Happy New Year! (Nowruz)

Dharmacharis Seven and Ashley Wells, Amber Dorian, Wisdom Quarterly (netglimse.com)

The editors of Wisdom Quarterly have come to believe that the Buddha's mother, Maha Maya Devi, was from the vicinity of modern Iran long before there was either an Iran or even a Persia, and that his father, Suddhodana, and the Shakyas were from the vicinity of modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- much to the chagrin of our Nepalese friends and readers.

These lands were at that time the frontiers of Greater India. And there was neither Islam nor Hinduism. There was, however, their forbears asuran Zoroastrianism and the remnants of Vedic (Indus River Valley Civilization) Brahmanism. Today these countries are classified as Eurasian Central Asia and the geopolitical Middle East. And then as now the akasha devas seem to have provided a calendar that made today New Year's Day (Nowrūz, نوروز‎, meaning "[The] New Day").

In coming installments we hope to establish that the reason the world does not know this is in no way an accident of history. Instead, vested interests keep the world in the dark. The asuras (titans) linger on and have some sway against the devas (shining ones). The Buddha was neither, but it was the devas and Sakka who sided with the Buddha.

And what is it the world does not know? The world does not generally know that Buddhism existed in Afghanistan 2,600+ years ago -- as the discovery of the great Afghan Buddhist monastic complex of Mes Aynak indicates -- at the very onset of the historical Buddha's dispensation (sasana).

It hardly seems reasonable that the Dharma made it to ancient Gandhara on the frontiers of India just as soon as it was being established in the major centers of Magadha, India, where the Buddha began delivering discourses or sutras.

It is not only the maverick historian, anthropologist, and archeologist Dr. Ranajit Pal who has brought this to our attention. And the historical fraud of a Jonesian history of India and Nepal was not only a British and German invention. The imperial Russians, Arab Muslims, and now military-industrial complex American forces have been participating in the cover up.

The Buddha-Dharma came West long ago. It traveled the Silk Route from or at least through modern Afghanistan to reach Europe and Israel. Jesus (St. Issa) came into contact with Buddhism and apparently was taught that he was a tulku (reincarnated lama) and a bodhisattva (one unselfishly striving to save others over many lives on one's way to perfection), possibly even Maitreya (a perfect Messiah). Jews were living in Kashmir even before Jesus came to live and study in India as Holger Kersten and others (Notovitch, Gruber, Abedananda, Clare-Prophet, etc.) aptly demonstrate.

It is interesting that one of the Four Imponderables is the extent of a Buddha's influence. He not only achieved in his life the influence of a Universal Monarch (chakravartin) from seashore to seashore of what the kings of Indian "clan footholds" (janapadas) or "countries" thought of as "the known world." That was not Madras to Bombay but Vietnam to Palestine. The truth is muddled because imperfectly translated words are taken literally and for granted. For instance, a chakravartin is usually translated as a "world ruler" as if the "world" meant to them what it means to us. They did not consider India a "continent," as we do, but an island (dvipa) bounded by great seas. This "island" is so vast that it is even possible that it refers to Earth and the surrounding "sea" to interplanetary space. The Buddha was from the "Middle Country" and the "Roseapple Land" (Jambudvipa), which can refer to northern India, the subcontinent, the continent, the planet, or this portion of the galactic world-system. Similarly, where was India's "frontier"? No doubt what is today Afghanistan and old "Persia" was part of it. When Alexander the Great and the ancient Greeks established Indo-Greco arms of the Greek empire (called Bactria and other names), Buddhism was well known to the Greeks. But it traveled northwest toward Europe long before that -- and it made it to Europe, to the only indigenously Buddhist part of Europe, the topic of a coming installment on Kalmykia.

That northwest route of the Dharma is now called Central Asia -- loosely lumped together as "the Stans" all the way to what is left of the USSR or once mighty Russian empire and its ancient Russian Buddhism. The many ethnic tribes west of China and Tibet (Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kalmyks, etc.) of and beyond the Hindu Kush mountain range met the Dharma, and they celebrate Nowruz. So we find it significant enough to observe it as well. Interestingly, the Caucuses (source of the word Caucasian) are technically part of the Himalayan range separating Asia and Europe.

The New Day 2012
NOWRUZ is celebrated and observed by Iranian peoples and the related cultural continent and has spread in many other parts of the world, including parts of Central Asia, Caucasus, South Asia, Northwestern China, the Crimea, and some groups in the Balkans.

Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed.

As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians, the same time is celebrated in parts of the South Asian sub-continent as the new year. The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and Iranian families gather together to observe the rituals.

Originally being a Zoroastrian festival, and the holiest of them all, Nowruz is believed to have been invented by [the titan] Zoroaster himself, although there is no clear date of origin. Since the Achaemenid era the official year has begun with the New Day when the Sun leaves the zodiac of Pisces and enters the zodiacal sign of Aries, signifying the Spring Equinox.

The Jewish festival of Purim is probably adopted from the Persian New Year (The Judaic tradition...Encyclopædia Britannica). It is also a holy day for Sufis, Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis, and adherents of the Bahá'í Faith. More