My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Neel is a captivating memoir of the author's daring and extraordinary journey to Tibet in the early 20th century. In this work, David-Neel recounts her arduous and often perilous trek through the Himalayan Mountains to reach Lhasa, the sacred heart of Tibetan Buddhism. At the time, Tibet was largely closed off to foreigners, and the journey was both physically challenging and fraught with political and cultural obstacles.
Alexandra David-Neel, a French explorer and scholar, adopted the guise of a pilgrim to gain access to the Forbidden City. Her narrative offers vivid descriptions of the landscapes, customs, and spiritual practices she encountered along the way. She also shares her deepening understanding of Tibetan Buddhism and its mysticism. My Journey to Lhasa not only serves as a travelogue but also provides profound insights into the philosophy and spiritual life of Tibet, making it a groundbreaking work in Western understanding of the region.
Alexandra David-Neel was a pioneering French explorer, writer, and scholar, best known for her extensive travels in Tibet and her contributions to the study of Tibetan Buddhism. She was one of the first western women to visit Tibet, where she spent time in Lhasa. gaining firsthand knowledge of Tibetan culture and spirituality. Also published by us are David-Neel's other books, including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Buddhism: its Doctrines and its Methods, Tibetan Tale of Love and Magic, Initiations and Initiates in Tibet. My Journey to Lhasa, The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, and Tibetan Journey, sharing her insights into Tibetan rituals, mysticism, and philosophy. Her groundbreaking work bridged Eastern and Western thought. making her a key figure in the study of Buddhism and Himalayan cultures.
My travels in remote parts of Asia, including my fifth expedition, a journey to Thibet of which I give a short account in the present book, were undertaken as the result of certain peculiar circumstances, and a brief résumé of these may not be uninteresting to the reader.
Ever since I was five years old, a tiny precocious child of Paris, I wished to move out of the narrow limits in which, like all children of my age, I was then kept. I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown. But, strangely enough, this ""Unknown"" fancied by my baby mind always turned out to be a solitary spot where I could sit alone, with no one near, and as the road toward it was closed to me I sought solitude behind any bush, any mound of sand, that I could find in the garden, or wherever else my nurse took me.
Later on, I never asked my parents for any gifts except books on travel, maps, and the privilege of being taken abroad during my school holidays. When a girl, I could remain for hours near a railway line, fascinated by the glittering rails and fancying the many lands toward which they led. But, again, my imagination did not evoke towns, buildings, gay crowds, or stately pageants, I dreamed of wild hills, immense deserted steppes and impassable landscapes of glaciers!
When grown up, although I was in no sense a sedentary scholar, my love of Oriental philosophy and of comparative religion won me a position as a writer and a lecturer in a Belgian university.
I had already travelled in the East when, in 1910, I was commissioned by the French Ministry of Education to proceed to India and Burma to make some Oriental researches.
At that time the ruler of Thibet, the Dalai lama, had, fled from his capital, because of political troubles with China, and had taken refuge in an Himalayan village in British Bhutan, called Kalimpong.
Thibet was not altogether unfamiliar to me. I had been a pupil of the Sanskrit and Thibetan scholar, Professor Edouard Foucaux, of the College de France, and knew something of Thibetan literature. Naturally, I wanted to see the Thibetan Pope-king and his court.
I was informed by the British Resident that this was not easy. For up to that time this exalted lama had obstinately refused to receive foreign ladies But I had managed to secure preying letters of introduction from high Buddhist personages, and the result was that the desire of the Dalai lama to see me grew even stronger than mine to see him!
Around the monk-sovereign, I found a strange royal household of clerical personages, clad in shining yellow satin, dark-red cloth, and gold brocade, who related fantastic stories and; spoke of a wonderland. Although when listening to them I wisely made a liberal allowance for legend and exaggeration, I instinctively felt that behind those dark wooded hills which I saw before me, and the huge snowy peaks which pointed their lofty heads beyond them, there was, truly, a land different from all others. Needless to say, my heart leaped with the desire to enter it! It was in June of the year 1912 that I had my first glimpse of Thibet. The path which I had preferred to the road most usually taken starts from a low point in Sikkim, amid tropical vegetation, wild orchids, and the living fireworks of fireflies. Gradually, as one climbs, the scenery changes, nature becomes severe, the singing of birds and the noisy buzzing of insects subside. The huge trees, in their turn, are unable to struggle in the rarefied air of the summits. With each mile the forest becomes more stunted, till the shrubs are reduced to the size of dwarfs creeping on the ground, while still higher up they cannot even continue to exist. The traveller is left amidst rocks richly embroidered with brightly coloured lichens, cold water falls, half frozen lakes and giant glaciers. Then from the Sepo pass one suddenly discovers the immensity of the trans-Himalayan tableland of Thibet, with its distant horizon of peaks bathed in strange mauve and orange hues, and carrying queerly shaped caps of snow upon their mighty heads What an unforgettable vision! I was at last in the calm solitudes of which I had dreamed since my infancy. I felt as if I had come home after a tiring, cheerless pilgrimage.
However, the very peculiar natural aspect of Thibet is not the only reason for the attraction which that country has exercised over me. Like many Oriental scholars, of whom I am but an humble colleague, I deeply regret the loss, in their Sanskrit original, of a number of Mahåyånist Buddhist Scriptures. These are more or less available in Chinese translations, but what is the extent of the Thibetan translation and what original philosophic and mystic works have been written by Thibetan authors, either in accordance with Mahayânist doctrines or contrary to them, is as much terra incognita as the land of Thibet itself. Thus, hunting after books and old manuscripts and seeking meetings with the literati of the country became my self-assigned task. Anyhow, things could not end there.
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