INTRODUCTION Welcome to an exploration of the Great Goddess as she lived, and still lives, in India and Tibet. In this region, she is still very much alive, and with the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to the West forced by the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet 40 years ago, the religion of this Great Goddess has actively spread to the West. Although the Great Goddess can be found in one other literature of post-Classic times - Celtic mythology written down during the Middle Ages - the wealth of texts and living cult practice is unparalleled in India and Tibet. The complexity that appears is almost overwhelming. A serious academic controversy continues as to whether or not a single Great Goddess exists/existed in South and Central Asia; the number of apparently distinct goddesses, both 'major' and `minor' that can be tabulated is striking. I proceed from the assumption that the Great Goddess was\is a global phenomenon, although it is easy to loose the `single pre-eminent deity' when looking at her numerous ephiphanies and manifestations. I sympathasize with those who cannot see the unity behind the manifest `ten thousand things'. In any case, this presentation lacks a single skeleton upon which to hang the discussion. The complexity of these mytho-poetics will not allow for that and no overriding theme will be forced on this study. Let us revel in the complexity for its own sake and for the extraordinary diversity of human behavior that is accepted under its umbrella. Hinduism and Buddhism are, perhaps, the most tolerant religions yet to appear on this planet. They are an extraordinary achievement of the human mind. Indian and Tibetan mytho-poetics have long impressed scholars with their complex, multilayered metaphors. In all of history, they may represent the most impressive cultural achievement in this realm for these societies valued intellectual pursuits very, very highly. Ultimate `knowledge' was experiential, forever beyond intellectual study and accomplishment. Nonetheless, the development of a first rate intellectual mind and the commitment to in-depth, difficult study was always viewed as the essential beginning steps on the road to enlightenment. Such a view is rarely held now in the West, where we have such a passion for what is quick, ego-centered, emotional and expressive. We do not have a deep cultural tradition to that which requires a major individual commitment to deep information gathering and tight, logical philosophy. Integration of such experiences into a life requires, above all, maturity of thought and discipline and the ability to make serious choices for the long-run gain. In our adolescent, ego-oriented culture forever obsessed with only today, we spin out accolades for those coming to meet us from Hindu or Buddhist realms. However, we rarely understand them because their message cannot be reduced to cartoon level, easily assimilated, self-help cleverness, however much we try to do just that. The other barrier in confronting these mytho-poetics is sex, something all Westerners are convinced they know a great deal about. As a culture, we are entirely unfamiliar with sexual practice integrated into religion. Within the context of Judao-Christian thought, such ideas were never acceptable to the mainstream and early in the history of Christianity were branded heresy and totally sinful, to be persecuted wherever found. The mainstream theology of the West has been puritanical and moralistic since the early Middle Ages. Nonetheless, for several centuries, Gnosticism contained sects which practiced sexual rites within the context of a philosophy that drew heavily upon the New Testament. These Gnostic sects are discussed at some length in the beginning of this study in order to introduce rituals that were practiced in the West that bear some relationship to the integration of sexual rites within the Goddess cults of both Hindus and Buddhists. These practices are spectacular and extreme and their description will challenge many of your basic assumptions about public and private ethics and morality. I have chosen not to avoid these issues, because without them a study of the Great Goddess in India and Tibet would have no meaning. Sexual rites, tantric and otherwise, were central to much cult practice because of the Goddess' intimate association with fertility and life-giving in both the human sphere and the ecological environment at large. (The historical record of sexual ritual in the West has yet to be explored fully and discussed thoughtfully.) The historical record in South and Central Asia is clear, from both written evidence and archeological data. This is not to say all Goddess ritual was sexual, far from it. More than half of this study is concerned with other matters as the table of contents makes clear. However, when we enter the realm of both Tantrism and the Goddess as Giver of Sovereignty, sexual ritual appears in a context loaded with complex metaphysical philosophy. My commitment is, above all, to historical reality. What was, or is, must be witnessed and understood: such is the philosophy which underlies the study and remembrance of the Holocaust of WWII. Understand, that I am a researcher only, not a closet cultist who practices strange rituals, sexual or otherwise. In presenting this material, I am not advocating that myself or anyone should, necessarily, experiment with such practices. Context is everything and by that I mean traditions with deep mytho-poetic meaning that support daily life, secular and ritualistic. The cultural context for these practices, except for some Tantric rites, is forever lost and cannot be recreated. It is forever incompatible with electronic media and mass produced junk culture. In any case, such rites were only intended for royalty under special circumstances as explained in the text, or for those of unusual pyschological strength who were naturally inclined and thoroughly prepared to explore pyschic realms that for most people were very dangerous and carried with them the possibility of madness. The potential benefits to the few who entered these realms are discussed in the study. The potential benefits to simply reading about this facet of religious history is that we might broaden our understanding of human nature and see a more complete, complex picture than before. If such an exploration is offensive to you, please do not undertake it. No benefits will accrue; there would be no point in simply getting angry at me or feely morally superior. I strongly recommend that this material not be read by young people, who will not have the maturity or educational backround to properly consider it, or anyone simply after sexual titilation. In either case, the time spent would simply be wasted. References for Indian and Tibetan History Basham, A.L. 1954. THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA. New York: Grove Press. Shakabpa, T.W.D. 1967. TIBET: A POLITICAL HISTORY. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Snellgrove, D. and H. Richardson. 1968. A CULTURAL HISTORY OF TIBET. Boston: Shambala. Wolpert, S. 1991. INDIA. Berkeley, CA.: Univ. of California Press. Yeshe Do Project. 1986. ANCIENT TIBET. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publ. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS To enjoy the reports in the archive INDTIB12.ZIP simply unarchive the ZIP file to a directory of your choice. There are three executable files in the archive plus readme.1st which is an ASCII text file. The executables are self running 'electronic books'. Enter the file name at the command line as you would with any DOS program and press . The opening screen of the 'book' will appear with menu items for you to select with the keyboard. These menu items correspond to chapter or section headings within the document. By selecting one, you will jump immediately to that section. If you wish to read the document from the beginning to the end without interruption, select the first menu item and proceed. Moving throughout the 'book' is intuitive using the arrow, page, home and end keys. Read the top and bottom menu bars for 'hot keys' which allow you to save and print sections or the entire 'book' and perform other functions. If you have the Microscoft Word for Windows version, decompress the files to your WinWord directory itself. Files may be opened and read as you would any text or doc file. The same procedure should be followed for the version which is a package of ASCII text files. Copyright Stuff This material is protected by U.S. copyright laws and may not be reproduced in any media without express written permission of the author. In the past, I have given such permission when classes or study groups have wished to provide printouts of selected material for study and discussion. You may freely distribute the shareware archive of this project (INDTIB12.ZIP) as you wish; I urge and encourage you to do so. Please do not distribute in any manner the registered version of INDTIB12. You may not alter in any manner the documents in either the shareware or registered versions of INDTIB12. To do so would violate the integrity of the work and would be a serious abrogation of copyright law. If you wish to make notes of ideas and thoughts that occur to you as you read, please do so on a printed copy as margin notes or in a separate computer file of your own creation. How to Reference If you wish to refer to material in INDTIB12 in a work of your own, you must honor professional procedures and reference appropriately. Failure to do so is plagarism which is a serious matter and is covered by copyright law. Please note that where I directly quote you should reference the original source, not INDTIB12. An electronic book such as this should be referenced as follows: Blumenberg. B. 1993. THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET. (book on disk). Waldoboro, ME: Reality Software. File List This shareware archive of THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET, BigText version, contains four files: readme.1st, itintr12.exe, intb12sh.exe and intgls12.exe. The file intb12sh.exe is a preview of the book about the Great Goddess in India and Tibet. The file intgls12.exe is the complete 34 page glossary which accompanies the research report and provides a good introduction to many facets of Hinduism and Buddhism. You are now reading a section of itintr12.exe, a package of introductory and explanatory text files along with registration materials. If any files are missing from your archive, please contact us immediately and we will mail you a new, complete shareware archive of THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET. TO OBTAIN THE COMPLETE BOOK ON DISK YOU MUST REGISTER (file: indtib12.exe)! RELEASES SCHEDULED FOR FALL 1993 JUST RELEASED! ORIGINS OF MYTHOLOGY, the first release of a new book on disk from Reality Software. Explore the origins of mythology with hunter/gatherers of the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic. Enter the Dreamtime with Indians of the Amazon. Available with a new state-of-the-art document view/print interface, the same as you are now using. A major study of celtic druids, their lives, training and sacred lore is nearing completion. This study is exhaustive and definitive and true to the historical record. Important material is drawn from the work of older historians who had access to private manuscript collections in monasteries and bardic families. The data entry for an update to TimeLine, our historical timeline 10,000 B.C. to 900 A.D. has just been completed. Much rewriting and additional significant new material has been incorported, particularly for Asia. A version will be available which makes use of Replica for Windows, a breathrough product for viewing documents which allows the user to bypass specific Windows applications. Reality Software in the midst of negotiating for a commercial license for Replica in order to utilize this new, innovative document viewing system for Windows. If all goes as planned, each of our forthcoming releases will be available in a very attractive, highly designed version for Windows that will not require the user to own any particular Windows word processor or text editor. We are very excited about this development! RELEASES SCHEDULED FOR 1994 An update to the study of the Great Goddess in Celtic and Germanic realms in planned. New material will include a discussion about the Goddess' survival in Christian times as both Brigit and Mary. Finally - we hope - the full blown TimeLine will make its debut. This product will jump several version numbers: if MicroSoft can do that why can't we? This TimeLine will make full use of Window's OLE capability and will include hundreds of embedded documents which add enormous depth to important line items in the history of religion. Truly a breakthrough product in humanities software and a reference which will last a lifetime!! Watch for it sometime late in 1994. REGISTRATION The time and effort that went into this research was considerable, as you may have sensed. I need your support in order to continue this historical exploration of the greatest of mytho-poetics. If the preview you have viewed in this shareware version has intrigued you, REGISTER! Registration will bring the FULL TEXT of this revised version of the THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET (69 pages) and provide many days of thought provoking enrichment! As you can tell, the writing is formatted for single spaced text and is very, very deep. The registration fee for THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET is about what such studies cost when published by faculty through a university press. THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET is ecologically correct; books on disk do save trees providing the user does not print them out in their entirety. Support this research effort and register! Note that a version which is package of ASCII text files is available as is an attractive version formatted for MS Word for Windows. Comments or discussion about this work would be greatly appreciated. Registered users have access to my phone number and e-mail addresses both for technical support and discussion: see below. ................................................................ To register THE GREAT GODDESS IN INDIA AND TIBET, simply fill out the form below and mail with a check or money order to: BEN BLUMENBERG Date_________________ REALITY SOFTWARE P.O. BOX 105 WALDOBORO, ME 04572-0105. Name _______________________________________________________ Company ____________________________________________________ Street Address ______________________________________________ Town or City ____________________ State __________ Zip ___________ ORIGINS Disc Size 5 1/4" (Quant) __$16 (DOS: ASCII text files ) __$18 (DOS: BigText version - with the document viewing interface you are now using.) __$18 (MS WORD FOR WINDOWS) 3 1/2" (Quant) __$17 (DOS: ASCII text files) __$19 (DOS: BigText version - with the document viewing interface you are now using.) __$19 (MS WORD FOR WINDOWS) Total ______ (Shipping and handling included) Method of Payment. Check _____ Money Order ______ (Made out to Ben Blumenberg; sorry we cannot accept credit cards.) Where did you obtain INDTIB12.ZIP?_____________________________________________ Registered users have access to my phone number for technical assistance: 207 832-7348, most days noon to 9 PM EST. My E-mail addresses are: on the Internet at benb12@aol.com; at America on Line - benb12; and at Compuserve - 71044,1645. CATALOG: REALITY SOFTWARE October 25, 1993 Here is a listing of books on disk in the history of religion series currently available from Reality Software. The price differences between books reflect their length. The least expensive contain documents whose length is less than 25 pages while the more costly contain reports in excess of 75 pages for the longest documents in the package; such estimates vary with printer and print setup of course. We offer a money back guarantee: if you do not find a book captivating and interesting, return your disk(s) for a full, no questions asked, refund. 1) Reality Software publishes an exceptional HISTORICAL TIMELINE for the period 12,000 B.C. to 900 A.D. which emphasizes the history of religion. Literally hundreds of line items. A typical printout would be three pages across and 18 pages deep. 2) THE WHITE GODDESS IN NEOLITHIC OLD EUROPE is an in depth study of the archeology, artifacts, iconography and ritual of the Goddess religion of Neolithic Europe. The material is based extensively on the breakthrough work of Marija Gimbutas with several provocative new hypotheses presented which are drawn from realms as diverse as evolutionary biology and the marine zoology of megafuna in the dark abyss of the deep ocean. 3) A study of the GREAT GODDESS IN CHINA AND JAPAN has been finished. Information is drawn from several sources which include the iconography of Chou Dynasty bronzes, Manchu shamanism, a new reading of early Tao texts and Ainu ritual. 4) Our latest publication explores the ORIGINS OF MYTHOLOGY with hunter/gatherers in the Upper Paleolithic and Indians in the Amazon. Available with a new, state of the art document viewing interface for DOS (BigText). Have you ever wondered how it all began? 5) Our book on disk about the GREAT GODDESS IN CELTIC AND GERMANIC REALMS has just been revised. The new version also incorporates a new, state-of-art document viewing interface for DOS (BigText). This is the first and last word about the Goddess in Ireland and Wales. If you ever wished to separate New Age nonsense from the 'real' historical myths, this book is for you. To order, simply fill our this form and mail to: _____________________________________________________________________ REALITY SOFTWARE, P.O. BOX 105, WALDOBORO, ME 04572. 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