Western Ideas About Agarttha

SAINT-YVES D'ALVEYDRE'S posthumous work Mission de l'Inde, first published in 1910,^[1] contains a description of a mysterious initiatic center called Agarttha, and many readers have no doubt assumed that this was just an imaginary tale, a sort of fiction, with no basis in reality. If taken literally, it does in fact contain some improbable accounts that could justify such an appraisal, at least for those accustomed to seeing only external appearances, and Saint-Yves doubtless had good reasons for not publishing the book, which was written long ago but never brought to completion. Moreover, until the appearance of this book there had hardly been any mention in Europe of Agarttha and its leader the Brahmātmā, except by the rather superficial writer Louis Jacolliot [1837–1890], whose authority one cannot possibly invoke. In our opinion Jacolliot had actually heard of these things while in India, but created his own fantasy about them, as he did with everything else.^[2] However, in 1924 a book entitled Beasts, Men and Gods appeared unexpectedly on the scene, in which the author, Ferdinand Ossendowski, relates the incidents of a most eventful journey he made across Central Asia in the years 1920 and 1921, including, especially in its latter part, accounts almost identical with those given by Saint-Yves; and we believe that the sensation aroused by this book at last furnishes a favorable opportunity to break the silence on the question of Agarttha.Naturally, hostile and sceptical critics did not fail to accuse Ossendowski of simply plagiarizing Saint-Yves, supporting their allegation by pointing out all the concordant passages in the two books; and in fact there are a good number that show a rather astonishing similarity, even to points of detail. First of all, in one of his most improbable passages, Saint- Yves asserts the existence of a subterranean world with branches everywhere-under continents and even under the oceans-by means of which communications are invisibly established between all the regions of the earth; more-over, Ossendowski does not affirm this on his own authority, even declaring that he does not know what to think of it, but attributes it rather to reports received from people he met in the course of his journey. On a more particular point, there is also a passage in which the ‘King of the World' is depicted in front of his predecessor's tomb and where the question is raised concerning the origin of the gypsies, ^[3] who, among others, are said to have lived originally in Agarttha. Saint-Yves writes that there are moments during the subterranean celebration of the 'cosmic mysteries' when travelers upon the desert stop motionless and even the animals are silent; and Ossendowski has assured us that he himself was present at such a moment of universal contemplation.^[4] But most important of all, by a strange coincidence both writers tell the story of an island now vanished where extraordinary men and beasts once lived; at this point Saint-Yves cites the summary by Diodorus of Sicily of the journey of Iambulus, whereas Ossendowski describes the journey of an ancient Buddhist from Nepal; but their accounts hardly differ, so that if two versions from such widely divergent sources really do exist it would be interesting to acquire them and compare them carefully. Although we have pointed to these similarities, it should be emphasized that we are in no way convinced that there was indeed plagiarism; and we do not in any case intend to enter into a discussion of only limited interest. We know through other sources, independent of the evidence offered by Ossendowski himself, that stories of this kind are current in Mongolia and throughout Central Asia, and we can immediately add that there is something similar in the traditions of nearly all peoples. Furthermore, if Ossendowski did in part copy from the Mission de l'Inde, it is difficult to see why he should have omitted certain passages or changed the form of certain words, writing Agharti in place of Agarttha, for example, which on the contrary is easily explained if he received from a Mongolian source the information that Saint-Yves obtained from a Hindu source (the latter being known to have been in contact with at least two Hindus);^[5] nor is it easy to understand why he would have used the title 'King of the World'

to designate the head of the initiatic hierarchy, a title that appears nowhere in Saint-Yves's work. Even if a certain amount of borrowing were admitted, the fact remains that Ossendowski sometimes says things that have no equivalent in Mission de l'Inde and that he certainly would not have been able to invent in their entirety, all the more so as he was far more preoccupied with politics than with the pursuit of ideas or doctrines, and was so ignorant of anything touching on esoterism that he was manifestly incapable of grasping the true import of such things. For example, he tells the story of the 'black stone' that had originally been sent by the 'King of the World' to the Dalai Lama, and subsequently transported to Urga in Mongolia, where it disappeared approximately one hundred years ago;^[6] now, in many traditions ‘black stones' play an important role, from that played by the symbol of Cybele to that of the stone enshrined in the Kaaba at Mecca.^[7] Here is another example: the Bogdo-Khan or ‘Living Buddha', who resides at Urga, preserves, among other precious items, the ring of Genghis Khan, on which is engraved a swastika, and a copper plaque bearing the seal of the 'King of the World'; it seems that Ossendowski managed to see only the first of these two objects, but, if this is so, would it not then have been extremely difficult for him to conjure the other from his imagination, and would it not have been more natural for him to describe a plaque of gold?These preliminary observations must suffice, for we wish to remain apart from any polemics or questions of personalities; we have only cited Ossendowski and Saint-Yves as a point of departure for considerations that have nothing to do with what one might think of either of them, and whose importance exceeds their individualities, as well as our own, which in this domain should no longer count. Nor do we propose a more or less vain 'textual criticism', but rather a presentation of some information that, to our knowledge, has been unavailable until now, and that might help in some measure to elucidate what Ossendowski calls the 'mystery of mysteries'.^[8]