Masturbation abstinence online (NPR)

There's a thriving landscape of social media content, online forums, and entrepreneurs dedicated to helping men settle and sublimate the urge to masturbate to online porn (Joe Gough/NPR).

.

Masturbation abstinence is popular online. Doctors and therapists are worried

(Lisa Hagen/NPR) "Nothing scares me. Nothing hurts me anymore," a young YouTuber (shown below) tells the camera as snowflakes cut across the frame. He is shirtless in a Michigan January, he tells viewers, to make a point about embracing discomfort in order to become a great, powerful man.

The YouTuber, who goes by the handle iamLucid, tells the camera he can stand the below-freezing temperature because he has been taking cold showers every day and, crucially, hasn't masturbated to pornography in a year.

"That's the most beta thing you can do. That's the weakest thing any man can do," he says.

The video is part of a thriving online landscape dedicated to helping men settle and sublimate the urge to masturbate.

Think about sex.

More than two decades of growing internet use has surfaced fears about the social and psychological impacts of nearly unfettered access to pornography. But many researchers and sex therapists worry that the online communities that have formed in response to these fears often endorse inaccurate medical information, exacerbate mental health problems and, in some cases, overlap with extremist and hate groups.

There are many variations on how and why members of these communities choose to abstain from masturbation. One of the central concepts in these communities is known as "nofap," a play on an onomatopoeic word for masturbation popularized on the notorious 4chan message boards.

The term "nofap" has come to encompass a set of unproven claims that not masturbating confers social and health benefits.

• Masturbation abstinence communities emerged alongside the "manosphere," a collection of online spaces dedicated to the idea that males and masculinity are under threat from some forms of feminism.

Masturbation out of the manosphere (Joe Gough)

There's a large and active forum on Reddit that uses the name, as well as a company called NoFap LLC (nofap.com), which offers support groups for a fee and runs a popular forum on its website. But that company is just one part of a far larger community.

Others, including self-styled coaches, also use the term. They offer advice, services, and sometimes treatment programs to those struggling to reach their goal of not masturbating.

While some figures in this space are religious, most frame their advice as science-based forms of self-improvement or as a cure for pornography addiction, a popular concept that's disputed by scientists and researchers who study sexuality.

• [Anyone who thinks "sex addiction" is make believe, go to a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting and hear the depravity, compulsion, and inability to resist having sex in spite of major negative life consequences like prosecution, prison sentences, diseases (STIs, STDs, VDs), loss of family, relationships, self-control... This is much deeper than horniness or hormones. One sets off down a course having no idea about the pitfalls and traps. Drugs (and other dopamine hits) are almost sure to become part of the web that traps one.]

Measuring the online and offline influence of nofap content is difficult. A 2022 study in the International Journal of Impotence Research by a group of urologists who studied social media content found "semen retention" and its related hashtags to be the most popular men's health topic on TikTok and Instagram.

Unlike every other men's health topic they studied, none of the semen retention posts were coming from doctors.

What will no longer be censored in the future?

For those who believe they may be addicted to porn, the official NoFap LLC website suggests no masturbation for 90 days, during which the brain supposedly reboots like a computer.

Other claimed benefits of avoiding masturbation may include "superpowers," like more confidence and more romantic interest from women.

NoFap LLC says it is not anti-masturbation and it's not anti-porn, and today its creator says it is a peer-support group for people with problematic pornography use.

BEWARE: Monsters in the woods have needs, too.

"I have seen claims on social media saying that semen retention can boost your testosterone levels, cure erectile dysfunction, make you more manly, make you stronger, cure depression, make you more successful, clear your skin," says Ashley Winter, a urologist who has been publicly critical of nofap ideas. More

• Podcast episode produced by Ariana Lee, edited by Brett Neely and Jenny Schmidt with help from Liana Simstrom and Irene Noguchi, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Music contributed by Ramtin Arablouei. Executive producer Sami Yenigun
• 15 things we do every day that are actually disgusting

Masturbation is bad karma?

WISDOM QUARTERLY

You can't tell me what to do, you're not my father

How is the intentional emission of semen achieved? It is not strictly physical. The mental component, relying as it does on the mental defilements (most broadly stated as lust, aversion/fear, and delusion), reinforces lust, desire, craving, obsession, grasping, clinging, desperation, and one fails to see the harm done to oneself, the harm to others, and the harm to both (to the greater community and world). Youths go from porn viewing to acting out in ways they would not have if not exposed to such material.

• How do we know it's unskillful, unwholesome. "bad" karma? We know because of the definition of unskillful karma: deeds (actions of the body, speech, or mind) that are rooted in the three unwholesome roots: desire (greed, craving, lust), aversion (hate, disliking, fear), and delusion (wrong view, confusion, ignorance). We also know by the results -- suffering, disappointment, pain, not getting what one wants, getting what one does not want, lack of ever being fulfilled.

The symptoms may be mild -- resentment, anger, jealousy, envy, judgments against females -- or graduate to objectification, aggression, insensitivity, cruelty, treating people as less than human. It's a slippery slope. Who can think it's innocent? One may not realize how harmful it is or how deeply it wounds the psyche, but manipulation by the sex industry and sex traffickers is all part of it. Welcome to the world of Epstein, Hollywood, Diddy, porn stars, rap stars, high finance, political corruption, shame, humiliation, and the court system. And all for what? A bone with little blood smeared on it, remnants of flesh, and marrow gnawed on as if it could ever satisfy the hunger and thirst (lust and craving) it engenders. It's a trap. And perhaps only those who fall in ever realize it.

• Lisa Hagen, Consider This, NPR, 2/3/24/ CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Nikki Glaser roasts Golden Globes 🔥

Golden Globes 2025 LIVE: Golden Globe winners speak backstage | 2025 Golden Globe Awards LIVE | N18G

(CNBC-TV18) This year’s awards season kicks off with big screen frontrunners such as The Brutalist, Wicked, and Conclave, while on the small screen, Shōgun and The Bear lead the way.

The 2025 Golden Globes ceremony takes place tonight. British stars including Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Cynthia Erivo, and Kate Winslet compete for top prizes alongside Timothée Chalamet, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, and Colman Domingo.

The nominees were announced on Dec. 9: the divisive musical crime comedy Emilia Peréz leads the pack at 10 nominations, while Hulu’s The Bear dominates the TV categories.

Other films in contention for trophies include hit musical Wicked, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora, and Brady Corbet’s epic drama The Brutalist, which was hailed a “masterpiece” after its festival premiere.

Stand-up comedian Nikki Glaser makes history as the first woman to host the Golden Globes solo. Her appointment comes after Jo Koy became the last-minute 2024 host, delivering a widely panned performance.

#GoldenGlobes2025 #GoldenGlobesWinners #Shogun Golden Globes 2025 LIVE: Golden Globe Winners Speak Backstage | 2025 Golden Globe Awards LIVE | CNBC TV18 

Nikki Glaser takes on the Golden Globes

(CBS Sunday Morning) Dec. 29, 2024: On January 5, 2025, standup comic and super-roaster Nikki Glaser will host the Golden Globes on CBS – her biggest audience to date.

Correspondent Luke Burbank follows the comedian, who says she thrives on anxiety, as she prepares for the big night with her writing team.

WARNING: Nikki's standup comedy, full of sex and adult themes

The Golden Globes gig caps a year that saw the release of Glaser's acclaimed comedy special, "Someday You'll Die," and her fierce roasting of Tom Brady.

"CBS News Sunday Morning" features stories on the arts, music, nature, entertainment, sports, history, science and Americana, and highlights unique human accomplishments and achievements. Check local listings for "CBS News Sunday Morning" broadcast time

"The Heart Sutra" (RAP version)

The Heart Sutra [Mantra] by MC Yogi (feat. 10,000 Buddhas) is closer to an actual RAP song

"Heart Sutra - Rap" by Chogyal Rinpoche

Avalokita [Kwan Yin] hears the cries of the world

(Chogyal Rinpoche) 🇬🇧 This rap was composed with the intention of making the daily recitation of the sacred Heart Sutra easily accessible to young people. May it be of benefit. [Don't show it to your grandmother or her head may explode.]

ma sam jö mé sherab parol chin

makyé mingak namkhé ngowo nyi

soso rangrig yeshe chöyulwa

dü sum gyalwé yum la chaktsal lo

• VIDEO: The Mexican Buddhist Cholos of Thailand (AFP)

diké dak gi töpa dü chik na

chomdendé gyalpö khab jagö pungpö ri la gelong gi gendün chenpo dang

changchub sempé gendün chenpo dang tab chik tu zhuk té

dé tsé chomdendé zabmo nangwa zhejawa chö kyi namdrang kyi ting ngé dzin la nyompar zhuk so

yang dé tsé changchub sempa sempa chenpo pakpa chenrezik wangchuk sherab kyi parol tu chinpa zabmo chöpa nyi la nampar ta zhing

pungpo ngapo dedak la yang rangzhin gyi tongpar nampar ta o

dené sangye kyi tü

tsé dang denpa sharibü changchub sempa sempa chenpo pakpa chenrezik wangchuk la diké ché mé so

rik kyi bu gang lala sherab kyi parol tu chinpa zabmo chöpa chepar döpa dé jitar labpar ja

deké ché mepa dang | changchub sempa sempa chenpo pakpa chenrezik wangchuk gi tsé dang denpa shara datibu la diké ché mé so

Wait, wait! Shouldn't we decide if we're East Coast or West Coast first? (sanghabuild.org)

.

teyata | om gaté gaté para gaté | para samgaté | bodhi soha

sharibu rik kyi bu am rik kyi bumo gang lala sherab kyi parol tu chinpa zabmo chöpa chepar döpa dé ditar nampar tawar ja té

pungpo ngapo dedak kyang rangzhin gyi tongpar nampar yangdakpar jesu ta o

zuk tongpa o | tongpanyi kyang zuk so

zuk lé tongpanyi zhen mayin no

tongpanyi lé kyang zuk zhen mayin no

dezhindu tsorwa dang | dushé dang

dujé dang | nampar shepa nam tongpa o

sharibu detawé na chö tamché tongpanyi dé

tsennyi mepa | makyepa | magakpa

drima mepa | drima dang dralwa mepa

driwa mepa | gangwa mepa o

sharibu detawé na tongpanyi la zukmé

tsorwa mé | dushé mé | dujé nam mé | nampar shepa mé

mik mé | nawa mé | na mé | che mé | lü mé | yi mé

zuk mé | dra mé | dri mé | ro mé | rekja mé | chö mé do

mik gi kham mepa né yi kyi kham mé

yi kyi nampar shepé kham kyi bardu yang mé do

marikpa mé | marikpa zepa mepa né gashi mé

gashi zepé bardu yang mé do

dukngalwa dang | künjungwa dang

gokpa dang | lam mé | yeshe mé | tobpa mé

matobpa yang mé do

teyata | om gaté gaté para gaté | para samgaté | bodhi soha

sharibu detawé na changchub sempa nam tobpa mepé chir

sherab kyi parol tu chinpa la ten ching né té

sem la dribpa mepé trakpa mé dé

chin chi lok lé shintu dé né nya ngen lé depé tarchin to

dü sum du nampar zhukpé sangye tamché kyang sherab kyi parol tu chinpa la ten né

lana mepa yangdakpar dzokpé changchub tu ngönpar dzokpar sangye so

detawé na sherab kyi parol tu chinpé ngak

rigpa chenpö ngak | lana mepé ngak

minyampa dang nyampé ngak | dukngal tamché rabtu zhiwar jepé ngak

midzünpé na denpar shepar ja té

sherab kyi parol tu chinpé ngak mepa

teyata | om gaté gaté para gaté | para samgaté | bodhi soha

• Tibetan and English translation of the Heart Sutra: lotsawahouse.org/words-of...

THE HEART SUTRA (English)

Standard English translation (by the great Edward Conze) with minor edits by Wisdom Quarterly (The Heart Sutra | Buddhist Traditions | Amherst College)

Om! Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy!

Avalokita, the Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond.

He looked down from on high, beheld but five heaps, and saw that in their own-being they were empty.

Here, O Sariputra,

form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form;

Emptiness does not differ from form, and form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is emptiness, that is form.

The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.

Here, O Sariputra,

all dharmas [phenomena] are marked with emptiness;

They are neither produced nor stopped, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither deficient nor complete.

Therefore, O Sariputra,

in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness;

[There is] no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables [tangibles], or objects of mind; no sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to:

[There is] no mind-consciousness element; there is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.

There is no cognition, no attainment, and no non-attainment.

Therefore, O Sariputra,

it is because of one's non-attainmentness that a bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings one has not been made to tremble.

One has overcome what can upset, and in the end one attains to Nirvana.

All those who appear as buddhas in the three periods of time [past, present, future] fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.

Therefore one should know the prajna-paramita as the great spell [mantra], the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this:

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.

(Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!)

This completes the Heart of perfect Wisdom.

What's rap if not bad lyrics 'n a good beat?

Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

Grandmaster Flash on "The Message"

Greatest rapper of a generation Justin "Elvis" Biel?

Get Out The Way: "Move B**h" (Ludacris)

It's a beautiful sentiment to present this timeless classic of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajna Paramita) literature to youth in an idiom they might appreciate and listen to more than grandmotherly droning and chanting in a temple setting. But it does bring up one minor problematic question: What is rap? Is it like poetry in that anything is if it says it is? The phonebook well-read can be [made to be] "poetic." So drop a beat behind it and any ol' grouping of words is "rapping"? May be. We can ask Weird Al or Justin Timberlake. But it seems to us that real rapping, which is why the young at heart like and relate to it so much, is its brutal honesty, simplicity, and funky @$$ beat.

The uncensored (explicit) version just has more umph and gusto.

It's the beat, the beat, the beat propelled by a propulsive lyrical accompaniment consistent with the feel or underlying sentiment of the genre. One has to wonder if N.W.A would have had as much success -- with the exact same musical elements -- if their lyrical content and message were "Officers Is Nice" instead of "F*** the Police." Similarly, what is arguably the greatest rap song ever [if such a thing were possible to accurately determine] might not really be with weaker lyrics. In the case of Ludacris' "Excuse Me, Miss, If I May Just Get Through," or as it is known on internet radio "Move B*tch," where "bitch" refers, of course, to a pregnant dog driving in front of him and his featured artists. Ergo, if we're going to really have a Heart Sutra Rap, methinks we need to get real, gritty, and street, not simply rely on poetic feet.

• When is music Cultural Appropriation: Elvis Presley vs. The Beatles

The corrosive effects of listening to rap music on violent office workers

• MC Yogi, "Heart Sutra [Mantra] Rap," 2023; Chogyal Rinpoche, Sept. 18, 2022; Edward Conze (trans.), "The Heart Sutra"; Office Space (Mike Judge); Grandmaster Flash; Weird Al Yankovic, "White & Nerdy"; Ludacris, "Move B*tch"; Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Brother Jason (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

POEM: Scythian "Shakya Clan" (Sakas)

As WQ has covered, based on Dr. Pal's realization, Shakyamuni was a Scythian/Saka.

Greco-Buddhist Gandharan art

Readers may agree that in the world of poetry, one poem rises above the rest. It is a world heritage treasure, a classic of the Western canon, and it is of course "Kubla Khan." So our Dharma editor, Dharma Teacher Seven, who majored in English literature at Oxford and UC Berkeley, pays homage to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's masterpiece by uncovering its unexpected Buddhist roots.

In Xanadu (Shangdu, Mongolia, China), what stately "pleasure-dome" was Coleridge referring to but a literal Buddhist stupa? The backstory to Coleridge's inspired piece is that it comes from a historical account of a real place in the exotic Orient, as the British called it back then.

Icy white stupa pleasure-dome

According to the extended preface narrative, Coleridge was reading Purchas his Pilgrimes [Purchas' Pilgrimages] by the English Anglican cleric Samuel Purchas when he fell asleep (having ingested opium in the form of his prescription medicine Laudanum after reading about Kublai Khan).

He says he then "continued for about three hours in a profound sleep [probably more accurately today a visionary hypnagogic state]...during which time he had the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines...

"On Awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved" [13].

The passage continues with a famous account of an interruption [14]: "At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock...and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purpose of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away" [13].

The Buddha, Gandhara/Afghanistan

"Kubla Khan" is thought to have been written in October 1797. In the preface to the first published edition of the poem, in 1816, Coleridge says that it was composed during an extended stay he had made in Somerset.

It was actually composed in a dream, Coleridge claims. In Sept. 1797, Coleridge lived in Nether Stowey in the southwest of England and spent much of his time walking through the nearby Quantock Hills with his fellow poet William Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister Dorothy [11]. (His route today is memorialized as the "Coleridge Way") [12].

He dreamed a poem of pure inspiration, hallucinating in a hypnogogic state of mind, vividly envisioning the historical accounts from Purchas' travels, imagining the sites Anglican Purchas described seeing in Buddhist Asia. Here is what he remembered from his opium trip or poetic vision:

Classic Buddhist stupa (burial mound reliquary), the Enlightenment Stupa, Russia

KUBLA KHAN

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1816

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

     Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

     The shadow of the dome of pleasure

     Floated midway on the waves;

     Where was heard the mingled measure

     From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

     A damsel with a dulcimer

     In a vision once I saw:

     It was an Abyssinian maid

     And on her dulcimer she played,

     Singing of Mount Abora.

     Could I revive within me

     Her symphony and song,

     To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread:

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drank the milk of Paradise.

The new poem "Shakya Clan"

• 

  Saka/Scythian warrior prince golden garb

  The vision in this Mongolian/Chinese scene is recast in faraway Bamiyan, Afghanistan, to the west of the Walled Kingdom. Bamiyan was one of the three seasonal capitals where Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who later became the historical Buddha Shakyamuni ("the Sage of the Scythians/Sakas"), was raised. History calls it Kapilavastu (Sanskrit) or Kapilavatthu (Pali). It is both the name of a country, capital, and Scythian/Saka territory in ancient Gandhara, Central Asia. There is a real Swat River in Gandhara, now part of Pakistan, which only recently came to exist out of the partitioning of India in 1947. But "India" itself did not exist at the time of the Buddha, when it was a loosely affiliated set of feuding kingdoms, republics, and territories held by family clan, the mahajanapadas. "India" only came to be after the rise of the Buddhist King Ashoka, who assembled an empire, the Buddhist Dharma wheel at the center of what later India (Bharat) would decide for its flag.

SHAKYA CLAN

Or a Dream, a Vision of Fragments

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Saka-Muni Buddha

In Kapiv’u did Shakya Clan

A state pagoda-dome decree:

Where Swat, the sacred river, ran

Through cliffs measureless to viman

     Down to a sunlit sea.

So twice yojan of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And here were gardens bright by rivulets filled

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as foothills,

Enfolding fields of glorious greenery.

But O, that magnificent statue which slanted

Up crimson hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A holy place! as serene and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waxing Moon was vaunted

By wild clan wailing for their sage Pathfinder!

And from this statue, with serene eyes farseeing,

As if this Earth in slow soft tufts were breathing,

A mighty charge momently was forced;

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail

Or scattered-chaff beneath the thresher’s flail:

And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

Flung up momently many a sacred sliver.

One yojan meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Which reached from cliffs measureless to viman,

And sank in tumult into a lively ocean:

And ’mid this tumult Sakka heard from far

Ancestral voices, prophets sighing, war!

The shadows of the dome in measure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled pleasure

From the quarry and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

Bright dome by Himalayan caves of ice!

.

Tomyris, Scythian princess*

     A lady laced in lazuli

     In a vision once I saw:

     It was a Scythian maid

     And on her lute she played,

     Singing as I sat in awe.

     Strum did she so carelessly

     And furrow her crescent brow.

     Could I revive within me

Her braid lank and visage wan?

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

The crinkle of her crown

That I would hang a disc in her hair —

That golden dome! those eyes of ice! —

That all who heard should see it there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Her flashing eyes! her floating hair!

The Scythians (Barry Cunliffe)

Weave a circle round me thrice.

I close my eyes with holy dread.

Admit, she sings, admit you’re scared!

For she on Nectar-dew hath fed

And savored the Soma of Paradise.

Now stones fall flat, spell is broken,

Scattered frost like teal blue tokens:

Talismans, amulets, airy moons

Woven, arranged in gilded plait.

Still stand I, somehow I’ve spoken,

Mere token that I’ll not be afraid.

And still lilts she her reverie,

A warrior of wounded knees

And bitter burnt offerings.

Scythian females were warrior princesses, the basis of ancient Greek Amazonian legends.

• *The name Tomyris [Tamyris] is the Latin form of the Ancient Greek name Tomuris (Τομυρις), which is itself the Hellenization of the Saka name *Taumuriyaʰ, meaning "of family" derived from a cognate of the Avestan word taoxman and of the Old Persian word taumā (𐎫𐎢𐎶𐎠), meaning "seed," "germ," and "kinship" [1, 2]. She was a Sakan princess then a queen of the Massagetae.

What kind of Scythian was the Buddha? Gandharan, Indo-Scythian, a Saka from Indo-Sakastan

The Scythians were very fierce and proud

The Scythians (Saka or Shakyans) were a very fierce and very proud people, said the Buddha.

Frozen sarcophagus of a Scythian warrior discovered in Mongol Steppes | SLICE | full documentary

Historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, PhD

(SLICE) June 28, 2024: In the icy steppes of the Mongolian Altai, an archaeological expedition explores the 2,500+year-old tomb of an Eastern Scythian warrior.

The ancient Scythian practice of deep burial of the dead, combined with extreme climatic conditions, could uncover the last frozen tombs on the planet and shed light on this little-known branch of Scythian civilization.

Tattoos reveal hidden wonders of 2,300-year-old Scythian grave in Mongolia | Secrets in the Ice

Read Dr. Ranajit Pal, Ph.D.

(Science Channel) Remarkable journey delves deeply into the ancient mysteries surrounding a 2,300-year-old Scythian grave in Mongolia. Unearthed with care and expertise, this Scythian grave (kurgan, tumulus, Buddhist stupa) holds invaluable secrets waiting to be revealed.

• Dhr. Seven (poet), Ashley Wells, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; SLICE, 6/28/24; Science Channel, 7/14/23; Dr. Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. (Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander