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Alexandra David-Néel was many things, but afraid that she was not. She was a runaway, an anarchist, a Buddist scholar, an opera singer, a prolific author, and a pioneering world traveler. As a woman unafraid, she sought adventure and freedom and followed her heart where ever it took her. Alexandra is most famously known as the first European woman to visit Tibet’s holy city, Lhasa. And she did all this before she was 60 years old.
“To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment.” —ALEXANDRA DAVID-NÉEL
Alexandra David-Néel was born on October 24, 1868, to Louise Eugenie and Alexandrine Marie David. She was raised in France and had a very peculiar background. Her parents were walking conflicts, which later explains her need to explore and be free. Her father was a Protestant anarchist and her mother was a devout Catholic. She did not have a close relationship with her mother, who, while pregnant, read the Last of the Mohicans and prayed for a boy who would grow up to be a bishop. Upon her birth, her mother abandoned Alexandra to a series of governesses.
Due to her strained relationship with her mother, Alexandra became close to her father. Alexandra adopted his faith, and at age 13, enrolled as a Protestant in a Catholic convent school. This choice proved to be a great one, as it gave her a superb education with religious freedom. Instead of attending mass, Alexandra got to take field trips to the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts, which inspired her interest in Buddhism.
At the age of 16, Alexandra took adventure to a whole new level when she ran away from home for jaunts across Europe. She had traveled to England, Switzerland, and Spain while away, but lack of money ultimately brought her home. At age 23, she received a small inheritance from her godmother, which she then used to sail to India. There, she roomed at a Theosophy Center near Madras and continued her Sanskrit studies. After returning home broke yet again a year later, she decided she wanted to make a living in the music industry, one of the few careers open to women during this period.
At age 25, Alexandra enrolled in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and just three short years later, she won first prize in soprano, which launched an 8-year career as an opera singer. Upon her graduation, she secured a position with the Opera Company of Hanoi. In 1900 she joined another opera company in Tunis, but as their musical director. It was there that she caught the attention of Philippe Néel, the director of the French railroad in North Africa. At age 36, Alexandra married Philippe, and they remained in a disorderly relationship for seven years.
Due to Alexandra’s nonstop schedule of studying, lecturing, and entertaining as a director, she became increasingly ill. And after finishing her first book, Le Bouddhisme du Bouddha, she wanted to study Buddhism in India. Alexandra set sail to India on August 12, 1911, and did not return for 14 years.
In India, she was determined to study religion, and her fluency in Sanskrit opened new doors for her. At age 43, she became a disciple of a Buddhist monk in Sikkim and for two years, she lived in a cave at 12,000 feet of the Maharajah of Nepal. She studied the Tibetan language and learned esoteric practices, including tumo, a meditation technique to generate body heat. This came in handy with the frigid elevation of 12,000 feet in the air.
A 14-year-old monk named Aphur Yongden managed her household during her time in India. Alexandra eventually adopted him, and they both traveled across Asia together. In Japan, they met a monk who slipped into Lhasa disguised as a Chinese doctor. This would ultimately give Alexandra the idea that would make history.
In 1924, when Alexandra was 56, she donned yak hair pigtails to disguise herself as Aphur’s servant. They traveled a 19,000-foot mountain pass, hiking for 19 hours. Below them, in a valley, was Lhasa and the golden-roofed palace of the Dalai Lamas. She had finally made it.
They stayed in the Holy City for 2 months before they were discovered and sent home. At that point, they returned as celebrated adventurers, and after purchasing a home in Provence, Alexandra began writing about her time in Lhasa.
Alexandra was renowned for her exploits and went on to write 40 books over the course of her lifetime. She wrote anarchist pamphlets, travelogues, and scholarly studies of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Her most famous work was the recount of her visit to the Holy City, My Journey to Lhasa. She died just short of her 101st birthday on September 8, 1969.
Alexandra Davis-Neel distinguished herself as a scholar, practitioner, adventuress, and philosopher. She seemed to have lived many lives, compressing existences into an unconventional and unimaginable life. Her devotion to freedom and knowledge is what makes her a legend among today’s heroines.
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