The Buddha was born in Central Asia (ranajitpal.com) in Shakya Land, known as Scythia to the ancient Greeks, which includes what are today called the "Stans." Kapilavastu and the two other seasonal capitals were likely in what is now Afghanistan. But the Shakyas must have wandered and from time to time held a territory reaching as far and wide as the rugged landscape would allow. In that land with rival neighbors vying for territory, as the Silk Route brought travelers and riches, there had once lived the mythical "unicorn." But this was a giant creature in what by the Buddha's time was an equestrian culture. Another of the Stans was made famous by "Borat" (Sacha Baron Cohen), a rugged land swallowed up into the USSR and only now emerging as a once great kingdom separating Europe and Asia. The Buddha warned what can be expected to happen to a society that abducts women, which he would not have done were it not a practice.
Who were the Scythians (the Saka, the Shakyans)? The Buddha was a Scythian/Saka/Shakya, known as the "Sage of the Shakya Clan" (Shakyamuni). The Saka (Old Persian Sakā, Sanskrit Śaka, Greek Σάκαι, Latin Sacae) was the term used in Persian and Sanskrit sources for the Scythians, a large group of Eastern Iranian (Aryan) nomadic tribes on the Eurasian Steppe.
A Culture of Kidnapping
Host Thomas Morton (VICE) investigates. In rural Kyrgyzstan men still marry their women the old-fashioned way -- by abducting them off the street and forcing them to be their wives. Bride-napping is supposedly an ancient custom that has made a major comeback since the fall of communism, when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Russian Empire (USSR). It now accounts for nearly half of all marriages in some parts. VICE traveled to the Kyrgyz countryside to follow and aid and abet a young groom named Kubanti as he surprised his teenage girlfriend Nazgul with the gift of marriage by kidnapping.
*The Coelacanth (Wired) This creature was thought to be extinct until a live one was caught in 1938 and another was found in a market in 1997.Coelacanths were known only from fossils until a live Latimeria chalumnae
was discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Until then, they
were presumed to have gone extinct more than
65 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous period. A second living species of coelacanth, Latimeria menadoensis, was discovered in an Indonesian market in 1997, and a live specimen was caught one year later. More
"Siberian unicorn" likely went extinct around 29,000 years ago,
surviving 321,000 years longer than previously thought, a new scientific study
by Tomsk Univ. determined (Getty).
The "Siberian unicorn" likely went extinct only around 29,000 years ago, conflicting with previous research that suggested its extinction around 350,000 years ago.
Although the "Siberian unicorn," also known as the Elasmotherium sibiricum, was thought to have died out around 350,000 years ago, a new study by researchers from Tomsk State University (TSU) reveals that this "unicorn" instead went extinct 29,000 years ago in Kazakhstan.
"Most likely, the south of Western Siberia was a refúgium, where this rhino persevered the longest in comparison with the rest of its range," said Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at TSU and first author on the study. "There is another possibility that it could migrate and dwell for a while in the more southern areas."
Hybrid-unicorn have been brought back.
The team came to their conclusions after examining a rhinoceros skull that was found near Kazakhstan's Kozhamzhar Village. Using radiocarbon AMS-method analysis, the team determined that the animal died around 29,000 years ago. More
Indian history is replete with mention of non- or semi-human beings. These beings have histories and seem to belong to larger societies. They were accepted and spoken of by mystics (e.g., rishis, yogis, the Buddha and accomplished disciples, who as a consequence of developing their meditation were able to see them at will).
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Is the recent Bigfoot body a hoax? (The famous Patterson footage seems sufficiently debunked and put to rest as a fraud). Is it simply an unknown primate? For most of Western history, no one believed in the mountain gorilla. Yet less than two weeks ago, an additional population of 125,000 was found (Reference). When the mountain gorilla was positively identified by Western scientists, the result in the culture was the making of King Kong to play up the fears and stereotypes surrounding the discovery. This apparently authentic footage of a Himalayan Yeti remains quite convincing:
YETI
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When the coelacanth is your poster child, as it is for Cryptozoology, people invest the poorly understood with their fears and fantasies. It's tragic xenophobia.
Of course, the reason people are so put off by Bigfoot ever being discovered is that there is a part of the brain where we put things like Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, the Loch Ness "monster," Chupacabra, and/or anything we dismiss as mere superstition, legend, or "conspiracy theory."
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These disparate things are confounded as all being of the same type -- nonsense and therefore to be dismissed out of hand. (We tend to forget that most people do not believe in Science, how much the less what even science does not agree on?)
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The tendency is to fear what we do not understand. And science, by claiming objective-understanding, gives us a sense of control that alleviates fear.
BIGFOOT
To admit that one thing is true uncomfortably opens the possibility that others are. And we will not stand for that. The conservative media will not stand for that. The system holds itself together regardless of what's true. War is good. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery. This is a simplified way of suggesting that fear is the problem not facts.
Let us encourage data, encourage investigation, open inquiries, analyze without preconception. In the meantime, WQ hopes to track more fantastic distractions in terms of the suspicious activities and whereabouts of scary Lindsay, Britney, Paris, and our national obsession with celebrity.
CELEBRITIES
There is no Bigfoot/Rudra ("howler"). Why do the indigenous people talk about these creatures -- the Native Americans with their Sasquatch, Sherpas with their Yeti [abominable snowman], Tibetans with their Yaksha (ogre), Indians with their Rudra (a.k.a., "roarer"), Pentecostals with their Daemon (evil spirit), Han Chinese and their magical Dragon, desert-dwelling Muslims with their Jinn (genie)... Hair samples with inconclusive DNA profiles? Sightings, histories, and footprint casts? Of course there are deliberately perpetrated hoaxes; is that all there is? Science, what are these recorded howls and roars in American forests?
CLARIFICATION: The purpose of Wisdom Quarterly is not only to find the truth but to understand and assimilate it. Buddhist cosmology already allows for nonhuman and semi-human beings coexisting with modern humans on earth, and beings beyond earth, and so many co-existing worlds so much older than can be comprehended...that it is simply exciting to see what our forebears were referring to when they mentioned them and accepted them when so few people at the time could see and directly verify their existence.
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(Wired) This creature was thought to be extinct until a live one was caught in 1938 and another was found in a market in 1997. Coelacanths were known only from fossils until a live Latimeria chalumnae
was discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Until then, they
were presumed to have gone extinct more than
65 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous period. A second living species of coelacanth, Latimeria menadoensis, was discovered in an Indonesian market in 1997, and a live specimen was caught one year later. More
(Wired) This creature was thought to be extinct until a live one was caught in 1938 and another was found in a market in 1997. Coelacanths were known only from fossils until a live Latimeria chalumnae
was discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Until then, they
were presumed to have gone extinct more than
65 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous period. A second living species of coelacanth, Latimeria menadoensis, was discovered in an Indonesian market in 1997, and a live specimen was caught one year later. More
The "Siberian unicorn" likely went extinct only around 29,000 years ago, conflicting with previous research that suggested its extinction around 350,000 years ago.
