Terjék József: Collection of Tibetan MSS and Xylographs of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.
The History of the Collection
5 After annotating them he sent the collection, consisting of forty items, to T. Duka who displayed the material in London, at the exhibition of the Royal Asiatic Society (T. Duka, Some Remarks on the Life and Labours of Alexander Csoma de Körös, delivered on the occasion when his Tibetan Books and MSS were exhibited before the Royal Asiatic Society on the 16th June, 1884: JRAS 1884, pp. 486-494. - In Hungarian translation: Budapesti Szemle, 39 (1884), No. 93, pp. 463-472.). To the letter of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences thanking him for his generous gift Malan replies: "I have read it with gratification at finding that I did the right thing in sending Csorna's books and MSS where they ought to be, and that the gift has given pleasure to you and to your friends. I received a letter of thanks from your Academy in Hungarian and English. I see I must brush up my Hungarian - a magnificent tongue. But really I have not time for everything. Whether in Hungarian or in English, however, I am delighted at being the means of contributing to the due appreciation of Csoma's character and worth. " (October 27, 1884). So the Csoma Collection has been in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1884, treasured as a most valuable monument from the past. In 1942 a catalogue of the collection was prepared (I. J. Nagy, Tibetan Books and Manuscripts of Alexander Csoma de Körös in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest 1942), in which Maian's original catalogue-numbers were changed by L. J. Nagy, who included two Tibetan books which were not listed by Malan and are not to be regarded as part of the Csoma Collection (these two books (No. 23 and No. 24 in L. J. Nagy's catalogue - may have been bequeathed by T. Duka). Formally the Collection can be divided into two large parts. The first part covers the books Csoma acquired through purchase. These, mostly blockprints, are well-known works of Lamaist literature, copies of which can often be found in monasteries, and even occasionally in European libraries. Thus their importance lies not so much in their individual value but in the fact that they reflect the nature of Csoma's choice. The other group consists of the MSS prepared at his request by contemporary Lamas. The uniqueness of these books is not only due to their origin and outside form but to their contents as well, as their arrangement is based on Csoma's questions about Lamaist literature; they became known in the literature of Tibetan studies as the "Alexander-books".
