LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 3075, 5 November 1929, Page 6

LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA.

LAND OF MYSTERIES.

MOUNTAIN OF FIVE TREASURES,

After an absence of four years and a-half, in which he has had more extraordinary experiences and endured more hardships than generally fall to te lot of ordinary mortals, Dr. Nicholas Roerich, Russo-American mystic painter, has returned to the United States. Armed with a store of anecdotes which surpass the imagination of the most fanciful, tempered by adventures from which he escaped by sheer good fortune, laden with observations concerning the customs and beliefs of the inhabitants of Centrrl Asia, accompanied by a trunkful cf paintings from his own brush, the veteran of many travels has materk:i enough to fill several books. Dr. Roerich has been travelling in India, China, and Tibet, finding material for his paintings. Accompanied by his wife and son, George, a noted Orientalist, he journeyed through Kashmir, the Himalaya Mountains, Mongolia, and across Tibet, wnore they were taken prisoner by bandits and kept as captives for five months at an altitude of 15,000 feet. At one time it was thought that the party was lost for ever. An escape was affected, however, and now the quietmannered explorer has returned to tell his tale. "In Asia you find the cult of the Mother of the World," he recounted in a room of the museum erected in his honour. It was in the manner of a scholar and collector of folk lore rather than within the attitude of an explorer tha t he commenced. Against the wall stood one of the paintings from his brush. Blue and white, it was a panorama of mountains and valleys as interpreted by the imagination of the spectator from the West. MOTHER OF THE WORLD CULT. "That is Mount Kinchinjunga, the mountain of five treasures," he explained. "It is in the Himalayas, and is a very sacred mountain. The natives believe that there is a universal world hunger, and that some day someone from that mountain will nourish everybody. Of course, they mean spiritual hunger that needs spiritual food." With his snowy white beard, keen blue eyes, and ruddy complexion, he resembled a kindly sage of a bygone era, rather than an exponent of modern theories in the realms of art and science. "The inhabitants of that region think in terms of beautiful symbols and fairy tales which have a deeper meaning," he continued. "One of the most interesting belief that I observed is the cult of the Mother of the World. Since ancient times these people have thought that the future was for the woman rather than for man. The old teachings of the Vedas tell tha,t the next culture will be of the spirit, and consequently one of women, as they better represent spiritual energy. Mount Everest is the Mountain of the Mother World. When some Westerners tried to ascend it. a Llama said that we must be a strange people to try to do such a thing with our physical bodies when it is possible to do that with our spiritual bodies." The artist tells of polyandry, which is still found among the people of Lladak, Tibet, and parts of China. "A woman may have three or four husbands," he related, "but she manages them with an expert hand. Only one is at home at a time. She sends the others to meet caravans and transact business and trade while she keeps one with her, and thus there is no dissension. Divorce is rare among these people. The woman is the spiritual centre of the home. THE BELIEF IN SHAMBALA. "There is slavery in Chinese Turkestan," he said. "I was surprised that it still existed. A merchant came to me and offered to sell me some servants. 'lt is cheaper,' he insisted, 'since you have them for all your life.' He asked 25 rupees for one good adult, and six rupees for a child. All I had to do was to buy a shirt each as clothing for them. Needless to say, I didn't accept the bargain. "The most significant thing I found in Central Asia was the belief is Shambala. They think that in the 1940'5, in about 10 years, >we shall know how to master psychic energy, and through that we shall know how to master fiery and cosmic energy. This theory is parallel to some that the most advanced scientists in the West have put forth. Einstein's theory of evolution and Milikin's ideas are not so far distant. It is merely evolution in an extended form. If humanity knows how to manage the cosmic energy everything will be transformed. It is a belief in the future. And so, with these thoughts of their own, they are told of the new theories of the scientists of the West. All seems supremely natural to them. There are many energies and many rays which it would be useful for humanity to know how to use. ( All this comes from the most ancient i

times from over 2000 years ago, and has always been taught by the llamas. The women in Tibet are naturally not unattractive, but they are disfigured by their rouge, a paste made from blood, with which they paint their cheeks. An honest woman must not attract a man, and consequently they are careful to make themselves very ugly."