Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

entering the wonderland, and the dangerous adventures which must be undergone, make the journey
to Shambhala (whether real or imaginary) a tantric initiatory way. This becomes particularly clear in
the central confrontation with the feminine which just like the Vajrayana controls the whole travel
route. The quite picturesque book describes over many pages encounters with all the female figures
whom we already know from the tantric milieu. With literary leisure the author paints the sweetest
and the most terrible scenes: pig-headed goddesses; witches mounted upon boars; dakinis swinging
skull bowls filled with blood, entrails, eyes and human hearts; girls as beautiful as lotus flowers with
breasts that drip nectar; harpies; five hundred demonesses with copper-red lips; snake goddesses who
like nixes try to pull one into the water; the one-eyed Ekajati; poison mixers; sirens; naked virgins
with golden bodies; female cannibals; giantesses; sweet Asura girls with horse’s heads; the demoness
of doubt; the devil of frenzy; healers who give refreshing herbs — they all await the brave soul who
sets out to seek the wonderland.
Every encounter with these female creatures must be mastered. For every group the Panchen Lama
has a deterrent, appeasing, or receptive ritual ready. Some of the women must be turned away without
fail by the traveler, others should be honored and acknowledged, with yet others he must unite in
tantric love. But woe betide him if he should lose his emotional and seminal control here! Then he
would become the victim of all these “beasts” regardless of whether they appear beautiful or dreadful.
Only a complete tantra expert can pursue his way through this jungle of feminine bodies.
Thus the spheres alternate between the external and the internal, reality and imagination, the world
king in the hearts of individual people and the real world ruler in the Gobi Desert, Shambhala as
everyday life and Shambhala as a fairytale dream, and everything becomes possible. When on his
travels through Inner Asia the Russian painter, Nicholas Roerich, showed some nomads photographs
of New York they cried out: “This is the land of Shambhala!” (Roerich, 1988, p. 274).
The “raging wheel turner”: The martial ideology of Shambhala
In the year 2327 (C.E.) — the prophecies of the Kalachakra Tantra tell us — the 25th Kalki will
ascend the throne of Shambhala. He goes by the name of Rudra Chakrin, the “wrathful wheel turner”
or the “Fury with the wheel”. The mission of this ruler is to destroy the “enemies of the Buddhist
teaching” in a huge eschatological battle and to found a golden age. This militant hope for the future
still today occupies the minds of many Tibetans and Mongolians and is beginning to spread across the
whole world. We shall consider the fascination which the archetype of the “Shambhala warrior”
exercises over western Buddhists in more detail later.