TER XLVIII

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
Erdeni Dzu, he was in the ancient Sakkai Monastery and in the Narabanchi
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
enigmatical signs, he understood and accomplished the message of the
King."

"How many persons have ever been to Agharti?" I questioned him.

"Very many," answered the Lama, "but all these people have kept secret
that which they saw there. When the Olets destroyed Lhasa, one of their
detachments in the southwestern mountains penetrated to the outskirts
of Agharti. Here they learned some of the lesser mysterious sciences
and brought them to the surface of our earth. This is why the Olets
and Kalmucks are artful sorcerers and prophets. Also from the eastern
country some tribes of black people penetrated to Agharti 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 Agharti, 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 Agharti the learned Panditas write on tablets of stone all the
science of our planet and of the other worlds. The Chinese learned
Buddhists know this. Their scien