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 Beasts, Men and Gods -
an exploration of mystic Mongolia
BY
Ferdinand Ossendowski
Published 1921
Includes Ossendowski biography and period
photographs
The Russian, Dr.
Ossendowski, was a man of long and diverse experience as a scientist and
writer whose training for careful observation helps put the stamp of
accuracy and reliability on his accounts. He is best known for his book,
Beast, Men and Gods, a book of mystery and intrigue,
a story of travel through mysterious lands on the cusp of revolutionary
change. A must read book, which will make you think and wonder at the power
of prophecy.
Characterized as "The Robinson Crusoe of the Twentieth Century," he touched
the feature of the narrative which is at once most attractive and most
dangerous; for the succession of trying and thrilling experiences recorded
seems in places too highly colored to be real or,
sometimes, even possible in this day and generation. I desire, therefore, to
assure the reader at the outset that Dr. Ossendowski is a man of long and
diverse experience as a scientist and writer with a training for careful
observation which should put the stamp of accuracy and reliability on his
chronicle. Only the extraordinary events of these extraordinary times could
have thrown one with so many talents back into the surroundings of the "Cave
Man" and thus given to us this unusual account of personal adventure, of
great human mysteries and of the political and religious motives which are
energizing the "Heart of Asia."
Questions will be raised when reading
Ferdinand Ossendowski's thrilling account in his Men, Beast and Gods of an
escape through Central Asia, during which he foils enemies and encounters
shamans and Mongolian lamas, whose marvels he describes. The book caused a
great sensation, especially the closing chapters, where Ossendowski recounts
legends allegedly
entrusted to him concerning the 'King of the World' and his subterranean
kingdom Agarttha. The Buddhist notion of Agharta, is a mystical underground
world extant since the dawn of prehistory.
According to Buddhist tradition the underground Kingdom of Agharta, is
reputed to be a place of great peace and tranquillity whose inhabitants,
numbering many millions, have attained a high degree of scientific
accomplishment. It is also a world of astonishing beauty, with inner suns,
underground lakes, and palaces made from purest crystal. Crops are irrigated
by special waters and the powerful rays of the Great Light, reputed to be a
secret machine revealed by gods, thousands of years earlier.
Presiding over this subterranean Kingdom, is an all powerful ruler - The
King of The World, as his name is translated. It is further claimed his rule
and influence stretches to the surface world by means of trusted emissaries
who carry out specific tasks and duties. Eight million surface dwellers are
said to be directly influenced by this ministry whose purpose is intended to
elevate Mankind to a higher state of spiritual awareness!
Ferdinand Ossendowski described a journey to
Central Asia where he came to hear what he called the “Mystery of
mysteries!” Local people gave accounts of a certain tribe put to flight by
Genghis Khan. Somehow they were able to escape massacre by taking refuge in
a subterranean kingdom. Ossendowski claims to have been shown the entrance
to this world which was through a vast smoking gate beyond which he was
forbidden to venture.
In a meeting with the Gelong Lama the author gives the following quote:
“All the people there (Agharta) are protected against Evil and crimes do not
exist within its bournes. Science has developed calmly and nothing is
threatened with destruction. The subterranean people have reached the
highest knowledge. Now it is the largest kingdom, and millions of men with
the King of the World as their ruler. He knows all the forces of the world
and reads all the souls of humankind and the great book of their destiny.
Invisibly he rules eight million men on the surface of the Earth and they
will accomplish his every order!”
Ossendowski closes off his book with the
prophecy of the King of the World in which in short, it is stated
materialism will devastate the earth, terrible battles will engulf the
nations of the world, and at the climax of the bloodshed in 2029, the people
of Agharta will rise out of their cavern world.
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER I
Into the Forests
CHAPTER II
The Secret of my Fellow Traveler
CHAPTER III
The Struggle for Life
CHAPTER IV
A Fisherman
CHAPTER V
A Dangerous Neighbor
CHAPTER VI
A River in Travail
CHAPTER VII
Through Soviet Siberia
CHAPTER VIII
Three Days on the Edge of a Precipice
CHAPTER IX
To the Sayans and Safety
CHAPTER X
The Battle on the Seybi
CHAPTER XI
The Barrier of Red Partisans
CHAPTER XII
In the Country of Eternal Peace
CHAPTER XIII
Mysteries, Miracles and a New Fight
CHAPTER XIV
The River of the Devil
CHAPTER XV
The March of Ghosts
CHAPTER XVI
In Mysterious Tibet
PART II
CHAPTER XVII
Mysterious Mongolia
CHAPTER XVIII
The Mysterious Lama Avenger
CHAPTER XIX
Wild Chahars
CHAPTER XX
The Demon of Jagisstai
CHAPTER XXI
The Nest of Death
CHAPTER XXII
Among the Murderers
CHAPTER XXIII
On a Volcano
CHAPTER XXIV
A Bloody Chastisement
CHAPTER XXV
Harassing Days
CHAPTER XXVI
The Band of White Hunghutzes
CHAPTER XXVII
Mystery in a Small Temple
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Breath of Death
PART III
CHAPTER XXIX
On the Road of Great Conquerors
CHAPTER XXX
Arrested!
CHAPTER XXXI
Traveling by "Urga"
CHAPTER XXXII
An Old Fortune Teller
CHAPTER XXXIII
"Death from the White Man Will Stand Behind You"
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Horror of War!
CHAPTER XXXV
In the City of Living Gods, of 30,000 Buddhas and 60,000 Monks
CHAPTER XXXVI
A Son of Crusaders and Privateers
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Camp of Martyrs
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Before the Face of Buddha
CHAPTER XXXIX
"The Man with a Head Like a Saddle"
PART IV
CHAPTER XL
In the Blissful Garden of a Thousand Joys
CHAPTER XLI
The Dust of Centuries
CHAPTER XLII
The Books of Miracles
CHAPTER XLIII
The Birth of the Living Buddha
CHAPTER XLIV
A Page in the History of the Present Living Buddha
CHAPTER XLV
The Vision of the Living Buddha of May 17, 1921
PART V
CHAPTER XLVI
The Subterranean Kingdom
CHAPTER XLVII
The King of the World Before the Face of God
CHAPTER XLVIII
Reality Or Religious Fantasy?
CHAPTER XLIX
The Prophecy of the King of the World in 1890
---o---
An extraordinary adventure in extraordinary
times...a book not to be missed......a short extract from the text...
"One morning, when I had gone out to see a
friend, I suddenly received the news that twenty Red soldiers had surrounded
my house to arrest me and that I must escape. I quickly put on one of
my friend's old hunting suits, took some money and hurried away on foot
along the back ways of the town till I struck the open road, where I engaged
a peasant, who in four hours had driven me twenty miles from the town and
set me down in the midst of a deeply forested region. On the way I bought a
rifle, three hundred cartridges, an ax, a knife, a sheepskin overcoat, tea,
salt, dry bread and a kettle. I penetrated into the heart of the wood to an
abandoned
half-burned hut. From this day I became a genuine trapper but I never
dreamed that I should follow this role as long as I did. The next
morning I went hunting and had the good fortune to kill two heathcock. I
found deer tracks in plenty and felt sure that I should not want for food.
However, my sojourn in this place was not for long. Five days later when I
returned from hunting
I noticed smoke curling up out of the chimney of my hut. I stealthily crept
along closer to the cabin and discovered two saddled horses with soldiers'
rifles slung to the saddles. Two disarmed men were not dangerous for me with
a weapon, so I quickly rushed across the open and entered the hut. From the
bench two soldiers started up in fright. They were Bolsheviki. On their big
Astrakhan caps I made out the red stars of Bolshevism and on their blouses
the dirty red bands.
We greeted each other and sat down. The
soldiers had already prepared tea and so we drank this ever welcome hot
beverage and chatted, suspiciously eyeing one another the while. To disarm
this suspicion on their part, I told them that I was a hunter from a distant
place and was living there because I found it good country for sables. They
announced to me that they were
soldiers of a detachment sent from a town into the woods to pursue all
suspicious people.
"Do you understand, 'Comrade,'" said one of
them to me, "we are looking for counter-revolutionists to shoot them?"
I knew it without his explanations. All my
forces were directed to assuring them by my conduct that I was a simple
peasant hunter and that I had nothing in common with the
counter-revolutionists. I was thinking also all the time of where I should
go after the departure of my unwelcome guests. It grew dark. In the darkness
their faces were even less attractive. They took out bottles of vodka and
drank and the alcohol began to act very noticeably. They talked loudly and
constantly interrupted each other, boasting how many bourgeoisie they had
killed in Krasnoyarsk and how many Cossacks they had slid under the ice in
the river. Afterwards they began to quarrel but soon they were tired and
prepared to sleep. All of a sudden and without any warning the door of the
hut swung wide open and the steam of the heated room rolled out in a great
cloud, out of which seemed to rise like a genie, as the steam settled, the
figure of a tall, gaunt peasant impressively crowned with the high Astrakhan
cap and wrapped in the great sheepskin overcoat that added to the
massiveness of his figure. He stood with his rifle ready to fire. Under his
girdle lay the sharp ax without which the Siberian peasant cannot exist.
Eyes, quick and glimmering like those of a wild beast, fixed themselves
alternately on each of us. In a moment he took off his cap, made the sign of
the cross on his breast and asked of us: "Who is the master here?"
I answered him.
"May I stop the night?"
"Yes," I replied, "places enough for all.
Take a cup of tea. It is still hot."
The stranger, running his eyes constantly
over all of us and over everything about the room, began to take off his
skin coat after putting his rifle in the corner. He was dressed in an old
leather blouse with trousers of the same material tucked in high felt boots.
His face was quite young, fine and tinged with something akin to mockery.
His white, sharp teeth glimmered as his eyes penetrated everything they
rested upon. I noticed the locks of grey in his shaggy head. Lines of
bitterness circled his mouth. They showed his life had been very stormy and
full of danger. He took a seat beside his rifle and laid his ax on the floor
below.
"What? Is it your wife?" asked one of the
drunken soldiers, pointing to the ax.
The tall peasant looked calmly at him from
the quiet eyes under their heavy brows and as calmly answered:
"One meets a different folk these days and
with an ax it is much safer."
He began to drink tea very greedily, while
his eyes looked at me many times with sharp inquiry in them and ran often
round the whole cabin in search of the answer to his doubts. Very slowly and
with a guarded drawl he answered all the questions of the soldiers between
gulps of the hot tea, then he turned his glass upside down as evidence of
having finished, placed on the top of it the small lump of sugar left and
remarked to the soldiers:
"I am going out to look after my horse and
will unsaddle your horses for you also."
"All right," exclaimed the half-sleeping
young soldier, "bring in our rifles as well."
The soldiers were lying on the benches and
thus left for us only the floor. The stranger soon came back, brought the
rifles and set them in the dark corner. He dropped the saddle pads on the
floor, sat down on them and began to take off his boots. The soldiers and my
guest soon were snoring but I did not sleep for thinking of what next to do.
Finally as dawn was breaking, I dozed off only to awake in the broad
daylight and find my stranger gone. I went outside the hut and discovered
him saddling a fine bay stallion.
"Are you going away?" I asked.
"Yes, but I want to go together with these ——
comrades,'" he whispered, "and afterwards I shall come back."
I did not ask him anything further and told
him only that I would wait for him. He took off the bags that had been
hanging on his saddle, put them away out of sight in the burned corner of
the cabin, looked over the stirrups and bridle and, as he finished saddling,
smiled and said:
"I am ready. I'm going to awake my
'comrades.'" Half an hour after the morning drink of tea, my three guests
took their leave. I remained out of doors and was engaged in splitting wood
for my stove. Suddenly, from a distance, rifle shots rang through the woods,
first one, then a second. Afterwards all was still. From the place near the
shots a frightened covey of blackcock broke and came over me. At the top of
a high pine a jay cried out. I listened for a long time to see if anyone was
approaching my hut but everything was still.
On the lower Yenisei it grows dark very
early. I built a fire in my stove and began to cook my soup, constantly
listening for every noise that came from beyond the cabin walls. Certainly I
understood at all times very clearly that death was ever beside me and might
claim me by means of either man, beast, cold, accident or disease. I knew
that nobody was near me to assist and that all my help was in the hands of
God, in the power of my hands and feet, in the accuracy of my aim and in my
presence of mind. However, I listened in vain. I did not notice the return
of my stranger. Like yesterday he appeared all at once on the threshold.
Through the steam I made out his laughing eyes and his fine face. He stepped
into the hut and dropped with a good deal of noise three rifles into the
corner.
"Two horses, two rifles, two saddles, two
boxes of dry bread, half a brick of tea, a small bag of salt, fifty
cartridges, two overcoats, two pairs of boots," laughingly he counted out.
"In truth today I had a very successful hunt."
In astonishment I looked at him.
"What are you surprised at?" he laughed. "Komu
nujny eti tovarischi? Who's got any use for these fellows? Let us have tea
and go to sleep. Tomorrow I will guide you to another safer place and then
go on."
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