LIST OF ARTICLES

POSTHUMOUS HOMAGE TO BLAVATSKY BY BABULA


Babula was Blavatsky's domestic servant when she lived in Adyar, India, and when Blavatsky died he wrote the following article in tribute to her.
 
 
 
FROM INDIA
 
(Note: Babula, H.P.B’s Hindu servant, writing from Adyar, sends a leader that appeared in the Indian Mirror of May 13th. "Humanity", he says, "has sustained an irreparable loss from her sudden death. With tears in my eyes I wrote this brief note." We print the leader among these memorial articles as a testimony from the East that she loved so well.)
 
"Gone is the glory from the grass,
And splendor from the flower!"
 
 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has ceased to exist on this earthly plane. She is gone from among us. Madame Blavatsky’s death is a blow to all the world. She was not of this nation or that. The wide earth was her home, and all mankind were her brothers, and these brothers are now plunged in mourning for the loss of a priceless sister. For ourselves, dazed as we are with blinding grief, it is all impossible for us to realize the enormity of this loss. Our affection for Madame Blavatsky was so personal, we were so longing to see her in flesh once more in India, and to press her hallowed hand, that now that this desire has been cruelly crushed by death, a stupor has crept over all our senses, and we are writing as if it were mechanically.
 
We recall the features of the dear lady, who is assuredly a saint now, her quick movements, the rapid flow of words, those light, glowing eyes, which saw through you and, at a glance, turned you inside out — anon we behold her, kind and gentle as a mother, and wise as a father, pouring faith, hope, and consolation into your ears, as you mention to her your doubts and your anxieties — there Madame Blavatsky, or H.P.B., as she loved to be called, and as loving friends always called her in affection, there H.P.B. stands before us now, all herself, free from disease, and, seems to whisper to us the larger faith, which animated her through life, that trust in the infinite purpose, which is both the karma and the destiny of the Divine Man!
 
Madame Blavatsky was decidedly the most remarkable person that this age has produced. The whole of her life was simply extraordinary. There is no existing human standard by which to judge her. She will always stand out alone. There was only one Madame Blavatsky, there never will be any other. It was always difficult to understand her at all points, she was often the greatest puzzle to her most intimate friends, and the mystery of her life is yet only partly revealed. But future generations will have come at a sufficient distance of time to free them from circumstantial prejudices, and to pronounce an accurate judgment on Madame Blavatsky's life and work, and we say confidently that before many years have gone by, she will be regarded as an Avatar, a holy incarnation, and divine honors will be paid to her memory.
 
The story of Madame Blavatsky's life appeared while she was yet alive, and has been read with wonder everywhere. There is no parallel to such a biography as Mr. Sinnett has related. It is a story of a wayward and fanciful child, slowly budding into womanhood, enjoying curious experiences, and astonishing and frightening in turns the inmates of a noble and fashionable Russian home. Then comes the marriage with General Blavatsky, whom the girl took for husband for very frolic, and ran away from immediately after without allowing him time or opportunity to enforce his conjugal rights.
 
Then we follow the high-souled and eccentric woman in her wanderings in the East, obedient to the occult call, which she heard far back in her childhood. And the East has claimed her as its very own ever since. But her bones have not been laid in the East. Our readers will remember that such a hope had been expressed by us only a few days ago, but, at that time, we had no fears that her death would occur so soon. In fact, we were preparing to invite her back, and entreat her to pass her declining years in India.
 
For India, or rather Tibet was the promised land for Madame Blavatsky. It was there that she acquired her extraordinary learning and her wonderful knowledge of the world-old religions and philosophies of the East, and ever humbly and gratefully she professed herself to be the slave and the worldly instrument of the Masters, who received, taught and protected her. But for the Masters, she would have died before long, for during her world-wide wanderings she had contracted germs of many and complicated diseases.
 
Before her final departure from India, her life had been given up, and it was a veritable marvel to her physicians that she did pull through. But at that time, she had not yet completed her life-work. The message of the Masters had not yet been fully delivered. It was subsequently given to the world in that monumental work: The Secret Doctrine.
 
Madame Blavatsky may be literally said to have lived and died for India. The Theosophical Society was founded expressly for disseminating the religious and philosophic truths of Vedanta and Buddhism among the Western nations. But those truths were known very partially in this country itself. Madame Blavatsky was accordingly required to transfer her labors among us, and for several years she became a living sacrifice for the sake of the Hindus, who, however, turned away most ungratefully from her, when she most needed their support. But now they have been rightly punished. Their land is not made sacred, as English ground has been, by her tomb or cenotaph. And English Theosophists have been certainly much more faithful to her than we in India have been. Theirs is and will be the exceeding great reward. But shall we not endeavor to wipe away the reproach and the shame?
 
It can only be by raising such a memorial to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's memory as shall show the strength and extent of our repentance, and our appreciation of all that she ever did for India.
 
 
(This article was published in Lucifer magazine, July 1891, p.388-389; and later in the book HPB: in memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.81-82)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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