preserved in Shambhala by Sucandra’s successors, the
sixth of whom—Yas ́as—was given the title Kalkin for
unifying all of the castes of Shambhala within a sin-
gle Vajrayana family. Also, the Kalacakra prophesies
that at the end of the current age of degeneration, the
twenty-fifth Kalkin of Shambhala—Cakrin—will lead
the Hindu gods and the army of Shambhala in battle
at Baghdad against the followers of the “barbarian re-
ligion” Islam. Kalkin Cakrin’s defeat of the forces of
Islam will mark the end of the age of degeneration
and the beginning of a new golden age.
The preceding is a Buddhist rewriting of the earlier
Hindu myth of Kalki updated to suit historical condi-
tions contemporaneous with the origin of the
Kalacakra. In the Hindu myth it is prophesied that the
great god VISNUwill incarnate as a brahman warrior
named Kalki in the village of Shambhala. At the end
of the age of degeneration, Kalki will eradicate bar-
barians and unruly outcastes, thus reestablishing
brahman supremacy and initiating a new golden age.
The Kalacakra first appeared in India during the
early decades of the eleventh century C.E., when, in the
name of Islam, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni conducted
expeditions of plunder and iconoclastic destruction in
northwestern India. Thus the Kalacakra’s retelling of
the prophetic myth of Kalki replaces a brahman
Hindu hero with a Buddhist messiah in response to
the traumatizing depredations of the Muslim invaders
of India.History
The most important texts of the Kalacakra system
contain a date that enables scholars to determine that
they were completed between 1025 and approximately- The authors of these works disguised their iden-
tities with mythic pseudonyms, but among the known
early masters of the tradition is Pindo (tenth–eleventh
century), a brahman Buddhist monk born in Java
who taught the famous Dpamkaras ́rjñana (ATISHA;
982–1054), and Naropada (d.u.–ca. 1040), the
renowned Vajrayana teacher of Nalanda monastic
university. The Kalacakra flourished among the Bud-
dhist intelligentsia of northern India from the
eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, and it con-
tinued to be studied and practiced in India until at
least the end of the sixteenth century.
From northern India the Kalacakra spread to Nepal
and Tibet, and from Tibet it was transmitted to Mon-
golia and China. The Tibetans produced a vast litera-
ture on the system, and continue to study and practice
the Kalacakra. During the last decades of the twenti-
eth century, the fourteenth DALAILAMAof Tibet per-
formed the Kalacakra initiation rites on numerous
occasions in Asia and in the United States, fostering
the continued cross-cultural diffusion of this impor-
tant Vajrayana tradition.
See also:Hinduism and Buddhism; Islam and Bud-
dhism; TantraBibliography
Lamrimpa, Gen. Transcending Time: An Explanation of the
Kalachakra Six-Session Guru Yoga,tr. B. Alan Wallace.
Boston: Wisdom, 1999.
Newman, John. “Eschatology in the Wheel of Time Tantra.” In
Buddhism in Practice,ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1995.
Newman, John. “Itineraries to Sambhala.” In Tibetan Literature:
Studies in Genre,ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jack-
son. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996.
Newman, John. “Islam in the Kalacakra Tantra.” Journal of the
International Association of Buddhist Studies21, no. 2 (1998):
311–371.KALACAKRA
Cakrin, twenty-fifth Kalkin of Shambhala. A prophecy of the
Kalacakra says that at the end of the current age of degenera-
tion, Cakrin will conquer the followers of the “barbarian religion,”
inaugurating a new golden age. © Lokesh Chandra. Reproduced
by permission.