Discover

'Tibetology' refers to the study of things related to Tibet, including its history, religion, language, politics and the collection of Tibetan articles of historical, cultural and religious significance. The last may mean a collection of Tibetan statues, shrines, Buddhist icons and holy scripts, Thanka embroideries, paintings and tapestries, jewellery, masks and other objects of fine Tibetan art and craftsmanship.

Contents

History

History

★ The Jesuit Antonio de Andrade (1580-1634) and a few others established a small mission and church in Tsaparang (1626), in the kingdom of Guge (Western Tibet) in the XVIIth century. When the kingdom was overrun by the king of Ladakh (1631), the mission was destroyed.

★ A century later another Jesuit, the Italian Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733) was sent to Tibet and received permission to stay in Lhasa where he spent 5 years (1716-1721) living in a tibetan monastery, studying the language, the religion of the lamas and other tibetan customs. He published a couple of books in Tibetan on Christian doctrine. Because of a conflict of jurisdiction (the mission was entrusted to the Capuchins, and not to the Jesuits) Desideri had to leave Tibet and returned to Italy, where he spent the rest of his life publishing his ''Historical notes on Tibet''. They were collected, in 4 volumes, under the title of ''Opere Tibetane'' (Rome;1981-1989). Desideri may be considered as the first Tibetologist and he did much to make Tibet known in Europe.

★ Desideri was however a pioneer, and as such what he produced were rather 'observations' on Tibet, a work he did with objectivity and sympathy, but not always perfect accuracy. The inception of Tibetology as an authentic academic discipline is thus associated with Alexander Csoma de Kőrös (1784-1842) who could be considered as its founder.