Csoma asks for a passport in November 1835, enabling him to travel
in Hindustan—Leaves Calcutta—His last letters to Mr. Prinsep—Return
to Calcutta in 1837.
We have noticed already that four and a half years had passed since his
arrival in Calcutta, before the result of Csoma’s literary labours
could be brought to completion and published. This done, he made fresh
plans for the further prosecution of his studies.
In answer to letters of Prince Eszterházy and of Mr. Döbrentei, he
wrote in Latin, having made a spontaneous promise to Government,
through Mr. Prinsep, to correspond with Europe in that language only;
and in order to avoid every suspicion (remembering what had happened at
Sabathú in 1825, which he had never forgotten), he sent all his letters
open, to be forwarded by the secretary of the Asiatic Society to their
destination.
On the 30th of September 1835 Mr. Döbrentei wrote to Csoma as follows:
“Be so good as to inform us, in all sincerity, whether it is your wish
that a public subscription be opened on your behalf. This would at
least give an opportunity to the Hungarian nation to provide in a
suitable manner for one of her sons, who, for the sake of her ancient
history, is sacrificing himself on such a thorny path.”
Judging from Csoma’s ideas and general conduct in such matters, there
can be no doubt that he declined to sanction Döbrentei’s proposal.
On the 30th of November Csoma wrote to Mr. James Prinsep, asking for a
passport from Government. His letter (now in the possession of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences), so characteristic of the man, runs as
follows:—
“At my first arrival in British India, though furnished with an
introductory letter from the late Mr. W. Moorcroft, I was received
with some suspicion by the authorities in the Upper Provinces. But
afterwards, having given in writing, accordingly as Government
desired from me, the history of my past proceedings and a sketch of
my future plans, I was not only absolved by Government from every
suspicion I was under, and allowed to go to whatever place I liked
for the prosecution of my studies, but Government generously
granted me also pecuniary aid for the same purpose. Thus, during
the course of several years, I have enjoyed a favourable
opportunity of improving in knowledge, especially in the
philological part, for my purpose.
2. “I beg leave, sir, to offer and express herewith, through you,
my respectful thanks to the Government and to the Asiatic Society,
for their patronage, protection, and liberality in granting me
every means for my study at their library. But since I have not yet
reached my aim, for which I came to the East, I beg you will obtain
for me the permission of Government to remain yet for three years
in India, for the purpose of improving myself in Sanskrit and in
the different dialects; and, if Government will not object, to
furnish me with a passport in duplicate, one in English and one in
Persian, that I may visit the north-western parts of India. For my
own part, I promise that my conduct will not offend the Government
in whatever respect, and that I shall not have any correspondence
to Europe, but only through you, and that in Latin, which I will
send to you, without being closed, whenever I want to write to my
own country.—I remain, with much respect, Sir, your most obliged
humble servant,
A. Csoma.
“Calcutta, 30th November 1835.”
Mr. Prinsep, as on so many former occasions, took this opportunity,
unsolicited, to plead Csoma’s cause, in a letter addressed to Mr.
Macnaughten, the secretary to Government. From this we learn, also,
that of the money which was received on Csoma’s behalf from Hungary, he
would retain nothing for himself, but it had to be sent back, at his
request, to found scholarships with, and also for the benefit of his
relatives in Transylvania.
“Sir,—I have been requested,” writes Mr. Prinsep, “by Mr. Alexander
Csoma de Körös to report for the information of the Honourable the
Governor-General of India in Council, that he is desirous of
terminating his residence in Calcutta, and of proceeding to the
interior, for the purpose of further prosecuting his studies in the
Oriental languages. He begs me, accordingly, to solicit permission
for his continuing for three more years within the British Indian
territories, and, further, to request that he may be furnished with
two passports, to be produced when occasion may require—one in the
English language, in which he would wish to be designated by the
simple title of ‘Mr. Alexander Csoma, a Hungarian philologer,
native of Transylvania,’ and one in the Persian language,
describing him as ‘Molla Eskander Csoma az Mulk-i Rúm.’
2. “It is Mr. Csoma’s present intention, after having pursued his
researches into the dialects of Mithila, &c., to return to the
Presidency, and then to prepare the results of his studies for the
press.
3. “As he does not consider himself for the last year to have been
labouring in any way for the British Government, Mr. Csoma has
prevented me from making any application for pecuniary assistance.
I cannot, however, forbear from bringing to the notice of the
Honourable the Governor-General that the means at the disposal of
this indefatigable and unpresuming student are by no means equal to
meet the expense of a journey of three years, even on his very
moderate scale of expenditure.
4. “I hold in my hands a balance of five hundred rupees at his
disposal. The money granted by Government on the 12th January 1835,
as arrears of the salary of 50 rupees per mensem, due to Mr. Csoma
while employed on the Tibetan Grammar and Dictionary, and as
compensation for loss of the boon from the Hungarian nobleman, was
for the greater part remitted home by myself, at his express
desire, for the benefit of his relations in Hungary and of the
Hungarian Literary Society jointly, nor could I persuade him that
justice to himself required him to retain at least enough to meet
his own wants and comfort.
5. “I would respectfully submit, that however unwilling Mr. Csoma
may be to place himself under obligations, where, as he asserts, he
has done no service, the nature and bent of his studies into the
antiquities of India would amply justify the liberality of
Government towards so meritorious an individual. Many of his
publications on Buddha literature, in the pages of the Asiatic
Society’s Journal, are of the highest interest. A portion of his
Analysis of the Tibetan works (for which, at the time, he was
promised a salary of 200 rupees a month for two years) has just
been printed in the Asiatic Researches, and I have the honour to
enclose a copy of the article, from which the Government may
appreciate the labour it must have cost him to go through the 100
volumes of the ‘Kahgyur’ in the same careful manner.
6. “Under these considerations, I trust it will not be deemed
presumptuous in me to recommend that the allowance of 50 rupees per
mensem may be continued to Mr. Csoma as long as he may remain
prosecuting studies from which the Government or the learned of our
country may derive benefit, and that I may be permitted to draw it
on honour on his account from the expiration of the last payment,
or the 31st December 1834.
7. “It will be understood that his services will be at all times
available to examine and report on Tibetan works, of which the
Resident at Nepal has recently despatched a large supply for
presentation to the Honourable the Court of Directors. The Court
will doubtless be well pleased that these should be examined in
this way by almost the only scholar capable of reading and
explaining their contents.”
Csoma’s passport, issued by Government, is of interest in his
biography; the text was in English and Persian, and was worded thus:—
“Mr. Alexander Csoma de Körös, a Hungarian philologer, native of
Transylvania, having obtained the permission of the Honourable the
Governor-General of India in Council, to prosecute his studies in
Oriental languages in Hindustan for three years, I am directed by
his Honour in Council to desire all officers of the British
Government, whether civil or military, and to request all chiefs of
Hindustan in alliance and amity with the British Government, to
afford such protection to Mr. Csoma as may be necessary to
facilitate the object of his researches.
“By command of the Honourable the Governor-General of India in
Council.
“Fort William,
The 14th December 1835.”
Wafer Seal.
(Sgd.) W. H. Macnaughten,
Sec. to Government of India.
Having provided himself with the necessaries for the voyage, Csoma did
not delay his departure from Calcutta; he travelled by boat, and we
hear of him at Maldah, which place he reached on the 20th January 1836:
we learn this from a letter to Mr. Prinsep, in possession of the
Asiatic Society of Calcutta.
“Sir,—I beg leave to acquaint you that I have safely reached this
place yesterday in the morning. The cold north wind has somewhat
retarded our progress, but in other respects I have suffered
nothing of which I should complain. These men have been honest and
active enough during the whole time, since we left Calcutta, and I
feel much obliged for the kindness and good service done to me by
you, and by those whom you had employed to procure me this boat
with such men.
“According to the agreement made with the Manji, which I have
enclosed here, I had paid him 8 rupees in Calcutta, besides one for
oil and Masul or duty, and of the remaining 6, I have given him
here again 3 rupees, and I beg, sir, you will order the other 3
rupees also to be paid him, and to be put on my account. Besides
the above specified 12 rupees, I have given yet to these five men
in common, 3 rupees as a reward for the service done me by them.
“To-morrow I shall leave this place, having hired again a small
boat for 8 rupees to carry me up to Kissenganj. When I shall have
fixed myself at any place in the upper part of this country, for a
certain time, and have visited the Sikkim Raja, I shall be happy to
acquaint you with what I shall have learned. My earnest desire is
to merit the continuation of your favour.”
Early in March we find Csoma at Julpigori, where he met a sympathising
friend in Major Lloyd, commanding the frontier station. This gentleman
offered him every attention and hospitality, but they were declined by
Mr. Csoma, on the ground that his staying with Government officers of
high position would deprive him of the intercourse with natives, whose
familiarity it was his chief endeavour to cultivate. There is only one
more autograph letter still extant from Csoma, and this he wrote to Mr.
Prinsep on the 7th of March 1836 from Julpigori. The original is in the
possession of the Academy of Sciences at Budapest:—
“Sir,—I beg leave to acknowledge that the packet containing some
papers, which by the Asiatic Society’s direction you had addressed
to me, on the 8th of February last, safely reached me on the 19th
of the same month, having been forwarded to me by Major Lloyd’s
kindness. I would have immediately acknowledged the receipt of
those papers, but as I was yet at that time very unsettled,
respecting my remaining here or moving from this place, I have
delayed till now to write to you. I beg you will excuse me for my
tardiness.
“I feel greatly obliged to you for the kind communication of a copy
of His Excellency Prince Eszterházy’s reply to your letter of the
5th January last year. I am glad to know that the 50 copies of my
Tib. Grammar and Dictionary have safely reached London, and that
they have been also forwarded to their farther destination. I was
also happy to see how His Excellency has expressed his thanks,
through you, to the British Indian Government and to the Asiatic
Society, for their kind protection and liberality to me.
“While I gratefully acknowledge the favours thus conferred on me
through this kind communication, I am sorry that, for my own part,
I can send nothing to you, not having been able, as yet, to learn
anything interesting. Together with your note, I have received also
the two facsimiles of inscriptions, but I am unable to give any
satisfactory explanation of them. Though I admit the one to be in
the Tib. character and language, I dare not say anything about its
contents.
“According to your direction, I take now the liberty of addressing
my letter to you through W. H. Macnaughten, Esq., chief secretary
to Government, knowing that it will be afterwards sent to you.
Though I feel much obliged for the favours thus conferred on me by
this kind arrangement with Mr. Macnaughten respecting my future
communications to you, I am sorry that I shall not be able to send
any interesting information, since I shall perhaps not visit
Sikkim, Nepaul, and the other hilly tracts, being informed that the
travelling in those parts would be dangerous, difficult, very
expensive, and of little advantage to my purpose; but after
remaining in these parts for a certain period, to study the
Bengalee and Sanskrit, afterwards I shall go by water to Patna,
whenever, successively, I shall visit again by water the upper
provinces, devoting my whole time to the study of the Sanskrit
language and to the acquirement of the principal dialects.
“Since I intend to prosecute only my philological researches, and
will abstain from every statistical, political, or even
geographical inquiry, if I shall write but seldom to you, and at
that time also shortly, I beg you will excuse me. I hope, if I
survive, and can again safely return to Calcutta, I shall be able
to communicate to you the results of my studies and Indian tours. I
shall want but little for my expenses, and I hope that the five
hundred sicca rupees, left in your hand at my leaving Calcutta,
will be sufficient during the time I intend to make my
peregrination in India. Should I fail in making any useful progress
in my studies worthy of the Government’s patronage, the Asiatic
Society may always dispose of that money for literary purposes
which you successively receive from Government on my behalf.
“Should you wish to communicate to me any papers, I beg you will
address them to the care of Major Lloyd at Titalya, who will have
the kindness to forward them to me. Pray not to send me the numbers
of the ‘Asiatic Society’s Journal’ or any other book until I shall
write to you, or shall go to Patna; but I shall be much obliged if
you will favour me with any letters received from my own country.”
As Csoma wrote, so probably he acted. His object being exclusively
literary researches, he seldom wrote letters to anybody, and to this
fact is attributable the circumstance that, after the last-mentioned
date, we meet with but few records of Csoma’s doings, which otherwise
would have enriched the narrative of his life.
Major Lloyd writes about him as follows:—
“At the beginning of 1836, when Csoma quitted his apartments he had in
the Asiatic Society’s house, he wished to study Bengalee, and I sent
him to Julpigori, where he remained about three months; but being
dissatisfied there, he returned to Titalya, I think, in March. He would
not remain in my house, as he thought his eating and living with me
would cause him to be deprived of the familiarity and society of
natives, with whom it was his wish to be colloquially intimate; I
therefore got him a common native hut, and made it as comfortable as I
could for him, but still he seemed to me to be miserably off. I also
got him a servant, to whom he paid three or four rupees a month, and
his living did not cost him more than four more. He did not quit
Titalya, I think, till the end of November 1837, and all the time he
was there he was absorbed in the study of the Sanskrit, Mahratta, and
Bengali languages. I think it was in November that he left, purposing
to go to Calcutta. At one time he was intending to travel through the
mountains to Katmandú, ... but he seemed to have a great dread of
trusting himself into Tibet, for I repeatedly urged him to try to reach
Lassa through Sikkim, but he always said such an attempt could only be
made at the risk of his life. I was therefore surprised at his coming
here (in 1842) apparently with that intention.”
After a sojourn of nearly two years in the east of Bengal, in the
neighbourhood of Sikkim, Csoma returned to Calcutta, as surmised by
Major Lloyd.
Towards the latter part of 1837, Dr. Malan succeeded Mr. James Prinsep
as secretary of the Asiatic Society, and he then found our scholar in
Calcutta. In 1838, Captain Pemberton invited him to join the Government
mission to Bhútan, but the offer was not accepted, because there was no
prospect of reaching Tibet by that route; Csoma therefore continued to
live in the Asiatic Society’s rooms in his capacity as librarian.
Whilst at Titalya (in 1837) a correspondence passed between himself and
Mr. Hodgson; this gentleman invited Csoma to Katmandú, but when the
latter found that he could not pass into Tibet viâ Nepal, the proposed
visit was abandoned.
From the end of 1837 till the early part of 1842, Csoma remained in
Calcutta, arranging the Tibetan works of the Asiatic Society, as its
librarian. He published several scientific treatises and articles, and
was engaged by Dr. Yates and other missionaries in the translation of
the Liturgy, the Psalms, and the Prayer-book into Tibetan. M. Pavie
writes thus: [45] “I saw him often during my stay in Calcutta, absorbed
in phantastic thoughts, smiling at the course of his own ideas,
taciturn like the Brahmins, who, bending over their writing-desks, are
employed in copying texts of Sanskrit. His room had the appearance of a
cell, which he never left except for short walks in the corridors of
the building. What a pity it is,” continues Pavie, “that a scientific
mind like his was so little given to writing except on his special
study; but under the influence of ideas of a peculiar kind he
accomplished that laborious and useful task which constitutes his
glory.”
A member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Emil Thewrewk de
Ponor, made an interesting communication to a Budapest journal, the
“Nemzet,” on the 31st of March 1883, according to which it would appear
that Josef Szabó de Borgáta, a fellow-student at Göttingen, and
afterwards professor of the Lycæum of Sopron, was the first who induced
Csoma to undertake a journey to the East. This Professor Szabó was
still alive, and in his ninety-fourth year in 1883.
Mr. Thewrewk refers further to a letter of a Hungarian artist, Mr.
Schoefft, from Pest, who lived in India and knew Csoma well. The letter
was written in March 1842. An extract of it is appended:—
“I was on very friendly terms with Csoma during my stay in Calcutta,
where I found to my satisfaction that the people of that city had much
clearer ideas about Hungary than before, for which, doubtless, we are
indebted to Csoma. Nevertheless, the truth must be told, that I never
saw a more strange man than him. He lives like a hermit among his
Tibetan and other works, in the house of the Asiatic Society, which he
seldom leaves. Of an evening he takes slight exercise in the grounds,
and then he causes himself to be locked up in his apartment; it
therefore invariably happened that when, during my evening rides, I
called on him, it was necessary for me always to wait a while till the
servants produced the keys to unlock the door of his apartment. He was
cheerful; often merry, his spirits rose very considerably when we took
the opportunity of talking about Hungary. Altogether, I found him very
talkative, and if he once started on this strain there was no getting
to the end of it. Often, when speaking of our native land, or
discussing the subject concerning the origin of the Hungarians, our
pleasant conversation was protracted till after 10 o’clock. I began to
suspect, however, that he would never see his native land again, being
then already advanced in age, and yet he proposed remaining for ten
years longer in the country, to enable him to glean whatever he could
find in the old writings, and such a secluded, one would almost call it
a prison life, might soon undermine the powers of any constitution and
leave but a mere shadow of an existence.”
Besides the aged Professor Szabó, there is yet another living witness
who knew Csoma face to face, namely, the Rev. S. C. Malan, D.D.,
Oxford, now Rector of Broadwindsor, Dorset. He was connected with the
Bishops’ College of Calcutta, and during his short stay there, as
secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, was on intimate terms with
the subject of this memoir.
Dr. Malan says [46] as to Körösi, “I never think of him without
interest and gratitude. I had heard of him and seen his Tibetan Grammar
and Dictionary before leaving England.
“One of my early visits was to the Asiatic Society’s house, Calcutta,
where Csoma lived as under-librarian. I found him a man of middle
stature, much weather-beaten from his travels, but kind, amiable, and
willing to impart all he knew....
“I happened to be the only person who was troubling himself about
Tibetan; he and I became very good friends during the whole, alas! too
short, stay in India. And when we parted he gave me the whole of his
Tibetan books, some thirty volumes. I value such relics highly, and
still use the same volume which I used to turn over with him.”
These volumes, forty in number, are now the property of the Royal
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, through the kindness of Dr. Malan, the
donor. [47]
There is a more recent letter from Dr. Malan to the writer, giving his
opinion about a likeness of Csoma, and which is quoted at the end.