Summary
A blog on Tibetan language verses written in praise of the Dutch Tibetologist Johan Van Manen by Dr. Tenzin Tsepak
Oṃ Svāsti May Goodness Prevail!
On the glorious day of the auspicious occasion:
Showing unwavering faith towards Buddha’s teachings,
A benefactor, Most excellent, Mr. [Van] Manen:
May the Great Sahib’s well-being, merits, wealth,
And fame all increase like the waxing moon, and
Continue to prosper through this prayer:
The buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions
Grant a speedy meeting without any obstacles;
The auspicious aspirational prayer,
In praise of thy name by Zungs Ye Wang.
On Saturday, the 13th of the 16th Rabjung of
the Fire Female Rabbit Year [1927],
I present this immaculate white scarf to your hand. Śubha [Wishes].
I stumbled upon this uncatalogued page while reading Püntsok Lungtok’s (phun tshogs lung rtogs) account of his trip to India with Van Manen (Bod yul gangs can lha ldan du sdod pa drung yig phul [sic] tshogs lung rtogs kyis sbyin bdag mi rje ma nen sa heb dang mnyam du rgya gar du bskyod pa’i lo rgyus bris pa dge) in the Special Collections Reading Room here at the Leiden University Library. After scanning the note, I soon realized how beautifully it was written in Tibetan and it speaks to Van Manen’s relations with his associates, how they regarded him and, most importantly, wrote about him in Tibetan.
Ahead of His Time
In the 1920s there weren’t that many Europeans studying Tibetan Buddhism, language and culture. But Van Manen was an exception. He not only bought and collected Tibetan Buddhist texts, arts, and artifacts, but immersed himself in the study of the religion, language (both classical and colloquial), and culture of Tibet. He was particularly praised for his devotion to Buddhism and described as “someone who generates great faith in Buddha’s teaching (thub pa’i bstan par shin tu dad bgyid pa).” He was, in a way, more Buddhist than many of the Tibetans around him at the time, recounts Püntsok Lungtok.[1] Van Manen was therefore endearingly addressed in Tibetan as sbyin pa’i bdag po (meaning a great benefactor or patron), mi rje sahib (master sahib), sa heb chen po (great sahib) indicating the deep respect and admiration held for him.
All this makes one wonder, how many Europeans did what Van Manen did at the turn of the last century? The Tibetan and Himalayan people around Van Manen certainly appreciated his research methods. The fact that somebody deeply cared about their culture seems to have meant a lot to these people. They saw him as different.
The versified good wishes to the Dutchman was written by Yéshé Wanggyel (ye shes dbang rgyal, a Tibetan secretary hired by Van Manen to work alongside Karma Samten Paul (skar ma bsam gtan pa’u lu, aka Karma Babu). The verse was written on the 16th Rabjung, in the year of the fire female rabbit [1927] on a Saturday the 13th. The month in which the note was written is not specified, nor is it clear whether the date is according to the Tibetan or Western calendar.
The identity of the author remained a puzzle to us until Trin Chen’s (Chen Zhicun, Van Manen’s Chinese secretary) Tibetan language autobiography provided more information about “Ye dbang.” It was revealed that the author’s full name is Yes shes dbang rgyal, with “Ye dbang” being a contraction of his name.[2] The meaning of the word zungs is still unclear.
The year in which this poem was written, 1927, was an uneventful year for Van Manen in terms of his scholarly output, as he had to return to the Netherlands for six months for medical reasons.[3] This sheds light on the context in which the note was written. Trin Chen narrates that Karma Samten Paul and Yéshé Wanggyel delivered a Tibetan verse at Van Manen’s send-off party at the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. The gathering was attended by the Society’ staff, Van Manen’s Tibetan and Chinese secretaries (munshis) (Karma Samten Paul, Yéshé Wanggyel, and Trin Chen), Indian pundits, Muslim clerics, and Bengali officials (babus). All of them spoke in praises and prayers in their respective languages.[4] While we do not have direct evidence of what others wrote for the occasion, the Tibetan verse written and delivered by Yéshé Wanggyel survived, and now on your screen after almost a century of obscurity!
[1] Peter Richardus (1998, p. 47). Tibetan Lives: Three Himalayan Autobiographies. Curzon.
[2] Trin Chen’s Tibetan language autobiography. Trin Chen’s Namthar in Uchen (RV-2739-191), Chapter 7, p. 462. Unpublished manuscript. Wereldmuseum Leiden.
[3] Richardus, P. (1989, p. 43). The Dutch Orientalist Johan van Manen: His Life and Work. Kern Institute.
[4] Trin Chen, Chapter 6, 738-740. See Richardus (1989, p. 43).
*** Postscript
In terms of the structure and form of the verse, it was written stylistically closer to the classical Tibetan with nine syllables per line – I am even tempted to say this is a 14-line Tibetan sonnet dedicated to Van Manen! Since the document is copied by hand, there may have been a few scribal errors in the copy of the text: in line nine, the word mchog (supreme) should have been phyogs (direction), and the genitive particle gyi should have been agentive kyis; in line eleven, the word stod (upper) should be bstod (praise).
Based on Trin Chen’s Tibetan language autobiography, Yéshé Wanggyel was a monk from Ghoom monastery in Darjeeling.[5] He was married and had a young son. He was hired by Van Manen as a replacement for previous copyist Sangyé (sangs rgyas) from Dromo (Chumbi Valley), who fell ill in the Calcutta heat and had to return to Sikkim. Sangyé was previously hired to fill in for Van Manen’s first Tibetan tutor and secretary Püntsok Lungtok who died of tuberculosis in Calcutta in 1926. These individual lives offer a rare glimpse of the educated, but non-elite, Tibetans and Chinese who made their way to the Indian metropolis in the early twentieth century. For this project, the information these works provide on their lives and their interactions with Europeans is crucial.
[5] Trin Chen, Chapter 7, 460.
