Alexandra David-Néel was a woman with the “wind beneath her feet”. She was a Buddhist, Orientalist and writer born in France and dedicated her whole life to studying Asian culture and religion, and sharing it with the Western world. In fact, most of her books focus on practices within Tibetan Buddhism. As a Western woman, her dangerous travel to Lhasa, Tibet, which at the time was closed to foreigners, created worldwide renown for her. Here is a short overview of her life and travels.
Background and Childhood
Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David, later known as Alexandra David-Néel, was born on October 24, 1868, in St. Mandé, close to Paris, as the only child of Louis David and Alexandrine Borghmans.
Her father Louis David, born in 1815, was a teacher by profession but became a journalist to express his political ideas. He was 53 years old at the time of Alexandra’s birth. By religion he was Protestant, but rebelled against the government. He had to leave France during the coup d’état of Napoleon III in 1851 and was sent into exile to Belgium. It was there that he began giving French language lessons to the sons of a Flemish major in Louvain, which was where he met his future wife.
Her mother, native to Brussels, had mixed Dutch, Norwegian and Siberian ancestry. She was the adopted daughter of the Flemish major and was a devoted Catholic. She was 36 years old at the time of Alexandra’s birth, but strongly hoped to give birth to a boy who would become a high priest. Extremely disappointed by the birth of a daughter, she did not show much love and affection to her. Her parents give her the nickname “Nini” which is the short version of Eugénie. Her father, passionate about politics, instructed his daughter on the governmental repression at that time.
At that time, Paris was undergoing political upheaval, which ended with 30,000 victims, the last of which were shot dead at the Père Lachaise cemetery. Wanting his daughter to know about the atrocities of humankind, he brought the 2 ½ year old Alexandra to the Père Lachaise cemetery (Alexandra David-Néel shares about this experience in a letter dated December 19, 1913).
In 1873, the family moved back to Ixelles in Belgium, a suburb of Brussels, where the young Alexandra preferred to flee to the imaginary realms of books. It was then that Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David adopted the pen name of “Alexandra” even though very young in age. She first used the name Alexandra Myrial, which she used during her singing period.
Dolls and dresses bored her and she would ask for books of faraway places during her birthdays. She ran away to Switzerland, crossing the Alps. Her mother brought her back from Italy but it was difficult to punish Alexandra. She was not bothered with hardship and she even hated being comfortable. Before the age of 15, she had already experienced, in secret, several austerities such as fasting and physical torture. She was inspired by different biographies of ascetic saints and slept on a bed of wooden planks. At the age of 15, she began to study music and singing privately.
In 1889, Alexandra received the first prize in “French theatre chanting” after studying for three years at the Music Conservatory in Brussels. It is was her only diploma. During that period in history there were only two choices a woman could make: marriage or joining a convent. Alexandra however chose a third option, liberty. This was a brave choice as women had to fight to be allowed higher education, or were forced into becoming wives and mothers or maidservants.
With the help of her father, Alexandra continued her education in what mattered to her – Orientalism. Attracted by exotic stories of adventure, Alexandra longed and planned to visit India. With the financial help of her parents she left for the United Kingdom in 1889, to improve her knowledge of the English language and to satisfy her unquenchable curiosity for mysteries surrounding all things and beings. She stayed in London at the Supreme Gnosis club for a few months, studying many philosophical and religious works concerning India and China in the Supreme Gnosis club’s library and the library of the British Museum, and she met members of the Theosophical Society. Through her study of oriental translations Alexandra discovered that learning Sanskrit, the classical Indian language of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism allowed her a deeper understanding.
At 21, she left for Paris, staying in a guestroom at the Theosophical Society for three years. She used her time following classes on various civilizations and oriental languages at the Collège de France, the Sorbonne and at the École des Hautes Études, but she never passed any of the exams. She also spent time at the Guimet museum and joined occult meetings.
In the 1890s, Alexandra decided to visit some of the temples in the region of Ceylon to discover Buddhism. She visited Madura (the sacred Brahmin city), Adyar (to visit the Theosophical Society) and Benares, where she was shocked to find a starving population.
Alexandra was also shocked at the extent of the animal sacrifices performed by the Hindu population, especially during the feast of Durga during which millions of buffaloes were sacrificed. She was even more shocked that even humans were victims of certain rites, especially women who were not spared by some sections of society, as some were condemned alive to join their late husbands on the funeral pyre.
Her first goal was to gain a better understanding of the three branches of Hinduism:
She read a lot, bought texts, learnt and met Swami Bashkaraanda, an old ascetic who lived naked in a rose garden. He accepted her as a student, and gave her some philosophical knowledge and classes in Sanskrit. During each of her stays in Benares, she went to meet him in his rose garden. As for Buddhism, Alexandra was at that time more interested in the Theravada traditions rather than the Mahayana or Vajrayana traditions of Tibet and Mongolia.
Back in Europe, due to bad investments, the family now earned less, and Alexandra had to earn her own keep. In 1893, at the age of 25, she began singing on stage in Belgium and later in Paris. In 1895, Alexandra was hired as the lead singer in operas in Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam. During this time, she took the opportunity to visit the Indochinese Peninsula and South China to learn about local Buddhist practice. In 1900, she was hired by the Municipal Opera of Tunis, Tunisia, where she met her husband, Philippe Néel.
Alexandra was passionate about exploring from a young age. At the age of four or five, she ventured out on her own to explore the woods of Vincennes, an eastern suburb of Paris, but was later brought back home by the police. In 1887, at the age of 17, she ventured out to hike the Saint Gotthard Mountains, but was found by her mother who brought her home.
Through her work as singer, but also her interest in writing articles on the political situation, she followed her passion and visited countries in Europe (Spain, Italy, United Kingdom and Greece), in North Africa, and in Asia (India and Indochina).
In India, in the 1890s, she was especially attracted to the character of Annie Besant, who became a disciple of Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. Annie Besant was a leading figure and eventually became president of the Theosophical Society after the founder’s death in 1891. Alexandra formally joined the Society the following year, staying with Besant in London, followed by a lengthy stay at the Theosophical compound near Adyar, India in 1893. After returning from her first trip to the East, she continued to ask advice from Besant.
On August 9, 1911 Alexandra left her hometown Tunis in the direction of Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka). Alexandra only returned after having visited Lhasa in Tibet in 1925. On her journey, she would visit cities in India first. In early 1912, Alexandra found herself in the little kingdom of Sikkim where she met her future spiritual teacher for the first time, the Gomchen of Lachen, who made a big impression on her. It was not until many years later that he would accept her as a student.
In December of 1912, Alexandra visited Nepal where she was received by the Maharaja in the Valley of Kathmandu. At that time, Alexandra favored Hinduism as opposed to Buddhism. It was in Nepal where she explored Brahminism, as the precursor to contemporary Hinduism. She liked to learn and explore the ideas of people’s rather than buildings and monuments.
After visiting Lumbini and Kapilavastu in Nepal (where Buddha was born and raised), she made her way to Benares in India and to her friends in Sikkim, where she was allowed to meet His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama. In Sikkim, Alexandra stayed in a cave near her teacher’s cave at about 4000m above sea level. She would remain in Sikkim until 1916.
Over the years, Alexandra tried many times to reach Lhasa, Tibet but was always discovered by the authorities and stopped. She was finally successful in her attempts in 1924 where she remained until her return to France in May 1925.
In 1937, Alexandra left France again, this time heading towards China. She would only return home in June 1946.
Tibet during Alexandra’s time was a forbidden land. No foreigner was allowed to enter Tibet and even the population of the country and those bordering it were forced to refer all foreigners to the authorities, who would stop them from entering Tibet and reaching Lhasa, its capital.
The first time Alexandra entered Tibet was in the summer of 1916, when she was successful in reaching Shigatse. Travelling via Sikkim, she would come to meet the Tashi Lama (also known as the 9th Panchen Lama Lobsang Gelek Namgyal) during this trip. The Panchen Lama invited her to stay in Tashilhunpo Monastery but she declined as she had left all her luggage behind in Calcutta. Alexandra returned to Sikkim after a few days.
In the succeeding years, Alexandra would make many attempts to reach Lhasa but was sent back time and time again. In this way her successful attempt to reach Lhasa in 1924 was an enormous achievement on the part of Alexandra and her adopted son Lama Aphur Yongden, whom she had met in Sikkim and had first taken on as an assistant. Lama Aphur Yongden was a young monk from the Karma Kagyu order, who came to consider Alexandra as his guru over time.
Alexandra’s multiple attempts to enter Tibet and reach Lhasa helped her to gain a lot of experience, including the enormous hardship in trying to overcome Himalayan Mountains, distances of hundreds of kilometers of difficult terrain, wars and bandits, financial difficulties, difficult hygienic conditions, climates with drastic changes in weather, harsh winters and rainy seasons, sunstroke and precarious rope bridges.
She became an expert in disguising herself as a native; only the equipment they carried exposed them as something other than pilgrims. On their last and successful trip to enter Tibet, they left behind their Western equipment and didn’t even take a camera. Alexandra only took a few compasses, and a number of rough map drafts to find her way. She chose a path through previously unexplored territory but was well-prepared.
Eventually forced to leave her horse and much of her luggage behind, and dreading that they would be caught, they eventually entered Tibet via the sacred mountain of Kha Kharpo. There, among some bushes she found an old hat worn by women, which turned out to be a lucky turn of events, as she wore it while being questioned by an officer shortly afterwards. Alexandra asked him for donations for her supposed pilgrimage in Tibetan, and showed him her tongue as was the Tibetan custom. Alexandra played her role well, pretending to be a mother accompanying her ordained son, Lama Aphur Yongden.
It was during this trip that she gained valuable information regarding Tibetan culture that was unknown of outside Tibet. However, her stay in Lhasa did not remain undiscovered. The chief of the police from Darjeeling, who knew her from her stay in Sikkim recognized her. Known for his strict adherence to the law, he would have reported her to the Tibetan authorities if not for holding Alexandra in high esteem, knowing full well her sincere interest in Tibetan Buddhism.
Later in her journey, having become seriously malnourished and suffering from influenza, Alexandra and Lama Aphur Yongden decided to visit the three great monastic institutions of Gaden, Sera and Drepung. Of all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Alexandra was especially interested in the Gelug tradition. In fact Alexandra had already met His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama in Kalimpong in 1912.
Alexandra recognized him from his portrait: a slightly stooped figure with wide open, riveting eyes, slightly evasive, a waxed mustache, and enormous ears (a sign of wisdom), wearing a peaked yellow cap and maroon robes. She pressed her palms together before the heart in salutation. Someone slipped a white silk scarf into her hands and she presented it but forgot the proper words. He wasn’t very tall and, a trifle unwillingly, the rebel bowed her head, whereupon the Dalai Lama reached out to bless her.
As the two conversed, the Thirteenth wondered aloud how the Frenchwoman, alone in her faith in a foreign land, could have become a practicing Buddhist without a master. To himself he must have questioned whether she was a Buddhist at all. The Christian missionaries, fond of disguises, would go to any lengths to convert his people. But David-Neel’s knowledge ran deep, and she soon satisfied him on that score, even made him smile. She tried to ignore the officious chamberlain who continued to interrupt. However, she had to admit that those Europeans interested in Buddhism were generally of the older, Theravadin school.
– The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel: A Biography of the Explorer of Tibet and its Forbidden Practices
On their return, the two pilgrims paid visits to the monasteries of Samye, founded by Padmasambhava and Santarakshita, followed by Mindroling in Tsetang and the monastery of Dorje Phagmo at Samding. Alexandra wanted to see as many places as she could, since she believed these she would never return again. In June 1924, Alexandra returned to India.
Alexandra had received many Buddhist practices from masters in Sikkim and Tibet. These she details in her book Magic and Mystery in Tibet.
One of her masters was the Gomchen of Lachen, Nga-Ouang Rinchen (the abbot of the monastery of Lachen). She met him for the first time in May 1912 but it was not until years later that he accepted her as his student.
On death meditation she notes:
Starting with the idea that ‘method,’ the ‘savoir-faire,’ is of an essential importance, the Lamaists think that after having learned the art of living well one must learn the art of dying well and of “doing well” in other worlds.
Initiates acquainted with mystic lore, are supposed to know what awaits them when they die, and contemplative lamas have foreseen and experienced, in this life, the sensations that accompany death. They will, therefore, neither be surprised nor troubled when their present personality disintegrates.
She also learnt the tantric practice of tummo, or inner heat, from her teacher Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche. This practice she describes in some detail, including conditions one should practice and the actual method of practice. It is said that the yogi-saint Milarepa used this practice when he was surrounded by snow without sufficient provisions and a proper shelter, to keep himself warm. She narrates that practitioners even had competitions during which a wet cloth would be placed on a student’s shoulder and he was supposed to dry one cloth after another till the break of day, through the practice of tummo.
Gomchen Rinpoche gave her the name Yeshe Tome, meaning ‘Lamp of Wisdom‘. This proved very useful as she became known by this name to Buddhist authorities throughout Asia:
He had never been to Lhasa nor to Shigatze, nor travelled anywhere in Tibet and knew nothing of the world outside his cave. His master had lived there for more than thirty years, and when he died the present hermit had walled himself in.
Alexandra had a fondness for Buddhist debates, which she enjoyed due to their philosophical nature:
Both junior and senior students of philosophy hold discussions at regular dates. Often the latter take place in the open, and in all large lamaseries a shady garden, surrounded by walls, is reserved for that purpose.
Ritualistic gestures accompany the controversies and are a lively part of it. There are peculiar ways of turning one’s rosary around one’s arm, clapping one’s hands and stamping when putting a question: there are other prescribed ways of jumping when giving an answer or replying to one interrogation by another.
Later in her book she describes in detail a member of the Lung Gompa, who had developed the extraordinary ability to travel great distances at speed, through tantric means:
By that time he had nearly reached us; I could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space. The man did not run. He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball and rebounded each tine his feet touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a pendulum. He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged. His left hand gripped a fold of the toga and was half hidden under the cloth. The right held a phurba. His right arm moved slightly at each step as if leaning on a stick, just as though the phurba, whose pointed extremity was far above the ground, had touched it and were actually a support.
While a tantric practitioner herself, she was well aware of the difficulties practitioners faced, and even mentions this in her description of tantra:
As for the method which mystics call the ‘Short Path,’ the ‘Direct Path,’ it is considered as most hazardous. It is – according to the masters who teach it – as if instead of following the road which goes round a mountain ascending gradually towards its summit, one attempted to reach it in straight line, climbing perpendicular rocks and crossing chasms on a rope. Only first rate equilibrists, exceptional athletes, completely free from giddiness, can hope to succeed in such a task. Even the fittest may fear sudden exhaustion or dizziness. And there inevitably follows a dreadful fall in which the too presumptuous alpinist breaks his bones.
Books by Alexandra David- Néel
- Pour la vie. 1898
- Le Philosophe Meh-ti et l’idée de solidarité. 1907
- Les Théories individualistes dans la philosophie chinoise. 1909
- Le Modernisme bouddhiste et le Bouddhisme du Bouddha. 1911
- Souvenirs d’une Parisienne au Thibet. 1925
- Voyage d’une Parisienne à Lhassa, à pied et en mendiant de la Chine à l’Inde à travers le Tibet. 1927
- Mystiques et magiciens du Thibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet). 1929
- Initiations lamaïques. Des theories – des pratiques – des homes. 1930
- La Vie surhumaine de Guésar de Ling le héros thibétain, racontée par les bardes de son pays. (avec la collaboration du lama Yongden). 1931
- Au pays des brigands gentils-hommes. Grand Tibet. 1933
- Le Lama aux cinq sagesses – Romain tibétain. 1935 (par lama Yongden et A. David-Néel)
- Le Bouddhisme – Ses doctrines et ses méthodes. 1936
- Magie d’amour et magie noire. Scènes du Tibet inconnu. 1938
- Sous des nuées d’orage. 1940
- A l’ouest barbare de la vaste Chine. 1947
- Au Coeur des Himalayas. Le Népal. 1949
- L’Inde. Hier – Aujourd’hui – Demain. 1951
- Astavakra Gîtâ. Discours sur le Vedânta advaïta (traduit du sanscrit). 1951
- Les Enseignements secrets des bouddhistes tibétains. La vue pénétrante. 1951
- Textes tibétains inédits. 1952
- Le Vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelles. 1953
- La Puissance du néant (par lama Yongden). 1954
- La Connaissance transcendants d’après le texte et les commentaires tibétains. 1958
- Avadhuta Gîtâ de Dattatraya. Poème mystique Vedânta advaïta. 1958
- Le Bouddhisme du Bouddha, ses doctrines, ses methods et ses développements mahâyânistes et tantriques au Tibet. 1960
- Immortalité et reincarnation. Doctrines et pratiques. Chine-Tibet-Inde 1961
- Quarante siècles d’expansion chinoise. 1964
- L’Inde où j’ai vécu. Avant et après l’Indépendance. 1969
Published after her death by Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet:
- En Chine – L’amour universel et l’individualisme integral – Les Maîtres Mo-Tsé et Yong-Tchou. 1970
- Le sortilege du mystère – Faits étranges et gens bizarres rencontrés au long de mes routes d’Orient et d’Occident. 1972
- Journal de voyage – Lettres à son mari (11 august 1904-27 – 27 december 1917)
- Vivre au Tibet – cuisine, Traditions et Images. 1975
- Journal de voyage – Lettres à son mari (14 janvier 1918 – 3 December 1940). 1976
- La lampe the sagesse (Thoughts and maxims of Alexandra David-Néel found in her notebooks and her correspondence). 1986
Aged 78, Alexandra David-Néel returned to France to arrange the estate of her late husband, and began writing from her home in Digne, where she worked tirelessly. It was on October 7, 1955, Lama Aphur Yongden passed away, leaving Alexandra alone. His ashes were kept safe in the Tibetan oratory of Samten Dzong, awaiting scattering in the Ganges river, together with those of Alexandra after her death.
As she aged, she suffered from articular rheumatism and the discomfort of the increasing paralysis in her legs and deformation of the hands. In April 1957, she left Samten Dzong in order to live in Monaco with a friend who had been typing her manuscripts. She decided then to live alone in a hotel, moving from one place to the next, till June 1959, when she was introduced to a young woman, Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet, her new personal secretary.
Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet would stay with Alexandra until the end, watching over her like a daughter over her mother. Alexandra David-Neel even nicknamed her ‘Turtle’.
Alexandra David-Néel passed away on September 8, 1969, almost 101 years old. In 1973, Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet took her ashes to Varanasi to be scattered with those of her beloved adopted son, Lama Aphur Yongden, into the Ganges.
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