Mukerjee, Hirendranath

English

Apollo (Cambridge)

CSOMA DE KOROS - A DEDICATED LIFE . -Hirendranath Mukerjee About a century and a quarter ago, thl"ee young Hungarian fellow-stud<:nt~ had solemnly vowed to devpte their . lives to the task of penetrating Central Asia in quest of the origin of their nation. Only one of them kept his word and lived and died for his vow. This was Csoma de Koros whose name has not received the recognition it so preeminently deserves, since few of those who have benefited from his life's unrt"mitting toil have had, it is so sad to tell, even a word of thanks for the great master. His life opened up a vast new field for human inquiry. As Sir William Hunter has said : "Csoma, single. handed did more than the armies of Ochterlony to pierce the Himalayas and to reveal to Europe what lay behind the mountain-wall". His was a dedicatecllife-if ever there was one. Read even a bare summary of his life, and you cannot help the impression that here was a man who lived a life consecrated, never calculatihg, looking neither to the right nor to the left, out always fired, in the search for the knowledge, with the noble resolve "to strive to reek, to find and not toyield Jt • Alexander Csoma was bom in the beautiful Transylvanian village of Koros in April, 1784. His family though poor, belonged to the sekler or military nobles who for many centuries had acted as the bulwark of South - Eastern Hungary against Turkish inroads. At the Gymnasium or Collegiate School of Nagyenyed, where he received his education, he had to cl<:anse the lecture-rooms in return for his board. He finished his Gymnasium course at 23 and was elected Lecturerof Poetry. Eight long years went by, before he could find leisure to pass his "examen rigorosum" qualifying him to continue his studies at a foreign University. He w<.nt to Gottingen where he studied English and Arabic. He was now offered tempting emoluments in the shape, for instance, of a first - dass chair in his college; but he had not forgot-ten his vow. Turning a deaf ear to the rich offers he received at home, he started for the East in November, 1819. A certain Count, standing at his gate, saw the wayfarer pass by "dad in a thin, yellow, Nonkin dress, with a stick in his hand and a small blIDdle". His ri-gorous educational career had taught him to do without money. The athletic build of his body enabled him to bear severe labour. He had a sweet patience which endeared him to his Tibetan and Indian teachers. That was all the equipment he took with him in his quest. The next twenty~three years of his life he wa<; to spend as a poor solitary wanderer in fulfilment of his vow. Presidency College Magazine, Vol XIII, No 1, Calcutta, Sept. 1~2iL 17 The task he had dreamt to accomplish was, however, foredoom-ed to failure. He believed the Hungarians of Europe to be of the same family as the Hungars, Yur,.gars or Yugars of Mor.golia. His original premise was thus a sd of old errors; it is his eternal glory that he arri-Vled at quite a diff'en:nt set of new truths. By his self-forgetting labours during the long disappointmmt of the search for the heme of his race, he laid the foundations of a new dtpartmcnt of human knowlt:dge. His journey was tedious and round about process. He rea-ched Kabul after he had walked on foot for more than two years, in January, 1822 . Near the Cashmere frontitr, he met the Enghh explorer, .Moorcroft, "nd the two became friends, Moorcroft advised him to learn Tibetan and gave him his copy of Father Giorgi's "AI-phabetum Tibetanum" - a voluminous, but extn:mdy poor, compi-lation. Cscma sd7£d it with glee. New Halms of learning btgan to glimmer bdore his eyes and he dt tnmin ... d to ? noetrate that l<Jld of mystery. The two frimds parttd, li('ver ~gain to mect. FTCm June 1823 to October 1824, he studied Tibetan with a Lz.ma in the monas-tery of Zangla. "In winter the doors were block, d with mow and the thermometer renged below zero. For four months, Cmma sat with his Lama in a cell nine feet square, ndther of tht m darirg to stir out, with no light after dark, with only the ground to sleep on, and the bare walls of the building as their sole. ddtnce against the deadly cold. " In November 1824, he reached the British cantor.romt of Subathu, with a gist of the 330 volumes he had mastued and the begin-nings of a Tibetan dictionary in his bundle. Lord Amherst, whm he. heard the stranger's account grant(d him a monthly allowance of Rs 50/-Csoma silt'ntly gave up his search for the heme of his race in Mor.golia, in order to fulfil his obligatkns to the Ir.dian Govnr.mtnt. He under-took to pr< pare a Tib,tan grammar, a Tibetan Er.glish dictionary and a sugcinct account of Tibetan literature and history. Again he Wtnt on foot into Tibet, where his former friend and teacher patkntly wrote down for him many thousand words in Tibetan, with a list of all the gods, heroes, constdlations, minerals, animals and plan"s. But his patti nce ~lowly wore off and he qUietly left his strange pupil. Csoma, brc kmhtartt' d, had to come back with his worla only half fudshed. To add to his di~appointm(nt, a Tibetan dictionary was in the meanwhile published from Serampur. The work was derived from a catalogue of words left by an unknown Catho-lic missionary. But the compilation was woeful1y unsiftt:d and unsor-ted. Lord Amherst who had reaJis(d Csoma's worth, d{cided to trust the baffled sdlDlar to the end and the Government of India, after wai-ting for six months of anxious suspense for Csoma, granted him a monthly allowance to finish his work. 18 Croma£ reached the monastery of Kromm about the autumn· of 1827, Dr. Gerard, the earliest medical explorer of the Himalayas, visited him there in 1829 ar.d has ldt a touching picture of the hermit-scholar. As Sir William Huntn has rt mal k{ d, "In addition to hia physical suffertings, he had to wrestle VI-'ith those spiritual d€mons of self-distrust, the bitter sense of the world's negI<:ct and the paralysing uncertainty as to the value of his labours, which have eaten the heart of the solitary worker in all agrs and in all lands". He retUlned to India in 183 I, with a train of coolies bearing his precious manuscripts. Lord William Bentinck warmly received him, doubled then quadrupled, hi' meagre allowance, provided him with a room in the Asiatic Scci.ety's buildir.gs and ungrudgingly paid from public coffers all the expenses for the publication of his wOlk In January, I8H, his Dictionary and Grammar of the Tibetan language were published. These two bocks t:mbody in them most valuable and permaru:'nt contributions to human knowledge. "They are", says Jaschke who, in the words of Hunter, has plact:d the copes-tone on the edifice ' of which Csoma laid the foundation, "the work of an original investigator and dee fmit of almost unparallekd determi-nation and patit'nce". A ntw and original work has now betn placed before scholars in place of the old-world medley of Giorgi's "Alpha-betum Tibetanum" and the illarranged vocabulary published flOm Serampur. Csoma ransacked the vast treasury of classical Tibetan and he reduced the language to a dictionary and a grammar which made it the rich property of all mankind. In his numerous and valuable essays, he furnished a brilliant account of Tibetan literature. hl I8H, the Asiatic Society made him an Honorary Mcmber-a very raTe honour in those days. ror three years from now, he devoted himself to Sanskrit and its dialects, studying in Calcutta or travelling by boat or on foot through north-eastel11 lknga1. His monthly expenses came to Rs. 3/- for a ,erv"nt and Rs. 4/- foraH other outlay. He was now a finished Sanskrit ~cholar Gnd served as Sub-librarian to the Asiatic Society. In the last stage of his life, Csoma placed his four boxes (f books around him and it was within this little quadrangle that he sat, laboured and slept. But during all these years, he never for a moment forgot that the study of Tibetan did not form part of his original plan, which was to search out the origin of the Hungarians in Central Asia. He catalogued manuscripts and did much solid work for the Asiatic Society. But he could not rest before he fulfilled his vow and was silently preparing for the final enterprise. hl 1842, he was fifty eight. Like Ulysses, he felt how dull it was to pause. His life's work was still undone. Always in his mind 19 emerged the roemory of that boysh vow, which had nmained the cen-tral motive of his mature years and was to be the theme of his last con-venation before death. Now he started for Central Asia, the land of his dreams. In February, 1 8"p, he wrote a grau ful letter of farewell to the Asiatic Society. leaving all his books, papers and savings at its disposal. He travelled on foot and r~ached Darjeeling on March 24. stricken with fever. The political agent, Archibald Campbell was a ,killed physician and an enthusiastic (lritntal student. The pilgrim scholar was, howerver, never to reach Lhassa. No amount of medical :assistance proved to be of any avail, ..nd he died very peacefully at day-break on April 1 I. 1842, without a groan or a struggle. His meagre savings were sent to his beloved country. But Csoma's bequest was for all the world - a contribution which may be called in the words of Ruskin, "a heap of treasure that no moth can corrupt and even our. traitorship Cal.not sully". Far from the din and bustle of a warring world, the master lies in peaceful repose on a mi-ghty slope of the Himalayas. Here's the. top-peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to live but know! Bury this man there? Here, here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loostlled, Stars come and go! L...t joy break with the storm, Peace let the do,·",,' send! Lofty designs must dose in like effects, Loftily lying, Leave him-still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying. 20 

Csoma de Koros - A Dedicated Life

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