BOOK "OLD DIARY LEAVES III" - CHAPTER 1: OFFICIAL RECOGNITION

 

(This is the chapter 1 of Henry Olcott book "Old Diary Leaves" Volume 3.)

OFFICIAL RECOGNITION

(1883)

If there was ever a man who could turn a menu into a sort of alimentary poem, it is Brigadier-General A. Kenny-Herbert, ex-Military Secretary to the Government of Madras, now retired and living in London. He possesses so perfect a genius for cooking, that I believe he could develop the latent potentialities of a potato or parsnip so as to force one to realise what must have been the food of the Olympian gods. In fact, I should not be surprised to learn that he had been at least a sous chef in the Jovian kitchen, and along with his colleagues Soyer and Brillat Savarin, had reincarnated to teach our generation how to prepare digestible dishes. It is a passion with him, as it was with Alexandre Dumas, and I very much fear that—if 'tis truly said that the ruling passion shows strong at death—he would refuse to die until he had had time to give his final orders for the preparation of the “funeral bak'd meats".

General—then only Lieut.-Colonel—Kenny-Herbert invited H. P. B. and myself to his house one day to a tiffin which, in compliment to us, he made an entirely vegetarian repast. After so many years I vainly try to recall the courses, but I have the most vivid recollection of the fact that we and the three other guests declared it to be superlatively appetising. The service matched the food, giving one the impression that this was not a feast of Gargantua, but a Lucullan banquet over the preparation of which an exquisitely refined taste had presided. Most of our Western vegetarian cookery, on the other hand, has given me the impression that it was but the serving up of chicken feed in a style the reverse of attractive to a refined nature. If vegetarians could but get this pseudonymic "Wyvern" to teach them how to do it, their cause would win fifty converts where it now does one. They have proved unmistakably that vegetable food is as nutritious and healthier than meat diet, they need go no farther; but their cause can never be won until their cooks learn how to make one's mouth water at sight of their dishes.

Whether it was the food, or the sweet hospitableness of our hosts, or the semi-malicious banter of Mr. Forster Webster, Mr. Reed, and Capt. Agnew, A. D. C., or the bright sunshine and flowers in the garden, or what not, Madame Blavatsky bubbled over with high spirits and kept the company in continual merriment. Anon, a jest would be followed by an occult teaching, and that by the making of "spirit raps" on the table or silvery bell-tinkling in the air; and this party, like every other in which she had been present, broke up with the impression left on the guests that she was one of the most brilliant and entertaining, if eccentric, personages they had ever encountered. At Ooty, as at Allahabad and Simla, persons of the most influential position were disposed to be friendly to her and to the Society, some of the most impressible ready to submit themselves wholly to her charm. Here, as elsewhere, she spoilt her chances of full success by some sudden caprice of conduct, some passionate revolt against conventional narrow-mindedness, the uttering of strong language, or the indulgence of biting witticisms about some high-placed person. While eminently fitted to shine in the world, and having had many -years of intimacy with it through her high birth, she had passed out of the "sphere of its influence," and brought away with her a feeling of disgust for social shams and of contempt for moral cowards. She railed at society, not like your parvenus, whose bitterness springs from their being kept beyond the threshold of the salons of the fashionable caste, but as one who, born in the purple and accustomed to equal association with peers and peeresses, had differentiated from her species and stepped up to higher ground.

The culminating point of my visit was the settlement with the Madras Government of the civil status of the Theosophical Society which, as was remarked in Chapter XXX of the preceding volume, was successfully accomplished on 12th September, 1883, at Ootacamund. For convenient reference, I shall quote in this connection the text of the letters which passed between myself and the Governor-in-Council. They were as follows:

From COLONEL HENRY S. OLCOTT,

President of The Theosophical Society.

TO THE HONORABLE E. F. WEBSTER,

Chief Secretary to the Government of Madras.

SIR,

I have the honor to address you on behalf of the Theosophical Society, of which I am President, and the objects of which organisation are as follow:

I. (a) To promote the feeling of mutual tolerance and kindness between people of different races and religions;

(b) To encourage the study of the philosophies, religions, and science of the ancients, particularly of the Aryans;

(c) To aid scientific research into the higher nature and powers of man.

II. These are our only corporate aspirations, and, since the year 1875—when the Society was founded at New York—they have been openly declared and publicly defended. With them we have exclusively occupied ourselves, and have most strenuously refused to meddle with politics or to advocate any creed to the exclusion of others.

III. The principal seat of the Society's operations was transferred from New York to India in February, 1879, for the greater convenience of our purely Oriental researches, and in December, 1882, was moved from Bombay to Madras for a like reason.

IV. The Society was, in the first instance, an open body; but it was found in practice that the successful prosecution of physical experiments, in the progress of which the most private thoughts and aspirations of our common nature had to be expressed, demanded a more confidential relation between members. The principle of secrecy, identical with that of Free Masonry and Odd Fellowship, and with the same laudable motive, was therefore adopted as early as the second year of the Society's existence.

V. Our work being thus cut off from public view, many ladies and gentlemen of good position, socially, joined us, both in America and Europe—where branches after a while sprang up. But coincidently with our coming to India this private relation between ourselves, and the great favor which our endeavors to revive Aryan learning excited among Hindus, caused a suspicion—to the last degree unjust and unfounded—that we might have under the mask of philosophical study some political design. Accordingly, the Government of India, at the instance of Her Majesty's Home Government, caused us to be watched both at Bombay, our residence, and while travelling over India. There being nothing whatever to discover of the nature apprehended, the expense and trouble lavished upon us only ended in proving our blamelesseness of motive and conduct. For sufficient proof of which I would respectfully invite attention to the enclosed letter [No. 1025 E. G., dated Simla, the 2nd October, 1880] from the Secretary to Government in the Foreign Department to myself—which I transmit in the original, with request for its return. It is therein remarked that "the Government of India has no desire to subject you (ourselves) to any inconvenience during your (our) stay in the country," and "so long as the members of the Society confine themselves to the prosecution of philosophical and scientific studies, wholly unconnected with politics, . . . . they need apprehend no annoyance, etc., etc."

VI. The above decision is in strict accordance with the oft-declared policy of Her Most Gracious Majesty's Asiatic relations with subjugated peoples, to maintain strict neutrality in all matters involving religious inquiry or belief; and, having ever faithfully observed the laws and respected the established regulations of Government in India—as everywhere else throughout the world where our Society has branches—we are entitled to protection, and demand it as our right.

VII. Entire freedom from annoyance and molestation we have not enjoyed in the Madras Presidency. In various quarters a certain pressure, none the less; menacing because unofficial, has been put upon Hindu subordinates to prevent their taking active interest in our work. Though the vindication of the wisdom, virtues, and spiritual achievements of their ancestors was involved, they have been made to feel that they could not be Theosophists without losing the goodwill of their superiors—possibly their chances of promotion. Timid by nature, the subordinates have, in many—though, to the honour of true manhood, be it said, not all—instances, sacrificed their feelings to this petty tyranny. But despite all opposition, whether of sectarian bigotry or other kinds, the Society has so rapidly increased, that it has already founded twenty Branches within the Madras Presidency. An impartial inquiry among our members will show that the influence upon the natives is excellent: improving their moral tone, making them more religious, more self-reliant, and more tractable as subjects. Should the Government of Madras care to test the truth of this assertion, I shall most gladly furnish every needed facility.

VIII. In view of the above facts, what I respectfully ask is, that the Government will make it understood that so long as the Theosophical Society shall keep to its declared field of activity, an absolute neutrality shall be observed towards it by officials throughout the Presidency; and especially forbid that the fact of membership or non-membership shall even be considered in determining the claims of any employée, English or Native, to official favor.

I have the honor to be, sir,

Your most obedient servant,

H.S.OLCOTT,

President, Theosophical Society.

___________

PUBLIC DEPARTMENT

Proceedings of the Madras Government

Read the following [foregoing] letter from Colonel H. S. Olcott, President, Theosophical Society, dated 7th September, 1883: (l) stating the objects of the Society; (2) transmitting a letter addressed to him by the Government of India, Foreign, Department, of 2nd October, 1880, promising the members of the Society freedom from all annoyance so: long as they confine themselves to the prosecution of philosophical and scientific studies wholly unconnected with politics; (3) complaining that in various quarters of the Madras Presidency, some native subordinates have been made to feel that they cannot join the, Society without losing the goodwill of their official Superiors.

ORDER

13th September, 1883, No. 1798

Colonel Olcott may be assured that this Government will strictly follow the lines that have been laid down by the Government of India in their letter to his address. In regard to the complaint he has preferred, they observe that it is of a general nature only, no specific instances being mentioned; and His Excellency the Governor-in-Council need only say that he would highly disapprove any interference with the religious or philosophical ideas of any section of the population.

[True Extract]

(Sd.) FORSTER WEBSTER,

Ag. Chief Secretary.

TO COLONEL H. S. OLCOTT,

President, Theosophical Society.

I have elsewhere mentioned H. P. B.'s inheritance of the fiery temper of the Dolgoroukis, and the terrible struggle it was to even measurably subdue her irritability. I will now tell a story which I had from her own lips, and the incidents of which had a most lasting effect upon her through life. In childhood her temper was practically unrestrained, her noble father petting and idolising her after the loss of his wife. When, in her eleventh year, the time came for her to leave his regimen and pass under the management of her maternal grandmother (the wife of General Fadeyef, born Princess Dolgorouki), she was warned that such unrestrained liberty would no longer be allowed her, and she was more or less awed by the dignified character of her relative. But on one occasion, in a fit of temper at her nurse, a faithful old serf who had been brought up in the family, she struck her a blow in the face. This coming to her grandmother's knowledge, the child was summoned, questioned, and confessed her fault. The grandmother at once had the castle bell rung to call in all the servants of the household of whom there were scores, and when they were assembled in the great hall, she told her that she had acted as no lady should, in unjustly' striking a helpless serf who would not dare defend herself; and she ordered her to beg her pardon and kiss her hand in token of sincerity. The child at first, crimson with shame, was disposed to rebel, but the old lady told her that if she did not instantly obey she would send her from her house in disgrace. She added that no real noble lady would refuse to make amends for a wrong to a servant, especially one who by a lifetime of faithful service had earned the confidence and love of her superiors. Naturally generous and kind-hearted towards the people of the lower classes, the impetuous child burst into tears, kneeled before the old nurse, kissed her hand, and asked to forgiven. Needless to say she was thenceforth fairly worshipped by the retainers of the family. She told me that that lesson was worth everything to her, and it had taught her the principle of doing justice to those whose social rank made them incapable of compelling aggressors to do rightly towards them.

All who have published reminiscences of her childhood—Mme. Jelihovsky, her sister; Mlle. Fadeyef, her aunt; Mr. Sinnett, and others—testify to the innate kindness and chivalrousness of her disposition, notwithstanding her inability to restrain her tongue or her temper, which too often, as at Ooty, brought her into trouble. But whatever her faults, there is one chargeable to a high placed lady at Ootacamund which does not redound to the latter's credit. My readers may remember my telling in the previous volume of H. P. B.'s "doubling" a valuable topaz or yellow diamond in a ring for Mrs. Sinnett while we were together at Simla. She did a similar favor for the lady friend at Ootacamund, a duplicate being made for her by H. P. B. of a valuable sapphire. In the course of time she and the lady fell out, or rather the lady fell away from her, but kept the stone, which she had had appraised by a jeweller and found its commercial value to be quite two hundred rupees. If poor, impecunious H. P. B. had played her—as was pretended—the trick of passing off a valuable sapphire (which she did not possess before it went from her hand to the lady's) as a mysterious apport, at least the recipient kept it and made the only profit out of the: transaction!

Two days after receipt of the Order in Council, we two left beautiful Ooty in tongas for Coimbatore, where we tarried three days, receiving visitors, answering questions, and taking candidates into membership. I lectured on two successive days and did a good deal of psychopathic work: on 19th September, it appears, I mesmerised thirty large jars of water and seventeen bottles of oil for the use of the sick. H. P. B. was present when, in the usual formal way, I organised a local Branch under the name of the Coimbatore T. S. Our visit finished, we left for Pondicherry, followed by warm protestations of affectionate goodwill. This was one of the two or three occasions only in which my colleague even assisted in the formation of Indian Branches, despite the foolish idea entertained by many, ignorant of the facts, who constantly talk of her personally founding our Branches and wearing herself out with travel and its privations. Greater stuff was never spoken: her sphere was the literary and spiritual one, and her travelling in those days was mainly limited to the distances between her writing-table, the dining-room, and her bed. She was as unfit for platform and pioneer organising work as she was for cooking; and when we remember that she thought to get boiled eggs by laying them, raw, on the hot coals, her culinary aptitude is easily gauged. Moreover, she had too much sense to try it, but kept strictly to her own department, as I did to mine.

From the Nilgiris to the French territory of Pondicherry one has to cross country from West to East by rail, at Villupuram Junction changing to a short, branch line of twenty-six miles that takes one to Pondicherry. An amusing episode occurred between the two stations. At the Junction a certain elderly Hindu gentleman of our acquaintance accosted us with the usual signs of exaggerated reverence, so easily seen through by foreigners, and begged me to cure a paralytic—some rich or influential person—who would apply to me before reaching Pondicherry. Now this was too much for good nature; if I was to be pestered from morning to night by patients while stopping at stations, at least I ought to be allowed to rest myself while traveling. Naturally, I refused the man's request; but he stuck to me like a leech, got into our compartment of the train, and urged, and fawned, and begged until he wore out my patience. Just then we came to a place where there was a halt of ten minutes, and my pest abased himself to the dust to persuade me to get out and cure his man, whom we saw sitting in an arm-chair on the platform with a number of people about him. In desperation, and to rid myself of the man's importunities, I got out, went over to the sick man, handled his paralysed limbs, made mesmeric passes over them with a little massage, got his arm flexible, then his leg, made him stand, walk, put his bad foot on his chair, lift the chair with the just-paralysed hand, and then, as the engine whistle blew, salaamed the company and ran back to our carriage. All this while H. P. B. had sat at a window, smoking a cigarette and watching my performance: she had never seen me at this work before and was deeply interested. As the train started, we saw my cured paralytic walk off, followed by his party and by a servant carrying the chair; not one of them looking behind him. The effect upon H. P. B. was most comical to me and set me to laughing heartily. The language she used was choice and so strong, that if her words had been leaden shot and hurled at their mark by the full force of her wrath, the backs of the retreating company would have been well peppered. Such ingratitude, such base and disgusting ingratitude, she had never seen in her life. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Mean? why, there was that man almost licking your feet in the train to get you to heal his friend; you heal him in the most marvellous way, on the platform, while the train stops ten minutes or so; and he, his friend, and his friend's friends calmly walk away, without a word of thanks or even a backward look of thankfulness. That beats everything I ever saw!" I told her that if she had travelled with me and seen my mesmeric healings, she would have realised that the number of patients who had shown real gratitude for benefits conferred were far less than one in a hundred: that if the other ninty-nine were really grateful, they concealed it from view, and left me to practise the rule that Srî Krishna gave to Arjuna, to do the necessary thing and care naught for the fruits of action. But she never forgot the incident.

BOOK "OLD DIARY LEAVES III" - CHAPTER 2: AN ADEPT SEEN AT PONDICHERRY

 

(This is the chapter 2 of Henry Olcott book "Old Diary Leaves" Volume 3.)

AN ADEPT SEEN AT PONDICHERRY

(1883)

Can any of H. P. B.'s old friends figure to themselves how she must have looked and felt on being received at a railway station by a Governor's band playing “God Save the Queen,” and then taken in procession, to the clang of music, to our lodging-house? That is just what happened to us on reaching Pondicherry, and I draw the veil over the amusing picture, as I have not the talent of Bret Harte do to it justice. At the house, in the presence of a select number of dark-skinned French "citizens," an address in a rickety sort of French was read to us and duly responded to by me; after which presentations, welcomes, and compliments followed, and our rooms were thronged by visitors day and evening. The next morning I had ceremonial visits to make to His Excellency the Governor, His something the Mayor, and various other local officials, by all of whom I was courteously and kindly received. Then I had a look through the town, upon which the French cachet was placed wherever possible—the blue and-white enamelled street signs at the corners, the little side-walk tables and chairs at restaurants, the Paris names and shops in petto, the French look of the Place Dupleix, the unmistakable French look of the functionaries and white traders, the very aping of French manners by the natives. This little seven-bynine colony, comparatively to British India as big as a postage stamp, and hemmed in by it on the three land sides, was totally unlike it, even in the attitude of the white and dark races towards each other. That, indeed, was what struck me most forcibly, accustomed as I had become to the immense gulf between the races in the Great British Dependency. My introducer to all these high officials was a dark, almost black, Tamil gentleman, a Membre du Conseil; and I was no less pleased than surprised to see how they received him as an equal, quite as though his dark skin did not prevent his being a human being as good as themselves. While I might have been amused to see my friend playing the citizen, I was not amused, but very much gratified to see that his right to respect was freely conceded.

Before our arrival it had been arranged that I was to lecture in English and the Mayor would translate me into French. At the appointed hour I confronted a large audience of both races; the Mayor presided and I began speaking, but after a sentence or two, paused for my interpreter to take up the running. This went on for perhaps ten minutes, when the Mayor confessed that his stock of English was exhausted and called the Interpreter to Government, a French gentleman, to replace him. Five or six sentences finished him up, and a third translator, a Tamil, was brought forward, but he broke down almost at once. It is a matter of common observation that foreigners of every nation understand English when spoken by one of themselves much better than when we speak it, the accent making it more comprehensible. There I stood feeling like a fool, and ready to give it up as a hopeless case; but the Mayor, in his best French, told the audience that he had had a long conversation with me on Theosophy that morning, and that I knew quite enough French to speak without interpretation, whereupon I was called upon from all parts of the room to go ahead, and that I had finally to do despite my excuses and protestations. In a fashion that I dare not look back upon, I went on, and on, for more than an hour, expounding our ideas and Eastern philosophy as best I could; and the audience were kind enough to signify by loud applause that in coming out to India they had brought with them that lovely national trait of courtesy and forbearance for strangers who try to speak their tongue. You should, however, have seen the face and gestures of H. P. B. when I returned home and told her what I had done. She held up both hands in amazement, and made comments strongly suggestive of her horror at the possible and probable mistakes I had made in the use of genders and verbs! However, I did get through after a fashion, and we did form a T. S. Branch in the town, which was the chief thing after all.

I was so busy telling her the above and hearing her comments, that beyond a sweeping bow to the dozen or so of visitors sitting on the floor about her, whom she had been entertaining during my absence, I took no notice of them. She, however, presently gave me a certain look, and by slightly inclining her head, made me look towards her right at one man who sat behind the others, and who met my startled gaze with a kindly smile. It was none other than one of the Masters known to me at New York during the writing of Isis Unveiled: one who disliked English so much that he always spoke and wrote French in his communications with me: the very one who gave me that cutting rebuke by duplicating several times the lead-pencil I hesitated to lend "H. P. B."—his temporary shell. I can't say if the others saw him, but certainly they could not have left him so unnoticed if they had, for he was to them, in majesty, as a lion to a whippet. I longed to approach and address him, but his eyes expressed the command that I should not, so I took my seat on the floor to H. P. B.'s left, where I had him in full view. The company did not stay long after my arrival, and he, after saluting H. P. B., like the rest, with folded palms, in the Indian fashion, spoke a word or two to her apart and followed them out.

We left Pondicherry for Madras, September 23rd, and got home that afternoon, rejoiced to see the dear place again. As usual after a tour, I had no end of arrears of correspondence and literary work to make up, but by the next midnight it had been disposed of. On the 25th we celebrated the first Anniversary of the Madras T. S. at Pachaiyappah's Hall, a great crowd attending. Besides myself, Dewan Bahadur R. Raghoonath Row, and the regretted T. Subba Row made Speeches. My stay at home was so very brief, that on the 27th I started again on a long journey to the northward, with our friend L. V. V. Naidu as my Private Secretary. Bellary, Adoni, and Hyderabad—the Nizam's capital—came in sequence, and the usual events of Branch-making, question-answering, and patient-healing occurred. My receptions by friends were always kind, and personal ties of brotherhood were made which are still unbroken.

At Mr. Narasimhalu Chetty's house, at Hyderabad, there was a most interesting case of the cure of blindness in one eye within the half-hour's treatment. I remember it so well. Facing the house, on the farther side of the road that skirted the compound, stood a telegraph pole. The patient, an adult Hindu, had been brought to me by his physician, Dr. Rustomji, F. T. S., to the upper verandah, where I sat talking with friends. He had done his best for the patient, but had failed to even temporarily relieve the total blindness of the eye. It looked as healthy as the other one, but, on testing in the usual way, I found that it was unmistakably sightless. I therefore breathed upon the eyeball, "with mesmeric intent," through the small silver tube I carried in my pocket for that purpose, made the proper passes over the forehead and nape of the neck, and after the time mentioned had the pleasure to receive the patient's joyous assurance that his sight was restored. To make sure, I laid my finger on the other eyeball and told him to describe what he saw straight ahead of him. He at once said: "The compound, the fence, the gate, the road, and a telegraph pole; on the glass knob to the right hangs a bit of colored rag" All was correct. The doctor was perfectly delighted, while as for the patient, after a prostration before me he hurried away. When the doctor and I came to talk over the case, I wanted to recall the patient for us to make an optical examination with an instrument, but Dr. Rustomji soon brought back word that the fellow had gathered his few effects together and hastened away to his village to take his people the glad tidings. Whether the rumor of this got spread through the town or not I cannot say, but certainly my audience the next day was so great, that the hall was—as a Hindu correspondent wrote to his paper about another such meeting—"crowded to the proverbial pin-drop," and we had to adjourn to the compound and let them spread over the lawn. Secunderabad, Bolaram, Sholapore, and Poona followed next at the latter place—I see by my Diary—I received the shortest address on record—a model of brevity. The members met me at the station, drove me to the bungalow prepared for my accommodation, got the company placed, and then the spokesman, taking my hand, said: "Mr. President and dear brother, I welcome you to our station." I replied: "Thank you heartily," and that finished it. Oh! that those concocters of long, tiresome addresses in Sanskrit, Pali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Bengalee, Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani, Gurumukhi, Marathi, Gujerati, and a dozen other, to me unknown, tongues that I have had to listen to, often at midnight or even at 4 o'clock in the morning, after a long, bone-banging railway journey, could only have had the inspiration of the Sholapore President, how happy it would have made me! At this station a new recruit—Mr. W. T. Brown, of Glasgow, "Poor Brown"—joined me for the tour. He, and a Mrs. Sarah Parker, of Dublin, had just arrived at Madras under the impulse of service, and Brown had volunteered to help me. I wrote him from Hyderabad a kind but most explicit letter, warning him of the self-sacrifice he must expect to make; the public ingratitude, individual treacheries, libellous atacks on character, unjust suspicion of motives, bad fare and fatiguing journeys by nights and days in all sorts of conveyances: warning him to return to Europe if he had expected anything else, and leave H. P. B. and myself to continue the work we had begun with our eyes open. His reply was a telegraphic notice of his coming to me, and he overtook me at Sholapore.

The coming into the electric intellectual atmosphere of Poona was a delightful sensation. The cultured Marathi mind is capable of grasping the highest problems of philosophy with ease, and the tone of conversation among the cultured class is as high as one could imagine to exist anywhere, even in a German or English University town. In travelling through the East one feels acutely these contrasts, and gauges towns by the mental standard alone. If you ask me to describe their physical features I could scarcely do it, for the recollection of all these thousands of temples, dharmsalas, tanks, bazaars, streets, and bungalows is almost a dim jumble in the memory; but I can give a pretty fair description of the intellectual state of almost any of the towns and villages which I have visited. Now that I recall it, this is just what I was surprised to find in an old classical teacher of mine whom I revisited many years after leaving his school; he recollected almost nothing of the personal appearance of my old class mates, but when I mentioned a name, it associated itself with the boy's mind, and as such he remembered him. The subject given me to lecture upon at Hirabag, in the Town Hall, was "The Future Life ", and Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy, the second baronet, occupied the chair. From Poona we moved on to' Bombay.

For lack of house accommodation, the Branch put us in large tents on the Esplanade, and we found it very cool and comfortable until the next day, when an untimely storm burst upon the city, and we were drenched with torrents of rain during two days. Our tents became soaked, our effects damp and mouldy, and the flat ground about our camp, not being able to' receive the deluge as fast as it fell, was turned into a shallow pond. This meaning fever to us and consequent interruption of work, our colleagues put us into some large empty rooms in the old building of the Bombay Gazette, where we were at least dry. A lecture was given on the 17th at Framji Cowasji Hall, and young Brown's remarks at the close were received with great friendliness by the crowded audience.

It may be a relief to some of the readers of these sketches to learn that at Bombay I received orders from my Guru to suspend all healings until further advices, and that the narratives, which must have sorely tried their feelings, will henceforth practically cease. The prohibition came none too soon, for I am persuaded that I myself should have become paralysed if the strain had been kept up. One morning, at Madras, just before starting on the present journey, I found my left forefinger devoid of sensation—a clear warning to be careful; and between Madras and Bombay it had taken me much longer and demanded far greater exertions to effect cures than it had previously; there was also a much larger percentage of failures. This is not to be wondered at, for, after treating one way or another some 8,000 patients within the twelvemonth, the sturdiest psychopath, let alone a man of fifty-odd, might be expected to have come to the last "volt" in his vital battery: a state to which the tiring journeys, the nights of broken sleep, the often meagre food, and the ceaseless intellectual strain of a large correspondence, daily conversaziones, and almost daily extemporaneous lectures on profound themes must, naturally, have greatly helped to bring about.

On 20th October H. P. B. joined me at Bombay to make a joint visit to the Maharajah Holkar, who had invited us and sent us money for our railway expenses. But a telegram to us at Bombay put an end to the affair, as he was unable to receive us, so H. P. B. returned to Madras and I kept on my pre-arranged itinerary. While at Bombay we received an intimation from King Thebaw, of Burma, that he would be pleased to have us visit him at Mandalay. Mr. Brown, Damodar Mavalankar, and L. V. V. Naidu went North with me; and another F.T.S.—T. Narainswamy Naidu—got permission to join us as a mere companion. To avoid confusion on those long tours, a programme was always settled upon in advance, and printed copies circulated to the Branches and groups on the route; giving the hours and minutes of my arrivals at and departures from stations, and information as to the kind of food, the quantity of firewood, water, and accommodation required, and all other details: the Branches were left to select the subjects for my lectures, but sometimes neglected it until I was actually ready to mount the platform.

From some of our best-beloved colleagues, who were then living at Jubbulpore, we received an affectionate welcome and good service for seeing persons and places. I visited the High School and the Rajkumar College, one of those schools for young princes and nobles that the Government has founded throughout India. It was interesting to see together these lads who in time will rule millions, and I spoke kind words of counsel to each class as I passed through the rooms. I was told later that my words had stirred the hearts of the princelings, so that they formed a friendly league between themselves, to keep up their friendship and encourage each other to lead the good life prescribed for kings in the old Scriptures. They all came to my lecture the same evening, which, because of the crowd, was given in the open air.

The next morning we rose at 3.30, and at 5 drove away to the Marble Rocks, one of the tourist's sights of India. To one who had seen Niagara and many great rivers of the world, it was a tame affair. The sacred Nerbudda River is here hemmed in between barriers of white limestone, which it has seamed and cross-seamed with numberless cracks. The rocky scenery is rather artistic in petto than grand and imposing; though by moonlight it must seem quite fairy-like. Far more striking to me was an old Bawa (ascetic) whom we found living in an adjacent cave. He had great repute as a proficient in the physiological feats of Hatha Yoga, and obligingly performed a number of them—not a whit more difficult than those one sees in our modern European variety halls and hippodromes—at my request. He told us that he had spent the past forty-seven years of his life in making Pradakshina (circumambulation) of the Nerbudda River as a work of merit; the distance to travel is 1,800 miles, and the time occupied in each circuit of his foot-pilgrimage three years. He was a fine, hale man, with a bright eye and the expression of a firm character on his face. While I was studying these details, I was startled by his asking me to be good enough to teach him to concentrate the mind! If that was what his half century of struggle had resulted in, certainly it offered no inducement for anybody else to try his Hatha Yoga. Here was a man who had got his body under such control that he could almost turn himself inside out and walk down his own throat, but had not yet learned how to fix that wandering mind which gives us so much trouble. Needless to say, I "improved the occasion" to tell him a little homely truth about seeming and being, on the lines of the Gita, the Dhammapada, and St. Matthew, xxiii. What a lesson it is in self-development!

My lecture that evening was upon the necessity for a revival of Sanskrit literature, and at the close I started a subscription for the opening of a Sanskrit School, towards which the handsome sum of Rs. 1,500 was pledged with a great show of enthusiasm. The same idea was broached by me at my first lecture at Allahabad, whither I went from Jubbulpore. The great audience caught at the idea at once, and Rs. 2,007 was subscribed that evening, and Rs. 2,500 more was reported at a meeting of the local Branch on the 30th as having been inscribed on the subscription paper.

On the 31st we moved on to Ghazipore, where we were given hospitality by the Maharajah of Dumraon, and where, on arrival, I had to reply to three addresses, in English, Sanskrit, and Urdu—to the last-named two through interpreters. The next halting-place was Cawnpore, of tragic memory, where the bungalow of the Maharajah of Burdwan had been placed at my disposal. When we drove through the compound we found the house illuminated with 1,000 chirags, or Indian clay lamps, and the rooms were a blaze of light.

BOOK "OLD DIARY LEAVES III" - CHAPTER 3: MASTER KUTHUMI AT LAHORE

 

(This is the chapter 3 of Henry Olcott book "Old Diary Leaves" Volume 3.)

THE MASTER K.H. AT LAHORE

(1883)

This Cawnpore visit was made memorable to me by the proofs I got of Damodar's rapid psychical development. As stated elsewhere, he had been visited when a lad, during a severe illness, by a glorious Personage, whom he was enabled to identify many years later, after connecting himself with our Society, as one of the Masters. The intimate relationship of teacher and pupil had then been established between them, and Damodar had thrown himself heart and soul into psychic training; regulating his diet, devoting specified hours to meditation, cultivating a spirit of perfect unselfishness, and working night and day, to the uttermost limits of his strength, on the duties of the official position I gave him in the Society. His coming with me on the present tour was by command of his Guru, and throughout the journey we had many proofs of the progress he was making in spiritual unfolding. I remember that he astonished me, that evening of our arrival at Cawnpore, by giving me, verbally, a message from the Master in answer to my surmise as to what I ought to do in a certain matter that had just turned up, and telling me that I would find it written out in a note that was even then in my locked writing-desk, the key of which was in my pocket, as it had, of course, been all day. On going to the desk and unlocking it, I did find the very letter he had mentioned, and which, by the by, was from Mahatma K. H., in the handwriting subsequently pronounced by the sage S. P. R., on the authority of the infallible Mr. Netherclift, to be of H. P. B.'s concoction and nothing else! As H. P. B. and I were then five days' postal distance apart, the forgery theory will hardly cover the Cawnpore incident.

On the second day after reaching Cawnpore, I received from Adyar a rather large mail that had been readdressed to me from there. Among the letters was one from the late Mr. Sam. Ward, dated at Capri, and enclosing a note to Mahatma K. H., which he begged me to have forwarded if possible. As Damodar was then going nightly in astral body to the ashram (residence) of that Master, I handed him the letter, saying that he might ask him whether he should bring on the letter, or not. This was on the afternoon of November 4 (1883), and we were at Cawnpore, N. W. P. The reader will kindly keep this in mind in view of the sequel.

On the previous evening I had lectured in the station theatre, a long narrow room with the stage at one end. Agreeably to the repulsive custom that prevails through-out British India, all Europeans, or rather whites, all half-breeds, and even all Christian converts or pretended converts wearing European dress, were given the front seats, and all Hindus, however highborn or respectable (not always convertible terms), were placed behind them: an aisle ran through the middle of the room. Now I am rather sensitive to the auric "spheres" of persons, and quick at feeling whether they are sympathetic or hostile to myself. Every public lecturer, dramatic artist, and other public character has this same finer sense more or less acutely developed, but I fancy mine is rather quicker than the average. On this occasion I felt as if there stretched between me and the beloved Hindus a barrier, almost a wall, of antagonistic thought, and a less skilled hand might have been stricken dumb by it. But, finding the hostile current flowing towards me from the right, I planted myself opposite the aisle, put my will to work to break through the cross current, and at last made the connection between myself and the sympathetic portion of my audience. That this is no freak of the imagination, but a very real and palpable fact in human intercourse, will be attested by every person of average nervous sensitiveness whose business it is to speak, sing, or play before the public. More than once it has happened that the presence of a single white man, not a Theosophist, in an audience of Hindus, has acted as a damper upon them and reacted upon me, and for the simple reason that, while between all Asiatics, of whatsoever race and creed, and myself there is a complete sympathy and mutual trust, between them and the average white man there is the distinct mutual antipathy based, as I believe, upon a conflict of auric or mesmeric polarities. Closer personal intercourse and the development of mutual sympathies would change the present feeling of noli me-tangere into the same pleasant relationship as that of all Asiatics and all recognised Theosophists.

From Cawnpore we moved on to Lucknow on the evening of 4th November, reached that station at 9 p.m., and were welcomed at the house of Mr. Jwala Prasad, one of our active members. Every minute Of the following day was occupied, the details including receptions of visitors, with conversaziones, the trial and expulsion of an unworthy half-caste member, a lecture on "Theosophy and Its Claims," and then, until 1 a.m., private teaching of mesmerism, with illustrative demonstrations on one of the Hindu gentlemen of my suite. Bara Banki followed after Lucknow, and the usual routine was gone through. I must in passing, however, pay a just tribute to the intellectual brilliancy shown by Pandit Pran Nath, F.T.S., in summarising my lectures at the above two places, in Urdu, with an eloquence and unhesitating fluency that were both admirable and remarkable. I have been often placed similarly under obligations by educated friends, for from first to last my lectures throughout Asia have been interpreted in eighteen different languages.

Bareilly next, where I lectured, and then on to Moradabad, where Damodar gave me another proof of his acquired power of travelling in the astral “double”. He went to Adyar, conversed with H.P.B., heard the voice of a Master speak a message to me, and asked H. P. B. to telegraph me the substance of it so as to satisfy me of his veracity in these matters. On reporting the facts to me, he dictated the message as he heard it, and all present in my room signed a certificate as to the facts. The next morning the expected telegram form H.P.B. was delivered to me by the postman, this being the rule in India as to the class of "Deferred" messages. The despatch corroborated Damodar's dictated and certificated message, and again the witnesses who were present signed their names on the back of the Government dispatch. The S.P.R. has been pleased to do its best to weaken Damodar's reputation for credibility and mine for common sense in this affair, but the facts are above honestly reported, and their opinion does not concern me in the least.

Aligarh came next on our tour-programme, and here, on the 12th of the month, we came to the sequel of the Ward-K.H. letter affair. At the post-office I received my mail from Adyar, and in it a letter posted at Headquarters on the 5th inst. by H. P. B., enclosing Mr. Ward's identical letter to K. H., which, it will be remembered, I received from Italy and handed to Damodar at Cawnpore on the 4th—that is to say, the evening before she posted it at Adyar. Its cover bore the despatching stamp of Adyar, November 5, and the receiving stamp of Aligarh of November 10, the two places being distant apart five days' rail journey. The letter had been awaiting me two days in the Aligarh post-office. I submit this as about as clear a provable case of instantaneous transportation of a material object between two distant points as can be found on record. Collusion and trickery are barred by the evidence of the postal marking described. I have the letter still in my possession, and shall be happy to show it to anyone save the managers of the S. P. R., whose savage injustice to H. P. B., the most gifted and marvellous psychic of the age, makes it unseemly for those who knew her merits as well as demerits to take further notice of that clique.

In connection with this astral journey, Damodar told me an interesting fact. On putting his body to sleep as usual, he made a dash for the home of the Master among the Himalayas, but found, on arriving, that he too was away in the astral body; and, by the power of his attraction for his pupil, the latter was swept away as powerfully and instantaneously as though he had ventured into a deep and impetuous river current and been carried off his footing. The next minute Damodar found himself at Adyar, in the presence of both his Master and H. P. B. On going to sleep he had held Mr. Ward's letter in his hand, and it had, it seems, gone along with him on the astral plane—itself, of course, changed from ponderable into astral, or etheric, matter. On telling the Master about the letter, he perceived it in his hand, gave it over to him, and was bidden to return to his place. By the radical power of the occult chemistry or physics, the astralised letter was restored to its solid stake, taken by H.P.B., and the next day duly posted to my Aligarh address; the sequel is known. If I were better versed in science, I should use this incident, together with that of the other Master's turban given me at New York by my astralised visitor, and various other instances of apport, as a text for a discourse upon the possible changes in solid bodies, from the densely physical, objective, and ponderable condition, into that of the invisible, intangible one of bodies on the astral plane. That the changes can be worked in both directions, viz., from the objective to the hyperphysical, and back again into reintegration, or manifestation, is within the personal knowledge of many experienced investigators of psychical phenomena. These sixty-odd chapters of this series of OLD DIARY LEAVES contain enough examples to prove the case, and the eye-witnesses to them are both numerous and unimpeachable: so, too, the works of an army of other writers and experimentalists in this field of natural science support my own statements. What with our X-rays, our Marconi rays, our researches in the Odic Force, in hypnotism, and, by no means the least important, in spiritualistic mediumship (e.g., the cases of Mrs. Compton, Mrs. d'Esperance, and Honto and other materialisations at the Eddys'), we shall soon find ourselves forced to begin again with the alphabet of physical science, and stretch out our hands to the East for help to understand the Nature in which our microcosmic selves have been so long vaunting our wisdom. The phenomenon of my rose-born, half-ounce gold ring, which all my constant readers must recollect, is the only one that I can now call to mind which proves that a solid object can exist within another solid object without possessing tangible bulk and without abrading or disturbing its particles, yet at the same time have appreciable weight. Surely a long vista of physical discoveries is opening out before us!

We went on to Delhi next, where I lectured twice at the Town Hall, and whence I despatched young Brown and L. V. V. Naidu, of my party, to form a Branch at Rawal Pindi, my own duties precluding my going myself. From Delhi the programme took me to Meerut, the home of that gifted young Hindu lawyer, Rama Prasad, whose work on Nature's Finer Forces made him known, some years later, to the whole Theosophical reading public, the world over. From thence to Lahore, where things of great moment happened. Between the two stations Damodar made another astral flight which was capable of verification. Three of us—he, I, and T. Narainswamy Naidu—were in the same railway carriage, Damodar apparently moving uneasily, as if in sleep, on one of the berths: I was reading a book by the lamp-light. Damodar suddenly came over to me and asked the time, which by my watch was some minutes before 6 p.m. He told me that he had just come from Adyar, where H. P. B. had met with an accident; whether a serious one or not, he could not tell me, but he thought she had tripped her foot in the carpet and fallen heavily on her right knee. The reader will observe that the young man was but a beginner in occult science, and incapable as yet of accurate recollection, in returning to outward consciousness, of his experiences on the other planes of being. I mention this in view of the studied unfairness of the S. P. R. toward him. For my own satisfaction I did two things on hearing his story. I wrote a certificate of the occurrence and got Narainswamy to sign it with me, noting the time; and from the next station, Saharanpore, telegraphed H. P. B. a question as to "what accident happened at headquarters at about 6 o'clock"? We reached Lahore the next morning at 9, and were escorted to a camp of six tents and four large shamianas (open canvas pavilions) which had been pitched for me on the open ground (maidan) to the north of the city. We very soon began talking with our friends about the previous evening's incident in the train, and my memorandum was passed around for information: I got the friends present to sign it, and to say that the expected telegram from H. P. B. had not yet arrived. My party left me to take their morning bath and meal, and while I was sitting under the shadow of my tent with Mr. R. C. Bary, Editor of the Arya magazine, a Government telegraph peon was seen coming towards us with a brown-covered telegram in his hand. I made Mr. Ruttan Chand take it into his own hands and keep it unopened until the return of our party, in whose presence it should be opened and read. This was done at 12 noon by Mr. R. C. Bary, and the ninE present signed on the back to attest the circumstances. The contents were these: "Nearly broke right leg, tumbling from Bishop's chair, dragging Coulomb, frightening Morgans. Damodar startled us." My Saharanpore despatch was received by H. P. B. late at night on the 17th: her reply was dated at Adyar at 7.55 a.m. on the 18th, and I got it at Lahore at noon. The discrepancy in Damodar's statement of details and H. P. B.'s is not even surprising in view of his then stage of spiritual evolution, while the corroboration of the major fact of the heavy fall and the injury to her right knee is full. There have been critics of limited acumen but great conceit, who wish us to believe that this might have been a vulgar conspiracy between Damodar and H. P. B. to deceive me; but I am not aware that it is likely that a fat woman of 16-stones' weight would give herself a serious injury to her knee for the purpose of befooling me, when she might as easily have agreed with Damodar that he should have seen her doing something that would have been queer and yet harmless in itself, such, for instance, as making antic gestures, tearing a newspaper into bits, or declaiming a Russian or French poem: the explanation has not the support of common sense. And then character counts for something outside the S. P. R., and gentlemen are entitled to some credence when it is not a question of money interests; sometimes even then. H. P. B.'s telegram mentioned a fact until then unknown to us, that Major-General and Mrs. Morgan, of Ootacamund, were visiting at Adyar.

My camp was thronged with visitors during the three days of our stay, and I gave two lectures under the largest shamiana to multitudes, with great pots of fire standing along the sides to modify the biting November cold, for the Punjab is the reverse of tropical as to temperature in our winter months. My kind and most capable interpreter was Pandit Gopinath, F. T. S., a well-educated and most enterprising journalist, a Brahmin of Kashmir, well known to Theosophists for his unshakable loyalty to the two Founders.

I was sleeping in my tent, the night of the 19th, when I rushed back towards external consciousness on feeling a hand laid on me. The camp being on the open plain, and beyond the protection of the Lahore Police, my first animal instinct was to protect myself from a possible religious fanatical assassin, so I clutched the stranger by the upper arms, and asked him in Hindustani who he was and what he wanted. It was all done in an instant, and I held the man tight, as would one who might be attacked the next moment and have to defend his life. But the next instant a kind, sweet voice said: "Do you not know me? Do you not remember me?" It was the voice of the Master K. H. A swift revulsion of feeling came over me, I relaxed my hold on his arms, joined my palms in reverential salutation, and wanted to jump out of bed to show him respect. But his hand and voice stayed me, and after a few sentences had been exchanged, be took my left hand in his, gathered the fingers of his right into the palm, and stood quiet beside my cot, from which I could see his divinely benignant face by the light of the lamp that burned on a packing-case at his back. Presently I felt some soft substance forming in my hand, and the next minute the Master laid his kind hand on my forehead, uttered a blessing, and left my half of the large tent to visit Mr. W. T. Brown, who slept in the other half behind a canvas screen that divided the tent into two rooms. When I had time to pay attention to myself, I found myself holding in my left hand a folded paper enwrapped in a silken cloth. To go to the lamp, open and read it, was naturally my first impulse. I found it to be a letter of private counsel, containing prophecies of the death of two undesignated, then active, opponents of the Society, which were realised in the passing away of the Swami Dayânand Saraswati and Babu Keshab Chandra Sen shortly after. A point to notice is that the handwriting of this letter, formed in my own palm by the Master K. H. himself, is identical with that of all those others which the sagacious Netherclift, after much dissection of them into their original pothook-and-hanger elements, pronounced to be of Blavatskyan origin! What happened in young Brown's end of the tent he related orally to a great many still living witnesses, and published in his pamphlet, Some Experiences in India, my copy of which I cannot lay my hand upon at this moment. But in his other pamphlet, The Theosophical Society an Explanatory Treatise, published at Madras, he says (p. 11): "It will be sufficient here to remark that Mahatma K. H. is a living Adept, and that the writer had the honor of seeing him personally at Lahore and of being spoken to by him and even touched. Letters have been received by the writer at Madras, Lahore, Jammu (Kashmir), and again at Madras, all being in the same handwriting," etc., etc. The foundation having been thus laid, and Mr. Brown's other pamphlet available after a little search, I may say that on hearing an exclamation from his side of the screen, I went in there and he showed me a silk-wrapped letter of like appearance to mine though of different contents, which he said had been given him much as mine had been to me, and which we read together. That he has since swung around a whole circle of changes, and is now a professed Roman Catholic and a teacher in a school of that Church, does not alter in the least the facts of his receiving this letter as described, and his identifying it as in the K. H. script.

The Master's letter to me connects itself with the visit to me at New York of the other Master when at my unspoken thought-wish, he "materialised" his turban and gave it to me as an objsective proof that I had received his visit. The letter says: "At New York you demanded of . . . an objective proof that his visit to you was not a Mâya, and he gave it; [now] unasked, I give you the present one: tho' I pass out of your sight, this note will be to you the reminder of our conferences. I now go to young Mr. Brown to try his intuitiveness. To-morrow night, when the camp is quiet and the worst of the emanations from your audience have passed away, I shall visit you again for a longer conversation, as you must be forewarned against certain things in the future." He concludes with a remark that will not be very palatable reading to our ingenious American rivals who are trying to play the drama of Hamlet with the Dane omitted. He says: "Ever be vigilant, zealous, and judicious; for, remember that the usefulness of the Theosophical Society largely depends upon your exertions, and that our blessings follow its suffering 'Founders' and all who help on their work."

BOOK "OLD DIARY LEAVES III" - CHAPTER 4: RECEPTION BY THE MAHARAJAH OF KASHMIR

 

(This is the chapter 4 of Henry Olcott book "Old Diary Leaves" Volume 3.)

RECEPTION BY THE MAHARAJAH OF KASHMIR

(1884)

The experience described in the last chapter was certainly calculated to make a deep impression on the dullest mind; how much more so on one whose highest aspiration was to be permitted to work in some capacity or other with the "Elder Brothers" for the good of the race! If anybody had asked me what was the rarest pleasure that I could imagine, I should have answered: "To see and converse with a Master, for in his benign atmosphere the mind and heart would expand like a flower to the sun and one's being be filled with joy." And here I had had it without the asking. Yet when I came to look back upon it, it was but like a remembered glint of sunshine on a cloudy day, seen for a moment, then gone. The whole time of the interview could not have been longer than ten minutes. The touch of his hand drew me out of the depths of the oblivion of dreamless sleep. I had had a fatiguing day, the tent was very cold, heated only by some embers in a great earthen pot, and I had covered myself to the ears in the bed-clothes. I am touched, I wake with a start, I clutch the arms of my visitor, possibly my would-be assassin; the sweet, kind voice breaks the last stupor of slumber; he is there, standing beside my bed, his face aglow with a smile; I see it in the chiaroscuro of the backlight. Then the magical creation of the silk-enwrapped letter in my hand, a few words, a farewell salute, he walks past the lamp on the box, his noble form lingers an instant in the tent-door, he gives a last friendly glance at me, and is gone. It is not much as to time, but its memory will last my life through. Years before—as my readers will perhaps remember—I was bidden to go on with my work as if there were no Masters to guide and help, but only Humanity, the "Great Orphan," to labor for: to expect nothing from Them, yet to be ready for anything. So I have gone on until to-day, never asking for help, never holding back for lack of the promise of it, yet never being without it when it was really needed.

This Lahore visit of the Master was but one of many proofs vouchsafed me that we are watched and helped; never deserted, never forgotten, howsoever dark may seem the outlook, howsoever menacing the aspect of things. Twenty-odd years of this experience has begotten a constant calm and an abiding trust in my heart, as it did in that of H. P. B. Sometimes it may be a glimpse of a personage, sometimes an audible voice, sometimes a clear forecast of events, sometimes a message through third parties; like that which Mme. Mongruel, the gifted seeress, gave me in her somnambulic sleep last year at Paris, and which foretold the immediate future of the Society, the duration of my own life, and the aspect of things towards the end of it. Thus, in the letter made in my hand were predicted the deaths of our two opponents, then most active, and good counsel was given me. Though traitors should fill twenty corner-stones with deliberately concocted lies about the history of our movement, and for ever suppress my name and Mrs. Besant's from their falsified records, it will profit them not one iota; the work will go on, and the real workers be recognised, comforted, and helped, so long as they are loyal to their duty.

The next evening, after the visits to Mr. Brown and myself, we two and Damodar sat in my tent, at 10, o'clock, waiting for an expected visit from Master K. H. The camp was quiet, the rest of our party dispersed through the city of Lahore. We sat on chairs at the back of the tent so as not to be observed from the camp: the moon was in its last quarter and had not risen. After some waiting we heard and saw a tall Hindu approaching from the side of the: open plain. He came to within a few yards of us and beckoned Damodar to come to him, which he did. He told him that the Master would appear within a few minutes, and that he had some business with Damodar. It was a pupil of Master K. H. Presently we saw the latter coming from the same direction, pass his pupil—who had withdrawn to a little distance—and stop in front of our group, now standing and saluting in the Indian fashion, some yards away. Brown and I kept our places, and Damodar went and conversed for a few minutes with the Teacher, after which he returned to us and the king-like visitor walked away. I heard his footsteps on the ground, so it was no wraith, but the man in his external body. Observe that it could not have been Damodar masquerading, for he himself formed one of our group of three. Then there are the distinguished personal peculiarities of the two, as unlike as possible, to account for, and the chela, whom I had had to do with for years. Still further proof was given me before retiring, when I was writing my Diary: the pupil lifted the portiére, beckoned to me, and pointed to the figure of his Master, waiting for me out on the plain in the starlight. I went to him, he walked off to a safe place at some distance where intruders need not be expected, and then for about a half-hour told me what I had to know, and what does not concern third parties, since that chapter of T. S. history was long since closed. Needless to say I slept very little on either of those two nights. The august visitor told me, however, that he had not come to me of his own motion entirely, although glad to come to me in person; but had been sent by the Authority higher than himself, who was satisfied with my fidelity and wished me to never lose confidence. There were no miracles done at the interview, no magic circle traced on the ground, no gum-burning lamps placed around it and burning with steely-blue flames: just two men talking together, a meeting, and a parting when the talk was over. I can affirm that it was not Damodar but was the One I was called to meet; so let it pass.

I broke up camp the next day—November 21—and left Lahore for Jammu, the lower capital of H. H. the late Maharajah of Kashmir, whose invitation to visit him I had accepted. One of his durbar officers, a Muslim and, strange to say, given to drinking, despite the prohibitions of his creed, had been sent down to escort me from Lahore. Simple affair as this was, there had been protests, explanations, and compromises before it could be arranged. I had heard that the Maharajah's custom was to make presents in cash and costly clothing to his visitors, and I positively declined to accept a single rupee, as incompatible with my lifelong habit. The emissary was at his wits' end between two such stubborn men, and an active exchange of telegrams made things no better until, at last, the cloud rolled by and all was settled in a way to satisfy us both. It was agreed that the khillât, or present, should be given and by me received and receipted for officially, as President of the Theosophical Society, in which capacity I am ready to accept any gifts, however large, that involve no wrong to anybody. So, all being right, our party took the 6 p.m. train for Wazirabad, which was reached at 9.30. My escort had evidently been saying good-bye to friends to some purpose, as his breath smelt very bad in our closed railway carriage, and he was quite half-seas-over. His tongue got to wagging about politics, and I was assured, with mysterious hints and nods, that a revival of Moslem power was certain, and that his fifty million Indian co-religionists would rally under the standard of the Nizam of Hyderabad. After a while I got my fill of this nonsense and the odors of his mouth, and retired to my corner and read. He wanted to stop at Wazirabad, for that meant the chance for sleep and other things, but I declared my intention of pushing forward to Sialkot. We reached that place by horse-dawk at 3 a.m., stopped at the rest-house until noon, then moved on to Jammu. We left our carriages on the hither side of the River Tavi, and were brought on two of the royal elephants, a distance of two miles, to the huge bungalow that the Maharajah keeps for his more important guests. The road from the river leads straight through the main street of the quaint old town, whose breadth may be guessed when I tell my reader that as our elephants moved their huge bulk forward, horsemen, and even foot-passengers, had to whirl into alleys or clamber into shops to avoid being crushed! And we, seated on their backs, cross-legged in true Oriental fashion, were almost on a level with the living apartments and, if we had been discourteous according to Indian notions of politeness, might have seen the families in their private rooms. At the rest-house we were received by an army of servants with the obsequiousness that means naught else than the hope of bakshish. My lordship was asked to name what meats, game, fish, etc., I might prefer, whether I would begin operations now with the customary whisky "peg," and when I would have my meals. They appeared really astonished when I named my simple, non-flesh diet (for that time was included within my five years' trial of vegetarianism), and declined their liquors, wines, and fermented drinks. Such a mad white they had never seen before! And then, too, who had ever seen a European gentleman on terms of friendly equality with Indians? Yes, here were two Sahibs, actually two, travelling with dark-skinned people as if they were as good as themselves, and apparently enjoying their company! Bismillah!

As we learned that a certain famous European doctor had been sent by the Maharajah's request to prescribe for him, and that he would arrive that evening and be lodged in the same house with us, I at once asked our minister-escort to change us into a smaller bungalow that stood near by, for I could not bear the sight -of my dear dark-complexioned colleagues being scornfully looked down upon, as they would almost certainly be. My request being granted, we found ourselves very comfortable and independent in a house of four rooms divided by cross walls and with doors of communication. In view of what was to happen, we may-as well have the ground plan. Thus:

A.—My room; used also as dining- room.

B.—Damodar’s

C.—Pandit Gopinath L.V.V. Naidu, and T. Narain- swamy.

D.—W.T. Brown.

The next morning, at 10-30, the same Minister of the Durbar brought me word that His Highness begged the honour of my presence at the Palace. In our compound stood two elephants and four fine saddle-horses, richly caparisoned, with housings and saddle-covers of Kashmir-shawl work, and silver-mounted bridles and stirrups, awaiting my pleasure, with a guard of honor of armed sepoys. I chose the elephants, so we mounted the sagacious, kneeling beasts and went on our way, the sepoys in front to clear the road. I made the discovery that elephant-riding is not so bad when one sits on the pad in Eastern fashion, the legs crossed. I had tried it elsewhere in a howdah, or structure with raised seats, and in spite of its being covered with plates of silver and otherwise gorgeously gotten up, one rode most uncomfortably, shaken about like a bag of meal on an oscillating pivot. Again we threaded the narrow streets of Jammu, driving all wayfarers to the nearest shelters, and at last reached the Palace. There were the usual enclosing walls with massive gates, the outer compound with horses, elephants, camels, oxen, donkeys, heavy wains, light vehicles (ekkas), piles of straw, bags of grain, building materials, etc., all in confusion, armed sentries pacing their beats, and soldiers in untidy undress lounging about. Then came an inner court and the Palace gateway, through which we passed, mounted a wide staircase and found ourselves in the Presence Chamber. I forget after these fourteen years how it looked, but a vague memory of general untidiness remains in my mind. The Maharajah came soon and received me with an air of kindness and stately courtesy that showed beyond doubt that I was welcome. In compliment to him I wore the woollen dress of the better class in the Punjab—pyjamas, a sleeveless waistcoat with deep flaps, an outside choga, or long robe, striped Kashmir socks, and purple slippers embroidered with imitation gold braid—which, of course, I left at the door. His first expression to Pandit Gopinath, my interpreter, was one of pleasure to see me in his national costume. A carpet and back-bolster had been spread for him on a slightly raised platform, before which we were to sit on the carpeted floor: but he dragged the bolster from there, placed it on the floor, motioned me to sit beside him, called me his elder brother, and proceeded with the conversation, which he opened with the usual exchange of compliments and good wishes. He was a man of noble presence, with an intellectual face and the splendid eyes of the Hindu, which by turns can be full of pathos, blaze with anger, or penetrating with intelligent interest. His personality fitted the kingly office perfectly, which is more than can be said of some other sovereigns whom I have seen, and who looked rather like cooks or grooms than highborn rulers of men. I found him to be a thoughtful Vedantin, well acquainted with philosophical systems. He fully believed in the existence of living Mahatmas, and trusted in them to do for India all that her Karma made possible, but no more. He gently broached the subject of his own ill-health, said he knew of my cures and of the recent prohibition to continue the practice, but asked if I would not at least relieve the acute pain he was then suffering from. I consented, of course, and on his removing his turban, did what I could for him with mesmeric healing passes. He submitted to my manipulations with perfect docility, which, I must confess, gave me a peculiar sensation, for Americans are not in the habit of handling sovereigns like common men, however they may theoretically regard them as their equals. I had the pleasure of removing His Highness' pain, and when the audience closed he begged me to visit him twice a day during my stay, that we might talk of the high religious themes which equally interested us.

The same evening, when I was sitting in our bungalow, I saw a queer procession of men enter from the verandah. First came a Court official, attended by a servant carrying a pair of scales and another with some heavy bag on his shoulder, which was gravely laid at my feet. Then followed a string of twenty-one other dark-faced, turbaned servants, each bearing on his head a flat basket of fruit or sweets, which were piled on each other on the table, counted by the Court officer, and the men dismissed. While I was wondering what all this could mean, Gopinath was told that His Highness received me as a guest of the first-class, and, as such, twenty-one baskets were sent me; there were guests of three classes, of which the second received fourteen baskets, the third seven baskets, below that people did not count! He then opened the gunny-bag, poured the contents—silver coins—into the scales, weighed them, and took my receipt for Rs. 500. This, he explained, was "table money," though why he should give me that when our every possible and impossible wish was gratified, I could not imagine. However, it was the custom of the Court of Kashmir, and His Highness' honor was involved in doing things as they had always been done from ancient times by Indian kings.

I went twice to the Palace the next day, and resumed the Vedantic discussions and even the mesmeric passes. His Dewan (Prime Minister) was present with other officials, including the Chief Justice, and after the free Eastern fashion, dipped into the conversation from time to time. That is a thing that always astonishes Europeans: if there be a wrangle in the street and a crowd gathers, they will turn to listen to a side remark by a boy as readily as though he were an adult. Can it be because, by the accepted belief in Karma, only our encasing bodies are young, the Dweller within the one being as old as that within the other? It is an idea to be considered like any other, at all events.

In the afternoon the Maharajah presided at games and a series of animal combats, and took me to his pavilion and placed me at his side. It being an entirely novel experience, I stayed the thing out, but once was enough. There were fights between rams, elephants, and horses—the first laughable, the second tame, since the elephants were not angry; the third exciting, for the splendid stallions lashed out at each other, screamed and tried to bite. A cock-fight brought the affair to a close.

The Chief Justice spent the evening with me in pleasant talk, in the course of which he dropped the remark that the Maharajah was "so taken with me that he would give me anything I might ask for". I took this for what it was worth, but after the Judge had gone, young Brown, to my amazement, asked me to get him the appointment of Judge. "What!" I said, "you, who came to India to devote yourself to unselfish work; whom I warned by letter to expect naught but the chance of self-sacrifice; who have just been honored with a visit and letter from a Master, a distinction that has been withheld from some of the oldest of our members—you are ready, to snap at the first temptation, and take a post for which you are not qualified?" I explained to him that if indeed the Maharajah respected me, it was because he had become convinced that I would not take for myself or any private friend any present or favor whatever. He at last saw the point and said no more; but his character-gauge had been exposed to me once for all, and his subsequent career has corroborated my impressions.

I went as usual, the next day, to the Palace, and in the afternoon saw a review by General Prince Ram Singh, Commander-in-Chief of the Kashmir Government Service troops, which have since then behaved so splendidly in the various British Border Expeditions. This was all very fine, but an event occurred that night which drove the recollection of everything else out of my thought: Damodar disappeared from his room, and was not to be found when I looked there for him in the early morning.

BOOK "OLD DIARY LEAVES III" - CHAPTER 5: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF DAMODAR

 

(This is the chapter 5 of Henry Olcott book "Old Diary Leaves" Volume 3.)

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF DAMODAR

(1884)

Damodar had disappeared, and left no trace behind him as a clue to show me whither he had gone or when he would return, if ever. I hastily went through the four communicating rooms, but they were empty; my other companions having gone to the river for a bath. From Damodar's window I called to a servant, and learned from him that Damodar had left the bungalow, alone, at daybreak, but left no message. Not knowing exactly what to make of it, I returned to my room, and found lying on the table a note from a Master, bidding me not to worry about the lad as he was under his protection, but giving me no hint as to his return. It had taken but a minute or so to make the circuit of the four inter-communicating open-doored rooms, and I had heard no messenger's footstep in the gravelly compound; a person could hardly have entered my room between my leaving and re-entering it, yet here was the mysterious letter, in the "K.H." writing and familiar Chinese envelope, lying on my table.

My first instinct was to take Damodar's luggage—his trunk and bedding—and pack it away under my own cot. I then despatched a telegram to H.P.B., telling her of his disappearance and of my having no idea as to his return. When the bathers got back from the river, they were naturally as excited as myself over the incident, and we wasted much time in speculations and surmises as to its possible sequel.

I went twice to the Palace that day and found myself increasingly welcome to His Highness. He showed me every courtesy, discussed the Vedanta philosophy with evidently deep interest, and gave me a pressing invitation to accompany him the next time he should go to his Kashmirian capital, Srinagar. Just as evening was closing in, and I was sitting alone, writing, in our bungalow, the others having gone for a ride on horseback, I heard a step on the gravel outside, and, looking around, saw a tall Kashmiri-costumed telegraph peon (messenger) bring me a message. On opening it, I found it to be from H. P. B., in answer to mine. She said that a Master had told her that Damodar would return, and that I must not let his luggage, especially his bedding, be touched by any third party. That was strange, was it not, that she, at Madras—i.e., some 2,000 miles away—should tell me to do the very thing it had been my first impulse to do on finding out the lad's departure? Was it long-distance telepathy, or what? There was something stranger yet to come. To open and read the despatch had not taken me a minute; the peon had not had more than time enough to get across the verandah into the compound when, like a flash, it came to me that the form of the peon was not real but a Maya, and that he belonged to the Brotherhood: I knew it, I could swear to it, because of a certain psychic disturbance caused in me by the approach of one of those personages; in fact, I could presently identify the peculiar vibration set up by the mesmeric current of my own Teacher, who was also H.P.B.'s Teacher. I ran to the door and looked across the bare compound, in which were no trees or bushes to serve as hiding-places, but nothing was in sight: the peon had disappeared as if into the ground.

I have been asked, when telling this story, how the transfer of the despatch from the keeping of the real peon to the simulated one, and the return of my signed receipt to the telegraph office, could be accounted for unless the messenger had been a consenting party. The thing is very simple, provided the reality of hypnotic power be conceded. The perfected hypnotism of the Orient I mean: not the rudimentary stage of it to which the schools of Nancy and La Salpètriere have hitherto attained; the secret of Mâya, in short. The adept meets the peon; by will-power prevents his seeing him; causes him to become unconscious; leads him to any convenient place of hiding; leaves him there asleep; puts the illusive appearance of the man over his own features and person; brings me the telegram, takes my receipt, salutes, and retires; the next moment, the nervous thrill caused in me by his sympathetic magnetism reacting in himself, warns him that I am on the alert and will naturally come to the door, so he inhibits my sight to prevent my seeing him, returns to the sleeping peon, puts the receipt in his hand, wills that he shall recollect, as if it had happened to himself, the brief episode of our meeting, awakens him, inhibits his sight, and send him back to the telegraph office. A very simple sequence of events, easily comprehensible for every advanced mesmerist.

It was on 25th November, at daylight, that Damodar left us: he returned in the evening of the 27th—after an absence of some sixty hours, but how changed! He left, a delicate-framed pale student-like young man, frail, timid, deferential; he returned with his olive face bronzed several shades darker, seemingly robust, tough, and wiry, bold and energetic in manner: we could scarcely realise that he was the same person. He had been at the Master's retreat (ashram), undergoing certain training. He brought me a message from another Master, well known to me, and, to prove its genuineness, whispered in my ear a certain agreed password by which Lodge messages were authenticated to me, and which is still valid: a fact which certain transatlantic persons might profitably take note of.

At the Maharajah's request I had been giving him some mesmeric passes every day, which seemed to do him good, or, at least, he said they did. He now began to deplore my necessary departure, and begged me to select somebody at his Court to whom I should be willing to give him over for future treatment. Upon this, I looked about me more closely than I had been doing, and found that there were three distinct parties or cliques, each trying to gain a paramount influence over the sovereign, and each as selfish and, it almost seemed to me, unscrupulous as the other. For the first time in my life, I got a clear view of the rotten moral atmosphere of an Indian Prince's Court. So I told His Highness—for it was my blunt candor that, I fancy, had given him the good opinion of me that the Chief Justice had described in Brown's hearing—I told him frankly that the only person whom I would recommend as his psychopath was his youngest son, Prince Amar Singh, who was then a handsome, honest-looking youth. His Highness approving my choice, I showed the young Prince how to treat his father, and gave him the famous silver tube with which I had worked so many cures of eye and ear affections during the course of that memorable year. But, as I afterwards learnt, no good came of it, for the son stood in such awe of the parent, that he was quite unable to feel, much less show, that firm, commanding appearance: of face, gesture, and voice which is indispensable for the psychopath to have when treating a patient. Yet I would not have risked my royal patient's coming under the influence of either one of those scheming courtiers, who would certainly have used the intimacy for their selfish purposes. The Maharajah died a few years later, and was succeeded by his eldest son, who was away at Srinagar at the time of my visit to Jammu, and whom, therefore, I did not meet. The latter was for some time suspended by the Government of India, a Council of Regency was formed, and young Prince Amar Singh was appointed its President.

Major-General Ram Singh, the second son, has brought the Kashmir army to such a state of proficiency, that it rendered the most valuable services to the British Commander-in-Chief, as before stated, in recent border campaigns.

The day fixed for my departure having come, the Maharajah, finding me obdurate about prolonging my visit, consented to receive me in audience of leave. So I went to the Palace for the last time, I and my suite riding on elephants, and causing every person, whether mounted or afoot, whom we met in the cramped lanes of Jammu, to scuttle out of our way into the nearest shops, courts, or blind alleys. We found His Highness, with his Prime Minister (Dewan), his Treasurer, and other officials, seated cross-legged on the floor, with a number of piles of woollen stuffs placed before him in a row: one pile much bigger than the rest. Through the able interpreter, Pandit Gopinath, he and I fell into conversation about my departure and hoped-for return, after which, on a signal from the Maharajah, a high official pushed the big pile over towards me, with the request that I should accept the articles as His Highness' khillât (complimentary present). At the same time the Treasurer laid before me two heavy bags of coin. To each member of my suite was given one of the smaller piles of woolens. According to custom, I touched the presents, made a respectful salutation, by joining my palms and holding them edgewise to my forehead, which the Maharajah returned; we then rose and, saluting the officials in turn, left the audience-chamber, having seen the noble face of our host for the last time. No other reigning Indian Prince whom I have met has left so pleasant impressions on my memory. I speak only as to my personal intercourse with him; what sort of view the Government of India may have taken of him as their political ally, I cannot say; but so far as his treatment of me is concerned, no one could have shown himself a more perfect gentleman, a more generous, self-respecting Prince, or a more thoughtful host. I must not fail, moreover, to express the obligations under which Pandit Gopinath, F. T. S., of Lahore, laid the Society and myself, personally, by his unpaid and invaluable services during this visit and my whole tour in the Punjab of 1883.

When my khillât was examined at the bungalow, it was found to comprise a silk-lined, richly embroidered choga (outside coat); a splendid Kashmir shawl, "worked to the centre"; fine, soft woollen tissue for a turban; a green neck or waist scarf, with embroidered ends; and three pieces of pashmina, or soft cloth made of goat's hair, for a suit of clothes in the Punjabi fashion. The huge bags of coin contained, each, a thousand rupees; thus making the whole gift in money to me (or, rather, to the Society, since I receipted for it officially) Rs. 2,500. The Treasurer's Report to that year's T.S. Convention shows that, of this sum, I gave Rs. 1,500 towards the purchase of the Adyar property, and the remaining Rs. 1,000 to the Current Expense Account. The choga and shawl I gave to H.P.B., the turban and three other pieces of fine cloth to other friends, and the little green scarf I kept for myself to protect my throat when on tour. But the moths ate it up before long, and so I kept nothing of the Jammu presents save the memory of the kindness of their donor. The presents of cloths to my suite were similar to my own, but fewer in number and of rather inferior quality. At 1 p.m. we left on our elephants for the other side of the river, and after a delay of four hours at Sialkot, reached Wazirabad and passed the night there. In the morning Damodar left us for Madras, and we went on to Kapurthala via Lahore and Kirtarpur.

Our reception at Kapurthala by the aged ex-Dewan Ramdas; the reigning one, his son, Mathura Das; Mr. Harichand, Political Assistant; and other important officials, was most cordial and gratifying. The now so well-known Maharaja was then a child, and the State was administered for him by specially-chosen officials—whether British or not, I do not remember. I found the mental atmosphere much better than that at Jammu, where the sovereign seemed to me the only one who really cared much for philosophical discussions. Moreover, there was not the same heavy atmosphere of selfish intrigue; one could breathe freer. I have noted the fact in my Diary, so it must have been very palpable. While at this station I was the guest of Dewan Mathura Das, and on the third day lectured on "The Nature of Religion ", Pandit Gopinath acting as interpreter in his usual fluent fashion. The fourth and fifth days were devoted to the admission of candidates for membership, among them all the chief officials, and to the organisation of the Kapurthala T.S. My visit finished, I left for Jaipur, and reached that unique city the next evening. We were accommodated at the traveller's bungalow—the best in India, so far as my observations go.

Our local colleagues took me the next morning to call on Atmaram Swami, a well-known and respected ascetic, who had been telling them long before my arrival that he was personally acquainted with our Masters, and that, eight years before, in Tibet, one of them, known as Jivan Singh, Chohan, had told him that he need not be discouraged about the religious state of India, for they had arranged that two Europeans, a man and a woman, should soon come and revive the Eastern religions. This date corresponds with that of the formation of our Society at New York, and the intelligence was most important to me. I found the Yogi a man of dignified presence, with a calm, thoughtful countenance, quite a different sort of person from the ordinary ascetic now so common in and profitless to India. His greeting to me was charmingly affable, and he expressed the greatest desire that our members should be encouraged to practise Yoga. I told him that I dared not do that wholesale, for, unless the candidates had the right temperament and above all, the watchful surveillance of competent teachers, they ran the risk of being seriously harmed by psychical experiments. He agreed with me in this respect, but said that everything had been foreseen and the right thing would be brought about in good time. This has, in fact, proved true, and the marvellous things that have happened with Mrs. Besant, Mr. Leadbeater, and others who were not even members of the Society, fully corroborate the prognostics made to me in 1883, at Jaipur, by Atmaram Swami.

The same day I had to perform the unpleasant duty of degrading from office and expelling from the Society the Vice-President of our local Branch, for trying to use his position to get personal favors from an influential Anglo-Indian official and from Mr. Sinnett, both members. This degradation of our Society is an offence so heinous, that I should certainly expel anyone found guilty of it. So long as I live, at least, the honor of the Society shall be protected against such ignoble self-seekers. This business disposed of, I lectured alfresco in the great courtyard of the Maharaja's College to a large assemblage, and at 6 p.m. we left for Baroda, on our homeward journey. After a dusty ride of thirty hours in the train, we reached the Gaikwar's capital, and were met at the station by Judge Gadgil and other valued friends, who took us to our destined quarters, and kept me chatting until 3 a.m.! The next day, our former evil-wisher having been succeeded by another British Resident, I paid him my respects, and in the evening lectured on the "Proofs of a Future Life"; a meeting of the local Branch, with fresh admissions of candidates for membership, closed the proceedings of the day.

By the Gaikwar's special invitation I visited him at his magnificent Palace the next day, and had a long talk about several of our philanthropic schemes—among others, the promotion of Sanskrit education and literature, in which he took and still takes much interest. His Palace, as hundreds of visitors can testify, is one of the finest in all India, and will long be a grand monument of his largeness of views as to the dignity of the sovereign of a great Indian State.

From Baroda we went the long journey to Gooty, in the Madras Presidency, halting a few hours between two trains at Bombay. From Gooty we pushed on in bullock-carts to Kurnool, a distance of sixty miles. A warm welcome made us forget the fatigues of the journey; I received and replied to Sanskrit and English addresses; organised a local Branch; the next morning at 8 o'clock lectured, and at 4 p.m. started back to Gooty, which we reached after riding all night. I completed the formation of our ever active and honorably distinguished Gooty T. S., and at 5.30 p.m. took train again for Madras, where we arrived on the morning of December 15th, thus completing the 7,000-mile tour on time and without accident. What impression the return made on my mind may be guessed from the following line in my Diary: "Home never seemed so delightful, nor myoid Chum so dear. "These home-comings are an ever recurrent delight, and no place in either of the distant lands I visit seems half so sweet and restful as Adyar.

The approaching Annual Convention now demanded all my attention, and from that onward to the 27th my every hour was taken up with the reception and accommodation of Delegates, the erection of temporary buildings, the preparation of the annual financial and other reports, and the arrangement of the agenda. Dr. Franz Hartmann, a recent acquisition to our membership, turned up on 17th December as Special Delegate from the old New York nucleus and the Rochester and St. Louis Branches. Since he has conveniently forgotten the fact, on seceding with the disloyal American party, I may say that neither Mr. Judge, who wrote his credentials, nor he who presented them and as Delegate addressed the Convention, nor H. P. B. nor I, had any other idea than that the official, vital, and only centre of the T. S. was at Adyar, and that what was left at New York was a few crumbs of the loaf. However, this has been all explained and backed with historical proofs ⁽¹⁾, so it is useless to dwell upon the subject any longer.

There is an entry in my Diary that rather instructively marks the different uses that a little money can be put to for the making of Karma. On 18th December the Indian public of Madras gave a farewell banquet and reception to a high European official on his retirement on pension, on which they spent Rs. 15,000; a few days later we collected a lesser sum to pay for the Adyar Headquarters property. The first event went off with a splutter and glare like a fire-work; the money wasted, the subscribers forgotten by the beneficiary of the show: the other gave a permanent home to our Society, a noble housing, a refuge for its Founders in old age, probably a nucleus for the world-benefiting T. S. Oriental Institute that Mrs. Besant, the Countess Wachtmeister, and I have planned out. In fact, when one looks back through the whole career of the Society, one may well be amazed that such a comparatively trifling sum in the aggregate has been spent in pushing its work to the five quarters of the world.

When the Convention opened, the house and outbuildings were crammed with Delegates, and a real enthusiasm marked the whole series of meetings: our position in India seemed impregnable, not a cloud floated in our sky. Daily phenomena occurred in the "shrine"; six and even seven persons got notes, in English and Indian vernaculars simultaneously, answering questions put by them just before. On the morning of the 28th out on the lawn, before the opening of Convention, I told H. P. B. how sorry I was that the other Madras members had allowed Judge P. Sreenivas Row to spend so large a sum as Rs. 500 out of his own pocket towards the cost of the Convention, as I was sure he could not afford to be so generous. She reflected a moment, and then called Damodar to her from a group with whom he was talking a little way off. "Go," she said, “to the shrine and bring me a packet you will find there.” He went, and within less than five minutes came hurrying back with a closed letter in his hand, addressed on the cover to "P. Sreenivas Row". The Judge, being called to us, was given the packet and bidden to open it. He did so, and the expression of amazement on his face was indescribable when he drew forth a very kind and affectionate letter to himself from Master K. H., thanking him for his zealous services, and giving him the notes enclosed as a help towards the Convention's expenses The enclosure was in Government Promissory Notes to the aggregate value of Rs. 500, and on the back of each were written the initials "K. H." in blue pencil. I have given the facts exactly as they occurred, and one of the notes—for Rs. 10—I have kept as a souvenir, by the Judge's kind permission. The points to bear in mind are that I myself had heard, but a moment before repeating it to H. P. B., about the Judge's unstinted generosity; that Damodar had gone to the shrine and returned with the money within the next five minutes; that each note bore the familiar "K. H." initials; that neither H. P. B. nor Damodar had then between them one hundred, let alone five hundred rupees, and that the gift was at once reported to all the Delegates clustered over the lawn. That it was not "fairy gold" is evident from the fact of my having one of the very notes now at Adyar, after the lapse of nearly fourteen years.

It was at that year's Convention that the subscription was collected to create the Subba Row Medal Fund, for the fitting recognition by the Society of important contributions to Theosophical literature. The recipients thus far have been Judge Sreenivas Row, H. P. B., Mrs. Besant, G. R. S. Mead, and A. P. Sinnett. The capital is so small that I cannot award the medal out of the interest paid by Government on the deposit every year. I should be glad to have another £100 to add to it. An interesting, though not very important, feature of the meeting was my giving the Five Precepts of the Buddhist religion to Dr. Franz Hartmann, in the presence of H.P. B., four Buddhist Delegates from Ceylon, Damodar, “Bawaji,” Tookaram Tatya, and Balai Chand Mullik, of Calcutta. By Dr. Hartmann's request I procured by telegraph the High Priest Sumangala's authority to act for him in the matter.

By the last day of December the greater part of the Delegates had left for their homes, and only our house-party remained. Thus closed one of the busiest, most encouraging and successful years in our Society's history. To get through my share of the work, I had travelled 16,500 miles in India and Ceylon. The future sparkled with bright promise; but the lower gods were envious, and were already forging the thunderbolt that Mara meant to hurl at us within the next few months; to how little profit, my narrative will show in the process of its unfolding.

Note

1. See Annual Address of the President, T. S., to the 21st Annual Convention, at Adyar, December, 1897.