“In Agharti the learned Panditas write on tablets of stone all the science of our planet and of the other worlds. The Chinese learned Buddhists know this. Their science is the highest and purest. Every century one hundred sages of China collect in a secret place on the shores of the sea, where from its depths come out one hundred eternally-living tortoises. On their shells the Chinese write all the developments of the divine science of the century.”
As I write I am involuntarily reminded of a tale of an old Chinese bonze in the Temple of Heaven at Peking. He told me that tortoises live more than three thousand years without food and air and that this is the reason why all the columns of the blue Temple of Heaven were set on live tortoises to preserve the wood from decay.
“Several times the Pontiffs of Lhasa and Urga have sent envoys to the King of the World,” said the Lama librarian, “but they could not find him. Only a certain Tibetan leader after a battle with the Olets found the cave with the inscription: ‘This is the gate to Agharti.’ From the cave a fine appearing man came forth, presented him with a gold tablet bearing the mysterious signs and said:
“‘The King of the World will appear before all people when the time shall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the world against all the bad; but this time has not yet come. The most evil among mankind have not yet been born.
“Chiang Chun Baron Ungern sent the young Prince Pounzig to seek out the King of the World but he returned with a letter from the Dalai Lama from Lhasa. When the Baron sent him a second time, he did not come back.”
CHAPTER XLIX
THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890
The Hutuktu of Narabanchi related the following to me, when I visited him in his monastery in the beginning of 1921:
“When the King of the World appeared before the Lamas, favored of God, in this monastery thirty years ago he made a prophecy for the coming half century. It was as follows: