CHAPTER VIII.
Csoma arrives in Calcutta—Resolution of Government of India as to the publication of his works—Was elected Honorary Member of Asiatic Society.
Csoma’s long-cherished desire of visiting Calcutta was at last realised in April 1831. He remained at Kanum till the commencement of the previous cold weather. After arrival at Sabathú, the Government having supplied him with funds for the journey, he was enabled to take with him, to the Presidency, the manuscripts and books which he had so eagerly collected. On 5th of May he reported himself to Mr. Swinton, the Secretary to Government, and placed all the literary treasures in his possession at the disposal of the authorities.
Dr. Wilson at the same time reminded the members of the Council of the Asiatic Society, in a memo, dated 21st May 1831, that they were under a promise to Csoma to grant him 50 rupees a month from the 15th of April 1830 to date, which sum, however, he refused to accept. But the Government sanctioned 100 rupees a month, on condition that Csoma would prepare a catalogue raisonné of the Tibetan works Mr. Hodgson had forwarded from Nepal.
A letter from Dr. Wilson to the Secretary of Government refers to the arrangements which had been made with regard to Csoma. It bears the date 15th July 1831, and states that the Society were willing to avail themselves of Csoma’s services for two years, on the [[113]]salary which the Government had already sanctioned to him.
Eighteen months after the date of the above, Dr. Wilson wrote another letter, announcing to Government the completion of Csoma’s works for the press, and suggesting, at the same time, how they should be dealt with.
On the 26th of December 1832, Dr. Wilson writes that, besides the Dictionary and the Grammar, a translation of a Tibetan vocabulary, containing “a summary of the Buddha system,”[1] was ready for publication and at the disposal of Government, “to whom the author considered his works to belong, in return for the patronage it had been pleased to afford him. Should it be the pleasure of Government to defray the cost of publication, which has been estimated at from 3000 to 4000 rupees, Mr. Csoma will be happy to conduct them through the press in Calcutta; or he is willing, should the Government think proper, to send them, through me, to England, where, perhaps, the Honourable Court of Directors or some literary association may undertake their publication.”
Dr. Wilson was preparing to leave India, and he was ready to take charge of the manuscripts, with a view to their being published in Europe.
The following was the resolution of the Government as to the publication of the Grammar and Dictionary, and this finally decided the hitherto pending question. The order was, that the works should be printed in Calcutta at the expense of Government, which had certainly the very great advantage of the author’s immediate supervision whilst issuing from the press.
The Government Secretary’s letter to Dr. Wilson is dated the 27th of December; it alludes to circumstances of some interest, and pays a deserved tribute to his remarkable merits as a man of science, on the eve of his departure for Europe. [[114]]
“The Vice-President in Council is disposed to think it most desirable that the Tibetan Grammar and Dictionary prepared by A. Csoma de Körös should be published in Calcutta, at the cost of the Government, India being the most appropriate place for the publication, and the Government being the only party likely to incur the expense.
“I am instructed to observe,” continues Mr. Swinton, “that the Government is sensible of the advantage which would be derived from your taking charge of these works and superintending their publication in England, if it were proposed to transmit them for that purpose; and recognises in your offer the same disinterested zeal which has ever distinguished your devotion to the advancement of literature.
“The Vice-President in Council has perused with much gratification the report of the meritorious labours of Mr. Csoma.”
In January 1833, Dr. Wilson, having spent many years in the study of Oriental literature, left Calcutta for England, to devote the remainder of his days to the same cause, as Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford. Other and more worthy pens have done justice to the brilliant talents and meritorious accomplishments of Horace Hayman Wilson. A grateful remembrance of him is due also from the biographer of Körösi Csoma Sándor, for the interest he took, when in Calcutta, in the Hungarian traveller, and for his kindness afterwards in publishing a biographical sketch of him in the “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society” in 1834. The sketch, so far as it went, has hitherto served as the basis of all notices of Csoma’s earlier life.
Dr. Wilson was succeeded by Mr. James Prinsep as Secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, who considered it as one of his most important duties to urge that Csoma’s works should be pushed through the press [[115]]as rapidly as possible. Mr. Prinsep’s letter on the subject is dated the 30th of January, and is addressed to the Secretary of the Government, giving full details as to expenses connected with the publication, and mentioning other arrangements also. Mr. Prinsep, writing in the name of the Asiatic Society, “trusts that the Government regard Csoma’s labours of national interest.”
“Previous to the departure of Dr. H. H. Wilson for England, that gentleman placed in my hands a copy of the letter which he addressed to the Government on the 26th ultimo, relative to the Tibetan manuscripts of Mr. Csoma de Körös, and your reply of the 27th of the same month, conveying the sentiments of the Honourable the Vice-President in Council upon the best mode of publishing them, in order that I might submit the whole to the Asiatic Society, to whom the responsibility and honour of superintending the publication of Mr. Csoma’s Tibetan Grammar and Dictionary naturally devolves: upon the determination of the Government in favour of printing the work in this country, in lieu of committing it to the care of Dr. Wilson for publication in Europe.
2. “The President and Committee of Papers of the Asiatic Society now direct me to report, for the consideration of the Honourable the Vice-President in Council, that they have made the requisite inquiries as to the probable expense of printing the manuscripts in Calcutta, and they are happy to assure his Honour in Council, that the cost will be trifling compared with the importance of the work to literature, and considering the necessity of preparing an entirely new fount of type in a character as complicated, from the number and form of its compounds, as the Sanskrita itself.
3. “Mr. Pearce, of the Baptist Mission Press, states that the Grammar and Dictionary together may be comprised in one neat quarto volume of about 600 pages in typography and 32 in lithography. Supposing the work to be included within these limits, and 500 copies to be [[116]]struck off, he engages to execute it at the rate of 8 rupees per page, or about 5000 rupees for the whole, exclusive of all extra charge for the new fount of type. The expenses per copy, on superfine English paper, will thus be about 10 rupees, besides a trifle more, say one rupee, for binding.
4. “Mr. Csoma de Körös has expressed to the Society his entire readiness to undertake the superintendence and correction of the press, provided the work be commenced immediately, so as not to detain him in Calcutta much beyond the current year. On the part of the Society I beg also to tender my own services, in inspecting and correcting the English portion of the volume, and in otherwise co-operating with Mr. Csoma, to the utmost, in expediting the appearance of the volume.
5. “The Asiatic Society’s funds, owing to the recent untoward pressure in commercial affairs, are not in a condition to enable it to bear the whole, or even any part, of the expense of publication, however desirous it would have been to do so under other circumstances; but the Society trusts that the Honourable the Vice-President in Council will regard the matter as one of national interest, and will coincide with itself in thinking that the support already given to Mr. Csoma, while prosecuting his studies, will have been misapplied, unless followed up by the immediate diffusion of the knowledge gained through his unwearied labours, and now so honourably tendered by him to the nation from whom he first received assistance, although the learned of his own and of other countries of Europe would do much to induce him to transfer its possession to them.”
The only reward which Csoma ever looked for was an appreciation of his labours by his contemporaries and posterity. The esteem which he had won, even at that time, from his fellow-labourers, will be best understood when we look at the opinion of the Council of the Asiatic Society, given previous to his election as an Honorary member of that Society. That opinion is thus recorded [[117]]in the Minutes of the Proceedings of the meeting held on the 30th January 1834:—
“Mr. Alexander Csoma de Körös was proposed as an Honorary Member by Mr. Trevelyan, seconded by Mr. Prinsep.
“The nomination was referred to the Committee of Papers.
“Remarks by Mr. Prinsep.—The Committee of Papers are aware of Mr. Csoma’s qualifications as a Tibetan, Sanskrit, and general linguist, and I need say nothing in recommending him to the honour proposed to be conferred on him further, unless it be to remind the members that he has spent the last two years in preparing catalogues, translations, and superintending the printing of his Dictionary, without accepting any remuneration from the Society or the Government.
“By Rev. Dr. W. H. Mill.—I heartily concur in this nomination, as strictly due to the extraordinary merits of M. De Körös.
“By Dr. A. Wallich.—I am most happy in concurring entirely with the sentiments expressed by the Secretary and by Dr. Mill.
(Signed) “C. T. Metcalfe, B.S. Sen, R. W. Forbes, C. E. Trevelyan, J. Tytler, John Franks, C. Crozier.”
It is unnecessary to add that Csoma was unanimously elected Honorary member of the Society, on the 6th of February 1834.
The individual opinions of his fellow-labourers recorded here testify to the sincere appreciation entertained of his merits, and doubtless Csoma felt great satisfaction at the honour thus conferred on him. He probably thought of the lines which he once wrote for his friend, Szabó de Borgáta, when a fellow-student at Göttingen:
“A viro laudato laudari pulchrum est,” &c.
Beyond this solitary honour Csoma declined all others [[118]]which the Societies of Europe and Asia sought to confer on him. He cannot, however, deny himself the title, so says a writer, “of an indefatigable student, a profound linguist, and of a man who devoted his life to the cause of learning, regardless of any of its popular and attractive rewards, and anxious only for the approbation of posterity.”[2] [[119]]
[2] See “Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal,” 1834, p. 655. [↑]