The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1985 (12. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1985-02-01 / 2. szám
to the Fasori High School in Budapest. At the age of seventeen he was already a student at the University of Vienna. He took his Ph.D. at the University of Tiibingen and obtained a government scholarship to continue his research work at Oxford and Cambridge. He did his military service at the Ludovika military academy, where he learned the latest techniques in cartography. The long chronicle of his explorations began in 1887. As principal of the Oriental College, Lahore, India (now in Pakistan) he used to spend his vacation on expeditions of varying duration. He dedicated that decade of his life above all else to linguistics and philology. His greatest work, a translation of Rajatarangini, “A Chronicle of the Kings of Kasmir” into Sanskrit verse, was published in 1892, followed by the English translation in 1900. Since only transcribed and amended fragments had survived from the 12th-century manuscript by Kalhana, “the Homer of Kasmir”, Stein worked for ten years in collaboration with a local scholar, Govind Kaul, to authentically reproduce the original beauty of the ancient manuscript. His first work in philology, cataloguing and making available to the public the invaluable library of the Maharaja of Jammu, took off as a result of the translation of “A Chronicle of the Kings of Kasmir”. An undertaking that was to last his whole lifetime was the exploration of the central Asian sandy deserts. News of ancient civilizations buried under the sand became increasingly frequent in the late 19th century. Bower, Petrovsky, de Rhins and others threw a host of scientists and archeologists into a fever with the results of their explorations. Aurel Stein had reason to suppose that those ruins could provide evidence about the lesserknown chapters of the history of China and India. After several short expeditions and thorough preliminary studies, he set off in 1900 to carry out the first systematic exploration of the Tarim Basin and the vicinity of the Takla Makan Desert He oegan his second expedition in April 1906, traveling to Lop, the ruined city of Miran Shah in the heart of the desert where he found the ancient lines of fortification; near Tan Huang he discovered the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas. His third expedition took place between 1913 and 1916. After exploring the lesser-known regions of the Indus River, he returned to Khotan, the excavations of Niya and Miran Shah. By exploring the ruins of Loulan he unearthed evidence to support his theory about the Chinese economy and the Eastern textile and silk routes. He then went on to the vicinity of Lake Kara-Khoto. the Oasis of Turfan and the province of Sistan to carry out archeological and cartographic explorations. He was a brilliant explorer and scholar, with a flair for organization and diplomacy. He managed his expeditions with precision and foresight, surrounding himself with constant and loyal colleagues. After his third expedition, at the age of 54, he began to sum up the results of his work of this period, which were published in Ancient Khotan (2 vols., 1907), Serindia (5 vols., 1921) and Innermost Asia (4 vols., 1928). These works contain not only Stein’s huge collection of finds but also material by his fellow scholars. After India and China he began exploring the ruins of the Iranian frontier-zone, visiting Báluchestán, the Persian Gulf and Khuzistan. At the age of 76 he carried out an air photographic exploration of the Roman frontiers in Iraq. A British citizen since 1904, Sir Aurel Stein (he was knighted in 1912) declared himself a Hungarian all his life. He delivered several lectures at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, an institute to which he donated his extremely valuable library. Péter Szakonyi (Condensed from Magyar Nemzet) WEEKEND But my instructions were different: Do not go up the street and turn left because the bridge is out and the detour is poorly marked. Turn around right here in the lot and go back on the street we just came up, follow the Route 3 signs toward Budapest to the fork in the road, turn right. There will be a sign here indicating Miskolc-Tapolca, because that’s where our lunch would be...at the Hotel Juno. We had lost an hour here. We arrived at Hotel Juno exactly at noon. Olga ran in to let them know we were there. Ten minutes later she returns. Surprise, surprise. No one knows about out lunch date set for noon! Impossible, Olga said, we have confirmation from Ibusz, the state travel agency in Hungary. Just then in walked Zsuzsi Lévai, our guide from Budapest. The situation was dumped into her hands. Zsuzsi called the main Ibusz office in Budapest where she worked. They explained to her that the hotel management must be at fault because all the other places where she is scheduled to go have verified their notification. Then the acting manager of the hotel got on the phone. After a few minutes it was determined that lunch would be served in 20-30 minutes. Please excuse the mixup, but no one at the hotel was notified regardless of what Ibusz says. Ibusz is the State travel agency of Hungary. Our lunch was in the one end of the long narrow dining room on the second floor that ran the length of the hotel. The outer wall was completely glass. A cimbalom covered with a beautifully embroidered black Matyo-style cloth. The inner wall of the dining room is covered with a similar embroidery that is just a delight to the eye. Our group is assigned to the tables along the inner wall, right next to the embroidery. The long table in the middle is also set up, but it is for a Polish group that will be arriving at 1 PM. We had an outstanding lunch, considering the short notice the kitchen was given. Starting it off was Eszterhazy chicken soup where chunks of the chicken are served in the soupbowl. This was followed by a fresh garden salad consisting of tender lettuce leaves with thin slices of onions, cucumbers and radishes. Main entree was beef medallions in a lecsó sauce along with mashed potatoes and green beans. Three kinds of home-baked bread were served: white, rye and a dark pumpernickel. Dessert was a chocolate torta with a raspberry filling covered with loads of real whipped cream. Since our group was pretty hungry, we ate at a rapid pace and were able to get to the bus by 2 PM. Our bus pulled out five minutes later and the next stop would be Budapest. n bg continued _ February, 1985 Page 11
