I. DESIDERIAN ACCOUNTOF TIBET

BROADWAY 'fRAVELLERS

P An MA :, A~\ b HAVA (Urgycn)lrom 11 Tibetan painting in the

De filipPl collection.

First published ill 193 I

RefJised editio ill 1937

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BYSTBPHI.N AUSTIN AND SONS, I,TD.. HERTFORD

CONTI~NTSPAGE

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DESIDERI xv

INTRODUCTION. erhe Jesuit Mission in Tibet, 1625-172 I, 6,c. Wessels, S.J.

PREI-'ACE by Filippo De Filippi 33

HISTORICAL SKE'TCH OF 'THIBET, and an Accountof the Mission and traoels in that Country IJy FatherIppolito Desideri, of the Society of ~1esus, written 6yHimself; 1712-1733 47

FOREWORD, IJy the Author 49

BOOK THE FIRSTDescribing The Journey from Rome to Llulsa, Capital of

'Third 'Thioet, and my Mission there . 5ICHAPTER I

Departure from Rome and Journey to Lisbon S3

54-CHAPTER 11

Yoyage from LiSbon to off the Cape of Good HopeCHAPTER III

Yoyage 10 MozamIJi1ue and to Goa S6CHAPTER IV

Journey from GOIl to the Cit.,v of Delly, Capital of the Empireof Mogol . 58

CHAP~rER VConcerning the Churches and Christian Congregation ofthe Society

ofJesus in Delly and some notable Christians lioin! in thatCity. 63

CHAPTER VIResiaence in Agrtl and SOl1l1 Account ofthe Mission lJelongillg to

the 80ciety of Jesus in that City 68V

CONTENTSCHAPTER VII PAGE

Dtparturt from Dtlly. Arrif)al and Residence at Kascimir 70CHAPTER VIII

Our Departure from Kascimir and .70urney to Lhata, Capita!ofSecond T.hibet 74-

CHAP1~EI~ IXOf ourStay ;n Lhata, Capital of Second Thioet, andOUI"Arr;val

at Trescij-Khang 79CHAprrER ~

Journey across the Great Desert of Ngnari-Giongar, andAssistanct rendered !Jy a Tartar Princess and her Followers 82

CHAP'fER XIArrival at thtfirst inhabitedPlacein Third and Greatest Thibet.

Continuation of the Jourlley to the Capital. Yisits to theKing and the Ministers, Commtflcefl,ent ofmy Mission inthat Kingdom 90

CHAP'l'EH. XIIProtection gioen !Jy tht King to the Author,who in his turn assists

Him and the Prime Minister in time of Peril. 'TheirExpressions ofGratitude. Their Gifts refused . 95

CHAP"fEI{ XIII'Tnefirst Book written oy the Author in the 'ThibettanLanguage is

solefl/nly prtstnttd to the King in a publicA"dience . Q9CHAPTER XIV

Descriles tht Contents of the 'Thibettan Baoh and the Errorsof the ,[,hioettan Peop!e IOZ

CHAPTER XVDealing witlJ other Book: written by the Author ;n the erhibettllll

Language . 106

CHAPTER XVIA" Account of tht Mission founded in 'Thibet by tht Socitty of

Jtsus.from IAt Begillning until the Author lift 'Thi6tt 108

BOOK 'THE SECONDCOlltlJilling all Jlccounl of tAt Country. Customs anti Cifjil

GOfllf1lmtlll of TAi6tt 11 SVI

CONTENTSCHAPTER I PAGE

TAt Bou1IJaritI antiSitt ofGreat rhiDtt 117CHAPTER 11

Climate a1lJ Fertility of Thibet 120CHAP1'ER III

Of the Musk-Jter a1lJ other .Animals in rhiDet . 124CIIAP'rER IV

Ofthe RioersofrhiDet and ofthe Boats and Bridges 127CHAP1"ER V

Ofthe Western Part ofThibet andsome of its Prooinces asd Citirs 128CHAP'l'ER VI

Of the City ofLhasa, Capital of'rhibtt, and ofits Surroundings 133CHAPTER VII

Of tht Country round LhouJ and the Central Provinces of this'ThiDet . 138

CHAPTER VIIIOf other Central Prooinces of Thibet 141

CHAPTER IXHow the Kingd011l of 'I'hibet fe'I into the Hands of the Tartars. I4b

CHAP1'ER XOf tht Rtf/olution which oroke out in ThiDet, oifore it was (on-

fjuereJ fr011l tht Tartars oy tht Chinest . . 1 SoCHAPTER XI

Of the tragic E1Id ofKing Cinghes-Khallg a1l4 ofhis Family . 158CHAPTER XII

Howthe Kingdom ofThibtt passed/ram tht Tartarstothe ChineseDomill;oll 165

CHAPTER XIIIAbout tAt Cif)il GOrJtf7111lent of rAiDet [72

CHAPTER XIVDescribingtht Clothtsalld Food oftht rhi6tttalls 178

CHAPTER XVCOllctminK tAl utttrs and Alplll16tt oftht TAi6ttta1l La1lgullgt,

4114 tAl Proficilllcy oftht erhi!;tttall1 in Ltll11lillgollJ tAt Arts 18...VII

CONTENTSCHAPTER XVI nc.

OfIht physicalCharacteristics oftht ThilJetta1ls, thtir O"IJp.lioSJand Gamts, and howtAey cultifJatt tAe Soil 187

CHAPTER XVIICo"ctrlling TAi/;tttan Wtddi1lgs 192

CHAPTER XVIIIHfJ'lJJ the erhi!Jtttalls dispost of IAeir Dead . 19S

BOOK THE THIRD

DtscrilJing tht falst alldptculiar Religion prevailing ill ThilJet. 199CHAPTER I

CfJlI(em;ng tht Grand Lama, Head oftht ThilJettall Religion . 201CHAP"fER 11

Rlasolls why tRisallegedIncarnation oftRe GrandLamamust !Jta IPorlt oftht Deeil (8ynopsis) 204-

CHAPTER IIICfJlltillulltion ofthe Argume1lt as to wRether tht Deceit mtlltio1led

in tht last Chapter is a Fraudcommitted lJy Mtll alldnot lJytht Droit (omitted) 205

CHAPTER IVCDlltaining furthtr Details alJout the Grand LamJ Ilnd tht other

inferior LamJsoferhi6et 205CHAPTER V

AlJ'llttht Thi!Jettan MonluandNuns, thtir Monasteries, ConrJtntJ,Dress, Organization and HalJi/s 211

CHAPTER VICfJllc/rning tht fJarious KindS ofReligious Or4trs in 'TAi"et . 220

CHAPTER VIIOflAt Errors alldtAeReligion ofthe ThilJettans, allJ 4n Account

oftAt System ofMttempsychosis, or tAe PytAagortlJlI Tress-11IigrIJtio1l es Ixplai.td and DelierJed 6] them 22 S

CHAPTER VIIICatt,..illg TAi"tlta,,]Jtas a60ut Animals, ctrtaill Btillgs l.lltd

114. 1l1ltJIAtir COlletptioll of Htll . 232viii

268

CONTENTSCHAPTER IX PAGE

Relatingother Belief: and Arguments ofthe Thibettans concemingtheir System ofMetempsychosis 238

CHAPTER XOfthe colossal andprincipalErrorofthe Thibettall Sect in denying

that there is any .Absolute Ustreate Being, or any PrimaryCause ofexisting 'Things 2+S

CHAPTER XIWhetherthe Thibettans,while denying the Existence ofa trueGoJ,

recognize some /ooulous Deity, or are de'lJoiJ ofany Know-leJge of a God (Synopsis) - 2 SO

CHAPTER XIICOllcerning tlJ1-ee Classes of Objects which the Thibeltalls worship

anJ intJoRe, tllithout admitting tnat thty are in any wayDioine . 2 S(

CHAPTER XIIIOf the 'Thibettan Religion with regard to Morality, Firtu an"

rice, and Rules of Conduct 255CHAPTER XIV

COllcerning the erhibettan Legislator andofsome oftht Fa61ts toldabout him . 258

CHAPTER XVCOllceming Cen-ree-zijand Urghie, two other Idols u/orshipped6, the erhibettans 263

CHAPTER XVIRelatingthe Continuation ofthe Storyof Urghiell

CHAPTER XVIIHow 'Thibet anciently hadnoLaw, andhowthe King 'Tri-Itiongh-

teu-ztn sent Embassies to oarious Countries and a chost1lBody ofrouths to Hindustan in search of a Religion. 273

CHAP1~ER XVIIIHow the fals Religion was brought to 'TAiblt. Thefirst 'Tlmple

erected in the Kingdom, BOORS translated, Monasteriesl'ou1Jded ande'lJery Art usedto disseminate that E"or. . 276

CHAPTER XIX0/other minor06jtcts fJtntrated and worJhipptdby the Thibettalls 287

IX

CONTENTSCHAPTER XX PAGB

Of the Principal Places refJtrtd 6y tht Thi6tttans tJnd their06strrJtJnct ofprescri6eJ Rites , their Rosary anti Fasts . 291

CHAPTER XXIAn Answer to some DouDts and Queries aDout Matttrs treated

in foregoing Chapters . . 300CHAPTER XXII

Some Authors who have descrilJed ThilJet and Criticism of theirU70rh . 302

BOOK 'THE FOURTH

/Iow the Mission departed from Lhasa and returned to Europeafter oisiting other Missions. . 307

CHAPTJi:R IDeparture from Lhasaand Residence at K utti. Arrival in Nepal

after crossing the Boundary of'Thibet 309CHAP~rER 11

Containing a short Account of the Kingdom ofNepal 312CHAPTER III

Descri6ing the Journey from Nepal to the Ganges and the CityofPattna 319

CHAPTER IVContaining a Description of the City ofPatina 323

CHAPTER VJourney from Pattna to Agra. Description of Besares and

Elaha6Js, 011 tht Gallges. Residence;lI Agra . 325CHAPTER VI

How I toolt charge oftht Mission at Delly, Capital of tht MogolEmpirt . 327

CHAPTER VIIIII which art txplained tht CircumstlJncts leading to a Renewal

of thl Str.gglt lJtlfQetll tht Emperor of Mogol and hisYaz;r, Ntzam-tm-Mulul (SYllopsis) 329

CHAPTER VIIICo"tai"illg IJ Descriptio" of tht Strift IJtttIJttll tht Emptror allJ

th' NolJlts ofhis Court (S,"opsis) 329X

CONTENTSCHAPTER IX PAGE

Departure /r011l Delly alld Return to Pattlla. Yoyage toBciall"e11lagor alld thence to Pondisctr, . 330

CHAPTER XDescription of POlldiscery. I a11l appointed to the misslo of

Camar 33%CHAPTER XI

Description of the Missio success/ully organiztd by the Societyof JeSl11 in the Kingd011l ofCarnat 333

CHAPTER XIIDeparture from the Carnet Mission. Some Account of Meliap';',.,

and the two Traditions regarding St. Thomas the Apostle.Description ofthe City ofMadrasta 336

CHAPTER XIIIDepartltre from India for Europe, Hozo I fell dangerously

ill on Board, and alas safJed by the Intercessias of thtYenerable Father Giooanni de Britto 339

CHAPTER XIVContinuation ofthe royage after passing the Cape ofGood Hope.

Isles of St. Helena and Ascension. ArrifJal at the Isle ofMartinique in South America. ArrifJol at Port Louis ;11Lower Brittanrv . 341

CHAPTEI{ XVJourney from Port Louis 10 Paris, and from Paris to Marseilles 342

CHAPTER XVIJourney /r011l Marseilles to Genoa and Pistoia. Short Stay ;11

'Tuscany. My ArrirJal ;n Rome and the ElI" of my Journey 344

ApPENDIx-Report on Ti6tt an" its Routes,Freyre,8.J.

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION, lJy C. Wessels, S.J.NOTES TO BOOK THE FIRST

NOTES TO BOOK THE SECOND

NOTES TO BOOK THE THIRDNOTES TO BOOK THE FOURTH

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

GENERAL INDEX (TIBETAN WORDS EXCEPTED)INDEX OF TIBETAN WORDS

Xl

6y Efllanoel349

363374386

41 I 428 433 444- 460

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IV.

Ill.

VII.

VII.

PAGEPadma Sambhava (Urgyen). (From a 'Ti!Jtlall

paintingin tht De Filippi Collection) Frontispiece11. Donna Juliana Diaz da Costa, from a portrait made

in India, reproduced in Dud-en NieuwOost-InJiln,by Francois Valentijn, Amsterdam, 17z4--6,p. 297

A MS. copy of the Gya-stonpa, a section of theKahgyur printed in one volume. (See note 3I,Book I, p. 382). (GaIJriel Collection at Gu6IJio,Umoria) . 10Z

The gate of Lhasa and the Potala. (Photo!Jy J. C.White, !Jy permission of Messrs. JOhllston ~Hofftnallll, Calcutta) . . 132

V. Gyantse Jong. (Photo!Jy J. C. WlJile, lJy permission ofMessrs. Johnstoll & Ho.f!manll, Calcutta) 136

Drepung Monastery. (Photo /;, E. H. C. Wa/sh) 136Sera Monastery. (Photo /;y J. C. White, byptrlllissioll

ofMessrs. Johnston f3 Hoffmann, Ca/cutta). 138Various forms of Ilahu, or charm boxes, in copper, brass,

and silver, and inset turquoises. (De Fi/ippiCo/lection) 184

Wooden printing blocks, and blocks to stamp dough,intended for offerings. (De Filipp;Collection) 184-

Brass and silver trumpet (chQull~); bone trumpet(K4nl/n); three small decorated choten; Jode anddrilou in case (sceptre and bell). (De FilippiCo/lection) . 216

Two vessels for holy water, brass bowls for butter...lamps, stand and silver cup for offerings, andTibetan rosary. (Dt Filippi Collectioll) . 216

A monk reading the Kahgyur. (Pholo C. Antill;) 224-A hermit-monk of Ladak, near Leh, (Photo G. AlJett;) 224-Library containing the canonical books in the Monastery

of Tikse, Ladak. (Photo C. Antifli) . 278XIII

IX.IX.x.

v.VI.

PLATE

I.

VIII.

VIII.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSPLATE PAGE

XI. Entrance to Na-Chung Monastery, the House of theOracle, near Depung Monastery. (Photo lJy J. C.White, !Jy permissio1l ofMessrs. JObllst01l f.!J Hoffmllllll,Calclltla) . 288

XII. Statue and Shrine of Chamba (Maitreia) in the SheMonastery, Ladak. (Photo C. .AlItilli) 292

XIII. "Potted Lamas" (TllI Ts'll) made of clay kneadedwith the ashes of cremated Lamas. (See note 33,Book Ill, p. 42I.) (De Filippi Collection) 294-

XIII. Stones with the" om 1IIan; paJme hllm" carved uponthem, from a mani-wall. (De Filippi Collection) . 294-

XIV. Revolving prayer-cylinders in the vestibule of LikirMonastery (Ladak). (Photo C. Antilli) 296

XV. Demar, or hand-tambourines-the one to the leftmade of two skulls, the others of painted wood.(De Filippi Collection) 300

XV. Two hand prayer-wheels (m4ni-liorlo); one in copperwith embossed silver letters of the mantra, one inengraved ivory with prayer scroll unrolled). Twosilver /tahu or boxes for amulets and relics. (DeFilippi Collection) 300

XVI. 'fhe Wheel of Life, in Spituk Monastery, Ladak.(Photo C. Antil'i) 306

XVII. Tibetan musical vocal score, from a Yang-yg, hymn- orsong-book. (De Filipp; Collectioll) 416Map. Itineraries ofFather Ippolito Desideri in Tibet

and adjacent countries at the end of the Volume.

XIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DESIDERI

I. Letters (MS.) to the General of the Society of Jesus, dated Goa,r sth November and r gth November, 1713; Surat, jothDecember, 1713; Delhi zoth September, 1714; all mentionedby Wessels (p, 274) as being in the possession of the S.l.,apparently unpublished.

2. Letter to Father Francesco Piccolomini in Rome, dated Agra,arst August, 1714, published by C. Wessels in Atti e Memoridel Cosgressa di Gtografi Orientalisti in Macerata, 191I, pp.30-9. This letter is kept in the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst,Lancashire. (G. Sandberg, Exploration, note I, p. 52.)

3. A number of letters contained in the Bommario della Causa fraGesuiti e Cappuccini circa la priorita della Missione dtl 'Tioet,printed in Rome in 1728. Among them is the famous letterto Father Ildebrando Grassi, dated Lhasa, loth April, 1716.It was translated by Du Halde in Lettres Edijia1ltts, Paris, 1843,vol. iii, P: 151 (Wessels, p. 274, has Lettres Edijiantes, Lyons,1819, vii, p. 259).

This is the only document by which Desideri's travels wereknown till the M S. report was discovered in Pistoia.

It has been published repeatedly in various translations: inEnglish in Astley's Collection of Yoyagts, 1747, vol. iv, and againby Sir Clement Markham in his BogIe and Ma1lning (Append.,P: 302), giving as reference Lettres Ediftantes, vol. xv, P: 184.Astley's Collection was the original basis of the Histoire glnlraledes Yoyages, by Prevost (20 volumes, Paris, 1746-89), where theletter reappears (vol. vii, eh, vii), From the latter it wastranslated into German in vol. vii of AI'gemeine Historic JerReisen (2 I vols., Leipzig, 1747-77).

This is the letter to which Desideri refers in Book Ill, eh. xxii,correcting the affirmations which he had subsequently found tobe erroneous.

The same Bommario has four other letters by Desideri, twoaddressed to the General of the Society from Leh, 5th August,171 5, and from Lhasa, I 5th February, 1717; and two addressedto F. Felice da Montecchio, both from Takpo, rzth March and4th August, 1718, all published by Puini, .Appen"., pp. 361-78.

4. Puini (In/rot/.ttio", P: xlii) further mentions a letter from Lhasa,r jth February, 1717, published by Father Zaccaria in Bi/J/io-theca Pistoriensis, P: 18S.

xv

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DESIDERIs. NoltS sur It 'Ti!Jt1lllr It P. Hippolytt Desideri, reelleillitJ IIl1' N.

Delisl (published by Klaproth in JOllmal .Asialifllt, ameSerie, viii, 183 I, p. I 17). A few notes on geographical names anddetails mentioned by Desideri. Klaproth does not say from whatsource Delisle collected them.

6. A report addressed to the Holy Father, dated 13th February, 1717,on his arrival and first stay in Tibet, in the Propaganda Libraryin Rome (mentioned by Puini, P: xlii),

7. A short letter addressed to the Pope from Kuti, arst September,1721, published by Puini (Appelld., p. 382); and also in theRieist Europea of De Gubernatis, July, 1876, p. 293.

8. A short MS. memoir. It is anonymous, but from its general scopeit must certainly be attributed to Desideri. It has the titleA'IJ'lJtrtimtllti a' Missioseri oiaggiatori lIel TilJtt (BibliotecaVittorio Emanuele, Rome, Fondo Gesuitico, MS., 1384, No. 31),and was first published in 1876, with many slips and errors, byA. De Gubernatis in his Rioist Europta (vol. iii, eh, vii, P: 121),and was reproduced correctly by L. Foscolo Benedetto in apamphlet printed for private circulation, Florence, 1928. It ismentioned by P. Pelliot in 'T'oung Pao, 1925-6, P: 388.

It is a mere resume of the concluding chapters, xvii-xx, ofBook IV in MS. A of Wessels, and of f O 272-316 of theFl, MS. of the Report. (See Preface, pp. 41-2).

THE REPORT

As explained in the Preface, there are three extant MSS. of theReport, all in Italian, written by various amanuenses. One wasdiscovered by Puini, and two, the property of the S. of J., werefirst disclosed by C. Wesse!s.

I. The MS. discovered by Carlo Puini in 1875 in a privatecollection of Pistoia records has since passed into the National Libraryof Florence. Puini, who published the largest part of it in 1904,has described it in his Preface. The title ofBrt'IJt t sueeillto Ragg*(Jgliotltl Yi(Jggio (JIlt I.die Oritlllllli tltl p(Jtlre Ippolito Dtsit/eri "ellaCompag.ill "i Gesu, concerns very likely only the first few pages,which contain a summary of the journey East. It is a volume 4,of 317 sheets, or 633 pages, written consecutively, without anydivision into parts or chapters, except the last portion of the MS.containing the description of the return journey, in which chapterssuddenly appear, numbered XIII, XIV, and XV.

Puini recognized three different hands in the writing of the MS.Here and there are signs that the text was dictated, at least in parts(for instance in 0 39 v. "in the month of October, in fact

XVI

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DESIDERIin March "). There are a few discrepancies in dates, especiallyin the summary of the itinerary given at the beginning and repeatedat the end of the book; for instance, the departure from Leh is givenas 27th August in the Introduction, and as 17th August and 26th Augustat the end. Also the arrival at Tashigang is given as 7th Septemberand 27th September, etc.

Professor Puini announced his discovery in the Bollettino ItalianJi StuJi Orientali for July, 1876, Florence, pp. 33-42; and it wasalso reported in the Geographical Magazine (edited by C. Markham,1874-8), in vol. iii, 1876, pp. 21 and 25~. In the interval betweenthe discovery of the manuscript and its publication, during which,among other vicissitudes,it nearly became the property of the HakluytSociety, Puini gave information of its contents in various partialpublications :-

11P. Ippolito Desideri e i suoi Piagg~, etc., Florence, 1899.Yiaggio lIel Tibet ael P. Ippolito Desideri. Riaista Geografic4

Iralian, Florence, vol. vii, December, 1900, P: 565.11 P. Ippolito Desideri e i suo; Piaggi in India e ne! Tibet (1712-

27); and 11 Buddismo nel 'Tibet secondo la Relazione del P. I.Desideri, in Studi Italiasi Ji Filologia Indo-Irasica, edited by Pulle,Florence, 1899. vol. iii, pp. i-xxxiii, and 1-63, 113-52, ill.

A summary of the Itinerary of Desideri in Girodel Mondo, Bologna,1900, No. IX.

And a few other articles.Professor Serge Oldenburg, in an article on recent Tibetan literature

in the Journal of the Rxssia Department of Public INstruction, ofNovember, 1904, makes mention of three MS. reports of Desideri-the property of the Hakluyt Society, of the Biblioteca Magliabechianaof Florence, and of " one" of the Italian National Libraries. Theseevidently refer to the same MS., the one in the National Library ofFlorence.

2. Manuscript A ere, Wessels.It is a volume of 430 pp., 101 X 12 inches, in good script, with a

Preface, divided into three Books, subdivided into chapters, with atable of Contents. The volume ends with the pious invocation:" Laus Deo, Beatissimae Virgini Mariae ac Sto Francisco Xaverio,Indiarum Apostolo." Die 22 Junij, 1728.

As mentioned in the Preface, the Table of Contents has four books.The third of them, dealing with the Religion of the Tibetans, dividedinto twenty chapters, does not appear in the volume.

Father WesseIs believed this manuscript also to be the work of anamanuensis. But Father P. Tacchi Venturi (in his article" Desideri "in Encic/opetlia Italias, vol. xii, 193I) and Professor G. Vacca(Manoscritti de/ Padre Ippolito Desideri, in Boil. R. 80c. Geog. Ita/.,Series VI, vol. ix, 1932, P: 524), by comparing it with lettersundoubtedly written by Desideri, declare it to be by his hand.

XVII

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DESIDERIBound in the same volume, at the end of the MS., there are some

printed Appendices with the title: Alia Secr Congrtgllziont JiPropaganJa FiJt: DijtJa I, U, III i controversial papers of theSociety of Jesus refuting the accusations of the Capuchin FatherFelice da Montecchio on the question of the priority of the Jesuitsand Capuchins in the Mission of Tibet, published in Rome in 1728.

3. Manuscript B ofC. Wessels.It is of the same size as the Fl. MS., numbers 564 pp., and seems to

be nearly a replica of the FI. MS . with many erasions, correctionsand additions, and divided into books and chapters; and appears tobe a copy of the latter rearranged for the preparation of MS. A. Italso contains the description of the religion of Tibet, divided into twosectionsor groups of chapters, separated by other matter. For furtherdetails of contents, see Wessels, pp. 279-81.

4. As mentioned by C. Wessels (p. 206, note I), Carl Ritter(AJitl1, vol. H, P: 434) used a MS. of Desideri's Report, but givesno particulars.

According to Professor Vacca (l.c.), there is evidence to prove thatRitter made use of a copy prepared for him from Wessels, MS. A,which at that date (1826) was kept in one of the libraries of Rome.

DESIDERI'S TIBETAN MSS.In the possession of the S. of J. there are four MS. books written

by Desideri in Tibetan, described by C. Wessels (pp. 274-5), whogives the facsimiles of two pages, covered with beautiful Tibetanhandwriting.

They are on sheets of paper of the oblong, rectangular shape usualin the pages of Tibetan books, and three of them are dated. OneMS. has rst July, 1717, on the first page, and 29th July, 1721, on thelast page; another is dated from 8th December, 1717, to zrst June,1718. A third has only an opening date-24th June, 1718. The fourthis undated.

Desideri only mentions three of these books in his Report (Book I,chaps. xiii and xv); and of the first he writes that it was finished atthe end of December, 1716, and presented to the Viceroy on 6thJanuary, 17 17.

XVIII

INTRODUCTION

THE JESUIT MISSION IN TIBET, 1625-1721

byc. WESSELS, S.].

B

THE JESUIT MISSION IN TIBET1625-1721

THE foundation of the first Catholic mission inTibet dates from 1625, Father Antonio de Andradebeing its founder.

It was a rumour constantly cropping up in Mogorthat the unknown and inaccessible regions beyondthe Himalaya mountains sheltered Christian com-munities, the scattered remains of evangelizationin centuries long past. Father Antonio Monserratehad heard of them from travelling Jogis as early asthe eighties of the sixteenth century;' and in 1602they had been the occasion of Bento de Goes' journey.s

As reports of a similar nature had not ceased tocome in, what could be more natural than a wish toinquire on the spot, and, in case the rumours shouldprove to be true, a desire to assist those neglectedbrethren of the faith? Even in 1599, when thenegotiations that eventually led to the despatch ofGoes were being conducted, the Italian Father AntonioMazzavelli had volunteered to be the first workerin this new field.3 But circumstances had beenunfavourable.

Quite unexpectedly there now presented itself anopportunity for a journey into the heart of theHimalaya mountains and thence into Tibet. On30th March, 1624, Father de Andrade, together withBrother Manuel Marques, had left Agra to followthe Great Mogul on his journey to Kashmir. Arrivingat Delhi, he learned that a large party of Hinduswere about to start on a pilgrimage to a famoustemple in the mountains at a distance of about twoand a half months' journey from Agra. Here was an

3

INTRODUCTIONopportunity. These pilgrims might serve for pro-tection and guidance ID the firstlart of the journeymeditated. On the morning fixe for the departure,Andrade, his companion, and two servants joined thecaravan. A Hindu disguise, in which even the DelhiChristians failed to recognize him, was to see himthrough the first difficulties.

Travelling by the shortest route, probably throughthe valley of Ganges by Hardwar, "the Gate ofVishnu," the principal shrine of those northernparts, the caravan passed through Srinagar in Garhwaland reached Badrinath, one of the most sacred andmost frequented Hindu temples of India. An accountof the adventures and discoveries during the firstpart of this journey lies outside the scope of thischapter, and we will only record that Andrade andhis companion negotiated the perilous Mana passat an altitude of 18,390 feet, and in the beginningof August safely arrived at Chaparangue orTsaparang, the capital of what was then the kingdomof Guge, in the valley of the Langtchen-Kamba, orUpper Sutlej.

The arrival of the stranger caused no slight com-motion. At first, the king, unable to believe thata man, not a trader, could undertake such a journey,was somewhat displeased, but after the first inter-view, at which the missionary explained the reasonof his coming, both he and the queen showed them-selves quite pleased. A religious conviction promptingsuch deeds of daring did not fail to impress him.Andrade availed himself of this favourable dispositionto further the object of his journey of exploration.He became aware that there were no forlorn Christiansto be assisted, but a new mission field might beopened among the pa~an population of these remoteregions. The following document bears witnessto the success with which he carried through theseinitial negotiations. It was given in writing under

4

INTRODUCTIONthe king's seal, when, probably in the last week ofAugust, Andrade was allowed to leave under promiseof a speedy return.

cc We, the King of the Kingdoms of Potente,rejoicing at the arrival in our lands of Padre AntonioFranguim [the name of the Portuguese in India]to teach us a holy law, take him for our Chief Lama,and give him full authority to teach the holy law toour people. We shall not allow that anyone molesthim In this, and we shall issue orders that he be givena site and all the help needed to build a house ofprayer. Moreover, we shall give no credence to anymalicious accusations of the Moors against the Padres,because we know that, as they have no law [religion]they oppose those who follow the truth. We earnestlydesire the great Padre [the Provincial at Goa] tosend us at once the said Padre Antonio that he maybe of assistance to our peoples.

Given at Chaparangue u, etc.At the beginning of November, the indefatigable

traveller was back in Agra, and on the 8th completedhis account of the first journey to the land of the livingBuddha.4

A. THE MISSION IN GUGEThe great Padre, Father Andre Palmeiro, readily

granted the king's request. Andrade was giventhree men as a first support, but as they could notreach Agra in the summer of 1625, he had FatherGonzales de Sousa appointed as his travelling-companion.s They set out together on 17th June,1625.8

After a ten weeks' journey, once more throughGarhwal, Tsaparang was reached a second timeon zotb August. In a short letter of roth SeptemberAndrade informs his Superior of the happy news,

S

INTRODUCTIONadding that Father de Sousa will write at greaterlength and give him more detailed information.As a matter of fact de Sousa was the bearer of thisletter, when he returned to India, and Andradealone remained behind with the two boys cc whomI took from here to Agra and brought back with methis time ".

The establishment of a permanent station could nowbe taken in hand. The king made good his promiseand himself urged, in April, 1626, the building ofa church and of a house for the missionaries. Anexcellent site was secured in the town near the king'spalace. Its position protected it from the cold and ithad the sun upon it from early morning. The nativesliving on the spot had their dwellings pulled down,but were given better houses elsewhere. To securegreater privacy the road passing near the place wasturned in another direction. The king razed to theground two of his own houses that the Fathers mighthave a garden with flowers for the church, and onEaster Day, r cth April, 1626, himself laid the founda-tion stone of the first Christian church in Tibet, whileat the same time he presented the mission with alarge gift of gold. The church was dedicated to OurLady of Hope.7

The building operations were not yet completedwhen Andrade saw his solitude relieved by thearrival of the three Fathers who had not been ableto catch the season the year before. Under theguidance of Brother Marques, they reached Tsaparangprobably about June. Andrade himself went tomeet them at some days' distance from the town.8They were the Fathers Joao de Oliveira.t Alano dosAnjos,10 and Francisco Godinho.P

The general prospects of the mission are touchedupon in the same letter of 15th August, 1626. Thework ofconversion, he says, is necessarily slow owing tothe great difficulties in learning the language. The

6

INTRODUCTIONpeople seem to be amenable, and Andrade extolstheir unsophisticated minds and simple dispositions.Though the country is less thickly inhabited thanother parts, than Hindustan for example, this iscounterbalanced by the fact that on account of itsseclusion it is more free from vice, and thus betterready for conversion. Moreover, this country isthe gate to many other kingdoms, which are morepopulous and differ but slightly in respect of language.In this connection U tsang is specially mentioned,whose sovereign has been asked to grant permissionfor a marriage between one of his daughters and thecrown-prince. "I see in this the work of Providence,who thus opens to us a gate into that country.I hope to make the best of this opportunity in thecoming year, when the Fathers, who have recentlyarrived, will be well grounded in the language,which to my great satisfaction they are now studyingwith great diligence." 12

In a letter to the General a year later, Andradereturned to the subject of Utsang, whose king hadsent him a firman and a letter of invitation. At thesame time the presence of the " Lamas of the West"had also become known in other neighbouring states,for the king of Ladakh wished to see him. ls Whetherthose invitations were ever acted upon, it is impossibleto say, though it is very unlikely. The onlything we know about work outside Tsaparang is thefoundation of a mission post at Rudok, the capitalof a district of the same name, situated at the northernbase of the Transhimalaya mountains and the southernshore of the Nyak-tso, its governor being a vassalof the king of Tsaparang. None of the accountsthrow any light on the question as to what may haveinduced Andrade thus early to found a new centrein this remote district, over 100 miles away fromTsaparang, nor do"they make any mention of the workof conversion that~was beingcarried on.1'

..,,

INTRODUCTIONAfter the arrival then of the above-mentioned

fellow-labourers, there were, in August, 1626, fivemissionaries in Guge. But before Christmas of thesame year, Brother Marques returned to Hindustan,while Father Godinho, too, on account of ill-health,must have left soon after.15 It remains a puzzle,how a man, still an invalid, or at least weakened byillness, managed to cross the mountains in mid-winter. Towards the end of 1627 his place wastaken by Father Antonio Pereira.P as is related byhimself in a letter of r ath November of the same year.From Agra onward it was again Brother Marqueswho guided the party. Together with this lettertwo others were despatched from Tsaparang, one ofthe loth by Father dos Anjos, and another of the 16th,by Father de Oliveira, Both of them were addressedto the Provincial, Father Valentin Carvalho. Thelatter had been rather unfavourably advised fromAgra about the Tibetan mission, and as a result hehad ordered the two Fathers to send him full informa-tion as to the possibilities of mission work in Tibet.Having been on the spot for about a year and a half,the two were certainly the best judges. In theirreplies, while admitting that life out there is tryingand full of hardship, they are quite sanguine aboutthe future. "This country promises more than anyother I have yet heard of, for they are a tractable andupri~ht people," so Oliveira writes.l? In dos Anjos'opinion "it will be one of the most flourishing-[missions] which the Society possesses to-day".isHe does not hide the fact that so far the numberof baptized is very small, only twelve, but then itshould be remembered that by regular religiousinstruction many are preparing for this great event.The queen and one of her cousins, daughter of theking of Ladakh,19 probably to be married to theprince, will be baptized one of these days. In othermissions years may pass before the first baptism

8

INTRODUCTIONis administered. Moreover, do we not know thatthe Apostle James made only seven converts duringthe years which he spent in Spain? And he was anApostle who supported his teaching with miraclesand had the gift of tongues.

I t was the unchanging favourable attitude of the kingon which both writers mainly founded their expectations.This they are careful to state most explicitly. It washe who in everything was the great support of themissionaries, of which Andrade in 1626 and 1627had already cited numerous instances.s''

But by its very conspicuousness this pronouncedroyal favour carried with it an element of dangerthat was probably overlooked by the zealousmissionaries. The powerful lama monasteries, withthe king's brother at their head, could not but lookaskance at all this kindness lavished upon the new-comers. The utmost caution was demanded if theywere not to be driven into open resistance. Thiscaution, however, was decidedly lacking in the variousmeasures taken by the king. Thus, in 1626, or 1627,he had taken away from his brother, the Chief Lama,a large portion of his revenue, because he had receivedinto the fraternity of lamas one hundred and thirtynew candidates. The king's excuse was that, if hisbrother continued thus, he would deprive him of allhis soldiers. He even had in mind a completesecularization of the lamas in generaI.21 No wonderthat such drastic measures called forth resistance.Still, a violent explosion might have been avertedhad Andrade been able to remain on the spot. Butjust about this time, it is not certain in what year, butcertainly before 1630, he was recalled from Tibet totake upon him the honourable task of governing thewhole mission province of Goa.22 Thus the Tsaparangmission, in losing its energetic and enterprising head,sustained a loss that could not be compensated forby the solicitude and care of a distantSuperior. His

9

INTRODUCTIONantagonists seized the opportunity, and within ashort time after his departure, in the same year,1630, a revolution broke out, which put an end tothe reign of the friendly king.

The course of events is related by Cordara,23 butwas described with greater fullness of detail by Andradehimself, when on 4th February, 1633, he despatchedfrom Goa an account of the missions of Mogor andTibet to the General of the Society at Rome. Accord-ing to this document, the storm broke during aprotracted illness of the king. First some vassalsin the Himalaya mountains rose in revolt; then somepowerful military commanders rebelled, calling theking of Ladakh to their support. The latter, who formany years had been embroiled with Guge over amarriage question, seized the opportunity at once.Siege was laid to the almost impregnable capital,and after a month the king was treacherously seizedand carried off to Leh.24

The effects of this political upheaval were crushingfor the mission. The church and house at Tsaparangwere sacked, and the missionaries themselves hadmuch to suffer from the ill-will of the military com-mander appointed by the King of Ladakh. Someof the faithful saved themselves by flight, otherswere dragged off into exile. This was also the fateof the two Fathers stationed at Rudok. Soon aftertheir arrival at Leh, however, they were restoredto liberty and sent back to Tsaparang, where theothers had been allowed to remain. As far as can bejudged from contemporary accounts the staff on theTibet mission at the time of the outbreak consistedof four missionaries, viz. Fathers de Oliveira, dosAnjos, da Fonseca and Brother Marques.25

Early in 163I, still unaware of the fatal turn ofevents, Andrade had despatched the above-mentionedFather Pereira with two companions, Fathers DomenicoCapece 28 and Francesco Morando,27 to the distant

10

INTRODUCTIONmission. But when the first tidings reached him heat once appointed Father Francisco de Azevedo 28Visitor to the mission with orders to proceed thitherand report on the situation. Azevedo overtook thethree at Agra and ordered them to stay and awaitinstructions, whilst he himself proceeded to Tsaparang,where he arrived 25th August, 1631, in the companyof Marques, whom he had met in Garhwal.

The forlorn state in which he found the muchtried Christian community soon convinced him thatordinary measures would not suffice, and after takingthe opinion of the missionaries on the spot, he resolvedto take a bold step. It was impossible to do anythingthere, as the commander appointed by the king ofLadakh was very hostile. So he made up his mindto go to Leh, accompanied by Father de Oliveira,that he might have a personal interview with theking and, if possible, secure his goodwill. His suitwas successful, and the king granted permission topursue mission work in Guge, Rudok, and even atLeh. Without going back to Tsaparang the twomissionaries returned to India by way of Rupshu,Lahul, and Kulu. On 3rd January, 1632, they wereback at Agra.29

For the next few years, up to I 635, informationabout the state of affairs at Tsaparang is very scanty.What little we have is mainly obtained from lettersof an Italian, Father Giuseppe de Castro, who at thetime was in Bengal, and at a later period at Agra.On 28th August, 1632, he writes that there are fiveFathers actually in Tibet, and that there are two moreat Agra, who are intended for that country. U Threedays ago," he writes half a year later, 6th February,1633, U we received letters from the mission in Tibet.The five Fathers who are there tell us that they arelike prisoners in their house, because the commanderdoes not allow them to come back here, or to leavethe place where they are, or to carry anything out

I I

INTRODUCTIONof the house without his seeing it. " We learn nothingfurther about the fate of the scattered Christiancommunity. When he writes again 8th October,1633, things are still in the same state.30

Andrade meanwhile had been thoroughly informedof the state of things and was going back to Tsaparangin person. Six others were to go with him. But whilehe was still in the midst of his preparations, hesuddenly died, 19th March, 1634, with symptoms ofpoisoning. Thus he was not to see the utter destructionof his foundation.P-

The projectedjourney was now delayed for a year, andin the beginning of I 63S the six missionaries setout from Goa under the leadership of Father NuftoCoresma.32 Copies of three of his letters to theProvincial of Goa, Father Alvaro de Tavarez, havebeen preserved, so we are fairly fully acquaintedwith what befell the missionaries.

The undertaking, then, was an utter failure, aseries of reverses and disasters, which might havedashed the spirits of the most ardent. A terriblefamine which made itself felt as far as Garhwal andTibet raised the cost of living to such a point thatthe journey from Surat to Tsaparang cost no lessthan 3,000 rupees. But this was as nothing com-pared to the loss of life and of health. cc Of my sixcompanions, only one reached Chaparangue with me.Two died on the way, and the other three became so illthat it would have been inhuman to have taken themfurther and let them die in this desolate country." 33With Father Correa as his only companion, Coresmawent on.

In circumstances such as these, to have taken upthe reins of government and to have raised to a newlife a scattered and ruined mission would haverequired a man of more virile energy and power ofsacrifice than Coresma, from his letters, would seemto have possessed. Both the country and the people

12

INTRODUCTIONfell far short of his expectations. He literally findsnothing to commend in the whole of Guge and doesnot pretend to disguise his disappointment.

cc The population is very small, as appears from thefact that from the whole of the territory, which throughlack of knowledge and experience has been calledCathayo or Tibet, it is impossible to assemble 2,000warriors, though all are obliged to serve from theireighteenth to their eightieth year. The others arelamas. . . In this town, the residence of the king,the mercantile emporium for the whole country,it is impossible to count up more than 500 inhabitants,of whom a hundred are slaves of the rajah. . . Thepeople in general are incapable of understanding andrealizing anything of the mysteries of our faith.They are very poor and uncivilized and rude to adegree I have never yet seen or read of . . . There isnot a shadow of any religious sense; they onlyfrequent their temples to eat and drink." 34

The authorities were rather hostile than friendly,and it was only the hope of presents that withheldthem from turning the strangers out of the countryat once. And without the king's favour, missionwork was without any prospects in such a remotecountry, where the influence of Portugal could notmake itself felt, and where the people were sodependent on the ruler as to be practically his slaves.The utter poverty of the country, too, made it, in hisopinion, quite impossible to provide for the materialsustenance of the missionaries. cc Trees are entirelywanting, not only fruit trees, but even trees for fire-wood. There are no herbs to serve as food, only alittle barley and corn." Supplies from Hindustanor Srinagar could only be obtained at prohibitivecost; "the carriage of a quantity of rice bought forone rupee at Srinagar is ten or twelve rupees, aseverything has to be carried along the passes."

As to the Christian community, his verdict is, if13

INTRODUCTIONpossible, still more unfavourable. In ten years' timethe Fathers have not administered a hundred baptisms,and even of these converts the greater ~art hadbeen among the retainers either of the mission orof the king.s6 The small remnant that had survivedthe persecution was badly instructed and entirelydestitute, so that they were dependent on the missionfor support. To his mind the sacrifices that hadalready been made and would have yet to be madewere out of all proportion to the scanty harvest thatmight be expected. So the conclusion which hesubmits to his Superiors for approval and executionis that the mission be relinquished. Father Correa,therefore, again crossed the Himalaya into Indiato carry this report to Goa. If by May, 1636, nocommunication should have reached Tsaparang-a thing well nigh impossible, considering the approachof winter and the immense distances to be covered-he [Coresma] would take it as a hint, and togetherwith Brother Marques, the last left of his com-panions, undertake the return journey to Hindustan.P

This explicit statement that Coresma stayed behindwith Brother Marques as his only companion, at onceraises the question as to the whereabouts of theother five missionaries, who, Castro informed us,were still there in 1633. When and how had theyquitted the country? Unfortunately these questionsmust be left unanswered, as the letters are silent onthis point. They may reasonably be supposed tohave been sent back by Coresma himself.

Another remark concerns Coresma's haste injudging of the state of the mission and concludingto the impossibility of working it, Having left Goaat the beginning of I 63S, his arrival in Guge cannotbe placed earlier than June or July, whilst his letteris dated 30th August. He had thus at most two monthsto acquaint himself with and enter into an exceedinglydifficult state of affairs. As painted by him this

14

INTRODUCTIONstate was, indeed, far from promising, and mustno doubt be considered as the backwash of therevolutionary agitations. The question, however,remains whether the writer, soured it may be bytrouble and adversity, did not see only the darkside of the picture and form his judgment with unduehaste and insufficient experience. Thou~h the rapiddevelopment of events would seem to justify Coresma,yet in the man himself we look in vain for the energyand will-power of an Andrade and an Azevedo, forthe resolve and steadfastness of purpose which remainsunperturbed in the midst of a trying situation. Inthe circumstances he would not seem to have been theright man in the right place.

From a third letter of Coresma's, dated Agra,14th December, 1635, we learn that soon after Correa'sdeparture the situation at Tsaparang became worsethan ever, so much so that he and Marques werekept prisoners in their house by a strong body ofsoldiers, who cut off all communication with the out-side world. Finally they were banished from thecountry and arrived at Agra, r rth December, 1635.37

Meanwhile the Provincial Father Tavarez, at Goa,had on receipt of the two letters of joth August, putthe question before his advisers, all of whom recom-mended the abandonment of the mission on accountof the unsatisfactory results and the impossibilityof increasing the support.38 The advice was actedupon, but at the same time Tavarez made some pro-vision for a possible turn of events by directingPereira and dos Anjos to Srinagar in Garhwal in June,I 636, to devote themselves to the conversion of theTibetan inhabitants and to return to Tsaparang assoon as circumstances would permit.3B Dos Anjoshad no sooner arrived at Srinagar than he fell ill, anddied shortly afterwards, in January, 1637.40 FatherStanislao Malpichi, a Neapolitan, went to fill hisplace. He advised Father de Castro of his safe

IS

INTRODUCTIONarrival, adding that cc the governor of Chaparanguewrote to the petty king of Srinagar complaining thathe detained the Fathers, that he wrote to the Fathersinviting them to come to Tibet, that he is keepingtheir house and church intact with their other posses-sions and animals".41 All this, however, raised nosanguine expectations, as appears from Castro'sremark a few months later: cc Though we have somenews from Tibet that the King wishes again to receiveus, we cannot fully trust him." 42

Several among the missionaries were far fromapproving of the abandonment of the mission. Therehas survived a strong and lengthy remonstrancefrom Father Antonio Mendez, written probably in1636 to Father Muzio Vitelleschi, the General ofthe Society of Jesus. What he chiefly complainsof is the fact that on the evidence merely of one singleadverse report an enterprise that till then had alwaysbeen favourably spoken of had at once been condemnedand abandoned-that in the teeth of all the precedinggood accounts its people were suddenly consideredto be incapable of understanding and realizing theteachings of the Faith, and the difficulties were ratedas too heavy for the missionaries to bear. Take theIndian tribes for instance. Were they more amenableto the Gospel? Or the " Cafri " in Africa? Dangerand hardship are the appendage of every mission.They had never daunted a St. Paul or a Xavier.Was the situation better in Ethiopia, where bishopand missionaries stood unflinching in spite of every-thing. Yet the missionaries in Tibet had run away, etc.

The General, persuaded by their arguments,cancelled Tavarez' decision and ordered him to senda fresh expedition to Tibet. As the order reachedGoa only when the provincial had died, the matterwas taken in hand by his successor, Father Manueld'Almeida, who appointed to the task three PortugueseFathers with Brother Marques as their guide.a

16

INTRODUCTIONTravelling by way of Agra they joined Malpichi

at Srinagar in I 640.44 Here they waited whileMal pichi and Marques took the road of Tsaparangto find out what reliance could be placed upon theking's repeated request for missionaries. Theywere not kept waiting long. Very soon, Cordara tellsUS,45 Malpichi returned alone, bringing the bad newsthat Tibet was permanently closed. On crossing theMana pass both himself and his companion had beentaken prisoners; an opportunity of escaping hadpresented itself, which both had seized, but Marqueshad been captured, and for his release a heavy ransomwas now exacted. He had it on trustworthy authoritythat both king and people, excited by the lamas, werevery hostile to the Christians, and that all the buildings,except the church built by Andrade, had been razedto the ground.

Father de Castro also mentions this venture ofMalpichi and Marques. "The king wished the returnof our Fathers, but only in the hope of getting fromthem many rich presents, which it would be impossiblefor ours to give him." 48 He is silent about theimprisonment and escape of Malpichi, but suppliessome further details about Marques' stay at Tsaparang."The Brother is still all alone in Tibet, where heoccupies the house which we have at Chaparangue.A few days ago I received from him letters writtenin the months of August and October of last year(I 64 I) in which he told me that because he wantedto go away from there he was very badly treated andinjured, so much so, indeed, that humanly speakinghe had no hope of getting away." 47

At the request of Marques himself de Castro madea last effort to obtain his release. From the father ofthe Queen of Lahore he secured a letter of recom-mendation for the king of Tsaparang, in which thelatter was entreated to allow his prisoner to depart toAgra. The answer was a refusal. The list of names

c

INTRODUCTIONof the Goa province for I 64 I has a note to the effectthat one of the Fathers is staying at Srinagar (Garhwal)to negotiate his release, and from the catalogue of1647, the next available after 164 I , the name ofManuel Marques is altogether absent; hence hisfate is still unknown.48

Of the mission buildings nothing is left. In I 9 I 2Mr. G. Mackworth Young examined very minutelyall that remains of the royal capital in the valley of theLangtchen-Kamba. At the request of Father HenryHosten, S.]., the well-known writer on the historyof the mission in India, he also made a careful searchfor any possible traces of the ancient mission station.Though the inquiry was conducted on the basis ofdata furnished by Father Hosten from the writings ofAndrade, no results were obtained. "I entered everyhouse in the city that I could, but found no trace ofa church or mission. Most of the houses are amazinglywell preserved although the roof timbers have beentaken long ago for fuel, except in the temples them-selves. The lamas no doubt abolished the missionbuildings just as thoroughly as they wiped out theking's name from their chronicles. Judging byAndrade's account, the church must have been some-where near what is now the Dzongpon's house, Theinhabitants profess, truthfully I daresay, to have notradition whatever of the Jesuits or the king's conver-sion. I had already sounded the Dzongpon when Imet him at Shangtze; I tried him again now, but withno better success." 49

No trace, therefore, remains, save perhaps onesolitary object, of which Young also speaks at the endof his account. "A row of whitewashed C chortens 'stands near the Dzongpon's house. One of them,some forty feet high, towers above the rest; and onits summit there lies horizontally a weather-beatencross of wood. It may be that the chorten was beingbuilt while the lamas were demolishing the church

18

INTRODUCTIONclose by, and that some one carelessly, or perhapsthinking to lay up treasure for himself in two heavens,planted the rejected emblem on the Buddhist tomb.In all else the work of destruction was complete andnothing is left to remind men that a Christian oncereigned in Tibet." 50

B. THE MISSION IN UTSANG

When Father de Andrade, during his second stayat Tsaparang in 162S, was actively engaged in gather-ing more accurate and detailed information about theextent and the state of Tibet, he learned frommerchants coming from China of the existence of agreat country, Utsang, situated it was said at oneand a half months' journey east of Tsaparang.s!To him this meant a possible new mission field, andin his letter of 15th August, 1626, he spoke of theventure he was meditating in that direction for thecoming year, when the Fathers who had lately arrivedwould be well grounded in Tibetan.52 Even beforethis he had written to India suggesting that an attemptto reach those more easterly territories should be madefrom Bengal,53 the field of operation of the MalabarProvince of the Society, with its headquarters atCochin, The Superior there must have acted on thesuggestion without delay, for as early as joth April,1626, the Fathers Estevao CacelIa 54 and JOioCabral,&5 together with an Italian lay-brother, Bar-tolomeo Fonteboa.s" set out on their remarkablejourney to the land of the Dalai Lama.

Their first object was the present town of Hugli,situated on a branch of the Ganges delta, where themission had an establishment, and where informationfor the further journey could be gathered.s? Theywere very sanguine at what they were told. CacelIa

19

INTRODUCTIONwrites to Father Alberta Laertius at Cochin : "Theroad to Cathay is much frequented and offers noserious hindrances, whilst the people are said tobehave as if they were Christians. He will, therefore,go to Cocho by Siripur, where he hopes to meet theCathayans and to join them on their return to theircountry in October." 58

He was soon to find things less smooth. At Hajo,the capital ofCocho at the time, no one knew anythingof Cathay, and the travellers were advised first tocross the mountains of Potente. For further informa-tion the king referred them to his son, who ruled atCoach Behar. From this place they were to proceedto Runate (Rangamati), which formed the Cochoborder-territory towards Potente. The advice wasfollowed and when, on 28th October, Runate wasreached, they fell in with eight natives of this country.Great was their disappointment on learning that atthis season there was no way of crossing the mountains.It was not till four months later, 21St February, 1627,that the two missionaries could leave Runate, andthrough Buxa Duar continue their way to Tibet.Brother Fonteboa meanwhile had died at Hugli,whither he had been ordered to return.

Their road took them across the unknown territoryof Bhutan, on which no European had set foot. Theentertainment given them by the Dharma Rajah,king and spiritual head of the country, was extremelykind. All the things they learned about the peopleand the country, Its language and religion, wereinteresting to a degree, but they never lost sight oftheir main purpose, conversion to Christianity; andthey were not slow to perceive that in this directionthere was little chance of success. So they proposedto their host that they should leave the country andjoin Andrade at Tsaparang. They had been toldthat this place was not more than a month's journeyaway; they had even had occasional news of the

20

INTRODUCTIONFathers there, not indeed directly, for the Fathersthere seemed to be still unaware of their newneighbours, but through lamas coming from thence.But the king was piqued at the suggestion, for didnot all the neighbouring countries know that they werehis guests and that he considered this a great honour ?Their departure would cast a slur upon him. Feeling,however, that he had to do something, he gave themleave to preach, promising to build them a church anda house at the town of Paro. The two then acquiesced,but after some further experience it was resolved thatCacella should go, whilst Cabral was to stay if theking made good his promise.s?

As CaceIla was well aware that the Dharma Rajahwould not grant him a gracious leave, he determinedto dispense with it and to take the first oppor-tunity of escaping from this enforced detention. Itpresented itself one day when the king had gone outto survey the site destined for the erection of thechurch. A lama, who was not quite friendly to theking and who was acquainted with the king ofU cangue (Utsang), supplied him with the necessaryequipment and escort, and in twenty days Cacellareached Gigagi (Shigatse), where the king resided.Being kindly received, he sent for Cabral, backed byletters from the king to the Dharma Rajah. Veryunwillingly the latter allowed the departure, onr Bth December, 1627, but owing to some delay onthe road CabraI was not able to join Cacella till3rd January, 1628.

On the day after Cabral's arrival the two missionarieswere admitted into the king's presence. He showedhimself quite pleased at their coming, which is notsurprising, after his invitation to Father Andrade atTsaparang in 1627.60 The next day at a more officialaudience, they unfolded the object of their coming.Upon which the Great Lama, with the king's approval,issued a proclamation permitting them to preach their

~I

INTRODUCTIONreligion without let or hindrance. Moreover, theking offered them a suitable residence, and madeample provision for their sustenance, and beingunacquainted with their habits and wants, appointeda page to inform him if at any time they should bein need of anything.

For all these happy beginnings, difficulties were notslow in coming. Presently there appeared at thecourt two lamas, disciples of the Dharma Rajah,and, as was soon evident, emissaries of the latter, tomake the stay of the two missionaries impossible.They first endeavoured to see the king personally,but on failing in this, they made use of go-betweens.Their main object was to rouse against the newcomersthe numerous lamas of the town by giving out thatthey had only come to pull down their pagodas anddestroy their religion. Fortunately none of the principallamas, who were generally in attendance on the king,were at court just now. But things were bad enoughas they were, and enough reached the king's ears torender him more reserved towards them.

Meanwhile, the two Fathers kept an eye on the future.Twenty months had passed since, starting fromCochin, they had reached this remote region. Theroad had been dangerous and uncertain, and fromtheir experience in Bhutan they were well aware thatthrough that country no regular communication couldbe kept up with their base in India. A fresh routemust be opened, and this without delay. Cabral,young and strong, took this task upon himself, and leftbefore the end of January. In reading his account ofthis journey we are scarcely, or perhaps not at all,impressed when coming across the name of Nepal;but in 1628, this mountain state was still absolutelyunknown to the West, so that, as far as can beascertained, Cabral was the first European to visit andtraverse it. The king of Utsang gave him a captainto conduct him. The latter was the bearer of letters

2.2

INTRODUCTIONand presents for the king of Nepal, who was earnestlyrequested to help the traveller in whatever he mightneed. cc This was done by the king of Nepal, andvery kindly he directed me to Patana [Patna], whereI fell in with some Portuguese, with whom I havecome to Gulim [HugliJ, from where I write thisletter." 61 This is all Cabral has to say about thiswinter journey across the highest mountain range onearth. The reader is left to imagine those paths andpasses buried under deep snow at an altitude of manythousand feet, and in the midst of these the .lonelytraveller with his one or two guides whose languagehe hardly understands, and thence to form hisjudgmentof the grit and intrepidity required to undertake it andcarry it through. As they were the bearers of lettersfor the king of Nepal, their road no doubt went byKatmandu, whither ninety-three years later FatherDesideri was to direct his steps on quitting Lhasa.

Cabral considered the new station at Shigatse tobe of first-rate importance. "It is the gate to thewhole of Tartary, China, and many other pagancountries," he writes in the same letter. He certainlycould not have expected that this missionary effort inTibet was likewise shortly to end in failure. Theactual course of events is only known in its generaloutlines. It is given in another letter of Cabral's,which he wrote from Shigatse in 163 I, probably atthe end of July, to the Fathers of Tsaparang, andwhich has been summarized in the report of Fatherde Azevedo, of whom we spoke above.62

It comes to this. While after his journey throughNepal, Cabral was staying at Hugli to settle someaffairs, there arrived Father Manuel Diaz, with ordersfrom Father Laertius, the Provincial in Cochin, to goto the mission, if Father Cacella should send for someFathers. As the latter had not asked for any, Cabralobjected to Diaz' departure. These difficulties pro-tracted his stay at Hugli so long that he missed the

23

INTRODUCTIONfavourable season to return to Nepal. So in the lateautumn of 1628, he went to Cocho with Father Diaz,from where he sent word to Cacella with a requestfor a royal escort. For in order to avoid the Bhutanroute he wanted to go through Chumbi, betweenBhutan and Sikkim, but this country having noregular government, it could not be traversed withoutthe protection of an escort. The message, however,did not find Cacella at Shigatse. Waiting in vainfor CabraI's return, and probably concluding thatthe latter's effort to establish communication withBengal had failed, he had first tried to reach Tsaparang.When the heavy snows forced him to return, he setout for Bengal, and there, probably at Hugli, helearned how things had gone.

Although he was so ill that he could hardly stand,he immediately pushed on for Cocho in order toovertake the two travellers. Here he left FatherCabral, with the heavy baggage, promising to sendfor him in January, while he himself, with FatherDiaz, set out in September, 1629. The journey wasattended with its usual difficulties, and the fatigue andhardships so told on Father Diaz, accustomed thoughhe was to the Indian climate, that he died on jrdNovember in the kingdom of Morang.63 CacelIawas also worn out. More dead than alive, he managedto drag himself on and to reach Shigatse, where onlyseven days after his arrival, even before he had seenthe king, God took him on 6th March, 1630.64

The king was deeply impressed by his death, andat once sent for Cabral to Cocho, but the latterhesitated to act on the invitation, and begged to beexcused on account of the unfavourable season. Thenext year, I 63 I, the king repeated his request bysending an escort, upon which Cabral resolved to goill order not to offend him, and not to leave the goodsof the church in his hands. He was well received onarriving. Meanwhile, he had come to see clearly on

2~

INTRODUCTIONthe one hand that continuance and development ofthis advance and forlorn post would be impossibleindependent of a base, and on the other that com-munication with Cochin was extremely difficult.Moreover, the new Provincial Father GasparFernandez, who from the beginning had shownhimself but little inclined to continue the mission,would certainly relinquish it on hearing of the deathof the two Fathers. He (Cabral) had suggested thatShigatse should be placed under the jurisdiction ofthe Superior at Tsaparang. Hence his letter toFather de Azevedo at this place that he might be fullyinformed of the state of affairs. It was for him, too,to decide, all things considered, whether it wasdesirable to establish a permanent station there towhich the king would not object.

This plan commended itself to Azevedo, especiallybecause it was in Utsang that the great schools of thelamas were found, and before setting out for Leh hemay have instructed the missionaries of Tsaparang tocommunicate with Shigatse. Though we cannotattain to certainty on this point, we may quote herefrom a letter of Father de Castro, written from Mogolon 8th August, 1632, in which with reference to theTsaparang mission he says: cc According to lettersreceived here the Superior has gone to another missionstation established by the Fathers of the CochinProvince in the town of U ~angue, where the principalking of all the kingdoms that border on China resides,who greatly favours the mission." How this affairwas further negotiated we do not know; there isnothing more in any letters, private or official, referringin any way to this enterprise.

If we are to believe Cordara,66 whose notes on thewhole of this undertaking are incomplete and un-reliable, Cabral's apprehensions that the Provincialmight be unwilling to continue the enterprise werewell founded, and he was recalled to Malabar. But

25

INTRODUCTIONwhether recalled or not, he was certainly back atHugli in 1632, where he was an eye-witness andnearly a victim of the siege and sack of this settlementby Shah Jehan's army, as he himself informed hisProvincial in a long letter written from Ceylon,rsth November, 1633- But there is not a word inthis letter about his further experiences at Shigatse.It is only Coresma who in his report of joth August,1635, on the state and prospects of the mission ofTsaparang touches once more on the subject ofUtsang. That in his opinion this enterprise, too,was to be written off as impracticable will not surprisethe reader; as for Guge so for Utsang, his verdictwas unfavourable: the risks were too ~reat, thepromise of success was too uncertain, the king's onlyobject was to obtain presents from the missionaries ...therefore, let the mission be relinquished.

This settled the matter, and the mission wasgiven up.ss

c. FRESH EFFORTS

Thus both attempts at spreading the Gospel inWestern and Central Tibet had miscarried. BrotherMarques remained in bonds at Tsaparang and atfar-away Shigatse there was no one to take up Cacella'swork and pray over his lonely grave. Thoughnothing was done in the ensuing years the missionariesin India never forgot those earlier attempts. As akind of advanced post they continued and developedmission work at Srinagar among the Garhwalmountains; they never q.uite relinquished all hopeof going back some time In the future, but they hadto wait for the man of push and position required totake the matter up. Such a man was found in FatherMiguel de Amaral.87

26

INTRODUCTIONOn joth March, I 74, he was appointed Visitor

to the Goa mission-province, and on studying thesituation he resolved to re-establish the Tsaparangmission. Father Manuel Monteiro was commissionedto inquire at Agra about the most suitable route andgauge the chances of success of a fresh effort. Whenhe died in I 707, he had not done more than gathersome information from Armenian traders about themost practicable roads.

When in I 706 de Amaral was relieved of his postit looked as if the plan had been abandoned. Butwhen he was again appointed, in 1707, two youngGoa missionaries, Fathers Carvalho and Gill, certainof Amaral ~s support, wrote to the General andvolunteered for the Tibetan mission.68 Among thevarious reasons advanced by Father Gill in favour of areturn to the old mission, he specially stresses the factthat the people there still remember the Christian faith.As regards the expense, so he writes, the necessaryfunds are in hand, since the Tibet mission has its ownresources to draw on, which are now diverted to thepoor of Agra. Moreover, a half-Portuguese lady,who is a friend of the queen of Mogor, has promised totake all the expense upon herself. On 15th December,1708, the Provincial, Father ManueI Sarayva, informedthe General that at the instance of Father de Amaralhe had appointed ]oao Carvalho and Pedro de Torresfor Tibet, but had been forced by the death of twomissionaries in Mysore to send them thither to supplythe vacancies. Rome favoured and even urged thereturn to the old mission field, as appears from aletter of the General, Father Tamburini, of 6thJuly, I 709.89

Probably before receiving this letter, on jrdJanuary, I 710, Sarayva informed the General thatFathers Giuseppe Martinetti and Franz Borgia Kochhad been charged to undertake a new venture fromAgra. This also came to nothing, because Father Koch

27

INTRODUCTIONdied on 8th October, 17 1 1,70 and Father Martinetti wasnot up to his task.?! The Provincial, however, didnot allow matters to rest, and in November, 1713, heappointed the Italian, Father Ippolito Desideri, tore-establish the mission.

While Desideri was still studying at Rome, he hadheard the accounts from India about a possiblereopening of the Tibet mission, and had generouslyvolunteered for this arduous task. His purpose wasapproved of and blessed by Pope Clement XI at aspecial audience in September, 1712. Immediatelyon his arrival in India, he offered himself again tothe Provincial, and in his two letters of r zth and 15thNovember, 1713, he was enabled to tell the Generalthe happy news that he had been chosen and destinedfor the new mission, and that he was delighted withthe appointment. To be safe from surprise and apossible reversal, he urges the General to address hima special letter confirming the appointment, andordering him explicitly to open the mission of Tibet,and to act in all this under direct responsibility toRome.P Six weeks later he returns to this point.P

On arriving at Delhi to make the necessary arrange-ments, he met Father Emanuel Freyre, who hadpassed some twenty years in India, and now offeredto accompany him into Tibet. One of the Agramissionaries would take his place at Delhi. Whenthe Provincial had sanctioned this arrangement, andhad appointed Freyre as leader of the expedition, theyset out on their remarkable journey on 24th September,1714. Their first object was Kashmir, whence theywere to traverse Little Tibet or Baltistan, and thusto penetrate into Great Tibet or Ladakh, where theyhoped to make a successful start in mission work. 74

When they reached Leh, 26th June, 17 I 5, a seriousdifficulty arose. The forty days' journey from Srinagar,where they had passed the winter of 1714-15, to thecapital of Ladakh, had been so full of hardships,

2,8

INTRODUCTIONthat Freyre, accustomed to the Indian climate andworn with fatigue, wanted to throw up the under-taking and return to Mogor without delay. He didnot care to take the road he had come. On inquiringabout the possibility of going back by way of Srinagarand learning that this would take him through themountains again, he cast about for other possibleroutes, and these investigations led to the discoverythat besides Little and Great Tibet there was a greaterone yet, the capital of which was Lhasa. It wouldtake three months to reach. But then from thatplace Mogor would be easier to reach than fromwhere he was now. Certainly he knew that therewere Capuchins there who had been sent by theCongregation de Propaganda Fide. But this neednot detain him, his main object being to get back toIndia.75

Quite naturally Desideri demurred at this faint-hearted withdrawal of his companion. He wanted tostand to their first plan and stop at Leh. Moreover,a journey to the third Tibet would be the moreobjectionable because there were already missionariesin that country; their help, therefore, would not beneeded. But Freyre persisted. If Desideri preferredto stay at Ladakh on his own responsibility, he(Freyre) would not thwart him, but himself would goto this third Tibet " where also Father Andrade hadbeen ". Perforce Desideri had at last to yield; tostay all by himself in this almost inaccessible landentirely cut off from India would serve no purpose.So he resolved to follow Freyre to Lhasa. 76

After a two-months' stay, then, at Leh, the twocontinued their arduous journey across the Tibetanuplands, and at length, six months later, the roofs ofthe mighty Potala loomed before their eager eyes.On t Sth March, 17I 6, they set foot within the holycity of Lhasa.

Freyre meanwhile had not changed his mind. On29

INTRODUCTIONhis arrival he hardly allowed himself a few weeks' rest,and on 16th April, he returned to Hindustan throughNepal. Thus Desideri stayed behind, the onlyEuropean at Lhasa.t? For, on their arrival they hadfound no Capuchins. There had been, indeed, twosuch missionaries in I 707, and a third had arrivedin 1709, the well-known Father Domenico da Fano,but want of the necessaries of life had compelled themto return.78 It was not till I st October, more thansix months after Desideri's arrival, that another partyof three reached the capital of Tibet via Nepal, wherethey were lodged by him in his house, and instructedin the language of the country.79

Desideri's labours in Tibet extended over a periodof five years. At his first audience on 1st May, 1716,he obtained permission to preach and also to buya house at Lhasa, a mark of special favour, sinceforeigners could only rent houses. With undividedzeal he now addressed himself to the study of thelanguage. cc From that day to the last which I passedin that kingdom, I studied from morning till night."Nor without success, for by the end of December ofthe same year he had finished an expose of the Christianreligion in Tibetan, which was presented to the kingat an audience on 6th January, 1717. Acting on theadvice of the latter to study the religion of the lamasin their own writings, he stayed from 25th March tothe end of July, at the monastery of Ramo-eee. Butsince the best insight into the doctrinal part was tobe obtained in the Universities, where lamas notonly of Central Tibet, but from Ladakh, Tartary, andChina thronged the lecture-halls, Desideri moved inAugust to the University of Sera at two miles' distancefrom Lhasa. Here he was comfortably housed andcould say mass in his private oratory; he had the freeuse of the libraries and could converse with themost learned among the professors.

His plan was to write in the Tibetan language a3

INTRODUCTIONrefutation of the errors of their doctrine and a defenceof the Catholic religion. But he had hardly set towork when he was interrupted by a violent catastrophe.The Tartars invaded the country, Lhasa was takenand sacked, and on jrd December, 1717, the king andhis ministers were murdered. Not thinking himselfsafe at Sera, Desideri retired to the province of Takp6-Khier at eight days' journey from the capital, wherehe found time and opportunity to finish his book. Hisretirement lasted till April, 172I, with the exceptionof a few months at Lhasa. In one of his visits to thecapital he gave his book to read to his former teacherof Tibetan, one of the cleverest among the lamas.It consisted, he tells us, of three volumes. The firstargued against the migration of souls as taught byBuddhism, the second attacked their wrong notion ofthe Godhead, the third, which was more constructive,gave in the form of a dialogue an exposition of theChristian doctrine.

The work caused a great stir, and "my housesuddenly became the scene of incessant cornings andgoings by all sorts of people, chiefly learned men andprofessors, who came from the monasteries andUniversities, especially from those of Sera and Bree-bung, the principal ones, to apply for permission tosee and read the book ".80

At Rome, meanwhile, in December, 1718, it hadbeen settled within whose province lay the mission-territory of Tibet. Judgment went against theJesuits and the General of the Society was ordered torecall his men from Tibet without delay. In thecourse of the same month, Father Tamburini wroteto this effect to the Provincial at Goa and to Desideri,and on 16th January, 17 I 9, reiterated his orders tothe latter. This letter reached Desideri at thebeginning of 172 I, while he was still staying at thehamlet of Trong-g-nee in Takp6-Khier. First, at therequest of the Capuchin Father, Giuseppe Felice da

31

INTRODUCTIONMorro, he translated into Italian the famous work Lamrim chenmo, to assist the latter in his study of Buddhistdoctrine and then returned to Lhasa. On 28th April,he left the holy city of the Dalai Lama, and took theroad to Kuti in Nepal.

The missionary labours of the Society of Jesus inTibet had come to an end.

PREFACEBy THE EDITOR

IT is now more than fifty years since Sir elementsMarkham, in his Narratives of Ihe Mission of G. Bogie10 Tibet, and of th Journey of F. Manning 10 Lhasa (seeBibliography at the end of the volume), announcedthe news that the lost manuscript of the Jesuitmissionary, Ippolito Desideri, had been rediscovered,and would probably be published before long, addinghis opinion that the Italian publication "oughtpromptly to be followed by an English edition ".

The Italian manuscript had been found a yearearlier-in I 87s-among the papers of CavaliereRossi-Cassigoli, a gentleman of Pistoia, But it wasnot till nine and twenty years later that the work waspublished by Professor Puini. The editor, in hispreface, has described the many vicissitudes of themanuscript from its rediscovery to its final publica-tion ; the negotiations for its surrender to the HakluytSociety; its removal to the National Library ofFlorence; how its publication was entrusted by theItalian Geographical Society first to Giovanni Marinelli,and on the death of Marinelli to Puini himself; andfinally its appearance in print in Volume x of theMemorie of the Italian Geographical Society under thetitle 11 'iIJel (Geografia, Stori, Religione, COsIUmt);secando la Relazione del riaggio di Ippalito Desideri ;I7 I S- I72 1 (Rome, 190 4).

Puini, in the meantime, had written various articlespartially illustrating some of the points of the narrative,but insufficient to convey its great importance, or togive an idea of the work as a whole. And owing tothe long interval between the finding of the manuscript

JJ D

PREFACEand its final publication, added to the fact that it wasissued in a limited edition for the members of theItalian Geographical Society, it escaped the notice ofthe greater number of geographers, more especiallyoutside Italy. The only writer who can be said tohave appreciated Desideri and his journey to the fullis perhaps Sven Hedin. (See Southern Tibet, vol. i,eh, xxvii-xxix; vol. ii, eh, xxxi; vol. iii, ehs. ii and iv.)The other writers on Tibet, not excepting those whoare competent on things oriental, have practically allof them repeated the grossest errors regarding theItalian missionary, errors which even the most summaryaCCJ.uaintance with the published parts of the manu-script would certainly have prevented. In addition tothe unfounded statements in regard to the itinerary ofthe journey, to the length of time passed in Tibet,and the rich store of information contained in thenarrative, they have persisted in arbitrary and evendefamatory statements in regard to the raison d'/Ireof the mission itself. The errors of Markham, Rock-hill, Gunther, Wegener, Waddell, Schlagintweit, etc.,and the groundless accusations and insinuations ofG. Sandberg (1904), P. Landon (1905), T. Holditch(1906), have been dealt with by Father Wessels inhis Early Jesuit 'rravellers (p, 2 9 ; P: 222, note 4 ;p. 225, note 3).

Many more travellers could be added to the listgiven by Wessels. Following Desideri, the firstEuropeans to traverse the high valley of the Tsang-powere Captains Rawling, Ryder, and Wood, andLieutenant Bailey, who accompanied the Young-husband expedition to Lhasa. But neither Ryder inhis lecture to the Royal Geographical Society (Geogr.'Jour"., vol. xxvi, 1905, p. 369), nor Rawling in thefuller report contained in his book '['he Great Plateau(London 195), makes the slightest allusion to theonly traveller who had taken that road before them,namely Desideri. After mentioning briefly the visit

34-

PREFACEof Antonio de Andrade to Tsaparang in WesternTibet in 1626, Captain Rawling adds the following:le At various intervals other European missionariesentered Tibet, but none were more successful than theCapuchin Friars, who not only travelled to Lhasa butsettled there in 1708. Scanty records have been leftby those early adventurers, etc." (p. 4).

Sir Henry Yule, in his book, Cathay and the Jf?ayTbither, published in 1866, deplores the fatality whichprevented precise information from the few travellerswho had penetrated to Lhasa, and regrets beingforced to quote from the doubtful description of FriarOdorico da Pordenone, from Giorgi's Alpnaoetum'Thibetanum, and from the U so unsatisfactory tt, as hecalls it, account of Hue. And Cordier in the newedition of Yule's Cathay, which he edited with notesin 19 I 3 (vol. i, P: 249), has nothing to add to it in thisconnection. He leaves unchanged the statement ofYule, excusable at the early date at which the book waswritten, that Desideri had given no details of hisjourney beyond Ladak and had not spoken of Lhasaat all. He even repeats the false statement made byYule and by many others (see Wessels, p. 225, note 3),that the Italian missionary had remained in Lhasatill 1729. And Sir Charles Bell, who for many yearswas in touch with the Tibetan Government and hadthe good fortune to reside in Lhasa for nearly a year,in 1920-1, in his books, 'l'ihet Past and Present(Oxford, 1924) and 'The People of Tibe: (Oxford, 1928),makes only the briefest allusion to Desideri, a know-ledge of whose narrative would have provided himwith an interesting comparison between the observa-tions of the Italian missionary at the beginning of theeighteenth century and his own. The same applies tothe latest book that has appeared on Tibet, ~he Landof the Lama, by David Macdonald, who for ten yearswas British agent at Gyantse and Yatung. Macdonald'sbook has no bibliography.

35

PREFACEThe above examples will show how little weight

has been given to Puini's book, in spite of it showingso clearly how very important was Desideri's report.In it we find the first hint of the sacred mountainKailas, of Lake Manasarowar, of the great valley ofthe Tsang-po, which no European had traversedbefore him, news of Baltistan, and news also of Ladak,where no traveller had set foot before him, if we exceptAzevedo and Oliveira, who remained there for a briefstay in I 63 I Ahove all, in Desideri we have thefirst accurate general description of Tibet, in all itsparticulars-the flora, fauna, products of the soil,the inhabitants and their special customs, the constitu-tion of the family, the nuptial and funerary rites, thesocial organization, and finally a complete expositionof Lamaism derived from his study of the canonicalbooks and their commentaries and from a dailyand familiar intercourse, stretching over many years,with the doctors of Lamaism and the life of theLamaseries, made possible by his perfect knowledgeof the Tibetan language. To him we are indebtedfor the only complete reconstruction that we possessof the Tibetan religion, founded entirely on thecanonical texts. He sets in evidence its scholasticcharacter and its complicated dialectic, admirablydiscerning its ethical-philosophical content from thecongeries of Tantric superstitions and Sivaiticmixtureswhich fill so large a place in the monumental books ofthe Tibetan doctrines.

And all this more than a century before the menof learning in Europe had any knowledge at all of theTibetan language I Not till the middle of the nineteenthcentury did B. H. Hodgson and A. Csoma de KOrOsrediscover the Tibetan texts, and all we possess, evento-day, are a few incomplete summaries of the textsand translations of single books and chapters. Beforetheir rediscovery, and even since, the ~rossest errorshave been current on the Tibetan religion, the Grand

36

PREFACELama and the people ofTibet. The ancient Alphahetum

~hi!Jeta1tum compiled by Antonio Giorgi, the AugustineFriar, from information given by the Capuchin Fatherscontemporary with Desideri, and especially by FatherCassiano Beligatti of Macerata; the famous book byFather Hue, brilliant rather than profound, whichnevertheless was received as though it were a revela-tion ; the works of the Abbe Desgodins and of AdrienLaunay on the missions of Tibet, and the othernumerous narratives of Tibetan explorers and travellers-none of these works can compare with the accountof Desideri for completeness, for precision, for sure-ness of judgment, for objective serenity. Not one ofthe writers on Tibet in general, nor the expounders ofthe Tibetan religion and ecclesiastical hierarchy, fromWaddell to Milloue, and the rest of them, has availedhimself of this rich mine of information. FurthermoreDesideri happened to be in Tibet during events ofgreat historical importance and describes them atfirst-hand as an eye-witness.

Desideri's Relazione, composed entirely frompersonal observations made on the spot, and frominvestigations of the Tibetan texts constantly controlledby the Doctors of the Law, has a scientific value of thefirst importance which has not been affected by thestudies which have since appeared. Most of thesestudies are partial; and not one of them has led toconclusions contradictory to Desideri's, Moreover,the simple and frank style of his narrative, the absolutehonesty of his exposition of the Buddhist doctrine,and his attitude to the people and the country ingeneral, make his book an extremely attractive one.The figure that ~~erges is that of a mild and simpleman, full of human understanding and sympathy, andhonest and truthful to the point of candour.

These were the considerations which induced me,some years ago now, to embark on an English edition

37

PREFACEof Desideri ts narrative. M y first idea was to prepare astraightforward English translation of Professor Puini'sbook, which even then was so rare as to be almostunobtainable. Puini's learned preface and eruditenotes I intended to complete with the new data whichhad come to light since he published them. It wasonlywhen I compared the book with Desideri's accountin the National Library of Florence that I realizedwhat a large proportion of the manuscript was stillunpublished. Puini had confined his attention to theparts dealing with Baltistan, Ladak, and Tibet, andeven these were given incompletely. Desideri'sjourneys out and back, his descriptions of the variousplaces he stayed in in India, his accounts of the politicalevents in those places, his report on the state of theMissions, and a number of other particulars, wereomitted altogether. Moreover, Puini, faced by anaccount so ample as this, in fairly good order as regardsthe material, but, except for a section at the end, writtenin a continuous whole without books or chapters,adopted an unusual method in works of this kind ;he composed a descriptive book on Tibet divided intochapters according to the material, and to each chapterhe appended a portion of Desideri's manuscript bearingon the subject. It follows that the manuscript becamealmost secondary-little more, in fact, than anappendix; not even its title was kept. The sameremarks were made by A. J. Keane in his review ofPuini's book published in the Geographical Journal(vol. xxv, 1905). It concluded as follows: cc What he(Puini) has now issued is by no means a completeedition of the Ragguaglio . Puini's work isentirely confined to the Tibetan section . . . eventhis section is not given in full, but is edited with asort of eclectic system. . . . Pending a completeedition of Desideri, Puini has made a valuable contri-bution to the study of Tibetan and other primitivereligions by the numerous critical remarks with which

38

PREFACEhe has accompanied his copious extracts from theRagguaglio " (p, 84).

To introduce into Puini's book the omitted partsof Desideri's manuscript would have meant theupsetting of the whole order of the book, and thechanging of its character completely. So I came tothe conclusion that the only course open to me was toundertake the work ex novo-to publish, that is, anEnglish translation of Desideri's text in full, with thenotes that were strictly necessary for the historicaland geographical comprehension of it, and for thelinking of it up with the modern knowledge of thecoun