Lives in the Archives

In addition to Tibetan Buddhist statues, thangkas, and texts, the Johan van Manen collection(s) here in Leiden contain manuscripts comprising rare Tibetan autobiographies recorded by ordinary men whom Van Manen employed as assistants during his time in the Darjeeling district and Calcutta between circa 1916 and 1940.

Prior to this ERC-funded VAN MANEN project, only a handful of Dutch and international Tibetan studies scholars have studied or even just accessed these manuscripts. As far as I am aware, these include Pieter H. Pott (1918-1989), director of the then National Museum of Ethnology (now Wereldmuseum Leiden), Peter Richardus, and the late Gene Smith (1936-2010).¹ The only available publications are by Peter Richardus.² Surprisingly, no subsequent scholarship on Tibetan life writing and modern Tibetan history was interested in following up on these studies. After a hiatus of nearly 3 decades, the members of the VAN MANEN project are now revisiting these manuscripts. The primary aims of this team concerning the autobiographies are: (a) making these original materials publicly available in digital form, (b) creating edited, open-access editions with annotations in both English and Tibetan, and (c) drawing attention to the lives and legacies of forgotten individuals within the broader discourse of modern Tibetan history and life writing.

This blog post aims to not only provide a brief background on one of Van Manen’s assistants, Trin Chen, but also to introduce his manuscripts preserved in the Wereldmuseum Leiden. 

A Brief Historical Background

The early 20^th century was a period of major transition in modern Tibetan history. Any work of history on this era will invariably discuss various events and themes that brought Tibet and its people into contact with the outside world: nationalism, modernity, the British invasion of 1904, boundary disputes, international treaties, Western missionaries, and European scholars studying Tibetan language and religion in the Himalayas. These developments unfolded against three critical backdrops: (a) a young, eclectic Dalai Lama pushing for modernization, (b) growing British interference and interest in the region, and (c) the weakening and end of the Qing dynasty and its representatives in Tibet, the ambans.

Nevertheless, questions still remain: how did these changes unfold on the ground? How did sweeping national and global forces affect the life of ordinary people in Tibet? And how were these understood, remembered, and narrated by those who lived through them? What if a witness to all this had left behind a comprehensive personal account? I know, this is the holy grail for scholars. The Van Manen Collection contains several such sources (seven in total!), one of which is the autobiography of Trin Chen. This memoir provides us with a crucial primary source for the study of Sino-Tibetan history of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. By and large, the histories that deal with this period offer a top-down perspective that is either impersonal, imperial, governmental, or nationalistic. Trin Chen’s narrative, by contrast, adds a personal and intimate dimension to the existing scholarship, complementing and at times contradicting works such as those of Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa’s Political History of Tibet (Bod kyi srid don rgyal rabs).³

Trin Chen’s Early Years in Lhasa

Trin Chen was born in Lhasa in 1893 to a Chinese father, Chen Hui (陳輝), and a Sino-Tibetan mother, Sodrol (Bsod sgrol; Suzhen 素貞). Trin Chen’s personal history, his childhood, and career were intimately linked to his family’s connections with the Lhasa-based amban office, where his father had been sent from Sichuan to work in 1867. Trin Chen’s upbringing, his youth, education, and employment in Lhasa all occurred within the Qing institutional networks operating in Tibet. In around 1906/1907, Trin Chen graduated from the local Qing-administered Chinese school in Lhasa before being selected by the amban as one of the top four students to receive advanced training in Tibetan and Chinese languages as well as government affairs at the Sino-Tibetan bureau school (rgya bod yig tshang gi slob grwa), run by the amban’s office. There, he trained alongside circa 50 other boys, all between 12 and 18 years of age. In 1909, aged 16, he officially joined the Sino-Tibetan bureau at the amban’s office as a clerk translating documents for 4 years until the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1912. According to Trin Chen, he was one of 60 Tibetan and Chinese clerks active at the amban office in Lhasa.

Dating the Autobiography

Trin Chen’s trilingual memoir is probably the only such account dating from the early 20^th century to be written in Tibetan, Chinese, and English. His life and narrative embody the intersection of the Tibetan and Chinese world on the cusp of the 20^th century. Whereas Trin Chen does not mention when exactly he began writing his life story or when it was completed, marginal notes as well as other archival evidence suggest it was most likely recorded between 1924 and 1929, soon after joining Van Manen’s Calcutta-based team of local Tibetan and Himalayan assistants in 1924. The so-called “fair copy” of the manuscript, comprising chapters 1-5 in u-chen, was completed sometime before 1926. We know this, because the manuscript’s scribe, Phuntsok Lungtok, died in November 1926 in Calcutta. Second, the cover as well as the title pages of Trin Chen’s drawings illuminating the autobiography mention 1925 and 1926 (see Figures 2 and 3) as the years of completion. Third, the Chinese version of Trin Chen’s autobiography, includes a note on the file cover, just below the title, stating, “finished 13/5/29” (see Figure 4). This most likely indicates that the work was completed on May 13, 1929. Finally, the final two chapters of the Tibetan text were apparently completed in 1928, since the rough draft of Chapter 7b, p. 13 (kha), (see Figure 5) includes a note by Trin Chen: “scratched by Trin Chen on 31^st October 1928”. Moreover, the autobiography’s contents do not extend beyond events occurring in the course of the late 1920s.

The Manuscripts

Manuscripts relating to Trin Chen’s autobiography are catalogued in the Leiden Wereldmuseum as RV-2739-191 whereby the sub-dividing letters (a) to (g) designate the various versions and files. In total, there are five different manuscripts: u-chen “fair copy,” u-med rough draft, Chinese and English versions, and a set of one hundred illustrations.

1) RV-2739-191 (a) & (b), 571 pp. This fair copy in u-chen was written on loose folios measuring approximately 34.3 x 21 cm. It is preserved in two separate flat files: Chapters 1, 3, 4 (Ch. 2 is missing, but has been supplemented by means of the u-med rough draft, 31 pp.); half of Chapter 5 is kept in file 1, with the remaining chapters held in the second file. Karma Sumdhon Paul handled this manuscript in 1932 and (re)organized its contents into a single fair copy document. The scribe Phuntsok Lungtok served as the copyist for Chapters 1-5. Apparently, Trin Chen revised portions of Chapter 1 (and perhaps also Chapter 2, as we do not have the fair copy) in 1928. Hence, this manuscript includes numerous patches and insertions (see Figures 6 and 7), where K.S. Paul affixed small clipped pieces of text onto the main folios. In 1932, K.S. Paul had to rearrange and repaginate (in red ink) these pages, which his note and signature at the beginning of the chapter indicate. There is no formal title beyond the heading written at the beginning of the file: here is an account of a Chinese official’s son [Trin Chen] (di nang rgya drung sras ming pa’i lo rgyud bkod pa dge’o). Phuntsok Lungtok served as scribe for Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 (in part) and 5 (most of it).  In the remaining chapters several hands become visible.

2) RV-2739-191 (c)

This u-med rough draft comprises 506 pp., all written on loose sheets (22.3 x 27.3 cm) and bound by a thread on the top left (See Figure 8). Chapters 1 and 6 are missing. Chapters 2 – 4 were rearranged  and repaginated by Karma Sumdhon Paul (in red or blue ink). He not only added a brief English summary of Chapters 2 – 4 at the beginning but also signed his name at the start of each of these chapters, adding March 22 and 23 of 1928.

3) RV-2739-191 (d) and (e)

These two flat files (d) and (e) consist of Trin Chen’s autobiography, written in traditional Chinese in Calcutta. The first file contains Chapters 1 to 4 (See Figure 9); the remaining text is held in the second file. As shown above, the title page of the first file reads: “Trin Chen’s Autobiography, Chinese Text, with a note and a scribble below stating, “finished 13/5/29” (See Figure 3).

4. RV-2739-191 (f)

This file consists of  100 illustrations (See Figure 10), all drawn by Trin Chen in person, depicting events described in his autobiography.

5. RV-2739-191 (g)

This manuscript contains Trin Chen’s own English translation of his autobiography (See Figure 11). It consists of 919 pages (approx. 27.5 x 22.3 cm) written on loose leaves held together with a thread at the upper left corner.

Using Trin Chen’s “fair copy” Tibetan version as the base text, I am currently working on producing a comprehensive annotated translation of his autobiography incorporating information from all the versions mentioned above. At the same time, we are collaborating with a Tibetan editor to prepare a revised annotated edition of Trin Chen’s Tibetan autobiography. So stay tuned for these publications!

A Brief Timeline of Trin Chen from 1893-1924

This is a selective timeline of Trin Chen’s life based on his autobiography, although he lived until 1943.

• 1867 His father was sent from Sichuan to Lhasa (to be later awarded the fourth rank by the amban)
• 1893 Born Chen Cunzhi (陳存誌) in Lhasa
• 1898 Enters the Chinese school in Lhasa
• 1901 Death of his father
• 1905/6 Becomes amban Lian Yu’s attendant
• 1906 His middle sister marries
• 1906/7 Joins the Sino-Tibetan bureau school in Lhasa
• 1907 His younger sister marries
• 1909 Appointed as a clerk at the amban’s office in Lhasa
• 1909 His mother dies
• 1911 Lhasa Unrest
• 1913/14 Migrates to India during the 2nd year of the Republican era. The 13^th Dalai Lama declares independence.
• 1913-1914 Starts work at the Tibetan Mission School in Darjeeling and converts to Christianity
• 1917 Returns to Lhasa to visit his sister’s family
• 1917 His younger sister dies
• 1917 Returns to Darjeeling to continue his English language studies
• 1918 Joins the Pangdatsang business family as a clerk in Calcutta
• 1920 Travels to Beijing to manage the Pangdatsang’s business as a clerk
• 1921/22 Quits his job with the Pangdatsang’s business in Beijing
• 1922/23 Returns to Kalimpong and marries
• 1922/23 Travels to Shigatse as a trader from Kalimpong
• 1924 Starts work for Johan van Manen in Calcutta as his Chinese assistant

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1. During a personal conversation held in June 2025, Tashi Tsering la informed me that he had read these autobiographies at Gene Smith’s in New Delhi decades ago. ↩︎
2. P. Richardus, Tibetan Lives: Three Himalayan Autobiographies (Curzon Press, 1998); P. Richardus, The Dutch Orientalist Johan van Manen: His Life and Work (Kern Institute, 1989). ↩︎
3. W. D. Shakabpa, Bod kyi srid don rgyal rabs = an advanced political history of Tibet (T. Tsepal, Taikhang, 1976); W. D. Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons an Advanced Political History of Tibet, 2 vols., trans. Derek F. Maher (Brill, 2010). ↩︎