[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] So welcome everyone to the third talk in the third series of our partners, some of the online Tibet Seminar.
We've enjoyed an excellent program this Hilary term. You can find the details on our website.
And we still have one more talk to come on the 11th of March. All our talks are published as video podcasts.
They are freely available from our website, from Apple Podcasts and from many other sites too.
So please try not to interrupt during the recording.
However, the discussion periods after the talks will not be podcast and are open to the entire audience.
So please feel free to express yourselves and to ask questions then.
Today we are delighted to welcome Doctor Ben Williams.
Ben Williams is an intellectual historian focussed on South Asian religions and the history of cyber tantra.
He's received extensive training in Indian philosophy, literature and aesthetics in Sanskrit sources,
and completed his PhD in the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard University.
Ben is currently. An associate professor of Hinduism at Naropa University and serves as the faculty lead for Naropa M.A. Program in Yoga Studies.
In 2025, he became the first scholar in residence for the Buddha in the Logical Research Institute,
where he's guiding a number of initiatives related to preservation of Sanskrit texts.
This position coincides with the funding of a motorboat, a chair of yoga studies at Naropa University, which Ben will hold until spring 2028.
Ben has published a number of articles and book chapters, including several AP Novel Gupta,
and has also produced a number of translations from the Sanskrit, including um written and is Kitzmiller.
Should be lost?
Should we lost a stabber or him to the play of consciousness and shipping, and is subjected to a stutter or prays to the heart of auspiciousness?
Ben also has two books forthcoming, one of them entitled The Secrets of Shiva, a new edition,
annotated translation of the Shiva suitably Makhni, and the other hymns of the Chola lineage.
Critical editions, translations and studies from Early modern Kashmir.
I should add, Ben is a close associate of our previous speaker, John Nimitz.
He gave us such a wonderful and erudite talk on Kashmir inside ism around the late 18th century on February 11th.
So it's great to have this continuity. Thank you very much. Been for coming and talking to us.
Over to you. Great. Thank you so much, Rob.
Thank you, Rob and Cathy for the invitation to join this series.
And I just want to share my appreciation for the way that this lecture series has brought together
to metallurgists and intelligence people working on Tibetan Buddhism and travel and talk to Tantra.
It's such an important intersection of research. I want to also begin with a few acknowledgements.
One is to Jon Nemec. As Rob mentioned, he's a close colleague and his talk really inspired this talk.
Um, I'm looking at the next two centuries, uh, of, you know, what's happening in the region of Kashmir in Swat Valley.
And John, uh, explored a lot of geographical, political and archaeological resources in his talk.
And so he's inspired me to look at those sources as well. In some ways, that's going beyond my wheelhouse, which is as a textual scholar.
So, um, um, I might be a little, um, unsteady footing in some of that material, but I just want to begin with an appreciation for John.
And also just he's been an incredible, encouraging encouragement.
Um, he's been an encouragement for me over the years. I also want to acknowledge Alexis Sanderson.
A lot of what I'm going to be focusing on is deeply indebted to his foundational work on the history of this lineage called the Crema.
And, um, there's an anecdote I once heard, I think it might have been from Dan Davidson, um,
that the entire last century of scholarship on Dharma Shastra is footnotes to the work of P.V. Khan,
who wrote the History of Dharma Shastra, volumes one and two.
And I think the same could probably be said about Alexis Henderson the last 30 years of scholarship,
in some ways of the next 30 years of scholarship, will be footnotes on his monumental contributions.
I also want to acknowledge Adam Krug, who recently published this book, The Seven City Texts Um Muhammad's Instructions from the Odeon of Maha as I.
In preparation for this talk, I read this book closely.
I met with Adam twice and his scholarship is and his his work is really informing some of the comparative things I'll do.
And finally, um, look at Oliviera, um, in the Italian Archaeological Mission and Pakistan has been on there scholarship,
uh, especially archaeological research, has been, um, incredibly useful at this time.
All right. Are you ready? Okay.
So. First of all, Ludhiana in the shotgun lineages of the Croma is the name of the talk.
So I'm going to be looking at this valley in Kashmir predominantly in the ninth and 10th centuries.
The plan of the talk is that I'm going to be looking at this 13th century travelogue of origin power,
which was originally translated by a G as a, B, two G.
That's going to kind of create a setting to then look at the political,
archaeological and scriptural evidence of, uh, Swat Valley during this time period.
And then, um, I want to look at some textual sources, early chroma sources and some,
uh, Vajrayana Buddhist sources that identified themselves with good Guyana.
And I'm calling that section a kind of look at what we might call the textual corpus of Ludhiana.
And what I'm really trying to show is that the chroma tradition, um, some of its earliest sources identify themselves with Ludhiana,
and those traditions come to flourish most significantly for centuries within Kashmir following those early revelations.
And Sanderson has made a really compelling argument that the audience of those early sources is the Swat Valley and Pakistan,
which is not far west of Kashmir, the veil of Kashmir.
And so I'm going to kind of. Articulate Sanderson's argument and then add some more evidence to support that.
And, um, really explore the role of Orianna in this, in these early chroma sources as an actual, um, landscape, as an actual geographical location.
It's pretty clear in the early history of the tundra that Orianna comes to be more of a symbolic place,
that it becomes mapped onto different geographies.
It's mapped onto the body, and it also comes to be described as a kind of state of consciousness in a lot of different texts.
So this there's a kind of tension between a kind of a toponym, a geographical location,
and then an ideal location that can be projected into different places that I'm going to be exploring.
So in this travelogue, this itinerary of Oregon part, this Tibetan work, it's an extraordinary document.
I just want to highlight some of the things that this Tibetan pilgrim describes when he travels to Diana.
Again, this is summarised in Sanderson. It's referenced a lot, and it's translated by two.
So, um, he describes his journey to, uh, to Swat Valley, to which he calls Juliana.
He goes through, um, Merlot, which is in, uh, Punjab province of modern Pakistan, and in the kind of salt range.
We'll speak about this region in a moment. And he reaches a place called Raja Hora, and he describes it as one of the four gates to Diana.
Um, and he this is, um, very close to the Indus River.
Um. He receives a letter from a Raja Deva, which gives him permission to proceed to the Holy Place of Tumut.
Um or grandpa sees Tumut as the kind of core of Ludhiana.
He passes by a mountain below which has been defined, uh, identified subsequently as in the mountain which is near Bharat Code in the Swat Valley.
And then he reaches what have reached a place he calls a car, which is, uh, he describes as the capital of the king in Djibouti.
And he mentions two towns there and to the north he says there's a town.
Uh, and he calls it Mangalore or Mangalore.
And in it he says there's a temple founded by in Djibouti.
And also various images and stone of the Buddha Tara location.
Uh, and then he has some really beautiful descriptions of his experience when he arrives here and the kind of heart of Ludhiana, the sacred place.
Um, he says, when I saw from afar the country of Diana, my good inclinations became very strong.
Um, in these places, as soon as anyone has a realisation, various dokkan is come privately in front of you as a spouse.
Um, this is an interesting little anecdote that he describes.
Um, and then he kind of arrives, he described.
He describes his arrival in two months. And this is a kind of suburb.
It's identified as Bukhara by two chiefs and a town called Mingora in Swat Valley.
We'll be looking at maps in a moment. Um, and he says some really exciting things about his arrival there.
He says, by the mere view of this country, our cries of joy could not be counted.
And he says, in front of that place there is a image of the goddess called mangala divi, and it's made of sandalwood.
This is a very important detail. He describes himself as sleeping before the statue.
He has an interesting encounter with a Ducati there.
Um, all of these anecdotes kind of describe that. Even in the 13th century, when this region was under, uh, the governance of Muslim rulers,
there's clearly still a kind of culture of yoga knees, uh, in this region.
Um, and then he proceeds to a cremation ground, which he calls Bierce, Bierce,
massa, which Alexis Anderson argues is a name for kind of Veera Shmash Asthana.
Um, the Chantal Branch mugshots and I called Chi Riviera and, um, he describes it, uh, in his travelogue.
He says it's crowded by terrific assemblages of dangerous tackiness who have the shapes of boars, poisonous snakes, kites, crows and jackals.
And then he says, a little north of it, this tree is called, uh, Bookish of Russia.
And there's trees called Mongolia. Brookshire. And the proximity of a spring called Mangala pani.
And he also mentions a mountain to the east called the Sri Parvati.
Okay, all of that information will be relevant in a moment.
I just wanted to kind of review it really quickly. Um, what I want to kind of focus in on now is the geography of this region.
Um, here we have highlighted the Swat Valley.
And the swamp river runs through it. And you can also see here the Indus River.
Um, and so this is the particular region where the traveller went to.
This is also the region where the two principal scriptures of the chroma tradition.
Identify themselves as originating from. And here we have Kashmir, the veil of Kashmir.
And Jon's talk, he spoke. He spoke about these different duros or entryways into the valley.
Um, and the journey of, uh, or Empire kind of came south of Kashmir.
He actually went to Kashmir after his visit to Oceana in the 13th century.
Um, this is actually the modern town of Hund, which was originally called Buddha Panda.
And this is the capital of the Shah. He kings who ruled this region from the ninth to 10th century.
And so this is the town where in Swat Valley on the Swat River of Mingora.
And so this is where, um, bargaining power arrive to you.
The kind of place that he describes, uh, has been identified.
Uh, Dumont has been identified with this suburb here. Bukhara.
Um. And then he describes going to a further place north, um, where there's stone images of the Buddha location here.
And that's been identified here as Mangalore. Um, and there's also this town of Odd Grama, which might be one of the villages he refers to.
So this is kind of what he sees as the sacred centre of the region of Ludhiana.
And in the town that's further north. Mangalore.
Mangalore. Um, it's described as a place where Indra Booty founded a temple.
And it has this extraordinary, um, Buddha that's been carved into the stone.
This is one of the features of a lot of the carvings in this region.
Sometimes they're kind of carved into the mountain to make, ah, into stones or cliffs,
to appear as if they're symbol kind of self manifested or appearing.
And oral. Stein visited this, but in 1926, and you complained about how difficult it was to capture it by photo.
And it's partly because you have to actually be ten metres below it to kind of see the relief of the image.
Um, and this is one of the larger Buddhas in this region.
Um, and it's actually the largest, um, except for the ones that are in Bamiyan and Afghanistan.
And the face was actually destroyed by the Taliban, but it's since been repaired.
And so there's above this. There's evidence of an old stupa.
Um, this was clearly, uh, an important place in the time period that we're looking at.
Um, here's another map of the Swat Valley in the Swat River.
Um Bukhara, where, uh, grandpa arrived is right here.
Number one, uh, Woody Graham or Odie Graham is here.
Number three. And there's also, um, barcode.
Barcode. There's inscription here in body code and a Sheridan inscription from the 10th century.
And, um, it describes the town of Barrett code as Virgil Preston or Bud Preston.
And it also mentions the King China parlour and it's in Sheridan.
And so this is really important 10th century evidence of a few things.
One, that the Sharkey kings or rulers of this region at that time, and another this interesting name, but just on that is,
uh, this this town has been the site of a lot of archaeological work by the Italian Archaeological Survey.
Um, and there's actually two books, I think, that recently came out studying that region.
So we have this identification of Woody Allen with this region.
Um, at one level, we can think of this as a Peter.
That's an identifiable, identifiable topography that's marked as a dynamic site for esoteric religious culture.
But as I mentioned earlier, it's also an experiential locus that's projected onto the human body.
It's a site, um, where the body is the site where you worship the pizza.
It's also something that's worshipped externally within a mandala, and it's also a site of memory.
Um, particularly in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions,
there's a number of narratives of sitters and Yogi knees who flourished in Oriana, and the hagiography of them are quite extraordinary.
And so one of the ways that Orrick Krug has worked on those texts describes with Diana is a chronic trope of myth and history.
And in this talk, I'm really going to be looking more and more at it as a historical site.
Okay, so here it goes. I'm venturing beyond my comfort zone into the political history of the region of Diana.
And I'm going to I want to tell you a little about a little bit about the Hindu Shahi dynasty.
Um, this is based on a dissertation. The last two dynasties of the Shah is by Abdur Rahman, which he wrote in 1976.
It's an extraordinary work of scholarship, but I've also updated it with some of his later scholarship.
Um, and he is bringing together archaeological evidence,
the writings of Persian and Arabic authors describing this time period, the Raja to run Ghani and other sources.
It's a really extraordinary synthesis. But before I look at, you know, these kings of the ninth to 10th century and early 11th century,
I just want to say something about the region in which they ruled there.
This region is home to some of the most extraordinary archaeological treasures in world history.
Pakistan is an incredible site for world history.
Um, there's evidence of Gandhara grave culture going back to 800 BCE.
Alexander the Great travelled through this region and ruled this region.
He visited Oda. Grammar. This is um studied by Oral Stein after Alexander the Great.
The Seleucid Empire, a great Hellenistic state, was founded in the wake of Alexander.
There's evidence of the Marian Empire here. There's rock edicts of the ancient Indian king Ashoka written in this script.
And there's also evidence of the layer of the Kushan Empire.
And so what I want to focus on here is the Shahi dynasty, the Hindu Shahi dynasty,
which came on the heels of the Turk Shahi dynasty that John Nemec spoke about.
Um, in terms of it being called Hindu. Um, there's a couple of reasons why they call it.
One is that the historian, uh, Al-Biruni was writing in Arabic, and it was a part of the court of, uh, Mahmud of Ghazni.
Um, describes it that way. He describes it as Shahi at All India.
Um, and he mentions that the first king of this dynasty was a Brahmin.
But Abdul Rahman, in his dissertation, proposes that these kings were actually originally of the odd or odd clans,
and this is an ancient tribe from the region in the broader region of Gandhara.
The hoodies and the hoodies were powerful kings during the Kushan period.
And this may also be the source of the very name Diana, and several villages that exist in Guntur that bear the name with the grammar.
And as I mentioned, Alexander. In 326 BC he visited a village in Swat called Udi Grammar.
The CIA dynasty had a winter capital ad fund,
which is on the Indus River south of Orianna and the summer capital and Kabul and, and, uh, Pakistan and sorry, Afghanistan.
And the first king colour usurped the crown from the last Turk Shahi king.
Um, he did that through power gleaned from the discovery of a treasure, according to an interesting myth.
Um, then there's not much else known about colour.
But the next king, Salman to Devore. There's a number of coins.
We have a couple here. And these new numismatics reveal that, um, his name was common throughout this entire dynasty.
This these coins were not only found from his period, but also later periods and were used in later periods.
Um, one feature of his reign is that he lost Kabul to an invasion of Yaqoob.
Um. He most likely appointed his successor, uh, could uh, could arise as a governor.
Um, given that we have coins in his name from this period, and Malia is the first king who's actually mentioned by Carl and the Raja to run.
Ghani, this great author of the River of Kings, describing the dynasties of Kashmir he's described.
Uh, so here we are, Malea. He's described as a great ruler whose enormous strength and power, um,
made other kings of the region take refuge in him, which is classic kind of rhetoric.
Uh, he held power in Gandhara and in Kabul in 900 C.E. he had an alliance with the Gorgias.
And, um, his town is described in Raja Terengganu in chapter five as being good.
The Banda that's kind of his main centre of his kingdom. Um, there's a story how Shankara Rahman, the Kashmiri and king of that time,
decided to remove him from his position, but died before he could accomplish it.
And then Prabhakara Deva, who is the minister of Gopala Burman in Kashmir,
plundered the riches of the of an amorous queen and the court and vanquished the Shah, he king and with the Banda.
So we have a war. According to Raja Terengganu, between the Kashmiri um.
Political powers and, um. And lovelier.
And this is really clearly a time where there's kind of competition between the empires.
Um, after that conquering of love, the, uh, uh, Twitter mana or Kamala was kind of established by the Kashmiri and, uh, conquest her as the king.
And this really marks a transformation in the relationship between the Shahi kings and the kings of Kashmir.
Um, Bhima Deva, uh, is described in certain sources.
He's the next king. There's not much on come a clue. Um, as Parama Botanica maharaj Ji wrote.
Uh, Raja. Raja pada mishra. Shri Bhima Deva Shah.
He. He was the son of, uh Kamala Burman or Kamala.
And the name? The title. Parameswaran describes him as having Shiv.
Affiliations. Um. The Raja Terengganu mentions that with the Banda was his capital.
His name is also mentioned in the Shahada inscription from Hund, which is with the Banda that region.
A slab inscription dated to 989 C.E. and, uh, he's an he's identified, um, as the um,
predecessor of Apollo Deva and also as the grandfather of a Kashmiri and Queen data.
And this is because his daughter married Simha Raja, who is a Lo Hara chief of southern Kashmir.
So it's really in Bhima Diva's reign that we have a kind of marriage or marriage alliance between these two kingdoms.
Um, and the daughter did, uh, became the queen of Kashmir, and she actually ruled,
um, somewhat ruthlessly, ruthlessly during the life of Abhinav Gupta.
And so from this marriage alliance onwards, the relationship between the Shaheed Kingdom and the Kashmir poverty continually improved.
Kashmir became a source of assistance and even a place to seek refuge for later Shanghai kings,
when they were faced with military onslaught of the Garden of Empire.
Um, so and then we have Jay a but we have a number of inscriptions.
Um, during his time he had a number of battles, um, with Mahmud of Ghazni and also his father before him.
Um Mahmud of Ghazni attacked India and 1000 CE and the Shah's were really the first kings,
the first dynasties who opposed his, uh, the spread of his military power.
Um, and basically the next kings, uh, saw the territory of the Shah dynasty reduced from the attacks of Mahmud of Ghazni,
and eventually many of these kings had to take refuge in Kashmir.
And there was also military alliances with Kashmiri kings at that time.
Okay, that's a really quick snapshot of the Shah dynasty.
I could have done an entire talk on them, but I want to transition to some of the inscriptions from this era.
This is the slab inscription from Hund. This is a description in Sharada script.
Another interesting thing about the two dynasties is that they share the same script.
And, uh, just a little bit about this inscription.
Um, it's an inscription of a grandson of a minister of the king, Jay Pala.
And it's a description where he's describing the, uh, establishment of an image of Shiva and the Shiva temple.
And it begins with this beautiful benediction to Shiva.
I bow to the third eye of Shiva, the lord of spirits, the Buddha Nata, which abides on his forehead.
The third eye. Even today, enemies fear that I would scorch Comma Deva and then first bowing my head to eternal Shiva.
Um, may I add the son of Pongal to generate Shiva's fame through my own powers in this realm?
Um, through the establishment of this image of Shiva, there's a reference to Bima Jaya palace predecessor.
There's a reference to Jaya Pala at the end. Um.
And this is in his home place of with the panda.
And we have a number of other descriptions from the panda. It's, um, modern hund in Pakistan.
You can see it here. You can see that it's pivoted, uh, kind of between Kashmir over here to the east and Kabul over here to the west.
So this was originally their, um, one of their main strongholds, which was taken over.
And then we have up here, um, this one.
Sorry. Let's see. Yeah, up here, the Swat Valley.
So this is the general region that was ruled by the Shah.
His. There was some tension along this border, um, with Kashmiri kings.
And then really, they got kind of got pushed east because of the attacks of Mohammad of Ghazni.
They also ruled down into Punjab region as well. Um, I want to just share briefly some of the other inscriptions.
These are all brought together by Noemi Verdon.
Um, she mentions one that honours Shiva under several epithets as Buddha nature.
These are all from the period of the Shah dynasty, but not the Shah, but Shattuck and uh, Pinnock in Umah not.
It refers to the town of Wood Banda as located by the Indus River, and having houses of learned men.
Uh. It celebrates and praises the water of the Indus.
And it's written in Sharda script in 1989 C.E. um, there's another one, um,
which is called the bar code inscription, and that's the one that mentions this, uh, town of, uh, but just honour.
Our biggest honour. Um, there's one by a queen named Maharani.
She. Commentary. Divi is dedicated to the construction of a temple.
Um, it describes the architect, um, and, um, one of the scribes of the inscription who's a Suri and which,
uh, probably a Brahmin, uh, devoted to Surya. Another inscription is called the Isra inscription.
It's possibly dedicated to the construction of the temple of Shiva,
and the last inscription is a Proto Sharda inscription dated between the seventh and ninth century,
and it also alludes to meritorious deeds of establishing a temple.
Um, and what's interesting in all of these inscriptions is the common reference to Shiva's, uh, to temples devoted to Shiva.
And we have this really beautiful ecumenical linga from the Shahi.
The state, which is currently in the Metropolitan Museum, um, from this time period.
So clearly these kings, not only in their title and in the inscription of evidence, were at the very least patrons of Shire.
But then, um, John Nemec mentioned Michael Meister's book temples of the Indus.
And there's this really extraordinary temple in Malad, which is in the region of the Shah, his that they constructed, um, from this time period.
And what's interesting about it is that it mimics the architectural plan and style of the temples of Kashmir.
It has, um. Uh, architectonic massing and the roof, which, uh, is found in Kashmir.
And it's unique in doing so in all of the temples along the Indus, uh, river that Michael Meister studies.
Um, only the Shiv Ganga temple also seems to have this pyramidal roof structure.
And these were built at a time. Michael. Master nodes of matrimonial, matrimonial and political links between the Odisha's and the kings of Kashmir.
And, um. Yeah.
So not only do we have marital political alliances, but we also have shared architectural practices related to religious establishment of temples.
And so I think that's also just an extraordinary piece of evidence of their relationship.
Okay, I did it.
I made it through all of my study of the material culture in the political and archaeological history and the epigraphy of that region.
Now I can move to my comfort zone, which are the texts. So I want to look at the textual corpus of Ludhiana, as I'm calling it.
Um, but this textual corpus is not only the early Christmas scriptures that I'll focus on in
the beginning that describe this cremation ground that's in the travelogue of Origin Palm,
but it also includes many Vajrayana Buddhist sources that identify themselves with this region.
And what's interesting is all of these texts are not only claiming to be from the same region,
so they had the same locality, but they're also from the same time period.
The time period I'm focusing on, which is the ninth to 10th centuries.
So all of these texts together across those traditions, I'm calling the textual Corpus of Oceania.
And one of the things I've noted by studying them, uh, initially are extraordinary parallels between them.
Um, we have a really interesting focus, uh, of narrative accounts of citizen yoga.
These, these texts all have share what we might call a trans ritual orientation to describe more in detail.
Um, these texts also are really important early sources that give unambiguous, um, teachings or doctrines of non-duality.
And there's a prevalence as well of female authors and not only female authors, but female gurus and female lineage holders across this corpus.
And there's also an interesting theme of a kind of critique of intellectual study.
A lot more could be said about parallels, but that these are the things I'm going to focus on.
Okay, so there's this early shark, the tradition called the chroma.
It's based on various forms of the goddess Kali.
And this is a scriptural corpus of the Crema as we have it.
And the text I'm going to focus on are these three the Derby, Patricia Tikka, the chrome set Baba and the unique Guevarra.
I'm dating them all to the ninth and 10th to 10th century. I'll give some evidence on that in a moment.
Um, the David Patricia tikka and the crumbs, said Baba, are often given the prefix kali kula.
But instead of that long name, I'm just going to call them by the short name.
We have this earlier sauce, which Olga Sahiba has done a lot of really important work on the gender at the Amala.
She also dates it between the ninth and 10th century. But there's parts of it that clearly have something like a proto form of the Crema tradition.
But the DV puncher shot the cut and the Croma said Baba are really seen by Alexa Sanderson as the principal scriptures of the chroma tradition.
The unique Abra is a little more random.
We also have a David Tamada Shaka which is extant, and a lost Davy Sadhu Shaka that I'm really going to focus on these three.
And one thing I'll just say at the outset this early is, um, the chroma set bhava in the Yoni Guevarra.
We have a basic organising principle for understanding what the chroma tradition is,
and it's described by three elements a katana and some Ramana and Pugin.
A refers to the worship of different series of colleagues.
There's early evidence of worshipping these forms of Kali externally in the mandala, but by the time we get to the princess principle scriptures,
they start to be worshipped as phases or sequences of the practitioner's own perception or cognition.
And so we have this kind of internalised mode of worship or puja.
A lot of the chroma sources are focussed upon that practice.
We also have katana, which are oral teachings, pith instructions.
We have an extraordinary element of the chroma tradition that preserves these pith instructions, which I'll be highlighting.
And then Ramana is a kind of direct transmission and non-verbal, uh,
kind of awakening that can be detonated by something as simple as a glance of the guru and is seen as kind of the most expedient form of transmission.
When it comes to chroma sources that relate to Ludhiana and cut vida,
and specifically this revelation that happened there between this yogini or form of Kali named Mangala and Gyanendra,
who is really the kind of first siddha who is honoured within the chroma tradition,
who's kind of outside of the mist of mythology, who we can kind of date historically and who we have a text by.
Um, there's a number of sources you could say that this, uh, particular lineage of the chroma is the most influential one.
This this is a quick list of texts that either, uh, are in this lineage that come from Mangala and Ganon, or at least refer to them.
Um, and it's not comprehensive. I just didn't have time to write more texts, but it's an initial list.
So we have a large body of literature related to this particular transmission.
And so, uh, you could say that this is an extended part of what I'm calling the Ludhiana corpus or the Textual Corpus of Indiana.
But when it comes to the chroma in terms of the ninth and 10th century, I'm really focusing on these scriptures.
And then on the Buddhist side, we have in the same period a number of texts.
Importantly, the seven city texts,
which are all identified as this early Maha mudra teaching that comes from Indiana and is from the same time period and then other sources.
And here's a list from Orrick Cragg of a number of sources that are actually attributed to women authors from Diana.
Um, but many, many more sources could be added to this list.
Again, this is just a small sample. How do we know these texts came from Ludhiana?
Uh, the side just Silly Putty, which is only preserved in Tibetan of luxury in Korea, gives really interesting, uh, hagiography of a lineage.
Indiana and short stories of the members of that lineage, including an autobiographical description of her own sadhana, which is really extraordinary.
But not only that, we have the name of Diana in some of the texts, um, and the colour phones of the texts also mention that this text veneer guitar.
Or you'd have, uh, a rose in with Diana.
Another fascinating thing which allows this corpus to be studied by somebody like me is that many of these texts are preserved in Sanskrit sources,
especially in Nepal. Okay. So I want to look at these two Principal Kromer scriptures.
As I mentioned, they they locate themselves in kind of via the cremation ground in Odeon.
And the first is the calico, the debut punch of Shut The.
It begins with this benediction, which is also found in two other early Christmas scriptures.
So we have a kind of textual parallel there, and it's a benediction to Kali.
And then immediately it describes a setting of the revelation of the Scripture.
And I'm just going to read this. The cremation ground cut a vertical of the auspicious northern seat.
Treatment under a Peter is venerated by Shiva, the god of gods, the supreme self.
That cremation ground is blazing with a great funeral pyre frequented by great yogis,
thronged with powerful ghosts and attended by the great Mother goddesses.
It is full of practitioners whose yoga is profound, venerated by great cities filled with excellent ascetic huts and resounding with intense howling,
bestowing the best cities crowded with powerful buyer of us, fierce because it is utterly terrifying and is filled with a powerful radiance.
Buyer of who is present there is terrific conforming to the gross and subtle realms.
She is accompanied by the trees and encircled by cedars.
So here we have an extraordinary description of a cremation ground in Indiana,
which potentially corresponds to the one from our 13th century itinerary, the Tibetan, um, travelogue.
The series will discuss in a moment, but, uh, the Daily Punch article continues, and a description of Carly Hooper Papaya V, who is present there.
She is immersed in profound bliss, and she destroys cruel great terror that supreme Shiva,
utterly quiescent, is expanding with intense radiance connected to a set of empire of us.
She is associated with eight sets of eight yoga knees, 64 yoga knees by river,
the deity who is a terraform terrifying form of Shiva, clasp the two feet of the goddess.
Bowing his head down to the goddess, he said these words, which were prefaced by a studious song of praise.
So in this frame story of this scripture, there's a really interesting feature that Alexis Anderson describes,
which is that by Ravi or Kali is actually the teacher of the Scripture, and by Ravi is the questioner.
For those of you familiar with Shiv in shock to Tantra, this is a reversal of the normal role,
and I think it's the earliest scripture we have where the goddess is the teacher and buyer of a Shiva is the one who's ignorant.
And so the frame story begins in kind of via the buyer of is there and he clasps her feet and he gifts.
He sings this really beautiful study, which I've translated here, which I won't read for time.
And then, uh, he goes on to ask her for the teaching, and then she reveals it, which is basically the content of that scripture.
The other text, the other principal chroma scripture that identifies itself with Kavita is a promise at bhava.
And I want to read this in that auspicious part of the northern region,
there is a great pizza called Oceana, the best scene of the goddess attended by Citizen Hopkins.
I want to highlight something here. This Peeta of Oceana is described as being in the ultra Dick burger.
This, uh, Alexis Anderson mentions that this is a really important reference to a regional location.
It's in the, uh, ultra dick Pagar, which literally means the northern region.
Um, this is further evidence that we're talking about most likely Swat Valley and
not other places where there are where Udine has been visualised or mapped,
or other places where there are cut of, uh, cremation grounds, like in the Deccan.
Um, so in that pre-eminent and lovely pizza, there is the kind of viticultural ground and, uh,
with great funeral pyres and surrounded by a powerful mother goddesses extraordinary depths,
your actions can arise, her actions as vital as throngs of ghost ghouls and brummer auctions of spirits and cameras.
They're all. They're terrifying and extremely powerful.
There is darkened irony, laconic cockney Saucony surrounded by Hockneys and many Putin's, uh, you know, demons.
Um, this particular list is also found in the Yoni Guevarra and the Dave.
Uh, David, we are the shortcut. Um, that cremation is residence in every part to a buyer of us.
It's thronged with tantric heroes. Um, great depths and endowed with great sky.
Hearing yoga. Knees with root, resounding with the house of jackals was another powerful roars.
It is dancing with hordes of countless actions on all sides.
I love these descriptions and it's so amazing. Um, some people there are attracted to the chakra observance.
Others are fully devoted to meditation. Some are drawn to the libations of tantric heroes and others to an intense, ecstatic gatherings.
Hotmail. Alpaca. And that utterly terrifying circle filled with great mothers.
The Supreme Goddess abides. Clearly established at the limit of the state of self-reflective awareness.
Um, she's enthroned upon power of, uh. She has the nature of the void, the power.
She is infinite. And the eight form Shiva. She is ornamented by 50 writers and well attended by 64 yogis.
Brahma, Vishnu, Rudresh, Rosedale, Shiva and buyer of a um are all corpses that form her throne.
Although a buyer of a ends up not completely becoming a corpse, but remains comatose.
This. You know, the way in which these gods are turned into practice or corpses is a symbolic understanding that
this tradition transcends all of the earlier traditions and including the idea of a tendrils.
Um, similarly to the debut punch of shut, the compiler of A clasps the two feet of the goddess.
And then before you ask your question, um, gives us duty.
So we have a parallel structure across across these two scriptures.
In terms of the frame story, that's duty as much longer in the Croma, said Baba.
It's actually really interesting and has a lot of fascinating epithets for Kali.
Um, and then the question of bar over here is really interesting.
He asks, why did these 64 powerful yoga knees born of tantric heroes all come to this terrifying seat of the goddess,
intent on your veneration and eager to celebrate the Maha Yaga, the great sacrifice?
Um. And then he asks about the highest reality.
And then the last thing he says here is teach me that supreme secret.
Bring to light the teaching, abiding in the heart of the Yogi knees.
Who are these 64 yoga names?
Well, in in the Cromer tradition, they're described as Peter's phrase, um, female adepts or divinities of the Peta of Indiana Peta.
And in the chroma said bhava.
The revelation is understood not to just be with by Ravi, who is Kali,
but actually with these female adepts, this group of 64, it's residing in their hearts.
And this is really important that these kind of female, uh, retinue of the goddess are the ones who have the revelation.
Okay. So yeah, that was that last line. Uh, in terms of the yogini Diana, um, the premise above, uh,
is unique in that it actually gives this categorisation of the 64 Yogi knees or Peters phrase,
and it describes them as sitars, a unique feminine form of Siddha,
and presents them there and currently at a cremation ground, once again as a source of revelation.
And in chapter two it describes 16. Janice.
It does 24 mantras, it does 12 mill opposite does, and eight Shakti does.
And for some of us it does. These come to be corresponded to different mothers and many other things in the later Croma tradition.
Um, the Croma said, Baba doesn't give us the name of the 64 Yogi knees, but interestingly, we do have texts that give the names.
There's the Caligula Chrome Arjuna, which is the subject of a.
Awesome dissertation that recently came out of Oxford by punks, punks three Vonk City.
And it's by, um, a Buddha.
And it's a Nepali work and the Kali cool a tradition.
And it is unique in that it gives a lot of the ritual details of the Kali cool,
the tradition and of the chroma tradition, and it gives names for all 64 yoga names.
Another source that does is a text called the Nitya Puja, which is actually from Kerala, and this text is a study of an article by much occurrence.
And she is currently at Stanford working with Alain Fischer, but also did a PhD in Calicut in, um, Kerala.
And it's really interesting in that it's has Sanskrit and, uh, and Malayalam,
and it represents a tradition of the chroma that flourishes to this day in Kerala.
And it also actually gives the names of these 64 yoga names.
The Commons above itself says one should obtain the names which are the guru vector Agartha, which are basically the preserve of the oral tradition.
So basically, I'm not going to tell you the names, you have to get them from your guru.
Finally, I just want to mention about these yoga knees that Haresh Wallace has kind of collated all of these different lists of these 64 yoga knees.
And one of the things he's shown is that even though the number 64 is quite stereotypical when it comes to yoga knees,
these names do not correspond to other lists of 64 yoga knees that are associated with a
lot of the yogini temples that start flourishing in the 11th centuries and afterwards.
And so. We potentially have a list of non-typical names of female adepts from Colavita.
Cremation ground. I say that with a pinch of salt, but it's an interesting thing to consider.
The David Punch article does not describe the 64 yojanas,
but it gives a list of cities that are central to the lineage and worshipped within the mandala, and this is in chapter five of the debut punch.
It corresponds to chapter 29 of the Tantra Loca. We get this really important list which is recapitulated in many countless sources afterwards.
Uh, for Uganda for different masters of the for ages.
Uh, Kendra, Nathan the Jamba Quarterman, Nathan Mangalam bar nation of the Incomer.
Mangalore and mean Ananda and Concannon bar mean Ananda is mentioned Ananda famously.
Chandra. Nathan. Um. They have 12 sons, six are celibate and six are non celibate.
And they're all kind of included within the mandala of this early tradition.
After that, the debut punch of shelter. God gives another list of cities and their consorts.
This list is quite important for us. This Korean and Indian, a deep, deep Indian.
And then Radha shut down. And then Mohan and Shivan under.
And somehow. Tantra local refers to this obliquely with this verse,
that there are other gurus and their wives that are taught in the Srimad Kaleka Kola, our Srimad Kali cooler,
referring to the David Bunch of shuttlecock and Shivan under,
is the name that's most important for us because it's an alias of Giana Nidra and Ghana, as I mentioned, flourished from 850 to 900.
We have one text by him the Kaleka Astra and.
Um. He has an alias, which is Siobhan. Under, uh, Sanderson gives a number of examples of where he's described the Siobhan under.
And so we have a name of a historical identifiable group within a scriptural list of CID.
Those. Miscreant under is also important in the early Croma, and also in later texts affiliated with the chroma.
Just to go back here, his two generations before Shivan under his less clearly identifiable as a historical author.
But we had this early cougar work, a very important text.
The tensioning methods are so much a it actually gives a revelation narrative
of how necessary Ananda taught the Kali cook from a teaching to Vidya Ananda.
And there's two text embedded in the seventh chapter of the Cheney, um, that are kind of go with this revelation narrative.
And we have the Calico Chroma. She look at one that she cut in the calico chrome up.
And this is a really important, uh, lineage.
And one thing that's important about it is that it's not located in the DNA.
It's identified instead with the one of the famous pitas, Sri Shalom.
Uh, which is in Andhra Pradesh. And so we have another kind of lineage and seat of the goddess,
where an important early lineage of the chroma emanates in terms of other sources related to Michigan.
And there's a lot of achievements in sutra texts, these oral teaching texts related to katana that mention him, importantly,
that you mustn't get the percussion where there's a fascinating narrative of his, uh,
reception of the teachings from a sit in outer and then his kind of elucidation of those teachings.
Um, there's the colour sutras in both these texts in Korean, and it's interesting.
They identified it with their bosses, the great irascible sage.
And then the Bottle Ananda Sutra doesn't mention him, but mentions about to another who may be a reference to, um, metadata.
Who's found in the colour superdense.
But if we look at Shivan under in Anitra, we have this extraordinary lineage that flourishes in Kashmir for many, many centuries.
There's unanimity, uh, unanimity.
Um, there's a unanimous conclusion across all of the texts in this lineage that Gyanendra received,
the kaleka chroma or the chroma revelation from Mangala in Cairo, bitter cremation ground in Indiana and the northern pita.
And. Interestingly, uh, again, Anitra and his colleague Castro ends it with these two verses.
And the very way I witness or I perceive, the transcendent nature of the goddess and the great cremation ground.
May this entire universe be seen in that way through your grace or mother.
Thus, the praise of the nature of the goddess Kaleka has been set forth by me, Shiva,
or by me who is, and one with Shiva under the influence of the state of perfect immersion in it.
May it be a true blessing for all who are in fact me, O goddess named Mangala.
So here we have this important reference to Maha Sharma shining.
So what I want to do now, really briefly, is try to date the baby genetica hypothetically.
And that is. I'm not on really firm ground here, but there's a lot of extraordinary evidence just worth kind of synthesising.
Um, Yan Anitra has a firm date. Um, and the colleague has throw that he wrote synonyms, chose one place where it clearly echoes the colleague.
Uh, the debut punch of one of the principal crime scriptures.
Um, in addition to that, the colleague has stood the draws for a couple of things on the David Punches protocol and on the chroma, said Bava.
On the chroma, said Bava.
He draws on this idea of the Vrinda Chakra, which are the 64 yoga knees plus one who is their leader, who is Kali or Mangala?
And from the debut punch of Show Taka, it draws on the worship of 13 colleagues.
The Christmas above is different that it worships 17 colleagues in that same figures.
So there's textual evidence that these two texts are earlier then.
Yeah. And Anita, which would make them ninth century. Um, we know that at least 10th century because as I mentioned, I've never go to sites.
Um, the text, one of the really interesting citations is in chapter 35 of the Tantra halacha.
So we know it's at least 10th century. Um.
But then we have the colophon to both the principal scriptures which claim to be revealed by a certain Sri Natha.
So these texts are said to be revealed of authority by Sri Nanda, who is Srinath.
Sanderson proposes that it might actually be given Anitra.
And this is because in the tantra look of Yuvika, I've been able.
Gupta's commentator describes him as an avatar ka sita.
And we do have one scripture, the unique cover that said that places itself inside of you to smash Asana and Oceana,
and says that it's been brought to light on Earth.
Boutella some Prakash Itum by Jaan Anitra.
So if he is an avatar of this scripture, at least one part of it, then maybe he is the Sri Natha who revealed or redacted these other scriptures.
There's some additional evidence that might make this compelling.
One is that, um, the unique cover up has the same list of sitters as the David Bunch of Shanika, and it has the same mangala as I mentioned.
And the end of the text parallels the end of the debut punch of shut.
There is a series of verses. It's probably like seven verses that are parallel.
I haven't done it, uh, like an an a large analysis of their relationship, but that's, um, some evidence that Sri not may in fact be given.
Anitra. So we can confidently say these two principal scriptures were before 850 to 900 or sometime at that time,
um Madhav let me Chunni did a Nepali edition,
uh, sorry, a critical edition and a Nepali translation recently of the debut punch of Satoko, which is an incredible contribution.
And he surmises that since.
Shivan Nanda is mentioned as one of the sisters and the debut punch of Shotokan.
It's most likely that the doctor underneath there would not mention himself, and so he thinks that it must be a little later than Janani.
But anyways, it's a pretty small time range.
Uh, the only cover is composite. As Sanderson notes, there's another lineage and another teaching.
That's a chroma. It comes from Vera SIM housewarming. Another name from Mangalore to Rueben and, uh, a yogini, and then to a sister named Ogun.
And. Okay, very briefly, to conclude, I just want to look at a few comparative passages with these Vajrayana texts from this region.
One is that. Across these texts, we have what we might call the trans racial orientation.
It doesn't mean that there aren't references to rituals, ascetic observances, and, um, worshipping with mandalas.
There are those elements.
But for the most part, there's this common theme, you could say a late motif across these texts of going beyond outer ritual.
We see this in the city of Lakshmi in Cairo, with parallels on the Greek city of Padma Vajra, um,
where we have basically this idea, then this sadhana, the supreme sadhana is Veena without any reference to, uh, ritual location,
to ritual times, to lunar phases or the lunar calendar, to different, um, use of mandalas, uh, to fasting, to actual utara,
to the kind of upward recitation of mantras, even to forms of meditation, uh, and to numerous different restrictions.
Um, anyways, so we have a number of things that this teaching has seemed to be beyond,
um, and then this really interesting thing with the actions of body,
speech or mind, one should not build charges or other edifices made of stone or clay, take delight in a book, or create mandalas.
Even in a dream we see this, um, more of this theme.
I didn't have time to translate these, but here's another set of passages for you all to take note of and check out, the Croma said.
Baba echoes this extraordinarily when the goddess gives the teaching, uh, actually, when buyer of a ask for it,
he says, teach me that secret, supreme secret, incomprehensible by reason, guileless.
Um, the teaching that is free of considerations of lunar calendar.
The propitious hour, free of considerations of place, time beyond the conventions of ritual sites, alignments of constellations,
planets devoid of murals and mandalas,
beyond the use of coloured powders to make mandalas free of the need to invoke deities into the mandalas without vows.
Post initiatory observances A lot of this language is really parallel.
We have a lot of the same terms dasha, kala nakshatra, Dhana mudra, mandala, etc.
There's another fascinating thing that I don't have time to explore now,
but both of these texts have extraordinary narratives of sitters and yoga knees as mediators of revelation.
That's something I explore my dissertation. Um, another feature is the doctrine of non-duality.
The Davey punches that the shadow kind of comes at Baba,
are some of the earliest shock to scriptural sources to be explicitly non-dual in their outlook.
They teach this kind of dynamism of conscious non-dual consciousness as their basic cosmology,
and a number of sources from both texts are synthesised.
In Udit Talks article Non Dualism An Early Shock to Touches.
And she describes a kind of progression of the emergence of the doctrine of non-duality with an early shock to traditions.
Um, we see this across the on the sources associated with Vedanta as well.
Um. I'm not going to reference them now.
I just want to show one more thing, which is really fun. This is really interesting critique of intellectual study.
I don't think I've been of a group that would dig it, or maybe some more scholastic Vajrayana scholars.
Um, the Croma said, Baba teaches, you know, teach me the secret that is up to takum incomprehensible by reason.
The Swapo, the city by Abhinav Gupta's guru. Says.
What can the perplexities of roaming through technical knowledge systems accomplish for one who abides in the self continuously in all states?
This repeated wonder, she says, the goddesses of the cremation ground called cut of Utica, are supreme.
They dispelled the networks of concepts belonging to philosophical doctrines.
We see the same thing in the city of Indra, but the one who has gained wisdom should not give a teaching from a book.
And the adversity and the good Cassidy do not delight in a book.
Not only this, I've been of a group did not agree with that, I think. I don't agree with that, but, uh, there you have it.
Um, I'm going to skip this and go straight to my conclusion, but I just briefly tell you what it is.
There's evidence of, uh, kind of two directions of influence between the Corpuses,
the Buddhist, and the chapter on the Buddhist side in the Google City,
there's this extraordinary passage where, um, an adept and advanced practitioner does an unmatched right, the kind of madman observance.
And what they do is they enter a share of a community, a low cash tribe, a community.
They dress up like a Shabbat ascetic. They with all of the different accoutrements for the tiger skin, with various ornaments or bone ornaments,
with the drum around the drum associated with Shiva, adorned with fragments of bone.
And they. Teach that community uh, tantric teachings from to share the text, the calacara and the dishwasher.
So a clear reference that whoever's doing this observance, you know, in Indiana, is clearly versed in private tantra.
But not only that, do they do that they actually initiate the community, uh, in the mandalas of those systems in order to gain their trust.
And then they take one of their daughters as a consort.
It's just an extraordinary piece of evidence that clearly there's shared knowledge between these esoteric traditions.
And then on the chroma side, there's a lot of language in the city texts, which is pretty clearly the source for language in the common texts.
Um, the chroma sources, both the scriptural and all later ones, continually talk about going beyond set and assert existence and non-existence.
And we find this teaching not only in the city texts of the Buddhist corpus, but also in many other earlier Buddhist sources.
Sanderson also mentions the chroma is unique,
and that it frequently uses the term near swappable or free of inherent nature that is completely unique within Shiva and to literature.
Um, there's other terminological things that Goddess Kali is often described as maha union or union, the union beyond the Shona.
So you clearly have the influence, or maybe the kind of influx of certain Buddhist concepts that are influencing the chroma.
Okay. Thank you for your patience. Here are my conclusions.
Um, first of all, there is an early reference to Diana before these chroma scriptures.
It's found in the Tantra set bhava. I discovered it recently, and I thought it was a great discovery,
only to realise that it's there in Martin Scorsese's introduction to the Montana power of a Tantra, in an obscure footnote.
So thank you, Mark G. Um. Oriana plays a vital role in the Object Hunters and in the post scriptural literature of Sri Vidya.
This is something I'm just noting, but I don't have time to go into it because I focussed on the chroma.
However, of all of the early shot, the traditions.
It's the principal scriptures of the crema which identify themselves as being revealed in kind, a vertical cremation ground.
These are the best candidates for a shave, a shock to tradition with historical connection to the Swat Valley.
This is further bolstered by a deep consensus across many chroma sources that
John Anitra in the ninth century received the chroma there from Mangalore,
as if you remember going all the way back to the beginning, we have Mangalore or Mangalore Bar or Mangala Pura.
The image of the goddess Mangalore there that scene in the 13th century by origin Pan um.
Further proof is found in the description of gun Anitra as the revealer of the unique cover and cut of view to Indiana.
The relationship between Swat Valley and Kashmir was clearly political and also religious.
In the ninth and 10th centuries, there were marital and military alliances, a shared script and shaheed temples with Kashmir and influence.
During this time period. The inscription L record also shows evidence of the Shah's patronising shave and temples.
There's a significant, finally, a significant body of textual evidence awaiting further comparative study from the ninth 10th century,
which I've dubbed the Textual Corpus of Oceana.
A final note why do we not find a lot of material evidence for these actual traditions, its esoteric traditions that flourish there?
I think the verse from the advisor city of Lakshmi Kara is really instructive here.
It says, you know, do not build ideas, do not build images made of clay or stone.
These are traditions. And you see this also in the chroma that are not focussed on the worship in temples.
They're not focussed on the worship of images.
In fact, the body itself becomes the mandala, the source and the kind of a locus of worshipping all the deities.
So thank you so much.