Turkey | Istanbul | Sultanahmed District

While still in the Sultanahmed district of Istanbul I wandered into the tomb of Sultan Ahmed, whom the area is named after (I am referring here of course to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617 and not Guantanamo Detainee 842). I had already visited the Blue Mosque, which he had built, but that day I had bypassed his tomb, just to the side of the mosque, because it was engorged with people who had just disembarked from three big tourist buses. The reign of Sultan Ahmed is often referred to as the high watermark of the Ottomans; the inevitable decline and fall of the empire is said to begin with him.

Tomb of Sultan Ahmed

Casket of Sultan Ahmed

Relatives of Sultan Ahmed awaiting Resurrection Day

Just across the street from Sultan Ahmed’s Tomb is the so-called Column of the Serpents. Originally built by the Greek City-States to commemorate their victory over the Persians at the 479 BC Battle of Plataea, the column was moved to Constantinople by Byzantine Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century AD. The original column showed three snakes entwined together. The heads of the snakes disappeared some three hundred years ago and now only the main column survives.

The Column of the Serpents without its heads

The Column of the Serpents figures prominently in the plot of the novel The Snake Stone, by Jason Goodwin.

Goodwin is the author of three novels starring Yashim Togalu, a eunuch detective/private eye based in early 19th-century Istanbul. In The Snake Stone, one of the heads of the Serpent Column ends up in the hands of his sidekick and drinking buddy Stanislaw Palewski, who is the Polish ambassador to the Ottomans, even though Poland not longer exists as a country at the time (it’s a long story). Besides offering very atmospheric portrayals of Istanbul life both high and low the books also shed some light on the not-uninteresting sex-life of eunuchs. Yashim Togalu may lack balls, but he still has a tongue, which comes in quite handy when hot-blooded Russian hussies are involved.

Indeed, there is a whole genre of detective fiction based in Istanbul. See for example the books of Barbara Nadel and Jenny B. White.

Before resuming my search for the Portal to Shambhala, which I expected to be exhausting, I thought I better have lunch, so I wandered down the street to Sultanahmed Koftesi (cool web site), a local landmark immensely popular with both locals and visitors alike (check out their Menu). Right next door to this restaurant is the famous Pudding Shop, which as I mentioned in an earlier post was the western terminus of the Hippie Hegira back in the 1960s and 70s. See Photos from That Halcyon Era.

Turkey | Byzantium | Shambhala

For years I have heard rumors in Mongolia that Istanbul, or Turkey in general, was somehow connected with Shambhala. It’s difficult to say exactly when and how this variant of the Shambhala Mythologem arose. The Third Panchen Lama of Lama (1738-1780), who wrote what is perhaps the most famous guidebook to Shambhala, reportedly stated that the final battle between Buddhism and the infidel unbelievers will take place in Rum, the old name for ancient Byzantium and modern Turkey; he does not seem to equate “Rum” with Shambhala itself. In any case his guidebook was widely distributed in Mongolia and readers may have assumed from his references to Rum—Byzantium—that it was somehow connected with Shambhala. The Mongolian lama and teacher Ishbajor (1704–1788), wrote in a work entitled Zaxidal Xariltsaa that the realm of Shambhala was to the west of “Küngküri,” by which he meant Anatolian Turkey. Istanbul of course lies to the west of Anatolian Turkey. Then the nineteenth-century chronicle Erdeni-yin Erike stated that the fourth son of Chagatai, himself one of Chingis’s sons, “was made King of Rum, and so dwelt in the great city of Shambhala.” This is obviously an historical inaccuracy; no son of Chagatai’s ever ruled as the King of Rum, i.e, Byzantium. This statement does show, however, the persistent identification of Turkey and more particularly Istanbul with Shambhala.

Also, the Mongolian historian Damdinsüren (1908-1986) intimated “that Küngker may have, at one time, been thought of as both Shambhala and Istanbul, thus identifying Shambhala and the Turkish city.” Küngker is a common term for Turkey and/or Istanbul: it frequently pops up on old texts and older lamas in Mongolia use it in conversation to this day. In the Bolor Toli, or Crystal Mirror, a encyclopedic account of Buddhism by the ethnically Mongolian but Tibetan-named lama Nyima Chokyi Thuken (1737–1802), we read that “Going ten day’s journey in the direction of the setting sun from the River Volga, there is the city of the King of Küngker.” But the text does not seem to imply that Küngker is synonymous with Shambhala. It does state that to the west of Küngker “is a great lake called Tinggis [the Mediterranean],” and to the south of Küngker “is a blue stone known as Meka (Mecca), the shrine of the Tirteki [Moslems].” This Mecca is identified as the homeland of the infidel enemies of Shambhala. West of Mecca the Mongolian chroniclers were entering terra incognita, the realms of people with horses heads, antlers, and sexual organs on the soles of their feet.

Despite all these references to Istanbul and Turkey the connection of these places with Shambhala remains nebulous at best. Yet where there is smoke there may indeed be fire. I decided I better continue my researches on the ground. Between the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, both of which I had already visited, is the so-called Miliarium Aureum (Golden Milestone), erected by Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD. This stele served as the geographic center of Byzantium, the point from which the distances to all other cities and towns in the far-flung Byzantine Empire were measured. Basically it served the function of those posts we see at popular tourist locations with signs pointing to distance cities, as in “London: 5427 miles.”

It has occurred to me that we pay far too little attention to the Byzantines. Go ahead, admit it—you probably don't think of Byzantium more than two or three times a day. The word itself has become synonymous with mystifyingly intricate bureaucracies and devious, underhanded intrigue, but beyond that what do we really know about the Byzantines? Yet the Byzantium Empire lasted over 1000 years, much longer than the 400 or 500 year-duration of the Roman Empire that Edward Gibbon had such Wet Dreams about.

Recently there has been a spate of books about Byzantium and its capital Constantinople. Why, you ask? Since most of these books are by Americans I can only surmise that consciously or unconsciously Americans are questioning their own Empire-building endeavors and looking for pointers from the past. Debate rages about when America became an empire rather than a republic, but for the sake of argument let’s say that the late 1940s marks the turning point. America had emerged from World War II dominate on the world stage while at the same time the English Empire disintegrated with the loss of India and other Asian possessions. So maybe America has been an empire for sixty years at best. Compare this with the 1000-year span of the Byzantine Empire. Does anyone seriously think America will still be an empire 1000 years hence? Already we are witnessing the classic symptoms of decline: foreign wars sucking off vast amounts of money, a rapidly devaluing currency, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of tiny elite whose actual contribution to the common weal is by no means clear. And as the future becomes more and more uncertain we see the proliferation of fundamentalist religions and the rise of Wild-Eyed Cults which attract those who formerly would have been the bedrock of society. But I digress . . .

It may or may not be significant that just a hundred yards or so from the Golden Milestone is a restaurant which back in the 1960s and 70s served as the western terminus of the Hippie Hegira, also known in some circles as the Hash Highway, through Central Asia, Afghanistan and on to Kathmandu, where as Janis Joplin noted, the road ended for some, or still farther on to Goa and other notorious hangouts in India. Gunj, my host here in Istanbul, apparently made this trip herself. As usual, she is being very coy, but she has hinted that she herself may have located a Portal in Kashmir.

But what about Istanbul? What is Istanbul’s connection with Shambhala? Was there a Portal here in the past and if so does it still exists? It is important to remember that when Mongolians refer to a place in the four dimensional world as Shambhala they are generally referring to a location where a portal to Shambhala can be found, not Shambhala itself. At these places a warp in the time-space continuum may provide access to the Kingdom of Shambhala. Needless to say, opinions vary on this matter, but some knowledgeable Mongolians maintain that Shambhala exists in a seven-dimensional universe which intersects with the four-dimensional world that we all know and love only at very special places known as Portals. One such place is Khamariin Khiid in Mongolia. There are a few others. The location of this portals is not fixed, but can open or close due to various factors. Thus there may have been a Portal in Istanbul previously but now it could be closed. One factor in the location of a Portal may well be the number of people at a given location who are actually attempting enter it. Through the focusing of their energies they may indeed be able create a Portal. Istanbul has been the focus of vast amounts of energy for two millennia; whether it is the kind of energy which results in the creation of a Portal is still uncertain.

Just a stone’s throw from the Million Stone is the entrance to the underground Basilica Cistern. Could this opening into the physical earth also mark the location of a multidimensional Portal? In any case, I remember the Cistern well from its use as a location in the 1963 James Bond flick From Russia with Love and was anxious to see it.

This immense man-made underground cistern, 410 feet long by 210 feet wide, was built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine the Great in the Fourth Century AD and later enlarged by Emperor Justinian in the 450s. It provided water for the Great Palace of Constantinople—during Byzantine times located near the site of the current Blue Mosque—and to the nearby Topkapi Palace during the Ottoman Era. Its ceiling is held up by 336 thirty-foot high marble pillars in twelve rows of twenty-eight columns each. Water was piped into the cistern via an aqueduct built during the reign of Emperor Justinian from the Belgrade Forest some twelve miles away. When full the cistern could hold up to 27 million gallons of water.

I received no vibration indicating that the Cistern was a Portal to Shambhala. It did occur to me, however, that there may be some out there who view the Cistern as an entrance to Agharta, the underground Kingdom described by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Ferdinand Ossendowski. But despite the best attempts of Nicholas Roerich and the host of New Age Nut Bars who followed in his wake to conflate Agharta and Shambhala there is no real connection between the two. So I retired from the Cistern and had tea at the nearby Kervan Guesthouse, where I had quite an interesting, to say nothing of animated, discussion about carpets with its owner, the estimable Turgut Baturay. But the subjects of Turkish Tea and Carpets deserve posts of their own . . .

Turkey | Istanbul | Blue Mosque

The historic core of old Istanbul, centered around the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, is known as Sultanahmed, after Sultan Ahmed I (1590–1617). As you no doubt recall from your readings in Ottoman history it was Sultan Ahmed who ordered the construction of the the Blue Mosque, which was built between 1609 and 1616. The deeply religious Sultan Ahmed attempted to make attendance at Friday Mosque services mandatory and outlawed the consumption of alcohol, but he was also an accomplished poet who wrote under the pen name Bakhti. He was famous for his skills in horseback riding and fencing. Despite his early promise he encountered setbacks on the battlefield, the ultimate proving grounds for Ottoman rulers, and had to make concession to Austria and Persia, losing in the process control of Georgia and Armenia. The Blue Mosque itself was controversial because the funds for its construction came not from plunder of foreign lands, as was the tradition up until then among the Ottomans, but from the State Coffers. The Blue Mosque is also unusual in that it has six minarets. When it was pointed out to Sultan Ahmed that the only other mosque with six minarets was in Mecca he immediately donated money to the Mecca mosque so that it could built a seventh, thus avoiding the impression that he was trying to equal or surpass Mecca in grandeur.

The Blue Mosque from in front of the Hagia Sofia

The Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque and attendant bazaar. The rents from the bazaar went to the upkeep of the mosque.

Entrance to the Blue Mosque

Courtyard of the Blue Mosque

Front on the Blue Mosque

Interior of Blue Mosque

Interior of Blue Mosque

Ceiling of Blue Mosque

Turkey | Istanbul | Silk Road

Over the years I have wandered to many of the more famous stops on the eastern stretch of the old Silk Road, including its eastern terminus Xian, in Shaanxi Province, China. Continuing westward on the Silk Road I drifted through Lanzhou on the Yellow River, Jiayuguan, the western limit of China during the Ming Dynasty and the end of the Great Wall, and made an obligatory stop at the famous 1000 Buddha Caves at Dunhuang. On the Northern Silk Road, south of the Tian Shan but north of the Taklamakan Desert, I visited the now-tiny oasis town of Toyuk, the famous grape-growing town of Turpan, the nearby Buddhist Caves of Bezeklik and the now-ruined cities of Jiaohe and Gaochang, also known as Khocho), both of which were destroyed during the internecine wars at the beginning of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and the old Uighur capital of Beshbaliq, on the north side of the Tian Shan. On the Southern Silk Road, south of the Taklamakan Desert, I swung by Khotan, the ancient Buddhist stronghold, nominal location of the historical Shambhala, and center of the Silk, Carpet, and Jade trades, and also Kashgar, in eastern Xinjiang, at the confluence of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads. I also spent a night at the Tash Rabat Caravanserai in Kyrgyzstan, on the old Silk Road from Kashgar to the Fergana Valley, and much later checked into a Russian caravanserai in the ancient trading port of Astrakhan, a Silk Road terminus on the Volga River at the northern end of the Caspian Sea.

Having visited much of the eastern Silk Road, I naturally wanted to visit Istanbul, arguably the most illustrious of the Silk Road’s western termini. Over the years I had received several invitations to visit Istanbul, the latest from our very own Girl from the Golden Horn, the internationally renowned adventuress, temptress, and provocateur-auteur Gunj, with whom I once did a horse trip to Khargiin Khar Nuur in Mongolia. I had received several dispatches from Gunj over the summer in which Bukhara, Samarkhand, Cholpan Ata, Osh, and several other Central Asia cities and towns were mentioned as recent ports of call. Then came one email that mentioned she was going on some ill-defined mission into the Pamir Mountains. I accused her of searching for the notorious Sarmoung Monastery, which she adamantly denied. She did allow that George Gurdieff’s hangouts in Istanbul still existed, however.

In addition to the city’s status as a Silk Road terminous, I was also intrigued by the suggestion I have heard from several lamas in Ulaan Baatar, including Lama Gombo, that a portal to Shambhala can be found in Istanbul. These current-day assertions may be echos of certain enigmatic passages in The Crystal Mirror, a nineteenth century text by the ethnically Mongolian but Tibetan-named lama Nyima Chokyi Thuken. As you know, Khamariin Khiid in Mongolia is also reputed to be a Portal to Shambhala. (A recently surfaced rumor that yet another Portal to Shambhala can be found in the basement of the Rubin Museum in New York City should be discounted due to the dubious source of the information.)

Then came word that Gunj would be back in Istanbul for the last two weeks of October before returning to her pied á terre in Manhattan, not far from the Strand Book Store. If I wanted to visited Istanbul, I should do so while she was there.

So I booked a flight Ulaan Baatar–Beijing–Hong Kong–Dubai–Istanbul and return. Normally I would have stopped in Beijing and stocked up on Puerh Tea from my favorite tea dealer, the estimable Ms. Na, but now the peckerwoods in the Chinese Embassy here in UB have made it so difficult to get Chinese visas that I no longer bother; I just winged straight on through to Hong Kong. Since I had to transfer to Dragon Air for the flight down to Hong Kong I did get to see for the first time Beijing’s spectacular Terminal #3, opened for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Mongolian Airlines still flies to old Terminal #2, so I had to take a shuttle bus to Terminal #3. To paraphrase Richard Nixon standing in front of the Great Wall, the “the terminal is really, really great.” Or at least really, really huge. A terminal of a city which has every intention to be the world leader by the middle of this century. And yes, there are Starbucks. More importantly there are “charging stations” for topping off laptops, cell phones, and Kindles, and small free wi-fi islands around at least some of the charging stations, although there does not seem to be free wi-fi terminal wide.

I had an eight-hour layover in Hong Kong, so I took the train to Kowloon, thinking I would spend a few hours just strolling around the city with one eye open for any Puerh Tea buying possibilities. Unfortunately my body had already accustomed itself to late-fall temperatures in Ulaan Baatar—we had had a nice little blizzard a couple of days before I left and there was still a few inches of snow on the ground on the morning of my departure—and I was totally unacclimated to Kowloon’s near tropical temperatures. Within ten minutes of walking I was drenched in sweat. Then a slow drizzle turned into a near deluge. So I caught the subway over to Hong Kong Island and spent a few hours in my favorite bookstore right near the Center Metro Station. Although I had already downloaded fifteen or twenty books onto my Kindle for reading on this trip I could not resist buying hard copies of Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Entanglement in Afghanistan, a rip-roaring account of how Afghanistan has become known as The Graveyard of Empires. The English Empire suffered if not its greatest defeat in Afghanistan then certainly its most ignominious; the Soviet Empire likewise got its butt kicked, and now it is the turn of the USA. And I could not resist picking up a copy of The Blue Manuscript by Sabiha Al Kemir. I am a sucker for books about manuscripts.

Thus fortified with reading material I took the train back out to the airport and caught the 0:35 AM Red-Eye Special to Dubai. I was flying on Emirates Airlines, which has wonderfully new and clean planes with fairly roomy, plushly appointed seats, and exuberantly friendly flight attendants. They announced that among the attendants there were speakers of Arabic, English, Turkish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. When they turn out the regular cabin lights there are tiny little light bulbs embedded in the roof which twinkle like stars, so you can imagine you are sleeping out in the desert, in the “Big Tent,” as they say in Mongolia.

Arrived in Dubai’s mammoth but then deserted airport at four in the morning local time. The only place I could find open was a Burger King, so I sat and drank lamentable coffee while reading Lars Brownworth’s Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire on my Kindle. As soon as the sun came up I took a cab down to the Old Town, where I hoped to stock up on Arabian scents in the Perfume Souk. The souks do not open until 9:00 am, but the covered walkways of the Gold Souk were open so I took a bench and sat for two hours watching the passersby. There were no tourists or travelers at this time of the morning. All the people were locals who work in the souks—mostly Pakistanis—and an assortment of local loiterers. I was struck by the number of Chinese who appear to be working here. Are they colonizing Dubai now?

As soon as my favorite scent store opened I bought frankincense and an assortment of essential oils, including musk, rose, jasmine, araic, nooria, amber, and a smattering of others, plus several kinds of aromatic woods which can be burned as incense and some Iranian saffron for culinary purposes. Then I went back to the airport and sipped immense lattes—the cauldron-like cups have handles on either side so you can pick them up with both hands—until my 2:30 PM departure for Istanbul, also on Emirates Airlines.

Planes were stacked up over Istanbul so I was an hour late in arriving. By eight in the evening I was ensconced in a hotel within fifteen minutes walk of the Hagia Sofia, arguably the center of old Istanbul. At nine at the next morning I entered the precincts of the old Church/Mosque.

Hagia Sofia

As you know, Hagia Sofia was built between 532 and 537 A.D. on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. For almost a thousand years, until the the completion of the cathedral in Seville, Spain, in 1520, it was the largest church in the world.

Hagia Sofia

In late June, 1203, members of the 4th Crusade, ostensibly bound for the Holy Land, where they hoped to retake Jerusalem from the Moslems, decided to swing by Istanbul—then known as Constantinople—for a little free-lance looting and plunder, this despite the fact that Constantinople was at the time a Christian city, albeit Orthodox and not Catholic, like the western European Crusaders. According to the historian Speros Vryonis:

The Latin soldiery subjected the greatest city in Europe to an indescribable sack. For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. Constantinople had become a veritable museum of ancient and Byzantine art, an emporium of such incredible wealth that the Latins were astounded at the riches they found. Though the Venetians had an appreciation for the art which they discovered (they were themselves semi-Byzantines) and saved much of it, the French and others destroyed indiscriminately, halting to refresh themselves with wine, violation of nuns, and murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented their hatred for the Greeks most spectacularly in the desecration of the greatest Church in Christendom. They smashed the silver iconostasis, the icons and the holy books of Hagia Sofia, and seated upon the patriarchal throne a whore who sang coarse songs as they drank wine from the Church's holy vessels. The estrangement of East and West, which had proceeded over the centuries, culminated in the horrible massacre that accompanied the conquest of Constantinople. The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken the city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians. The defeat of Byzantium, already in a state of decline, accelerated political degeneration so that the Byzantines eventually became an easy prey to the Turks. The Crusading movement thus resulted, ultimately, in the victory of Islam, a result which was of course the exact opposite of its original intention.

Hagia Sofia

In 1453 the Ottoman Turks, after a lengthy siege described in intriguing detail in the book 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West, captured Constantinople. On Tuesday, May 29, 1453 Sultan Mehmet II entered the city and carrying the sword of the Prophet Mohammed rode his mule straight into Hafia Sofia. Dismounting, he kneeled on the floor and after sprinkling a handful of dust on his head as a sign of humility, announced the victory of Islam over the city and declared that henceforth Hagai Sofia would serve as a mosque. In 1935 Hagia Sofia was turned into a museum and is now visited by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people a day.

Second Floor Hallway in the Hagia SofiaInterior of the Hagia Sofia
Interior of the Hagia Sofia

Mongolia | Ulaan Baatar | New Moon

The New Moon will occur in Ulaan Baatar on Sunday, the 18th, at 1:33 PM. Set your internal clocks according. Also see Moon Rising and Setting. Just to remind you, the Hunter’s Moon is coming up on November 3rd. Don’t miss this one!

The Hunter’s Moon, also known as the Blood Moon, often appears to be the largest moon of the year

China | Shaanxi | Xian | Great Mosque

After touring the City Wall in Xian I wandered by the Qing Zhen Si, or Great Mosque of Xian. The original mosque was founded here in 742 AD, during the reign of the Tang Dynasty emperor Xuanzong, Like Nestorian Christianity, Islam quickly migrated eastward on the Silk Road, resulting in the founding of this mosque a mere 120 years after the Hijah. The mosque was updated during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties and is still active today, serving the 30,000 or so Huis—Chinese Moslems—in Xian.

Wooden Gateway to the Mosque
First Courtyard of the Mosque
Ming Dynasty Stone Gate

Inscription on Ming Dynasty Stone Gate: “The Courtyard of Heaven.” (All you Sinophiles out there—feel free to correct this.)

I think this structure houses one of the stelae recording the history of the mosque. I am not sure, since there are some other stelae on the grounds. Very little is available in English about the mosque, and it is hard to tell what is what. Anyone with any information is free to weigh in. The so-called Introspection Tower, which also serves as the Mosque’s minaret. This is the highest structure in the mosque compound.

Ceiling of the Introspection Tower
Another view of the Introspection Tower. This stele may be the one which records the mosque’s history. Gate to one of the courtyards
Gate to another one of the courtyards
Calligraphy on one of the walls of the compound
There is supposed to be a stone in the mosque which portrays the Moslem world with Mecca in the middle. This might be it, with the dark circle in the middle representing Mecca.
But on the walkway to the Phoenix Pavilion there is another stone which might also represent the Moslem world.
This stone also has a circle in the middle which might represent Mecca. If anyone has any information about this please come forward now.
The Phoenix Pavilion, or Main Hall of the Mosque.
Entrance to the Phoenix Pavilion. The inscription over the door reportedly reads “One God”.

China | Shaanxi | Xian City Wall

While in town to see the Nestorian Stele, I thought I might as well check out the rest of Xian, which as you no doubt know was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road and during the Tang Dynasty probably the largest and most developed city in the world. It is still now probably the last large walled city in the world. The wall surrounding the inner city is a total of 7.3 miles long, forty-nine feet high, and fifty-nine feet wide at the top.

The immense Southern Gate to the city

Just inside the Southern Gate

Stairs lead up to the top of the City Wall

The southern side of the City Wall

The top of the City Wall

The 7.3 mile-long top of the wall provides a nice walking and biking path. Notice the bicycle-built-for-two.

Biker on top of the Wall

Belly button of Biker on top of the Wall

Inside of the east side of the City Wall

Outside of the east side of the City Wall

A green strip and hiking path extends all around the outside of the wall

Path along the outside of the wallOuter rampart of the City Wall

Green strip and park along the outside of the City WallRestored Qing Dynasty houses just inside the City Wall