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Kordashevsky, an eccentric Lithuanian aristocrat of Polish descent from Lithuania whom the Roeriches had similarly groomed as part of their future Asian venture, suddenly fell in love as well. Surely the devil’s forces were at work here, putting obstacles before the forces of light. Kordashevsky, a former White oi cer who had fought the Reds in Siberia, was a die-hard romantic and spiritual seeker. He loved monarchy and, like Baron Ungern, toyed for a while at er the collapse of the Whites, with the idea of moving to Tibet to serve the last true monarch—the Dalai Lama. But he changed his mind and returned to Europe. At er a brief and disappointing experience with the celebrity occult teacher Gurdjief , who exhausted the oi cer-aristocrat with his rigorous physical training, Kordashevsky wandered over Europe seeking new spiritual experiences. While in Paris in 1923, he stumbled upon Nicholas Roerich, who mesmerized him with his Asian plans. Soon, Kordashevsky was introduced into the painter’s inner circle by receiving a ring and the esoteric name Chakhembula.

Bored to death on his Lithuanian estate, the colonel craved action and was ready to depart for Tibet right away. Helena and Nicholas had to restrain him. Waiting for orders from his new guru in New York, Kordashevsky was killing time by reading h eosophical books and Nordic legends, and composing a novel about Joan of Arc when he suddenly fell in love with a local high-school teacher, a soul mate fascinated with the mysteries of ancient Egypt. h is development presented a new challenge for the Roeriches, and it took another batch of letters to convince the romantic colonel to drop the girl. How could Kordashevsky af ord such childish nonsense, Nicholas Roerich chastised him, when soon he was to saddle a horse, draw his sword, and ride into the heart of Asia? Kordashevsky followed the advice of his guru and forced himself to drop the girl.

Although the Roeriches were contemplating building an Inner Asian theocracy based on reformed Tibetan Buddhism and Agni Yoga, they had not settled on an exact itinerary of their activities. A tentative plan was to enter the area as an embassy of Western Buddhists, then 174

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somehow to contact the Panchen Lama and bring him to Tibet. At er that they hoped to play by circumstances, going farther northward to Mongolia and Russia, stirring up en route Shambhala and other local prophecies. To i nalize their plans, the family decided to make a reconnaissance trip to Sikkim, a small Indian principality in northern India conveniently located on the southern border of Tibet.

h e Roeriches did not simply buy tickets and casually depart to India. Since theirs was a historical mission sponsored by the otherworldly forces of the Great White Brotherhood, they needed an occult blessing, at least in the eyes of their friends and associates. On the way to Sikkim, the couple stopped in Paris to secure identii cation documents.

h e Roeriches still held Russian passports issued before the Bolshevik revolution, and they did not want to draw too much attention to themselves in India by using passports of a nonexistent state. France aided the White Russian émigrés, providing them with necessary papers.

h e occult blessing arrived, as Nicholas and Helena explained to their adepts, on the morning of October 6, 1923, when someone knocked on the door of their room at Lord Byron Hotel. George Roerich opened the door. h e visitor introduced himself as a clerk from the Paris Bankers Trust, handed him a mysterious package, and immediately departed.

When Helena, George, and Nicholas opened the package, they found a small box inside decorated with silhouettes of a man, woman, king-i sher, and four gothic letters engraved “M” on the edges. However, the real surprise was inside the box—a black shiny aerolite. h e next day telegrams l ew to all associates of the Roeriches in various countries: lo and behold, the Great White Brotherhood had entrusted the Roeriches with the sacred Chintamani stone. h is magic jewel, which possessed incredible power, was to be carried on their Asian expedition and delivered to the Shambhala kingdom.

In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani stone is known as a wish-granting gem. Ferocious deities, protectors of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, were frequently portrayed on sacred scrolls holding this stone. On these scrolls the Chintamani is depicted as either an ordinary jewel or 175

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a stone engulfed in l ames—this theological link to the Roeriches’ Agni Yoga might have been why they were attracted to this sacred item. h e Roeriches described the Chintamani as a powerful occult weapon that would help their Asian mission. Now they could act not only as prophets who could fuli ll wishes by using the wish-granting gem, but also as protectors of the Buddhist faith: “h e stone draws people like a magnet. Entire nations can rise up if one lit s the stone An enemy can be destroyed if you say his name three times looking at the stone. Only people who are pure in their spirit and thought can look at it.” 24 It is highly probable that George Roerich, a professional student of Tibetan Buddhism who was shrewd in intricacies of this tradition, fed the Chintamani legend to his parents, who layered on it their own personal mythology and then manufactured the entire story about the mysterious git .

h e couple’s fantasy moved further. h

e Roeriches wrote to their

friends that the Chintamani was not only about Asian tradition: the magic gem was also known to the ancient Druids and to European Meistersingers as Lapis exilis. h e stone delivered to the Roeriches was wrapped in a piece of old fabric; on it was an image of the sun with mysterious Latin letters inside the sun circle: I.H.S., which might be rendered as In hoc signo [vinces] (by this sign [you will win]). h e same Latin abbreviation was inscribed on the banner of Constantine the Great, the famous Roman emperor who i rst legalized Christianity. Weaving Buddhist and European mythology together, the Roeriches said that the Chintamani magically disappeared and then reappeared at crucial historical moments to be handed to the righteous ones who would guide humankind to a better future. Of course, the righteous ones were the painter and his wife.

Armed with the power of the sacred stone, George, Helena, and Nicholas, the three Shambhala warriors, reached Bombay on December 2, 1923. By railroad, the family quickly traveled to northern India, where they stopped in the town of Darjeeling (a corrupted version of dorje lingam [hard penis]), 25 the capital of Sikkim. Here, in the town famous for the tea that grows in the area, the Roeriches established their 176

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temporary base. For their residency they picked not just any house, but a small summer cottage called the Palace of Dalai, on the southern slopes of the Himalayas; the place was once used by the thirteenth Dalai Lama when he had to l ee from the Chinese in 1910. h e painter and his wife feasted their eyes on the picturesque site surrounded by mighty cedar trees. From their windows they could enjoy a divine view of the Himalayan ridges and valleys. 26 Somewhere north of these mountain ranges lay mysterious Shambhala and its prophecies, waiting to be stirred and awakened.

h e reconnaissance trip to Darjeeling turned out to be very stimulating. Nicholas spent his time not only painting awesome Himalayan landscapes and contemplating the coming Shambhala war, but also rubbing shoulders with visiting Tibetan Buddhist monks. A group of them from the Moru monastery visited the painter in April 1924; stunningly, they recognized him as the reincarnation of the great i t h Dalai Lama by the moles on his right cheek, which formed the shape of Ursa Figure 7.2. Nicholas Roerich with visiting Buddhist monks, who recognized him as a reincarnation of the i t h Dalai Lama, Darjeeling, India, 1924. Standing, right to let : George Roerich, Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, Nicholas Roerich, Helena Roerich

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Major, thereby coni rming what Master Morya had already revealed to the couple. But Nicholas had not simply sat waiting to be discovered as the reincarnation. Rather he had actively worked for this by donning lama vestments when entertaining his native and nonnative visitors. By all his demeanor and talk, Roerich emanated high dignity and spiritual wisdom. h e strategy worked.

Figure 7.3 Nicholas Roerich, wearing his Dalai Lama robe.

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Yet, not everything was going well for him. British intelligence noted the strange Russian and put him under close watch. h e painter sensed

this attention and diplomatically never bragged about that miraculous recognition or his historical mission in Asia. Instead, he let other people do the talking. It was here in the “hard” tea town of Darjeeling that Roerich i rst heard about the Panchen Lama’s l ight from Tibet—news that prompted the painter to speed up his Great Plan. h e escape of the spiritual leader of Tibet was a sure occult sign that the Shambhala war was coming. h e prophecy was hot, and he needed to move quickly to unleash its energy in order to bring about the new age.

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Every century the Arhats make an ef ort to enlighten the world. But until now, not one of these ef orts has been successful. Failure has followed failure. It is said that until the day when a lama will be born in a western body and appear as a spiritual conqueror for the destruction of the century-old ignorance, until then there will be little success in dissolving the snares of the West.

—Nicholas Roerich, Altai-Himalaya

Eight

Shambhala Warrior in a Western Body:Nicholas Roerich’s Asian Ventures

In the spring of 1924, the Reds, previously viewed as nothing more than the servants of Satan, suddenly turned into allies. Nicholas and Helena Roerich realized that the success of their plan to build their Sacred Union of the East needed backing by one of the great powers in the area. Red Russia was their choice: what if they linked their project to the Bolsheviks’ attempts to stir national liberation in the East?

Besides, Nicholas did not like the British anyway because they had been trying to disrupt his attempts to enter Tibet. h eir teacher Morya

blessed this political turnaround: “Now business needs to be done with the Bolsheviks.” 1

Soon, the master unveiled the following political itinerary for the couple: “A trip to Moscow, where the one who will come from the East will be received with honors. From there, he will travel to Mongolia. In the middle of 1926, you can be in Mongolia in the center of the Orient, since, from now on, this country is the center.” At er receiving these revelations, Helena noted in her diary, “Now everything has changed.

Lenin is with us.” 2

Inspired by this new turn of events, Nicholas Roerich did not stay in India for long. Leaving his wife in Darjeeling, he and George rushed to Europe, where they showed up at the gates of the Soviet embassy in Berlin and were welcomed by Nikolai Krestinsky, Bolshevik ambassador to Germany. Roerich began by explaining that he was planning 181

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an expedition to Inner Asia to paint local landscapes and do some archeological digs. Since the envisioned route would go through southern Siberia and Mongolia, the painter needed Soviet diplomatic and logistic backup. In exchange, Roerich volunteered to promote the Bolshevik cause and to gather intelligence information on British activities in the area. Like his idealistic comrades, Krestinsky lived in expectation of the world Communist revolution—the Marxist second coming. Well aware of this revolutionary prophecy, Roerich readily massaged the diplomat’s Bolshevik ego. In Tibet and in the caves of the Himalayas, the painter coni ded, hundreds of thousands of Hindu mahatmas and Buddhist lamas looked with hope to Red Russia. All these people, Roerich continued, circulated militant prophecies and preached the triumph of communism, for it matched the ancient teachings of Buddha, who had advocated equality and communal living. h ese Oriental folk hated the British and were eager to join the Bolshevik cause.

Roerich also played on the Bolsheviks’ anti-England paranoia, ex-aggerating British activities in Tibet: “h e occupation of Tibet by the English continues uninterrupted. English troops ini ltrate the area by small groups, using all kinds of excuses.” 3 In reality, there was no English occupation of Tibet or of any other area north of the Himalayas.

In fact, the thirteenth Dalai Lama skillfully played one great power of another and did not allow anyone to make inroads into his theocracy.

h e cost-saving British never actually planned to take over the Forbidden Kingdom, even during their 1904 invasion of Tibet. h eir goal was to open up the country for trade and keep it as a territorial cushion between India and Russia/China.

Haunted by the specter of the British threat and lacking reliable information about Inner Asia, Bolshevik diplomats were susceptible to Roerich’s bluf . In fact, before the painter visited the Soviet embassy in Berlin, Georgy Chicherin, Bolshevik Commissar for Foreign Af airs, was already convinced that Tibet was almost a colony of England. Satisi ed with the talk, Krestinsky promised to support Roerich and immediately sent a report to Chicherin, knowing that his Anglophobe boss would 182

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be pleased. Before the two parted, they agreed that Roerich would send intelligence briefs and sign them using the alias Ak-Dorje, which means

“White Hard Arrow” or “White Hard Lightning” in Tibetan. Chicherin became excited and wrote back to Berlin, stressing that through Roerich Red Russia could get a foothold in Tibet: “Dear comrade, please do not lose from sight that half-Buddhist and half-Communist you wrote me about earlier. So far we have not had such a good bridge to these important centers. Under no circumstances should we lose such an opportunity. How we are going to use this opportunity, however, will require very serious consideration and preparation.” 4