Dissolving: The saddle

What kind of saddle is this on the fence, in the Lisu-Tibetan village of Cizhong/Cedro? If you asked me on the spot, I certainly would have guessed horse or mule.


But ever since I saw this photo, taken by Michael Yamashita not far from here, and published in his photo album on the tea-horse-road Shangri-La. Par la route du thé et des chevaux (2012), I cannot look at it without seeing, instead of the curved spine of the tile-roofed fence, the backbone of the yak.

Domingo por la mañana

Aún no hay nadie en el atrio pero la puerta de la iglesia está abierta. El sacristán reza arrodillado ante el altar de San José. Al poco, algunos aldeanos empiezan a llegar, la mayoría con sus trajes tradicionales, las mujeres se sientan a la derecha, los hombres a la izquierda, según manda la tradición. Mientras el sacerdote absuelve pecados en el confesionario, cerca de la entrada, los fieles cantan los oficios en su lengua materna. Luego, el sacerdote enciende las velas del altar, suena la campana. Empieza la misa

Esto podría ocurrir en cualquier iglesia de pueblo de Transilvania cualquier domingo por la mañana. Sin embargo, estamos en el Tíbet histórico, entre montañas de seis mil metros de altura, sobre el curso del río Mekong, en la ciudad de Cizhong (茨中), en el Cedro tibetano (ཊསེ་ཌྲོ). El traje tradicional es azul y rojo, con un turbante rojo para las mujeres y un abrigo de piel de yac y sombrero de ala ancha para los hombres, que no se quitan ni en la iglesia. Hablan en el dialecto tibetano lisu. El texto de los oficios diivinos se entona con la melodía de los sutras budistas tibetanos. El sacerdote es chino.


Campanas y cantos tibetanos en Cizhong. Grabación de Lloyd Dunn, febrero de 2017

La primera parroquia católica del valle la consagraron, en 1867, los padres de la Société des Missions Étrangères de París. Su fundador, el padre Charles Renou, pasó dos años en el monasterio lama de Dongzhulin, disfrazado de comerciante chino, para aprender el idioma antes de comenzar su misión tibetana. La comunidad creció rápidamente, pronto abrazó todo el valle y una segunda iglesia se erigió al sur, en la ciudad de Cigu. En 1904, durante la ocupación británica del Tíbet, los rebeldes tibetanos mataron a todos los europeos, incluidos los monjes franceses, pero la orden pronto enviaría nuevos misioneros. El siguiente golpe lo recibió la comunidad en 1952, cuando el gobierno comunista chino prohibió la religión cristiana, desterró a sus líderes extranjeros y encarceló o mató a los chinos. Los católicos de Cizhong, al igual que otros miles de diversas comunidades cristianas chinas, pasaron a la clandestinidad para celebrar sus reuniones en secreto, en casas particulares, durante treinta años. La prohibición comenzó a relajarse en los años ochenta. En 1982, los fieles recuperaron la iglesia que durante todos esos años se utilizó como escuela primaria. En 1990 la restauraron.

El techo de estilo románico, reconstruido después de la devastación de 1905, se parece más ahora a los templos chinos. Las paredes están decoradas con flores de loto chinas y los plafones de la cubierta con motivos tibetanos. Sólo los frescos de los pasillos, con escenas de la vida de Cristo, fueron destrozados durante la Revolución Cultural. En el altar mayor, un Cristo, y en los dos laterales San José y María, cada uno flanqueado por dos cintas rojas, con filacterias chinas en letras de oro. Dos bandas rojas similares lucen también a la puerta del atrio de la iglesia, al parecer colocadas hace poco, para la fiesta de enero de los Reyes Magos: 一 星 从 空 显示, 三 王 不 约 偕 来 yī xīng cóng kōng xiǎnshì, sān wáng bù yuē xié lái, «una estrella surgió de la nada, tres reyes se juntaron para admirarla». Como si nos estuviera hablando a nosotros, que, habiendo tenido conocimiento de esta extraña estrella, hemos venido a verla desde el lejano Occidente

Hace tres días que salimos de Lijiang, la ciudad central del norte de Yunnan, siguiendo el curso alto del Yangtsé a través de las majestuosas cadenas de montañas de Hengduan y los pasos fronterizos tibetanos, siguiendo la Ruta del Caballo y del Té por la Meseta de Gyalthang. Aquí estaban los antiguos pastos de los reyes tibetanos, donde las caravanas de té podían sentir que habían superado la peor parte del viaje. También nosotros descansamos aquí por primera vez, en la ciudad de Zhongdian, recientemente rebautizada por el gobierno chino como la mítica Shangri-La para promover el turismo interior. A continuación, otro viaje en autobús de cuatro horas serpenteando por las escarpaduras hasta la ciudad de Deqin, en cuyo dominio las diez cimas blancas de nieve de la cordillera de Meili brillan tornasoladas al atardecer y al amanecer. Desde aquí no hay transporte público, hay que alquilar un taxi siguiendo ritualmente una negociación bien coreografiada, en chino, durante la cual hay que salir del coche airadamente, agarrando el equipaje y sacudiendo la cabeza con indignación, hasta que el conductor mismo te siga por la calle principal proponiendo un precio al fin razonable. El precio razonable es de cuatrocientos yuanes para dos –unos 50 euros–, ida el sábado por la tarde y vuelta el domingo por la tarde al valle de Cizhong, que se encuentra a setenta kilómetros al sur a lo largo del Mekong.


A medida que nos acercamos a la iglesia, los campos de arroz en la vega del río se sustituyen por un espectáculo muy inusual aquí, bajo los Himalayas: viñedo. Las uvas fueron plantadas por los padres franceses y echaron raíces en el valle, protegidas del norte, y se extendieron al sur. Su producto es entregado hoy a la bodega de un comerciante de Hong Kong. Lo encontramos ya en Shaxi como «el vino de los monjes», y se vende en muchos lugares del pueblo.

Al norte, donde se abre el valle del Mekong, todavía podemos ver las cumbres de las montañas de Meili. Caminamos hacia la iglesia entre casas de madera tibetanas, cobertizos, puertas talladas. En algunas aparece una cruz entre los dragones. Calabash se revuelve entre naranjos muy productivos. Las ancianas de turbante rojo nos devuelven el saludo, nos invitan a comer. Los niños se esconden detrás de las puertas ante la visión de estos demonios de nariz larga. El convento, en su momento fundado para albergar monjas tibetanas enfermeras y maestras, fue más tarde una escuela y ahora está abandonado. Pero la iglesia ha sido muy bien restaurada. El sacerdote chino, que vino de Mongolia Interior, un hombre menudo y sin edad definible, pasea por el cementerio rezando el rosario. –¿A qué hora es la misa de mañana? –A las diez.

Los fieles llegan a las nueve y media, se reúnen en los escalones de la iglesia. Todos entregan algún billete al sacristán o conserje que está sentado a la puerta. Para el mantenimiento de la iglesia, cinco yuanes, diez yuanes. En euros, de uno a uno y medio. La joven sentada a su lado registra cuidadosamente el nombre de cada donante y la cantidad en un cuadernillo. Un hombre de rostro serio llega con una bolsa grande de cartero, despega los anuncios rojos de la semana anterior que lucen en el interior de la puerta y coloca encima los nuevos. Hay muchos niños, la mayoría cargados a la espalda, otros dos o tres van de la mano: la ley china de un hijo no se aplica a los pueblos minoritarios. Los niños reciben la mayor atención en la iglesia. Se los pasan de mano en mano y son libres de correr y jugar en la parte posterior del templo.

Sólo han pasado unos años desde que el pueblo tiene de nuevo sacerdote. Respeta la ceremonia laica que arraigó en el último medio siglo. Así, la misa dominical prácticamente se duplica. De diez a once, los fieles rezan tal y como hicieron durante los sesenta años pasados sin sacerdote. Cantan el oficio en su lengua materna. Es el momento en que cada uno diga lo que considere importante para la comunidad. El cartero de rostro serio explica en tibetano los anuncios en chino que acaba de colocar en la puerta. La joven de la colecta también se levanta y lee de su cuadernillo cuántos han dado algo por la iglesia. A la entrada de los «huéspedes extranjeros» todo el mundo nos mira y asiente con aprobación. El sacerdote sale del confesionario a las once, enciende las velas del altar y da inicio a la misa «de verdad», esta vez en chino. La iglesia está llena, más de doscientas personas de las seiscientas que pueblan la aldea, de las cuales el 80% son cristianas. Unas chicas jóvenes leen las lecturas, el sacerdote pronuncia un sermón corto y concentrado que se escucha con atención. Antes de la comunión, a la frase de «Que haya paz entre nosotros», se dan la mano según la costumbre china, inclinándose uno frente a otro. Muchos se nos acercan también desde los bancos de los hombres, acogiéndonos con obvio placer en la comunidad. Entonces se forma una larga cola, todos van a comulgar.

Me siento en la primera fila vacía de los bancos de los hombres para tomar mejores fotos. Los niños se sientan detrás de mí, miran a la cámara. Se la dejo, cambio a la vista en la pantallita y les muestro cómo hacer zoom. Se la pasan cuidadosamente, la prueban con emoción, enfocando puntos de la iglesia, al sacerdote, a los fieles. Me la devuelven pidiéndome que les saque una foto. Me dan un apretón de manos manos serio, de adulto.


Acabada la misa vamos hasta el borde de la ciudad para fotografiar los campos de arroz. Un solitario acantilado bordea el camino, con una stupa tibetana que se ha erigido allí recientemente. Subimos hasta ella por los cien empinados escalones. Sólo desde lo alto vemos que tiene un cementerio detrás, un cementerio cristiano. Hasta la Revolución Cultural probablemente hubo una cruz también en el acantilado, luego los budistas tomaron posesión simbólicamente de este importante punto. Pero el cementerio se salvó. Las tumbas tienen cruces, un fénix y un dragón para significar la resurrección y el cielo, inscripciones chinas, solo una tumba decrépita lleva una antigua escritura tibetana. Hace una semana, para celebrar el nuevo año lunar, el pueblo acudió hasta aquí a visitar a sus antepasados, como lo atestigua visiblemente el banquete ofrecido a los muertos según la costumbre china: naranjas, manzanas, plátanos, dulces, semillas de girasol.

De vuelta del cementerio, vemos al sacerdote sentado ante un portal, hablando con los aldeanos. Cuando nos ve, su rostro se ilumina, viene a saludarnos extendiendo las manos e inclinándose ante nosotros. «Venid más a menudo», dice.

Sunday morning

The churchyard is still empty, but the church door is already open, the bell-ringer is praying on his knees before the altar of St. Joseph. Soon the villagers begin to arrive, most of them in folk costumes, the women sit to the right, the men to the left, according to centuries-old tradition. While the priest is hearing confessions in the confessional next to the entrance, the faithful sing the Divine Offices in vernacular. Then the priest lights the candles on the altar, the bell rings. The Mass begins.

This could be in any Transylvanian village church on a Sunday morning. However, it is not, but rather in historical Tibet, among six-thousand-meter-high mountains, along the upper reaches of the Mekong River, in the town of Cizhong (茨中), in Tibetan Cedro (ཊསེ་ཌྲོ). The folk costume is blue and red fabric and red turban for the women, yak skin coat and wide-brimmed hat for men, who do not take it off even in the church. The vernacular is the Lisu dialect of Tibetan language. The text of the Catholic Divine Offices is sung to the tune of Tibetan Budhist sutras. And the priest is Chinese.


Bell ringing and chant in Tibetan in Cizhong. Recording by Lloyd Dunn, February 2017

The first Catholic parish in the valley was established in 1867 by the fathers of the Société des Missions Étrangères of Paris. The founder, Father Charles Renou spent two years in the lama monastery of Dongzhulin, disguised as a Chinese merchant, to learn the language, before beginning his Tibetan mission. The community grew quickly, soon it embraced the whole valley, and a second church was also founded to the south of the valley, in the town of Cigu. In 1904, during the British occupation of Tibet, Tibetan rebels massacred every European, including the French monks, but the order sent new missionaries. The next, even bigger blow hit the community in 1952, when the Chinese Communist government banned the Christian religion, exiled its foreign leaders, and imprisoned or killed the Chinese ones. The Catholics of Cizhong, just like thousands of other Chinese Christian communities, went underground, and held secret gatherings in private houses for thirty years. The ban started to ease in the 1980s. In 1982, the faithful got back the church, which had been used for elementary school. In the 1990 it was restored.

The roof of the Romanesque basilica, rebuilt after the destruction of 1905, resembles Chinese temples, its walls are decorated by Chinese lotus flowers, and its ceiling with Tibetan motifs. Only the frescoes on the walls of the aisles, depicting the life of Christ, were beaten down during the Cultural Revolution. On the main altar the statue of Christ, and on the two side altars those of St. Joseph and Mary, each flanked by two red ribbons, with Chinese citations in gold letters. Two similar red ribbons were also taped on the gate of the churchyard, perhaps not long ago, for the January feast of the Three Kings: 一星从空显示,三王不约偕来 yī xīng cóng kōng xiǎnshì, sān wáng bù yuē xié lái, “a star appeared out of nothing, three kings came together to admire it”. As if it were telling us, who, having gained knowledge of this strange star, came to see it from the far away west.

We left three days earlier from Lijiang, the central city of northern Yunnan, along the upper reaches of Yangtze, through the majestic chains of Hengduan Mountains and the passes of the Tibetan border mountain, following the Tea Horse Road, on the Gyalthang Plateau, the old pasture of the Tibetan kings, where the tea caravans could first sense being over the worst part of the trip. We also had a rest here for the first time, in the city of Zhongdian, recently renamed by the Chinese government after the mythical Shangri-La to promote domestic tourism. Then another four-hour bus trip followed, up the steep serpentines to the town of Deqin, in whose domain the ten snow white tips of the Meili mountain range shine down with wonderful colors at sunset and sunrise. From here there is no public transport, a taxi must be hired by way of well-choreographed bargaining in Chinese, during which you must get out of the car together, taking your luggage, indignantly shaking your head, until the driver himself tracks you down on the main street with a finally acceptable price. The acceptable price is four hundred yuan for two of us, about 50 euro, on Saturday afternoon to and on Sunday afternoon back from the valley of Cizhong, which lies seventy kilometers to the south along the  Mekong.


As we near the church, the riverside rice fields are replaced with a quite unusual spectacle here beneath the Himalayas: vineyards. The grapes had been planted by the French fathers, and they put down roots in the valley, protected from north, and opening to the south. Its product is today delivered to the winery of a Hong Kong businessman, we came across it as “the wine of the monks” in Shaxi, but it is also sold in many places in the village.

In the north, where the Mekong valley opens, we can still see the tips of Meili Mountains. We walk toward the church among timbered Tibetan houses, barns, carved gates, on some of them a cross appears between the dragons. Calabash twists on richly productive orange trees. Old red-turbaned women return our greeting, they invite us in to eat, children hide behind the gates at the sight of the long-nosed devils. The convent once founded for Tibetan nursing and teaching nuns, later a school, is now abandoned, but the church has been nicely restored. The Chinese priest, who came from Inner Mongolia, a small, ageless man, is walking about the churchyard, saying the rosary. “What time is Mass tomorrow?” “At ten o’clock.”

The faithful arrive beginning at nine thirty, they are gathering on the church steps. Each of them gives paper banknotes to the bell-ringer sitting at the gate, for the maintenance of the church, five yuan, ten yuan, one to one and a half euros. The young woman sitting beside him carefully records each donor’s name and the amount in a booklet. A man with serious face comes with a large postman’s bag, peels down the previous week’s red announcements from the inner side of the gate, and he glues up a new one instead. There are many children, most of them carried on the back, two or three others led by the hand: the Chinese law of one-child does not apply to minority peoples. The children get the most attention in the church, too, they are passed from hand to hand, and are free to run around and play with each other in the back of the church.

It has only been a few years that the village has a priest again. He respects the layman’s ceremony which took roots in the past half century, thus the Sunday Mass is almost doubled. From ten to eleven, the faithful pray so as they did for sixty years without a priest. They sing the Divine Office in their native language, then everyone can tell what he or she considers important for the community. The serious-faced postman tells in Tibetan language the announcements he glued to the gate in Chinese. The young woman collecting the donations also stands up, and reads from the booklet who how many gave for the church. At the entry of the “foreign guests”, everyone looks on us and nods approvingly. The priest comes out from the confessional only at eleven, he lights the candles on the altar, and begins the real Mass, this time in Chinese. The church is full, there are more than two hundred persons from the sixteen-hundred-strong village, of which 80% is Christian. Young girls read the lectures, the priest delivers a short, concentrated speech, he is listened to attentively. Before communion, at the call of “Let there be peace between us”, they reach both hands to each other, according to Chinese custom, they bow before each other. Many come also to us from the men’s benches, receiving us with obvious pleasure in the community. Then they stand a long queue, everyone is taking communion.

I sit in the empty first row of the men’s benches, so I could better take photos. Children sit behind me, they look at the camera. I hand it to them, I switch it to LED panel view, I show how to zoom. They carefully hand it to each other, excitedly try it, monitoring with it the church, the priest, the faithful. They give it back, asking me to take a picture of them. They also shanke hands, seriously, manly.


After the Mass we walk to the edge of town to take photos of the rice fields. A lonely cliff is standing along the road, with a newly erected Tibetan stupa on it. We climb up to it on the hundred steep stairs. Only from the top do we see that a cemetery is located directly behind it, a Christian cemetery. Until the Cultural Revolution probably a cross stood also on the cliff, and then the Buddhists took symbolically possession of this important landmark. But the cemetery was spared. The graves bear crosses, phoenix and dragon referring to the resurrection and the heavens, Chinese inscriptions, only one old grave bears an old Tibetan script. One week ago, for the lunar new year everyone came out to visit their ancestors, as is attested by the banquet offered to the dead, according to Chinese custom: oranges, apples, bananas, candy, sunflower seed.

On the way back from the cemetery, the priest is sitting in front of a house, talking to the villagers. As he catches sight of us, his face shines, he comes to greet us, reaching out with both hands and bowing before us. “Come more often”, he says.

Sichuan

When I’m writing this, the total death toll of the Sichuan earthquake is already estimated at 70 thousand, and the number of the wounded at a half million. Five million people have lost their homes, and those living in the countryside have started en masse to march toward the cities. The barrages of almost four hundred storage-lakes have cracked, and the incessant rainfall is menacing with new catastrophes.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow a three days general mourning is observed both in China and among the overseas Chinese.

I only note in passing that a number of Hungarian parties have found with a bon goût this moment as the most appropriate occasion to propose a motion, in terms of which the Hungarian parliament – alone among all the parliaments in the world – should condemn the aggression of the Chinese government in Tibet. Questions like how much justified is this in the present complex situation of Tibet – of which I would like to write later –, whether this really promotes and not rather obstructs the Tibetan case, to what extent this is a substitute action and how many things could be really done for Tibet, whether it is effective to publish such a statement alone and not in diplomatic league with other countries, why we advocate exactly this case when we bravely keep silent in every other, how much this will undermine our relations with China and how great harm it will do to our country, and whether it is really humane to do this exactly in the middle of the mourning of the other and what legitimate reactions can be rationally expected thereupon from the other – all this does not interest these gentlemen who are exclusively concerned of the domestic political consequences of their move. A move just as expensive and just as deeply cynical as many others that all our parties made in the last years, from threatenings with (hardly existing) neofascism and with the „thirty million Romanian employees” that would flow in after the opening of the borders, to the irresponsibly proposed and irresponsibly sabotaged referendum of 2005 on the dual citizenship of Hungarians living in the neighboring countries whose failure caused the largest moral and emotional rupture in the connections with these populations, and all the other moves that have been altogether drifting us toward the inevitable catastrophe.

“I would like to offer a donation for the survivors of the Sichuan earthquake.” The employee of the Chinese consulate looks stunned. “Are you Hungarian?” Whoever offers a donation to Sichuan cannot be but Chinese, even if he has a nose as long as devils. “Tui, xiongyaliren.” “Did you come from the government?” “No, I’m a private person.” The face of the boy relaxes into a smile. “There behind you to the right, there is the door. Come in.”

In the room the Consuless and two other women are counting money, the donations of the Chinese living in Hungary. They offered a hundred and fifty thousand dollars until last Friday, and the amount is continuously increasing. The Polish government gave a hundred thousand to China. The King of Saudi Arabia fifty millions. The name of Hungary does not figure in the reports. Zhen tells me that Chinese companies and private persons have collected sixty five billion dollars thus far, and aid concerts incessantly follow each other where masses strive to offer the most possible to their compatriots in need. This is how a nation looks like. “Did many Hungarians give as well?” I ask the Consuless. “You are the very first one.” “Perhaps the events are not much announced in the news”, she adds as a benevolent palliation.

We originally dedicated this money to cover the schooling of a little Tibetan boy, but we have lost the person who was the guarantee that this money would go to the right destination. It is strange that now it goes to that part of Sichuan where a Tibetan minority of several millions is also struck by the catastrophe. Perhaps right to another little Tibetan boy.

Alexander Csoma de Kőrös

In 2006, on the 222th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, the founder of Tibetan studies we have published on the internet in Hungarian, English and Spanish, in the collaboration of Studiolum and the Oriental Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the legacy of Csoma preserved in the Collection. This date is memorable in the history of Tibetan studies for another reason as well, since the Hungarian Ministry of Education in this year announced, with reference to the all-time high budget deficit, the suppression of several university departments, including that of Tibetan philology. Therefore on the frontispiece of our web publication we have also displayed, out of solidarity, together with the commemoration of Csoma’s anniversary that it was prepared “in memory of the Tibetan studies in Hungary, abolished in this year,” until the management of the collections made us cancel this reference in fear of retorsion. Accidentally, this happened in the weeks of the municipal elections in which the governing parties – the authors of the above deficit – led their campaign with the slogan “Budapest, the city of liberty and solidarity.”

This little East-European absurd is, however, absolutely not alien to the path of life of Csoma. It was already a miracle that this boy who was born in the Carpathian frontier zone of Transylvania obtained exemption from the life-long service of border-warden, compulsory there at that time, and could go to learn at the academies of Nagyenyed (Ajud) and Göttingen instead. But it is even more characteristic that when learning there about the tentative theories of affinity between the Hungarian and Uyghur languages, he decided to verify them on the spot, by reaching on foot from Hungary as far as Uyghuristan in China. At this time the “Great Game” was developing between the Russians and the British in Central Asia, inciting bloody wars between every people living along the fault line running from Turkey to China – but in the middle of the wars and epidemics Csoma safely reached the Indian-Tibetan border. And here another miracle followed. For, in spite of his astounding talents – he perfectly spoke twenty languages – Csoma arrived too early. Comparative linguistics in these decades was just in the first phase of the elaboration of the scientific methodology of linguistic affinity, so Csoma’s comparative research was foredoomed to failure. However, by a special grace of God, on the road leading to Tibet he met a commissary of the British government who was just in need of such a person for the exploration of the Tibetan language, completely unknown to Europeans at that time, but indispensable to the expansion of the British. In the thereafter following fifteen years Csoma has completely accomplished this task. Living in the austere monasteries of Tibet, he mastered both the language and the religion, composed the first Tibetan dictionary and grammar (1834), and gave such detailed description of the Buddhist religion – only obscurely known in Europe – and of the Tibetan literary canon that nothing essential has been added to it since then. And Buddhists from Tibet to Japan venerate him as the only European boddhisatva. He nevertheless only regarded this as a detour, or in the best case a preliminary study to the research of the Uyghur. However, he never reached the Uyghur.


The list of Zsolt Sütő from the Transylvanian Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş) is the most complete collection of the information to be found about Csoma on the internet. We are on the distinguished fourth place on it. Zsolt himself has followed through the path of Csoma in India and Tibet, from where he brought home wonderful photos like this one above. He published them on his page with the title „Himalaya Blue” accompanied with his diary notes. In one of these notes he describes how difficult it is to explain to others what Csoma means to people grown up in this world of the absurd.

Today I went to Thiksey with an American couple, Farkas, with some Hungarian roots. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recount the Csoma story in such a usual and superficial touristy conversation. I tell them that he had come here two hundred years ago, on foot. Ah, yeah, a traveler. Yes, but eventually he made the first good Tibetan-English Dictionay, among others. Ooh, yeah? I didn’t know that. And then still how far we are from his original purpose, from his Transylvanian and Göttingen years, from the Sanskrit-Tibetan-English dictionary... I’m more and more skeptical as far as it concerns the understanding of the essentials of the Hungarian raison d’être by foreigners. Not to speak about the Transylvanian raison d’être, which is not even understood by the Hungarians. The good God has imposed an interesting fable on our shoulders.

From a more fortunate place, let us say from America it is in fact difficult to understand what makes this story so remarkable. One accomplishes the respective academic studies, goes to a given place, and with the respective methodology and institutional support he composes the dictionary of the given language. A large number of American anthropologists are indeed doing so all over the world, and Franz Boas has even established a special school for this purpose. In our part of the world, however, in the eternal lack of background, institutions, network and support, and even accompanied by the suspicion, jealousy and hostility of the political and scientific potentates it is a must that a talent should either be lost or raise an outstanding achievement by a heroic effort and in solitude. Like Ryszard Kapuściński, Bohumil Hrabal and Csoma did – or even the clematis breeders mentioned in the previous two posts.

This is why it is a special joy if someone nevertheless grasps something from this. On ‘flickr’ we have come across the photo gallery “chambre-noire” by summergreen from the UK who has published this photo montage with the portrait of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös and a leaf of his Tibetan manuscripts, referring to the English version of our biography of Csoma as a source of the original images. Our gratitude for it.

Tibet: Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern

Exhibition, Dahlem, February 21 - May 28, 2007

As in Studiolum (this is the place of advertisement) we have just recently published the web presentation of the Tibetan collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the legacy of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, the founder of Tibetan Studies, I decided to visit the Tibetan exhibition first. And there I stayed on until closing time. Dahlem only can be digested in small pieces.

This exhibition was organized at the end of the last year by the Kulturstiftung Ruhr Essen in Essen’s Villa Hügel, from where it has been transferred to Dahlem. The exhibition is of historical importance, as this is the first time that cult objects of active Tibetan monasteries are exposed outside of Tibet. Jeong-Hee Lee-Kalisch, head of the organizing committee relates in the introduction of the catalog that they have been engaged in field research in Tibet since 2003, in the course of which they managed to convince the largest Tibetan monasteries to allow their sculptures, paintings and liturgical objects being exposed, all in all 150 objects from the 5th to the 20th century. It is interesting to read that although the Tibetan monks – in spite of their best efforts – could not grasp the Western concept of “exhibition object”, nevertheless they understood that it was important to the Western scholars, and thus they readily collaborated in the interest of this unconceivable purpose.

The difference of the two visions is well attested among other things by the fact that the cult statues that are dressed in precious clothes in the Tibetan monasteries are exposed without these vestments in Dahlem, as if an allowance to the European concept of statue that considers them a superfluous addition. Just like the Gothic statues of Pietà wear rich Baroque robes on the altars of Marian pilgrimage shrines, but if they happen to get into museums, they are exposed without their vestments. Fortunately, the catalog of the exhibition also includes the “vested” images of these statues, as the Tibetan believers encounter them.

The objects are grouped by some basic themes of Tibetan monastery culture, and this is how they are explained on the summary boards in each room: portrait statues of monastery founders, the stupa, the mandala, musical instruments, healing and so on. By this they intend to offer some handle to the European visitor in his probably very first encounter with this unknown and complex culture. However, the result is that one is urged to behold the object as illustrations of this conception, and not as autonomous objects of art.

A flash presentation of the exhibition – still from its Essen months – that is worth an abbreviated catalog can be seen here. It puts less emphasis on the thematic conception, and presents the objects on independent pages and with separate explanations. And this is already enough to achieve what the exhibition was unable to do: the presentation of these objects as objects of art.