Hungarian Heritage Review, 1989 (18. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1989-01-01 / 1. szám
British Physician Archibald Campeil, in whose Darjeeling house Csorna died in April 1842. of the founders of Assyriology. The latter answered him and gave him some supplies and money. Furthermore he procured a place for him in a caravan to Persia, helping the Hungarian pilgrim to pursue his travel to the East. On his arrival to Teheran, Csorna paid a visit to the British charge d’affaires, Sir Henry Willock, trying his luck again. Not only did he have the same good luck as in Baghdad, but he was granted all the facilities he could dream of, to take a long rest, to restore his health, and to learn both English and Persian. He remained in Teheran for four months, enjoying the unlimited kindness of the diplomat and of his brother, Captain George Willock. The generous assistance they afforded him was not unnecessary before he left for more eastern countries of Central Asia, where, owing to general insecurity, European travelers were in so great danger. He then proceeded through Bokhara, Afghanistan, Lahore and Kashmir, and reached Leh, capital of the still independent kingdom of Ladakh. He planned to cross the Karakorum mountains and Chinese Turkestan. But he was prevented from doing so for several reasons, particularly because of the risk of being brought to slavery or condemned to death for his being a Christian. Compelled to turn back, he was at his wit’s end when he met, by pure accident, another European traveler, an Englishman named William Moorcroft, veterinarian of the Bengal army, who was exploring Ladakh and the surrounding regions. Moorcraft exercised a decisive ascendancy over his new acquaintance inasmuch as he induced him to give up temporarily his project of journeying to Mongolia in order to dedicate himself to the study of the Tibetan language. He gave him money and books, wrote letters of recommendation, introduced him to the Ladakhi government, accommodated him during six months in his own lodging at Srinagar, and signed with him an agreement according to which he assured the Hungarian scholar the means he needed to write a Tibetan dictionary and a grammar book. For more than seven years Csorna de Koros remained in the Himalayan mountains, where he lived in the worst imaginable conditions, without light and fire, cut off from the outside world, working hard to compile the first dictionary of a language which till then was unknown to Europeans. He had the good luck to receive the kind and devoted assistance of a learned lama, Sangye Phuntsog, to whom he had been recommended by Moorcroft and by the Prime Minister of Ladakhi kingdom. With his help he succeeded in carrying out his difficult mission, in spite of so contrary circumstances. Meanwhile, in winter 1824-1825, he made up his mind to proceed to the outpost of Sabathu on the Indian border, in order to introduce himself to the English authorities by showing them the credentials he had got from Moorcroft. After a rather long wait of five months, due to the slow communications of that time, he was granted a monthly allowance of fifty rupies by the Indian government, greatly interested in all that was related to the mysterious Tibet. Better still, in May 1827, he was admitted to reside at Kanam, a little Himalayan village recently conquered by the British during a war against Nepal, where there was a collection of the Buddhist canonical books, essential for the completion of his task. There, under better circumstances than in Ladakh, he could bring to a successful conclusion his philological and lexicographical research. In April 1831 he arrived at Calcutta, bringing the manuscript of his Tibetan dictionary and grammar. He presented them to the Indian government and was immediately recruited by the Asiatic Society of Bengal as an assistant librarian, to write the catalogue raisonne of the many Tibetan books and xylographs in its possession. No one except for Csorna de Körösi could read it. As early as January 1832 he began to publish several articles on his specialty in the journal of the Society. On the 4th of January 1834, his two books were issued by the press of the Baptist mission. From this very date, he was not only regarded by the learned men of the world as the father of Tibetology, but also as a British Orientalist, since all his works were written in English and issued by English learned institutions. Besides, it must be added that he had been elected honorary member both of the Royal Asiatic Society of London and of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. Alexander Csorna de Koros stayed in Bengal for eleven years, enlarging and improving his philological investigations, learning Sanskrit literature and modern Indian languages, because he did not give up the hope of finding a key to the problem of the Oriental origin of the Magyars, all in vain. This is the reason why in May 1841 he resigned his office as librarian and got ready for a new journey to the supposed cradle of his nation. In February 1842, he resumed his way, though he was already fifty-eight years old, with the intention to visit the libraries of Lhassa and of the most important Tibetan monasteries. Then, he intended to proceed probably to Eastern Turkestan, perhaps to Mongolia. The old and apparently indefatigable pilgrim climbed up to Darjeeling in order to get permission to enter Sikkim and central Tibet, but after ten days he fell ill. He died on the 11th of April, far from his native country and still farther from the mythical country he aimed at. Bernard Le Calloc’h (From Hungarian Digest 3/88, Budapest Hungary) 18 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW JANUARY 1989
