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

something very concrete — namely the direct intervention of the gods in historical events. This was
not conceived of as something dark and mysterious, but rather very clear and contemporary: either the
divinities appeared in visible human form (and fought in battles for instance) or they “possessed”
human protagonists and “inspired” them to great deeds and misdeeds.
If human history is dependent upon the will of supernatural beings in the ancient view of things, then
it is a necessary conclusion that humans cannot influence history directly, but rather only via a
religious “detour”, that is, through entreating the gods. For this reason, the priests, who could
establish direct contact with the transcendent powers, had much weight in politics. The ritual, the
oracle, and the prayer thus had primary status in ancient societies and were often more highly valued
than the decisions of a regent. In particular, the sacrificial rite performed by the priests was regarded
as the actual reason whether or not a political decision met with success. The more valuable the
sacrifice, the greater the likelihood that the gods would prove merciful. For this reason, and in order to
be able to even begin the war against Troy, Agamemnon let his own daughter, Iphigeneia, be ritually
killed in Aulis.
Very similar concepts — as we shall demonstrate — still today dominate the archaic historical
understanding of Lamaist Buddhism. Religion and history are not separated from one another in the
Tibetan world view, nor politics and ritual, symbol and reality. Since superhuman forces and powers
(Buddha beings and gods) are at work behind the human sphere, for Lamaism history is at heart the
deeds of various deities and not the activity of politicians, army leaders and opinion makers. The
characters, the motives, the methods and actions of individual gods (and demons) must thus be made
answerable in the final instance for the development of national and global politics. Consequently, the
Tibetan study of history is — in their own conception — always mythology as well, when we take the
latter to mean the “history of the gods”.
What is true of history applies in the same degree to politics. According to tantric doctrine, a sacred
ruler (such as the Dalai Lama for example) does not just command his subjects through the spoken
and written word, but also conducts various internal (meditative) and external rituals so as to thus
steer or at least influence his practical politics. Ritual and politics, oracular systems and political
decision-making processes are united not just in the Tibet of old, but also — astonishingly indeed —
still today among the Tibetans in exile. Centrally, for the Lamaist elite, “politics” means a sequence of
ritual/magical activities for the fulfillment of a cosmic plan which is finally executed by the gods (of
whom the Lamas are incarnations). It is for this reason that ritual life has such an important, indeed
central status in a Buddhocratic state system. This is the real smithy in which the reality of this
archaic society was shaped. That apparently “normal” political processes (such as the work of a
“democratic” parliament or the activities of human rights commissions for instance) exist alongside,
need not — as the example of the exile Tibetans demonstrates -stand in the way of the occult ritual
system; rather, it could even be said to offer the necessary veil to obscure the primary processes.
The battle of the sexes and history
Let us return to Homer and his times. The Trojan War vividly demonstrates how closely the history of
the ancient Greeks was linked to the battle of the sexes. A number of gender conflicts together formed
the events which triggered war: The decision of Paris and the vanity of the three chief goddesses
(Hera, Athena, Aphrodite), the theft and the infidelity of Helen and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. The
end of the long drawn out and terrible war is also marked by bloody sexual topics: The treacherous
murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, her death at the hands of her son Orestes, the flight