Exopolitics Journal
3:4 (June, 2011). ISSN 1938-1719
www.exopoliticsjournal.com
Come Carpentier de Gourdon,
“
Indian Cosmology Revisited in the Light of Current Facts
”
278
The French esoteric philosopher Saint Yves d’Alveydre in his various books, particularly in his
Mission de l’Inde en Europe, written in 1886 under the inspiration of certain Hindu spiritual
teachers, claimed to have visited Agartha in his astral body ten years earlier and to have been
initiated to his sacred language, called Vatan. He describes it as the nerve-centre and main sanctuary
of Paradesa: “the highest land” in Samskrt, (the name from which paradise is derived, according to
him). He hints that this realm is partly subterranean, beneath the Himalayas and at least partly
hidden in another dimension, which makes it invisible and inaccessible to most people who are not
invited into it. Saint Yves gives several other details on this mysterious empire whose population he
evaluates at about twenty million. He adds that it is surrounded by various tributary kingdoms, ruled
by their respective Rajas and that this confederacy numbers forty million people in all. The ruling
hierarchy consists, in ascending order of yogis, pandits, bhagwandases (who are 360) and above
them, of twelve world gurus, headed by the supreme triumvirate of the Brihatma (depository of the
spiritual authority), the Mahatma (entrusted with juridical power) and the Mahanga who is the
executive enforcer.
Saint Yves who was socially prominent and enjoyed great respect in esoteric circles, was so
confident of the knowledge he had gained about Agartha that he wrote letters to the Pope, Queen-
Empress Victoria and Tzar Alexander III of Russia to offer his introduction to the governors of that
hidden kingdom in order to allow the Mahatma and his court to come out in the open and make
available the stupendous treasury of knowledge accumulated in the great underground libraries kept
by the scholars of Agartha all over the planet. He wrote that all the records of times past since the
dawn of the ages and scientific knowledge immeasurably more advanced than that of his
contemporaries, was available in those archives, compiled in the last fifty five thousand years since
the days of Manu. He cited the 18th century Swedish mystical theologian and polymath Emmanuel
Swedenborg, who had described seeing through his extrasensorial faculties the annals of forgotten
human history from the origins, buried deep beneath the steppes of Central Asia.
The tradition recorded by Saint Yves influenced a number of later esoteric researchers, such as
Rene Guenon and Ferdinand Ossendowski as well as Nicholas Roerich. All wrote about or sought
the abode of the “king of the world” somewhere between the Himalayas and Mongolia. D’Alveydre
Exopolitics Journal
3:4 (June, 2011). ISSN 1938-1719
www.exopoliticsjournal.com
Come Carpentier de Gourdon,
“
Indian Cosmology Revisited in the Light of Current Facts
”
279
indicates that the denizens and rulers of Paradesa are human, though they exist at a very advanced
stage of evolution which lends them the attributes of divinity; but he notes that in the course of their
investigations of the universe, both beneath the earth surface and into “the highest heavens”, the
Agarthans have discovered various intelligent species, some of which are similar to humans while
others seem to be hybrids of men and various types of animals. He further says that they use
“dirigibles” (zeppelins) to explore the sky and the regions above but that could be an allusion to
spacecraft of a type unknown to him who, in his age, could only understand the principle of
aerostats since the principle of “heavier than air” aircraft was regarded as unrealistic by most.
Also linked to the lore of Agartha are the legends of the underground sacred cities of Shonshe and
Shangwa in Eastern Turkestan, refuges of the ancient celestial
Uyghur race which is believed to
have left the visible world after a great cataclysm many thousands of years ago. In the Mahabharata
the abode of the Devas is given as Uttara Kurus, North of Tibet and of the kingdom of the
gandharvas (generally equated with modern Afghanistan and Central Asia). It may be the Samskrt
version of Homer’s Hyperborea.
Heavenly Vehicles
As we have seen, some of the fantastic creatures alluded to in the
previous chapter, whether fully “divine” or at least half-human are
said to fly in heavenly chariots and to hold extraordinarily powerful
weapons as well having the ability to carry out many magical
actions, such as changing shapes, increasing their sizes to colossal
proportions or inversely, shrinking to the scale of a gnat or an atom
and so on. Such abilities are however also accessible to the greatest
yogis so that there is no clear separation between humans and other
living beings.
The weapons of the immortals, which are gifts of the gods or acquired through a combination of
technical knowledge and extraordinary penance and mental concentration (
tapas) have practically
infinite capabilities, as demonstrated through many Puranas as well as in the course of the great
epics. The Agneyastra produces a very intense fire which cannot be put out and sears everything to