Quoted By:
Western Ideas about Agarttha 3
most peoples. From another point of view, however, it is
difficult to see why, if Ossendowski did copy parts of the Mission
de I'lnde, he should deliberately omit certain passages or
change the spelling of words, such as writing Agharti' instead
of Agarttha'. However, this is easily explained if he was basing
his information on a Mongolian source and not on Saint-Yves's
Hindu sources (it is known that the latter had been in contact
with at least two Hindus). 5 Likewise, he would hardly name
the head of the Initiation Hierarchy 'Lord of the World' when
that title does not appear anywhere in Saint-Yves's work. And
even if a certain amount of plagiarism were to be admitted,
the fact remains that Ossendowski puts forward various
original ideas which definitely are not to be found in the
Mission de I'lnde and which he certainly would not have been
able to invent in their entirety. Added to which, he was far
more preoccupied with politics than with the pursuit of ideas
or doctrines, and so ignorant of anything which touched upon
the esoteric, that he was manifestly incapable himself of
seizing their true import. For example, he tells the story of the
'Black Stone' that had originally been sent by the 'Lord of the
World' to the Dalai Lama and subsequently taken to Urga in
Mongolia, where it disappeared approximately one hundred
years ago. 6 In fact, 'black stones' play an important role in
many traditions - from the one which is the symbol of Cybele
to the one which is enshrined in the Kaaba at Mecca. 7 Here
