Agartha (sometimes Agartta, Agharti, Agarath,[1] Agarta, Agharta, or Agarttha) is a legendary kingdom that is said to be located on the inner surface of the Earth.[2] It is sometimes related to the belief in a hollow Earth[citation needed] and is a popular subject in esotericism.[3]
The legend of Agartha remained mostly obscure in Europe until Gérard Encausse edited and re-published a detailed 1886 account by the nineteenth-century French occultist Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842–1909), Mission de l'Inde en Europe,[4] in 1910.[5]
After World War I, German occultist groups such as the Thule Society took an interest in Agartha.[6]
In his 1922 book, Beasts, Men and Gods, the Polish explorer Ferdynand Ossendowski relates a story which was imparted to him concerning a subterranean kingdom existing inside the Earth. This kingdom is known to a fictional Buddhist society as Agharti.[7]
Agartha is frequently associated or confused with Shambhala[8] which figures prominently in Vajrayana Buddhism and Tibetan Kalachakra teachings and revived in the West by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. Theosophists in particular regard Agarthi as a vast complex of caves underneath Tibet inhabited by demi-gods, called asuras. Helena and Nicholas Roerich, whose teachings closely parallel theosophy, see Shambhala's existence as both spiritual and physical.[9]
Thule Gesellschaft [...] members sought Agartha.