Were Anasazi [Native Americans] Buddhists?

Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Hendon Harris (chinesediscoveramerica.com)

The most famous building in the entire Tibetan plateau, Potala Pueblo, Lhasa (HCC)

Tibetan store (Aaron Berkovich/flickr)

Were the Anasazi, who are known to many as the Native Americans of the Southwest, Buddhists? 

 

Buddhism began in the sixth century BCE in India [although the Buddha was from neighboring Afghanistan -- the ancient northwestern frontier of Gandhara and to points west -- where the Dharma quickly took hold among his familial clan simultaneous with its spread in Magadha/modern Bihar, India].

It soon spread to ancient Greece and parts of its empire in Central Asia [Bactria, Sogdiana, etc., where Alexander the Great left yet another "Alexandria" in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when it was part of the Hellenic Empire], the geopolitical Middle East, and some believe to Europe (Kalmykia) as far north as Scandinavia and even North America, which was partly ancient Mexico, a spread Rick Fields documented in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America and Edward P. Vining's Inglorious Columbus, which recounts how a group of Afghan Buddhist monks led by Chinese Buddhist missionary Hwui Shan  "discovered" America and therefore interacted with the Native Americans long before the genocidal, Polish, Jewish Christopher Columbus].

This is where the Native Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloan people, such as the Hopi, Hisatsinom, and others) come in.

• Did they leave temples and treasures here?

One piece of evidence is the ancient Buddhist proclivity for carving building and shrines into mountains and creating distinctive rock formations. They are now found all over the world and bear a likeness to that favored by Vedic Hinduism/Buddhism. Buddhism ultimately reached China in the first century ACE, after it had made a grand impact on Greece bringing in many Eastern philosophical idea -- the atom (kalapa), democratic voting and rudimentary parliamentary rules of order (Sangha organization according to the Vinaya), and so on.

 

The Anasazi culture mysteriously appeared in North America at an undetermined time and disappeared about 1300 ACE. Where did these incredibly advanced people come from? How and why did they just as mysteriously disappear? We know they were astronomers because we have found some of their observatories. We know they were road builders because we have found their roads. We know they were incredibly proficient at stone carving and masonry because we have found evidence of their work and architectural styles in the Four Corners area of the Southwest.

 

Native American indigenous Apache, remnant Anasazi spirit dancers, 1887 (Native Skeptic)

 
These architectural styles and art carved in stone provide the best evidence that the source of the Anasazi culture with its advanced knowledge and artistry was Vedic Asia.

 

This is a provocative statement likely to offend a few scholars. However, if one takes the time to examine the art and architecture, compare examples from each culture side by side, it will provide clear evidence of their connection.

 

Rock cliffs of the Grand Canyon, Arizona

If one were to start by using the image search terms “Were the Anasazi people Buddhist?” one would find that the architectural styles of the Puebloan people (Anasazi) and Chinese Buddhists are so similar that they show up interchangeably on the image page clearly demonstrating that they used the same techniques for carving out rock caves. (See examples of rock caves carved high on the cliffs of Bandelier National Park, New Mexico. They bear an incredible likeness to Asian Buddhist caves). 

Further search “Architecture-Pueblo complexes and Great Houses” or “Bandelier National Park Rock Cave Images” to see more). Compare these to the Caves of Dunhuang and the Longmen Caves in China or to the recently discovered Shangri-la Buddhist Caves of Nepal all of which are carved high up on rock faces.
 

Luoyang Shaolin Buddhist temple (G-W-H)

For evidence of IDENTICAL construction techniques used in ancient China and in ancient North America “zoom in” on these pictures of the rock-cut caves at Bandelier National Monument, USA and the Caves at Dunhuang, China.  Both locations, separated by the vast Pacific Ocean, show identical horizontal rows of small bored holes cut into the cliff faces perhaps to insert wooden pole frames for shade canopies for each location thousands of miles apart.

 

Tibetan structures are like Puebloan dwellings of the Southwest. This American adobe complex was likely built between 1000-1450 AD near Taos, New Mexico, USA (wiki).

  

Rock-cut remains, Bandelier, NM, USA

Ancient Buddhists seem to have been fascinated by rocks shaped a particular way. Here is a very unusually shaped rock in Thailand and an almost identically shaped rock in the Bisti Badlands, New Mexico. 
 
The Bisti Badlands are an interesting place in the Four Corners region, where the Anasazi people lived. However, the common opinion is that “The Canadian Goose Bisti,” “The Sleeping Lizard Bisti,” “The Flying Turtle Bisti,” and so on are simply random acts of erosion. A more plausible explanation is that these rock formations are ruins of a people exhibiting a Vedic cultural heritage because of at least three different types of rock formations there.

1. Mushroom rocks like the ones found at Mushroom State Park, Kansas are found throughout these 45,000 acres of badlands. “Mushroom Rocks” are the chattra symbols of ancient Buddhism. Chattra is the Sanskrit word for “mushroom,” which is also the word for the Parasol, one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism. More

The rock-cut temples of Buddhism

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Bezeklik ancient Buddhist rock-cut temple monastery complex (chinatouronline.com)

Tiger's Nest Buddhist Monastery perched on cliff, Bhutan (MichaelFoleyPhotography/flickr)

Rock-cut Buddha, Luoyang Shaolin Temple, taken during the "Kung Fu and Buddhism Tour by Cycle" through China in 2013 (Great-wall-hikers/flickr.com)

 

Kwan Yin, Yungang (G-W-H)

It is characteristic of Buddhism that temples were built by carving them directly into mountains out of bare stone -- a feature known as rock-cut architecture, particularly in ancient India.
 

This was accomplished in some advanced way that cannot be explained today, for it was a time when there were presumably no lasers, power drills, grinders, sanders, or diamond-tipped chisels.
 

Mountain-sized Buddhas, Bamiyan

The first were in Afghanistan beginning at the time of the Buddha. His family was apparently living in the area, the northwestern frontier of greater "India" (Bharat) beyond Gandhara.

There are stunning examples in the spectacular Afghan archeological sites of Bamiyan and Mes Aynak, the jaw-dropping caves of Ellora and Sanchi in Buddhist India, and China's Bezeklik and Yungang grottoes.... Of course, one cannot lose sight of the official "largest" Buddhist sites in Borobudur, Java, Indonesia and the rock-cut marvels of the Cambodian jungles at Angkor Wat and "lost medieval cities" (livescience.com) such as Mahendraparvata discovered in 2013. We are assured by the enlightened and psychic Buddhist master Ven. Jumnien that more such stone sites remain in the jungle to be found.

Giant and Buddhist missionaries Datong, Yungang Grottoes (Great-wall-hikers/flickr.com)

Magnificent rock-cut architectural finds: stupa at Mes Aynak, Afghanistan (ranajitpal.com)

"Copper Well" (Mes Aynak), Afghanistan mineral mine treasures (AP)

 

World's largest Buddhas, Bamiyan, Afghanistan

The real Kapilavastu, the Buddha's hometown, was close to modern Kabul (Kapil). For the ancient country's capital, seat of the Shakyan janapada (the "foothold" of the Shakya clan's territory) may have been Bamiyan, a site famed not only for rock-cut caves and monastic dwellings but also the most massive Buddha statues in the world.

Bojjannakonda cave (Adityamadhav83/AP)

It was rich because it was on the Silk Road between India to the east and Central Asia to the west. Right from its inception Buddhism traveled the route west into ancient Greece and onto China. It is said that one of the first things the newly enlightened Buddha did was send out 60 enlightened missionaries in all directions; they were wandering ascetics spreading the "good news" of liberation from all suffering.
 

Cliffside Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan, overlooking adobe "pueblos" in the distance (wiki)

 

Much of desert western China features magnificent rock-cut Buddhist architecture which is little known today. Islam supplanted the Dharma and obscured its Buddhist past. Much of the architecture is now in a part of the Great Walled Empire (China), known as the restive Uighur Autonomous Region. Like Buddhist Tibetans from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Muslim Uygurs want nothing to do with colonial communist/capitalist Han Buddhist Chinese rule.

Buried treasures at Mes Aynak (Andy Miller)

At 2,600 years, the oldest Buddhist temple complex yet discovered and largest -- with a central area of one square mile -- is at Mes Aynak ("Copper Well"). 

However, most of it is still underground as an archeological site never to be excavated if China (through its Chinese Metallurgy Company) has its way. China will be the next empire to invade Afghanistan, according to Afghans, after the ancient Greeks with Alexander, the British, the Soviets, and the Americans.

• Scientific research in "forbidden archeology" suggests that technologically advanced tools were in the possession of someone as explained by Micheal Cremo, David Hatcher Childress, and others.

Buddha Grottoes, China (Great-wall-hikers)

While characteristic of Buddhist sites, rock-cut technology did not remain exclusive to the East, having made its way to Petra and widely practiced in Cappadocia, (Anatolia, Asia Minor) Turkey, particularly in the soft stone of Derinkuyu. But no other religious movement did so much to generate and exploit this practice -- we would guess with help from above, namely, the akasha deva loka (space deva world).

Buddhism spread from Afghanistan
Dazzling new finds from Mes Aynak and Tepe Naranj near Kabul

Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. (ranajitpal.com)

Mes Aynak vihara, Trapusa (Brent E. Huffman)

"The discoveries cover more than 1,000 hectares and have unearthed [Buddhist] temples, monasteries, and about 1,000 statues, which cannot be compared with finds from any location in Nepal.

Smaller Buddha, Bamiyan

"The site is about 20 km from the Indian border (pre-partition) and was probably within ancient ‘India.’ The RigVeda names many rivers and tribes of Afghanistan, which shows that it was a part of Vedic India.

"The new discoveries unmistakably indicate that Buddhism spread from Afghanistan and northwest India, not eastern India or Nepal. The discoveries at Bamiyan, Mes Aynak, and [Greco-Buddhist] Hadda highlight the primacy of Afghanistan and Gandhara in early Buddhist history."

• Incredible Tepe Narenj, Afghanistan

Gold-covered statues of "Copper Well" (Mes Aynak) archeological site, Afghanistan