5 Mysterious Things Found in Siberia (video)

Curious World (facebook); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddhist Sakyians were Scythians.

The place names in Siberia are echoes suggesting a Buddhist past, particularly in Kalmykia (the only indigenously Buddhist country in Europe) and Buryatia. The Dharma may have been a part of Siberia's ancient history alongside shamanism not just its modern one post-Russian conquest. Siberia sits atop -- the Buddha's home country (Scythia, Shakya Land, Saka) now the 'Stans -- as do its ancient, pre-Ice Age custom of building stupas (burial mounds) and other ritual burial sites. Central Asia extends from the old northwest Indian frontier now Gandhara/Indo-Pakistan (which only became a country in 1948) north to Ukraine, a vast "middle country" (majjhimadesa) separating East and West. The Scythian capital of Kapilavastu (Bamiyan, Afghanistan), the Buddha's hometown, grew rich along the Silk Road.

• What's a Buddhist stupa (pagoda)? It's a Scythian kurgan (a customary burial site of Saka-Scythians), a tumulus or barrow -- structures created by heaping earth and stones over a burial chamber. The Scythians had them for millennia, long before the Buddha renewed the ancient custom. These burial mounds once had Scythian owners on the flat plains of present-day Ukraine, and in 2001 there was a discovery of an undisturbed royal Scythian burial-barrow. The Buddha said they were suitable for the burial of "noble ones," namely, enlightened beings and world monarchs who rule by Dharma.

 

Siberia, which is now a part of Russia, stretches west to east from the Ural Mountains to the north Pacific Ocean, north to south from the Ural Mountains to Mongolia.

That's 3,500 miles by 2,100 miles, a region that covers 10% of the earth’s land mass. It is completely covered with snow from November to February. Although large parts of Siberia are populated by humans, there is a huge radius that remains desolate.

Obviously, such a large chunk of land rarely visited for thousands or even millions of years, must yield some interesting long lost artifacts and remains. Here are five amazing Siberian finds.