Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1960-02-01 / 2. szám

F RATERN ITY

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF HUNGARIAN REF. FEDERATION OF AMERICA Editor-in-Chief: George E. K. Borshy. — Managing Editor:

Joseph Kecskemethy. — Associate Editors: Emery Király and László L. Eszenyi. — Chief Contributor: Alexander Daroczy. Published monthly. — Subscription for non-members in the U. S. A. and Canada $2.00, elsewhere $3.00 a year.

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Volume XXXVIII FEBRUARY 1960 Number 2

CSOMA DE KOROS: “THE HUNGARIAN TIBETAN”

(From "The Illustrated Weekly of India" — Aug. 9, 1959)

At a time when the Tibetan exodus is arousing worldwide controversy, it is proper to recall the life of a true pilgrim of knowledge and science who, at the beginning of the last century, alone and penniless, braved the hazards of a long trek from Hungary to Tibet, crossing on his way the West Asian ranges and deserts, undaunted by the hardships of thirst, hunger and weather, or by bands of marauding robbers.

Alexander Csorna de Koros, known in his native land as Koeroesi

Csorna Sándor, was born in Transylvania, then a province of Hungary,

in the little town of Koeroes, on April 4, 1784. The scion of an impoverished noble family, he was fired from the very beginning with a thirst for learning and especially with a fascinated desire to unravel the mytery enveloping the origin of the Magyars, known to others as Hungarians.

Csoma’s hardships began early in life. He paid his way through college by doing all sorts of menial jobs and studying by night. In spite of indifferent health and a weak constitution, he gathered honors and received a scholarship. Beginning with theological studies, he shifted to philosophy and dedicated himself to the haunting search of the

Magyars’ Asian home, setting himself for this purpose to the task of

studying the Asiatic languages. He later declined the professorship offered him at his former college of Nagyenyed, on his return from the University of Goettingen, and set forth on his long and lonely journey through the deserts and mountain passes of the world.

Having mastered various languages such as Slavonic, Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, English, Hindustani and Sanskrit, which would prove valuable along his route, he left his motherland empty-handed, in the manner of a Hindu sadhu, begging and accepting food and shelter wherever he went. Traveling on foot, he left Nagyenyed at the end of 1818 and, crossing Rumania and Bulgaria, sailed from Greece to Latakia in Syria and then began his long marches, first to Mosul, via Aleppo, and thence,