Author: Alexandra David-Neel（1868-1969）

Title: My journey to Lhasa: The Personal Story Of The Only White Woman Who Succeeded In Entering The Forbidden City

书名：《拉薩之旅》又名: 《一个巴黎女子的拉萨历险记》1927年 伦敦版

    My journey to Lhasa : the personal story of the only white woman who succeeded in entering the forbidden city / by Alexandra David-Neel ; illustrated with many photographs taken by the author. [monograph]

    亚历山德拉·大卫·奈尔(亚历山德莉娅·大卫－妮尔)Alexandra David-Néel (1868-1969) 是法国著名的东方学家、汉学家、探险家及藏学家，她在法国乃至整个西方、东方学界被誉为“女英雄”。她勤奋好学，精通欧、亚多种民族语言，在哲学、历史、地理、文学、宗教等方面都有很深的造诣。她有关东方（特别是西藏及其毗邻地区）的探险记、日记、论著和资料极丰，被译成多种文字，并在法国掀起了西藏研究的热潮。
　　妮尔活了101岁，为表彰她一生的贡献，1965年由法国政府授予第三级荣誉勋位。她逝世后，法国成立了“大卫－妮尔基金会”，并在其故居建立了法国“西藏文化研究中心”。

    She was born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David (born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne on 24 October 1868, and died in Digne-les-Bains, on 8 September 1969) was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist,and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners. David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels. Her teachings influenced beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, philosopher Alan Watts, and Theosophist Benjamin Creme.

    Early life：Born in Paris in 1868, she moved to Ixelles (Brussels) at the age of six. During her childhood she had a very strong desire for freedom and spirituality. At the age of 18, she had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. "She joined various secret societies - she would reach the thirtieth degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry - while feminist and anarchist groups greeted her with enthusiasm...In 1899, Alexandra composed an anarchist treatise with a preface by the French geographer and anarchist Elisée Reclus (1820-1905). Publishers were, however, too terrified to publish the book, though her friend Jean Haustont printed copies himself and it was eventually translated into five languages."

    Travel to India in 1890：In 1890 and 1891, she traveled through India, returning only when she was running out of money.

     Opéra singer in Vietnam：From 1895-1897 she was prima donna with a touring French opera company in Indochina, appearing at the Hanoi Opera House and elsewhere as La Traviata and Carmen.In Tunis in 1900 she met and lived with the railroad engineer Philippe Néel, marrying him in 1904.

    Travel to Sikkim in 1911：In 1911 Alexandra left Néel and traveled for the second time to India, to further her study of Buddhism. She was invited to the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal. She became Sidkeong's "confidante and spiritual sister" (according to Ruth Middleton), perhaps his lover (Foster & Foster). She also met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912, and had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism—a feat unprecedented for a European woman at that time.

    In the period 1914-1916 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the young (born 1899) Sikkimese monk Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion, and whom she would adopt later. From there they trespassed into Tibetan territory, meeting the Panchen Lama in Shigatse (August 1916). When the British authorities learned of this—Sikkim was then a British protectorate—Alexandra and Aphur were forced to leave the country.

    Travel to Japan in 1916：Unable to return to Europe in the middle of World War I, Alexandra and Yongden traveled to Japan.

    Travel to Tibet in 1924：In Japan Alexandra met Ekai Kawaguchi, who had visited Lhasa in 1901 disguised as a Chinese doctor, and this inspired them to visit Lhasa disguised as pilgrims. After traversing China from east to west, they reached Lhasa in 1924, and spent 2 months there.

    Return to France in 1928：In 1928 Alexandra legally separated from Philippe, but they continued to exchange letters and he kept supporting her till his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Digne (Provence), and during the next nine years she wrote books. In 1929, she published her most famous and beloved work, Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet).

    Travel to east Tibetan highlands in Tibet 1937：In 1937, Yongden and Alexandra went to Tibet through the former Soviet Union, traveling there during the second World War. They eventually ended up in Tachienlu, where she continued her investigations of Tibetan sacred literature.

    One minor mystery relating to Alexandra David-Neel has a solution. In Forbidden Journey, p. 284, the authors wonder how Mme. David-Neel's secretary, Violet Sydney, made her way back to the West in 1939 after Sous des nuées d'orage (Storm Clouds) was completed in Tachienlu. Peter Goullart's Land of the Lamas (not in Forbidden Journey's bibliography), on pp. 110–113 gives an account of his accompanying Ms. Sydney partway back, then putting her under the care of Lolo bandits to continue the journey to Chengdu. Mme. David-Neel evidently remained in Tachienlu for the duration of the war.

While in Eastern Tibet Alexandra and Yongden completed circumambulation of the holy mountain Amnye Machen.

    Return to France in 1946：The pair returned to France in 1946. Alexandra was then 78 years old. In 1955 Yongden died at age 56.

    Death in France in 1969：Alexandra continued to study and write at Digne till her death at age nearly 101. According to her last will and testament, her ashes and those of Yongden were mixed together and dispersed in the Ganges in 1973 at Varanasi, by her friend Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet.

    Bibliography：

 1898 Pour la vie

 1911 Le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du Bouddha

 1927 Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa (1927, My Journey to Lhasa)

 1929 Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet (1929, Magic and Mystery in Tibet)

 1930 Initiations Lamaïques (Initiations and Initiates in Tibet)

 1931 La vie Surhumaine de Guésar de Ling le Héros Thibétain (The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling)

 1933 Grand Tibet; Au pays des brigands-gentilshommes

 1935 Le lama au cinq sagesses

 1938 Magie d'amour et magic noire; Scènes du Tibet inconnu (Tibetan Tale of Love and Magic)

 1939 Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Its Methods

 1940 Sous des nuées d'orage; Recit de voyage

 1949 Au coeur des Himalayas; Le Nepal

 1951 Ashtavakra Gita; Discours sur le Vedanta Advaita

 1951 Les Enseignements Secrets des Bouddhistes Tibétains (The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects)

 1951 L'Inde hier, aujourd'hui, demain

 1952 Textes tibétains inédits

 1953 Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle

 1954 La puissance de néant, by Lama Yongden (The Power of Nothingness)

 Grammaire de la langue tibetaine parlée

 1958 Avadhuta Gita

 1958 La connaissance transcendente

 1961 Immortalite et reincarnation: Doctrines et pratiques en Chine, au Tibet, dans l'Inde

 L'Inde où j'ai vecu; Avant et après l'independence

 1964 Quarante siècles d'expansion chinoise

 1970 En Chine: L'amour universe! et l'individualisme integral: les maitres Mo Tse et Yang Tchou

 1972 Le sortilège du mystère; Faits étranges et gens bizarre rencontrés au long de mes routes d'orient et d'occident

 1975 Vivre au Tibet; Cuisine, traditions et images

 1975 Journal de voyage; Lettres à son Mari, 11 août 1904 - 27 decembre 1917. Vol. 1. Ed. Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet

 1976 Journal de voyage; Lettres à son Mari, 14 janvier 1918 - 31 decembre 1940. Vol. 2. Ed. Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet

 1979 Le Tibet d'Alexandra David-Neel

 1981 Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects

 1986 La lampe de sagesse

Many of Alexandra David-Neel's books were published more or less simultaneously both in French and English.

    《一个巴黎女子的拉萨历险记》是亚历山德莉娅·大卫—妮尔夫人1923—1924年间第四次人藏考察旅行的游记。此书初版于1927年，出版后便立即引起了巨大轰动，后多次再版，并被译成了东西方的多种文字。仅在20世纪的80--90年代，法国就先后出版了6种版本（有的版本是与作者的其他著作合订出版的）。

    内容:本世纪法国著名东方学家、汉学家、探险家、特别是藏学家亚历山大莉娅·大卫·妮尔是一位神话般的传奇人物。他在法国乃至整个西方、东方学界被誉为“女英雄”。她有关东方（特别是西藏及其毗邻地区）的探险记、日记、论著和资料极丰，被译成多种西方和日文，并多次重版。她终生对西藏充满了无限的热爱和崇拜。曾先后五次到西藏及其周边地区从事科学考察，而且还起了一个“智灯”的法号。对于这样一位传奇式的人物及其著作，我国却很少有人知晓。我国已故藏学家李安宅于1945年在《康导月刊》中曾撰文介绍大卫·妮尔及其义子－－藏族喇嘛庸登。陈宗祥先生曾译过她的力作《超人岭·格萨尔王》（1944年）。西藏社会科学院于1986年内部印刷了她的《古老的西藏面对新生的中国》的汉译本。除此之外，再无更多的译介。

    中文译本:

1) 耿昇 译《一个巴黎女子的拉萨历险记》1997年西藏人民出版社.

2)鮑昕昀 譯《拉薩之旅》圓神出版社, Taibei : Yuan shen chu ban she, 1998.

3) 耿昇 译《一个巴黎女子的拉萨历险记》2012年中国国际广播出版社.