Travelling on the Roof of the World...

Alexandra David-Néel, born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David (1868–1969), was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, feminist, anarchist and writer. She is most famous for having entered Tibet in 1924 at a time when it was forbidden to foreigners to do so. In her younger years, she was a celebrated opera singer who spent time performing in Hanoi, in the then French-owned country of Indochina (now Viet Nam). She studied Theosophy under Madame Blavatsky and became a high-ranking Freemason while studying in London. She studied Sanskrit and Tibetan while in Paris and this set her upon the path of studying Buddhism, a faith to which she later converted.

She travelled extensively in her lifetime, initially exploring the relatively unexplored (at that time) terrain of China, Mongolia, Tibet and the Indian sub-continent. In her later years, she visited the Americas and much of Europe, lecturing on Buddhist principles. She married but lived largely apart from her husband, relying on her own independent wealth for support. They produced no children, however, Alexandra adopted a 15-year-old lama whom she encountered in her early wanderings in India, a young boy named Aphur Yongden.

In her lifetime, she wrote many volumes of her discoveries and ideas and translated many Buddhist texts. At times, she was the subject of attempts to de-bunk her history, many people believing that her stories of exotic travel were faked and the many photographs the work of image manipulators. Time has quietened the opposition to her accomplishments.

One of her best-known works is Magic and Mystery in Tibet, which contains excerpts from her larger memoirs and which focuses upon her encounters with the supernatural and the occult during her wanderings. The following extract contains little of this kind of material, but rather reveals the nature of travelling through China and the Mongolian wildernesses at the time. This rather brief overview of the travails which she and her son encountered spans the period of the First World War, concluding in 1918, after they arrived in Kum-Bum, where they stayed until 1921. It is also noteworthy for its glancing references to a wide-flung fraternity of Buddhist communities who welcomed her temporarily among their ranks.

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“Once more I have crossed the Himalayas, proceeding downward to India.

It is sad to leave the bewitching region where during several years I had lived a most fantastic and captivating life; though, wonderful as this entrance house of Tibet proved to be, I know that I am far from having obtained even a glimpse of all the strange mystic doctrines and practices which are hidden from the profane in the hermitages of the ‘Land of Snow’. My journey to Shigatze has also revealed to me the scholastic Tibet, its monastic universities, its immense libraries. How many things are left for me to learn! And I am leaving…

I go to Burma and spend days of retreat on the Saigan hills with the Kamatangs, the contemplative monks of one of the most austere Buddhist sects.

I go to Japan where I dive into the calm of the Tofoku-ji, a monastery of that Zen sect which, for centuries, has collected the intellectual aristocracy of the country.

I go to Korea. Panya-an; the ‘monastery of wisdom’ concealed in the heart of the forest opens its doors to me.

When I went there to beg temporary admittance, heavy rains had washed the path away. I found the Panya-an monks busy repairing it. The novice sent by his abbot to introduce me stopped before one of the workers as muddy as his companions, bowed, respectfully and said a few words to him, the digger, leaning on his spade, looked at me intently for a while, then nodded his consent and began to work again, without taking any more notice of me.

‘He is the head of the hermitage,’ my guide told me. ‘He is willing to give you a room.’

The next day I when returned to Panya-an, I was led to a completely empty cell. My blanket spread on the floor was to be my couch, while my dressing-case could be used as a table. Yongden was to share the room of a young novice of his age, which, excepting for a few books on a shelf, was as little furnished as mine.

The daily routine included eight hours of meditation divided in four periods of two hours – eight hours of study and manual work – eight hours devoted to sleep, meals and recreation according to individual tastes.

Each day, a little before 3 a.m., a monk went round the houses, striking a wooden instrument to awaken his brothers.

Then, all met in the assembly room, where they sat in meditation facing the wall.

Diet was truly ascetic… rice and some boiled vegetables without any flavouring. Even the vegetables were often missing and the meal consisted of plain rice alone.

Silence was not compulsory as it is amongst the Trappists, but the monks seldom spoke. They did not feel the need of talking nor of spending their energy in outward manifestations. Their thoughts remained fixed on secret introspections and their eyes had the inward gaze of the Buddha’s images.

I go to Peking. I live in Peling-sse, formerly an imperial mansion, now a Buddhist monastery. It is situated next the large Lamaist temple and near the stately temple of Confucius, several miles distant from the Legations. There, Tibet calls to me again.

For years I have dreamt of far-away Kum-Bum without having dared hope I would ever get there. Yet the journey is decided. I will cross the whole of China to reach its north-western frontier into Tibetan land.

I join a caravan composed of two rich lamas and their respective retinues, who are returning to Amdo; a Chinese trader of the remote Kansu province with his servants; and a few monks and laymen who are glad to benefit from the protection that numbers ensure on the unsafe roads.

The journey is most picturesque. Besides other incidents my travelling companions supply abundant matter for amazement.

One day, the gigantic head of our caravan entertains some Chinese harlots at the inn where we have put up. Slender and short, clad in pale-green pants and pink coats, they enter the lama’s room like a family of Tom Thumbs going into the Ogre’s den.

The ‘lama’ is a ngagspa, a follower of the very heterodox sect of magicians, scarcely belonging to the clergy, and a married man.

A harsh and noisy bargaining takes place with the door wide open. The cynical, yet candid terms of the [ngagspa, who comes from the border of the Koko-nor wilderness] are translated into Chinese by his imperturbable secretary-interpreter. Finally five Chinese dollars are accepted as honorarium; one of the dolls stays overnight.

Our libertine companion is also hot tempered. Another day he quarrels with a Chinese officer. The soldiers of a neighbouring post invade our inn, guns in hand. The lama calls his retainers, who arrive with their own guns. The inn-keeper falls prostrate at my feet beseeching me to intervene.

With the help of the Chinese trader, a member of our travelling party, who knows Tibetan and acts as my interpreter, I succeed in convincing the soldiers that it is beneath their dignity to pay the least attention to the stupid actions of a barbarian from the Koko-nor wilds.

Then I remonstrate with the lama against a man of his rank compromising himself with vulgar soldiers.

Peace is restored.

I become acquainted with civil war and robbery. I endeavour to nurse wounded men left without help. One morning I see a bunch of heads – those of newly beheaded robbers – hung above the door of our inn. That sight arouses philosophical thoughts about death in my placid son, which he quietly expounds to me.

The road ahead of us is blocked by the fighting troops. I think I shall be able to avoid the vicinity of the battles by going to a town named Tungchow situated several miles away from the direct road to Sian-fu.

The day after my arrival Tungchow is besieged. I could watch storming enemies climbing the city walls on high ladders, while defenders hurled stones down on them. I seemed to be living in an ancient picture depicting the wars of olden times.

I escape from the besieged town during a tempest when the army remains sheltered on the other side of the walls. My cart rushes madly through the night; we arrive at the shore of a river beyond which we expect to be in safety. We call the ferry-man. For answer, shots are fired at us from the other bank.

I have an amusing remembrance of a tea-party with the governor of Shensi. The enemy surrounds the city. Tea is served by soldiers with guns on their shoulders and revolvers in their belts, ready to resist an attack that may occur at any minute. Yet, the guests talk calmly with that exquisite and apparently serene courtesy which is one of the fruits of the old Chinese education.

We discuss philosophical questions; one of the officials speaks French perfectly and acts as my interpreter. Whatever the feelings of the governor and his party may be in this tragic situation, their faces remain smiling. The conversation around the tea-table is that of literati enjoying the intellectual game of exchanging subtle thoughts in a dispassionate way.

How wonderfully refined and civilised are the Chinese and how lovable, in spite of the faults that can be found in them!

I came out at last, from the troubled area, I am in Amdo, settled in the precinct of the Pegyai Lama’s palace, in the Kum-Bum monastery… Again I plunge into Tibetan life.”

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Call of Cthulhu Keepers who are interested in running their campaigns – in part, or entirely – in the wilds of China, during either the canon time period or the Gaslight variation, could do no better than pick up a copy of this book, not only for ideas about Buddhist and Tibetan supernature, but also for a sense of what travelling in these areas at the time was like.