THE SECRET LIVES OF ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL ft Biography of the Explorer of Tibet AMD Its Forbiddeh Practices B arbara F oster and M ic h a e l F oster “A fascinating account of the life and exploits of the brilliant 20th century Frenchwoman who became the first European female to enter the. holy city of Lhasa.” —Harper’s Bazaar The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel f\ Biography of the Explorer of Tibet AMD Its Forbiddeh Practices BARBARA FOSTER AND MICHAEL FOSTER THE OVERLOOK PRESS WOODSTOCK & NEW YORK First published in the United States in 1998 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. Lewis Hollow Road Woodstock, New York 12498 Copyright © 1998 Barbara Foster and Michael Foster All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Data Foster, Barbara M. The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel / Barbara Sc Michael Foster—Rev. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. David-Neel, Alexandra, 1868— 1969. I. Foster, Michael. II. Title. BQ950.A937F67 1998 294.3*092— dc21 [B] 96-50127 Book design and form atting by Bernard Schleifer Original Maps by Letha Hadady Manufactured in the United States of America ISBN 087951-774-3 First Edition 135798642 dV lt'CV lf'S V oyages a nd C h ro no lo g y vii P reface t o t h e R evised E d it io n ix I ntroduction : O ur J o u r n ey t o A lexandra xii vtc: c f ^ e e h e r 1. The Eye of Empire 3 2. Prisoner of a Dream 9 3. The Ego and Its Own 18 4. The Saddest Story 34 5. India Absurd and Marvelous 46 6. City of Joy 57 7. The Genie and the Demon 65 8. The Living Buddha 79 9. An Invisible Barrier 92 10. In the Realm of Shiva 102 CONTENTS V lW j 11. Cavern in the Sky 117 12. Asia Marvelous and Diverse 131 13. A Paradise 143 14. The French Nun 157 15. An Officer and a Gentleman 172 16. A Long Walk 185 17. A Long Walk, Continued 196 18. “The Potala Is the Paradise of Buddha.' 210 t y r e e : 19. The Dream of Repose 225 20. Success at Paris 235 21. The Short Path 246 22. Storm Clouds 259 23. The Wife of the Chinese 273 24. The Sage of Digne 288 Coda: The Legacy 298 Sources and Acknowledgments 307 Selected Bibliography 311 I nd ex 321 ^ 0 \jc \&j- (^Dswfo-c/Xbel 1891-1893 India 1911-1912 Ceylon, India 1912-1916 Sikkim, Nepal, southern Tibet (expelled) 1916-1918 India, Burma, French Indochina, Japan, Korea, China 1918-1921 Eastern Tibet (Kum Bum) 1921-1924 Journey to Lhasa through eastern Tibet, Mongolia, western China, and southern Tibet 1925 Return to France 1937-1945 Soviet Union, China, Sino-Tibetan border, India 1946 Final return to France v o v i o l & Q y y October 24, 1868 Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David is born in Paris. 1871 The Commune lives and dies. 1873 The Davids move to Belgium. 1888-1890 Alexandra investigates the Society of the Supreme Gnosis, London. She discovers the Theosophical Society in Paris and Buddhism and other oriental philosophies. 1891 Departs for India. 1895 Sings with l’Opéra-Comique in Indochina 1898 Publishes Pour la vie, a libertarian essay 1904 Marries Philip Neel; her father dies 1911 Undertakes second Asian sojourn 1912 Meets Prince Sidkeong of Sikkim, glimpses Tibet and has two interviews with the Dalai Lama. viii CHRONOLOGY 1914-1916 Lives as a hermit in the Himalayas 1917 Tours Japan and Korea 1918-1920 Lives among the monks at Kum Bum monastery October 1923 Sets out on a four-month journey afoot to Lhasa February 1924 Reaches Lhasa, remains for two months 1925 Returns to France 1927 My Journey to Lhasa is published in New York, London, and Paris. 1928-1936 Alexandra buys and inhabits Samten Dzong in Digne, France. Completes Magic and Mystery; Buddhism; Initiations 1937-1945 She lives in China during the Sino-Japanese war. 1941 Philip Neel dies. 1946 Alexandra returns to France to settle estate. 1955 Yongden, her adopted son, dies. 1959 Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet comes to Samten Dzong. 1968 Alexandra’s 100th birthday is celebrated at Digne. September 8, Alexandra, much honored, dies at Digne. Several 1969 projects are left incomplete. rcj^scc to t\jc i At the start of the winter we were in North Beach. It was a nostalgia run that brought back memories of hippie San Francisco rather than today’s techno-town at the head of Silicon Valley. While we didn’t wear flowers in our hair, we did head for the City Lights Bookstore. In front of the shop there was a photo shoot of Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the grey-bearded flesh, wearing a dark sweater and a dented bowler hat. We had mutual acquaintances—Allen Ginsberg for one— but with photographers shouting instructions and flashes popping, this was no time to bother the man. But we did want to talk to him about Buddhism and his publication, in 1967, of The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, by Alexandra David-Neel and her Tibetan son Lama Yongden. Alan Watts called this the “I-told-you-so-book,” because it vali­ dated his crystal-clear approach to meditation and enlightenment. When the crowd had cleared and Ferlinghetti had gone back inside, we approached the show window. There, where it has stood for the last thirty years, was The Secret Oral Teachings with the same picture of bespectacled Lama Yongden seated, prayer beads in hand and what appears to be a wizard’s cap on his head. The format was larger than our original copy, but we were pleased to discover not a word had been changed. When we finally spoke to Ferlinghetti he told us this late work by David-Neel was selling better than ever. Alexandra David-Neel, French by birth, English by education and American in temperament, lived—really lived—for nearly one hundred and one years, a span that stretched from the mid­ nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. In that time she led a xii PREFACE youthful life as a student radical, had a career as an opera singer admired by Massenet, became a feminist journalist who flirted with Mussolini, tried conventional marriage at which she failed, journeyed to India, Tibet, and, China where she studied, traveled, and wrote despite famine, plague, and civil war, and where she was effortlessly at home. The woman shed her past lives like a serpent does its old skin. In each life she buried the previous one, concealing its traces. In her very last incarnation, as the Eastern savant, she effaced her whole previous history. Why? Because she had done or said things she wished to deny, or at least hide. She was making for herself a stain­ less myth of the intrepid explorer, the philosopher above and beyond passion. Alexandra’s act has been good enough to fool her previous biog­ raphers. However, in their attempts at the telling of her life, they turn her into a stick figure—either a sexless saint or a liar who never went to Tibet. They attribute her deliberate actions, in which they cannot find motive or reason, to a divine destiny. At their most banal, writ­ ers on this relentless seeker of clarity of mind gush about her hero­ ism or her devotion to Buddhism. She had both, but they do not explain the woman. In Forbidden Journey (1987), our initial attempt to chart Alexandra David-Neel’s mysterious course, we employed—for the first time among her biographers—third-party sources, original maps, and copious footnotes citing secret archives and personal letters. We proved that, at age 55, she had indeed trekked to Lhasa, Tibet against an incredible array of obstacles. This entirely revised edition follows a somewhat different path. Since we have been living with David-Neel’s life for nearly two decades, we trust more to our own observations and opinions. We try to answer the question why, as well as the questions where and when. We believe that a biography, especially of such a large character, is a no-holds-barred effort, or it must fail. For the global edition, we have fleshed out the comments about David-Neel made by distinguished persons who knew her, such as Christmas Humphreys, Lawrence Durrell, and John Blofeld—from the latter we received an extraordinary deathbed commentary. We have again consulted our mainstay Hugh Richardson, Britain’s PREFACE xiii last man in Tibet. We have dug deeper into the Secret Files of the India Office to unearth startling evidence that confirms the relent­ less, underground character of our protagonist. Unfortunately, the disoriented state of the David-Neel Foundation in Digne, France prohibits our lushly reproducing Alexandra’s own voice. But the reader will find that her presence permeates the tale of a karmic journey at once both hugely successful and tragic. Alexandra David-Neel’s influence lives on in surprising ways. If we are just beginning to appreciate the role of Beat writers such as Kerouac and Ginsberg in transmitting Buddhism to America, much of what they learned of Tibetan Buddhism stems from her.