QUEST OF WISDOM

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22337, 26 February 1938, Page 20

QUEST OF WISDOM

THE STORY OF THREE

JOURNEYS

In Search of the Mahatmas o libelBy Edwin G. Senary. Seeley, &er vfce and Co. Ltd. 312 pp. (15s net.)

The author of this extraordinary book, "born on the eastern slope of Russian Hill on the outskirts of the Italian colony in San Francisco felt from his earliest years tfte longing "to see what, lay beyond the Farallones." He made his first attempt to reach the horizon when he was 12 The time came when some youthful study of Buddhist teaching turned this longing in a strange and particular direction: he determined to find in India a Mahatma whose disciple he could become, and at the age of 18 he set out Even before he could reach India so scanty were his resources that ne had no little difficulty to overcome; and in India itself he lived by all sorts of shifts and hard expedients as he made his way to Kashmir, the jumping-off place for the journey into Tibet, which had become his object. He failed to pass the frontier and returned to San Francisco. On a second attempt he succeeded; and at this point the book rises to its full height and remains there through the long narrative, almost incredible yet completely convincing, of his solitary journey on foot, and often barefoot, over hundreds of miles of the most formidably difficult, and inhospitable country m the world. He was in no way equipped for his venture: not in material resources or in knowledge—not in any way but in spirit and resolution. These had beea raised by a dream he- had in Malaya—of a finger that traced his way for him across the map, through Kashmir to Tibet, and to a ravine in the wall of which was a cave, and in the cave his Mahatma awaiting him. He found the cave of his dream, indeed; but its emptiness mocked him. This was the end of his second search, but for the last and desperate effort which carried him to Gyantse, north of Darjeeling. Mr Schary was not yet defeated; he made a third journey from America to Kashmir, tried again to cross the Tibetan frontier, but was caught and deported from India.

All this occurred years ago. If any corroboration were needed, it is supplied in forewords by the Rev. Canon C. E. Tyndale-Briscoe, of Srinagar, and by Mr David Macdonald, formerly British Trade Agent at Gyantse. But such testimony is not really required. Phrase by phrase, Mr Schary's story declares that it is no invention but the unembroidered recollection of things that passed. There is little to learn, after all, about the Mahatmas and the wisdom of his quest; but the adventure was tremendous. A map makes the journeys easier to follow. The illustrations have been supplied mainly by the writers of the forewords.