Sriman Swamy was a sannyasin, which
is a Brahmin who renounced his social life to become a pilgrim in search of
enlightenment.
Damodar Mavalankar was a Master Kuthumi’ student, who at the time worked
in the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in India, but who left Adyar on
February 23, 1885 to travel to Tibet with the purpose of meeting with his
teacher and already become a fully accepted disciple.
And since nothing more was known about Damodar afterwards, people began
to murmur that Damodar had died. And that is why a Damodar’s friend, who
had heard that the Swamy had lately visited Tibet, was anxious to know whether
he had heard or seen anything of his absent friend.
On August 7, 1889, Sriman Swamy wrote a letter to that young man where
he answered the following:
« Dear Sir and Brother,
In reply to your enquiries I may
say that I certify on my word as a Sanyassi that I have twice visited
Tibet since the year 1879; that I have personally become acquainted with
several Mahatmas, among whom were the two known to the outside word as Mahatma
“M” and Mahatma “K. H.”; that I spent some time in their company; that they
told me that they and other Mahatmas were interested in the work of the
Theosophical Society; that Mahatma “M” told me he had been the (occult)
guardian of Madame Blavatsky from her infancy.
And I further certify that in
March 1887 I saw Mr. Damodar K. Mavalankar at L’hassa, in a convalescent
state. He told me, in the presence of Mahatma “K. H.” that he had been at
the point of death in the previous year. »
(This letter was published in the Lucifer
magazine, September 1889, p.68)
And Richard Harte, who at that time was the editor of The Theosophist magazine, also commented
that:
« Since then I have had two conversations
with the Swamy, in the course of which he corroborated what he had said in his
letter, and left on my mind the impression of being an able and sincere man. »
(Idem)
And the fact that Damodar was very weak, was also stated by Master
Kuthumi in a letter he wrote to Colonel Olcott, and which was only made public
much later, and where the Master mentioned:
« The poor boy has had his fall. Before he could stand in the
presence of the Masters, he had to undergo the severest trials that a neophyte
ever passed through, to atone for the many questionable doings in which he had
over-zealously taken part, bringing disgrace upon the sacred science and its
adepts.
The mental and physical suffering was too much for his weak frame, which
has been quite prostrated, but he will recover in course of time. »
(Letters of
the Masters of Wisdom, first series, c. 29, p.75)
And Blavatsky wrote to Mr. Navroji D. Khandalavala a letter, where she
gave further explanations on this matter:
« London,
November 21, 1889.
My Dear Mr. Khandalavala,
I have given to your letter of
the 25th Oct., the closest attention, though there is nothing in it I did not
know before; and now shall answer it with all seriousness.
Damodar is believed to have been
driven away by harsh treatment to live or die as he pleased; and that he is, in
fact, dead.
People think that the publication
of Sriman Swamy's letter by me is traceable to Col. Olcott's “craving for
strange stories and his anxiety to publish them without throughly verifying
them in the first instance”.
Let me reply. Damodar is not dead, and Olcott knows it as
well as I do. I had a letter from him not more than 3 months ago.
No matter what your lying Sriman
Swamy may, or may not be — one cannot always tell — he passed successfully through a cross
examination by Mr. Subba Row, who pronounced him a real “chela of the 2nd Class”
to several witnesses in Madras (Judge Srinivas Row among others, Olcott, etc).
Without help he [Sriman Swamy]
identified the two portraits of the Masters Kuthumi and Morya saying which was
which, and gave facts not obtainable
from books. The certificate he gave was sent to me by Harte as a
duplicate of what was to appear in the Theosophist, and I printed it for
reasons of my own, even after Harte had written that he suppressed it (through funk
of the disbelieving Hindus) at Adyar.
I made no comments on it because
there were two fibs in it:
a)
Damodar never was at
Lhassa nor Sriman Swamy either, and not being permitted to say where he saw Damodar
he gave a wrong name; and
b)
My Master never told
him what he says of me, but he heard it from a chela.
I printed it with the lies, for
two reasons: firstly, since I published it at all I had no right to
change one word; secondly, I wanted to see what they would say in India
to this. »
(This text is only some excerpts from Blavatsky's
letter, which was subsequently published in The
Theosophist in the August 1932 issue, p.618-619 and 623-625)
CONCLUSION
All these data make me believe that Sriman Swamy's assertions
are very probably true and that he really met with Kuthumi, Morya and Damodar during
his travel in Tibet.
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