The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
by Jamyang Norbu
South Asia Books

In 1891, fans were horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes, along with his arch-enemy Prof. James Moriarty, had perished at Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland. The outrage of Holmes' fans, however, caused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to resurrect the world's greatest detective in "The Empty House (The Return of Sherlock Holmes)." Holmes describes the missing years passingly: "I traveled for two years in Tibet ... and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama. You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend."

"The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes" is the story of Holmes' lost years in India and Tibet. Out of the many manuscripts attempting to illuminate this period, only this one, by Jamyang Norbu, a Tibetan-in-exile who lives in Dharamsala, India, is endorsed by Doyle's publishers for its merit. This is also the story of the narrator Huree Chandra Mukherjee, the Bengali babu and scholar-spy from "Kim," Rudyard Kipling's masterpiece.

A Norwegian named Sigerson lands at Bombay's Sassoon docks, and is greeted by Huree, who is investigating Holmes for his department. Not long after Holmes' arrival at the Taj Mahal Hotel, there is a bloody murder in his room, an attack originally intended for him. Laced with fascinating esoterica and tantric trivia, the reader is led on the trail of the assailant, whom Holmes suspects is an envoy of the late professor. The trip leads him to Simla en route to Lhasa, where he is sucked into a conspiracy to kill the Dalai Lama by Chinese imperials. It is now Holmes' onus to protect the 14-year-old god-king and wipe out the vengeful Moriarty, who returns with strange occult powers.

The most fascinating aspect of the book is the dialogue and the ease and authenticity with which Norbu switches between Huree's Hindustani and "babu-tommy" English, a characteristic of the British Raj in India, and Holmes' mannerisms from Doyle. The wit and humour surpasses the original in both style and complexity.

The book is also a strong spiritual and political statement by Norbu, who is a prominent scholar and spokesman for a free Tibet. It explains the cults and botany of India, the hidden secrets of the mandala (a sacred circle in Sanskrit), Tibetan archaeology, slavery and by its closing chapters becomes a supernatural thriller of sorts. It also could be passed off as a brilliant travelogue of the peninsula. The sheer range of the book's subjects is awesome, and it ends with an intriguing extract from Carl Jung on UFOs.

For a man who has spun a book out of a minute detail, Norbu makes a grave error in the epilogue. There is only one flaw in this book — when Holmes' concludes his explanations, he says: "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however impossible, must be the truth."

The word in bold should be "improbable."

— Rohit Gupta (fadereu@gmail.com)