FROM THE COLLECTOR

Several generations of my direct ancestors were collectors of fine art, antiquities and curios of all kinds.  The most famous of these art collectors were the Dukes of Buckingham, after whom the Buckingham Collections are named.

As a child I accompanied my mother to estate auctions, museums and collections.  By the age of eleven I had  “discovered” books on Buddhism, Yoga, Asian Art and mysticism in our library in Cyprus.  These teachings in these books made a lot of sense to me, so I read them thoroughly - The Dhammapada, The Life of Buddha as Legend and History by Howard Thomas, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East, Christmas Humphreys’ The Wisdom of Buddhism, books by Sir John Woodroffe (“Arthur Avalon”) on the Hindu Tantric tradition, and so forth.

My first Buddha was bought at a yard sale in the Isle of Wight, UK, before I left school, and later on, my first Gandhara artifacts – a Buddha head and a small bronze Buddha – were purchased in Peshawar, Pakistan circa 1964.  I travelled overland to India several times in the 1960’s, passing through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – visiting most of the key archeological sites on the way. I walked throughout Swat, Chitral, Hunza and tribal areas of northern Pakistan, and parts of Afghanistan, visiting many of the “Gandhara”-cultural sites. I became friendly with the Wali of Swat and his immediate family and later I purchased Gandharan antiquities from them in London.

I moved to India, living for a number of years in Almora in the Uttar Pradesh Himalayas and made several pilgrimages to all the major Buddhist sacred places in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka – to Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Kapilavastu, Lumbini, Saheth Maheth, Ajanta, Nagarjunakonda and so on, and later visited most of the Goddess “Pitth” sites of Hindu tradition, and the Great Cremation Grounds of Tantric tradition - some of this I documented in my first published book Tantra Yoga. I spent extensive periods researching in the museums and archaeological store-houses of India, Nepal and Pakistan, studied Ayurveda, Sanskrit and Tibetan language, and for an extended period worked under the guidance of Ajit Mookerjee, curator of the Crafts Museum, New Delhi and author of Tantra Art and Tantra Asana.  I helped bring the major Tantra Art exhibit to the Hayward Gallery, London in 1971, with Robert Fraser and Philip Rawson. I produced and directed the film “Tantra” with Robert Fraser and Mick Jagger and founded/edited the quarterly magazine “Chakra”.  Later, while finishing a book on the Karmapa Lama, I accompanied the Karmapa hierarch all through India on Buddhist pilgrimage.  I co-authored Karmapa: The Black Hat Lama of Tibet.

I was one of the very early visitors to Dolpo and parts of Mustang – Tibetan cultural areas within Nepal – photographing and printing from wood-blocks in the monasteries, eventually published as “Tantric Charms and Amulets”. Returning to live for a while in the UK I worked as an art consultant. All the while I collected archaeological, Buddhist and Hindu artifacts, Tibetan thangka paintings, Indian miniature paintings, manuscripts, ritual implements and other Asian as well as African art-works. I purchased from estate sales, a network of antique dealers, private collections, auctions and especially from the top London art dealers of the time.

In 1979 my best-seller “Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy” was published and eventually was translated into more than 30 languages.  My follow-up book “Spiritual Sex: Secrets of Tantra from the Ice Age to the New Millennium” was published in 1997. I moved permanently to Anguilla, West Indies, in 1981.

Over the past five years or so I have been refining and organizing the Buckingham Collections, which are extensive.

Nik Douglas

For more information, visit: Buckingham Collections