CHAPTER FOUR

INVENTING THE CONCEPT OF CELTIC BUDDHISM:

A LITERARY AND INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

JOHN L. MURPHY

Abstract

This article examines mythical musings and scholarly argumentsover whether Buddhism had entered ancient Ireland. Romantic-eraantiquarians proposed that Buddhist missionaries transmitted thedharma to the "Western Isles"; Yeats and Joyce incorporated tracesof Buddhist dispersion into their Irish responses. Archaeologistsdebated evidence from the Gundestrup cauldron which kindled theimagination of a few New Age pioneers. Later last century,countercultural dispersion of Buddhism settled into communalexperiments creolising Tibetan approaches to dharma with Celticinfluences. The blend of Buddhist spirituality and Celtic aestheticsfurther enriches Michel Houllebecq's The ElementaryParticles as its protagonist taps into these cross-culturalenergies.

Introduction Answering his second autobiography's title,

What the Curlew Said, the late John Moriarty (2007,

74) announced "I think he didn't say anything atall but he said it in such a way that we have nowno need, nor had we ever, to import Zen Buddhisminto Ireland. It was already here before ourpeople came here." This essay investigates themythical musings and scholarly arguments overwhether Buddhism had ever entered Ireland.Examining antiquarian assertions and archeologicalevidence gathered over two centuries, my articlewill trace the evolution of "Celtic Buddhism," fromthe Romantic-era round tower debate through theRevival into countercultural revision and dharmare-Orientation today.

What simmers within a blend of decidedly arcaneinventions and far-fetched arguments about anyhistorical or constructed Buddhist presence inCeltic Ireland conjures up the ingredients ofmythmaking mingling with the necessities for fact-checking. The countercultural movement hit Irelandmore in the early-to-mid 1970s than the late 60selsewhere in Western Europe and North America(Murphy 2008, 133-4). Only in 1977 did a Buddhistcommunity begin in Dublin. Earlier, Buddhism's fewIrish practitioners, native or immigrant, tendedtowards less eclectic, if perhaps inevitablyidiosyncratic, incorporations of the dharma ("theeternal truth that Buddha realized, his verbalexpression of that truth, and the phenomena orelements that comprise reality" - Trainor 2004,238).

While the presence of actual Buddhists inIreland until very recently has been sparse, asLaurence Cox and Maria Griffin discuss (2009 andin this volume), an earlier counterculturalundercurrent sifting eclectic, alternative beliefs

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may have lingered. Long before Buddhists came toIreland, a handful of Irish wondered aboutBuddhism. Nearly two centuries ago, glimmers ofhow the Buddha lived within a real India began toemerge. Caught up in a Romantic quest to forgeIndo-European connections, a Celtic search fororigins widened (if by a doubtful detour) to takein the Buddhist presence, not as legend, but aschronicle. Erin wondered if it shared distantfamily ties with Aryan. Celtic languages becamereacquainted, introduced by linguists such asWilliam Jones, with Sanskrit and ancient India(Allen 2002; Almond 1988; Lennon 2004).

Cox1 speculates how within Irish culture, "sucha sensibility exists in Ireland in relation toCeltic myth in particular - at times in anoppositional form, whether that of oral tradition,hedge schoolmasters and Romantic opponents ofestablished religion, at times in a thoroughlyorthodox form, as transmitted by Anglo-Irishfolklorists and later the national schools andprocesses of canonising the island's literary andarchaeological 'heritage.' " Dharma practice didnot yet exist, but a reception by Hibernophiles,antiquarians, and storytellers of classical,Mediterranean, and Asiatic motifs may haveprepared the way for transmission of "pagan"messages, long before the arrival of Buddhists.

Pro-Celtic proponents favoured an eastward tilttowards sources of wisdom hidden from London,Rome, or the rest of Europe. The urge to uncovertruth beneath the surface of the Irish soil,within the Gaelic font flowing through redacted1 Email message to author, 29 June 2010.

manuscripts and revived tale-tellers, mesmerisedthe Irish mentality away from the mainstreamchannels. The search for esoteric inspiration--linking Druidic speculation to Indic exploration--lured a few Romantic-era investigators, over twocenturies ago, to burrow into the archaeologicaland historical evidence.

Budh-Hills & Irish BuddhistsJames Bonwick, an English-born Australian

historian, in his 1894 Irish Druids and Old Irish Religionsanticipated arguments that still find credenceamong a few esoterically inclined seekers ofalternative spirituality and eclectic wisdom. Hegathers evidence from earlier antiquarians,however fanciful their claims. He stands betweentheir eager speculation and the scientificinvestigations that denounced ill-informedassertion. Bonwick, halfway between post-RomanticIrish Orientalism and today's New Age-inspiredesotericism, represents how arguments beyond whatone proponent will call "historical validation"endure among those on the outskirts of theperceived Celticist consensus. Such marginalbeliefs persist after nearly two hundred years ofarchaeological evidence assembled to halt wistfulconjectures. Bonwick sifted through nineteenthcentury claims for Buddhist-Celtic contacts inearly Ireland. Summarising the divergence of thefollowers of the Buddha from the originalteaching, Bonwick admitted that the teachings hadspread beyond their homeland, across all ofEurope.

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Buddhism is here a sort of sun-worship, and notaft the teaching of the Founder. However pure thesentiments originally taught, and now professed inEsoteric Buddhist and Theosophy, all travellersadmit that ancient pagan ideas have come throughto the surface of Buddhism, and largely representidolatrous action. Yet, they who recognise in theIrish Towers the former presence of Buddhistmissionaries, fancy the buildings might havecontained relics of Budh. H. O'Brien regards theSacred Tree of Budh to have been primarily alingam, and secondarily a tree. He reads in theIrish Budh-gaya an allusion to generativeness.Forlong looks upon the tower as a deposit forlingam articles in secret recesses. (1894, 272)

Bonwick continues the associations suggested byCharles Vallancey and Henry O'Brien, and counteredby George Petrie, Tom Moore, and Thomas Davis.While Bonwick's tone does appear more nuanced thanearlier antiquarians, he does further theirspeculations. He too seeks a more universalreligion underlying its cultural diversity. Thisecumenical approach intersects with Theosophistblends of the "world's wisdom traditions" thatwould inspire New Age followers.

In Irish we read of the Danaan King, Budh the red;of the Hill of Budh, Cnoc Buidhbh, in Tyrone; ofother Budh hills in Mayo and Roscommon; and, inthe Book of Ballymote, of Fergus of the Fire ofBudh. Buddhism was a great power in remote ages;and, as Allanson Picton points out, "not so muchin its philosophical conclusions, as the feelingout of the soul towards an unlimited loyalty tothe infinite." Still, if Round Towers owe anythingto Buddhism, why are they only in Ireland? (1894,273)

Bonwick's question would be insistentlyanswered in the negative by scholars in thetwentieth century. He himself admitted doubt(1894: 153). His inquiry, nonetheless, energisedoccult Theosophist and neo-pagan suppositions.Conventional scholarship denies New Agesuggestions. Yet, works such as Bonwick's continueto be cited by esoterically aligned syncretistsand Druidic reconstructionists outside theacademy. Bonwick's suppositions find supporterstoday on the Net. For example, "Buddhists andDruids in pre-Christian Britain and Ireland"2

originates from Ulverston, Cumbria. Near earlymedieval and Quaker sites, there rises theManjushri shrine as the British centre of NewKadampa Tradition, a "new religious movement"affiliated with the Tibetan Buddhist Dorjé Shugdencult which has rapidly expanded in the West.

About Ulverston website makes a pithy comparisonfrom scant evidence. It assembles items thatresemble each other and creates a causal chainwhich finds hints of transmission from East toWest in the non-essentialist "process" philosophyof John Scotus Eriugena, an assertion of Caesar,missionaries from India's King Ashoka, and"Origen's statement that Buddhists and Druids co-existed in pre-Christian Britain." The referencesto Ashoka and Origen will be discussed when theGundestrup cauldron gains attention later in thisessay. The Gundestrup cauldron depicts, a fewmaverick interpreters argue, a yogic adept'ssitting posture. This prized object's iconography

2 http://www.aboutulverston.co.uk/celts/druids.htm

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may display imagery brought along the Silk Roadand the trade routes to the West. The Celts couldhave received the image along with the instructionand transmitted the yogic practice to the BritishIsles.

All this depends on considerable conjecture.Before an in-depth analysis of the cauldron'simportance for any purported Celtic-Buddhistconnection, I will review the hundred years beforeits 1891 Danish discovery, to show how British andIrish antiquarians who preceded Bonwick andMacKenzie had contended against historians andarchaeologists over Indo-European links supposedlyforged between the two cultures and traditions.

Round Towers & RevivalistsHenry O'Brien (1834) published "The Round Towers of

Ireland; or the mysteries of freemasonry, of sabaism, and ofbudhism, now for the first time unveiled." not long beforehis death in his twenty-seventh year. The demiseof this Kerry-born Trinity College graduate mayhave been hastened by his second-place showing inan essay competition to explain the origin ofIreland's round towers. In a contest begun byGeorge Petrie in 1830, Petrie promoted a rationalexplanation for these structures that had longcaptivated antiquarians (Waddell 2005, 109-110;Murphy 2007, 4). Petrie sought to silence theromantics in and out of the Royal Irish Academywho proposed a Phoenician or Oriental connectionlinking Celtic worshipper with Asiatic adept.Petrie won his own contest; he asserted that theedifices were Early Christian in era andecclesiastic in purpose. Petrie's own work would

not be printed until 1846. O'Brien's book,however, entered its second edition in the year itappeared, 1834. The subtitle had been altered to"the history of the Tuath-de-Dananns for the firsttime being unveiled." John Waddell dismissesO'Brien: "his vision of the round tower phenomenonis best described as macrophallic." While O'Brien(cited by Waddell 2005, 110) rejected the towersas fire temples, he did follow the etymologicallead of many in equating Iran with Erin, andargued that the stone structures had been built by"the early Indian colonists of the country, inhonour of that fructifying principle of nature."

Joop Leersen (1996) castigates O'Brien for histesty ravings. Following his predecessor, CharlesVallancey, who posited a Phoenician origin forround towers, O'Brien gains no respect fromscholars. Yet, the modern Dutch academic whocorrects that Trinity graduate may reveal theircommon quest: how far can one convincingly traceIndo into European? Leersen benefits from sciencethat O'Brien lacked. O'Brien and Leersen enter ashared realm when they look for Celtic origins,one as a romanticist, one following Petrie intoreason. O'Brien's theories - while they may meritthe risible reaction of today's professors - acentury and a half before represented a possiblesolution for the round towers. By joining Irelandwith India, they prepared a path for contemporaryseekers. While today's "Celtic Buddhists" proclaimconfidently their invention, they rest theirimaginative constructs upon romantic-erafoundations.

Recent assertions, it should be clarified,often rely not on coincidence but scholarship that

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linguists and archaeologists have gathered sincethe round tower debates. While dangers of falseetymologies and sheer coincidence along parallelbut separate cultural evolutionary patternspersist, the popularity of this model ofinvestigation by those often marginalised by theacademy follows a historiographic pattern. Thiscentripetal relegation of once-entertained ideasto the fringe endures electronically long afterPetrie sent O'Brien to his early grave. Prolongeddisputes separated scientists from speculativeinquiry into the predecessors from the East whomay have contacted their descendents far off inthe West. This shift from the physical to theethereal generated late-nineteenth centuryTheosophy. Pivoting next, Theosophists exploredand revamped an "Esoteric Buddhism" as one of manynon- and pre-Christian attempts to make bettersense of the cosmos than the dominant Westernreligions appeared to have done.

Yeats, Joyce & TheosophyThe Irish impact of Yeats, James Stephens, and

"AE" (George Russell) upon such an endeavourreverberates (Guinness 2004; Lennon 2004). By the1890s, Yeats outgrew Theosophy but took a New Ageattraction into the Order of the Golden Dawn andthen over a long career of his own intricatemythology. His mature writings incorporate Hinduand Japanese influences much more than Buddhism.Scattered references can be gleaned from hisessays, memoirs, and one poem, but Buddhistattention in his belletristic work appears moreanodyne than enlightening.

However, "The Double Vision of MichaelRobartes" (1919) portrays "on the grey rock ofCashel" on one side a Sphinx and the other "ABuddha, hand at rest,/ Hand lifted up that blest"(1989, 188.19-20). "Right between the two" up onCashel a dancing girl plays, personifying hope fora renewed, decidedly pantheistic, Ireland. Thespeaker sees this from "Cormac's ruined house."The mediaeval chapel built by the Irish kingcrumbles. Perhaps this apparition "in the mind'seye" witnesses Christianity finally annihilated.The Buddha here represents the heart's open portalto the exotic and Asiatic realms which gave birth,in Yeats' view, to a pre-Christian, pantheistictriumph of the true Celtic temperament. Onereference suggests cross-cultural "hiddenmeanings." In the introduction to The Cat and the Moonand Certain Plays, Yeats explained his confidence inthe Indo-Irish mentality that for storytellingpeasants had endured up to the final defeat ofCelt by Saxon: "had they not lived in Asia untilthe Battle of the Boyne?" (1926, 133-4; 1962, 401;Rickard 1997, 99) Only with anglicisation didtheir Eastern roots wither.

New Age advocates gained inspiration fromRevivalists who sensed along the Breton, Welsh,Scots, and Irish fringes a fulfillment of Celtictraits that had survived the advent of Christianpower and Continental colonisation. New Ageproponents conceived a Celtic temperament somehowsuperior to a British sensibility. Along withYeats and "AE," they boasted of a triumph foundnot in history but in myth, not Gotthold Lessing'stime-based but the Romantic spatially situatedadvantage. Round Towers, looming with sexual

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potency and exotic provenance, served as asynecdoche for Ireland's supposed removal fromtaints of European rationality and imperialdomination. This separation of the Celt and theelevation of the Irish will endure among manypromoters who seek to tie the island to even moreremote lands farther away than Phoenicia, all theway across Eurasia. As for Joyce, given hisimmersion into so much East as West, Orientalimagery flourishes. Like Yeats, he purchasedtitles on Theosophy; Joyce studied Easternmysticism. In 1903, he reviewed as "A SuavePhilosophy" Harold Fielding-Hall's The Soul of aPeople, an exposition of Burmese civilisedcourtesies (1989, 93-95; 2000, 67-68, 303). Still,Joyce's fictional treatments of Buddhism tallyscarce.

Dharma's Irish promoters were few, whetheramong Theosophical Dublin peers or Ireland'sdenominated adherents. The latter's comprehensionof Buddhism, if Leopold Bloom can serve as anindicator of the average man on Westland Row inthe time of "AE" and Yeats, may have been scanty."Buddha their God lying on his side in a museum.Taking it easy with his hand under his cheek.Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo." This, forBloom pondering a notice on the door of AllHallows by John Conmee S.J. on St. Peter ClaverS.J. meant, after typical elaboration by Bloom,that missionaries of whatever version ofChristianity claimed itself "the true religion"would meet resistance. "Wonder how they explain itto the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium."Christianity propounded "rank heresy" in the logicof ecumenical appeal (1986, U 5.325-9).

For those less likely to countenance theirversion of Christianity as heresy than StephenDedalus, his recollections damn their lack ofHibernian tolerance. Joyce himself attended thescene that his character remembers. At the 1899Abbey Theatre début of Yeats's The Countess Cathleen,Stephen recalls the "catcalls and hisses andmocking cries" that rose "from his scatteredfellow students." The last of seven: "We want nobudding Buddhists" (2007, P 5.1859). I stress thatthis populist aversion culminates a string ofobjections: Ireland's libel; German manufacturepresumably by Protestants and Jews; blasphemy; aboast that "We never sold our faith!" anotherunverifiable claim that "No Irish woman ever didit!" and, significantly, "We want no amateuratheists."

Now, while the alliteration may account morefor the context than the common crowd's content,the cries do escalate to emulate the outburst ofmockery. Irish womanhood and fidelity defendthemselves against slanders and libels ofdishonour, foreign-made objects, two usual sinsspoken against the holy and against its trade, athird besmirching chastity, and finally a fear ofunbelief, if from those presumably free offreethinking as a profession. Buddhism ends alitany that may be casually tossed off like acatcall, but nonetheless by its exoticism itclimaxes the rabble's xenophobia. The crowd's mostdistant and most improbable fear now shadowsDublin's limelight. Joyce had attended this 1899premiere by Yeats, one of Ireland's most notoriousdabblers in the New Age and the occult.

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Such populist ignorance permeates Dublin,according to Joyce. Stephen in Joyce's abandoned(1904-06) novel Stephen Hero (1963, 190) assumed ofa woman in a black straw hat that she "has neverheard of the name of Buddha", what well may havebeen a common prejudice. The appeal of the Orientfor the intellectual was unlikely to be foundamong everyday people, at least in a moresophisticated fashion than the bazaar masked as"Araby." While Vincent Cheng (1995, 63) emphasisesthat Joyce "was an amateur atheist and Buddhistsympathizer," the extent to which his work or lifecan further elucidate his interest in the Westernemanation of this Eastern-based philosophy appearslimited.

The Japanese Joycean scholar Eishiro Ito (2003)delves into Joyce's sympathies with Buddhism. Itopinpoints Joyce's composition of the Stephen Heroepisode mentioned above to June 1905. He notesJoyce's conversation with Stuart Gilbert directinghim towards Alfred Percy Sinnett's works onBuddhism. Ito follows biographer Richard Ellmannback to Joyce's dating in May 1901 of his copy ofHenry Steele Olcott's 1881 A Buddhist Catechism.Colonel Olcott, along with Madame HelenaBlavatsky, converted to Buddhism in Sri Lanka ayear before he published his catechism. They werethe first modern Westerners to have publiclyprofessed their refuge in the dharma.

Sinnett, as part of Blavatsky's circle ofexpatriate friends in India, became herbiographer. Gilbert cites, in his discussions ofkarma, metempsychosis, and repetition in Joyce'sfiction, Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism and Growth of theSoul. These titles, Ito surmises, had been

referred to indirectly by Joyce in hisconversations with Gilbert (1959, vii-viii).Extrapolating from allusions within Ulysses basedon Blavatsky's partially erroneous beliefs, Itoconjectures that "Joyce's inclination towardsTheosophy and Eastern mysticism may have beenshort-lived. Joyce presumably could notdistinguish Theravada Buddhism from Mahayana, nordid he know that Ceylon's Buddhism belongs toTheravada and Thibet's to Mahayana Buddhism."

Esoteric Buddhism

Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism, compiled asTheosophist set-text, favoured its titularadjective over its noun. A British editor in Indiawhen he met Blavatsky and Olcott, Sinnettpopularised Esoteric Buddhism as a Tibetan correctivefor the Sinhalese "exoteric" practice that haddevolved into ritual observance and moral dicta.Sinnett and Theosophists promoted a recovered"philosophy" of a Himalayan cadre of "Adepts"which included Brahmins along with Buddhists - andas one master teacher Gautama himself - in a longline of those who passed along occult secrets ofthe "inner penetralia" which drew the core of thedharma into contact with the truth of otherfaiths. Therefore what Sinnett propagandised as"esoteric Buddhism" emerged from Olcott'spioneering synthesis, an ideal of the MasterAdepts as "pre-Vedic Buddhists" (quoted by Fields1992, 97-98). Such a removal of Buddhist purityand New Age flexibility to the mountains aroundTibet would persist, in the invention of "CelticBuddhism" a century later, as an origin myth, a

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creation story, that Western adherents wouldfreely adapt and ornament. Olcott and Blavatskymay have converted to Buddhism in Sri Lanka, butupon its truths they constructed their ownsyncretic interpretation. Westerners since thenhave continued their example; whatever formsglobalising dharma takes, practitioners usuallyintegrate disparate influences, whether within themany Buddhist precedents or from dominantreligious practices or psychological models.

Joyce, by relying on Sinnett, probablydeveloped - as Yeats and his circle would from thesame sources - a broader if biased understandingof Buddhism than traditionally taught in the East.Perhaps confusion set in when Joyce came tointerpret—by himself or through his characters—thedharma, and its connection with the Buddha. Thestatue of the reclining Buddha has been traced byIto to one presented to the National Museum ofIreland in 1891. Bloom would have seen this.Correcting Bloom's common misconception that by"taking it easy," the figure's posture representsidleness, Ito reminds us how this angle of reposedenotes that the Buddha attained nirvana aftereating a donated but poisoned pork dish. His finalinstructions to his disciples were given from thisposition, and, as Olcott notes, he then bid themfarewell.

Other mentions of Buddhism and its founder inUlysses entangle Stephen within Celtic Revivaldiscourse. Dedalus tangles himself up inTheosophical and karmic theories. A simplerdiscussion that returns to the topic underconsideration emanates from Molly's reverie:"breathing with his hand on his nose like that

Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday inthe museum in Kildare street all yellow in apinafore lying on his side on his hand with histen toes sticking out that he said was a biggerreligion than the jews and Our Lords both puttogether all over Asia imitating him as hes alwaysimitating everybody" (1986, U 18.1200-05). Throughtextual analysis, Ito concludes that Joyce addedBloom's recall of the statue from the museum afterthat of Molly's recollection. Ito interpretsMolly's assumption that Buddhism outnumbered notonly Jewish but Christian adherents frommisinformation within Blavatsky's account. Thismiscalculation, Ito hints, plays neatly intoWestern colonial inflation. Such tallies copiedfrom imperial estimates may have been publicisedby interpreting mediators such as Olcott andBlavatsky.

Their promotional assumption, in the nineteenthand early twentieth centuries, depended on the exoriente lux ideal. This archeological and ideologicalhypothesis (Cunliffe 2008, 20) encouragedinvasionist interpretations of how change followedconquest, and how culture changed through theimpress of the sword and the press of massivemigration. The British Empire pushed its ownexpansionist model backwards into how its subjectsunderstood their own prehistory. Victorians andEdwardians promoted this will-to-power ideal.Eastern religions and peoples proved the moversthat shook westwards. Petrie and O'Brien,Blavatsky and Olcott emerged from such a mindset.In a sort of mystic colonialism, they proclaimedthe wonders of the Orient for Europeanenlightenment and origins. Bloom and Molly,

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Stephen Hero and the woman in the black straw hat(if not perhaps their clever artificer) may haveall agreed: the sacred East illuminated theirWestern Isles.

The Gundestrup cauldron & MacKenzieSuch enlightenment, for a Scots folklorist and

journalist who had long tracked the diffusions ofthe world's mythologies, could be traced by a fewclues that proved Celts contacted Buddhists,through their common use of shamans, druids, andyogis or bards. The wonder of Theosophists and afew fictional or real Dubliners also fueled oftenself-taught historians such as Bonwick and hissuccessors. As with O'Brien, they may lurk on themargins of academia, but similar outliers todaystill cite these texts, following the "centripetalmodel." The tenured ignore these books as pseudo-scholarship, but a few in the academic communityre-examine long-discredited or obscured testimonyfor traces of truth today. Sir William Jones didso, after all, while researching Sanskrit andIndo-European cognates: he privately consultedVallancey.

After the 1891 discovery in a Jutland bog ofthe Gundestrup cauldron depicting a sitting malein what Donald MacKenzie deduced was the identicalpose assumed by a yogi, he elaborated hisargument. The engraved Celtic trophy, he announcedin 1928's Buddhism in Pre-Christian Britain, offered proofthat the dharma had spread from East to West. Herelied on comparative studies; he merged Cernunnoswith the Hindu and Buddhist deity Virupaksha, andhe suggested that Celtic realms represented "Isles

of the Blest." MacKenzie recalls the surmises ofFrancis Wilford, the third Briton to learnSanskrit. In 1805 Wilford imagined his homeland asBuddhist and Brahmin "Sacred Isles of the West"(Almond 1998, 15; O'Halloran 2004, 50). Wilford(cited by Allen 2002, 65-67) assumed a "WhiteIsland" where "Stonehenge is evidently one of thetemples of Boodh," for not until the 1840s did hissuccessors distinguish the historical Buddha fromHindu contemporaries.

As for slightly more probable Druid-Buddhistcontact, MacKenzie suggests Galatian settlementsin Asia Minor where Buddhist teachers and pilgrimsfrom India and Parthia could have proselytizedamong Celts (1928, xix). As well as the Atticexport from Greece by Roman mercenaries of the"Highland pork taboo" to Alba, Origen's claims ofDruidic incorporation of Buddhist concepts couldhave spread through adepts into Britannia.MacKenzie bases this diffusionist argument uponKentigern, Glasgow's patron saint, as an oak-garlanded, horned-crowned tutelary deityappropriated from Druids. The Gundestrup cauldronstrengthens his British-Buddhist bond. Upon thesimilarity of a cross-legged figure with yogicpractice, confirmed by the resemblance of the ram-headed snake that this antlered figure grasps to aHindu naga or serpent deity, MacKenzie's caserests (1928, 42-45).

MacKenzie explains, and this corresponds tolater scholars' vaguer notion of a "Buddha-likepose," (Ellis 1994; Rutherford 1993, 85; 1995, 84)that the horned figure cannot be equated with thehistorical Shakyamuni Buddha. MacKenzie'sreasoning appears muddled, but he applies a pre-

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Buddhist concept of cardinal points whichinfluenced Siddhartha Gautama. Those converted byParthian Buddhists, the Chinese, swayed towardsthe Western direction as they searched for anearthly paradise. Amida (or Amitabha), the"Celestial Buddha-field" set to the westerncompass, may have influenced a "Cult of the West"surviving within the missionary efforts creditedto the Indian emperor Ashoka. He sent emissariesto the rulers of Egypt, Syria, Epirus, Cyrene, andMacedonia around 250 BCE.

Historians claim that this Greek mission metwith little or no success (Fields 1992, 10).Advocates of the esoteric tradition differ,insisting upon an underground chain oftransmission of the dharma. No Western sources areextant that corroborate the westerly arrival ofthis reforming king's envoys (Batchelor 1994, 9).MacKenzie (1928, 50) hazards that Ashoka'semissaries reached Celtic regions where "Cernunnosbecame transformed into the Western Buddha withattributes similar to the Hindu Virupashka, the'Guardian' or 'King' of the West."

Recent Research on the Cauldron

Archeologists who examined MacKenzie's primeexample of the Gundestrup cauldron in the 1980sleaned towards the assertion that the silvertrophy bowl - found in 1891 Jutland and datedvariously from 200 BCE-400 CE - originates in theLower Danubian region (Collis 2003, 184). Not thatcontemporary interpreters accept MacKenzie'sclaims for the cauldron as a Buddhist iconographicdiscovery, but an elongated resemblance back to

Indic and trans-Asiatic features may endure. It"shows archaic Greek and Oriental influence,"Myles Dillon and Nora Chadwick (1967, 26) claimed.Elephants and dolphins may decorate its panels. ATransdanubian hypothesis for the trophy'smanufacture may move the cauldron closer to theAsian exposure towards which MacKenzie fancifullysought to edge Druidism.

Dillon highlighted an easterly perspective:"The general resemblance between the Cernunnospanel and the Mohenjodaro seal (now in the NewDelhi Museum) is such that one can hardly doubttheir common origin" (as quoted by Ellis 1994,123-4). Timothy Taylor, an art historianspecialising in the Thracian-Dacian milieu,revived claims of an Indic connection for thecauldron. He refines an 1895 hypothesis that thecauldron originated from the Altaic region; Taylor(1992, 86) locates the trail of its influencesalong a four-thousand-mile route from NorthernIndia to the Balkans. He traces the cauldron'simages - if not its manufacture - along theshamanic Siberian and the tantric Buddhistinspirations that may have flowed out with tradersfrom Central Asia along the peninsular spine thataligned Europe to the greater continent, alonggeographical lines that led to cultural linkscommemorated on this enigmatic work of art.

Dismissing Taylor's argument, Miranda Green(1995a, 165) admits "oriental influences areundoubtedly present," if overshadowed by theCeltic imagery. Garrett Olmsted (1976) opined thatthe cauldron anticipated the narrative of the TáinBó Cuailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley") but thiscounterargument has not convinced most within the

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academy. Even the cauldron's "Celtic" elementselude verification. More tendentious yogic, and byextension Hindu or Buddhist, identification forthe horned figure depends on the context withinwhich his nimble posture can be understood.

Green suggests a simpler reason for the hornedfigure's sitting stance. Diodorus and Athenaeus(first century BCE) related to their Romanaudiences how the Gauls, lacking chairs, usuallysat on the floor. Cernunnos, customarily shown ason the cauldron's inner plate "A" with snake inone hand and among stags, and also depicted oftenas he is here amidst a menagerie of creatures,fits the context most Celticists accept for thehorned man's depiction (Green 1986, 195-7; Green1992, 60-61, 109; MacCana 1970, 44-47). However,scholars struggle to comprehend how Celtscommemorated Cernunnos (Bober 1951; Green 1995b,475, 480; Hutton 1991, 217; MacKillop 2005, 19).Perhaps the cauldron engraves him as a shaman in alotus position, with antlers affixed to his head.(Taylor later claimed that Cernunnos as "theCeltic translation of Indian tantric practice"devolved into the Devil of Christian iconography,macrophallically distended with his hornsextended, as a consort of witches - as cited inRyan & Jethá 2010, 341 n.8; see also Kelly 1964,203-05; Ross 1986, 126; Russell 1984, 63, 70;Stanford 1996, 96-97.)

Lacking knowledge of how the cauldron, itsplates found dismantled in a Danish marsh, wasmeant to be assembled, scholars face challenges(Davidson 1993, 25-31). Taylor (1992) conjecturesthat the Cimbri looted the cauldron in a raid onthe Scordisi. This would have been around present-

day Northern Bulgaria or Southern Romania, deepinto middle-lower Danubian Celtic-Thracianterritory, around 150-118 BCE (Glob 1969, 178;Murphy 2009, 16). Clearly, the mix of Celtic withnon-Celtic motifs remains a feature of theGundestrup cauldron that, absent of comparativeparallels, puzzles experts.

Origen, Druids, BuddhistsCertainly, many speculations remain that

archaeology alone cannot verify. MacKenzie'scitation of a single verse begins his study; uponit he supports his book. A single sentence fromOrigen that Buddhists influenced Britannic druidrymay be a slender foundation upon which, asMacKenzie labored, to construct a syncreticstructure that joins Buddhists with Celts in pre-Christian Britain. Origen asserted in his mid-third-century commentary on Ezekiel how that landhad "long been pre-disposed to" the tenets ofChristianity, "through the doctrines of the Druidsand the Buddhists, who had already inculcated theUnity of the Godhead" (cited in MacKenzie 1928,v). Daisaku Ikeda, former president of the SokaGakkai lay Buddhist movement, provides analternate version: "In that island [Britain], theDruid priests and Buddhists spread teachingsconcerning the oneness of God, and for that reasonthe inhabitants are already inclined toward it[Christianity]" (cited in Ikeda 1977, 69).Missionary endeavours of Soka Gakkai seek anattenuated precedent.

Imagination hints what we cannot prove.Origen's theology with its notions of

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apocastasis--a universal restoration of allcreation at the end of time--its conception ofsouls without beginning or end having been formedin this life by their previous actions in otherlives, and his controversial suggestion that noman may merit eternal damnation place him withincontexts that align well with Eastern influencesand Buddhist beliefs. He was taught by Clement ofAlexandria, who in the Stromata or Miscellaniescounted Druids and Buddhists among those whopromulgated philosophies that influenced theGreeks; he also listed certain Indians who "obeythe precepts of Boutta" (1, 15; cited in Batchelor1994, 27). Origen's birth in Alexandria, hiseducation under Clement, and his travels about theMediterranean may have brought Origen into contactwith many intellectual and spiritual currents asfar away as the Celtic realm (Cox and Griffin2009, 96). That we find within what survives ofhis writings extant a challenging array ofopinions that we may never wholly comprehendcannot be blamed on their author.

Shamans and Druids, in the New Age imagination,do not always respect an excavator's triangulatedboundaries. Popular synthesists, following neo-pagan inquirers, encouraged crossover of Celticwith not only Hindu influences--these beingaccepted after two centuries of study by linguistsas well as archeologists charting Indo-Europeandiffusions--but Buddhist ideas. These connectionsmay not rest on solid fact, but these ecumenicallongings speak of shifting mores. Theosophistsinspired a search in the West for the wisdom ofthe East over a century ago; this search stillbeckons those dissatisfied with the dominant

Jewish and Christian paradigm. This transcendentalcurrent slowly lured a few seekers, often ofWestern and Northern European backgrounds, into asearch for their ancestral roots, beyond genealogyinto rebirth. Metempsychosis and reincarnationblended with Hindu spirituality and Buddhistdharma.

Buddhism Settles in Ireland Laurence Cox and Maria Griffin's article in

this volume enlivens historical and sociologicalaspects of Irish Buddhism. Its first establishedsangha, or community, Samyedzong, came to Dublinin 1977 (Cox & Griffin 2009, 108). WhileSamyedzong's newsletter The Well (1995-99)emphasised dharma, a few articles addressed Celticand Irish connections. The healing spring near thecentre, once the place for celebration onMidsummer's Eve, now represented a place forrenewal. The ancient bronze bell excavated therewas copied to hang by the well-waters of patronSt. John the Baptist, whose feast is June 24th;venerable symbols of Christian monastic bell andTibetan dorjé striker unify two holy practices.

Bríona NicDhiarmada (1996, 6) compared thefundamental concepts of Sanskrit Sukhā-duḥkhā withIrish cognates sochar-dochar. She examined how "good-space/bad-space" revealed Indo-European kinship.Pairings elucidate this etymology better than"relying only on the English words pleasure andpain." I will elaborate. These terms refer to the"bliss or joy" opposed to the "uneasiness ordissatisfaction" that Buddhism strives to make apractitioner aware of, to confront, to comprehend.

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The historical Buddha urged his listeners to learnthe "Noble Truths" of duḥkhā so as to freethemselves from the spell of the transitory andthe impermanent. This quest impels the unsettledseeker to recognize illusion, to overcome thelimits of even these verbal and conceptualdichotomies. Reflection, for any sangha, thereforebecomes imperative.

She wrote of starting a retreat, TearmannMilarepa, in the Barrow Valley, where cross-channel ties between Ulster, Holy Island, andLeighlin could create Molaise Centre for inter-faith dialogue, peacemaking, and post-Good FridayAgreement reconciliation. A fresh, non-Christian,and non-sectarian approach embodied "our own'otherness' " for pluralist, tolerant, andaccommodating welcome. "We feel that as areligious minority, and one with no historicalbaggage within Irish society, we can challengeideas of 'us' and 'them' or 'us' and 'other', "NicDhiarmada (O'Neill 1998, 17) explained. Thatsame year, 1998, Ireland's president Mary McAleesevisited Samyedzong. She praised its joining oftraditions; its site near Kilmainham Well connectsa modern Buddhist with a mediaeval Celticsanctuary, near a monastic foundation of St.Maighnean (ca. 600).

Inventing "Celtic Buddhism"Kagyu Samyé Dzong's Scottish motherhouse in

turn runs a retreat centre on Holy Island, home toSt. Molaise, Maighnean's comrade. Samyé Ling inDumfriesshire, at Eskdalemuir, was co-founded in1967 by Tibetan refugee lamas Akong Rinpoche and

Chögyam Trungpa. Trungpa has been credited withurging his butler for eight years, John RileyPerks, to link Celtic culture with Buddhistspirituality. Trungpa advocated that a non-Buddhist culture needed to pierce its ownfamiliarity with its inherited imagery; aWesterner seeking enlightenment might betterrelate to the Tibetan panoply if it integratedCeltic portrayals of powerful deities and wisefigures. This "transparency" that misled aWesterner not to recognize one's hidden nature -the illusory reality of one's underlying culturalbiases - might be attained by blending Easterndiscipline with Western imagery. The CelticBuddhism.org website defines this quest: "Thearchetypal deities of ancient Europe still existin many peoples' psyche or mind." Perks believesthat "these energies are actually based on oremanate tremendous compassion which has becomeoverlaid with habitual clingings and fixations.The stripping away of this neurotic sludge is thestarting point of Celtic Buddhist practice" (Burns2010a).

Another member, Thom Kilts, shares his ownfrustration with pretension and privilege indulgedin by many Western Buddhists, the confoundingbehaviour of Trungpa, and his own skepticism as aCeltic Christian chaplain who trained as aBuddhist. He compares Tibetan and Celticeclecticism. He reminds doubters that Tibetanpractices proliferated in isolation after beingimported from India; Celtic practices on islandsand coastal fringes flourished apart from theimperial and religious turmoil that wiped outCeltic and Buddhist devotions in their places of

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origin. Kilts (2008) teaches how "the Buddhaconfirms the lineage of Celtic Buddhism as alineage rooted and interlaced with the earth." Heurges a flexible understanding of what "CelticBuddhism" will become, and channels its fluidityto the freedom from dogma that both the Buddha andearly Celts nurtured in the formative years oftheir beliefs.

Perks resisted this synthesis when his gurufirst discussed it during the 1970s. While Perks(2004, 3) identifies in his autobiographicalaccount his mother as "a Wicca spiritual healer"around the time he was born in 1934 in Kent, hisstory offers little insight into his earlyunderstanding of any Celtic or pagan roots. Younever even learn why his middle name is Riley,although this may or not be pertinent. As a boy,he did identify with a Welsh schoolmaster inplayful anti-Saxon alliances, on the other hand.(However, Perks promises a sequel about "CelticBuddhism.") After a peripatetic career, youngPerks wound up in New England. He sought alongsidemany "new Buddhists" (J. Coleman 2001, 208)resolution for "some kind of nagging spiritualdissatisfaction."

Perks and others practiced Buddhism in the1960s in Vermont. Chögyam Trungpa, after co-founding Samyé Ling in Scotland in 1967, met Perksin America in 1970. Perks accompanied Trungpa asvalet of his liveried Shambhala entourage duringmany of his peregrinations during the Age ofAquarius and at Colorado's Naropa Institute, whereTrungpa's "crazy wisdom" version of inculcatingthe dharma earned him notoriety. In 1989, afteryears of being nagged by Chögyam Trungpa, Perks

(2004, 213) "registered the name Celtic Buddhismas a nonprofit organization." Soon he calledhimself "the Venerable Seonaidh, which is Gaelicfor Johnny," began to give talks, and met othersintrigued by the juxtaposition that he embodied.

A Celtic Buddhist community began with Perks ata Nova Scotia inn, then a Letterkenny retreat -shared with the Irish College of Druids - and nowa Vermont foundation, AnaDaire. There Glen ArdAbbey (2010) combines "the models set forth by theearly Christian monks, the Franciscans, the DesertFathers, and early Zen and Tibetanmonasticism." Perks names himself as thetransmitter of Buddhism's "youngest lineage,"christened in honor of Chögyam Trungpa'sunorthodox example as "Crazy Heart." A lineagelinks "an unbroken line of successive teachersthrough which the Buddhist teachings aretransmitted" (G. Coleman 2006, 483). A Tibetanlineage parallels an episcopal line of succession.It enables Perks, once confirmed by Trungpa, in totrain and ordain lineage holders within thisbranch of the sangha, or community ofpractitioners.

The legitimacy of Perks' claim, TibetologistBurkhard Scherer (2010)3 avers, may be in doubt."There is no indication that Trungpa or anyTibetan master with traditional claim torealisation has recognised Perks as liberated orenlightened; Perks' claim of spiritual authoritystems solely from himself. In the Indo-Tibetantradition, realisation and lineage holdership arealways (and most of the time in multifold form)3 Scherer, Burkhard. "Re: inventing Celtic Buddhism", e-mail to author, 21 February, 2010.

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endorsed by other senior Tibetan masters." Schererdiscerns how Perks' "transmission story is vague,"lacking evidence of Trungpa's formal"empowerment." Given the narrative Perks provides,Scherer reasons that Trungpa did not teach "suchNew Age creolisation" as a formal teaching uponwhich a lineage could be claimed as a"realisation."

Yet, in the spirit of crazy gurus and maverickmonks, textbook definitions do not match what"Celtic Buddhism" becomes in Perks' conception. Asthe Venerable Seonaidh (1998, 303), Perks quotedhow Trungpa told him of the founding of his ownTibetan lineage centuries before: "Well, therewere three idiots sitting by the bank of the riverand one of them started the lineage. Why don't youtry starting a lineage, Johnny? You're an idiottoo." This Buddhist blend affirms eclecticism. Itssyncretism may resemble Celtic Christianity withinIrish Druidry today: eco-spirituality, sexualinclusion, and accommodation with folk traditions(Butler 2005, 99).These "lineage holders" at AnaDaire assert

hybridity. Glen Ard blends Franciscan-influencednature mysticism with Celtic paganism and eco-feminism. "Celtic Buddhism" integrates shamanismwith meditation. It mixes Tibetan methods withVipassana approaches chosen by many Westerners fortheir psychotherapeutic affinity. Prajnaparamita,the Heart Sutra teaching the indivisibility ofform and emptiness, remains their core text forpractice (Perks 2004, 215).

A brief comparison with the rituals adapted byDublin's branch of the Friends of the WesternBuddhist Order (FWBO) illuminates this cultural

spiral. Lorcan McMenamin (1993: 30-31) translatedthe Heart Sutra into Sutra An Chroí amidst medievalCeltic imagery and lettering gracing A Puja Book.This incorporated an Irish tone, with anintroductory talk by Dharmachari Sanghapala thatsubstituted more encouragement - regarding, say,flowers, candles and incense in worship - versuselements in the "standard puja book." The formerversion of this FWBO ritual threw "about thelanguage of evil, suffering, worship, and otherthings that might be counterproductive for peoplecoming from an Irish Catholic upbringing."Laurence Cox's (2009)4 remarks on impacts of Asian-exported models upon "convert" Buddhistssupplement his contributions with Maria Griffin(2009), extended into the present volume.

Envisioning "Celtic Buddhism"Perks (2004) narrates his visualizations during

a "deity yoga" meditation. These exercises--inwhich the practitioner summons up revered figuresto contemplate and confront as emanationsultimately derived from within rather than above--combine Celtic energies with Buddha-fields. Perkssees the goddesses Brigid and Danu, the queenMorrigan, and the North Briton chieftainessCartimandua among Celtic manifestations, alongsidethe medieval Beguine Marguerite Porete, a Chinesebodhisattva, a Tibetan fiery deity, and an Indianyogini. His diverse encounter aligns with thosewhich Tibetan Buddhist teachers advise for4 Cox, Laurence. "FWBO Puja", e-mail message to author,16 June, 2009.

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Westerners. Gurus counsel that those from otherspiritual practices or cultural traditions shouldand must learn to recognize the forms that emanatefrom one's practice as those who will be mosteasily acknowledged not only in the relativelycalm circumstances of this life's meditation, butthose who will be most reliably sought within theprobably terrifying bardo passages that take thesoul in transition to either rebirth or liberationduring one's afterlife.

Perks admits that these Celtic visions emanateas "another cultural aspect" connected to Tibetan,African, and Asian representations. He does notpinpoint where the two concepts of "Celt" and"Buddha" will meet. Perks (2004, 216) concludeshis autobiography with the admission: "Personally,I have no fixed or clear idea about how CelticBuddhism will finally manifest." Speaking as theVenerable Seonaidh (1998, 305), Perks ties this"Crazy Heart lineage" to Wiccan-influenced naturespirituality. "The Celtic Buddhist is in love,without attachment, to the environment." Thislineage dismisses historical verification as theonly validation of ultimate meaning. VenerableSeonaidh (1998, 301-2) adapts as its motto afundamental Buddhist doctrine of impermanence:"Nothing whatever should be clung to."

For Perks' associate, Bill Burns, the paintedthangka - a Tibetan scroll tapestry - conveys thevisual emergence of the empowerment meditationsdescribed by Trungpa's new protégé, or dharma-heir. Burns (2010b) proposes that "the combinationof the open approach of Buddhism and the existingmandala of Celticism mixed together is CelticBuddhism."

That mandala's maker elaborates how "the Celtsfavored a view close to a nature mysticism thatsees God or some sacred essence in nature. Still,here we are in the 21st century, all fishing forthe salmon of knowledge, either sticking our handsinto the swirling waters and hoping to come upwith 'the fish' or casting about in the stillpools and estuaries waiting for a bite. Awonderful vision to imagine is catching awonderful vision." Burns (2010b) relates how"Celtic Buddhism is an intermingling of the open-heartedness of Buddhism and the open-endedness ofthe spiritual quest with the integration of livingthe mythic journey. There is a possibility ofencountering the goddesses that we imagine asexternal forces. In Buddhism, these things are nolonger separate, they are actual contrivancesemployed in the transformation of psycho-spiritualenergies."

A sacred space, a mandala reifies thepractitioner's personal archetypes. This tantricconcentric, circular "cosmic diagram" (Trainor2004, 239) invites an adept to visualize celestialdeities and symbols as penetrated and encompassedby "the perfected state of the meditator's ownawareness" (J. Coleman 2006, 487). Circle framesvoid; images within depict one's illusions. Bymeditation, one develops and then destroys one'sattachment to these images, so as to prepare forthe entrance into emptiness.

Depicted on the Celtic Buddhism.org website, Burns(2010b) incorporates a mandala centrepiece of ablond Buddha on the lotus seat - with Cernunnos asdeer, the Cailleach as wise-woman healer, andBlodeuwedd as flower-faced Welsh beauty - into a

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Book of Kells-patterned array of Tibetan icons.The Buddha is based on the Kells incipit, thelettered start of the gospel of St. Matthew. Theirtree-of-life motif interweaves Himalayan andHibernian traditions.

For Perks (2004, 134), his extended lotus-sutravision also brings him a cow that transformsbefore his inner sight into the deity Cernunnos."He is young, sixteen, with the velvet horns of astag upon his head." While his story makes nomention of Gundestrup's trophy and little aboutany culturally Celtic knowledge outside of thisone "dreaming reality" interlude, the appearanceof this iconic Cernunnos among Perks' vision andBurns' repertoire of guiding figures doesimaginatively bring the Celtic Buddhist back toMacKenzie's central argument for the strongestlink in the chain that tethers the two nouns andthe two cultures. It also complements Taylor's(1992, 89) conclusion. He places the Gundestruptreasure within the magical tradition akin toSiberian shamanism and tantric yoga. He suggestsreorientation of the cauldron's meaning beyondgender boundaries, cultural conventions, oranthropological stereotypes. Even if the"pictorial narrative" eludes us, the cauldron's"problem itself, like certain mathematicalconundrums, may prove more valuable than itssolution."

Michel's Book of Kells mandalaThe intricate web that wraps precise

calculation into mystical yearning threads atapestry that may be as durable within the self as

it is invisible to the observer. On this premise,French author and Irish resident Michel Houllebecqproduced his 1998 novel of ideas, The ElementaryParticles. (Atomised is its British title.) Molecularbiologist Michel Djerzinski, seeking arevolutionary paradigm shift in geneticengineering, emigrates to Ireland to work at aGalway think tank. In 2005, inspired by millennialshifts towards global transformation, he pondershow, after materialism breaks down the divinebarrier supposedly preventing us from humanistfreedom, people can avoid doubt and distress in aEuropean society vacated by faith. Haunted byalienation and consumerism, Michel searches forscientific liberation from the limits of ourdecaying shells. He yearns for human-basedexperiences that interweave among us to bond ustogether as DNA does an organism.

On the verge of biological breakthrough, MichelDjerzinski late in 2005 visits the Book of Kellsdisplay in Dublin. The narrator inserts GiraldusCambrensis' 1185 description of the illustratedconcordance. "One might not see the subtleties,whereas all is subtlety" (Houllebecq 1998, 250).Michel lays the foundations, after his encounterat Trinity College with the book, for "a newphilosophy of space. Just as the world of TibetanBuddhism is inseparable from the prolongedcontemplation of the infinite circular forms ofmandalas," or as one can understand Democritus bywatching sunlight bursting down upon a Greekisland's white stones, "so one comes closer to thethinking of Djerzinski by studying the infinitearchitecture of cross and spiral, which are thebasic ornamental forms used in the Book of Kells,"

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the narrator observes (Houllebecq 1998, 250-1).Love overcomes distance, and interwoven within ourcells Michel unlocks the patterns that overcomedeath.

Living near Clifden, Michel meditates upon hissecular epiphany as he perambulates along the SkyRoad. After sending off his final manuscripts atthe Galway central post office, he disappears. Nobody was found, so "rumors sprang up that he hadgone to live in Asia, probably in Tibet, tocompare his work with Buddhist teachings." Thenarrator denies this suggestion. No trace ofMichel leaving Ireland can be found, and "thedrawings on the last pages of his notebook, whichsome had interpreted as mandalas, were later foundto be combinations of Celtic symbols much likethose in the Book of Kells" (Houllebecq 1998, 252-3).

Instead, the narrator concludes, Michel likelydied in Ireland, choosing his death. "Manywitnesses attest to his fascination with thisdistant edge of the Western world, constantlybathed in a soft shifting light, where he liked towalk, where, as he wrote in one of his last notes,'the sky, the sea and the light converge.' We nowbelieve that Michel Djerzinski went into the sea"(Houllebecq 1998, 253). Like past liberators whoreturned to the sky or the elements, Michel leaveshumankind with a legacy. Yet, his gift rests notin dogma or deity, but within all living things.He unlocks the molecular trigger that allowsinfinite copying of cells without mutation ordisturbance. Immortality arrives for those alivein the twenty-first century. While Jews,Christians, and Muslims deride Djerzinski's

discovery, as well as many humanists, one cohortfrom "revealed religion" demurs. Buddhists noted"that all of the Buddha's teachings were foundedon the awareness of the three impediments of oldage, sickness and death, and that the EnlightenedOne, if he had meditated on it, would notnecessarily have rejected a technical solution"(Houllebecq 1998, 258).

ConclusionHere, spiraling back to the Isles of the Blest,

crossing Buddha's Western re-orientation, thisintroduction to the concept of "Celtic Buddhism"cycles back to where it began. Petrie and O'Brien,Theosophists and Joyce, Crazy Heart lineageholders and Celticists--alongside manyarchaeologists--contend over what that unexpectedcombination of cultural concepts creates. MichaelLongley, Ciaran Carson, and, in Dharmakaya, PaulaMeehan all integrate Buddhist themes into theirpoetry; they attest to what Ben Howard (2005, 74)poses as a koan, a Zen riddle. Why has the dharmacome to Ireland? "In the true spirit of Zen, onemight answer 'Galway Bay' or 'the Rock of Cashel.'"

Provocatively, Michel walks into that bay afterhis DNA breakthrough culminates his life'smeaning; Cashel for Yeats reveals where MichaelRobartes' double vision of a joyful girl appearsbetween Sphinx and blessing Buddha. Perhaps atlast, unlike at the premiere of The Countess Cathleen,Yeats' vision may come to pass over a centurylater for today's Irish, dissatisfied withChristian conformity and secularised consumerism.

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Exactly two centuries separate FrancisWilford's idea of Buddha's "Sacred Isles of theWest" resting in the Celtic fringe from MichelDjerzinski's ideal. Both conceptions seek to freepeople from enslavement to passing desire in agingbodies. For MacKenzie, the shores of Britainsuggested the land of the dead. For Michel, theIrish coast invites his death, but his discoveryliberates by genetic miracle immortality for thosewho remain behind.

The missing link between a factual "Celtic" tiewith historical "Buddhism" contorts academicreasoning (Murphy 2010). Yet, for a fictionalFrench scientist in Galway or a faction of Celticpractitioners in Vermont, the bond between the twoterms remains perhaps as insubstantial andinviting as the elusive story told on theGundestrup cauldron. There any factual solutionretreats. It illustrates where storytellingreturns to enrich our spirit's search for meaning.