Alain Daniélou and Afghanistan

Alain Daniélou made two trips to Afghanistan: the first in 1931 at the invitation of the young prince who would become Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, and the second on a mission for UNESCO to produce one of the first records (1) in “A Musical Anthology of the Orient” collection, of which he had just been appointed director.
The first trip was the occasion of a wild adventure shared with his friend, the Swiss photographer Raymond Burnier. The two intrepid “explorers” even travel to Kafiristan, a region plagued by guerrilla warfare against the government in Kabul. Read what Alain Daniélou himself has to say about it in his autobiography (2), quoted below.
The rare photos of Kafiristan are jealously preserved in the Musée Guimet, but the film they shot there has never been found. During this trip, Daniélou produced a series of portraits of young Afghans (oil on canvas), which he brought back to the West and which are reproduced in this album. A highly critical text was published shortly after the trip, probably by Alain Daniélou and the first written by him. He was 25 years old, the next being The World Tour in 1936. It must have been written on his return from Afghanistan in late 1932, and was published in a large-format travel magazine whose name escapes me.
Alain Daniélou made a trip to Afghanistan in 1960 to visit the French ambassador (Henri Bell) to make recordings of Afghan music. Although King Mohammed Zaer Shah, son of Nadir Shah, was a childhood friend who spent some time with the Daniélou family and studied in France, Alain Daniélou did not visit the royal palace. However, the article in question had deeply irritated the court.
Many years later, when the king in exile in Rome he resumed contact with Alain Daniélou (in the 1980s). The king gently reproached Alain Daniélou, who denied having written the pamphlet. It was during this second trip that Daniélou made recordings of traditional Afghan music, as well as the 6/6 slides he produced with his Rolleiflex.
Unfortunately, as they were probably poorly developed, they have aged badly and lost their original colors. They are partially retouched here.

Jacques Cloarec
The Labyrinth, January 2014

1) A Musical Anthology of the Orient, Afghanistan, Barenreiter BM 30 L 2003
2) Le Chemin du Labyrinthe, Editions du Rocher, 1981. Completed reprint, l’Age d’Homme, Lausanne 2015, Ebook : Asieur 2016)