Terjék József: Kőrösi Csoma-dokumentumok az Akadémiai Könyvtár gyűjteményeiben. Budapest, 1976.

Preface

PREFACE Out of the apparently inexhaustible mine of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences careful hands have again conjured something amounting to a volume. The choice f<:-ll on Alexander Körösi Csorna this time. The following pages call to mind his toilsome life and the old documents show his unselfish, unshakable firmness, while his scientific heritage appeals to us now more explicitly than before: Time, it seems, cannot encroach upon the scholarly merits of the founder of Tibetan studies. On Alexander Körösi Csoma's life and works plenty of books, essays and supplementary articles have already been published. Interest in him has not languished, on the contrary: Kőrösi's figure has been elevated to a romantic hero by many, while others ore fascinated by the successful scholar. Those coming up with new information arc as numerous as used to be, and there is a steady increase in the number of those who would read more about the great Hungarian Asia-explorer. The Library of the Hungarian Academy is undoubtedly an authentic place of reference regarding Csoma. Prior to the publication of Iiis Tibetan dictionary, Alexander Körösi Csoma was elected a member of the Academy on November 15, 1833. Tivadar Duka, Csoma's first biographer and fosterer of his memory, who was also elected a member of the Academy in 1863, bestowed uJl his relics collected about Csoma, e.g. Csoma's Tibetan manuscripts and wooden prints, upon the Library of the Hungarian Academy along with a decorated case serving for the preservation of those. It was József Térjék, an excellent Tibet-researcher of the Library, to undertake putting the memories of the Library about Csoma in order