Blavatsky on the Nellore Yanadis

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Living the Life Series · 8 pages

An eight-page compilation opened by an abstract and train of thoughts, with a closing list of further reading. The running head describes the subject as untutored masters of the occult powers of nature. It pairs with “The Nilgiri Sannyasis” in this same batch, which reports on another community of southern India in the same manner.

The account is ethnographic in form and makes its claim through reported detail rather than argument. The Nellore Yanadis are described as a dark-skinned aboriginal people, short in stature and of unknown origin, renowned for a mysterious knowledge of the occult properties of nature. The particulars follow: that they plant certain herbs around their huts which are believed to ward off venomous reptiles; that a decoction made from more than a hundred different roots is said to possess incalculable virtue for curing any malady; that the Yanadi seer grows his hair and lets no razor pass his head; and that they can smell out their game and trace trespassers by merely looking at their footmarks. What the compilation makes of this is indicated by its running head — that a knowledge which the learned professions would call impossible is held here by people who were never taught it in any school, which is the point of interest for a series concerned with what is known outside the institutions that claim to certify knowledge.

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