Apor Éva (szerk.): Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára Keleti Gyűjtemény.

The Csoma Collection

The Csoma Collection 8 T

he Tibetan manuscripts and blockprints of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös (1784-1842), the founder of Tibetan studies, went to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1885, thanks to his biographer Tivadar Duka. Csoma had presentKőrösi CSOMA Sándor Alexander CSOMA de Kőrös (1784-1842) Holló Barnabás szobra Statue of Barnabás Holló ed these works to S. C. Malan, the then secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1839, and upon Duka's request, Malan annotated them and sent the library of 40 items to the Academy. This material was first introduced by Lajos Ligeti in 1933 in an article in the Tou'ng Pao. He stated that the 40 items were actually 36 books. In 1942, the first cataloguer of the collection, Lajos Gyula Nagy added to them another two items. The curator of Tibetan manuscripts at that time, József Térjék gave a detailed analysis of the works in his study Csoma de Kőrös documents in the collections of the Academy Library (in Hungarian, 1976). On the basis of formal criteria, he divided the small collection into two parts: the most precious items are the so-called Alexander books, written by scholarly lamas in answer to Csoma's questions, the other part contained purchased or copied works. In thematical terms, the Csoma library includes works in Tibetan linguistics, literary theory, astronomy and history, which probably represent the last research interests of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös. Térjék József Körösi Csoma dokumentumok az Akadémiai Könyvtár gyűjteményeiben Budapest 1976 This bequest was complemented by Tivadar Duka's rich collection of Csoma relics and his books on Tibetan themes. The tiny Csoma collection is the core of the largest special material of the Oriental Collection numbering some 3000 items of Tibetan manuscripts and blockprints.