The research journey of early 1990 began in Vermont with a visit to Chittenden, where Blavatsky met both Olcott and Dr. Peebles in 1874 at the Eddy Brothers seances. It ended in France visiting research facilities in Paris and Aix-en-Provence. But Indian travel took 3/4 of my time and had the greatest value for historical discoveries. So for this series of blog posts I am excerpting only the sections on Bombay, Delhi, Jammu, Adyar, and Pondicherry. KPJ
The first two days in Bombay were devoted to sightseeing in the company of three Westerners who arrived the same night as I. We constantly encountered the same con game by which Blavatsky and Olcott were caught upon their arrival. Indians give you something which you haven’t asked for (such as carrying bags across the street) and then demand payment, just as happened to the T.S. Founders in 1879 with Hurrychund Chintamon. But even though Ross, Alfred, Virginia and I had to fight our way through scores of persistent beggars and crooks, our first taste of India was delightful. We arrived on Holi, a festival day in which colored water and powder is sprayed and thrown on anyone who shares the holiday spirit. This symbolizes tarnishing the old and beginning the new, and represents the arrival of spring. Once we were all thoroughly dowsed with water and powder, every Indian we met responded to the sight with friendly smiles, and indeed it was as if we had become honorary Indians. The feeling of being swept up in Indianness, rather than standing outside looking in, persisted throughout the trip. The immediate acceptance which Blavatsky and Olcott found in many parts of India became more understandable once I tasted the Indian readiness to absorb foreigners. After seeing the Hanging Gardens and Towers of Silence, the Jain Temple, Chowpatty Beach, several museums and the Elephanta Caves, I was ready to begin my research.
The Asiatic Society Library impressed me as the most beautiful building in Bombay– from the outside. The interior, however, was dusty and ill-maintained. Pigeons fiew around the rafters, and in the work areas books were piled on floors in disarray. Later I read that a renovation campaign was being launched to restore the early 19th century building to its original grandeur. The uniqueness of the collection certainly merits the effort.
The first relevant source I discovered was Swami Dayananda Sarasvati: A Study of His Life and Work by Krishnan Singh Arya and P.D. Shastri. This 1987 publication includes a revealing letter from Olcott to Dayananda, dated February 1878. Written in New York, it expresses the state of mind in which the T.S. President approached the Arya Samaj leader:
I had arrived in India filled with perplexity about Olcott’s understanding of the Masters upon his arrival 111 years before. This passage recalled one very important fact, which is that Swami Dayanand had been described by HPB to Olcott as an initiate of her Masters. That the Swami later referred to M. and K.H. as nonexistent suggests that in one case or the other HPB deceived Olcott about her Masters’ identities.
A second visit to the Asiatic Society Library led to a discovery far more intriguing than the previous day’s find. I had looked through all the entrie’s on the T.S. and the Arya Samaj, and was doubting that there was more to find, when an Indian engaged me in conversation at the card catalog. Upon learning of my quest, he suggested that I examine Emma Coulomb’s pamphlet Some Account of my Intercourse_with Madame Blavatsky. This was entered under Psychic Phenomena rather than Theosophy, so without the help of my fellow researcher I would have missed it– which would have been a great shame in light of what it contained.
In the first hundred pages of the pamphlet, only a few nuggets of information related to my hypotheses or characters. In her preface, Coulomb comments that although she states the truth, and only the truth, “‘I do not state the whole truth, nor shall I do this, unless I am provoked to it. Madame Blavatsky alone will know what I keep back…” This may refer to political secrets, for part of the reason the Coulombs were expelled from the Adyar Headquarters of the T.S. was “‘that Madame Coulomb repeatedly said to members of the T.S., as well as to outsiders, that the T.S. had for its object the overthrow of the British rule in India. “‘
In the same letter to Emma cited in chapter 2 regarding the Maharaja of Holkar and the Phoenix venture, HPB also made a mysterious reference to a man in Poona. Mme. Coulomb omits the name, although it was given in the letter. HPB writes of a businessman she visited in Poona where he lived with his wife and children. He told her that she looked “younger by ten years, younger than he had seen me in America…”‘ No further researches succeeded in uncovering this man’s identity, but he may explain various elusive references to Indian visitors during HPB’s New York years.
By far the most significant find in the pamphlet was a letter from HPB to Alexis Coulomb, written in Paris on April 1, 1884. This was just after Blavatsky had been warned of the Coulombs’ threats in Adyar, to which she responded “‘If you compromise me before Lane-Fox, Hartmann and the others– ah well, I shall never return to Adyar, but will remain here or in London where I will prove by phenomena more marvellous still that they are true and that our Mahatmas exist, for there is one here at Paris and there will be also in London.“‘(Italicized in the original.)
This letter is not among those whose authenticity is d’isputed, for Coulomb immediately showed it to several Theosophists including Hartmann. It admits nothing which would support the Coulombs’ later charges against her, and indeed asserts the reality of the phenomena and the Masters. What makes it such a crucial bit of evidence from the perspective of the present inquiry is that it was written IN THE MIDDLE OF JAMAL-AD-DIN’S STAY IN PARIS AND FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THAKAR SINGH’S ARRIVAL IN LONDON. There was a short period of time in which such a letter could have been written if referring to these two hypothetical Mahatmas; it was written exactly then.