 38 Before the face of Buddha. As we came to the monastery, we left the automobile and dipped into the labyrinth of narrow alleyways until at last we were before the greatest temple of Urga with the Tibetan walls and windows and its pretentious Chinese roof. A single lantern burned at the entrance. The heavy gate with the bronze and iron trimmings was shut. When the general struck the big brass gong hanging by the gate, frightened monks began running up from all directions and, seeing the general barren, fell to the earth in fear of raising their heads. Get up! said the barren, and let us into the temple. The inside was like that of all Lama temples, the same multicolored flags with the prayers, symbolic signs and the images of holy saints, the big bands of silk cloth hanging from the ceiling, the images of the gods and goddesses. On both sides of the approach to the altar were the low red benches for the Lama's inquire, on the altar small lamps through their rays on the gold and silver vessels and candlesticks. Behind it hung a heavy yellow silk curtain with Tibetan inscriptions. The Lama's drew the curtain aside. Out of the dim light from the flickering lamps gradually appeared the great gilded statue of Buddha seated in the golden lotus. The face of the god was indifferent and calm, with only a soft gleam of light animating it. On either side he was guarded by many thousands of lesser Buddhas brought by the faithful as offerings in prayer. The barren struck the gong to attract great Buddha's attention to his prayer and threw a handful of coins into the large bronze bowl. And then this scion of crusaders who had read all the philosophers of the West, closed his eyes, placed his hands together before his face and prayed. I noticed a black rosary on his left wrist. He prayed about ten minutes. Afterwards he led me to the other end of the monastery and, during our passage, said to me, I do not like this temple. It is new, erected by the Lama's when the living Buddha became blind. I do not find on the face of the golden Buddha either tears, hopes, distress, or thanks of the people. They have not yet had time to leave these traces on the face of the god. We will go now to the old shrine of prophecies. This was a small building, blackened with age and resembling a tower with a plain round roof. The door stood open. At both sides of the door were prayer wheels ready to be spun. Over it a slab of copper with the signs of the zodiac. Inside two monks, who were intoning the sacred sutras, did not lift their eyes as we entered. The general approached them and said, Cast the dice for the number of my days. The priest brought two bowls with many dice therein and rolled them out on their low table. The baron looked and reckoned with them the sum before he spoke. 130! Again 130! Approaching the altar carrying an ancient stone statue of Buddha brought all the way from India, he again prayed. As day dawned, we wandered out through the monastery, visited all the temples and shrines, the museum of the medical school, the astrological tower, and then the court where the bandhi and young llamas have their daily morning wrestling exercises. In other places the llamas were practicing with a bow and arrow. Some of the higher llamas feasted us with hot mutton, tea, and wild onions. After we returned to the yurta I tried to sleep but in vain. Too many different questions were troubling me. Where am I? In what epoch am I living? I knew not, but I dimly felt the unseen touch of some great idea, some enormous plan, some indescribable human woe. After our noon meal the general said he wanted to introduce me to the living Buddha. It is so difficult to secure audience with the living Buddha that I was very glad to have this opportunity offered me. Our auto soon drew up at the gate of the red and white striped wall surrounding the palace of the god. Two hundred llamas in yellow and red robes rushed to greet the arriving Chiang Chung general with a low-toned, respectful whisper, Khan, God of War! As a regiment of formal ushers they led us to a spacious great hall softened by its semi-darkness. Heavy carved doors opened to the interior parts of the palace. In the depths of the hall stood a dais with the throne covered with yellow silk cushions. The back of the throne was red inside a gold framing. At either side stood yellow silk screens set in highly ornamented frames of black Chinese wood. While against the walls at either side of the throne stood glass cases filled with varied objects from China, Japan, India, and Russia. I noticed also among them a pair of exquisite marquis and marquises in the fine porcelain of Sevres. Before the throne stood a long, low table at which eight noble mongols were seated, their chairman, a highly esteemed old man with a clever, energetic face and with large, penetrating eyes. His appearance reminded me of the authentic wooden images of the Buddhist holy men with eyes of precious stones which I saw at the Tokyo Imperial Museum in the department devoted to Buddhism, where the Japanese show the ancient statues of Amida, Dayunuchibuda, the goddess Kwanan, and the jolly old Houtai. This man was the Hutaktu Jahansi, chairman of the Mongolian Council of Ministers, and honored and revered far beyond the borns of Mongolia. The others were the ministers, Khans and the highest princes of Kalka. Jahansu Hutaktu invited Baron Unkern to the place at his side, while they brought in a European chair for me. Baron Unkern announced to the Council of Ministers through an interpreter that he would leave Mongolia in a few days and urge them to protect the freedom won for the lands inhabited by the successors of Genghis Khan, whose soul still lives and calls upon the mongols to become anew, a powerful people, and reunite again into one great mid-Asian state all the Asian kingdoms he had ruled. The general rose and all the others followed him. He took leave of each one separately and sternly. Only before Jahansi Lama he bent low while the Hutaktu placed his hands on the Baron's head and blessed him. From the Council chamber we passed at once to the Russian-style house which is the personal dwelling of the living Buddha. The house was wholly surrounded by a crowd of red and yellow llamas, servants, counselors of Bagdu, officials, fortune-tellers, doctors, and favourites. From the front entrance stretched a long red rope whose outer end was thrown over the wall beside the gate. Crowds of pilgrims crawling up on their knees touched this end of the rope outside the gate and hand the monk a silken hatik or a bit of silver. This touching of the rope whose inner end is in the hand of the Bagdu establishes direct communication with the holy, incarnated living God. A current of blessing is supposed to flow through this cable of camel's wool and horsehair. Any Mongol who has touched the mystic rope receives and wears about his neck a red band as the sign of his accomplished pilgrimage. I had heard very much about the Bagdu Khan before this opportunity to see him. I had heard of his love of alcohol, which had brought on blindness, about his leaning toward exterior Western culture and about his wife drinking deep with him and receiving in his name numerous delegations and envoys. In the room which the Bagdu used as his private study, where two Lama secretaries watched day and night over the chest that contained his great seals, there was the severest simplicity. On a low, plain, Chinese lacquered table lay his writing-implements, a case of seals given by the Chinese government and by the Dalai Lama and wrapped in a cloth of yellow silk. Nearby was a low easy chair, a bronze brazier with an iron stove-pipe leading up from it. On the walls were the signs of the swastika, Tibetan and Mongolian inscriptions. Behind the easy chair a small altar with a golden statue of Buddha before which two tallow lamps were burning. The floor was covered with a thick yellow carpet. When we entered only the two Lama secretaries were there for the living Buddha was in the small private shrine in an adjoining chamber where no one is allowed to enter save the Bagdu Khan himself and one Lama, Kampog Jelong, who cares for the temple arrangements and assists the living Buddha during his prayers of solitude. The secretary told us that the Bagdu had been greatly excited this morning. At noon he had entered his shrine. For a long time the voice of the head of the yellow faith was heard in earnest prayer and after his another unknown voice came clearly forth. In the shrine had taken place a conversation between the Buddha on earth and the Buddha of heaven. Thus the Lama's phrased it to us. Let us wait a little, the Baron proposed. Perhaps he will soon come out. As we waited the general began telling me about Jahansi Lama, saying that when Jahansi is calm he is an ordinary man but when he is disturbed and thinks very deeply a nimbus appears about his head. After half an hour the Lama's secretaries suddenly showed signs of deep fear and began listening closely by the entrance to the shrine. Shortly they fell on their faces on the ground. The door slowly opened and there entered the Emperor of Mongolia, the living Buddha, his holiness Bagdu Jejebsung Damba Hutuktu Khan of outer Mongolia. He was a stout old man with a heavy shaven face resembling those of the Cardinals of Rome. He was dressed in the yellow silk and Mongolian coat with a black binding. The eyes of the blind man stood widely open. Fear and amazement were pictured in them. He lowered himself heavily into the easy chair and whispered, Right. A secretary immediately took paper and a Chinese pen as the Bagdu began to dictate his vision, very complicated and far from clear. He finished with the following words, This I, Bagdu Hutuktu Khan, saw, speaking with the great wise Buddha surrounded by the good and evil spirits, wise Lamas, Hutuktu's, Kampos, Marambas, and Holy Gagans, give the answer to my vision. As he finished, he wiped the perspiration from his head and asked who were present. Khan Xiangqin Baron Ungern and a stranger, one of the secretaries answered on his knees. The general presented me to the Bagdu, who bowed his head as a sign of greeting. We began speaking together in low tones. Through the open door I saw a part of the shrine. I made out a big table with a heap of books on it, some open, and others lying on the floor below. A brazier with the red charcoal in it. A basket containing the shoulder blades and entrails of sheep for telling fortunes. Soon the Baron rose and bowed before the Bagdu. The Tibetan placed his hands on the Baron's head and whispered a prayer. Then he took from his own neck a heavy icon and hung it around that of the Baron. You will not die, but you will be incarnated in the highest form of being. Remember that, incarnated God of War, Khan of Grateful Mongolia. I understood that the living Buddha blessed the bloody general before death. During the next two days I had the opportunity to visit the living Buddha three times together with a friend of the Bagdu, the Buryat Prince Dijon Bolan. I shall describe these visits in part four. Baron Ungern organized the trip for me and my party to the shore of the Pacific. We were to go on camels to northern Manchuria, because there it was easy to avoid caviling with the Chinese authorities so badly oriented in the international relationship with Poland. Having sent a letter from Ulyassetai to the French legation at Peking, and bearing with me a letter from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce expressing thanks for the saving of Ulyassetai from a program, I intended to make for the nearest station on the Chinese eastern railway, and from there proceed to Peking. The Danish merchant Evie Olofsson was to have traveled out with me and also a learned Lama Turgut, who was headed for China. Never shall I forget the night of May 19th to 20th of 1921. After dinner Baron Ungern proposed that we go to the Yurta of Dijon Bolan, whose acquaintance I had made on the first day after my arrival in Urga. His Yurta was placed on a raised wooden platform in a compound located behind the Russian settlement. Two Buryat officers met us and took us in. Dijon Bolan was a man of middle age, tall and thin with an unusually long face. Before the Great War he had been a simple shepherd, but had fought together with Baron Ungern on this German front and afterwards against the Bolsheviki. He was a grand duke of the Buryats, the successor of former Buryat kings who had been dethroned by the Russian government after their attempt to establish the independence of the Buryat people. The servants brought us dishes with nuts, raisins, dates, and cheese, and served us tea. "'This is the last night, Dijon Bolan,' said Baron Ungern. "'You promised me.' "'I remember,' answered the Buryat. "'All is ready.' For a long time I listened to their reminiscences about former battles and friends who had been lost. The clock pointed to midnight when Dijon Bolan got up and went out of the Yurta. "'I want to have my fortune told once more,' said Baron Ungern, as though he were justifying himself. For the good of our cause it is too early for me to die.' Dijon Bolan came back with a little woman of middle-years, who squatted down eastern style before the Brazier, bowed low and began to stare at Baron Ungern. Her face was whiter, narrower and thinner than that of a Mongol woman. Her eyes were black and sharp. Her dress resembled that of a Gypsy woman. Afterwards I learned that she was a famous fortune teller and prophet among the Buryats, the daughter of a Gypsy woman and a Buryat. She drew a small bag very slowly from her girdle, took from it some small bird-bones and a handful of dry grass. She began whispering at intervals unintelligible words, as she threw occasional handfuls of the grass into the fire, which gradually filled the tent with a soft fragrance. I felt a distinct palpitation of my heart and a swimming in my head. After the fortune teller had burned all her grass, she placed the bird-bones on the charcoal and turned them over again and again with a small pair of bronze pincers. As the bones blackened she began to examine them and then suddenly her face took on an expression of fear and pain. She nervously tore off the kerchief which bound her head and, contracted with convulsions, began snapping out short, sharp phrases. I see, I see the God of War. His life runs out horribly, after it a shadow, black like the night. Shadow, one hundred thirty steps remain. Beyond darkness. Nothing. I see nothing. The God of War has disappeared. Baron Ungern dropped his head. The woman fell over on her back with her arms stretched out. She had fainted, but it seemed to me that I noticed once a bright pupil of one of her eyes showing from under the closed lashes. Two buriats carried out the lifeless form, after which a long silence reigned in the yurta of the buriat prince. Baron Ungern finally got up and began to walk around the brazier, whispering to himself. Afterwards he stopped and began speaking rapidly. I shall die. I shall die. But no matter, no matter. The cause has been launched and will not die. I know the roads this cause will travel. The tribes of Genghis Khan's successes are awakened. Nobody shall extinguish the fire in the heart of the Mongols. In Asia there will be a great state from the Pacific and Indian oceans to the shore of the Volga. The wise religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the west. It will be the victory of the spirit. A conqueror and leader will appear stronger and more stalwart than Genghis Khan and Ugadai. He will be more clever and more merciful than Sultan Bebar, and he will keep power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean capital, shall he merge the king of the world. Why? Why shall I not be in the first ranks of the warriors of Buddhism? Why has Karma decided so? But so it must be. And Russia must first wash herself from the insult of revolution, purifying herself with blood and death, and all people accepting Communism must perish with their families in order that all their offspring may be rooted out. The Baron raised his hand above his head and shook it, as though he were giving his orders and bequests to some invisible person. Day was dawning. My time has come, said the General, and a little while I shall leave Urga. He quickly and firmly shook hands with us and said, Goodbye for all time. I shall die a horrible death, but the world is never seen such a terror and such a sea of blood as it shall now see. The door of the Yurta slammed shut, and he was gone. I never saw him again. I must go also, for I am likewise leaving Urga to-day. I know it, answered the Prince. The Baron has left you with me for some purpose. I will give you a fourth companion, the Mongol Minister of War. You will accompany him to your Yurta. It is necessary for you. To John Bolin pronounced this last with an accent on every word. I did not question him about it, as I was accustomed to the mystery of this country of the mysteries of good and evil spirits. CHAPTER 39 and 40 of BEASTS, MEN, AND GOD'S This Levervox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. BEASTS, MEN, AND GOD'S By Ferdinand Ossendowski. CHAPTER 39 The man with the head like a saddle. After drinking tea at Dejambolon's Yurta, I rode back to my quarters and packed my few belongings. The Lama Turgut was already there. THE MINISTER OF WAR WILL TRAVEL WITH US. He whispered, IT IS NECESSARY. All right, I answered, and rode off to Olufsen to summon him. But Olufsen unexpectedly announced that he was forced to spend some few days more in Urga—a fatal decision for him. For a month later he was reported killed by Seppeloff, who remained his comodant of the city after Baron Ungern's departure. The War Minister, a stout young Mongol, joined our caravan. When we had gone about six miles from the city, we saw an automobile coming up behind us. The Lama shrunk up inside his coat and looked at me with fear. I felt the now familiar atmosphere of danger, and so opened my holster and threw over the safety catch of my revolver. Soon the motor stopped alongside our caravan. In it sat Seppeloff with the smiling face, and beside him is two executioners, Chestyakov and Jadanov. Seppeloff greeted us very warmly and asked, You are changing your horses in a kaza huduk? Does the road cross that pass ahead? I don't know the way, and must overtake an envoy who went there. The Minister of War answered that we would be in kaza huduk that evening, and gave Seppeloff directions as to the road. The motor rushed away, and when it had topped the pass he ordered one of the Mongols to gallop forward to see whether it had not stopped somewhere near the other side. The Mongol whipped his steed and sped away. We followed slowly. What is the matter? I asked. Please explain. The Minister told me that the Jambolan yesterday received information that Seppeloff planned to overtake me on the way and kill me. Seppeloff suspected that I had stirred up the baron against him. The Jambolan reported the matter to the baron who organized this column for my safety. The returning Mongol reported that the motor car had gone on out of sight. Now, said the Minister, we shall take quite another route so that the Colonel will wait in vain for us at kaza huduk. We turned north at Undur-Dobo and at night were in the camp of a local prince. Here we took leave of our Minister, received splendid fresh horses, and quickly continued our trip to the east, leaving behind us the man with a head like a saddle, against whom I had been warned by the old fortune teller in the vicinity of Vankure. After twelve days without further adventures we reached the first railway station on the Chinese eastern railway, from where I travelled in unbelievable luxury to Peking. Surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of the splendid hotel at Peking, while shedding all the attributes of traveller, hunter, and warrior, I could not, however, throw off the spell of those nine days spent in Urga, where I had daily met Baron Ungern, incarnated God of War. The newspapers carrying accounts of the bloody march of the baron through Transbacalia brought the pictures ever fresh to my mind. Even now, although more than seven months have elapsed, I cannot forget those nights of madness, inspiration, and hate. The predictions are fulfilled. Approximately one hundred thirty days afterwards Baron Ungern was captured by the Bolsheviki through the treachery of his officers, and, it is reported, was executed at the end of September. In R. F. Ungern von Sternberg, like a bloody storm of avenging karma, he spread over Central Asia. What did he leave behind him? The severe order to his soldiers, closing with the words of the revelations of St. John. Let no one check the revenge against the corruptor and slayer of the soul of the Russian people. Revolution must be eradicated from the world. Against it the revelations of St. John have warned us thus. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. It is a human document, a document of Russian and perhaps of world tragedy. But there remained another and more important trace. In the Mongol yurtas, and at the fires of Buryat, Mongol, to Jengar, Kirkes, Kaumuk, and Tibetan shepherds still speak the legend born of this son of crusaders and privateers. From the north a white warrior came, and called on the Mongols to break their chains of slavery which fell upon our freed soil. This white warrior was the incarnated Genghis Khan, and he predicted the coming of the greatest of all Mongols, who will spread the fair faith of Buddha and the glory and power of the offspring of Genghis, Ugedai, and Kublai Khan. So it shall be. Buddha is awakened, and her sons utter bold words. It were well for the peace of the world if they go forth as disciples of the wise creators Ugedai and Sultan Bebar, rather than under the spell of the bad demons of the destructive tamerlane. Chapter 40 In the Blissful Garden of a Thousand Joys In Mongolia, the country of miracles and mysteries, lives the custodian of all the mysterious and unknown, the living Buddha, his holiness Dejebsung Damba Huttaktukan, or Bagdogehan, Pantif of Thakure. He is the incarnation of the never-dying Buddha, the representative of the unbroken, mysteriously-continued line of spiritual emperors ruling since 1670, concealing in themselves the ever-refining spirit of Buddha Amitabha, joined with Charasi, or the compassionate spirit of the mountains. In him is everything, even the sun-myth, and their fascination of the mysterious peaks of the Himalayas, tales of the Indian Pagoda, the stern majesty of the Mongolian conquerors, emperors of all Asia, and the ancient hazy legends of the Chinese sages. Immersion in the thoughts of the Brahmins, the severities of life of the monks of the virtuous order, the vengeance of the eternally-wandering warriors, the Olats, with their Khans, Baturhan, Taigai, and Gushi, the Abhikhwests of Genghis and Kublaikan, the clerical reactionary psychology of the Lamas, the mystery of Tibetan kings beginning from strong sangampo, and the mercilessness of the yellow-sect of Paspa. All the hazy history of Asia, of Mongolia, Pamir, Himalayas, Mesopotamia, Persia, and China, surrounds the living god of Urga. It is little wonder that his name is honored along the Volga in Siberia, Arabia between the Tigris and Euphrates, in Indochina and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. During my stay in Urga I visited the abode of the living Buddha several times, spoke with him, and observed his life. His favorite learned Marambas gave me long accounts of him. I saw him reading horoscopes. I heard his predictions. I looked over his archives of ancient books and the manuscripts containing the lives and predictions of all the Bagdo Khans. The Lamas were very frank and open with me, because the letter of the Hutuktu of Narabanchi won for me their confidence. The personality of the living Buddha is double, just as everything in Lamaism is double. Clever, penetrating, energetic. He at the same time indulges in the drunkenness which is brought on blindness. When he became blind, the Lamas were thrown into a state of desperation. Some of them maintained that Bagdo Khan must be poisoned and another incarnate Buddha said in his place. While the others pointed out the great merits of the Pantif in the eyes of Mongolians and the followers of the Yellow Faith, they finally decided to propitiate the gods by building a great temple with a gigantic statue of Buddha. However, this did not help the Bagdo site, but the whole incident gave him the opportunity of hurrying on to their higher life those among the Lamas who had shown too much radicalism in their proposed method of solving his problem. He never ceases to ponder upon the cause of the Church and of Mongolia, and at the same time likes to indulge himself with useless trifles. He amuses himself with artillery. A retired Russian officer presented him with two old guns for which the donor received the title of Tum Ba Ir Hun, that is, Prince Dear to My Heart. On holidays these cannon were fired to the great amusement of the blind man. Motorcars, gramophones, telephones, crystals, porcelains, pictures, perfumes, musical instruments, rare animals and birds, elephants, Himalayan bears, monkeys, Indian snakes and parrots. All these were in the palace of the god, but all were soon cast aside and forgotten. To Urga came pilgrims and presents from all the Lamaite and Buddhist world. Once the treasurer of the palace, the Honorable Balma Dorji, took me into the great hall where the presents were kept. It was a most unique museum of precious articles. Here were gathered together rare objects unknown to the museums of Europe. The treasurer, as he opened a case with a silver lock, said to me, These are pure gold nuggets from Baikem. Here are black sables from Kemchik. These the miraculous deer horns. This a box sent by the Orochans and filled with precious ginseng roots and fragrant musk. This a bit of amber from the coast of the frozen sea, and it weighs 124 lb, about 10 lb. These are precious stones from India, fragrant zebbet and carved ivory from China. He showed the exhibits and talked of them for a long time and evidently enjoyed the telling. And really it was wonderful. Before my eyes laid the bundles of rare furs, white beaver, black sables, white blue and black fox and black panthers. Small beautifully carved tortoise shell boxes containing hat-ticks 10 or 15 yards long, woven from Indian silk as fine as the webs of the spider. Small bags made of golden thread, filled with pearls, the presence of Indian rajas. The precious rings with sapphires and rubies from China and India. Big pieces of jade, rough diamonds, ivory tusks ornamented with gold, pearls and precious stones. Bright clothes sewn with gold and silver thread. Walrus tusks carved in Ba relief by the primitive artists on the shore of the Bering Sea, and much more that one cannot recall or recount. In a separate room stood the cases with the statues of Buddha, made of gold, silver, bronze, ivory, coral, mother of pearl, and from a rare colored and fragrant species of wood. You know when conquerors come into a country where the gods are honored, they break the images and throw them down. So it was more than three hundred years ago when the cow mocks went into Tibet, and the same was repeated in Peking when the European troops looted the place in 1900. But do you know why this is done? Take one of the statues and examine it. I picked up one nearest the edge, a wooden Buddha, and began examining it. Inside something was loose and rattled. Do you hear it? the lama asked. These are precious stones and bits of gold, the entrails of the god. This is the reason why the conquerors at once break up the statues of the gods. Many famous precious stones have appeared from the interior of the statues of the gods in India, Babylon, and China. Some rooms were devoted to the library, were manuscripts and volumes of different epics and different languages, and with many diverse themes fill the shells. Some of them are moldering or pulverizing away, and the lamas cover these now with a solution which partially solidifies, like a jelly, to protect what remains from the ravages of the air. There also we saw tablets of clay with the Kanaeiform inscriptions evidently from Babylonia. Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan books shell beside those of Mongolia, tomes of the ancient pure Buddhism, books of the redcaps or corrupt Buddhism, books of the yellow or Lamaite Buddhism, books of traditions, legends, and parables. Groups of lamas were perusing, studying, and copying these books, preserving and spreading the ancient wisdom for their successors. One department is devoted to the mysterious books on magic, the historical lives and works of all the 31 living Buddhas, with the bowls of the Dalai Lama, of the Pantif from Tashi Lumpo, of the Hutuktu of Utai in China, of the Pandita Gagan of Dolonor in Inner Mongolia, and of the 100 Chinese wise men. Only the Bagdu Hutuktu and Maramba Tarimpocha can enter this room of mysterious lore. The keys to it rest with the seals of the living Buddha, and the ruby ring of Genghis Khan ornamented with the sun of the swastika in the chest in the private study of the Bagdu. The person of his holiness is surrounded by five thousand lamas. They are divided into many ranks, from simple servants to the counselors of God, for which latter the government consists. Among these counselors are all the four Khans of Mongolia, and the five highest princes. Of all the lamas there are three classes of peculiar interest, about which the living Buddha himself told me when I visited him with Dejambolam. The gods sorrowfully mourned over the demoralized and sumptuous life led by the lamas, which decreased rapidly the number of fortune-tellers and clairvoyants among their ranks, saying of it, if the Jahansi and Nirabhanchi monasteries had not preserved their strict regime and rules, Takure would have been left without profits in fortune-tellers. Baranabaganur, Torchiljurdak, and the other holy lamas who had the power of seeing that which is hidden from the sight of the common people, have gone with the blessing of the gods. This class of lamas is a very important one, because every important personage visiting the monasteries at Urga is shown to the Lama Tsuran, or fortune-teller, without the knowledge of the visitor, for the study of his destiny and fate, which are then communicated to the Bagdu Hutaktu, so that with these facts in his possession the Bagdu knows in what way to treat his guest, and what policy to follow towards him. The Tsurans are mostly old men, skinny, exhausted, and severe aesthetics. But I have met some who were young, almost boys. They were the Hubulgan, incarnate gods, the future Hutaktu's and Gagans of the various Mongolian monasteries. The second class is the doctors, or talama. They observe the actions of plants and certain products from animals upon people, preserve Tibetan medicines and cures, and study anatomy very carefully but without making use of vivisection and the scalpel. They are skillful bone-setters, masseurs, and great connoisseurs of hypnotism and animal magnetism. The third class is the highest rank of doctors, consisting chiefly of Tibetans and Kalmukhs, poisoners. They may be said to be doctors of political medicine. They live by themselves, apart from any associates, and are the great silent weapon in the hands of the living Buddha. I was informed that a large portion of them are dumb. I saw one such doctor, the very person who poisoned the Chinese physician sent by the Chinese emperor from Peking to liquidate the living Buddha. A small white old fellow with a deeply wrinkled face, a curl of white hairs on his chin, and with vivacious eyes that were ever shifting inquiringly about him. Whenever he comes to a monastery, the local god ceases to eat and drink in fear of the activities of this Mongolian Lukasta. But even this cannot save the condemned for a poisoned cap or shirt or boots, or a rosary, a bridle, books, or religious articles soaked in a poisonous solution will surely accomplish the object of the Bhagdu Khan. The deepest esteem and religious faithfulness surround the blind Pantiff. Before him all fall on their faces. Kans and Hutakthus approach him on their knees. Everything about him is dark, full of oriental antiquity. The drunken blind man, listening to the banal arias of the gramophone or shaking his servants with an electric current from his dynamo, the ferocious old fellow poisoning his political enemies, the lama keeping his people in darkness and deceiving them with his prophecies and fortune telling, he is, however, not an entirely ordinary man. One day we sat in the room of the Bhagdu and Prince Dejambolan translated to him my story of the Great War. The old fellow was listening very carefully, but suddenly opened his eyes widely and began to give attention to some sounds coming in from outside the room. His face became reverent, supplicant, and frightened. The gods call me! he whispered, and slowly moved into his private shrine, where he prayed loudly about two hours, kneeling immobile as a statue. His prayer consists of conversation with the invisible gods, to whose questions he himself gave the answers. He came out of the shrine pale and exhausted, but pleased and happy. It was his personal prayer. During the regular temple service he did not participate in the prayers, for then he is God. Sitting on his throne he is carried and placed on the altar, and there prayed too by the llamas and the people. He only receives the prayers, hopes, tears, woe, and desperation of the people, immobily gazing into space with his sharp and bright but blind eyes. At various times in the service the llamas robe him in different vestments, combinations of yellow and red, and changes caps. The service always finishes at the solemn moment when the living Buddha, with the tiara on his head, pronounces the pontifical blessing upon the congregation, turning his face to all four cardinal points of the compass, and finally stretching out his hands toward the northwest, that is, to Europe. Wither in the belief of the yellow faith, must travel the teachings of the wise Buddha. After earnest prayers or long temple services the pontif seems very deeply shaken, and often calls his secretaries and dictates his visions and prophecies, always very complicated and unaccompanied by his deductions. Sometimes with the words, Their souls are communicating. He puts on his white robes and goes to pray in his shrine. Then all the gates of the palace are shut, and all the llamas are sunk in solemn, mystic fear. All are praying, telling their rosaries and whispering the orison, Om Manipame Hung, or turning the prayer wheels with their prayers or exercises. The fortune tellers read their horoscopes, the clairvoyance write out their visions, while marambas search the ancient books for explanations of the words of the living Buddha. End of chapter. CHAPTERS 41 AND 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS CHAPTER 41 THE DUST OF CENTURIES CHAPTERS 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS CHAPTERS 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS CHAPTERS 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS CHAPTERS 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS CHAPTERS 42 OF BEASTS, MAN AND GODS Now you must prove the power of your gods. The lama looked long and silently at the emperor, turned engaged at the whole assembly, and then quietly stretched out his hand toward them. At this instant the golden goblet of the emperor raised itself from the table and tipped before the lips of the con without a visible hand supporting it. The emperor felt the delight of a fragrant wine. All were struck with astonishment and the emperor spoke. I elect to pray to your gods and to them all people subject to me must pray. What is your faith? Who are you and from where do you come? My faith is the teaching of the wise Buddha. I am Pandita Lama, Turjo Gamba, from the distant and glorious monastery of Sakya in Tibet, where dwells incarnate in a human body the spirit of Buddha, his wisdom, and his power. Remember, emperor, that the peoples who hold our faith shall possess all the western universe, and during eight hundred and eleven years shall spread their faith throughout the whole world. Thus it happened on this same day, many centuries ago. Lama Turjo Gamba did not return to Tibet, but lived here in Takure, where there was then only a small temple. From here he traveled to the emperor at Karakoram, and afterwards with him to the capital of China to fortify him in the faith, to predict the fate of state affairs, and to enlighten him according to the will of God. The living Buddha was silent for a time, whispered a prayer, and then continued, Urga, the ancient nest of Buddhism, with Genghis Khan on his European conquest went out the Olats or Kalmoks. They remained there almost four hundred years, living on the plains of Russia. Then they returned to Mongolia because the yellow llamas called them to light against the kings of Tibet. Llamas of the Redcaps, who were oppressing the people. The Kalmoks helped the yellow faith, but they realized that Lhasa was too distant from the whole world, and could not spread our faith throughout the earth. Consequently the Kalmak Gushi Khan brought up from Tibet a holy lama, Undur Gagan, who had visited the king of the world. From that day the Baghdur Gagan has continuously lived in Urga, a protector of the freedom of Mongolia and of the Chinese emperors of Mongolian origin. Undur Gagan was the first living Buddha in the lands of the Mongols. He left to us, his successors, the Ring of Genghis Khan, which was sent by Kubla Khan to Dalai Lama in return for the miracle shown by the Lama Turjogamba. Also the top of the skull of a black mysterious miracle worker from India, using which as a bowl, strong son, king of Tibet, drank during the temple ceremonies 1,600 years ago, as well as an ancient stone statue of Buddha brought from Delhi by the founder of the yellow faith, Paspa. The Baghdur clapped his hands and one of the secretaries took from a red kerchief, a big silver key with which he unlocked the chest with the seals. The living Buddha slipped his hand into the chest and drew forth a small box of carved ivory, from which he took out and showed to me a large gold ring set with a magnificent ruby carved with the sign of the swastika. This ring was always worn on the right hand of the Khan's Genghis Senkubla, said the Baghdur. When the secretary had closed the chest, the Baghdur ordered him to summon his favorite Maramba, whom he directed to read some pages from an ancient book lying on the table. The Lama began to read monotonously. When Gushi Khan, the chief of all the Olets or Kalmaks, finished the war with the red caps in Tibet, he carried out with him the miraculous black stone sent to the Dalai Lama by the king of the world. Gushi Khan wanted to create in Western Mongolia the capital of the yellow faith, but the Olets at that time were at war with the Manchu emperors for the throne of China and suffered one defeat after another. The last Khan of the Olets, Amursana, ran away into Russia, but before his escape sent to Urga the sacred black stone. While it remained in Urga, so that the living Buddha could bless the people with it, disease and misfortune never touched the Mongolians and their cattle. About one hundred years ago, however, someone stole the sacred stone, and since then, Buddhists have faintly sought it throughout the whole world. With its disappearance, the Mongol people began gradually to die. Enough, ordered Bagdughegan. Our neighbors hold us in contempt. They forget that we were their sovereigns, but we preserve our holy traditions, and we know that the day of triumph of the Mongolian tribes and the yellow faith will come. We have the protectors of the faith, the buriats. They are the truest guardians of the bequests of Genghis Khan. So spoke the living Buddha, and so have spoken the ancient books. End of chapter. Chapter 42. The Books of Miracles Prince Dejambolan asked a Marama to show us the library of the living Buddha. It is a big room occupied by scores of writers who prepare the works dealing with the miracles of all the living Buddhas, beginning with under-Ghegan, and ending with those of the Ghegans and Hutakthus of the different Mongol monasteries. These books are afterwards distributed through all the Lama monasteries, temples, and schools of Bandi. A Marama read two selections. The batific Bagdo Ghegan breathed on a mirror. Immediately as through a haze there appeared the picture of a valley in which many thousands of thousands of warriors fought one against another. The wise and favored of the gods living Buddha burned incense in a brazier, and prayed to the gods to reveal the lot of the princes. In the blue smoke, all saw a dark prison and the pallid tortured bodies of the dead princes. A special book, already done into thousands of copies, dwelt upon the miracles of the present living Buddha. Prince Dejambolan described to me some of the contents of this volume. There exists an ancient wooden Buddha with open eyes. He was brought here from India, and Bagdo Ghegan placed him on the altar and began to pray. When he returned from the shrine, he ordered the statue of Buddha brought out. All were struck with amazement, for the eyes of the god were shut and tears were falling from them. From the wooden body green sprouts appeared, and the Bagdo said, Woe and joy are awaiting me! I shall become blind, but Mongolia will be free. This prophecy is fulfilled. At another time, on a day when the living Buddha was very much excited, he ordered a basin of water brought and set before the altar. He called the llamas and began to pray. Suddenly the altar candles and the lamps lighted themselves, and the water in the basin became iridescent. Afterwards the prince described to me how the Bagdo Khan retells fortunes with fresh blood, upon whose surface appears words and pictures, with the entrails of sheep and goats, according to whose distribution the Bagdo reads the fate of the princes and knows their thoughts, with stones and bones from which the living Buddha, with great accuracy, reads the lot of all men, and by the stars, in accordance with whose positions the Bagdo prepares amulets against bullets and disease. The former Bagdo Khans told fortunes only by the use of the black stone, said the Maramba, on the surface of the stone appeared Tibetan inscriptions which the Bagdo read, and thus learned the lot of whole nations. When the Marama spoke of the black stone with the Tibetan legends appearing on it, I at once recalled that it was possible. In southeastern Yuryanhai, in Ulaanthaga, I came across a place where black slate was decomposing. All the pieces of this slate were covered with a special white lichen, which formed very complicated designs, reminding me of a Venetian lace pattern, or whole pages of mysterious runes. When the slate was wet, these designs disappeared, and then as they were dried the patterns came out again. Nobody has the right or dares to ask the living Buddha to tell his fortune. He predicts only when he feels the inspiration, or when a special delegate comes to him bearing a request for it from the Dalai Lama or the Tashi Lama. When the Russian Tsar, Alexander I, fell under the influence of Baroness Kuzhudenar and of her extreme mysticism, he dispatched a special envoy to the living Buddha to ask about his destiny. The then Bagdo Khan, quite a young man, told his fortune according to the black stone, and predicted that the white Tsar would finish his life in very painful wanderings unknown to all and everywhere pursued. In Russia today, there exists a popular belief that Alexander I spent the last days of his life as a wanderer throughout Russia and Siberia, under the pseudonym of Fyodor Kuzmich, helping and consoling prisoners, beggars, and other suffering people, often pursued and imprisoned by the police, and finally dying at Tomsk in Siberia, where even until now they have preserved the house where he spent his last days and have kept his grave sacred, a place of pilgrimages and miracles. The former dynasty of Romanov was deeply interested in the biography of Fyodor Kuzmich, and this interest fixed the opinion that Kuzmich was really the Tsar Alexander I, who had voluntarily taken upon himself this severe penance. 43, 44, and 45 of BEASTS, MEN, AND GODS The living Buddha does not die. His soul sometimes passes into that of a child born on the day of his death, and sometimes transfers itself to another being during the life of the Buddha. This new mortal dwelling of the sacred spirit of the Buddha almost always appears in the yurta of some poor Tibetan or Mongol family. There is a reason of policy for this. If the Buddha appears in the family of a rich prince, it could result in the elevation of a family that would not yield obedience to the clergy, and such has happened in the past. While on the other hand, any poor, unknown family that becomes the heritor of the throne of Genghis Khan acquires riches and is readily submissive to the Lamas. Only three or four living Buddhas were of purely Mongolian origin, the remaining were Tibetans. One of the counselors of the living Buddha, Lama Khan Chesakthu, told me the following. In the monasteries at Lahasa and Tashi Lumpo they are kept constantly informed through letters from Urga about the health of the living Buddha. When his human body becomes old and the spirit of Buddha strives to extricate itself, special solemn services begin in the Tibetan temples together with the telling of fortunes by astrology. These rites indicate the specially pious Lamas who must discover where the spirit of the Buddha will be reincarnated. For this purpose they travel throughout the whole land and observe. Often God himself gives them signs and indications. Sometimes the white wolf appears near the yurta of a poor shepherd, or a lamb with two heads is born, or a meteor falls from the sky. Some Lamas take fish from the sacred lake Tangri Nor and read on the scales thereof the name of the new Bhagdu Khan. Others pick out stones whose cracks indicate to them where they must search and whom they must find, while others secrete themselves in narrow mountain ravines to listen to the voices of the spirits of the mountains, pronouncing the name of the new choice of the gods. When he is found all the possible information about his family is secretly collected and presented to the most learned Tashi Lama, having the name of Verdani, the great gem of learning, who according to the ruins of Rama, verifies the selection. If he is in agreement with it, he sends a secret letter to the Dalai Lama, who holds a special sacrifice in the temple of the spirit of the mountains and confirms the election by putting his great seal on this letter of the Tashi Lama. If the old living Buddha be still alive, the name of his successor is kept a deep secret. If the spirit of Buddha has already gone out from the body of Bhagdu Khan, a special legation appears from Tibet with the new living Buddha. The same process accompanies the election of the Gagan and Hutakthus in all the Lamaite monasteries in Mongolia, but confirmation of the election resides with the living Buddha and is only announced to Lahaasa after the event. End of chapter, chapter 44, a page in the history of the present living Buddha. The present Bhagdu Khan of outer Mongolia is a Tibetan. He sprang from a poor family living in the neighborhood of Sakya Kure in western Tibet. From earliest youth he had a stormy, quite unesthetic nature. He was fired with the idea of the independence and glorification of Mongolia and the successors of Genghis Khan. This cave imit wants a great influence among the Lama's princes and Khans of Mongolia and also with the Russian government which always tried to attract him to their side. He did not fear to arraign himself against the Manchu dynasty in China and always had the help of Russia, Tibet, the Buryats and Kyrgyz, furnishing him with money, weapons, warriors, and diplomatic aid. The Chinese emperors avoided open war with the living God because it might arouse the protests of the Chinese Buddhists. At one time they sent to the Bhagdu Khan a skillful doctor-poisoner. The living Buddha, however, at once understood the meaning of this medical attention and, knowing the power of Asiatic poisons, decided to make a journey through the Mongol monasteries and through Tibet. As he is substituted he left a hubul gun who made friends with the Chinese doctor and inquired from him the purposes and details of his arrival. Very soon the Chinese died from some unknown cause and the living Buddha returned to his comfortable capital. On another occasion danger threatened the living God. It was when Lhasa decided that the Bhagdu Khan was carrying out a policy too independent of Tibet. The Dalai Lama began negotiations with several Khans and princes with the sane Noyan Khan and Jisak Du Khan leading the movement and persuaded them to accelerate the immigration of the spirit of Buddha into another human form. They came to Urga where the Bhagdu Khan met them with honors and rejoicings. A great feast was made for them and the conspirators already felt themselves the accomplishers of the orders of the Dalai Lama. However, at the end of the feast they had different feelings and died with them during the night. The living Buddha ordered their bodies sent with full honors to their families. The Bhagdu Khan knows every thought, every movement of the princes and Khans, the slightest conspiracy against himself and the offender is usually kindly invited to Urga from where he does not return alive. The Chinese government decided to terminate the line of the living Buddhas. Ceasing to fight with a pontiff of Urga, the government contrived the following scheme for accomplishing its ends. Peking invited the Pandita Gagan from Dholonor and the head of the Chinese Lamaites, the Hutaktu of Uta, both of whom do not recognize the supremacy of the living Buddha, to come to the capital. They decided, after consulting the old buddhist books, that the present Bhagdu Khan was to be the last living Buddha because that part of the spirit of Buddha which dwells in the Bhagdu Khans can abide only thirty-one times in the human body. Bhagdu Khan is the thirty-first incarnated Buddha from the time of Undur Gagan and with him, therefore, the dynasty of the Urga pontiffs must cease. However, on hearing this the Bhagdu Khan himself did some research work and found in the old Tibetan manuscripts that one of the Tibetan pontiffs was married and his son was a natural incarnated Buddha. So the Bhagdu Khan married and now has a son, a very capable and energetic young man, and thus the religious throne of Genghis Khan will not be left empty. The dynasty of the Chinese emperors disappeared from the stage of political events, but the living Buddha continues to be a center for the Pan-Asianic idea. The new Chinese government in 1920 held the living Buddha under arrest in his palace, but at the beginning of 1921 Baron Ungern crossed the sacred Bhagdu Ol and approached the palace from the rear. Tibetan riders shot the Chinese sentries with bow and arrow, and afterwards the Mongols penetrated into the palace and stole their god, who immediately stirred up all Mongolia and awakened the hopes of the Asiatic peoples and tribes. In the great palace of the Bhagdu a glama showed me a special casket covered with a precious carpet, wherein they keep the bulls of the Dalai and Tashi Lamas, the decrees of the Russian and Chinese emperors, and the treaties between Mongolia, Russia, China, and Tibet. In the same casket is the copper plate, bearing the mysterious sign of the King of the World and the Chronicle of the Last Vision of the Living Buddha. End of Chapter Chapter 45 The Vision of the Living Buddha of May 17, 1921 I prayed and saw that which is hidden from the eyes of the people. A vast plain was spread before me, surrounded by distant mountains. An old lama carried a basket filled with heavy stones. He hardly moved. From the north a rider appeared in white robes and mounted on a white horse. He approached the lama and said to him, Give me your basket, I shall help you to carry them to the curi. The lama handed his heavy burden up to him, but the rider could not raise it to his saddle, so that the old lama had to place it back on his shoulder and continue on his way, bent under its heavy weight. Then from the north came another rider in black robes and on a black horse, who also approached the lama and said, Stupid, why do you carry these stones when they are everywhere about the ground? With these words he pushed the lama over with the breast of his horse and scattered the stones about the ground. When the stones touched the earth they became diamonds. All three rushed to raise them, but not one of them could break them loose from the ground. Then the old lama exclaimed, Oh, gods, all my life I have carried this heavy burden, and now, when there was left so little to go, I have lost it. Help me, great good gods. Suddenly a tottering old man appeared. He collected all the diamonds into the basket without trouble, cleaned the dust from them, raised the burden to his shoulder, and started out, speaking with the lama. Rest awhile, I have just carried my burden to the goal, and I am glad to help you with yours. They went on and were soon out of sight, while the riders began to fight. They fought one whole day and then the whole night, and when the sun rose over the plain, neither was there, either alive or dead, and no trace of either remained. This I saw, Bagdu Hutuktu Khan, speaking with the great and wise Buddha, surrounded by the good and bad demons. Wise lamas, Hutuktu's, Campos, Marambos, and Holy Gagans give the answer to my vision. This was written in my presence on May 17, 1921, from the words of the living Buddha, just as he came out of his private shrine to his study. I do not know what the Hutuktu and Gagans, the fortune-tellers, sorcerers, and clairvoyants replied to him, but does not the answer seem clear if one realizes the present situation in Asia. Awakened Asia is full of enigmas, but it is also full of answers to the questions set by the destiny of mankind. This great continent of mysterious pontiffs, living gods, Mahatmas, and readers of the terrible Book of Karma is awakening, and the ocean of hundreds of millions of human lives is lashed with monstrous waves. Stop! whispered my old Mongol guide, as we were one day crossing the plain near at Sagan Luck. Stop! He slipped from his camel, which lay down without his bidding. The Mongol raised his hands in prayer before his face, and began to repeat the sacred phrase, Om Ma Ni Padme Hung. The other Mongols immediately stopped their camels and began to pray. What has happened? I thought, as I gazed round over the tender green grass, up to the cloudless sky and out toward the dreamy soft rays of the evening sun. The Mongols prayed for some time, whispered among themselves, and, after tightening up the packs on the camels, moved on. Did you see? asked the Mongol. How are camels move their ears in fear? How the herd of horses on the plains stood fixed in attention, and how the herds of sheep and cattle lay crouched close to the ground? Did you notice that the birds did not fly, the marmots did not run, and the dogs did not bark? The air trembled softly, and bore from afar the music of a song which penetrated to the hearts of men, animals, and birds alike. Earth and sky ceased breathing. The wind did not blow, and the sun did not move. At such a moment the wolf that is stealing up on the sheep arrests his stealthy crawl. The frightened herd of antelopes suddenly checks its wild course. The knife of the shepherd cutting the sheep's throat falls from his hand. The rapacious ermine ceases to stalk the unsuspecting salga. All living beings in fear are involuntarily thrown into prayer and waiting for their feet. So it was just now. Thus it has always been, whenever the king of the world in his subterranean palace prays and searches out the destiny of all the peoples on the earth. In this wise the old Mongol, a simple course shepherd and hunter, spoke to me. Mongolia with her nude and terrible mountains, her limitless plains, covered with the widely-streamed bones of the forefathers, gave birth to mystery. Her people, frightened by the stormy passions of nature or lulled by her death-like peace, feel her mystery. Her red and yellow llamas preserve and poetize her mystery. The pontiffs of La Hassa and Urga know and possess her mystery. On my journey into Central Asia I came to know for the first time about the mystery of mysteries, which I can call by no other name. At the outset I did not pay much attention to it, and did not attach to it such importance as I afterwards realized belonged to it when I had analyzed and connoted many sporadic, hazy, and often controversial bits of evidence. The old people on the shore of the River Amul related to me an ancient legend to the effect that a certain Mongolian tribe in their escape from the demands of Genghis Khan hid themselves in a subterranean country. Afterwards a soyaat from near the lake of Nogun Kul showed me the smoking gate that serves as the entrance to the Kingdom of Agarti. Through this gate a hunter formerly entered into the kingdom, and after his return began to relate what he had seen there. The llamas cut out his tongue in order to prevent him from telling about the mystery of mysteries. When he arrived at old age he came back to the entrance of this cave and disappeared into the subterranean kingdom, the memory of which had ornamented and lightened his nomad heart. I received more realistic information about this from Huttaktu Jalip de Jiramsrap in Naraban Shikure. He told me the story of the semi-realistic arrival of the powerful king of the world from the subterranean kingdom, of his appearance, of his miracles, and of his prophecies. And only then did I begin to understand that in that legend, hypnosis, or mass vision, whichever it may be, is hidden not only mystery but a realistic and powerful force capable of influencing the course of the political life of Asia. From that moment I began making some investigations. The favourite Jalong Lama of Prince Chultan Bailey and that Prince himself gave me an account of the subterranean kingdom. Everything in the world, said the Jalong, is constantly in a state of change and transition. People's science, religions, laws, and customs, how many great empires and brilliant cultures have perished, and that alone which remains unchanged is evil, the tool of bad spirits. More than sixty thousand years ago a holy man disappeared with a whole tribe of people under the ground, and never appeared again on the surface of the earth. Many people, however, have since visited this kingdom, Sakhiya Muni, Undurgegan, Paspa, Kanbebar, and others. No one knows where this place is. One says Afghanistan, others India. All the people there are protected against evil and crimes do not exist within its borns. Science has there developed calmly and nothing has threatened with destruction. The subterranean people have reached the highest knowledge. Now it is the large kingdom, millions of men, with the king of the world as their ruler. He knows all the forces of the world and reads all the souls of humankind and the great book of their destiny. Invisibly he rules eight hundred million men on the surface of the earth, and they will accomplish his every order. Prince Chultembele added, This kingdom is agarti. It extends throughout all the subterranean passages of the whole world. I heard an alerted llama of China relating to Bagdu Khan, that all the subterranean caves of America are inhabited by the ancient people who have disappeared underground. Traces of them are still found on the surface of the land. These subterranean peoples and spaces are governed by rulers owing allegiance to the king of the world. In it there is not much of the wonderful. You know that in the two greatest oceans of the east and the west there were formally two continents. They disappeared under the water, but their people went into the subterranean kingdom. In underground caves there exists a peculiar light which affords growth to the grains and vegetables and long life without disease to the people. There are many different peoples and many different tribes. An old Buddhist Brahmin in Nepal was carrying out the will of the gods in making a visit to the ancient kingdom of Genghis, Siam, where he met a fisherman who ordered him to take a place in his boat and sail with him upon the sea. On the third day they reached an island where he met a people having two tongues which could speak separately in different languages. They showed to him peculiar, unfamiliar animals, tortoises with sixteen feet and one eye, huge snakes with a very tasty flesh, and birds with teeth which caught fish for their masters in the sea. These people told him that they had come up out of the subterranean kingdom and described to him certain parts of the underground country. The Lama-Turgot travelling with me from Urga to Peking gave me further details. The capital of Agarti is surrounded with towns of high priests and scientists. It reminds one of Lahasa where the palace of the Dalai Lama, the Potala, is the top of a mountain covered with monasteries and temples. The throne of the king of the world is surrounded by millions of incarnated gods. They are the holy panditas. The palace itself is encircled by the palaces of the Goro, who possess all the visible and invisible forces of the earth, of inferno and of the sky, and who can do everything for the life and death of man. If our mad humankind should begin a war against them, they would be able to explode the whole surface of our planet and transform it into deserts. They can dry up the seas, transform lands into oceans, and scatter the mountains into the sands of the deserts. By his order, trees, grasses, and bushes can be made to grow. Old and feeble men can become young and stalwart, and the dead can be resurrected. In cars strange and unknown to us, they rush through the narrow cleavages inside our planet. Some Indian Brahmins and Tibetan Dalai Lamas, during their laborious struggles to the peaks of mountains which no other human feet had trod, have found their inscriptions carved on the rocks, footprints in the snow, and the tracks of wheels. The blissful Sakya Muni, found on one mountaintop, tablets of stone carrying words which he only understood in his old age, and afterwards penetrated into the kingdom of Agarti, from which he brought back crumbs of the sacred learning preserved in his memory. There, in palaces of wonderful crystal, live the invisible rulers of all pious people, the king of the world, or brahitma, who can speak with God as I speak with you, and his two assistants, mahitma, knowing the purposes of future events, and mahinga, ruling the causes of these events. The holy panditas study the world and all its forces. Sometimes the most learned among them collect together, and send envoys to that place where the human eyes have never penetrated. This is described by the Tashi Lama living 850 years ago. The highest panditas place their hands on their eyes and at the base of the brain of younger ones, and force them into a deep sleep, wash their bodies with an infusion of grass, and make them immune to pain and harder than stones, wrap them in magic cloths, bind them, and then pray to the great God. The petrified youths lie with eyes and ears open and alert, seeing, hearing, and remembering everything. Afterwards a goro approaches and fastens a long steady gaze upon them. Very slowly the bodies lift themselves from the earth and disappear. The goro sits and stares with fixed eyes to the place wither he has sent them. Invisible threads join them to his will. Some of them course among the stars, observe their events, their unknown peoples, their life and their laws. They listen to their talk, read their books, understand their fortunes and woes, their holiness and sins, their piety and evil. Some are mingled with flame and see the creatures of fire, quick and ferocious, eternally fighting, melting and hammering metals in the depths of planets, boiling the water for geysers and springs, melting the rocks and pushing out molten streams over the surface of the earth through the holes in the mountains. Others rush together with the ever elusive, infinitesimally small, transparent creatures of the air, and penetrate into the mysteries of their existence and into the purposes of their life. Others slip into the depths of the seas and observe the kingdom of the wise creatures of the water, who transport and spread genial warmth all over the earth, ruling the winds, waves and storms. In Erdenitsu, formerly lived Pandita Hutaktu, who had come from Agarti. As he was dying, he told about the time when he lived according to the will of the goro on a red star in the east, floated in the ice-covered ocean, and flew among the stormy fires in the depths of the earth. These are the tales which I heard in the Mongolian yurtas of princes and in the Lamaite monasteries. These stories were all related in a solemn tone, which forbade challenge and doubt. Mystery End of chapter Chapter 47 The King of the World Before the Face of God During my stay in Urga I tried to find an explanation of this legend about the king of the world. Of course the living Buddha could tell me most of all, and so I endeavored to get the story from him. In a conversation with him I mentioned the name of the king of the world. The old Pontiff sharply turned his head toward me and fixed upon me his immobile blind eyes. Unwillingly I became silent. Our silence was a long one, and after it the Pontiff continued the conversation in such a way that I understood he did not wish to accept the suggestion of my reference. On the faces of the others present I noticed expressions of astonishment and fear produced by my words, and especially was this true of the custodian of the library of the Bagdu Khan. One can readily understand that all this only made me the more anxious to press the pursuit. As I was leaving the study of the Bagdu Hutuktu I met the librarian who had stepped out ahead of me and asked him if he would show me the library of the living Buddha and used a very simple sly trick with him. Do you know, my dear Lama, I said, once I rode in the plane at the hour when the king of the world spoke with God and I felt the impressive majesty of this moment. To my astonishment the old Lama very quietly answered me, it is not right that the Buddhist and of our yellow faith should conceal it. The acknowledgement of the existence of the most holy and most powerful man, of the blissful kingdom, of the great temple of sacred science, is such a consolation to our sinful hearts and our corrupt lives that to conceal it from humankind is a sin. Well, listen, he continued, throughout the whole year the king of the world guides the work of the Pantitas and Goros of Agarti. Only at times he goes to the temple cave where the embalmed body of his predecessor lies in a black stone coffin. This cave is always dark, but when the king of the world enters it the walls are striped with fire and from the lid of the coffin appear tongues of flame. The eldest Goro stands before him with covered head and face and with hands folded across his chest. This Goro never removes the covering from his face, for his head is a nude skull with living eyes and a tongue that speaks. He is in communion with the souls of all who have gone before. The king of the world prays for a long time and afterwards approaches the coffin and stretches out his hand. The flames thereon burn brighter. The stripes of fire on the walls disappear and revive, interlace, and form mysterious signs from the alphabet Vatanan. From the coffin transparent bands of scarcely noticeable light begin to flow forth. These are the thoughts of his predecessor. Soon the king of the world stands surrounded by an oriole of this light and fiery letters write and write upon the walls the wishes and orders of God. At this moment the king of the world is in contact with the thoughts of all the men who influenced the lot in life of all humankind. With kings, czars, cons, warlike leaders, high priests, scientists, and other strong men, he realizes all their thoughts and plans. If these be pleasing before God, the king of the world will invisibly help them. If they are unpleasant in the sight of God, the king will bring them to destruction. This power is given to Agarti by the mysterious signs of Om, with which we begin all our prayers. Om is the name of an ancient holy man, the first Goro, who lived 330,000 years ago. He was the first man to know God, and who taught humankind to believe, hope, and struggle with evil. Then God gave him power over all forces ruling the visible world. After his conversation with his predecessor, the king of the world assembles the great council of God, judges the actions and thoughts of great men, helps them, or destroys them. Mahitma and Mahinga find the place for these actions and thoughts in the causes ruling the world. Afterwards the king of the world enters the great temple and prays in solitude, fire appears on the altar, gradually spreading to all the altars near, and through the burning flame gradually appears the face of God. The king of the world reverently announces to God the decisions and awards of the council of God, and receives in turn the divine orders of the Almighty. As he comes forth from the temple, the king of the world radiates with divine light, end of chapter. Chapter 48 and 49 of Beasts, Men, and Gods. This leaper-box recording is in the public domain, and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Beasts, Men, and Gods by Ferdinand Asandoski Chapter 48 Reality or Religious Fantasy Has anybody seen the king of the world? I asked. Oh yes! answered the lama. During the solemn holidays of the ancient Buddhism in Siam and India, the king of the world appeared five times. He rode in a splendid car drawn by white elephants, and ornamented with gold, precious stones, and finest fabrics. He was robed in a white mantle and red tiara, with strings of diamonds masking his face. He blessed the people with a golden apple with the figure of a lamb above it. The blind received their sight, the dumb spoke, the deaf heard, the crippled freely moved, and the dead arose, wherever the eyes of the king of the world rested. He also appeared five hundred and forty years ago in Erdanitsu. He was in the ancient Sakai monastery and in the Narabanshi Kure. One of our living Buddhas and one of the Tashi Lamas received a message from him, written with unknown signs on golden tablets. No one could read these signs. The Tashi Lama entered the temple, placed the golden tablet on his head, and began to pray. With this the thoughts of the king of the world penetrated his brain, and without having read the enigmatic signs, he understood and accomplished the message of the king. How many persons have ever been to a garti? I questioned him. Very many, answered the Lama. But all these people have kept secret that which they saw there. When the Olets destroyed Lajasa, one of their detachments in the southwestern mountains penetrated to the outskirts of a garti. Here they learned some of the lesser mysterious sciences and brought them to the surface of our earth. This is why the Olets and Kaomuks are artful sorcerers and prophets. Also from the eastern country some tribes of black people penetrated to a garti and lived there many centuries. Afterwards they were thrust out from the kingdom and returned to the earth, bringing with them the mystery of predictions according to cards, grasses, and the lines of the palm. They are the gypsies. Somewhere in the north of Asia a tribe exists which is now dying, and which came from the cave of a garti, skilled in calling back the spirits of the dead as they float through the air. The Lama was silent, and afterwards, as though answering my thoughts continued. In a garti the learned penditas write on tablets of stone all the science of our planet and of the other worlds. The Chinese-learned Buddhists know this. Their science is the highest impurest. Every century one hundred sages of China collect in a secret place on the shores of the sea, where from its depths come out one hundred eternally living tortoises. On their shells the Chinese write all the developments of the divine science of the century. As I write I am involuntarily reminded of a tale of an old Chinese bonds in the Temple of Heaven at Peking. He told me that tortoises live more than three thousand years without food and air, and that this is the reason why all the columns of the Blue Temple of Heaven were set on live tortoises to preserve the wood from decay. Several times the Pontiffs of La Hassa and Urga have sent envoys to the king of the world, said the Lama librarian, but they could not find him. Only a certain Tibetan leader after a battle with the Olets found the cave with the inscription, This is the gate to Agarti. From the cave a fine appearing man came forth, presented him with a gold tablet bearing the mysterious signs, and said, The king of the world will appear before all people when the time shall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the world against all the bad. But this time has not yet come. The most evil among mankind have not yet been born. Chiang Chun Baron Ungern sent the young prince Punsig to seek out the king of the world. But he returned with a letter from the Dalai Lama from La Hassa. When the Baron sent him a second time, he did not come back. End of chapter. Chapter 49, the final chapter. The Prophecy of the King of the World in 1890. The Hutuktu of Naribachi related the following to me when I visited him in his monastery in the beginning of 1921. When the king of the world appeared before the Lamas, favored of God, in this monastery 30 years ago he made a prophecy for the coming half century. It was as follows. More and more the people will forget their souls and care about their bodies. The greatest sin and corruption will reign on the earth. People will become as ferocious animals, thirsting for the blood and death of their brothers. The crescent will grow dim, and its followers will descend into beggary and ceaseless war. Its conquerors will be stricken by the sun, but will not progress upward, and twice they will be visited with the heaviest misfortune, which will end in insult before the eye of the other peoples. The crowns of kings great and small will fall. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. There will be a terrible battle among all the peoples. The seas will become red. The earth and the bottom of the seas will be strewn with bones. Kingdoms will be scattered. Whole peoples will die. Hunger, disease, crimes unknown to the law, never before seen in the world. The enemies of God and of the divine spirit in man will come. Those who take the hand of another shall also perish. The forgotten in pursuit shall rise, and hold the attention of the whole world. There will be fogs and storms. Bare mountains shall suddenly be covered with forests. Earthquakes will come. Millions will change the fetters of slavery and humiliation for hunger, disease, and death. The ancient roads will be covered with crowds wandering from one place to another. The greatest and most beautiful cities shall perish in fire. One, two, three. Father shall rise against son, brother against brother, and mother against daughter. Vice, crime, and the destruction of body and soul shall follow. Families shall be scattered. Truth and love shall disappear. From ten thousand men one shall remain. He shall be nude and mad, and without force, and the knowledge to build him a house and find his food. He will howl as the raging wolf, devour dead bodies, bite his own flesh, and challenge God to fight. All the earth will be emptied. God will turn away from it, and over it there will be only night and death. Then I shall send a people, now unknown, which shall tear out the weeds of madness and vice with a strong hand, and will lead those who still remain faithful to the spirit of man in the fight against evil. They will found a new life on the earth purified by the death of nations. In the fiftieth year only three great kingdoms will appear, which will exist happily seventy-one years. Afterwards there will be eighteen years of war and destruction. Then the peoples of Agarti will come up from their subterranean caverns to the surface of the earth. Afterwards, as I traveled farther through eastern Mongolia and to Peking, I often thought, and what if, what if whole peoples of different colors, faiths, and tribes should begin their migration toward the West? And now as I write these final lines, my eyes involuntarily turn to this limitless heart of Asia over which the trails of my wanderings twine. Through whirling snow and driving clouds of sand of the Gobi, they travel back to the face of the Narabanchi Hutaktu as, with quiet voice and a slender hand pointing to the horizon, he opened to me the doors of his innermost thoughts. Near Karakom, and on the shores of Ubsenor, I see the huge multicolored camps, the herds of horses and cattle, and the blue yurtas of the leaders. Above them I see the old banners of Genghis Khan, of the kings of Tibet, Siam, Afghanistan, and of Indian princes, the sacred signs of all the Lamaite pontiffs, the coats of arms of the Khans of the Olats, and the simple signs of the North Mongolian tribes. I do not hear the noise of the animated crowd. The singers do not sing the mournful songs of mountain, plain, and desert. The young writers are not delighting themselves with the races on their fleet-steeds. There are innumerable crowds of old men, women, and children, and beyond in the North and West, as far as the eye can reach. The sky is red as a flame. There is the roar and crackling of fire, and the ferocious sound of battle. Who is leading these warriors, who there beneath the reddened sky are shedding their own and others' blood? Who is leading these crowds of unarmed old men and women? I see severe order, deep religious understanding of purposes, patience and tenacity, a new great migration of peoples, the last march of the Mongols. Karma may have opened a new page of history, and what if the king of the world be with them? But this greatest mystery of mysteries keeps its own deep silence.