Terjék József: Collection of Tibetan MSS and Xylographs of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.

The History of the Collection

6 The Alexander-books The scholarly world acquired knowledge of the so called Alexander-books only in the first decades of this century, only later did they learn of the existence of the original copies in Budapest. In the twenties J. Gergan, a Tibetan member of the Moravian Mission, found a book in the monastery library of Rjon-khul in Ladakh that was written, at Csoma's request by a certain revered Lama, Kun-dga' chos-legs. He informed the outstanding Tibetist of the age, A. H. Francke, of his find and tie later published the text of the book (A. H. Francke, Neues über Csoma de Körös: Ungarische Jahrbücher VI (1926), pp. 320-322; A. H. Francke, Die Fragen des Alexander. Eine von Alexander Csoma de Koros hervorgomfene tibetische Schrift: Ungarische Jahrbücher VIII (1928), pp. 375-377). On reading Francke's article L. Ligeti announced in a publication that the original of Kun-dga' chos-legs's syllabus was to be found in Budapest, in the Csoma-Collection, which contained a number of other Alexander-books, the syllabuses of Chul-khrims rgya-mcho and Sans-rgyas phun-chogs ("the Lama"). (L. Ligeti, Ouvrages tibétains rédigés a l'usage de Csoma: T'oung Pao XXX (1935), pp. 26-36). L. J. Nagy, in tiis catalogue mentioned above?, described one more Alexander-book which lias neither a title nor a colophon. He was thus unable to identify its author. I have, however, established that it was also written by Sans-rgyas phun-chogs. Thus the CsomaCollection contains four Alexander-books (No. 3, No. 4, No. 6, No. 8), covering five subjects. One was written by Kun-dga* c.hos-legs (No. 4), the other by Chul-khrims rgya-mcho (No. 3), while the remaining three were prepared by Sans-rgyas phun-chogs (No. 6/a, No. 6/b, No. 8). As can be unquestionably established from the col option of the No. 3 Alexander-book and Csoma's letter of May 5th 1825, all the Alexander-books were prepared during Csoma's stu> in the monastery of Zungla (from June 1823 to October 1824 ). Of the authors Sans-rgyas phunchogs was Csoma's "teacher", while Kun-dga' é ho s—legs and Chul-khrims rgya-mcho were famous I.amas- of Xanskar, the former also being a relative of "the Lama". The Alexander-books show a unity in shape, being an of the