Sándor Kőrösi Csoma

Alexander Csoma de Kőrös
Born March 27, 1784(1784-03-27)[1]
Kőrös, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary
Died April 11, 1842(1842-04-11) (aged 58)
Darjeeling, India
Occupation Linguist, philologist, traveler.

Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (March 27, 1784[1] – April 11, 1842), born Csoma Sándor, also known as Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, was a Hungarian philologist and orientalist, author of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book. He was born in Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania (today Chiuruş, Romania). His birth date is often credited as April 4, which is actually his baptism day.

Hoping that he would be able to trace the origin of the Magyar ethnic group, he set out for the East in 1820, and after much hardship along the way, arrived in Ladakh. Under great privation there, despite being aided by the British government, he devoted himself to the study of the Tibetan language. He made the first English-Tibetan Dictionary while living at Zangla Monastery in Zanskar in 1823. The dictionary was published a year later in 1824.[2]

In 1831, he settled in Calcutta, where he compiled his Tibetan Grammar and Dictionary and catalogued the Tibetan works in the library of the Asiatic Society. He died in Darjeeling just as he was setting out for fresh discoveries. He is said to have been able to read in seventeen languages. De Kőrös is widely seen as the founder of Tibetology.

Contents

Life

Youth in Transylvania

He was born into a poor Székely family, as the sixth child of András Csoma and his wife, Krisztina Getse. His father served with the Border Guard.

Studies in Göttingen

Eastward bound

Middle East, Central Asia

In Ladakh

Near the Kashmir border he attached himself to William Moorcroft who encouraged him to study Tibetan for the East India Company. Soon after he moved to the isolated valley of Zanskar (he was the first European to visit the valley), and started on an intense initial sixteen-month immersion in study of the Tibetan language and the Buddhist culture which was the essence of its literature with a local lama, Sangs-rgyas-phun-tshogs. From May 1827 to October 1830 he resided in Kanum in Upper Bashahr in the Simla Hill States where he studied the collection of Tibetan manuscripts he had amassed in Ladakh, living on a monthly stipend of Rs. 50/- from the British. With his dictionary and grammar complete Csoma went to Calcutta to oversee its publication.

In Calcutta and Darjeeling

In 1831 Csoma joined the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. In 1833 he was unanimously elected as Honorary member of the Asiatic Society. In 1834 he was made an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society. From 1837 to 1841, he worked as Librarian of the Asiatic Society[3]. In 1842 he planned to travel to Lhasa. But before its materialization, he contracted Malaria in Darjeeling and died there.

The memory of Kőrösi Csoma

There is a project under way with the aim to restore the old royal palace (Kharkongma) of Zangla where Csoma de Kőrös lived and compiled his Tibetan-English dictionary. Anyone can get involved, and by paying a small donation one can have his/her name written on a brick and incorporated in the new monastery.[4]

He was declared as a Bodhisattva in 1933 in Japan.[5]

Works of de Kőrös

Works About de Kőrös

Catalogue of the de Kőrös Collection

Notes

External links

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.