Alexandra David-Néel (born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David; 24 October 1868 – 8 September 1969) was a French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and author. She is best known for visiting Lhasa, Tibet in 1924, a time when foreigners were not allowed there. David-Néel wrote more than 30 books about Eastern religions, philosophy, and her travels. One of her books, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, was published in 1929. Her teachings influenced the beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, the popularizers of Eastern philosophy Alan Watts and Ram Dass, and the esotericist Benjamin Creme.
Biography
In 1871, when David-Néel was two years old, her father, Louis David, was upset by the execution of the last Communards. He took her to see the Communards' Wall at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. She never forgot this early experience with death, which taught her about the harshness of humans. Two years later, the Davids moved to Belgium.
Before she turned 15, she practiced strict habits, such as fasting and physical challenges, inspired by stories of holy saints she read in a relative’s library. These practices are described in her book Sous des nuées d'orage, published in 1940.
At age 15, during a holiday in Ostend with her parents, she ran away and tried to reach the port of Vlissingen in the Netherlands to travel to England. However, she could not afford the journey and had to give up.
By age 18, David-Néel had already traveled to England, Switzerland, and Spain alone. She studied in Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society. She joined secret groups, including reaching the 30th degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Feminist and anarchist groups welcomed her. She was connected to the French geographer and anarchist Elisée Reclus (1820–1905), which influenced her interest in anarchism and feminism. In 1898, she published Pour la vie (For Life). In 1899, she wrote an anarchist book with a preface by Reclus. Publishers refused to print it, but her friend Jean Haustont printed copies, and the book was later translated into five languages.
In 1891, she visited India for the first time and met her spiritual teacher, Swami Bhaskarananda Saraswati of Varanasi.
According to Raymond Brodeur, she converted to Buddhism in 1889. She wrote about this in her diary, La Lampe de sagesse (The Lamp of Wisdom), published in 1896. At age 21, she went to London to improve her English, which was important for her career as an orientalist. She visited the British Museum library and met members of the Theosophical Society. The next year, back in Paris, she studied Sanskrit and Tibetan at the Collège de France and the Ecole pratique des hautes Etudes without taking exams. Jean Chalon said her interest in becoming an orientalist and Buddhist began at the Guimet Museum.
At her father’s suggestion, David-Néel studied piano and singing at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles (Royal Conservatory of Brussels). To help her parents, who were facing financial difficulties, she worked as a singer at the Hanoi Opera House in Indochina from 1895–1896 and 1896–1897 under the name Alexandra Myrial. She performed roles in operas such as La traviata, Les Noces de Jeannette, Faust, Mireille, Lakmé, Carmen, and Thaïs. She kept a written friendship with Frédéric Mistral and Massenet.
From 1897 to 1900, she lived with the guitarist Jean Haustont in Paris. They wrote a one-act lyric tragedy called Lidia, with Haustont composing the music and David-Néel writing the text. She later sang at the opera in Athens from November 1899 to January 1900. In July 1900, she went to the opera in Tunis. Soon after arriving, she met her distant cousin, Philippe Néel, a chief engineer for Tunisian railways and her future husband. During a visit by Jean Haustont to Tunis in 1902, she left her singing career and took charge of the casino in Tunis for a few months while continuing her intellectual work.
On August 4, 1904, at age 36, she married Philippe Néel de Saint-Sauveur, who had been her lover since September 15, 1900. Their marriage was sometimes difficult but based on mutual respect. It ended when she left for her third trip to India (1911–1925) on August 9, 1911. She did not want children, believing motherhood would conflict with her need for independence and her interest in education. She promised to return in 19 months but came back 14 years later in May 1925. She reunited with Philippe briefly before separating. David-Néel returned with her exploration partner, the young Lama Aphur Yongden, whom she adopted in 1929. It is said her husband supported her, but she had her own money at the time of their marriage.
During this time, she wrote for journals and gave talks about controversial topics in European cities. She supported Buddhism, Zionism, and radical feminism. Her marriage suffered as her travels kept her away from her husband.
David-Néel traveled to India again to study Buddhism further. In 1912, she arrived at the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal, the eldest son of the ruler of Sikkim. She visited many Buddhist monasteries to learn more about Buddhism. In 1914, she met 15-year-old Aphur Yongden in a monastery and later adopted him as her son. Together, they lived in a remote cave in northern Sikkim.
Sidkeong, the spiritual leader of Sikkim, was sent to meet David-Néel by his father, the Maharaja of Sikkim, after hearing about her arrival from the British resident in Gangtok. They understood each other quickly. Sidkeong, interested in reform, listened to David-Néel’s advice and left Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup as a guide, interpreter, and teacher of Tibetan. Sidkeong later told David-Néel that his father wanted him to give up the throne in favor of his half-brother.
Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup accompanied David-Néel to Kalimpong, where she met the 13th Dalai Lama in exile. She had an audience with him on April 15, 1912, and met Ekai Kawaguchi in his waiting room. The Dalai Lama welcomed her and encouraged her to learn Tibetan, which she did. He blessed her and asked how she became a Buddhist. David-Néel joked that she was the only Buddhist in Paris and surprised him by mentioning that the sacred Tibetan book Gyatcher Rolpa had been translated by Professor Philippe-Édouard Foucaux of the Coll
Legacy
In 1925, she received the Award Monique Berlioux from the Académie des sports. Although she was not a professional athlete, she is included in the list of 287 Gloires du sport français (English: Glories of French sport).
In 2006, Priscilla Telmon honored Alexandra David-Néel by walking alone across the Himalaya. She told about the journey Alexandra took from Vietnam to Calcutta through Lhasa. A movie titled Au Tibet Interdit (English: Into Forbidden Tibet) was made during that expedition.