Note 2 — Chapter VI

“I have mentioned the above as a proof of the assiduity of Mr. Csoma, who collected and arranged 40,000 words of the Tibetan language in a situation that would have driven most men to despair. He has already nearly completed the Dictionary, and the Vocabulary is far advanced, and both, as well as I may venture to judge, exhibit singular industry and research. He told me with vivacity that he has acquired a sufficient knowledge of Tibetan, to enable him to accomplish his objects, even should he be deprived of the Lama’s services by sickness or other causes. He (the Lama) has, however, engaged to remain for two years longer, and from his great erudition, being acquainted with the refined and court languages, and learned in history: his resources will long prove an acquisition to Mr. Csoma. He exhibits a singular union of learning, modesty, and greasy habits; and Mr. Csoma in this last respect vies with his learned companion, which is not very strange in such a country. The Lama is a man of vast acquirements, strangely disguised under modest confidence of superiority, the mildest and most unassuming address, and a countenance seldom disturbed by a smile. His learning has not made him bigoted or self-sufficient, but it is singularly contrasted with his person and appearance, which are humble and dignified and greasy. Mr. Csoma himself appears like one of the sages of antiquity, living in the most frugal manner, and taking no interest in any object around him, except his literary avocations, which, however, embrace the religions of the countries around him. He showed me his labours with lively satisfaction. He has read through 44 volumes of one of the Tibetan works, and he finds unceasing interest in their contents. He seems highly pleased with the prospects of unfolding to the world those vast mines of literary riches, and I should say that he is flattered by his own ability to illustrate the objects which daily come to his view, but I am almost afraid to risk making known, from mere recollection, the attainments he has already arrived at, and the discoveries he has made, because he is so scrupulously tenacious of correctness in everything relating to and said of him, and carries his high feeling and independence to a degree which may be the custom of his country, but I am inclined to consider a fault in one so situated. In his conversation and expressions he is frequently disconsolate, and betrays it in involuntary sentiment, as if he thought himself forlorn and neglected. He can form no idea of the spirit in which Government will receive his works, and almost fears they may not be considered with that indulgence which is due to his research. Yet he told me, with melancholy emphasis, that on his delivering up the Grammar and Dictionary of the Tibetan language, and other illustrations of the literature of that country, he would be the happiest man on earth, AND COULD DIE WITH PLEASURE ON REDEEMING HIS PLEDGE. He showed me with great animation a printed work upon poesy, in which he pointed out the original of a translation from the Mahabharut, written in a number of the Oriental Quarterly; a great part of that work (the Sanskrit edition) is supposed to be lost, and the discovery of Mr. Csoma in the Tibetan books leads to the conclusion, that the whole of the Mahabharut may yet be preserved in the monasteries of that country, which seem to have afforded an asylum to literature at a very early period, even before its retrogression in India. In a small pocket abridgment of (I think Robertson’s) ‘India,’ Mr. Csoma showed me an extract of a poem from the Sanskrit, at the same time holding in his hands the original passage in the Tibetan.2 The systems of philosophy contained in those immense compilations he says are very numerous, and he thinks will astonish the learned in Europe; some of them are sublime in conception. I was naturally anxious to know the contents of the books of medicine, of which there are five volumes, and characters of 400 diseases he had collected and arranged. They treat copiously on physiology; and, in fact, there is no knowing yet what they do not contain. In his brief memoir to Government,3 the five volumes upon medicine were alluded to, but in Mr. Wilson’s observations on that paper they are not noticed, at which Mr. Csoma seems disappointed, and has strangely concluded that his assertion was discredited, but consoles himself with the prospect of disclosing many facts even much more unexpected. The Lama has informed him that at Teshi Lhunpo the anatomy of the human body is represented in wooden cuts or prints (for I forget which) in so many different attitudes. He also observes, that the art of lithography has long prevailed in that city and at Lassa, where learning has flourished from a very remote period.