SACRED LAKES, MANDAR MEGALITHS AND TIBETAN MANUSCRIPTS
Written by: Dr. Sam Osmanagich
Darchen, Base Camp, Western Tibet
May 2017.
Darchen is the starting base for Kailash Cora. Here, on 4650 meters of altitude, you sleep or spend a couple of days to acclimatize, and then head on the hike to see the Sacred Mountain Kailash. Warmly dressed up I fall asleep. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the pain in my chest. I took a deep breath, twice. I remember that I am on Tibet. I looked at my watch. It’s three after midnight. I try to fall asleep. I don’t manage. After taking two deep breaths the exhausted organism reacts with shorter inhales, the oxygen runs out fast and the body alarm starts – I wake up again. I hope something is going to change, but until six in the morning, I couldn’t fall asleep. With the sunrise, I got some rest for an hour, from six to seven.
Today on our agenda is the visit of sacred lakes Rakshas Tai and Kurgual Chungo.
At seven we went for a breakfast in Darchen. I dressed up warm enough. I have to compliment the thermal underwear produced by the Bosnian manufacturer “Alma Ras”. The domestic company has manufactured the cotton clothing which is keeping me warm, on the first layer. The professional mountain clothing, with special materials which preserve the temperature, has also passed the test. Expensive mountain boots, advertised as windproof, rain and snow proof, but they’ve never advertised the thermal particulars, and now I know why. My toes are freezing.
A small restaurant was 200 meters far away, going up on a mild hill. I was surprised that the distance of 1000 meters of altitude (Lasa-Darchen) could be such a burden for the organism. My steps are slower, and I started wondering why they chose exactly that restaurant when there were closer ones.
The restaurant is one large room with a wood stove in the centre. It heats a little bit and shatters the 12 degrees below zero from the outside. In the restaurant, on the side wall, on benches, the members of the household were sleeping. Two persons are awake and serve the ginger tea, honey and lemon, and real scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Finally, I ate something concrete.
***
The ride to the Rakshas Tai is special. Immense opened spaces and from every corner you can see Kailash, absolutely dominating with its white figure over the entire space. The lake’s blue color is spectacular and more than 150 square kilometers of the surface. Jang the guide, tells me that the fish is good for pregnant women.
“I can’t see any fishing boats, is there a harbor on the lake?” I asked.
“No, here we don’t hunt for the fish. Only if the waves bring the dead fish, they eat it. This is a sacred lake”, he responded.
***
Open space, thin mountain air, the wind and the start of the hike around the lake, the Rakshash Tai Cora. My nostrils were freezing. I put up the mask on my face, to protect the nose and mouth. With the black sunglasses and a cap, I can protect the whole face from the sun. Here, we are four kilometers closer to the sun than in Sarajevo. The skin burns quickly.
A part of Cora (the circular walk) around the Lake Rakshah Tai we did with a car, and one part, by the foot. Somehow, on the leading point of the group of six persons, there was Peter from Bulgaria and me. Peter listened to me at the presentation in Sofia a couple months ago.
“Are you a professional mountaineer?” he asked.
“Not really, this is my first time”, I answered.
“I can see you have the professional gear”.
“I bought is just before departure for Tibet”.
A faster walk along the blue lake shore and we took a break while the others came and joined us. One SUV managed to break through to reach us. The van couldn’t cross the snowy hill. All six of us sat in the SUV (two in the trunk). We stop for two times. The first stop was at the salt, triangle lake where the three rabbits felt safe and without fear.
The second stop was on the plain from which you can see several hills. This was today’s goal for Sergei. These hills on a satellite image look like a man with a beard. From this perspective, these are common, eroded hills.
Sergei, Wolfgang and Tsenko made a plan for which way to go, what to see, and how much time to spend. They pick up the walkie-talkies and exchange the phone numbers.
At that moment two SUV’s arrived, with Jang and Tensin the guides. Jang tells me he has one free place in the SUV.
I looked at Sergei. I can feel his energy and he’s not sure what he wants to see and how long it’s going to take. Then I receive new information that they won’t be back until 9 or 10 PM, it means in the dark.
I said to Jang I will come with him in the SUV. I step into the vehicle. The five other persons were a bit surprised, but I know why I said that.
We started moving. In the car, there are two employees of the Regional Direction of the roads. They checked the condition of this mountain, pebbled roads after (partial) snow melting. They drive sharply, crossing the stream, uphill, downhill, the kidneys dance with the rhythm.
I start the conversation:
“Do you have here the standing stones, megaliths?”
“Yes, we have” my new hosts answered.
They take me “over the hills and across the sea”, where there are no roads, and bring me to the interesting archaeological site. Here, there are eleven vertically placed stone blocks, with irregular geometry. They are forming the rectangle of the dimensions 8×6 meters. The orientation is exact with the sides of the world, with the longer side of the rectangle turned towards the south. The two largest stones are about two meters tall. The first stone weights 900 kg and the second one 700 kg. In the surrounding vicinity, there aren’t any long stones like this, but later I noticed that on the hillside 4-5 kilometers away there are same shapes. A high percentage of iron can be noticed in this stone.
My hosts are telling me:
“This is Mandar (cemetery)”.
However, the blocks are too close to each other to be the tombstones. They say that here the excavations never happened. In fact, this location is unknown, only some Sheppard’s. I was convinced in this during the evening when no one from the nearest city Darchen has ever heard about the Mandar megaliths, as I called them.
It was the time for a shorter meditation.
MEDITATION
Mandar megaliths are made to praise the Sun. The builders have transported the blocks on the “Tibetan” yaks, dig out the holes, and with the help of the ropes, they placed them vertically in the holes. There is no skeleton of the rulers under the blocks at this location. However, there has been a ruler who asked to be buried under a similar, but a larger megalith location.
***
After The visit to the Mandar megaliths, we go further around the lake. After a longer ride, we hit the main road to Darchen, A wonderful view on Kailash, but also of the entire mountain chain on the left and the right side.
I shut my eyes. The palm of my left hand, I turn to the Earth and modestly ask to give the information to me. With my right arm, I start to scan the mountain chain.
MEDITATION
Far away on the horizon, on the right side, I can see two pyramidal tops. From them, there was an energy beam going out towards the sky. I keep on passing through space with my arm. Around Kailash, there are a series of stair and “regular” pyramidal hills. They direct their energy towards Kailash. Kailash itself has the mightiest energy beam. I go further; on my left side is a valley trough which the energy flows, in two directions. With the help of this energy, the impact is made on the consciousness of beings on the surface of the Planet. I keep on scanning and on my left side in the distance there are another two pyramids and its beams.
***
I ask myself, where is the boundary between these two worlds, the imaginary and the real one? The white mountains, forever covered by the snow, or the energetic and conscious machines on the inside.
***
In the meantime…
Sergei was leading his group of five people to the hill, the “man with the beard”. They come out first to the shores of the lake. After that, Boris and Tsenko decide to go back and to wait for the second part of the crew to join. Sergei is taking Peter and Wolfgang to climb the top of the hill, to look for the eventual petroglyphs and maybe something else. Sergei and Tsenko have the walkie-talkies to stay in connection.
Boris and Tsenko are going back, to find the SUV and the driver. Here they waited for the other three to come back. The first hour has passed, then the second and the third… Tsenko was trying to establish the radio link with Sergei but without success. The fourth hour has passed.
While this drama was happening here in the open, I already went back to my hotel room, working on the computer. Jang, the guide came and said that they’ve lost the connection with Sergei’s three for four hours already. I was thinking to myself that I was expecting something like this.
Finally, after four hours passed, Sergei established the connection by the mobile phone with the driver, explaining where to meet him. The driver is not a local, and he heads with Boris and Tsenko in the search for the remaining four members of the crew. They’ve said five kilometers to the west. The driver went straight, left, right, over the streams and hills, by roads and off-road, and it’s eight at night.
At the same time, Sergei is persistently going straight. Wolfgang got tired, so he laid next to the road and fell asleep (!). Peter, who was afraid to be caught by the dark, started running (?). At the 4700 meters of altitude and it’s 40 kilometers to Darchen.
And finally, the SUV arrived, picked them one by one in the car and they headed back to Darchen. They’ve arrived at 9:30 PM. (Exactly as I assumed. What could happen if the inexperienced driver wasn’t able to find them and leave them at 17 degrees below zero, better not to imagine).
***
Again, during the night I was missing air. I took a deep breath a few times. It’s dark outside, three in the morning. All I’m left to do is to take the computer and work since sleeping is impossible.
Today is a wonderful, sunshiny day. Cold, but with the sun. We all head for a tour (Cora) around the sacred lake Manasarovar which is at 4690 meters of altitude. Beautiful blue colours. Nature here is untouched, magnificent. On the hill, which has a total overview of the lake, there is the Buddhist temple Chi Io. We met with the priest and he unlocks one room at the time. The preserved Buddha statue is a good sign.
Both interior walls are the numerous shelves with the preserved scripts, manuscripts, and Buddhist documents. Finally. I wandered for a long time if certain monasteries still keep the books like this because mainly they were destroyed or taken to Beijing during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1967. A smaller part is taken to India, some of it is Nepal, and now I see that still, you can find them in Tibet.
I asked nicely the priest to show me the oldest document. He brings out the valuable, heavy document.
“This script is 1500 years old. The other scripts on the shelves are 1200 years old”, he said.
I bow my head and he touches my nape with the book. The sign of the respect for the ancient knowledge.
Buddhism came to Tibet one thousand years ago, but they hold documents much older than that. They even had the documents 5000-year-old. With the great effort, they collected the knowledge for the centuries. Lamas taught the young monks how to write, and then how to understand the ancient texts in history, philosophy, agriculture, political system, wars and conflicts… 2000 or even 5000 monks were taught on a site, so they could become the spreaders of the knowledge.
Some books would be so heavy that they would bring it out only one time a year to study, for what it would take three monks to carry.
Today all Tibetan monasteries and temples are the ownership of the Chinese state. Lamas are gone, and there aren’t as many monks as it used to be. The rear ones with the permission to work don’t have the same function as before. The books aren’t getting opened and in the libraries, there are only the guardians, the protectors.
This is a small monastery, but nicely decorated. On the walls, there was the “Wheel of Life” pattern. Later on, there was the unavoidable lotus flower. The sacral geometry. Buddha’s and Lamas.
***
The holy place is on the top of the monastery, formerly at the top of the stone hill. Here, in the eight century, Ratmasamlea Gurumbicea has meditated in the small cavern. His statue and the lighted candles. At the corner, there was a stone which had a footprint on.
“This is Gurumbice’s foot and there are four in Tibet,” the priest said.
After everybody left the small space, a set with my legs crossed, under the wall as Gurumbice used to do.
MEDITATION
The footprint was made by the student, the Gurumbice follower, in the rock after the death of the holy teacher. Gurumbice was very spiritual and outside the material world. He has a special energy wrap around the body visible to animals and the people. He established the contact with the beings under the mountain.
***
Under the temple, there are springs of hot mineral water. Of course, we took a bath. For many days we haven’t done it. Or we don’t have the hot water, or when we have it, the temperature in the hotel’s bathroom equals the outdoors, the minuses.
The mineral water contains Radium and Lithium. This is the opportunity to shine radioactively. The water is hot, bordering with resistibility. Energy drainer, but I needed this refreshment.
We moved on. At the widths, on the shore of the sacred, at blue lake Manasarovar, we stop. I fill my bottle with the water. The guide said that this is holy water, and the driver brings me two smaller rocks from the lake. They are full of the energy of the lake.
“Why is this water sacred?” I asked.
“It’s because the lake is filled with the water coming down from Kailash. That is the place where the gods reside”, my guide answered.
For a moment I closed my eyes, the other palm I turned to the lake and ask why is the Manasarovar lake sacred in the Hindu religion and is this the residence of the Shiva the Lord.
MEDITATION
The beings left the energy marks on the humans, which lived within the extended region for such a long time in the past. The stories were explained to the humans so they can have the life pattern and stories to tell.
***
During the tour around the lake, I saw the first pilgrims, doing their Cora around the lake. After two steps they lay down, and say the mantra, get up and go further on. The Cora around the lake lasts for several weeks.
Tibet is a special experience.
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