Belgian opera singer and mystic Alexandra David-Neel was first western woman to go to Lhasa

THE French-Belgian woman dressed as a Tibetan pilgrim might not have passed close inspection, but Alexandra David-Neel was able to sneak her way into Lhasa to become the first western woman to visit the holy city.

Lama Aphur Yongden (left) with Alexandra David Neel and an unidentified young pilgrim outside Lhasa in 1924.

THE woman dressed as an “arjopa”, a Tibetan pilgrim, wouldn’t have stood up to too much scrutiny. Alexandra David-Neel was French-Belgian and even a cursory look at her face, darkened as it was with soot, would have quickly given away that she was not from Asia.

But by obscuring her features with a fur-lined hood and holding her head down, she was able to mingle inconspicuously with other pilgrims to make her way into the holy city of Lhasa, off limits to westerners.

The year was 1924, and although not the first westerner to make it into the city, she was the first woman to do so. She was no spy, nor was she even a curious outsider. The 56-year old had been a Buddhist since she was 21 and had met the Dalai Lama in India in 1912, although she didn’t reveal herself to him on this trip for fear that her subterfuge would see her ignominiously expelled from the country.

David-Neel was genuinely interested in seeing one of Buddhism’s holiest places. But when somebody noticed that she spent too much time washing herself they twigged to the fact that she was a Mig Kar, a westerner, and went to tell the governor of Lhasa, Tsarong Shape. But by the time Shape dispatched men to look for her, she and her Tibetan companion, Aphur Yongden, had left.

French-Belgian writer, feminist and Buddhist Alexandra David Neel in about 1920.

Her adventures were published in a best-selling 1927 book Voyage d’une Parisienne à Lhassa (My Journey to Lhasa) contributing to a growing interest in eastern religions in Europe at the time.

Born 150 years ago today, David-Neel was a major influence on writers such as Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg and even Jack Kerouac in their works on spiritual journeys. She was a trailblazing woman who was fiercely independent and led a fascinating and unconventional life.

Born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David on October 24, 1868, her father, Louis David, was a teacher, a Freemason, a Huguenot and a republican. He had taken part in the 1848 revolution and fled to Belgium where he met and married Alexandrine Borghmans, a devout Catholic and a monarchist.

They moved back to France for a time and, in Paris, Louis tried to open up his daughter’s political sensibilities, showing her “la mur de Federes” (the wall of the comrades) where the Communards, who formed a commune in Paris in 1871 in short-lived revolution, had been executed.

The family later moved back to Belgium. David-Neel tried to run away from home at 15, making it as far as the Netherlands. At 17 she walked across the St Gotthard Pass in the Swiss Alps to Italy. At 18 she arranged to take English lessons in England, learning at the Society of the Gnose Supreme, where she discovered English translations of ancient Chinese and Indian texts.

Singer Alexandra David-Neel performing in an opera in about 1900.

However, while studying mysticism in Paris with the Theosophical Society, she spent hours in their library reading about Tibetan Buddhism. She became a Buddhist at 21 and later was given an inheritance from her godmother which she used to study Sanskrit in India.

When her money ran out she returned to Belgium in 1894 to study music, and a year later she was singing opera professionally under the stage name Alexandra Myrial.

Her opera career took her around the world, including to Asia where she again indulged her fascination with eastern languages and religion. While singing in Tunis in 1900 she met a distant cousin Philippe Neel, who ran a casino. In 1902 she gave up opera to work with him at the casino, and they married in 1904.

Yet, she was still restless, and in 1911 decided to return to the east. Philippe financed her travel, hoping she would get it out of her system, but instead of the promised 19 months, she was gone 14 years.

In her wanderings she went to Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, India and Tibet, where, in 1914 she met young Buddhist monk Lama Aphur Yongden, who she later adopted as her son. One high point of her travels was the trip to Lhasa. To get there she slept on floors of peasant dwellings, went through blizzards and even survived the bandits in the Po country.

Belgian opera singer-turned-Buddhist mystic Alexandra David Neel with Lama Aphur Yongden in 1933.

She returned to France in 1925, taking Yongden with her and, despite an attempt to reunite with Philippe, they went their separate ways but corresponded for years after. David-Neel spent time working on books describing her travels and others such as Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet (Mystics and Magicians in Tibet), which talked about eastern religions.

In 1937 she made a journey to China, with Yongden, to study Taoism and was caught up in the Sino-Japanese War. She later went to India and returned to France in 1946. It was the end of her wanderings.

Yongden died in 1955 aged 55, and David-Neel died in Digne in France in September 1969, just six weeks short of turning 101. In 1973 her ashes were taken with those of Yongden to be scattered in the river Ganges.