Nazi Buddha turned out to be a meteorite

An ancient Tibetan artifact once brought to Germany by the Nazis turned out to be a rare type of iron meteorite. The story of this figurine is a real adventure novel with elements of mysticism, political detective story and astrophysics. It fell into the hands of scientists only in 2007, emerging from a quiet private collection, and the first to study it were researchers from the group of professor from Stuttgart Elmar Büchner. The results of their work were recently published : it turned out that the figurine is of not only religious, historical and cultural interest, but also astrophysical. The base material from which it is made is iron with a high content of nickel (16%) and cobalt (0.6%), plus trace amounts of chromium, gallium and germanium. This allows it to be unambiguously classified as an ataxite, a class of nickel-rich iron meteorites. This is a rather rare class; today about fifty ataxites are known, but the largest of them reaches a weight of 60 tons.

Such a meteorite fell somewhere in 1912-13. already in complete wilderness, on the banks of the Chinge River near the border of Mongolia and Siberia. Here, a team of gold miners came across fragments of a strange metal weighing more than 200 kg. These fragments turned out to be a meteorite, which received the same name as the river. The thousand-year-old Buddha statue was surprisingly related to him: their chemical profiles are identical.

According to scientists, the fall of the Chingye meteorite occurred between 20 and 10 thousand years ago, so that individual fragments of it could easily have been found by nomads and eventually fell into the hands of an unnamed Tibetan master a thousand years ago. The 24-centimeter “Iron Buddha” he created turned out to be not entirely canonical. In his features, experts find a pronounced influence of the art of pre-Buddhist Tibet and the half-forgotten Bon religion: the Awakened One is surprisingly similar to the ancient images of the local god of abundance Jambhala.

The “Iron Buddha” spent about a thousand years in unknown temples and monasteries of the Himalayas, but in the twentieth century his fate changed dramatically: Hitler came to power in Germany. The Nazis attached considerable importance to the occult and mystical support of their “mission”.

This task was carried out by the mysterious society “Ahnenerbe” (Ahnenerbe - heritage of ancestors), where the most amazing theories were developed - about an ancient race of superhumans who lived at the pole; that the Earth is hollow, and we live on the inside of its sphere; that the Universe was born from one huge piece of ice... In the Ahnenerbe program document, among the society’s tasks there were also “research in the field of localizing the spirit, actions, and heritage of the Indo-Germanic race.” To test the theory of “Eternal Ice” and localize the spirit of the race, in 1938, under the patronage of Himmler personally, a small expedition led by Ernst Schaefer went to Tibet.

There are legends according to which Schaefer, who returned to Germany, delivered to Hitler nothing more than the mysterious Spear of Destiny. The Fuhrer indeed received gifts (including the Dalai Lama's robe), but there is no reliable information about the spear. In fact, the interests of the expedition extended much wider. Negotiations were held with the Tibetan government and measurements of the skulls of the local population were carried out, ancient texts and sacred artifacts were collected. A documentary was even made demonstrating local exotic rituals.

The “Iron Buddha” was also brought to the Reich - most likely, Schaefer was attracted by the swastika emblazoned on the deity’s belt. The 10.6-kilogram figurine arrived in Munich, where over time it settled in a quiet private collection. The authors of the study philosophically note: “Since prehistoric times, many cultures have perceived the fall of meteorites as a message from heaven, and even today meteorites are revered as divine gifts.”

Here it is difficult not to recall the famous Black Stone, built into the wall of the Kaaba, the main object of worship in Islam. Encased in a luxurious silver frame, according to legend, it came to Earth straight from heaven - and according to a more modern version, it may also turn out to be a meteorite. It is a pity that Muslims do not provide their shrine for scientific analysis, and scientists are in no hurry to offend their religious feelings.