After a strenuous week we completed the new staircase. Third layer of clay placed on the roof, dense red clay colored twigs made the finish of the porch and the wooden structure also got its red clay paint. >>>

Staircase walls and roof structure finished, short visit to Dzongkul

After some serious effort the new walls of the staircase are standing, and the wooden roof-structure is ready. Last weekend visited the Zangla nunnery school on their picnic at the riverside, and payed a short visit to Dzongkul monastery, the birthplace of the essays published by Csoma as Alexander books. >>>

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About Alexander Csoma de Kőrös

The journey of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös to Ladakh

Csoma developed his idea that he would find the ancient Hungarian homeland and the Hungarians “left behind” somewhere in Central Asia or among the Uyghurs.

In November 1819 he left Hungary, and after a long journey, Csoma arrived to Kashmir by the middle of April, and waited until May 9 to continue further to Leh.

He planned to reach central Asia with avoiding the Afghan theatre of war. However, as he wrote, this itinerary was very difficult, costly and dangerous to a Christian, and therefore after twenty-five days he turned back to Leh. On his way back, on July 16 he met the British officer William Moorcroft, whom he accompanied to Leh, where they stayed together until the end of August.

This encounter triggered a decisive change in the life of Csoma. He received from Moorcroft a copy of the very first book on Tibet, the Alphabetum Tibetanum by Agostino Antonio Giorgi, and it was Moorcroft who spurred Csoma to his Tibetan studies.

Csoma – perhaps hoping to find new sources about the history of ancient Hungarians in the Tibetan literature that was an absolute terra incognita at that time, unable to continue his journey to Central Asia – stayed in Leh and began to learn Tibetan with the help of Persian as an intermediate language.

After acquiring the rudiments of the language, Csoma decided to perfect his knowledge “through the many and interesting volumes conserved in the monasteries”, thus he asked for the support of Moorcroft to return to Ladakh.

Moorcroft approved the request of Csoma, provided him with the most necessary materials, and wrote recommendations for him both to the khalon – the chief royal minister – of Leh and to the head of the settlement of Zangla, Sangs-rgyas Phun-tshogs, who would later become the teacher of Csoma.

Kőrösi left Kashmir on the second of May, 1823, and arrived in Leh on the first of June. Here he was given gifts and a further letter of recommendation from the khalon, who directed him to Zangla. Csoma arrived there nine days later.

Kőrösi, on the other hand, stayed in Zangla from June 20, 1823 to October 22, 1824. There he learned Tibetan amidst shockingly harsh conditions, and began to familiarize himself with Tibetan literature, guided by his teacher Sangs-rgyas Phun-tshogs, whom he simply calls “the lama” in his letters.

Csoma laid the foundations of his later works in those sixteen tormenting months spent in Zangla rife with privation and hardships. In this period he not only mastered the Tibetan language, but he also acquired knowledge of a remarkable part of the canonized literature, and – as is revealed by his later writings and some letters concerning him – he composed a glossary of about 30.000 words during this period.

Apart from an allusion to his glossary of 30.000 words and a brief description of the structure of the Tibetan canon, Csoma also reports of having succeeded in acquiring a number of Tibetan books, and what is more, some of these were explicitly compiled on his request by the lamas. This means that the famous manuscripts later called Alexander Books were prepared during his first stay in Zangla.

For more information: http://csoma.mtak.hu/en/csoma-elete.htm