Another Mahatma letter must be mentioned, one that is unique among such letters, in that it claims to come from the Mahachohan[80] himself, the teacher of Blavatsky's teachers. This letter dates from 1880, referencing Buddhism at every turn in the most sectarian fashion:
…Buddhism is the surest path to lead men toward the one esoteric truth. As we find the world now, whether Christian, Mussulman, or Pagan, justice is disregarded and honour and mercy both flung to the winds… Why has that struggle [for life] become the almost universal scheme of the universe? We answer: because no religion, with the exception of Buddhism, has hitherto taught a practical contempt for this earthly life, while each of them, always with that one solitary exception, has through its hells and damnations inculcated the greatest dread of death. Therefore do we find that 'struggle for life' raging most fiercely in Christian countries, most prevalent in Europe and America. It weakens in pagan lands, and is nearly unknown among Buddhist populations… Teach the people to see that life on this earth, even the happiest, is but a burden and an illusion, that it is but our own Karma, the cause producing the effect, that is our own judge, our saviour in future lives-and the great struggle for life will soon lose its intensity… The world in general and Christendom especially left for two thousand years to the regime of a personal God, as well as its political and social systems based on that idea, have now proved a failure… That we, the devoted followers of the spirit incarnate of absolute self-sacrifice, of philanthropy and divine kindness as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, Gautama Buddha, should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment of selfishness, to become the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a strange idea… And it is we, the humble disciples of the perfect Lamas, who are expected to permit the Theosophical Society to drop its noblest title, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity, to become a simple school of Psychology. No! No! our brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too long already… ours must be the true philosophy, the true religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the TRUTH…"
There are no other Mahatma letters that back away from such a tight embrace of Buddhism: no Vedanta-leaning letters, no kudos given to Sufi traditions, etc. Thus there can be no doubt that Madame Blavatsky herself, her immediate Mahatma teachers, and her teachers' teacher, are Buddhist by profession and vocabulary, in ever-increasing degree as one moves up the guruparampara chain. Blavatsky makes frequent reference to Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism, in her writings, while the Mahatma letters discuss Buddhism on practically every page, often using highly technical vocabulary in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese and Mongolian.
Theosophists have sometimes argued that the proliferation of Buddhist terms in Theosophical works, correctly used, itself indicates that Blavatsky was in contact with authentic Buddhism, and that her teachings are therefore 'valid.' For instance, Mahatma M. writes in one letter (1884) that his Brother KH has gone into 'Tong-pa-ngi,' (sTong-pa-nid, Tibetan for "emptiness"), i.e., shunyata.[81] Another letter (1883), allegedly from a learned Tibetan of Rinch-cha-tze (a town in Tibet) is bursting with Tibetan and Sanskrit words, spelled (mostly) correctly, unlike HPB's phonetic spellings. We read of Sakya Thub-pa (Shakyamuni), ro-langs ("hungry ghosts," bhutas in Sanskrit) and Alaya-vijnana ("storehouse consciousness," a technical Yogacara Buddhist term).
Yet not much can be made of this for our present purposes. The technical Buddhist vocabulary in Blavatsky's works, and even in the highly abstruse Mahatma letters of KH and M, is not in itself generally significant; an enterprising student could have gained access to most of these terms through published materials, though widely scattered and difficult to assemble in one place. Of the examples given above, the small town of "Rinch-cha-tze" (Rin-chen-rTse) may be found quite near Shigatse and its famous monastery Tashi-lhunpo (bKras-shis-lhun-po) on a map near the back of Markham's Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet (1876), although the town is there spelt "Rinjaitzay." The Tibetan word for "emptiness," Tong-pa-ngi can be found on page 33 of Schalgintweit's Buddhism in Tibet (1863). Thub-pa and ro-langs are both listed in Jaschke's Tibetan English Dictionary (London, 1881), while Alaya-vijnana is mentioned in Beal's Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (1871), and in Schlagintweit, among other places.
In fact, a great deal of knowledge had been acquired about Buddhism, both Nikaya ('Hinayana') and Mahayana forms, by the time Blavatsky began her Theosophical career - although some of it was not terribly reliable, because produced by Westerners with little training in Buddhist thought. Kowalewsky had published a Mongol Chrestomathy in the city of Kasan in 1836 – in Russian no less, Blavatsky's native tongue. By the time of the Mahatma Letters, (beginning in 1880) and certainly by the time of HPB's Secret Doctrine (1888), Jaschke's Dictionary was available, not to mention de Koros' Grammar of the Tibetan Language and Dictionary, both published in English in 1834 (London). In 1872 Childers had published his Dictionary of the Pali Language (London), while a great many Sanskrit dictionaries were available, including Goldstucker (1856), Monier-Williams (1872), and Apte (1884). Chinese Buddhist terms had likewise been made available by Eitel in his 1870 Handbook for the Student of Chinese Buddhism. (For a more complete survey of dictionaries, translations and contemporary literature on Buddhism available during HPB's life, see Appendix I.)
This does not prove that because terms and texts may have been mentioned by Western sources, HPB had copied them. But as per the methodology outlined in chapter one, however accurately Blavatsky and her teachers may have used such Buddhist vocabulary, all instances of technical terms or quotes from native Buddhist texts must be dismissed - unless they cannot be traced to contemporary publications in any Western language, or they refer to definitions, details or concepts that were then unknown. In this way one can be certain Blavatsky must have had an independent source. By this measure, HPB's notable Buddhist vocabulary and textual references become quite few.
Nevertheless, there are still quite a number of Buddhist terms and treatises that HPB and her teachers refer to that have not yet been traced to any contemporary Western-language source, or whose definitions given by HPB don't correspond with what was known last century. Some of these terms have never been positively identified, like the term lanoo, allegedly Tibetan for "disciple," mentioned in HPB's 1889 text, The Voice of the Silence. Other puzzling Theosophical terms can now be identified as traditional terms in use by Buddhists in various languages. This may be accomplished by referring to more recent and complete dictionaries, new authoritative translations, and new research which has been carried out by both practising Buddhists and Buddhist Studies scholars in the century since Madame Blavatsky's death. A sample of some Theosophical terms follows, only recently identified as to Buddhist provenance, followed by some texts known to HPB or her teachers last century, but only this century known to scholars.
80
While the meaning of