Romance of Anaïs
By Mel West
Including the history of the rare elixer derived from the horn of the Unicorn,
as remembered by the West Family of Somersett and their estate of Lady Elizabethe la filroy de Poitiers
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Chapter 11
The Winepress of God: the dispute over Jesus's divinity, its wars (which continue) &
Sir Nascien's rescue of the Mandylion; also including Teachings from the Lost City of Tabue
No man allowed the Jewish Scriptures to be a lamp to his feet more than Sir Nascien, the protégé of Sir Gwain, as he followed Sir Gwain's capsules of Scriptures from the Cave of the Unicorns. Within his belongings were some Tiny Books From the Cave of the Unicorns which Sir Gwain continuingly updated. The Tiny Books outlined the strategy of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) in 
bringing forth the Messiah (called the Light or Truth of God) who would one day rule, as the Son of David, from Jerusalem. Earlier we discussed how Chief Giant Ysbadden had a purse filled with illusions which he used time and again to fend off intruders to Joseph's Well. Sir Gwain's Tiny Books--from the chest of Merlin--were like Ysbadden's purse, but they contained recycled realities which are released now again this day! May those who have ears hear...
The Light intensifies in the days called the Last Days, when a Winepress is seen. This is in part what the Scriptures say of this Winepress, how a long war is enmeshed between the King of the North and the King of the South, listed in Daniel, how, by overspreading desolation from east of the Euphrates River, the world's kings are hooked in warfare in the theater of Israel. We quote:
Zephaniah 3.8 Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the Kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
3.9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.Zechariah 12.2 And I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about..
12.3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
12.8 In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the House of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
12.9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
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Isaiah 30.27 Behold the name of the Lord cometh from afar, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy..
30.28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.Jeremiah 25.32 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.
25.33 And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried: they shall be dung upon the ground.
25.34 Howl, ye shepherds, and cry: and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel.
25.35 And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.
These Scriptures began with a Curse against Israel, how God would scatter them to all the nations of the world, to be set at derision, abused, and put to death in judgment for their sins; then, say the prophets, the Children of Israel will be restored to their land [which has now occurred], and God will then take out his wrath against all those nations who had persecuted and been against Israel. In that time the Scriptures proclaim the nations will be gathered and put to the sword as in a Winepress. In that day the nations will have a hook in their mouth which will mislead them, and they will be drug into a great Valley of Slaughter (called Hinom) leaving the dead unburied from one end of the earth to the other. When the nations are crushed in the Winepress the Messiah appears:
Isaiah 63.1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
63.2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?
63.3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
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63.4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
63.5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
63.6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.Revelation 19.11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
19.12 His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
19.13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
19.14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
19.15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the Winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.Ezekiel 38.2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him.
38.3 And say, Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
38.4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth..
38.5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
38. 9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many peoples with thee.
38.14..In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
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38.18 ..and it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the Land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face...surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
38.20.. all the men that are upon the face of the earth shall shake at my presence.. every wall shall fall to the ground.
38.22 And I will plead against him [Gog] with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.
38.23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
Sir Nascien Visits the Land of Gog
When Sir Nascien visited the Emperor of Byzantium, who was then Constantine IV, it was a time when the principal gears of the Winepress were being enmeshed.
The Winepress is a Set-up of sorts.
The press is prepared and readied for the gathering. The gathering is done with a hook which will mislead the nations — through false shepherds. The hook has to do with Vanity, and the ultimate vanity is to picture a man as equal to God. Serving God is the Messiah whose house is as the angel of God before men, who will judge vanity, as his God gathers all the nations to the Winepress.
Looking down upon the earth at the time Sir Nascien entered Constantinople, the Winepress can be seen in the lands around the Mediterranean, with the northern side of the press being Europe, the southern side being the lands of the Middle East and North Africa, and the torque being peoples from the north and east. Pushing the peoples of the north and east into the Mediterranean basin would engage the gears of the Winepress, centered over Jerusalem. Closing the two sides of the Winepress would be the Western Roman Empire [sic. the kings of the north] led by the Franks and the Eastern Roman Empire and the Arabs who would soon overflow it. The vehicle forcing the closure of this Winepress over Jerusalem as history shows — was the controversy over the Divinity of Jesus, being focused on the Heretic desire to kill those who will not believe in their god Jesus Antijude. This controversy drives the Winepress to this day, and it is now seeing its final fruits. The inertia of the Winepress engages with Sir Nascien's further mission into the fields of Gog of Magog (Russia), midst its first rulers called the Khazars, a Turkish group who converted to Judaism.
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How the Khazars Changed the World
The Khan of the Khazars ruled from what is now the eastern borders of Rumania and Bulgaria east to the shores of the Caspian Sea and south to the Crimea, the shores of the Black Sea and to the Caucus Mountains, and north to Kiev and as far as Moscow. Their capital was originally placed in a strategic defile called Darband, where the Caucus Mountains, stretching from the Black Sea, touched the Caspian Sea.
Mahomet (Mohammed) died in 632 A.D. Ten years later the Umayyed relatives of Mahomet and the heirs of Mahomet's daughter, who rallied under Mahomet's son-in-law and cousin, Ali, came to blows over the Inheritance of Islam, with Ali being murdered in Baghdad, where he had gone to receive the crown of that Caliphate and leadership of the Moslems. His rival, Muawija, was made Caliph of the Umayyads of Syria, and it is this caliph who sent armies from Damascus to challenge the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire and west to conquer the broken remnants of the Roman Empire. We may view him as a man facing Britain from Damascus , whose outstretched arms — or pincers — would gather the entire world from the borders of Afghanistan and India on the east to Africa, Europe and Britain in the west.
Within a hundred years of Muawija's outreach--his pincers continued under his successors--a Frank named Charlesmagne, the grandson of Pepin whom we previously mentioned, looked down on Jerusalem and stretched his arms east and west towards the Arabs. Charlesmagne was crowned Emperor of the Franks on Christmas day 800 A.D., at which time the old Roman Empire, represented by Byzantium, was groaning, caught between the Arab pincers to her south and east and the Frank pincers to her north and west. Directly to the north of Constantinople, spreading across the steppes of Russia were the Khazars who themselves were being pressed to their south and west against the Arabs and against the Franks by two forces: The first force was a stream of more Turkish tribes who were being pressed westward by the Chinese emperors. As they moved westward they pressed the Slavs who themselves, with the Turkish tribes, including the Magyars (Hungarians), pressed against the woodlands of Eastern Europe. Among their tribes were the Slavs, including the Croats and Serbs, and the Bulgars, who occupied a region near the present state of Bulgaria and also another region by the Ural Mountains. Other tribes under the Khazars were the Avars, Burtas, Kabars, Morovians, the Ghuzz, and a crazy group called the Pechenegs to the east of the Khazars. How these groups interplayed from the time of Sir Nascien's visitation until now is best viewed as a Winepress.
The Winepress
It is the crushing movements of the peoples from inner Asia who set the gears of our history.
This part of our petite histoire covers the period 681 A.D. to 812 A.D., when Charlesmagne died. It describes the rise of the Carolingian Empire (the Franks), at the expense of the Byzantine Empire; the rise and fall of the Umayyad Empire, also at the expense of the Byzantine Empire; and the rise and fall of the Khazar empire of the Jews in the north, also to the detriment of the Byzantines.
Let us review for a moment the protagonists opening the scene in this part of our adventure:
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A.D. 632 Mahamot (Mohammed) died
1)Mahomet his heirs through Ali — Ali and his son, Muhammad, were murdered, and his heir Abu Hashim, died childless —
2) the Fatimid Caliphs, Emirs of Medina, all Sayids, the Agha Khan (a Turk later to be mentioned) and the Hassanites — including in part the Sheriffs of Morocco, Imams of Yemen and the King of Jordan; and
3) the Abbassid Caliphs who would rule out of Baghdad and later Cairo and supersede the Umayyads. The Abbassids stem from Al-Abbas, a brother of Mahomet's's father, whose name was Abdullah. Ordinarily the direct descent of the Temple or Káaba was from Zaid down to Amr-Hashim and to his grandsons, including Al-Abbass and Abdullah. But Amr-Hashim died in Gaza at age 25, leaving his inheritance to his small child Abd-Al-Muttalib, who was cared for by his uncle, al Muttalib. The other brother of Hashim, Abdul Shams, had children and could claim the inheritance as a brother to the crown in deference to the small child of Hashim, Abd-al-Muttalib. The Umayyad claim through Shams was not unusual, and we shall encounter a similar claim midst the heirs of Byzantium dating from the same period, where the crown was passed brother to brother before descending to an emperor's son.
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How the Winepress Was Set in Motion
The above list includes the formative vehicles of the Winepress which would bring the downfall of the Roman Empire, as represented by Byzantium, and form the modern Western World as we see it. In our earlier book we mentioned how the movements of nomads out of the Russian Steppes pushed first the Gauls into Western Europe, followed by more Germanic tribes, including the Visigoths and the Vandals who sacked and burned Rome, leaving control of the Roman Empire to Byzantium. After Alaric of the Visigoths sacked Rome in A.D. 430 all of the Western part of the Roman Empire fell into confusion. Following behind the heals of the Gauls were non Gallic tribes called Slavs who themselves were stopped in their penetration of Europe in the Balkans and on the Polish-Lithuanian frontiers. Following behind their heals into the Balkans were the Turkish and Hungarian tribes. These included the Bulgars, the Magyars and Avars, to name a few. At the time of Constantine IV the lands around the Balkans were being identified as Slavenia and over it emerged the Kingdom of the Bulgars.
At this time the Franks were expanding into the void left by the Roman Empire. As Byzantium weakened, relaxing its hold on the West, the Franks moved eastwards into Slavenia, the lands of Poland, Lithuania, and the Balkans. Between them and Constantinople were the Greeks, Slavs, and Bulgars; and beyond them, in now what is Hungary, a new flood of Avars and Magyars arrived. They would subsequently establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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Here the Winepress is complete, with the sides north of the Franks, and the sides south of the Arabs. In the east the two sides engaged the Byzantine Empire and directly above it the Khazar Kingdom whose destiny plunged the world into its [still continuing] bloodshed. With arms stretched east and west across Russia, like wings of a butterfly, the Khazars, the Kingdom of Jewish Turks, became a sacrifice over which the world still shudders: as they were the Jews whom Hitler sent to his heinous ovens and pits!
The Winepress stabilized relative to the strength of the Khazar Kingdom. When the Khazars fell, so too did Byzantium fall, allowing the Arabs to penetrate as far into eastern Europe as Poland; then they ruled over an empire stretching from Eastern Europe around the Mediterranean World, through North Africa into southern France. Following this more waves of Turks from Eastern Asia, beginning with the Seljuks, conquered the lands formally held by the Arabs. Rule by these tribes--the Seljuks, Kurds, Mamelukes and the Ottomans, lasted from 1055 A.D., when they took Baghdad, to 1922 A.D., when their empire was dismantled after the First World War. The Ottoman, Empire began in A.D. 1290.
The Prime Mover
Every engine needs a prime mover, and we can speculate as to why the nomadic Turks, the Bulgars, and the Slavs, all began flooding into Europe. No doubt much of this is due to climatic changes, where the earth has been drying up as it were since about 4,000 B.C. Since that time the deserts of the world have been occupying fruitful lands as they fanned north and south, driving people of all races ahead of them. This drive has intensified, as can be seen in Ethiopia, the Sudan and Somalia, whose peoples are fleeing in the front of the whirling sands of the Sahara. Similar famines and migrations occurred in Inner Asia. For instance, the years after the Trojan War, circa 1200 B.C., say the Homeric traditions, the Trojans and Lydians of Anatolia suffered a long drought and famine, causing them to flee to Rome, France and Britain. Once green pastures began turning to dust.
In the Far East was China which repelled attempts by migrating hords to penetrate its western frontiers. In a manner of speaking, China acted as a piston forcing the nomads of Inner Asia to the west. A push against one tribe would push another before it, and so on, until the Khazars pressed into the Russian Steppes, pushing Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, and Magyars ahead of them. They in turn butted up against the Greeks, Italians, Gauls and other Indo-European Tribes who had already occupied the European frontiers of our Winepress.
In 700 A. D. when the Franks were expanding and when the Arabs were attempting to penetrate Europe through both its eastern Gate of Byzantium and its western Gate of Spain, the Khazars were also expanding their hold on the western frontier of Asia.
Marriage Alliance
To fortify his stronghold, Byzantium, Constantine IV saw the importance of the Khazars as a buffer against the Arab thrusts through the Caspian Sea corridor at Darband. A marriage alliance was arranged, sealing off the Arabs from that front. To the northeast was the stronghold of the Bulgars who paid tribute to the Khazar Khan. The Bulgars ruled the Avars and the Slavs and were a bastion against Germanic and Frankish tribes pressing towards Constantinople (united under Charles Martel) who, under Charlesmagne, set the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 A.D.
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In the middle of the Winepress only Byzantium could lose, for it was set upon from all three sides.
Pressing against the Franks and making a rather confusing mess of the entire works were a northern group of Germanic peoples called the Normans, or Northmen, who bolted into two groups. The Western Branch, formed out of the Danes and Norwegians, pillaged first Britain and Ireland while Angles and Saxons from German territories were also taking possession of Britain in the void left by the fall of the Roman Empire. They in turn pushed the Gauls (called Walis) into the western part of Britain, in Cornwall and Wales, and Brittany in France. The Normans eventually conquered Northern France, Sicily, Malta, etc.; in 1066 A.D. under William the Conqueror they took Britain.
The Eastern Branch of the Normans, from Sweden, called the Rhus, sent their ships into the lands of the Volga River. Being both raiders and traders of pelts, etc. they came in contact with Slavs on the Dneister river and the Bulgars on the Volga and other tribes under Khazar control. They followed a practice of occupying islands adjacent to the land which they would raid. In England they occupied the Island of Wight from which to launch their raids and extend their dominions; in the same manner they occupied an island at the mouth of the Loir River in Brittany, and so on, as they island hopped around the European theater to Sicily and ultimately to Iceland and Greenland.
Following this pattern, the Normans established a trading post on an island in the Dnieper River, known as Kiev, named after the Rhus brothers who founded it. Prior to this they settled Novgorod, another island armory.
The Russian Connection
The Rhus (called Varengians) penetrated the Khazar and Slavic areas on long ships carrying as many as 100 men each. By 900 A.D. their forces were formidable and a factor the Khazars had to seriously deal with, often including hundreds of ships (one armada had 500 ships).
Perhaps because of Rhus pressures, at least in part, the Khazar capital was moved to Itel on the Volga River where it enters the Caspian Sea. The splendor of this white city was all the Rhus needed to focus upon, sending raid after raid to that fortress which guarded from the north the rich cities of the southern Caspian Sea in Persia and blocked the Arab route to the north and controlled the trade routes to the far east.
An Arab historian who quoted Ibn Rusta (circa 905 A.D.) said this of the Rhus at Novgorod:
In this island there are men to the number of 100,000 and these men constantly go out to raid the Slavs in boats, and they seize the Slavs and take them prisoner and they go to the Khazars and Bulgars and sell them there. They have no cultivated lands, nor seed, and plunder the Slavs. When a child is born to them, they place a drawn sword in front of him and his father says, "I have neither gold nor silver, nor wealth which I can bequeath to thee--this is thine inheritance; with it secure prosperity for thyself.
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In 860 A.D. the Rhus (Vikings) sailed into the Black Sea in two hundred boats and plundered the monasteries and suburbs on the banks of the Bosphorus around Constantinople. The city was saved, as the Russians retreated when they saw the returning Byzantine army and fleet. This attack, some historians believe, was intended to be part of a simultaneous attack from the Western Norsemen from Jutland against Constantinople. We mention this to show how quickly their strength grew from their initial settlements from the eighth century onwards.
Historians agree that both Constantine IV and Charlesmagne share the unusual position of charting European history. They both held off the Normans and the Arabs. Had they failed in their efforts, the picture of the Western World would have been entirely different, certainly Moslem. This overview should lend more meaning to the works of Sir Nascien in his adventure in the court of Constantine IV.
How the Khazars Saved Byzantium
Constantine IV died right after Sir Nascien's work in forming a peace treaty between the Umayyad Caliph of Damascus and Byzantium. As mentioned, it had been the custom of the Roman Emperors to name their brothers as co-regents first and then their own eldest child second. But Constantine IV changed this practice by having his two brothers' noses cut off and sent into exile (san nez) into monasteries. Maiming--blinding, cutting off hands or feet, cutting out the tongue, and cutting off the nose — was a common practice of the emperors in eliminating their competition. It was more humane than murder, we suppose.
Constantine's son, Justinian II, was named as co-regent with him after his brothers were exiled from the palace. Justinian was not as prudent and well liked as his father and there were many plots against him. Finally, Leontius, the emperor's Strategus of a new theme of Hellas, rebelled against him and took control of the government in 695 A.D. Following custom, he had Justinian's nose cut off and sent him in exile to the Crimea, in Cherson.
The Crimea was Khazar territory and after a while the Khan of the Khazars took sympathy upon Justinian II and set to help him regain his throne. During Justinian's exile Byzantium was under the rule of Tiberius II (698-705 A.D.). Tiberius was a weak ruler, in contrast to Constantine IV, and under him the exarchates of Carthage and the rest of North Africa fell to the advancing Arabs. By 711 A.D. the Arabs mastered the North African coast and right after that took Spain, setting their capital at Cordova.
Tiberius II attempted to kill Justinian II in exile, as Justinian still had popular support.
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Having removed himself from the government after Constantine IV died, Sir Nascien took a small villa on a Princess island. Hearing of Tiberius's plot to kill Justinian, and still being held by fealty to Justinian, Sir Nascien was bid to warn the emperor in exile of the plot against him. He purchased a passage to the Crimea by boat and arrived there soon enough to pass word to the Emperor, allowing him enough time to escape further into the Khazar territory. Arrangements were then made by the Khan of the Khazars, named Bazir, to send Justinian II to the Khan of the Bulgars, whose name was Tervel. With his alliance with the Khan of the Khazars was a marriage between Justinian and the Khan's lovely sister Theodoar. The newlyweds and Sir Nascien and many other followers with them moved on to Phanagoria (present Taman) on the eastern shore of the strait of Kerch where they made preparations for the invasion of Byzantium with the aid of the Khazar armies. But in the meantime Tiberius II had heard of the ruse and attempted to bribe the Khazar Khan into turning over his new brother-in-law to him. Theodoar caught wind of the bribe and warned of the two henchmen come to assassinate him, whose names were Papatzes and Balgitres, Justinian strangled each of them with a cord as they each were summoned to his quarters.
In the autumn of 705 A.D., aided by the Bulgar King, Justinian II appeared before the gates of Constantinople in front of a formidable army, including 15,000 horsemen, of Slavs and Bulgars. The walls of the city were no less impregnable to his troops than any other, so for three days he waited outside the city for his loyal supporters to open the gates. There was much dispute within the city and initially Justinian's attempt to regain his throne was met with scorn and derision. He was, after all, remembered as Justinian Rhinometus, whose nose was cut off. But by then the usurper Leontius had also had his nose cut off by Tiberias II when he usurped the throne, and, together with the brothers of Justinian and God knows how many others, noseless pretenders had no doubt become such a common sight in Constantinople the indignity of going about with one's nose cut off must have been somewhat ameliorated. Anyway, it didn't bother Justinian II nor his wife, Theodoar, who adored him so much he subsequently named her as co-regent when he regained his throne. After Justinian II the practice of nose-snipping was discontinued against deposed rulers though a set of nose pinchers remained in most purses.
Justinian II ruled this second time from 705-711 A.D. After he regained his throne the usurpers, Leontius and Tiberius II, were executed. Justinian brought his wife to Constantinople and made his son, Tiberius, co-Emperor.
Although he was very pious, Justinian II was not a righteous emperor. All of those who had stood against him he purged from his government and army; and his latter reign became a reign of terror and mass executions. As a result, many of his most competent administrators and generals were done away with. This is just what the Arabs needed to make inroads in Anatolia. In 709 A.D. they hit Tyana, one of the most important fortresses on the Cappadocian frontier, and lacking competent leadership that fort of Byzantium fell.
Justinian's thirst for revenge against those who betrayed or scorned him continued. He sent an expedition to Ravenna in revenge for their hostile attitude towards him, and he sacked and pillaged the city and took its most eminent citizens back to Constantinople in chains and executed them. The Bishop of Ravenna was punished by having his eyes burned out. Not satisfied here, Justinian II then turned to Cherson, where he was exiled in the Crimea, and took similar measures against that city. The city revolted, together with many of the officers of Justinian's imperial army and navy. The Khan of the Khazars supported the rebels and an Armenian, Bardanes, was there proclaimed Emperor, under the name of Philippus, in 711 A.D. When Philippus appeared before the gates of Constantinople there was no one in the city who was left who would support Justinian II, and the deposed emperor was killed by one of his own officers. His severed head was sent on to Rome and Ravenna for public display, his son and heir was murdered, and his pregnant wife returned to her father, Bazir the Khan, at Itel on the Caspian Sea, where Sir Nascien and Sir Caldemoore had just engaged themselves in the crazily mixed up wars of the Khazars along the lower reaches of the Volga against the Khan of the Ghuzz (Oguz). The Khan had broken his alliance with the Khwarizites, who were then being attacked by the Pechenegs, who — to strengthen their forces — had formed a fragile alliance with the Rhus chief, Hrörekr (Rurik), from his island camp of Holmgrad in lake Ilmen near Leningrad — later to become the city of Novgorod.
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When the Western Vikings began penetrating Britain from Denmark and Norway, the Eastern Vikings (Rus, Rhus) began sending their trading and pillaging convoys out of the Gulf of Finland up the river Volkhov into Lake Ilmen, where they set up their fort and trading post (Novgorod). From here they could send expeditions south, either way down the Dnieper River to the Black Sea or the Volga River into the Caspian Sea and the rich cities of Persia and the Bazerbaijani, Shirwani, Tabaristani and Jurjani. To obtain access to Cherson and the cities of the Crimea and Black Sea, or the cities of the Caspian Sea, the Vikings had to pay a 10% duty to the Khazar Khan on all goods they carried.
The Rhus, or Vikings, preferred the Dneister route, however, since it avoided the terrible Bulgar territories of the upper Volga and Urals, who themselves might extort some extra tax in order to pay for their own tax to the Khazar Khan which was accessed as one highly prized sable fur per household (they lived in fur tents). Sable fur was the preferred fur worn by the kings of Europe. In as much as the Bulgar cities were large, being as many as 50,000 round tents — many carried erect on huge wagons — the annual tribute of furs paid to the Khan of the Khazars was enormous and formed a very sizable basis of trade between the kings of Europe and the Middle East. In addition to this tribute, first from the tribes of Bulgars, Huns, Magyars, Slavs, etc. within his sovereign territories, the Khazar Khan realized an even more lucrative income from the large caravans which passed through his territories on their way to China (Chang-an). These caravans were also quite large because of their long trek, being often of 5,000 men and 3,000 pack animals. Of these regular caravans the Khazar Khan realized a 10% duty, making his treasuries in Itel very rich indeed. In addition to this, of course, was his control of the trade in Unicorn Horns which were spiral in form, three to five feet long, ivory like a tusk, which were often carried in the packs of the Vikings as they came south into the Khazar territories. Many of the Unicorn Horns originated near Iceland and Greenland — some near Britain — and it was these which dressed European Castles in the years to come. One Unicorn Horn was worth far more than its weight in gold, and generally they were displayed with gold and silver-jeweled sheaths around them. Truly the Khazars were rich! While the Byzantine Emperor sealed his letters with two pieces of gold, the Khazar Khan sealed his letters with three pieces of gold, as befitting the riches of his Kingdom!
The Khazar cities were themselves quite large. While many lived in tents — a tent could hold as many as 1,000 people — the Khan himself lived in a Brick palace. Many houses of the populace were made of mud and wattle construction, round, in imitation of their tents, with foundations set deep in the ground. Some cities stretched several miles, with houses connected by galleries to huge cattlesheds, sheep-pens, and many columned stables, which were about ten feet wide by 40 feet long. These towns were usually occupied only in winter. In the spring they would pack their tents and move into their cornfields and vineyards or after their sheep and cattle, moving through the steppes of Russia. However, the Capital of the Khazars, Itel, was a permanent settlement which was split into two districts. One side of the river contained the Khan's palace and teak-roofed buildings for his harem of eighty-five wives or so, and his synagogues and market; and the other side of the river housed the Moslems and their mosque whose minaret reached higher than any other building. At the market was a slave market, consisting of Slavs from the northwest traded through the Rhus.
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In 921 A.D. an Arab mission of Ahmad ibn-Fadlan recorded various aspects of the cultures of these peoples. Because of the cold he says:
"So each of us put on a Kurtak, [camisole] over that a woolen Kaftan, over that a buslin [fur-lined coat] over that a burka [fur coat]; and a fur cap, under which only the eyes could be seen; a simple pair of underpants, over them a linen pair, and over them the trousers; house shoes of Kaymuht [shagreen leather] and over these also another pair of boots; and when one of us mounted a camel, he was unable to move because of his clothes."
Then of the territories of the Ghuzz he writes:
"They are nomads and have houses of felt..They have no religion which would link them to God, nor are they guided by reason; they do not worship anything. The course of action they adopt is decided by taking counsel among themselves; but when they have decided on a measure and are ready to carry it through, even the humblest and lowliest among them can come and disrupt that decision...Their women wear no veils in the presence of their men or strangers. Nor do the women cover any parts of their bodies in the presence of people. One day we stayed at the palace of a Ghuzz and were sitting around; his wife was also present. As we conversed, the woman uncovered her private parts and scratched them, and we all saw it. Thereupon we covered our faces and said: 'May God forgive me!' The husband laughed and said to the interpreter: ''Tell them we uncover it in your presence so that you may see and restrain yourselves; but it cannot be attained. This is better than when it is covered up and yet attainable.' Adultery is alien to them; yet when they discover that someone is an adulterer they split him in two halves. This they do by bringing together the branches of two trees, tie him to the branches and then let both trees go, so that the man tied to them is torn in two."
Holding Byzantium together, as it were, was the Khazar Khan, whose strong hands over the Ghuzz and others like them and alliance with Byzantium at that time, cannot be undersold. To strengthen this alliance between the Khazars and Byzantium certain marriages between Khazar princesses and the Byzantine Emperors continued long after the initial marriage of the Khazar princess Theodoar (who incidentally set a new dress style in the palace through her exotic robes) to Justinian II. For instance, Constantine V (741-775 A.D.) married a Khazar Princess , La Fleur, baptized Eirene, and their son, Emperor Leo the Khazar, married the empress Irene, previously mentioned, who was courted by Charlesmagne after Leo IV's premature death the 8th of September 780 A.D. Leo's widow, Irene, was regent in deference to their young son, Constantine VI, whom she later deposed and killed, and reigned over Byzantium as its first empress, usurping powers only previously granted to men. She was deposed after a short reign (797-802 A.D) and replaced by Nicephorus, the Logothete of the treasury (exchequer). After this the Byzantine throne saw a period of instability until Michael II came to the throne, setting his dynasty called the Amorian (820 -867 A.D.).
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Now the widow of Justinian II, whose name was Theodoar, remarried one Höleg or Oleg who joined the Khazar Court and helped establish the Khazar settlement of Sarkel which guarded the Khazar Way between the narrow band of land between the Dneister and Volga rivers. The Khazar Way was a short land bridge by which the Rhus could transport their armadas from the Dneister to the Volga. The huge wagon tracks where they transported their ships can still be made out there, as also in Malta. The Rhus used the Khazar Way because it allowed them to enter the Volga River and from it the cities of the Caspian Sea out of harms way from the Eastern Bulgars. In this place, in fact, many caravans passed on their way into inner Asia.
It was Khazar custom to have a Double Kingship, one called the Bek and the other the Khan. The Bek was like the Mayor of the Palace of the Franks or the Magister Officiorum previously mentioned. The Khan was the highest officer and unlike the Bek he could not be approached or even seen by the populace. Only high officers of the Khazars and foreign emissaries could directly see the Khan. All decisions coming from the Bek were mostly initiated by the Khan or approved by him. He held absolute power over all in his realm and sat on a throne and in a pavilion both of gold. Only a Jew could become a Khan and generally he was elected from the nobility who derived their lineage from Asena.
Associated with the Khan's aura was the ritual of Regicide. Upon his coronation, each Khan was asked how long he wished to reign as a Khan of Asena. Whatever he said, the time expired, the Khan was strangled and a new Khan elected. Asena was descended from Japheth, of Togarma (see Genesis 10.2-3), whose offspring were the Uigur, Dursu, Avars, Huns, Basilii, Tarniakh, Khazars, Zagora, Bulgars, and the Sabir.
When Theodoar remarried, her son by Justinian II married into the Viking clans, out of whom came the Rhus chief Rurik, and his scion Oleg, who cut off Oskold and Dir, the founders of Kiev, and who annexed the city of Kiev to the Rhus domains. From them came the Grand Prince St. Vladimir, who founded the Rostov dynasty of Kiev and converted to Christianity, whose son was Prince Iurii Dolgorukii, (who reigned from 1090-1157 A.D.), whose son was Andrei Bogoliobskii (who reigned from 1110-1174 A.D.), and from whose loins came Anna of Kiev, the mother of the Angovan Dynasty of the Franks and Grail Queen over the Sons of David. Her son, Henry VI, claimed both the thrones of France and England due to his Angoven/Etheling lineage.
Henry VI is a scion of Ethelwulf who was the son of Egbert, Egbert of Ealhmund, Ealhmund of Eafa, Eafa of Eoppa, Eoppa of Ingild; Ingild was the brother of Ina, King of the West-Saxons, who held that kingdom thirty-seven winters and afterwards went to St. Peters, where he died. And they were the sons of Cenred, Cenred of Ceolwald, Ceolwald of Cutha, Cutha of Cuthwin, Cuthwin of Ceawlin, Ceawlin of Cynric, Cynric of Creaoda, Creaoda of Cerdic, Cerdic of Elesa, Elesa of Esla, Esla of Gewis, Gewis of Wig, Wig of Freawine, Freawine of Frithugar, Frithugar of Brond, Brond of Balday, Balday of Woden, Woden of Firthuwald, Firthuwald of Freawine, Freawine of Firthuwulf, Firthuwulf of Finn, Finn of Godwulf, Godwulf of Geat, Geat of Taetwea, Taetwea of Beaw, Beaw of Sceldwa, Sceldwa of Heremod, Heremod of Itermon, Itermon of Hathra, Hathra of Hwala, Hwala of Bedwig, Bedwig of Sceaf who was the son of Noah who was born in Noah's ark. And Noah was the son of Lamech, son of Methusalem who was also on the ark, who was the son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Malalahel, son of Cainon, son of Enos, son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the first born son of God.
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The Mandylion and the Khazars
The Mandylion colorized, from the Shroud of Turin
There were many groups of Ebionites living in the territories of the Khazars, along with a few Jews who had migrated originally from Israel. As mentioned the Khazars were Turks who converted to Judaism. When Constantine died Sir Nascien lived in the Princess Islands; then he stayed in Cherson where he served the Khan during the first years of Justinian II; then from 705 to 711 A.D he fought the Kwazarism, then he returned to France.
Sir Nascien and Princess Anaïs
While in France Sir Nascien stayed in Poitiers where King Constantine maintained his summer palace. By that time Princess Anaïs had grown up to be a very beautiful lady whose courtly manners were mimicked by the other ladies in the County of Anjou. Over her beautiful white, billowing breasts she wore that same lucky, flashy brooch captured by Sir Parzival, and if it were not her gently rising and falling breasts as she nervously positioned herself each morning in the parade grounds--in order to catch Sir Nascien's eye--it surely was her well formed, pounting lips and enticing eyes which drew him to her.
After two months of avoiding her darting eyes, Sir Nascien came into range sufficient for her to snag him. She was quite a clever lass, we must say, for failing the effectiveness of her beautiful gowns and rosy makeup in cornering him, she one morning decided to ditch her gown and exchanged it for the apparel of Chulrich, one of Sir Nascien's pages. As Sir Nascien entered the field in his smart green cloak and began dressing for the May Day joust of 711 A.D., she substituted herself as Chulrich. Having helped Sir Nascien with his Armor, the Sword and Shield of Aravat, and as he stepped onto his mount, Gryngolet with the read ears, she doffed her cap hiding her lovely auburn locks and revealed herself to him and offered him a piece of her white samite sheath to wear on his right arm during the tournament. She told him that the sheath was that sheath she wore next to her body each night as she dreamed of him! Astonished, abashed, yet afraid to offend the sweet princess, he accepted the bauble, and while the grandstand murmured took most of the prizes in the tournament. Many knights from Britain attended the Joust, and a few brought news of the declining state of affairs in the once noble state of Quaken-Bush and the policies of hated King George of Quaken-Bush (thankfully now dead due to his long bout with his itchy, scaly skin) continued. Before filthy George died Minister Gory Vitellus finally arrived at the idea of flooding the Cave of the Harpies with buckets of water, involving ten thousand troops handing buckets from the Heretic Monastery's well. Since the landing at the mouth of the cave was higher than its innards, the king was forced to stand at the mouth as water poured down upon him: washing both his filthy skin and the muddy, cement-like Harpy dung — containing every kind of itch, filth and disease known to man — down into the seemingly bottomless pit of the cave.
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When Rude King George finally stood shivering from the icy waters on a small ledge of sulphur above the stinking waters, a final dose of pure alcohol showered down upon him and he was then ordered to climb into a converted wine cask filled with oils of mead and cayenne which burned away the remaining filth upon him.
He returned to Quaken-Bush with great pomp and ceremony, though the rising population of the poor jeered him both inside and outside the gates. As they entered the city gate a poor, starving child was offered up to George's multi-hued carriage with its twenty porters on either side and ten footmen forward and behind. There were about ten thousand starving, homeless people outside the gate at the time — God knows how many still survived within the city — and at the coast there were now another 150,000 who had been made homeless by a recent storm. King George made quite a display of that hapless child, holding him up to the crowds from his carriage, saying what he had done for it he would do for all the poor. After he entered the palace the child was sent down to the castle's kitchen with the other slaves, and that is the last anyone ever heard of him. The poor, of course, were begrudgingly addressed for a few days and then after that ignored because of the continuing scramble for riches in King George's infamous kingdom. The scramble for money, with it power, involved all the people in Quaken-Bush — about which historians still marvell — so in love were they with money! For it was a fact that the more poverty that King George brought to the Kingdom the more the wealthy patrons of George needed money and ignored the despair of the masses. One would think that the piling up of the poor outside the gates of his palace might one day play upon the conscience of his government and people, but the reverse of this actually happened. Now that King George was out of the Cave, there was talk of pushing the homeless into it. They believed the poor might draw the Harpies, from their worn roosts on the walls of the city, to the cave; but first they felt they needed to wait for the waters in the cave to subside.
How Crude King George Died
The dryer air outside the cave didn't suit King George well. Within two months of his salvation he scratched himself to death. The dank, putrid air of the cave had helped to protect his alligator-like skin from the lice and the itches of the Harpy Dung. It was the high mineral content of the seeping stalactites dripping down from above his head which more than anything allowed him to survive his long captivity. The leeches didn't discover this, however, until long after George had been buried.
When the poor finally realized they had rights and rebelled against the inhumane government begun by King George and his predecessor, King George's body was ripped from its tomb and hiding place and thrown out on the street. By then all of the descendents of King George were so frightened at the rebukes of the people, they abandoned their dishonest estates and changed their names. Since the day King George's tomb and body was vandalized, 'til now, no one of his descendents has admitted being related to him.
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George's Hateful Plans to Stir up the Arabs
News of Sir Boors' failed mission in Constantinople returned quickly to King George before he died. In a last ditch effort George ordered Ogmios of Ocoui, Sir Boors's chief spokesman while Sir Boors was in isolation, to proceed to Damascus where he believed the Umayyad Caliph might be enticed into war against Byzantium and their ally, the Khan of the Khazars. In this mission a great amount of tribute money was sent to Damascus by King George, through the Umayyad merchants at Cordova, who occupied that city in 711 A.D. Reusing an old scam, he offered to build a castle in Brittany from which he would launch an attack against Provence and, in the process, conquer the territories of Toulouse around the Garonne River. From this exercise, he claimed he would turn Aquitaine, Navarre, and his castle near Tours over to the Umayyads. As in his earlier scam, he never intended to build a castle near Tours and instead he used the moneys he borrowed from the Egyptian Caliph for the castle to erect a new castle, called White Castle, on the border of Somerset. Still flinching from the white lamelablanche stone which hit him in the nape of the neck when he attempted to build the perfect white Tajma Hall in the sky--he had a dreadful tick — he continued to have aspirations of building a beautiful Tajma Hall in the sky. White Castle, of course, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Tajma Hall, as anyone today can see, but what did King George care? He was a fraud anyway; what would he care of making another fraud? As kings go he was no doubt the sleaziest king ever to walk this earth--the filth from the Harpy guano aside. His pat comment when asked whether he would follow up a promise was always, before the Promise, Read my lips, and after the promise failed to be realized, he always retorted, "No one expects any promises to be fulfilled anyway! " These are true sayings of Rude King George as all the chronicles of his times attest. We can understand how – insatiated with greed — the people of Quaken-Bush could accept his lies but are perfectly nonplused that the kings of Europe tolerated them.
Under his underlings the policy of lying as a matter of statecraft continued, until it caught up with them, one lie impinging upon another, and finally falling in the halls of the majestic Emperor of Chang-an, whose name was T'ang Teh-tsung. In disgust of the Westerners he launched a war on his western borders, forcing out Westerners and, in turn, causing the Huns of Chang-an to flee into Pecheneg territory, who in turn attacked the Ghuzz. The Ghuzz attacked Khan Joseph, and, because of his weakened front along the Caspian Sea, the Arabs penetrated the Khazar lands. The Khazars in turn began to move westward while the Magyars (Western Huns) sought refuge in the fields now known as Hungary, named after them. This account of the Emperor T'ang Teh-tsung's rebukes about 713 A.D. comes from the diary of Princess Yuri-rita who ended up in the emperor's court after a long chase following in the tracks of her espoused and beloved courtier, Sir Caldemoore, the Red Knight. The reports of Rude King George's crudeness had been well known in Chang-an, and when Sir Caldemoore arrived in his court in 713 A.D. with a band of Khazar Jews and Afghans, including a group of Nestorian Jews, the emperor mistook them for the Heretics. "If King George could not be trusted who among the West could be trusted?" the Emperor asked. In fact, all of George's allies, the Seven Kings of Pansnance — like the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah — were recorded in the Chang-an chronicles as beasts.
This even reflected upon King Constantine of France and the Franks, although he had nothing to do with the Seven Kings of Pansnance. In any event, the time of the late eighth century was a delicate time in the history of human affairs; and King George's hateful, abusive, rude, discriminatory, and lying ways — as shocking and horrifying as they were — served to bring about a new era. Out of his debauchery man would learn to appreciate good and avoid evil; and this would be a lesson to us in the future who might find ourselves in similar circumstances under the despairful burden of another King George of Quaken-Bush and his greedy, corporate hegemony. It is a truth, though not a welcome truth, that King George became a standard by which we could all measure and identify evil. A wolf in sheep's clothing, the world finally learned through King George the Rude, the truth about the liar whom the Old Testament Scriptures named, Beliar. George spoke of riches but brought only riches to himself and poverty to the world; he spoke of peace but brought war; for hope he brought despair.
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Gryngolet Dies
After the May Day tournament Sir Nascien began courting Princess Anais. In the year 714 A.D. they married and a marvellous thing happened several days after their wedding. As Sir Nascien entered the stable where Gryngolet with the red ears was kept, he heard a commotion and crying at the far end of the keep. The pages were steeped in the greatest alarm. As he hurried to Gryngolet's bronze studded stall there, laying in the straw, was his beautiful black steed. Gryngolet's alert red ears were drooping and his carmine hooves twitched in the straw of the stall. He died. He was twenty-one years old and as powerful as a three year old until the end.
Miracle of the Unicorn
During Gryngolet's last moments a beautiful, perfectly white winged Unicorn, with a gilded edged white saddle, draped with a white samite covering, with blue eyes and blue eyelashes, appeared in Gryngolet's stall. He was about the size of Gryngolet, but a bit narrower in the chest. He was that same steed born from Gryngolet's affair with the Hippogriff. Princess Anaïs was brought to the stall after the Unicorn arrived, and she confirmed it was the foal of her Unicorn, as it had the blue eyes and blue eyelashes of the one in the Dolorous Tower.
The Princess and the Unicorn behaved like they were old friends. Unicorns are the most unusual beasts in nature, as they not only are quite discerning when it comes to truth and falsehood (the point of these books) but also they can speak and can change form, appearing even in the likeness of a son of man. The Unicorn's horn was treasured because of its curative qualities, and its powder was in the possession of many kings of Europe. It served as a remedy against poisoning, gout, and a host of maladies; and Kings would carry their powder in small gilt, enameled boxes, from which it could be sprinkled in their water and food before consumption.
When she saw the Unicorn, the Princess discerned it was time for her Prince to leave--though she was with child. This seemed to be the custom of the times. Had not Sir Lancelot gone off on his errant mission, leaving the Princess of Ireland with Galahad yet in her womb? Had not Sir Gahmuret left Parzival when Parzival was yet in his mother's womb?
Princess Anais had not yet revealed that she was then pregnant to her new husband. Her condition was not yet noticeable, and certainly her tiny waist refused to reveal it. She remembered riding upon her Unicorn as a child and when she saw the Winged Unicorn she could not help herself--she had dreamed of it for many years--and jumped upon its white saddle. The beautiful white steed vaulted through the gate of the stall and fluttered out into the courtyard of the castle and into the sky, only to return the Princess moments later to the startled, gathering crowd. Friars were crossing themselves, thinking they saw the Virgin Mary landing! Then the Princess was helped from the mount and her Unicorn stalled. Two days later Sir Nascien appeared on the parade grounds in a new attire, wearing perfectly white armor with sable and black stitching. His shield now appeared with a silver, sable background with a black bend upon it. In a pack mounted on the steed's haunches was the Emerald Green Armor of the Green Knight which he then delivered for storage to Sir Gwain in the Cave of the Unicorns and then, leaving the Cave with new scripts, he flew over Geneva and past the forbidden Rhaetian Forest where the Hippogriffs roam.
They lodged with the Bulgar King Isperech, and then went on to a place called Aleppo, where the Caliph of Damascus was outfitting his troops for an assault on Byzantium and the Khan of Khazaria. Unbeknownst to him Nebuchednezzar II had been outfitting a new army (his crack troops were years earlier massacred by the Seven King's of Pansnance) — more dedicated this time to waging war for God and against the Jews. The Khan of the Khazars, of course, was not the least bit happy over Nebuchednezzar's resurgence and sent his armies to the Defile of Darband on his southern flank.
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The Siege of Edessa
At the same time, hearing of the buildup of the Arab forces in Syria and Babylon, Emperor Leo III (717-741 A.D.), the father of Constantine V mentioned earlier, who married the beautiful Khazar Princess Theodoar, began moving his troops to his eastern frontier near Mosul. In the middle of this confrontation was the fortified town of Edessa (Urfa) in Turkey, to which our story now turns, for it not only was in a strategic position to the Caliph of Damascus but also to the Byzantine Emperor and Nebuchednezzar II in Babylon. Not only was it a strategic site but also it possessed one of the most treasured relics of Christ, of which, interestingly enough, all parties to the coming conflict wished to possess. A Second Arab war followed, engaging Byzantium, lasting from 722 A.D. to 737 A.D. — out of which, in the Battle of Ardabil in 730 A.D., the Khazars came out losers. It all began as the Heretics brought the entire controversy of Jesus — his gold, and his glory--to Edessa.
Monotheism and the Mandylion
Justinian II was a very devout emperor in spite of his other failings. As mentioned, the Byzantine Emperors, and their [Greek] Orthodox Church, took a more Judaic view of scriptures, agreeing in part with the Jews and the Moslems that neither God nor his Messiah ought to be portrayed in any form, stone, wood or pictures. For this reason, because the church was controlled out of Byzantium, during the first part of the Christian era there were no pictures made of Jesus or his Apostles and other saints of the church. In spite of the ban against idols and all the arguments between the Western Church centered at St. Peter's church in Rome, under the heavy hand of the Pope, there were a few items touched by Jesus which were not considered idols. They were the crucifix, the crown of thorns, Christ's Robe, and most particularly a relic called the Mandylion, which was a linen sheath in which Jesus was purported to have been draped in the tomb and which miraculously assumed an impression of his likeness. A copy of this likeness was placed over Justinian II's throne in Constantinople.
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The original of the Mandylion was hidden away in the main gate of Edessa. Copies of the Mandylion were scattered about, one ending at Jerusalem and another with Charlesmagne. The one Charlesmagne had was eight feet long and was later destroyed in the French Revolution. Other copies include portraits in the Hagia Sophia mosque in Constantinople, a church in Berlin, and another in Italy. Some versions are about the size of a facial napkin--like that which Saint Veronica used to wipe the forehead of Jesus as he stumbled under his cross. The original, now called the Shroud of Turin, is about fourteen feet long and carries a negative photographic impression of a man whose features were the prototype of all the Mandylion copies. The common claim behind the Mandylion images — paintings or otherwise--was that they were not made by human hands, as in the case of one impressed upon a tile, thereby making them exempt, as it were, as idols. For idols are images of gods made by human hands. The heretics were not effected by this argument in any way, because they used idols in the normal course of their worship, both in their churches and around their necks as amulets protecting them against evil.
After the death of Justinian II, in 711 A.D., Byzantium went through an idol destroying period, called the Iconoclast Crisis, until 843 A.D. Paintings, statutes, and all other images were ruthlessly sought out and destroyed throughout the Eastern Empire to the applause of the Arabs.
As mentioned earlier, Ogmios of Ocoui had been sent a message to leave the court of Byzantium and move on to the Emir of Babylon with the intent of stirring up more trouble with the Saracens and, in turn, Nebuchednezzar II (an upstart general not related to the Abbassid line) whom the Seven Kings of Pansnance, originally led by Rude King George and now Gory Vitellus, were using as a dupe to control all of the Middle East. They would be led into battle against themselves, and the Seven Kings of Pansnance would snip off their share of the lands and peoples destroyed from that Arab war.
It took quite a bit of finagling for the Arab's to wage war against each other, for it is written in their Koran that no Moslem is to wage war against another Moslem nation. The argument for war had to override this law in the Koran, as is with most designs undermining laws to justify evil.
Vanity is the King of most people--not God--and in Babylon a new faction called the Abbassids, previously discussed, were gaining power and influence over Mecca and through Mecca the entire Arab world, which at that time now stretched over North Africa and Spain.
As a result of Ogmios of Ocoui's mission on behalf of the Heretics, the Arabs had their sights on Tours and the Valley of the Loire in France, and laid plans to extend their battle front there and, at the same time, set themselves to overthrow the Umayyad Caliph in Damascus. Ogmios's embassy switched to Baghdad, since the resulting Second Arab War under Caliph Maslama (August 717 A.D.) with Constantinople had drained the Umayyad Dynasty in Damascus and transferred power to Baghdad and the Abbassid Caliphs. In addition the winter of 717-718 A.D. was particularly severe, with large numbers of the Arab army perishing, only to succumb to a terrible famine. The Bulgars finally broke the Arab siege, and, exactly a year after the siege began, Caliph Maslama packed up and returned home. Land wars with the Arabs continued against Emperor Leo III each year without success. Leo III reigned from 717-741 A.D.
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In the spring of 722 A.D. a 100,000 man Khazar army approached Dyarbekil on its way to Edessa and Mosul. Camped before the walls of Edessa to the south were another 100,000 Arab troops, and approaching from the east were another 50,000 Abbassid troops waiting, as it were, like wolves, hoping to clean up after the coming confrontation. Among them was Ogmios of Ocoui, still dragging his chronicle which was once a eulogy to the Heretic Prelate Willifrigt but now containing all kinds of interesting historical notes and points of interest. He was well received by the Saracens because of the important geographical information in his books.
Edessa was a formidable city and had last been penetrated in the sixth century. It has the fame of being the first Christian city. Its King Akbar, who lived during the time of Christ, was among the first to convert to Christianity. According to the story Akbar was a leper and dying. Hearing of Jesus's miracles he sent a letter to Jesus, requesting him to come and cure him from his ills. A letter was sent back from Jesus apologizing that he could not come because of needs in Jerusalem. But Jesus said in his letter he would send one of his disciples to him. Shortly thereafter Jesus was crucified, and Thaddeus, a disciple, was elected to deliver on Jesus's promise and went to Akbar. He carried with him the Shroud left in Jesus's tomb, which had an impression of Jesus on it. The Shroud was folded so that only the impression of Jesus's face showed in the protective bronze-latticed container in which it had been placed. There had already been some miracles associated with the Shroud, and the Church in Jerusalem believed that it could heal Akbar as well.
King Akbar was instantly cured when he was exposed to the Shroud. After that many miracles occurred in Edessa, and the Shroud, now called the Mandylion, was placed in the altar of a church built especially for it. Since then the city had a tradition, which spread with all the disciples throughout the world, that as long as the Mandylion stayed in Edessa the city would be protected by it.
Centuries and wars passed by, always leaving Edessa unscathed, until one day there was a great flood and the cherished Shroud had to be moved from its place. Then in the sixth century after the flood the city was about to be overrun, and the king ordered that the Shroud to be hid. The Patriarch took the Shroud with a candle and placed it in a niche high in the city's gate, where the god of the Port used to reside, and sealed up the niche with the lit lamp and Shroud enclosed. It was not moved again until 722 A.D. when Sir Nascien, upon his Winged Unicorn, and the Arab armies stood before the city.
The Unicorn had exceptional discernment; in the evening before the battle he led us to the place where the Mandylion was stored.
The Patriarch, named Anastasios, had a dream of a white knight coming to the niche and rose to investigate it. He saw Sir Nascien in his shining white armor and helped him carefully remove the Mandylion from its niche. They replaced it with the one-sided copy which subsequently ended up in the possession of Charlesmagne. Sir Nascien then flew away with the treasured Shroud to a lovely place on the Black Sea called Cape Sinop which was a fortified place the Khazars held jointly with the Pontic Theme of Constantinople. The land along the sea at Sinop had gently rolling, oak covered hills which led up to a great mountain range. About two miles down the beach from Sinop the mountains plunged directly into the sea, leaving high hanging valleys as one sees in the Austrian Alps. The Mandylion stayed there until it was moved to Constantinople in the tenth century. After the sack of Constantinople in 1125 A.D., by the Crusaders of all people, the Mandylion was rightfully carried to Poitiers with many other relics to the House of Anjou.
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After leaving the Mandylion and Patriarch Anastasios in Sinop, Sir Nascien flew back to Edessa to aid in the battle of the Khazars against the Saracens from Damascus. He landed where the battle was in full force in a marshy area north of the city, where the river made a quick turn to the southeast. Few of the heavily armored knights on either side were effective in that area, and the bog was full of screaming men and whinnying mounts. Because Sir Nascien's steed had wings (and a dreadful horn) he was able to swoop down on the Saracen chargers escaping from the marsh, running through one after another with his lance. Only well into the battle did he draw his sword, and that was after he split his lance on a Teil tree, piercing a Saracen's shield and body beforehand, nailing him directly to the tree. He drew his sword and began hacking at steel in every direction. Chips of wood from the shields and shreds of steel flew as one might see in a contest of twenty woodsmen cutting up one tree. Never had the Saracens seen the like before, and in panic they all flew into the center of the marsh where most of them drowned. As they retreated they let fly all of their arrows as if in one last desperate, hardouin move. Sir Nascien was hit from several sides and his armor looked like a pin cushion. But one arrow hit him in his right thigh, piercing even the scabbard of his Sword of Aravat, and because of his wounds he was carried from the field. He was bandaged in Edessa and treated as best they could from rubbings of the Unicorn Horn, until his fever broke, and then put back on his way, to return to his wife and son in Anjou, where he ruled as Grail King for several years more.
Causes of the Arab Wars
The causes of this war which ended in the Khazar defeat in A.D. 730, driving them back into the steppes from their anchors in Syria near Mosul, are the same causes which continue to plague humanity until now. They all boil down to disputes over Jesus's divinity which the Roman Empire, under Constantine, hoped to resolve in the Council of Nicaea but only added to the confusion. To understand the extreme forms of disagreement which still affect us today, it would be helpful to look at the issue from the Khazar, more open minded point of view.
The Khazars were Turkish peoples who converted to Judaism. They observed the Jewish law and did practice circumcision. A story involving the Khan Joseph, speaking of attempts to convert his people to either Christianity or Islam, perhaps best expressed the story of the Christian-Islamic differences. Khan Joseph's rabbi told him that an envoy of the Christians would have him and his people become Christians. He received the envoy and discerned that the Christians used the Scriptures but did not practice them. The Khan was well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Of course those Christians of the envoy were followers of Slues and their practices bore in fact little resemblance to the Scriptures. Their habit of using the Messiah in a manner which had no bearing to the Scriptures (which created the Messiah) just made no sense to the Khan, so he quickly dismissed the envoy. Conveniently, the Arab who was then on his way to tell the Khan about Islam was killed, so the Khan had no opportunity to judge Islam.
The Arab argument nontheless was later sent to the Khan who was then so pressed with war he had no time to look at it. The letter said, "My lord, our Great Khan, may God keep you forever! The Quoran has no life but to confirm the Jewish Scriptures. Though evident in many areas, we need only use one example by your Grace's permission:
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AL-AHQAF 46.12 .. the Book of Moses was revealed, a guide and a blessing to all men. This book confirms it.
'Lord, one cannot confirm something while opposing it. Can two walk together except they be agreed? As God is to my Lord the Khan so too are the ways of the Jewish Scriptures to the Quoran.' In this the Khan could not object.
The Koran, of course, also confirms that Jesus is the Messiah, something the Khan did question but which was discredited by the action of the Heretics in making Jesus a god, called Antijude, in opposition to the Scriptures which created him. Because of the Christian Heretics and hypocrites, the Imams of the Koran and the Khan could never get together, leaving only in the Khan's mind a Jesus as a god who abrogates the Jewish Scriptures. We know for a fact that many an apostle of Islam was turned back by the Khazar's Khan because of this. They had to advocate Jesus (as the Ebionites had advocated him) because of the Koran's endorsement of Jesus Messiah in many places. We need only cite one instance here:
IMRANS 3:45 The angels said to Mary: "Allah bids you rejoice in a Word from him. His name is the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary..."
Here we have the Koran's entire perspective on Jesus: He is a Word of God and his name is the Messiah. The Messiah is defined thoroughly in the Scriptures and is a title with amazing powers, which is written in Greek, as Christ, and in English, the Anointed One.
Coming to blows with Islam, the Heretics scuttled the Scriptures to advance their own religion using Jesus as a god called Antijude. They said God was of three natures; others said he was of a dual nature: a man and at the same time a god, or God. Because Jesus is a god, they argued, the scriptures are no longer of any effect. A more sensible approach to this dilemma was the Byzantine "Monophysite" consensus, agreeing more with the point of view of the Koran that God is one and He would not create a god who could compete with him. Where the Byzantines disagreed with the Moslems is the identification of Jesus as God incarnate. But both Byzantines and Moslems agreed that no idols are to be made of God and since Jesus (Messiah) is one with God (they agreed) no idols or pictures of him can be made as well. In Rome, as mentioned earlier, there was the argument that since Jesus had both a corporeal and divine nature, by intent of God, there was no offence in making images of his incarnate form. It was idols of his divine form which could not be made; other arguments, as advanced by the Heretics who scuttled the scriptures (Old Testament) altogether, argued that since the end of the Messiah is to reveal God's incarnate form--the revelation now being complete in Jesus--it is okay to make idols of Jesus and his saints.
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Jesus' Divinity is Confusing to the Khazars
Jesus's divinity in all these cases-- except in the traditional Jewish, Ebionite, and Islamic point of view which saw the Messiah as a man and a servant of God--had to be established in order to prove the Heretic thesis offered: that idols of Jesus can be worshipped. Leading the proof were the Heretics with their evidence that Jesus rose from the tomb and therefore must be a god (though the witnesses in the gospels attested to different observations at the empty tomb (except perhaps Peter and John's). Standing against the divinity of Jesus as either a god or the Messiah is, of course, Matthew 12.16-21 which shows Jesus charging his disciples not to make him known so the scripture (Isaiah 42.2 ff may be fullfilled. The Khan made note of this, and when the Christian emissary failed to answer why Jesus made such a charge, the matter of the Khazars turning to Christianity was no more pursued. This is why the Khazars could never accept either Christianity or Islam, because so much to-do had been made about his divinity and his divinity could not stand up to the Khan's scrutiny. "At issue (avoiding the confusion of divinity) was his Service to God as the Son of Truth," said the Khan. And since Jesus claimed to have a Second Coming (Luke 21) and at that time (Luke 21.22) all things which are written shall be fulfilled. So the Khan observed one should wait for that truth to be revealed.
The Khazar Kingdom, as stated, began to decline after 730 A.D., and by the twelfth and thirteenth century they themselves began fleeing to the northwestern woods, to Poland and Lithuania, which stretched all the way to Bohemia and the lands of the Alemanni. It is these Jews who formed the bulk of the Eastern European Jews, centered in Poland and Lithuania, who were eventually rounded up and sent to Hitler's gas chambers. Authorities all agree that the population of the Jews at the time of the diaspora mainly came from the Khazar Turks. After two thousand years of persecution, even to the furnaces of Hitler, the heritage of the Sons of David was sifted into a rather fine line of descent, involving the Ethiopian Kings, the Counties of Anjou and Somerset, and perhaps some Jews whose fathers trace from Bethlehem, wherever they may be...
Among the latter, David ben Zakkai, the hereditary secular head of the Jewish community of Babylonia, is perhaps one of the last recorded Sons of David, though lacking the rich detail of family history and tradition as his cousins in Ethiopia, Britain, and Anjou. ben Sakkai died A.D. 942 and is remembered for having brought the great Jewish Scholar Saadi Gaon to the Exarchate of Gaon. Saadi Gaon is considered the greatest Jewish Scholar, and his book, The book of Beliefs and Opinions, set the philosophy and standards for modern Jewish doctrine. We'll discuss him in the amazing tales of Yuri-rita in India and the lands of Chang-an, where, [on embarras] many worship instead of gods, beasts, and men the Golden Rule..
M8/31/92
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Chapter 12
Yuri-rita's adventure in the Forbidden City of Tabue &
how King George stirred up the the Kings of the East, and what follows
Zaid of Zamzam quickly rose to his feet and swished his goat skinned bag, brought all the way from Mecca, directly to the pack on his camel. Two thousand other drivers followed him, each coaxing their spitting and cantankerous camels from their kneeling position, in the desert about a days march from Bukhara, on the borders of the Khwarizm. Their two thousand camel caravan was on the way to Ch'ang-an, for spices and silks, which would be exchanged for gold and silver from Mecca and, for those Moslem communities among the Afghans and the Hindus, there was precious Holy Water from the Spring of Zemzem. Zaid's precious commodity was always burbling within their goatskin containers, so he was called Zaid of Zamzam, meaning "of the burbling well." Many communities would pay dearly for his water, as it came directly from the spring of the Sanctuary of the Temple, or Káaba, in Mecca. Of course, water was a precious commodity in the desert, and many a weary traveller had been quickened by the Spring of Zemzem. "His Word Quickeneth thee more," Zaid would always say, as he would pour the precious waters into your cup.
In the distance, coming from the West of Bukhara, were two riders, dressed in full battle armor. It appeared as if the one was chasing the other, and the guards of the caravan prepared themselves for battle. But then they spied behind them a small cloud of pilgrims frantically kicking their asses; and behind them an enormous cloud began to appear on the desert floor.
The caravan's locaton was where the desert floor was buttressed by the converging Hindu Kush mountains — where the Eastern Turks lived — and the Tyan Shan mountain ranges of China. These mountains appeared themselves, as it were, in flight before the ominous Himalayas. The Himalayas are the highest, most formidable mountain range on earth, and they were formed by the land of India, once a separate mass of land, drifting into the continent of Asia.
Instantly the guards of the caravan ordered us to move up into the adjacent ridges. And there we hid and watched the proceeding events.
The two knights passed below us first. One of them was in full red dress. From the red plume on his bright, flashing helmet to the mantle of his horse, all was red. The horse himself was entirely red, except for one white patch on its hind quarter. Whether that same white patch appeared on the other side of the horse could not be determined, since the other side of the steed could not be seen. It had been running for quite a distance and was foaming at the mouth.
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The reins and bridle of the horse were a treasure in themselves, as they were made out of the best red cordovan leather — matching the rider's red boots — and studded with bedazled, silver-dollar sized ornaments. The bridle itself was solid silver. The shield was solid red with a white cross and in the center of the white cross was a red dove.
Behind him was a rider in blue dress, whose plume was white, and whose jersey had pink stitchings. The mantle on the horse was itself quartered, with one quarter blue with pink stitchings offset by another which is pink with blue stitchings. The shield of this awesome knight matched the dress, as it too was quartered into pink and blue squares but in the center was a red bar with a white lion. The lance of this knight was itself a marvel, as it carried the same design on its hand rest, and its point had engraved upon it another lion. This horse's bridle and reins were made of cordovan leather, pink as a Vikings's behind, and bronze-dipped steel. As this knight passed by we could see under the flapping pink jersey a breastplate with two blazing breasts! We behind the rocks had to smother our amusement, that somehow what was going on before us had to be either a strange amazonian marriage ceremony or a family dispute! "Never should a knight marry a woman in arms." we all agreed!
The Battle of Bukhara
What appeared before the caravan's eyes was an event later known as the Battle of Bukhara.
Behind the two wonderfully adorned knights was a troop of armed children in strange animal drawn chariots, whom we mentioned earlier, which were called the Terrible Beasties. In each chariot were two children, one about ten years old and the other three to four years old. The younger one held a whip and did most of the yelling, whilst the older child concentrated on driving the cart. The two children were heavily armed, and mounted on each side of the chariot were racks containing dozens of arrows. The beasts pulling the carts were small gazelles and land birds. Following behind these usually were two chariots of the Beasties which were being pulled by cheetahs. Later we were told that the Beasties would normally have overrun the two knights, but on this occasion, for reasons yet to mention-- which were later told to us by the light of the fire--the Beasties were actually purposively restrained; and this was done by putting black cordovan blinders over the eyes of the cheetahs.
Behind this group were the pilgrims on asses, and now, right on their tail, was the army which we previously mentioned. It was about twenty thousand strong, of Ghuzzaris (half Ghuzz and half Khwarizi). Suddenly, as they reached the defile where the caravan was hiding, from the ridges on either side appeared a heavily armored army yelling and screaming the well known Khyber, blood chilling yell. The caravan had unknowingly hidden itself among the rocks at the time an entire army of Afghans secreted itself there. The result was horrible! The two errant knights turned, placed their lances in their rests, signaling for the Beasties to turn, at which time two children removed the blinders off the cheetahs. As the Pilgrims took to the rocks, out of the rocks descended the Afghans upon the horde of half Ghuzz and half Khwarizi. Within the hour the entire valley floor was covered in Ghuzzi-Khwarizi blood. And most of that blood was of cousins, cousins fighting cousins. On the side of the righteous cousins were the Afghans.
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What had just occurred was a battle after the typical steppe manner common to all the Bulgars, Khazars, Avars, and other Turks. They set up a small contingent to drop into the neighborhood of the enemy and then being discovered, as the two errant knights were, they would feign flight into a defile where the pursuers could be massacred. We shall not give details of this massacre for the sake of young ears who need not hear examples of such violence. It is sufficient to say that it took three days to collect the armor and booty off the blood smeared corpses, many of whom were without heads.
It was the Nestorian Pilgrims who insisted on burying as many of the bodies as could be done in that time. But the venture was abandoned on the third day, not only because it was time to move on, but because the priests were having too difficult of a time matching heads to the bodies. The Turks all wore mustaches, and they all appeared the same, as they, even as with the Afghans, were all related. Among the bodies were a few Franks who also wore moustaches; but most of the Franks wore full beards, as was the preference of Sir Gwain mentioned earlier.
The Red Knight and the Blue-pink Knight joined the campfire and told us their tale. The Red Knight was Sir Caldemore, of Britain, and when he removed his helmet we could see he wore a beard. His mate was the lady Sir Yuri-rita (she was knighted and calling her by any other title would have been an offence to the chevaliers and their code of chivalry). They had come to be part of the Afghan army in service to the Khazar Khan, Bazir. He had sent them into the territory of the northern Caspian Sea to cut off an Arab army passing through the plain between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. In this adventure they came in contact with the Afghans, who had just converted to Islam, but there were still many of them who were Ebionites and a few Jews. The Ghuzz and the Khwazari were still pagans, and all agreed that the job here to win over the pagans had been well done and God would be pleased. This was one of the few times where the Jews, Christians, and Moslems actually could sit together in agreement, where together they had carried out a just battle on behalf of God. After that the Heretics entered the area and got the Turks all confused over the number of God — because of the divinity of Jesus previously mentioned — which caused most of the peoples in that area, following the point of view of the Khazar Khan, to convert to Islam.
The Khan carried an extraordinary influence in Asia, as he was of the blood of Asena, and when he observed the Hypocrisy of the Heretics any further discussion of Jesus as a god was immediately put away. Islam was able to then penetrate this part of the area because Islam's pilgrims agreed that Jesus is not a god (because he cannot compete with god), and therefore his teachings cannot conflict with the Scriptures. The basis of the Heretic teachings, as mentioned earlier, was that Jesus, as a god, Antijude, in his own right could alter the Scriptures of God as the Heretics might seem fitting.
All of the peoples of this region: of Turkistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan and the Pakistanis agreed with the Khan's point of view and soon converted to Islam.
The Nestorian Pilgrims were somewhere in between the Ebionites (described earlier) and the Moslems in their views and were then interested in the teachings of the Brahmins of Pakistan and India, which is where they were headed just before they were passed by the two wonderfully attired knights and the Beasties, and, following them, the army of the Ghuzz and the Khwarizm. The Nestorians had intruded into the battle scene as they had left their lodging in Bukhara for their next stop in their pilgrimage, which was the multi-fabled city of Samarkand, the capital of Prestor John, the uncle of Sir Nascien. It was Prestor John himself who was responsible for converting the peoples of that region to the Ebionite branch of Christianity; and for a while he was the supreme commander of all the peoples of Central Asia. He had died just before the Battle of Bukhara at the ripe old age of one hundred and three years. From his loins--his marriage to an Eastern Turk--came the great Tamarlane, who put as much fear into the hearts of the European Kings as Prestor John himself. Tamarlane was also related to the Chinese emperors.
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All of these people dressed pretty much the same, in geometrically woven, woolen garments and turbans. Their girdles were dressed with golden swords and at least two daggers each. Usually one of them had another dagger hidden in his black boots. They all wore baggy pantaloons, as opposed to the European tights and togas, and the crotch of their ballooning pantaloons usually reached just above the knee. Most of them were herdsmen of goats and sheep. A breed of their goats, called the Cashmere, was then becoming highly prized because of its soft texture, as was preferred their sheep wool also, for which most caravans stopped in Samarkand and Bukhara to procure.
That evening we all fell into song and dance. The Turks, like the Persians and the Greeks, never allowed their women to participate in their victory dances. "Dancing was for men," they all would say, so the evening after the battle many camp fires lit up the sky to the rhythmic two-three stepping of the warriors of Afghanistan, who would rise, jump and dip, each with ones's arm over another's shoulder, all chained after this manner in an estatically weaving circle around the fire. The Nestorians themselves did not go in for dancing and usually sat around their fires at the rear of our caravan, whilst praying and meditating, preparing themselves for their encounter with the sages of India. Among their group, though not a Nestorian, was a man who was a printer named Gregori deTomæoni, an Italian come from Florence, whose family was well known as having supplied many famous knights and priests, most noteworthy among them being the Savoys. To spite his family which was equally divided between knights and priests, he was the first of them to try a new occupation. He had studied at the University of Bologna and later took up the Book Publishing trade in Ravenna, which then was under the supervision of the Monks of Ravenna, an esteemed community of monks who had come from Ireland, a land famous for its Illuminated Books.
Gregori was caught in the purge of Justinian II, and as the Greek troops of the emperor entered the city he gathered what books he had on the arts of publishing--and his notes--and took ship to Malta, and from there fell into the crowd of a group of Vikings who were then boasting of the riches of Khazaristan whom they were planning to rob. Gregori booked passage with them to the Island of Rhodhos, where they were attempting to set up a trading mission from which to launch their invasion, but failed. From there he met some Franks who were on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so he opted to join them and went on to the Holy Land. After seeing the land of our fathers, he then went on to Damascus where he heard of some marvellous new inks from India which did not smear as easily as the inks of Ravenna. Seeing an opportunity here, he booked passage to India on a caravan and came to be placed in the third class section with the baggage and Nestorian Pilgrims who then were fleeing from the Heretic Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt. Offended over their confusion over Jesus he had placed a warrant of ten thousand pounds on the Nestorians' heads, dead or alive. Seeing as the Caliph of Damascus would not give them refuge, they decided to head for India, whose people, they heard, were more tolerant of differing points of view on God.
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Sir Caldemore and Princess Yuri-rita came to be associated in the valley of the Battle of Bukhara through their connection with Sir Nascien. Princess Yuri-rita was a beauty with wonderfully brazen breasts who was of the court of Constantine IV and a cousin of the emperor by way of her British, Anjovian uncle. She was an extraordinary lady of high education, and she had a thirst for adventure. She came from a rather crazily mixed up blood-line--too long to retell here--which basically included most races from the Pacific Ocean to Asia, Africa (through her uncle who was descended from Prestor John and the half white, half black Sir Fierfiez) and Europe--except Italian. Being related to Emperor Constantine IV and thus a Heraclid herself (she was often surnamed Yuri-rita Ogmius — meaning Heracles — by the Franks), she was a true Princess and commanded the greatest respect in that area of the world.
Princess Yuri-rita was attracted to Sir Caldemore when she first saw him arrive at Constantine's Court in Constantinople, when on their way to the Khan of the Khazars and further adventures. From there Sirs Nascien and Caldemore went on to fight the Khwarizm on behalf of the Khan. The Khwarizm were under the rule of the Khan but had been fraternizing with emissaries of Caliph Muawija and his successors, so Sirs Nascien and Caldemore were sent into their area with a rather well fit army to put down the rebellion, and, of course, cut off the inroads the Arabs were making into the Khan's territories. This area in particular was important to the Khan because it was the land of the caravan route to Inner Asia and China, coming from either Europe or Persia, and critical to the control of the spice and silk trade. In 711 A.D. and in the middle of this war our Grail King, Sir Nascien, returned to France, leaving Sir Caldemore in charge of the Franks, who were then serving in the foreign legion of the Khan of the Khazars. Some Franks, as implied above, had joined the opposition for reasons too complicated to describe here; let it suffice to say that the turn-coats were from Navarre and the Garonne area near Toulouse and quite frankly they had more in common with the Visigoths, now under the Moors from Zaragotha, than the Parisians of the north. So they joined the army of the Caliph of Damascus. The opportunities for plunder were better under the Caliph.
Sir Caldemore and his Grail King, Sir Nascien, and their contingent were not in the war for plunder but for the glory of God. For it is a truth that Sir Nascien's mission, as spelled out by Sir Gwain in his Tiny Books from the chest of Merlin, was not for gold, neither for personal glory, but for God and his prophets. For it was through Sir Nascien that the Glory of God's prophesy and wisdom would be seen. We speak of the Messiah.
Whilst Sir Nascien returned to Anjou and married Princess Anaïs, the Grail Queen, in A.D. 714, Sir Caldemore continued with the wars against the Khwarizm. But then, in the fall of A.D. 712, he was wounded during a stand of valor which still rings on the lips of every caravan master who passes through the Bukhara region. He was surrounded by a thousand Saracens and ten thousand Khwarisi, and all but himself and three of his men were yet alive, battling in a last stand on a grassy knoll overlooking the Aral Sea. Then, seeing as all was lost, the four brave knights of Caldemore's Stand opted to commit suicide rather than to fall further into the hands of the Caliph who then sought to capture them alive. Seeing that their fate would be before the judgment hall of the Caliph and no doubt end in mutilation before death, as was the custom of most peoples in those times, the men chose suicide in their moment of pressing despair. As each took out his dagger to cut the throat of his friend and brother in arms, they saw in the sunset a cross in the sky which was framed by the rising moon. And then the Miracle of Baalfore happened: General Abdullah ibn Mustafa, of the Saracen army, saw the cross and stopped his troops. "God," he said, "has forbidden us to take these valiant knights," so they all turned and left with the retreating sun. This is how the Harvest Moon came to be added to the shield of Sir Caldemore, and his Red Armor from that day took on a greater significance.
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All of the four valiant knights came out of Caldemore's Stand with multiple wounds. Sir Caldemore himself — though a veteran of many battles — has to this day as souvenirs of the stand a long scar on his right arm, where a Saracen sword nearly severed the flesh from his arm from elbow to wrist; several deep wounds dress his left side, with one scar reaching from his breast to his groin. How he survived that stand without bleeding to death only God himself can answer, as he fought in the end without his shield, using one hand for his sword and the other hand to staunch the flood of blood pouring from his wounds!
The knights' of Caldemore's Stand, besides Sir Caldemore, were Sir Bleoberis, Sir Frye (a scion of Sir Bors), Sir Anthelstan (a West Saxon and Etheling married to Sir Frye's sister), and Sir Robert of Anjou, brother of King Constantine the Grail King, who was married to Constantine's cousin Beatrice of Poitiers. It was this Beatrice whose niece married Duke Aymond, the father of Bradamante, who took after Princes Yuri-rita and was a great warrior and a Paladin of Charlesmagne. The story of Bradamante is well known among the Chansons de Geste.
Bradamante fell in love with Sir Rogero, a scion of Sir Nascien and Hugh of Clarmont, who--as the Knight of the Unicorn--was a premier Paladin of Charlesmagne. Sir Rogero and Bradamante married, and their son was Roger of Anjou. Duke William of Normandy was a scion of this Roger of Anjou. Duke Aymond, the father of Bradamante, was a cousin of Bertrada, wife of King Pepin, and most of them can trace their ancestry to either King Constantine, King Nascien, or their cousin Duke Henric (Chyrin le Grand) who was the heir of Sir Bleoberis, Duke of Poitiers and Sir Clarrus Duke of Normandy. He was related by blood to them and King Arthur of Britain, but also, through his ties to King Cedric, was kin of the chiefs of Somerset and West Saxony. Beatrice, who married Duke Aymond, was the sister of King Cyneard, who traced his ancestry directly to King Cedric. It was King Cedric the Saxon who first landed in Britain from Saxony in the fifth century A.D. and began the conquest of the British. But we are getting ahead of our story, as Beatrice and Duke Aymond and Bradamante and Rogero--the Knight of the Unicorn--lived during the latter half of the eighth century, during Emperor Charlesmagne's reign.
Sir Caldemore was the only one of them who was not married, and because of this and because he also was of the House of Savoy--and a distant relative of Sir Nascien through Henric's brother the Duke of Lombardy-- the Lombards were then leaders of Florence--he was a catch after whom Princess Yuri-rita thirsted with the thirstiest passion. Hearing of Caldemore's Stand, and his wounds, and alarmed that he might die in the furry tents of the Khazars, she immediately formed a small battle group and left Constantinople to find her adorable knight servitor. Joining up with him, as he was then associated with the Afghan army, she and her contingent joined the War of Bukhara.
After the Battle of Bukhara Princess Yuri-rita wandered towards the end of our caravan and came in touch with the Nestorian Pilgrims who then had raised a tent with a red cross on its side (inspired by the vision of the Red Cross of Sir Caldemore's Stand) and filled it with many of the wounded still surviving from the Battle of Bakhara. There was no knight or footman who was not admitted into their hospice and assuaged by their medicines and herbs. Miraculously no one taken into the Tent of the Red Cross was taken out feet first! We mean to say every one of our wounded survived. Because of this the Franks took the story back to France, and it later influenced St. Bernard and the Templars and Hospitaliers who adorned their mantles and shields with either red or white crosses.
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Princess Yuri-rita's Trip through India
Being moved by the operations of the Tent of the Red Crosiers as they came to be called, Princess Yuri-rita became rather closely acquainted with Gregori deTomæoni and began assisting him with the medicines. He was well versed in the arts of alchemy (whose notes, we mentioned in an earlier aside, came into the possession of the prophet Nostradamus) and, by reason of his alchemistic notions, became a leader of the Nestorian group. Impressed by his tender yet firm hands, Princess Yuri-rita fell in love with Gregori, and she followed him into India. A few of her troops went on with her, led over the Khyber Pass by the Afghans, and into Kashmir, where they met their first sage whose name was Babor of Bekus, a cousin of the king who built for his pretty young wife the beautiful castle exactly after the vision of the Tajma Hall mentioned earlier. But that castle was in the south of India, and where Babor was teaching was in the north of India, at the foot of the Himalayas, in the same forest where Buddha himself once taught about 600 B.C. Buddha taught about Buddhism, which was a creed much like that taught by Jesus, but after the teaching of the Devas and the Hindu Brahmins. The Brahmins were teachers who spent a great deal of their time in seclusion, sitting in one forest glade after another, teaching to whomsoever would seek their knowledge in exchange for a bowl of rice.
It was through the teachings of Babor that Gregori learned of the Mystical Thread of India and the art of printing of which we shall now speak.
The Mystical Thread of India
Being interested in a new ink which might not streak from water (many of the monks who copied their Illuminated Books in Ravenna were often in tears) Gregori instantly became enraptured by a story which Babor told him of a magic ink. It seems as though there was a castle near the Chinese border where there was a mystical thread which could copy entire pages of writings — any style and any language — in a second or two. In the Mysterious Castle of the Mysterious Thread the people were Buddhists and worshipped using Prayer Wheels. Prayer Wheels were cylinders ranging as large as a Cathedral bell to a hand-held instrument, which had a handle, and by holding the handle in one hand and spinning the cylinder in the other, the prayers encased in the wheels would be spun into the air to Heaven. Since the messages put in the Prayer Wheels could be replaced daily — as was the practice, for each new day demanded a new prayer as it were — the demand for written prayers was enormous. In addition the people of the Himalaya region wrote prayers on pieces of paper which were secured to bamboo stakes jammed into the ground. So between the Prayer Wheels and the staked papers flapping their messages to the wind, there was a considerable demand for written prayers.
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To meet this demand a monk of the Forbidden City of Tabue invented a Mysterious Thread which could be guided onto paper and duplicate any message reflected on a nearby polished shield. After hearing of this story, Gregori and Princess Yuri-rita parted company with the Nestorian Pilgrims and went on to cross the mountains into China and the Forbidden City of Tabue. They joined a small band of Pamir Pilgrims who were on their way to the forbidden city. The story of their journey to the Forbidden City was confiscated, so we cannot here tell you much of it. Gregori and his new wife Princess Yuri-rita (they were married in the Forbidden City of Tabue) mentioned that they brought back with them complete drawings of the Miraculous Thread of Tabue, but the drawings were taken by the envoy, Lao Tzu T'ang, of the Chinese Emperor of Chang-an. Afterwards, when Gregori returned to Ravenna and later Florence, he attempted to obtain funds from the Pope to build the magic printing device but no one believed him.
He said the printing machine worked by a magic beam of light focused through a clear piece of adamant or an emerald--emeralds worked better — onto a stack of paper. Everything reflected from the mirror through the beam of light became duplicated on each paper — no matter how many papers there were in the stack. He called his contraption, of which he said he had a working model, the Copæi Multigraphicaii. He described the principal of its operation thusly: it works by light into light, one light bending into another. Each beam of light carries all the information reflected in it from the mirror. "Miraculously," he said, "one could, like a surgeon, dissect any beam and duplicate the entire message on any piece of the beam from the mirror. Just one fragment — or thread of light as it were — was all that was needed to copy mountains of prayers. Each piece of paper was coated with a Magic Elixir which would turn color when touched by the magic beam of light.
Any number of stacks of paper could be printed at a time, of any size or shape, merely by splitting the beam of light through different prisms of adamants. Since the magic light beams turned every which way or that, as they needed to be turned, it was the custom to make their final bend towards the center of the dome of the Magic Chamber's ceiling, where they pierced a thin sheet of glass and sped onwards back up to heaven from whence they came. The thin beam of light could be drawn off the moon as well as the sun, so one approaching the magic, Forbidden City of Tabue would first notice the beams escaping into the heavenly, night sky. "They appeared as shooting stars in reverse," Gregori said. Princess Yuri-rita confirmed this story even into her old age, yet most of the people of Florence did not believe them. The main reason no one wanted to invest in the device was owing to King George's nasty influence — through the Heretics — in the West. He hated absolutely everything which is new, as is the case of most Tyrants, and laid plenty of sinister objections to the machine before he died in A.D. 714, which, as said before, was from a death suitable to his works: he scratched himself to death. This was when when Sir Nascien and Princess Anaïs married.
After obtaining the plans for the machine, as said, Gregori and his new wife, Princess Yuri-rita, descended into the Plateau of Zindab in China proper, where their plans were confiscated by the envoy of the Chinese T'ang Emperor. After this Princess Yuri-rita proceeded on to the emperor of China and Gregori turned aside to return to Florence to duplicate his machine from memory. He thought to recopy the plans of the device from memory when he passed back into Afghanistan, but then the copy was smeared in a rare hailstorm, and he — sensing it a sign from God (believing everything of God has its time and place, and his invention was too early for the demented times of King George) — Gregori deferred making any more copies of the design until he reached Florence. There, after being scorned and derided because of his designs and wonderful, working model, he destroyed the entire works and — on the rare occasion which he ever cursed anyone — he cursed King George and his Kingdom of Quaken-Bush, their people who daily added to the plight of the poor and God's mission, and George's lackeys in Europe. It is because of this Curse, more than any other reason, that the kingdom of Quaken-Bush was destroyed and became a sign in history of a people who ought not to have tempted God. Gregori's writings later fell into the possession of Nostradamus, as he visited Florence on a medical scholarship.
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The prophesies of Gregori, forwarded on to us through Nostradamus, said that the hated vision of King George of Quaken-Bush and its people would once again appear in the Last Days, when the world would be burdened by the Apocalypse. It is said that all those who scorned St. Gregori's writings suddenly died of a blood infection of which no leech could cure. "I will plead with them with blood," the prophets said, and surely Quaken-Bush became the first example of this Curse of God. Gregori died, disgusted with the people of Florence's liaison with Quaken-Bush, in 771 A.D. "Cursed are those who bring the Lord's Creation into contempt," were his last words. His body was found at sunset, with his finger pointing to Revelation 11.18. No nation had brought God's creation into more contempt than King George and his Kingdom of Quaken-Bush.
Princess Yuri-rita rejoined her husband in Florence after her adventure in China, and they had many children, of whom can be counted the scions of Kings.
Before leaving the Forbidden City of Tabue, Princess Yuri-rita ran into a man who had made many pilgrimages from China to the Forbidden City of Tabue. He had been an advisor to the emperor Hsüan-tsung of China who ruled out of his capital of Ch'ang-an, previously mentioned.
What Rome was to the West the T'ang Dynasty of China was to the East. During the period 710-55 A.D. China underwent the most brilliant period of its history. From Ch'ang-an the T'ang ruled an empire including all of Korea, Manchuria and Mongolia to the Great Wall in the north; to the south much of Vietnam, west to the borders of Tufan (Tibet); in the far west they set up the prefectures of Kang (Samarkand) and Kan (Bukhara), to name a few places. In maintaining their hegemony they waged war with the Eastern Turks, whose capital was Kara-Balghasun, near present day Uliastay, Mongolia. The Western Turks had their capital at Suyah, at the southern end of the crescent shaped Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakstan. Several T'ang offensives in this region, at Hami, Turfan, and Kucha, south of Suyah, pressed the Turks and others like them further into the Black Sea region, as previously recorded; and these offensives, in turn, lay at the root of many offensives of the Magyars, Avars, etc. in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. At that time the Arabs were extending their influence into Afghanistan and India. At the request of Tokhara and other kingdoms threatened by Arab invasions, the T'ang emperor intervened in the Amu-Darya river area at the Aral Sea and saved many from certain destruction.
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Teachings from the
Forbidden City of Tabue
Princess Yuri-rita took notes of several teachings she learned through the pilgrim from China in the Forbidden City of Tabue. His name was Buddhadharma. As his name implies he was a Buddhist and was an honored philosopher in the Forbidden City of Tabue. He always taught in the name of a sage who taught before him. He believed that by quoting a sage one gives him life. This is what the Jewish rabbis believed also, so when he introduced a teaching he would say "father I-Ching, in the name of H'wen-chou, in the name of , etc. etc., in the name of Lao Tzu said," etc. "The teachings were very enlightening except for having to endure the long list of acknowledgments preceding a particular notion," said Princess Yuri-rita in her prefatory remarks on her journey to the Forbidden City of Tabue.
Most of the teachings come from some masters who lived about the same time as Socrates (469-399 B.C.) Guatama, the Buddha (560-480 B.C.) Lao Tzu (considered to be the teacher of Confucious); Confucious (551-479 B.C.) and the prophet Jeremiah, circa. 550-600 B.C. The age of the latter four is referred to by historians as the Axis Age.
We shall not describe each of their teachings but refer to them as one, as they all followed a belief which can be reduced to the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Ways of achieving this can vary, as a man's life can vary. Some people, as expressed by the Khan of the Ghuzz, for instance, cannot control their actions, so they must have laws to control them. Others — more enlightened souls we say — need few laws and may rest their actions entirely on the precepts of self-control, which in turn rely upon the Golden Rule. The Khan of the Ghuzz said "If you cannot control yourself (from temptation) cover your women; we of the Ghuzz", he said, "need not do so!"
As with his teachings, so too is it with the teachings of the prophets and the sages of the Far East. The first teaching is to "Know Thyself." The second teaching is like it. Remove yourself from those things which you know will tempt you to sin against the Golden Rule. If you know you might steal, cheat, or lie, or do worse if tempted, remove yourself from the temptation.
Removing Yourself from Temptation
The sages offered two ways of removing yourself from temptation. The first way is to understand that with life comes temptation and temptation brings suffering. To avoid suffering, therefore, they say one should remove oneself from the causes of temptation and (therefore) suffering. Become a hermit was one solution. Buddha, for instance, gave up his life as a prince of Kashmir in exchange for the solitary life and a beggar's rice bowl. Lao-Tzu simply said to change your perspective. Become humble, tolerant and discern that there are many things which happen in life which are beyond your control. Discernment is the key to salvation, which we simplify in a term called The Way which we shall now describe as set forth in the Scriptures of the Forbidden City of Tabue.
The Way is forever nameless.
The great Way is easy, yet people prefer bypaths.
This can be seen when tyrants come to rule. The court is corrupt,
The fields are overgrown with weeds,
The granaries are empty;
Yet, there are those dressed in fineries,
With swords at their sides,
Filled with food and drink,
And possessed of too much wealth.
This is known as taking the lead in robbery.
Far indeed is this from the Way.
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Always rid yourself of desires in order to observe the Way's secrets.
But allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.The sage of The Way has no mind of his own.
He takes as his own the mind of the people.One who possesses virtue in abundance, a sage, is comparable to a new born babe:
Poisonous insects will not sting it;
Ferocious animals will not take it;
Predatory birds won't swoop upon it.
Its bones are weak and its sinews supple yet its hold is firm.
It does not know of the union of male and female yet its male member will stir.
This is because its virility is at its height. It howls all day yet does not become hoarse.
This is because its harmony is at its height.
To know harmony is called the Constant;
To know the Constant is called discernment.Those who are good I treat as good.
Those who are not good I also treat as good.
In so doing I gain in goodness.Those who are of good faith I have faith in.
Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in.
In so doing I gain in good faith.The sage puts his person last and the Way comes first.
Is it not because he is without thought of self that he is able to accomplish his private ends?The Way accomplishes its task yet lays claim to no merit.
The sage extends himself but not at the expense of others,
Shines but does not dazzle.The sage takes his place over the people yet is no burden;
Takes his place ahead of the people yet causes no obstruction.
That is why the empire supports him joyfully and never tires of doing so.
It is because he does not contend that no one in the empire is in a position to contend with him.
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The Way of Heaven excels in overcoming though it does not contend,
In responding, though it doesn't speak,
In attracting though it does not summon,
In laying plans though it appears slack.The net of heaven is cast wide.
Though the mesh is not fine,
Yet nothing ever slips through.Make the small big and the few many;
Do good to him who has done you an injury.Deal with a thing while it is still nothing.
Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.The sage never attempts to be great and therefore succeeds in being great.
One who excels in travelling leaves no wheel tracks;
One who excels in shutting uses no bolts,
Yet what he shut cannot be opened;
One who excels in tying uses no cords,
Yet what he has tied cannot be undone;
Therefore, the sage always excels in Saving People and so abandons no one;
Always excels in saving things, and so abandons nothing.Opposites complement each other.
The difficult and the easy complement each other;
Something and nothing produce each other.
Hence, the good man is the teacher the bad man learns from,
And the bad man is the material the good works from.The sage avoids excess, extravagance, and arrogance.
The submissive and the weak will overcome the hard and the strong.
How easily a small shoot can displace a rocky crag!Too much store is sure to end in immense loss.
Therefore, know contentment and you will suffer no loss.
Know when to stop and you will meet with no danger.
You can then endure.There is no crime greater than having too many desires;
There is no disaster greater than not being content.
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There is no misfortune greater than being covetous.
Hence, in being content one will always have enough.
One can even know the entire world without stirring abroad,
And without even looking out the window one can know the way of Heaven.When the Way prevails in the empire, fleet-footed horses are relegated to ploughing the fields;
When the way does not prevail in the empire,
Warhorses breed on the border.
It is always through not meddling that the empire is won.When the people lack a proper sense of awe,
Then some awful visitation will descend upon them.Is not the way of Heaven like the stretching of a bow?
High it presses down, the low it lifts;
The excessive it takes from, the deficient it gives to.It is the way of Heaven to take from what has in excess in order to make good what is deficient.
The way of man is otherwise.
It takes from those who are in want in order to offer riches to those who already have more than enough.
Therefore the sage benefits them yet exacts no gratitude,
Accomplishes his task yet lays claim to no merit.Truthful words are not beautiful;
Beautiful words are not truthful.
Good words are not persuasive;
Persuasive words are not good.The sage creates the Disciplined Man.
He who concentrates upon the task
And forgets about reward
May be called the Disciplined Man.The Disciplined Man does everything possible to help the poor
But nothing to enrich the rich.
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The Disciplined Man knows his worth.
He may fish with a hook, knowing he needs not a net;
He never shoots his arrows at a sitting bird.The Disciplined Man is completely at ease;
Petty men are always on edge and easily tipped from their place.The Disciplined Man is a ruler without detachment.
If you have faults do not fear self-improvement.
Do not do to others what you would not desire for yourself.The Disciplined Man is a good judge of disputes,
And in hearing cases knows that his best work
Is to see to it that there are no cases before the judge.The Disciplined Man is frank, meticulous, and accommodating.
Friends are frank and meticulous;
Brothers are accommodating.The Disciplined Man undertakes something even though he knows it can't be done!
Be not concerned over men's not knowing of you;
Be concerned rather over your failings.The Disciplined Man demands it of himself;
Petty men of others.The Disciplined Man can be reduced to the last extremity,
But when petty man is so reduced he loses all self-control.The Disciplined Man is sparing in his reproaches of others,
While he heaps them upon himself;
In this way he keeps away resentments.The Disciplined Man never seeks life at the expense of others;
There are cases where his life is given for the accomplishment of the Disciplined Man.The Disciplined Man must give thought to problems which are still distant,
Otherwise he will be worried by them when they come nearer.As you serve your prince give precedence to his interest;
Think of your reward last.
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Remember that the only ones who do not change are sages and idiots.
There are nine things which a Disciplined Man must be mindful:
To see when he looks,
To hear when he listens,
To have a facial expression of gentleness,
To have an attitude of humility,
To be loyal in speech,
To be respectful in service,
To inquire when in doubt,
To think of the difficulties when angry,
To think of justice when he sees an advantage.If the Disciplined Man does not see the world following the Way,
Then he is obliged to do his part to help reform it.Just as artisans inhabit the market place to ply their trades,
So the Disciplined Man studies to improve his doctrine.
But heed always the fact that as the Disciplined Man may be considered wise because of some one word,
So, because of some one word, may one be considered ignorant!The Disciplined Man knows his soul which is the Self
And the Self is part of the indivisible, ineffable Self
Who rejoices in his creations from the Kingdom of Heaven.The Self is invisible yet sees through your eyes and hears through your ears.
If one thinks he knows the self, he knows not,
For all one sees is the external form and the self is indwelling.
Continue therefore your meditation
And remember the story of the Blind Men and the White Elephant.To be the Self is to go beyond death.
Behold the glory of the Self through the grace of love.Though one sits in meditation in a particular place,
The Self within can exercise his influence far away.
Though still, he moves everything everywhere.
For the supreme Self is beyond name and form,
Beyond the senses, inexhaustible,
Without beginning, without end,
Beyond time, space, and causality,
Eternal, immutable.
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Those who realize the Self are forever free from the jaws of death.
But to know one, is to know all.
As pure water is poured into pure water and becomes one with the immutable self,
So too can one verily become one with the Godhead.
For the supreme ruler and immutable Self multiplies his oneness into many.
Changeless midst the things which pass away,
He answers the prayers of many.
Eternal peace is theirs who see the Self in their own hearts.When all desires that surge in the heart are renounced,
The mortal becomes immortal.
When all the knots that strangle the heart are loosened,
The mortal becomes immortal.Those who long for the Self with all their heart are chosen by the Self as his own.
If you are in doubt about right conduct, follow the example of the sages.
Practice meditation and discern its foundation,
That wisdom means a life of selfless service.When one is, in whom all life is one,
Changeless, nameless, formless,
Then one fears no more.
Until we realize the unity of life, we live in fear.Refuse not food to those who are hungry.
When you feed the hungry, you serve the Lord,
From whom is born every living creature.Those who realize that all life is one are at home everywhere
And see themselves in all.
They sing in wonder:
I am the food of life, I am, I am.
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As rivers lose their private name and form when they reach the sea,
So the soul is dedicated to the Self.As bees suck nectar from many a flower and make their honey one,
So that no drop can say, "I am from this flower or that;"
All creatures, though one, know not they are that One.If lost in sorrow, know thyself,
For one who realizes the Self goest beyond sorrow.Where one realizes the indivisible unity of life,
Sees nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else,
That is the infinite.
Where one sees separateness, shares separateness, knows separateness,
That is the finite.
The infinite is beyond death,
But the finite cannot escape death.
Therefore, do a diligent search for things thou knowest not.Rejoice in Him through renunciation.
Covet nothing.
All belongs to the Lord.
Live your life, therefore, for the welfare of all.That which your heart desires, may you attain;
And finding for yourself deliverance in the Self, deliver all!Remember the Buddha, as he knows the world as it is
And never says that it is real or false, or good or evil.
He simply shows the world as it is.
He came from nowhere and there is nowhere where he went.
He lacked nothing,
And because he lacked nothing his body fills every corner of the universe,
It reaches everywhere, it exists forever.
For he became one with the immutable Self.The form of the Buddha is originally one Dharma-kaya,
But as the nature of people varies, Buddha's form appears differently.
Though Buddha has a three-fold body, his spirit and purpose are one:
To save all people.
It is seldom that a Buddha appears in this world.
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When a Buddha does appear, he attains Enlightenment,
Introduces the Way, severs the net of suspicion,
Removes the lure of desire at its root,
Plugs the fountain of evil;
Completely unhindered, he walks at will over the world.
It has been explained that Buddha is not a physical body but is Enlightenment.
A body may be thought of as a receptacle;
Then, if this receptacle is filled with enlightenment,
It may be called Buddha.
For those who are proud and egoistic, he preaches humility and self-sacrifice;
For those who are entangled in the web of worldly pleasures,
He reveals the misery of the world.
As Buddha is the great king of the Way, he can preach to all people as he wishes;
So Buddha appears in the world to bless the people.
To save them from suffering he preaches the Way,
But the ears of people are dulled by greed and they are inattentive.
They imagine discriminations where there are in reality, no discriminations,
And clinging to their egos they take wrong actions.
As a result they become attached to a delusive existence.
But those who listen to his teachings are free from the delusions and the miseries of life.Search Truth: discern the questions which are important.
In the presence of lamentation, sorrow, suffering, and pain,
One should first search for a way to solve these problems
And devote oneself to the practice of that way.
Keep thine mind pure, as the impure mind surrounds itself with impure things
And the pure mind with pure things.
If a man speaks and acts with a pure mind,
Happiness follows him like his shadow.
Those who act knowing they have done wrong are condemned to falling under the same retributions they heaped upon others.Be calm, be still, so you can acquire peacefulness like the Buddha
And thus be able to cultivate your mind day and night with more diligence,
And with it offer its part to the ineffable all.This is the end of the teaching of the Forbidden City of Tabue.
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The Battle of Arjuna
As Princess Yuri-rita and her sage companion descended the precarious trail into China — they had joined a train of about two hundred pack animals — they saw on the horizon a cloud of dust which was no doubt an enormous army. Knowing not the army's intent, the small train continued upon its path, hoping that the vision in the distance would be troops of the T'ang emperor, and, if so, their passage would be safe because of the T'ang Sage who had befriended Yuri-rita. But then as they just reached the plain, another army, about the same size as the other, appeared which was of the Turks. Yuri-rita then knew that she and her friend were in a precarious position and must choose sides, the one being the enemy of the other. Because of her service with the Khan of the Khazars the Turks would expect her to take their side; but because of her association with the Chinese sage, the Chinese would expect her to take their side. What must she do? Then she realized that all of the teachings she learned from the sage — of which we have recalled a part — meant nothing in the face of a barbaric world. Her life could be smashed, as an ant accidentally smashed underfoot — and believe you me there were many people in India (called the Jains) who took extra precaution to prevent stepping even on ants — and her world could come to an end. And without her, her world meant nothing!
"For the sake of my world," she said to herself, "I must survive." So she put all of her skills in diplomacy to work, sensing their needs and relating herself to them. She remembered the teaching, "that whatever she does must be without concern for the fruits." Then, in her moment of reverie, a slight, almost imperceptible voice whispered into her ear, saying:
"Hear thou a message from the Great Spirit:
Delight in the good of all creatures and attain the pure calm of infinity!
Become tranquil.
Remember to act with honor, for one who acts with honor cannot go the wrong way.
Dwelling compassionately deep in thyself,
I dispel darkness born of ignorance with the radiant light of knowledge.
I am the time grown old, creating world destruction,
Set in motion to annihilate the worlds;
Even without you, all these warriors arrayed in hostile ranks will cease to exist!
Act only for me, intent on me, free from attachment,
Hostile to no creature; rejoice in the welfare of all creatures."Even if you fail in practice, dedicate yourself to action.
Performing actions for my sake you will achieve success.
Be self-controlled and reject all fruit of action.
The Lord stands with equanimity everywhere.
Seeing the Lord standing the same everywhere,
The self cannot injure itself and goest the highest way.
When he perceives the unity existing in separate creatures and how they expand from unity,
He attains the Infinite Spirit.
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"Fearlessness, purity, determination in the discipline of knowledge,
Charity, self-control, sacrifice,
Study of sacred lore, penance, honesty;
Nonviolence, truth, absence of anger,
Disengagement, peace, loyalty,
Compassion for creatures, lack of greed, gentleness,
Modesty, reliability; brilliance, patience,
Resolve, clarity absence of envy and of pride;
These characterize a man born with divine traits.
The divine traits lead to freedom, the demonic lead to bondage;
Do not despair, Yuri-rita, you were born with the divine."Demonic men cannot comprehend activity and rest,
There exists no clarity, no morality, no truth in them.
They say that the world has no truth, no basis, no god,
That no power of mutual dependence is its cause, but only desire.
Mired in this view, lost to themselves with their meager understanding,
These fiends contrive terrible acts to destroy the world."Subject to insatiable desire, drunk with hypocrisy and pride,
Holding false notions from delusion, they act with impure vows."In their certainty that life consists in sating their desires,
They suffer immeasurable anxiety that ends only with death."Bound by a hundred fetters of hope,
Obsessed by desire and anger,
They hoard wealth in stealthy ways to satisfy their desires.
Self-aggrandizing, stubborn, drunk with wealth and pride,
They sacrifice in name only, an hypocrisy, violating all norms,
Submitting to individuality, power, arrogance, desire, and anger,
They hate me and revile me in their own bodies as in others.
These hateful, cruel, vile men of the misfortunate,
I cast into demonic wombs through cycles of rebirth.
Fallen into a demonic womb, deluded in birth after birth,
They fail to reach me,
And they go the lowest way into the three gates of hell which destroy the self.
These gates are desire, anger, and greed.
One must relinquish all three to achieve me and ascend to the highest way.
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"Be lucid, for the joy of lucidity at first seems like poison
But is in the end like ambrosia
And all men will respect you for it."If you are deafened by individuality you will be lost.
Your resolve is futile if you think, '
I shall not fight,' for nature will compel you to it.
Delusion may force you to do what you refuse.
As the one sun illumines this entire world,
So the master of the field illumines the entire field.
Be thou master of this field after my name, Yuri-rita,"
Said the mysterious and sublime voice.
Please send me over to my poorly written French version,