Three Years in Tibet. With the Original Japanese illustrations.

Benares/London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1909. First edition. Octavo. xv, [1], 719, [1]. Complete with the 2 fold-outs at the rear (a route map and a photographic illustration of Mt. Gaurishankar) and all plates. Publisher's beveled orange cloth with gilt spine and cover lettering, t.e.g. Bookplate of a Berkeley professor on the front pastedown. An excellent copy, almost flawless.Ekai Kawaguchi (1866 –1945) was a Japanese Buddhist monk who was famed for his four journeys to Nepal (in 1899, 1903, 1905 and 1913) and two to Tibet (July 4, 1900–June 15, 1902, 1913–1915). He was the first recorded Japanese citizen to travel to either country. He left Japan for India in June, 1897, without a guide or map, simply buying his way onto a cargo boat. He had a smattering of English but did not know a word of Hindi or Tibetan. Also, he had no money since he had refused the donations of his friends. Crossing over the Himalayas on an unpatrolled dirt road with an untrustworthy guide, Kawaguchi soon found himself alone and lost on the Tibetan plateau. He had the good fortune to befriend every wanderer he met in the countryside, including monks, shepherds, and even bandits, but he still took almost four years to reach Lhasa after stopovers at a number of monasteries and a pilgrimage around the sacred Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. He posed as a Chinese monk and gained a reputation as an excellent doctor, which led to him having an audience with the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876 to 1933).[8] He spent some time living in Sera Monastery. Kawaguchi devoted his entire time in Tibet to Buddhist pilgrimage and study. Although he mastered the difficult terminology of the Classical Tibetan language and was able to pass for a Tibetan, he was surprisingly intolerant of Tibetans' minor violations of monastic laws and of the eating of meat in a country with very little arable farmland. As a result, he did not fit in well in monastic circles but instead found work as a doctor of Chinese and Western medicine.