol of it. His youthful voice under the guise of a Mongol Khan, thus expressed the redeeming hope that springs for the death and destruction,- just as hope does arise from the ruins of past failures,- the death and destruction that was inherited from the horrendous Mongol forerunning ancestors.

Arghun-Kalachakra, secret King-Deity of full worldwide Mongol Empire that is the mystery of the Shambhala Kingdom

It is curious that the history of Arghun has inspired a modern gaming program on Internet for children, "Highlander", and the same qualities as those of the Shambhala King are also attributed to him in it. That children thus see these qualities in him is a sign of his particular aura and is no coincidence . Similarities are striking between the description in it, such as that Arghun is an immortal that lived at the time of the beginnings of the Mongol empire around 1215, and who lives still today. He is here and appears off and on, here and there, throughout history. This is exactly identical to the prophecied Shambhala King of Kalachakra's descripption.

The similarities seem to point to the Kalachakra literature written, just two or three decades after his death, to have taken Arghun as the then-present example of that time, for the older Kalachakra, the latter being reactualized and required for the skillful use as an ideal for Tibet and for facing the then mounting Islamic power to the West. It was used also as a tribute to that ideal of Arghun, quickly extinguished in the rough and danger-filled Mongol history. But it prophecied in its Tantra's omens and its future announcing of the Shambhala Kingdom's King-to-Come, the refusal to give up on Love and the Brotherhood of all in the world without exception. It is thus the desperate attempt of the hope of a land and religion to not forget.

But in the Highlander Game, it's immortal Arghun is exactly like Shambhala's King in his appearing after a long time of occultation. The game's exceptional insight is linked to the fact that it makes it be Arghun that copies the Shambhala King's description, thus corroborating the idea on this Battle of Baghdad page that Arghun is indeed, the example for the Shambhala Myth of Kalachakra that was developped in it's modern form - just a few short years after Arghun's death. The Highlander Game's exceptional contribution to this study thus comes from its putting the name of Arghun on the same model as the Shambhala King, thus showing that the author is not just a learned and erudite student of Kalachakra, but also of Buddhism's Mongol history.

Under the simple appearance of a childs game, indeed, it presents a very deep explanation of the fact that just as the Shambhala King, Arghun here represents much more than a figure of a person, but furthemore more importantly an ideal and an Utopia. It is the ideal of the Mongol empire and it's eclectical eucumenism in religious choices that it makes Arghun shoulder thus echoing the Kalachakra. Indeed, this is to be seen in the identical description of the two kings being present at the founding period of the Mongol empire and both living eternally. Only an ignorant or superstitious reader would thus fail to understand the philosophical reach of these two identical figures. The idea that is conveyed is for this hero, in both cases, to incarnate the preparatory phase of the enlightened period of the Mongol era, when the idea of peace slowly took form, and that idea of peace reaching it's apex with Arghun's historical true personnage. Both Arghun the immortal, and Shambhala's King, are thus the symbols through time, of the evolving of the miracle of peace and brotherhood between all of Mankind, which miracles are Buddha's ideal and that of all Buddhists. Kalachakra thus represents this miracle.

It also thus represents Arghun's seemingly miraculous coming among the host of murderers and mass-killers that made up his family before him and after. These remarkable miracles of Arghun's immortality (which incidentally Arghun truely wished so strongly for in his actual lifetime) and the same in the Shambhala King, are the occult flowers in it's seed, waiting invisible underground, buried in base darkness and earth, to flower during it's time... but remaining hidden until the right time comes for it. Kalachakra is the faith of an occulted king that is waiting to appear, and this occult period is the period leading up to the coming forth of the ideal of a world united religion, which is the figure descibed by the Highland games's Arghun. The unity that the King of Shambhala will bring is prophecied in that he will unite by ruling the world in his reign. We thus have the game's Arghun that matches the King of Shambhala's description and his historical namesake, he who died right before Kalachakra's Shambhala-myth's developped form, and who is known to have favoured the creating of a world religion without borders, which is what also Shambhala describes. Thus many and converging similarities add up the one to the other in large number. Through solid research on the numberless stores of references and sources, the identity of Arghun('s eucumenical ideal) and the Kalachakra's Shambhala King becomes more and more evident to the observer. Slowly the real Kalachakra emerges from the darkness that ignorant lack of study keeps it enshrouded in. While the historical Arghun may seem limited in time and space, the Shambhala King and the immortalized Arghun both provide the same holistic, globalized view in both time and space,- of not his real person,- but of his influence through time, upon history both past and future.

And likewise in the same breath, they posit his ideal's origins in the Mongol past history, thus linking the Battle of Baghdad til today and to the origins. By positing indeed, the fight of Evil against Good, both these mythological tales, - Arghun as immortal on one side and Shambhala's King on the other, posit the very origins of Man (and this points to their being the same),- as seen through Man's responsability in the worst massacre of history, and the redemption for Him that springs from that, by his very atoning and repairing for that; but hastened indeed by the strong and ruthless uncovering, the revelation of that past's shame to the light of the world, as a pure, unstained offering of the guilt of all the world's faiths and the beings that those faiths encompass. These mythological figures, of Shambhala and Arghun, thus act as messengers come to avenge the dead, seven hundred some years later, and bringing the living to face up and confess, by mercilessly facing them up to their dues and past debt. Messengers of Salvation they are, but also merciless-to-evil, just but compassionate also judges of the past deeds, moral authorities of the all the sins of the past. Both figures, biding their time through history, they await the time of bringing to justice each and every one, to this justice of above, of an absolute, of an atoning of one's deeds in accord with the good of beings, not the justice of men that can be bent or influenced. This is the final justice, of when all has been taken into account, and all has been decided.

THE REVELATION

Revealing it, is a spiritual Occultation's goal, not for it to remain murkily shadowy and hidden.

Kalachakra is a code-name and hidden, as Helmut Hofmann says above i.e. "It's lineage... is a mass of contradictions". The Highlander game above is also an imagination's creation. The Prester John myth changes following the alliances that the Church made with Muslim and Buddhist Mongols through time, and thus has no direction.

All faiths have occulted the part of truth that they held. The names have been changed and the events redirected to gain acceptance by their own people. Betrayal of the truth is rife in this. Things need to be CLEAR.

Revelation will not occur by divine intervention nor "by speaking angels from above", but by serious uncovering of the facts written down by the people of the time that carried out the occulting, and who left behind those clues for us to reveal this. Thus, by the careful and serious study will the doors of wisdom open to us. Thus indeed, Kalachakra's Buddhist, Christian Prester John's or the modern Highlander game's, show how each created some form or another to speak about the events of the Mongol dynasty, but what of the Persians' way of doing this ?

They also made these invading hordes from Mongolia slip into their own culture's customs and occulted them there, and this is the revealing of this. By this opening up to all, of the understanding of the cultures of the other faiths', that have made the same occultation, this opening reveals how others have likewise been deceived and the pain can finally cease, because people are separated from the truth of their faith and from the true nature of their own real self. One could venture a ressembling illustration of this to be as if people came out of the ground that they hid under, and suddenly saw each other very close to them at close range, while they had thought they were far from each other. Kalachakra, Prester John, in fact, they were actually part of the same thing from all eternity. By occulting the facts and making the people be named after their own traditions' foreruning figures, they had made enemies of each other from one faith to another. It is in fact hatred that had separated brothers from each other and love that today brings them together. By this, it is the essential nature of Man from the beginnings on earth, and the first man, that is thus revealed as no two different men, estranged from each other exist henceforth, all being one and the same stock from the beginning.

But we must get to the actual facts here: so the names must be changed for this revelation, and the events reinterpreted and this has been achieved in studies that are presented here on how this was all occulted . The Mongol Khans from Genghis to Hulegu and through til the last of the Mongols , all have been reassigned roles, names and functions within a cosmological set-up peculiar to Persia and it's culture. This also seems to cover the whole Mesopotamian basin as well as far as its culture is concerned.

Thus, by this, one sees that the true nature and identity of these actors in History are restored and truth prevails once again. Thus, the Mongol ideal that was too early, and was extinguished, can relive. And this is now the fortunate age when the real ideal such as this, can shine forth without it's loving compassion and brotherhood of all faiths being once again downtrodden and alienated, such as the occultation of seven hundred and more years did it.

But if Ghazan embodied the Mongol dream of peace, it was because he was truely its product having descended from a line of rulers that had acted as outcasts within the Persian Ilkhante as to begin with, it was of foreign religion, caste and race to it.

Ghazan represents the giving in, the giving up of one's Mongol individuality. He represents the generosity of giving up one's difference and abiding by the general will and integrating. This self-sacrifice is what is his grandeur. Also, his was giving up the murderous difference that caused the havoc of the Mongol rule.

While the Buddhist Mongols had caused endless suffering, and had started being boxed in by the Muslim majority progressively, such as for example Arghun being surrounded by Muslims, faced with a Muslim uncle and son, his father Abaqa following the attempt, by marriage, to gain non-Islamic allies in the neighbouring Christian countries, finally Ghazan gave up the fight and relented to the Muslim majority-will. This giving in is thus his legacy of true democracy, and of openness because he was relenting his agenda and difference: as minority, he was obeying to the rule of the majority, and this is as democracy should function.

Ghazan, Arghun's son in the father's footsteps

But he also had been groomed for the same separate agenda as the Mongols always had until him which was that as a youth he had been brought up both a Christian and Buddhist. His brother Oljeitu as well, who also like him embraced Islam finally.

But the proof of his Mongol upbringing was that when he did embrace Islam that was not to become a fanatic but on the contrary to tolerate and encourage the other faiths to freely develop and prosper, which was thus the true Mongol message of peace. The Mongol message passed down through his family and him, was thus not to be intolerant and fanatically extreme, but to allow others to carry out their faiths freely, even going so far as to embrace them oneself, as Ghazan did in embracing Islam; and that message is not simply of embracing either Islam, Buddhism or Christianity as him, but one of brotherhood and just being a nice person towards others. His message was that of his being "just", and it is this justice that is his occulted and hidden message, now revealed on Internet. The occult messages of Prester John, of Kalachakra are thus this message that is neither Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, but is that of all faiths practising freely within a realm of justice and goodness. This could be conceived as still another New Age message as so many express to the world nowadays, but this is not the same as for Ghazan, as this refers to an empire over the world, that has already dominated it and still does dominate through that ruler's descendants today, that passed through his succcessor Oljeitu, until today. Not necessarily Muslims, they are incarnated by the total followers and subjects today in the world of the Mongol tradition, which span graphically from the Pacific to the the middle of Central Europe, that the hordes of Mongols swept over and claimed for them. All these people harken back to the Mongols and their ideal of strength, loving and love of the divine.

One thus sees that Ghazan's conversion to Islam was his occulting of his Mongol ecumenism but it was indeed hidden inside his practise of Islam because his example shows it was still there in his tolerance and encouraging of the others faiths under his peaceful reign. This seed of tolerance is thus occulted inside this Islam passed down from Ghazan, and can be revealed only by it. The Mongol tolerance was thus occulted inside Islam and is thus to be found inside it. Concerning Kalachakra, it's writing happened at the very time of Ghazan and the tolerance of Buddhist priests that were under his rule, made the Sakya lamas that were writing the Kalachakra treatises (such as Buton), be in constant contact with the Persian Buddhists (or the contacts with the rulers they still retained after the Buddhist clergy itself had been chased out of Persia at that time). But for Buddhists, the Muslim Khan could not be treated with the honour of being a reincarnation (as they routinely did with all foreign rulers following heir faith) and for example treat him as the king-deity of the Kalachakra. This is similar honour as they must surely have showered upon his Buddhist father Arghun, supporting wholeheartedly his project of creating his new syncretical religon with himself as deity, something that was not particularly problematic for Tibetan Buddhist priests to accept, as this was their custom with other rulers in the region, and they still do today, such as making important personnages be religious incarnations . They thus showered their blessing upon the Western Kingdom through Kalachakra. But because of him being Muslim, it was enshrouded, occulted and finally hidden by its enigmatic and secret meaning of the Kalachakra's description of the Western land of Shambhala. The continued good relations with Ghazan at that time of changing was indeed, not one that ordinary Buddhists could understand but that the high lamas and priests could bridge easily and maintain their generation-old excellent relations with the Mongol heads of State, and Ghazan therefore. The further favour of the Kalachakra and Shambhala fervour in Tibet which was very great can also be explained by Ghazan's successor and brother Oljeitu. The furthering of the same relationship of exceptionnal showering of favours back and forth between Tibet and Persia happened surely because he remained at the head of state for twelve more years thus making a total period of 21 years that he and his brother ruled. As Ghazan, his brother continued this tolerant and ecumenistical trend being also formerly both Buddhist and Christian .

Arghun must have been the inspiring forerunner for that Shambhala King but Ghazan it's accomplished form. The myth of the Shambhala King is thus the same as the ideal of the Mongols that wanted all faiths to live side by side: it can be expressed openly at times, but at others must go underground and these are the periods of occultation. The showering of honours upon this Muslim King happened but could not be done later upon later Muslim kings as they didn't respect all faiths and the Tibetans as Ghazan still did. The ideal of Love must go underground when the rule of Hatred is there. It will come again and is now. We are lucky that we are now in the period of Revelation. That's nice as all faiths will be brothers and no one will be expelled.

Parallel Timeline previous and after Battle of Baghdad period in Persia, Tibet-Mongolia and West

Persia-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tibet-Mongolia-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The West

Hulagu Khan-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Karmapa (Kagyu School) forced to flee Tibet.----------------------------------

Battle of Baghdad.1258.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sakya School takes ascendancy supported by Kubilai.

Abaqa.d. 1282 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Drigungs (Kagyus) ally with Mongols of Persia.

Tukedur.d. 1284

Arghun. Reign starts 1284------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1285. Drigung Kagyus supported by him, go to war against Sakyas.

1290------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1290. Sakyapas triumph over Drigungs and burn Drigung temple.

Arghun dead 1291.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Born 1291: Sakyapa author of major Kalachakra treatises.

Ghazan.

Oljeitu.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kalachakra writing period.

To comment this graph, it is clear that in the formative period of Hulagu, following Genghis Khan's conquering of Persia, the Mongol Tibetan Buddhist ideal was rife, and without any regards for the local Islamic culture of Persia that it combatted.

In the second phase, the Buddhist upheavals within the Chinese and Mongol sphere of the Empire, made the Kubilai faction take over the direction of Tibet under the Sakya School, that did away with Hulagu's allies of Drigung.

In the Battle of Baghdad's aftermath, one sees that while a new Buddhist Khan Abaqa reigns in Persia, on the year that he dies, and is succeeded by a Muslim Khan, the Drigungs of Tibet ally with him. Thus a Buddhist Muslim alliance starts emerging here, thus taking the Buddhist Khans by surprise. One can wonder if this isn't a betrayal by Buddhists of Buddhism in Persia.

Indeed then the Islamic touch starts to permeate in Persia, and this is a period of less favour for Tibetans that undergo an eclipse in influence in Persia, due to a Muslim Khan Tekuder reigning, but maybe a period where a kind of renegade Buddhist no man's land is instaured where the offical rulers of Tibet are taunted from afar by opposing factions thus installing an independant and sub-Tibetan embassy abroad !

We thus see a kind of free Banana Republic wherein Muslims rule, enjoying the patronage of Tibetans, who were without any real authority in Tibet and these "roughians" rule over vast lands and tracts that they have gained by imperial Mongol power. This was a very dangerous and outrageous situation for the offically empowered Tibetan heads in Tibet, that were the Sakyapas, offically enthroned by Kubilai. Kubilai was to shortly anger Arghun, refusing to help him against Tekuder, so the seeds of this conflict are to be seen at this earlier time. Kubilai would not help Arghun because they were positionned oppositely on the chessboard, as is clear when Arghun later supports the war on Sakya by the Drigungs.

This period of 1282, is the beginning of the "paying", "atoning" for the crime of Baghdad by Buddhists. At this time indeed, as we saw, Arghun the nephew of Tekuder sought help from the Buddhist Kubilai against Tekuder, but was turned down by Kubilai. Kubilai, in fact, by refusing to help Arghun, and thus to regain power from the Muslim Tekuder, turned the tide against Buddhism in Persia.

Arghun's instability is further reinforced by his defeat, beaten by Kubilai's supporting group of Sakya in Tibet. Sakya squarely burnt Drigung monastery. Abandoned by Kubilai, his great-uncle, Arghun no longer could hope for any help, and turned to supernatural superstition and alchemical brews.

The mainstream of Buddhist Mongol rulers were thus maybe turning their backs on the pointlessness of the mission of Buddhism in Persia and accepting the fact that they would all have to live with Muslim cousins, from then on. The Buddhists with Hulagu, and then Abaqa, and then followed by Arghun, were thus just the last glimmer of Buddhism in Persia, that would then be taken over by the Muslim tide there.

One sees that Arghun was isolated by being abandoned by Kubilai as a Buddhist cause, and rather thus he was encouraged by the Mongol ecumical attitude that would be instead to live with the Islamic cousins, not fight them. This despair at being the last or next-to-last Buddhist scion, may have turned Arghun to seek his salvation in the after-life, by seeking long-life and eternity in his potions and poison that finally killed him. The final effect of his life must have been that when he died, in Tibet, there arose another, Buton, who was to write the story of his life under a hidden mythical form possibly: Kalachakra. Buton was Sakyapa and this tribute was that of a mythical mustery-land to the West, that was occulted. The Sakypas had destroyed that land by burning Drigung and winning that war. But by doing that, they had condemned the Buddhist Mongols of Persia, and pushed the Ilkhanate into the Muslims arms. To wit, Arghun's own two sons Ghazan and Oljeitu (and who ruled) could very well have remained Buddhists seeing they had been brought up as one. But if Sakya had not won that war, the form of Buddhism that would have prevailed and blossomed would have been Drigung Kagyu, and this was not acceptable to either Sakya, nor to Kubilai's main creed of Buddhism a very strict form of Buddhism, based upon developped study and strong practise with long retreats. More fantasy-filled forms of Buddhism were firmly rejected as wrong.

But had this prevailed as a Buddhist Ilkhanante, the world would have been changed from bottom to top, because the whole balance of the world wouldhave turned upside down. Indeed, the two khans ruled together for a vast period of twenty-oneyears, and Ghazan was considered to be a perfect person or at least as "just". Marco Polo described him as being excellent.

The realm that was not to be, was thus the Shambhala realm of the Kalachakra creed because if one imagines the consequences they are stupendous in their size. Indeed, both Ghazan and Oljeitu, ruled over tracts of land that were immense and thus, if one imagines the tide flowing in the Buddhist direction, the whole of the middle East would have been at least partuially Buddhist and then the dream of Arghun to transform all the faiths of the world into a new one would have in large part been realised. This was not to be so that the only reality that that realm has today is that of a mythical spiritual Realm of Shamhala.

Being under stress and threat from Muslims on all sides, they who both emprisonned him and then succeeded him in the form of his own son, must also have made his faith feel threatened on all sides. Arghun's solution was to half-yield by creating a synctretical form of religion, that would preserve both his and the others' faiths in it ! But this was only a step in the Buddhist progressive downfall as Abaqa, Arghun's father had also sought aid against Islam by a Christian marriage in Turkey, but this in itself was a "lesser evil", because Abaqa's Buddhist faith was thus being compromised as well by another faith.

One sees that Mongol Buddhists of the Ilkhanate therefore sought help from Buddhists in China, as illustrated by Arghun, and from Christians by his father Abaqa, but the Muslims surrounding them closed in on them.

In Tibet, the death of Arghun comes precisely the date of the birth of the main Kalachakra historical author, the Sakyapa encyclopedic master Buton. This was also the year following the burning of Drigung, so the fate of Arghun had been sealed in his defeat then.

For Tibetans also the same intense exchange, as that of the Mongols in China, with the Persian Mongol empire was taking place. The Tibetans had even more contact due to Persia being a mere month's travel away from the West of Tibet. Tibetan colonies were established in Persia and enjoyed royal patronage. Arghun's death marked the end of the Buddhist dream in Persia and the beginning of realistic hard-looking at the Islamic reality. But as Ghazan and his brother Uljeitu were former Buddhists and practised tolerance towards other faiths, although terrible persecutions of the final vestiges of Buddhism happened during Ghazan's time, the channel was not closed, because by occulting themselves, Buddhists could easily gain access to the royal household. No matter how hidden the real Kalachakra would have to become within the Islamic Mongol empire, it's realm was still strongest, because the ideal of tolerance that would always stand up against religious hatred was there in the Mongol credo, and this was the true heritage of the Mongol empire, not it's gruesome killings and devastation that marked the world with gore.

The youth of the future writer in Tibet of Kalachakra's main books, Buton, was marked by the dramatic downfall of Buddhism in Persia, falling from royal, imperial patronage of a kind unimagined before, (spanning the whole Ilkhanate from Kazhakstan to the shores of the Tigris) to being downtrodden during the short-lived rules of powerless rulers such as the interim reigns of Buddhist Gaykhatu, and crypto-Christian Baydu, having to act outwardly as a Muslim. Buton's youth's main years saw Buddhism disappear rapidly there, during the 21 years of the Muslim Ghazan and Oljeitu years of reign.

When he turned to writing a developped corpus of Kalachakra literature this was the time when Oljeitu was dying and Buton was then in full production at the age of twenty-six. Thus, his writing about a muthical King to the West (Persia is west of Tibet), was just what he was seeing "from his front-door", and the prophetical dimension of this King of Shambhala, in accord with Buddhist compassion and tolerance, was the promise of producing a new religion that would abolish all differences that the desperate Arghun had formulated and that was the Mongol ideal of peaceful coexistence betweeen clans of Mongols. Buton's Kalachakra writing must also be seen as the work of a Sakyapa, those that had condemned Arghun themselves. It was their very own benefactor and protector Kubilai who had refused to help Arghun out of the problems he had with his uncle Tekuder. It was them, the Sakyas that Arghun had waged war against in supporting the Drigungs in their war against Sakya.

The Sakyas thus bear that responsability of, by the defeat of Arghun having indirectly precipitated the loss of Persian Buddhism to Islam and certainly Kalachakra is the lost land recreated and paid hommage, to prayed to. It is invoked to return and come back through the deity's cult.

And also it is certainly propiciated to return changed and exorcized, and not to again return as the enemy that Arghun was to Sakya during his life, but this time as a friend, ally and god. This is what Kalachakra certainly was then to Buton and his Sakyas, a sort of form of repentancy materialized. This is what we (is) pray(ed) to today. But it is occult, not revealed nor explained in this way and is presented on the contrary as a sercret doctrine that is arcane, unexplained to the general public. No explanation such as this has ever been given or ever will be, this is for certain.

Abaqa had failed to save his Buddhist faith by allying with Christians. All the other Mongols had encouraged and protected all faiths during their reigns. Even Hulagu during the Sack had ruled with all the faiths under his banner, and his great-sons Ghazan and Oljeitu, had been both Sunni and also Shia in their very lives , thus not taking one side or another clearly. Arghun's desperate dream of peace that had been engulfed by Islam, was thus still alive despite the changes and it is alive still today in something like Kalachakra, but is invisible, occulted, under the surface everywhere in the world, because the Mongols have spawned their influence all over. Now it is revealed.

Scientific appraisal of who the Messiah is: Arghun or Ghazan.

The Kalachakra myth describes a Shambhala King in its prophecy that is a messianic figure: he is predicted to rule the world. But like in the religions that also have similar figures, he is claimed to be merely the continuation of preceeding incarnations. Thus as a messiah he is indeed, the continuation of others.

The sources that have been exposed here are many and Buddhist ones still are to come, but as one has seen above, while Christians, Muslims and Buddhists with Kalachakra, all have clearly seen messianical meanings, or of divine intervention to the Mongols' expansion, as Kalachakra describes the King as a sovereign, one thus has to search among History's kingships for the clue to Messiahhood.

Arghun or Ghazan ?

"Both and neither" is maybe the best answer.

Indeed, the answer seems rather to open up to debate and to question, than to outright clear answer. Indeed, both have such evident defects such as Arghun's failed imperfect alliances with his Buddhist co-religionnists, and his dealings with unreliable insecure allies, or else his son Ghazan's later betraying of his and his brother Oljeitu's past as Christians and Buddhists lead to doubting of the perfection of these figures.

The Kalachakra Shambhala King is described as a king. Thus the answer is open and it is important to examine it deeply because the answer indeed, involves many people and lands throughout the world. The messianical answer of this question indeed covers such regions as the Central "Ilkhanate Kingdoms"' history down to today, as the Mongols dominated the world rule of these regions until even the 19th cent. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev etc....all these countries have a debt to the Mongols even today. But likewise, all of the countries that were under the Mongol rulers owe a lot to them and thus also are concerned by the outcome of this debate about the divinity of the Mongols. These include Vladimir Putin's Russia, China's Hu Jin Tao or Central Europe's leaders. One can also include the leader of America, such as George Bush that is the fruit of the immigration from Mongol-occupied countries originating from old Europe. Finally, the countries of the Pacific also were under Mongol influence and became so all the more so later when their royal families married into the Mongol fold, just as was the case in Europe's royal families as well.

All demons and gods: all at once

Let's look at the skewed string of events that lead down to the Battle of Baghdad and it's aftermathical repercussions. The Mongols were ignorants war-lords, that dealt in no way in religion, and this no more than they merely dealt in shamanical predicting so as to ensure their well-fare and success in their murderous entreprises. None of any such good intention whatever it might be was to be found in theme. The reports on their behaviours from travellers at that time are eloquent on this count. The only peace-time actvity of any importance that they took upon themselves, was to drink all day long. So, to attribute divinity or even so much as the slightest virtue to them would be a contradiction, as great as claiming that an ass, a pig or a slug should be the god-figure we should choose to lead us to Nirvana.

The veneer of saintliness that they then acquired, was just mere paint upon their faces like a Soprano today in TV series, can go to a "shrink" so as to truely appraise the extent of his madness. The sanctity of this or that Buddhist, Muslim or Christian Mongol Khan was just a rigmarole of truth. This was no more than akin to the Sicilian Mafia coming to be blessed by some Vatican hierarchical cousin, and in no way alleviated or dispensed of the sin and weight of the fault incurred by the sin itself. Buddhism showered official titles ofdivinity as a mere outward custom, just as Europeans bestowed chivalry titles whenever the need for it arose. Taking these to have any meaning beyond that would be wrong.

We can start with Genghis Khan who, of course, set out the Empire rolling. He tried to appease all faiths and soothsayers, so as to have the spirits on his side, and assembled all the faiths at his court. His goal was to kill, murder and savage: not to liberate, free and appease as Buddhism, for one, would seek. By twisting the arm of priests and lamas he could extract blessing from any one of them.

Then his son Mongke Khan, became particularly involved with Tibetan Buddhism, and took counsel with a Tibetan Lama of the Kagyu school, Karma Pakshi. Mongkhe Khan then unleashed the worst massacre of history, along with his master Karma Pakshi: indeed, he sent his brother Hulagu to Baghdad with instructions to kill, maim and destroy.

We will see below how the Sakya school followed in the Kagyu school's footprints in thus accepting and giving in, along the same pattern as that school.

From here on, not only Buddhism, but also Islam and Christianity, are intimately linked to the crimes of the Mongols who, as said, sought the blessing for each and every crime they committed, and sought Nirvana for them, and the blessing of which is admittedly absurd, immoral and mad for Islam, Buddhism and Christianity to bestow, but which they did do, for fear of being killed otherwise by the mad, fearsome and terrifying Mongol madmen.

We see that once this horrendous thing was carried out, the Mongols needed further blessing to continue in their criminal career, and by their syncretical tolerance they spun all the religions of their empires into this betrayal of faith which dragged it all into criminality. Criminality in the name of faith can thus be traced back to the Mongols essentially as they are the authors of the world's worst crimes without doubt. By them, all of the faiths, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism also, all were dragged into sin, danmnation and retribution.

After the Battle of Baghdad, the Drigung Buddhists allied with the Mongols, thus linking their murderous intents to those of Buddhism's blessings. This downward spiral then erupted into full warfare when Drigung went to war with Mongol support, against fellow Buddhists, the Sakyas in Tibet. Buddhism's corrupting thus became clear as it involved in all-out warfare, associated with professional killers, the Mongols, to do so. The Drigungs can be said to here have thrown the first stone in associating with the worst of the worst, as indeed, the Ilkhanate Mongols were really a mismatched patchwork of faiths with no unity or direction amongst them but this disparate aspect of the assembly also presented a chum-style kind of allure and also an unsectarian and brotherly aspect as well, seeing all faiths mixing side by side like that.

Anyways, the sin of warfare was thus transferred to Sakya in dirtying it's hands in blood, and the principal of peacefulness and non-violence violated. So, even if Drigung was the first provoking factor, still the fact on the ground, remained of two-way antagonism that both sides had to live with, and face the karmic results of. But the responsability for Sakya was special because, not only did it reject Arghun and that despite him being Buddhist,- because he supported their enemies of Drigung,- but also thus did Sakya support his son Ghazan. He was reputed to be an excellent person on intellectual and moral grounds, and by this, Sakya transferred the Tibetan support to Ghazan from the support given to Arghun by the Tibetan drigungs before that.

Indeed, Ghazan contrasted his father's work, being Muslim and thus going against his father's heritage and Ghazan's rule indeed did see Buddhism not only persecuted but squarely eradicated from Persia, so that this was the result of Sakya's action. But needing to obey it's agenda of opposing Drigung, Sakya had to oppose Arghun as well. But in this it was a winner, because Arghun's meidocrity, Buddhist or not, was replaced by Ghazan's excellency, be he a Muslim or not, and Sakya was certainly btter able to negociate with Ghazan than with the Buddhist crazy father. The occulting of the real nature and name of the Shambhala King can explain that this be an outwardly Muslim king, Ghazan, that occultly be favorable to Buddhism as Ghazan may have been, continuing indeed, to honour Tibetan Buddhism as Mongols Khans had for generations.

And indeed, the aftermath of the war was catastrophic for the world, bringing endless pain and regret to the Buddhists of Tibet. Indeed, following this, the Buddhist empire of the Ilkhnanate fell irremediably, and for ever after. It had been plunged into a bottomless pit. After five years of war, the Sakyapas won, and within one year, the defeated Khan of Persia was killed by either poisonning, as some reports indicate, or else, as other reports say, by inflicting himself practically a suicided-death, by giving in to drinking poisonous beverages that were purported to be bringing him eternal life and salvation (that, in his mind, after his defeat at the Sakya hands, this life could certainly no longer provide him.). Thus the final chapter of a string of horrific events and causes had lead to total disaster not least causes of which was obviously first of all the Mongols' 1. total lack of learning, 2. full-fledged ignorance, and 3. cretinous stupidity, of which Arghun's final end is a perfect and eloquent illustration.

So, it is by loooking at these skewed and warped mentalities that one can see that subsequent claims or beliefs in the royal divinity such as Arghun's mad mind could muster or that later descendants of these royals have maybe imagined, these are all lies. But everywhere one sees the divine in occulted and hidden forms: in the kingship's reincarnating lineage that is underlined by the Kalachakra; the divine intervention that these Mongols could have wrought as seen by the Christian Prester John Mongol myth; or else the omnipresent Islamic view of divinity behind the Mongol horrors. But in this logic of seeing signs and intervention from above, all are mistaken and there are no winners, and only losers, and not just Sakya: the Drigungs, because of making such "adventursome" alliances, and not resting upon real learning that would have preserved them from such distrustable friends; Islam in finding faithful in the later Muslim scions of such evil families as the Mongols; and the Christians in forging marriages and alliances within the same bad people that the Mongols were, they who were the world's most evil, murderous and hell-bent of all of Humanity.

None of the present religions have been absent from sin and responsability in the most abject massacres and murders of History. They all carry this load. Not least the Sakyas that finally brought the Ilkhanate's Buddhists to end. But the divine that is to beseen throughout and omnipresent throughout the Ilkhanate, occulted and hidden in it, is the promise of this crime being atoned for and for it to come to an end. It is in the ending of the killing and in the beginning of basic steps to attain Paradise which is to study, carry outthe practises to attain Paradise and the promise that this time will finally come one day: this is this that is the divine behind all of this crime and horror and the people persistently saw in it throughout time. And the giving up of this hope and promised land was hell and damnation.

Hulagu illustrated this perfectly and told his enemies it clearly. In short he said: "I am your hell here on earth, but you had it coming to you and thus I am squarely equivalent to God's evil hand ."

Genesis Glimmer Hope: Battle of Baghdad Turning-Point

How are the Mongols with their defect-riddled clan, the hope the glimmer of hope that is the divine intervention, that they are universally seen as, by all four major religions ?

How are they diversely: 1. God, 2. the diety 3. messianical 4. the Messiah ?

How is Abbasid Baghdad in the Battle of Baghdad, the world's worst massacre, and the worst event of History made by Man, the epitome of Evil and the Mongols, no matter how gore-filled and inhumanly gruesome, the Messiah's envoys, not to say the Messiah, the messengers of Paradise, the saving light of the world ?

How is this the fight between Good and Evil, and them Good, and Abbassid Baghdad Evil incarnated ?

How could Islam, Chrisitanity, Buddhism and Hinduism all agree that Baghdad under Abbasid rule was the head evil, the main devil, the demon-in-chief of the whole world ?

It's easy to say.

Abbasid rule represented the ideal of it's own grandeur without any concession to anyone else, and thus descended from a tradition of intolerance and a history of self-serving that had originated in kingship since the dawn of Humanity.

How then are the murder-prone Mongols incarnates of good ?

One has just to go back to Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden: from that time on Mankind created the various institutions and organisations that ruled the world. But these various societies and groups worked with varying fortunes until the worst massacre of Humanity rammed them, with the Battle of Baghdad, and by it, was marked the refusal of the vicious self-interest and rejecting of all other faiths, groups, clans families and adherents of systems, while instead, in Baghdad, what one saw was nepotism, autocracy, sectarianism and self-interest. Outside of the clan of chosen, one was rejected.

And thus Islam, first of all, in the form of all the disenfranchised in Islam; in Buddhism secondly; and Christianity thirdly; not to mention Hinduism, that was present in force in Baghdad: all turned against Baghdad, when the Mongols "came to town".

Baghdad was thus the turning-point of Humanity, because with it, the rule of one's self had reached it's climax, while against this, the Mongols gory career was nevertheless dominated by a redeeming quality of Redemption.

Despite all their defects, they held the firm belief in the equality of all faiths. Baghdad instead, had no respect for the principles even of Islam or any other faith, and coldy deviated them for its own interest. Indeed, there is a unity in all faiths of the world in that they all profess a unity and brotherhood of Mankind from Adam until today, and this was broken by the autocratic regime of Baghdad that, on top of all, was blemishing the face of faith by instituting the head of Baghdad as God on Earth. He was thus the contrary of all that represented brotherhood and equality, which qualities are found in each religion and that each preach about with force, and the Baghdad king as for him ruled solely in favour of his uniquely personal kingly, royal self. To the corrupt, ignorant and wrong Caliph of Baghdad, all the rest of Humanity was merely garbage. By his sole person the Mongols were, by contrast, right in stopping and doing away with him. Thus, faced with the ruin of all morality in favour of an iron totalitarian autocratic dictatorship in Baghdad, the Mongols were the redeeming Redemption-filled return to basic values of religions' belief in the unity and goodness of Man, that go back to the basic first man on Earth from the genesis of Mankind. It is this principle, rather than the gory Mongol conquests, and which are the worst of mankind, that are the redeeming message and the delivering of Humanity in the worst days of it's history. Thus the Light comes from its darkness. The evil brings about the goodness. The Saviour rides an aweful mount.

Reasons behind the Sakya Kalachakra

From the Battle of Baghdad in 1258 down to Arghun's death in 1290, the whole Tibetan Buddhist policy in Persia, was dominated by the Drigung School outlawed in Tibet by the Sakya overlords.

By winning the war against Arghun and his Drigung allies, Sakya broke Tibetan Buddhism in Persia for ever.

Reasons for this Sakya doom

Arghun was verily partly mad as his deeds show, he who took to sulphur and mercury mixes to gain salvation. Also, his die-hard alliance with a school outlawed by the official Sakya power was fault-ridden. Indeed, the Drigung School hadn't followed the main-stream of reform in Tibet, and the scholarship of Sakya's erudite masters far outstripped that of the Kagyu gurus. Out on a branch with the outlawed Drigungs and being turned down by the Sakya allies, the mainstream Mongols in Kubilai, who had then taken over total leadership, the Sakyas thus favoured the main Buddhist population of the Empire and in fact sacrificed a sick limb, that of the heretical Persian cousin in Buddhism. Or one can simply see it as a political play that made Arghun and the Drigung lose, and the Kubilais and Sakyas win. Kalachakra thus was a deity that was largely composed just twenty years after Arghun's death and the Drigungs defeat at Sakya's hands.

Why ?

Tibetans usually bestow divine power upon their allies of importance throughout history, and thus when they had defeated Arghun and the Drigungs, at Arghun's death the natural reflex was to reward the next sovereign that replaced him in a logical yoyo pattern of swinging and balancing of power. The Sakya power at its zenith then was asserting its power throughout the region; and the deity that it would reward the new Ilkhanate sovereign with, after their enemy Arghun, was Ghazan. The friendly ruler thus, after the enemy, was a Muslim. And the one following him again, Uljeitu, and that would be the ruler in power during the main period of Kalachakra's commentaries writing, also was Muslim.

This occulting of Kalachakra in a secret occultation as to his identity and faith, makes him a syncretical deity without any clear sectarian appartenance. This is explained in two ways: indeed, it goes both ways.

For Muslims there was no question that Kalachakra cannot be indentified as the deity that Ghazan or Uljeitu were rewarded with being named as (such as many other Mongol rulers were recognized as Mahakala, Chana Dorje or Chenrezig incarnations.) as the iconoclasm of Islam forbids this.

Reversely, Kalachakra could not be identified as the deity rewarded and incarnated by the Buddhist Sakyapas, because no Buddhist deity could carry the evil load of being a real Muslim in person. Two aspects thus show why a secret deity such as Kalachakra is enimgatic because it must correspond to the ruler tht was then in power in Persia (Kalachakra's realm is West of Tibet which corresponds to Persia).

So two new parameters point to this being the Muslims rulers of Persia:

a. the time was between 1290 and about 1320-30. and b. the place is Persia i.e. the West of Tibet.

added to this that c. a Muslim ruler could not be rewarded as being a Buddhist deity incarnate and d. Buddhism couldn't either accept that a Muslim be rewarded so, and thus

these four reasons made Kalachakra and his land of Shambhala as well, be this deity... but both of them be secret also.

Messiah

Why would the Islamic Messiah, that of Christians or Buddhists, all converge in agreeing that the ruler fought against by the Sakyas, Arghun, be the Dajjal, the Anti-Christ or the Devil, announced by the Kalachakra ? Indeed, the Kalachakra cycle includes a similar myth to the other religions of an ultimate war between good and evil to be waged in the future, but heralding as for it, the revealing of the King of Shambhala. His occulted identity would be different with each religion but as for the identity of the evil one that could be more consensual, and based upon that, the identity of the Messiah as well, (that being only one in the world and not two).

Arghun was issued from a lineage that bode evil for the main Buddhist Tibetan power.

Sakya's Kalachakra creed would thus, indeed, not hold him in it's heart, Kalachakra that was developped, in its literature, at exactly the time of Arghun's death i.e. approximately during the 1290 to 1340 period.

Arghun was not favored because of his grandfather Hulagu holding the Drigung enemies of Sakya in high esteem. This escalated to full war under Arghun. When the Sakyas then crushed the Drigungs and made Arghun fall because of that, then the enemy was clearly him, his own clan and his Buddhism.

The Crusading Christians all believed in Christ and not Buddha. So, when they spoke of divine Mongol intervention, it was despite the Buddhist role, and not for Buddha to win but for Christ. This contradiction is there for Islam as well.

Thus, when Buddhist Mongols bit the dust, despite passing alliances Christians "thanked the Lord". The same for Allah and Islam: no presonal softness for Buddha there among any of them.

When Arghun was defeated by his own Buddhist camp, the Sakyas, he was suddenly the evil of all camps, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims all alike, but the Muslim successor of Arghun was then seen as good in contrast, and for Buddhists as well as we will see.

Of course, this allying of extremist opposites had certainly happened for many previous and other Buddhist feuding, where adversaries of other camps helped against fellow Buddhists that were warring on each other, but a great difference was here with Arghun, making him the most hated and reviled by all.

Thus in short again let's take a look:

1. His lineage from Hulagu was that of the worst mass-murder, the world's greatest or second greatest massacre ever. This made him descendant of the worst human on earth for Islam.

2. Hulagu, allied with Shiites and Sunnis alike as did his descendants, and his heirs, (Ghazan and Uljeitu) finally converted first to Sunnism and then to Shiism, so no Islamic sectarism was present, but Islam will always hold this family as the worst on earth, the "scourge of God", and obviously Arghun as well, he who persecuted Islam.

3. For Christians, the Mongols were a scourge sent from Heaven. A scourge thus, and evil per se.

4. For Buddhists, not only were the Mongols renegade supporters of the outlawed and hounded Drigungs, but they were irresponsable gurus to the Mongols, directly responsable for the world's worst massacre, in Baghdad (1258).

For the Sakyapas, defeating this cursed family line from Hulagu and Mongkhe, was thus a divine, necessary work of pure survival and the Sakyas were responsable for this "good deed". Not only that but they were by that, "cutting away the fat", and keeping the good part: installing the Sakya brand of Buddhism for long in the whole Budhist Mongol empire, China, Mongolia and Tibet.

But they were responsable by so doing, in destroying the whole Buddhist branch of Persia, an outwardly anti-Buddhist deed, so the goodness of this was not apparent and only understandable by a thorough explanation such as given here and now. The utter corruption of Arghun and thus the devious evil of his so-called Buddhism must be well understood.

Thus a secret ruler, that is occulted can be revealed by giving the full references of the Dajjal, Anti-Christ and great evil demon in the Kalachkra's myth, as they are all illustrated by religions must be given, so as to know that if this is to be Arghun, the succession of just Muslims following him incarnate the occult Messiah.

What is this the Messiah ?

He is the antidote to Arghun. Arghun was of a corrupt origin. His grandparents carried on a heritage that was the horrific legacy of murder that no Buddhist could accept to carry the load of. Arghun's evil translated into a morally wrong utopia of all religons merged into one and he, Arghun, as it's god. First his Buddhism was not a learned and educated Buddhism, it was filled with error and subsequently thus, secondly, having him as it's deity was mad.

This despicable faith based upon one man's egotistical autocracy, that smeared itself to hide it's stench under an outer facade of religious tolerant lies. Indeed, the true scholarly merging of religions could not be achieved by an uncouth ignorant and despicable person, further advised by ignorant gurus. The Drigungs belong to Kagyu that outrightly teaches that no study is the right way to follow, and that the path is thus to engage directly in meditation-retreats without any knowledge, just basing upon whatever thoughts one has, no matter what one's experience of the faith. No mental cultivation of learning of the deep lore of Tantrism is involved or stressed to be acquired. Study, to them, warps the mind and makes it artificial and losing in spontaneity. Total ignorance in fact, this is clear. This is what Sakya fought against and prevented Buddhism from propagating to Persia. The danger to Sakya was that this kind of ignorance could spread to Tibet where the Sakyas imposed high standards of scholarship and learning to the whole of Buddhism and the country. And the Buddhism of Sakya was what became the staple Budhdism spread throguhout the Buddhist world under the Mongols of that day, and therefore is what remains thus til today.

The illustration of this contrasted Sakya-Drigung result as to combatting ignorance was indeed Hulagu, that no Sakya guru would have allowed to carry out such carnage as he did in the Battle of Baghdad.

So, Hulagu's heritage was wiped out with Argun's fall, and also thereby the worst killer of the planet's heritage was thus purified. And the murderer of Islam and Christianity's divine but scourge-like aid was also wiped out. No greater evil ever existed thus, than Arghun's heritage from his family, and the fruit of his action was the outcome directly from that: his aborted career following his attempt to dominate Tibet's Buddhism which he evidently promised to take over by putting his new religion in it's place. Taking over Tibet's Buddhism, was not possible as his brother Kubilai protected it, but he could try to establish ihs own Buddhist syncrecis with other religion throughout his realm. The idea was good and was certainly taken up by the Kalachakra, but Kalachakra went further than him and included the other religions in it. Where Aghun could not include them in a skillful manner, Kalachakra could do so and still exists today: while Arghun's heritage has long been taken over by the desert sand.

Now that we have outlined the evil one, now the messiah.

Thus by contrast, the messiah was the presenting and destroying of that evil that was uncomparable in the world.

By destroying the world's worst evil, it's best and good was revealed.

Even if this was secret, as concerns Buddhism and Christianity, because it took the form of Muslim successors, hidden inside the Islam of these successors were, in fact, the destroyer of the worst evil on earth, the Buddhist leaders heritage of the Ilkhanate.

The heritage indeed of Arghun, the Buddhists in Pesia were rooted out ruthlesly immediately when his son Ghazan came to poer and only through his efforts was this rooting out stopped, but too late for the Persian Buddhism there to survive.

How were the successors of Arghun, the Messiah ?

By their tolerance that is clearly illustrated.

Both Ghazan and Oljeitu that were the rulers that reigned during the Kalachakra writing in Tibet (i.e. around 1310) were not purely Muslims and also are known to have carried on their traditionnal faith (which must have also included thus the faith that they were born in: Buddhism), but verily as they carried this, while openly being Muslims, they could not announce this outwardly, and this could not either be said in the Kalachakra faith that was made by the Sakyas in order to fit them and their rule. We thus see here, in Kalachakra, what could be that secret faith without any outward sign of belonging, that is exactly what Islam calls the Occultation. It is thus also the Christian secret Prester John; it is the Islamic Occulted Saint; it is the Buddhist Kalachakra, but actually designates that which succeeded and inherited from the world's worst legacy of evil: that of the Buddhist Arghun.

Going from evil to good, this shows the road of what is to be avoided, and thus this illustrates with the clearest outline the path of what is to be abided by, which is to destroy the intent to kill others that had corrupted and permeated the Ilkhanate Buddhist leaders. And the method to do that was the tolerance even if hidden of all faiths, and this is the messianic message left behind by this error.

But it is the idea of tolerance that the Mongols alawys practised, believing that only in peace can the world live correctly. By contrast, it is the Buddhists that, under the tutelage of ignorant mad gurus, carried out the worst massacres and killings of the world's entire history, despite being a purported non-violent faith, and ironically it is the faith that has illustrated since then as one of the most bloody, Islam, that appeared as the solution to stop those mad Buddhists, and the sole arm to raise so as to halt their onsalught.

In Buddhism many wrathful and angry gods and deities protect Buddhism. Thus, by defeating Arghun, Ghazan and his descendants Uljieut etc... all appear as Budhism's protectors for Tibet, as indeeed, Arghun's goal was the taking over and submitting to his will of all of Buddhism which he would have destroyed from inside.

Thus, a Ghazan and his descendants of Muslim Khans of the Ilkhanate, appearing under the secret guise of this Kalachakra, appear as so many Mahakalas and Gepa Dorjes protecting the border of Buddhism so as to protect it's deep secret teachings for it's own inner demons that would arise, so as to create schism within it, from such wrongful heretical trends as Arghun represented.

But by being this Muslim guardian of Buddhism, Kalachakra thus linked the fate of this faith with Buddhism including it's path in it's. Being a syncretical faith, and including the Christians in it's scope, as similar victors in alliance against Arghun, the kalachakra designates all those heroes of the war against Arghun.

Being beloved defenders of the faith to Buddhists but that they don't openly reveal, the Kalachakra pays a secret hommage thus to all faiths.

In it's being the hommage paid to the victory over the world's deepest evil, it pays hommage to the highest goodness which is the defence against evil. The highest goodness is the Messiah as nothing is higher than Him.

Kalachakra thus pays hommage to those that made the best deed on earth possible and thus pays mute hommage to all the allies of the war against Arghun, the full gamut of faiths that fought him. Thus Kalachakra is the symbol-hommage to all faiths that enabled to defeat the evil on earth incarnated by Arghun.

See also

• Mongol Empire
• Abbasid
• Baghdad
• Islamic Golden Age
• Tigris-Euphrates river system
• Soil salination
• History of Tibet The constant Mongol influence in Tibet; Iran; and China, etc...the worlds largest land-empire ever.

References

• Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281 (first edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-521-46226-6.
• Morgan, David. The Mongols. Boston: Blackwell Publishing, 1990. ISBN 0-631-17563-6.
• Nicolle, David, and Richard Hook (illustrator). The Mongol Warlords: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Hulegu, Tamerlane. London: Brockhampton Press, 1998. ISBN 1-86019-407-9.
• Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8122-1766-7.
• Sicker, Martin. The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-275-96892-8.
• Souček, Svat. A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-65704-0.

External links

• An article describing Hulagu's conquest of Baghdad, written by Ian Frazier, appeared in the April 25, 2005 issue of The New Yorker.
• Steven Dutch article
• Berzin Archives - Afghanistan Buddhism Gathered sources about the Drigung Kagyupas and Hulagu and the Mongols.
• The Jean Dif Tibetan history chronology. describes, in the "l'Ere des Sakyapas" chapter, the period of the Battle of Baghdad.

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