“A singular account of the personal interview of an English ambassador in 1783, with a reincarnated Buddha – barely mentioned in volume 1, an infant of eighteen months old at that time, is given in the Asiatic Journal from the narrative of an eyewitness himself, Mr. Turner, the author of the Embassy to Tibet. The cautious phraseology of a skeptic dreading public ridicule, ill conceals the amazement of the witness, who, at the same time, desires to give facts as truthfully as possible.

The infant lama received the ambassador and his suite with a dignity and decorum so natural and unconstrained that they remained in a perfect maze of wonder. The behavior of this infant, says the author, was that of an old philosopher, grave and sedate and exceedingly courteous. He contrived to make the young pontiff understand the inconsolable grief into which the Governor-General of Galagata (Calcutta) the City of Palaces and the people of India were plunged when he died, and the general rapture when they found that he had resurrected in a young and fresh body again; at which compliment the young lama regarded him and his suite with looks of singular complacency, and courteously treated them to confectionary from a golden cup.

“The ambassador continued to express the Governor-General’s hope that the lama might long continue to illumine the world with his presence, and that the friendship which had heretofore subsisted between them might be yet more strongly cemented, for the benefit and advantage of the intelligent votaries of the lama… all which made the little creature look steadfastly at the speaker, and graciously bow and nod – and bow and nod – as if he understood and approved of every word that was uttered.” As if he understood!

If the infant behaved in the most natural and dignified way during the reception, and “when their cups were empty of tea became uneasy and throwing back his head and contracting the skin of his brow, continued making a noise till they were filled again”, why could he not understand as well what was said to him?

Years ago, a small party of travelers were painfully journeying from Kashmir to Leh, a city of Ladahk (Central Tibet). Among our guides we had a Tartar Shaman, a very mysterious personage, who spoke Russian a little and English not at all, and yet who managed, nevertheless, to converse with us, and proved of great service. Having learned that some of our party were Russians, he had imagined that our protection was all-powerful, and might enable him to safely find his way back to his Siberian home, from which, for reasons unknown, some twenty years before, he had fled, as he told us, via Kiachta and the great Gobi Desert, to the land of the Tcha-gars. With such an interesting object in view, we believed ourselves safe under his guard.

To explain the situation briefly: Our companions had formed the unwise plan of penetrating into Tibet under various disguises, none of them speaking the language, although one, a Mr. K – –, had picked up some Kasan Tartar, and thought he did. As we mention this only incidentally, we may as well say at once that two of them, the brothers N – –, were very politely brought back to the frontier before they had walked sixteen miles into the weird land of Eastern Bod; and Mr. K – –, an ex-Lutheran minister, could not even attempt to leave his miserable village near Leh, as from the first days he found himself prostrated with fever, and had to return to Lahore via Kashmere. But one sight seen by him was as good as if he had witnessed the reincarnation of Buddha itself. Having heard of this “miracle” from some old Russian missionary in whom he thought he could have more faith than in Abbe Huc, it had been for years his desire to expose the “great heathen” jugglery, as he expressed it. K – –, was a positivist, and rather prided himself on this anti-philosophical neologism. But his positivism was doomed to receive a deathblow.”

H. P. Blavatsky