Chapter 7: A Well-Trodden Path: Studies in Darjeeling and Sikkim [Tharchin Babu/Tibet Mirror]
Excerpt from "Theos Bernard, the White Lama: Tibet, Yoga, and American Religious Life
by Paul G. Hackett
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Men who leave behind their weeping sweethearts to practice asceticism –- and those who have done so in the past, and those who will do so in the future –- they are doing something very difficult indeed, and so it was in the past and will be in the future.
-- Asvaghosa1
PARAMAHANSA YOGEESWARAR entered into the religious life at the age of twelve when, after he prayed (manasika puja) to the local deity of Kanchipuram in Tamilnadu, Ekambareeshwar Pritivilingam, the god appeared to him in the guise of "an aged saint by the name of Nithyanandar of Vettaveli Paramparai," who initiated him and taught him yoga, bestowing upon him the name of Sri Paramahansa Sachidananda Yogeeswarar. By the turn of the century, Yogeeswarar had disciples throughout India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Southeast Asia, and South Africa, and had gained fame for his perfection of the practice of the "suppression of water" (jalastambha)2 through breath control (pranayama), often lecturing while in a full lotus posture and floating effortlessly in water.
Back in Chennai in early November, Theos and Glen lost little time returning to Yogeeswarar's ashram. For the better part of the next week, they met with the swami and persuaded him to demonstrate some of the basic asanas used in yogic practice. Unfortunately, while Yogeeswarar could explain many of the practices and their purposes -- being far more forthcoming and pleasant than Kuvalayananda -- his girth prevented any useful photographic documentation of the practices, and Theos believed that he himself could give a better demonstration of hatha yoga asanas, even if Yogeeswarar's mastery of kumbhaka was impressive.3 Discussing the situation, Theos and Glen decided to return to Calcutta and from there journey to Bhurkunda, where Glen had done his retreat six months earlier, to see Trivikram Swami. Arriving in Calcutta a few days later, they quickly got settled and began making preparations to travel inland again. Contacting his friends to make the necessary arrangements, Glen received a letter that had been waiting for him with news from Bhurkunda: "Trivikram Swamaji breathed his last on the 17th Sept."
Decamping in their hotel while they decided what to do, Theos sent off a telegram to Viola, who by then had reached Italy. Her response was that the situation between DeVries and P.A. had degenerated further, culminating with DeVries moving out and leaving the club. Convinced that she should take some time away from New York, DeVries had followed Viola's advice and boarded a steamship from New York to rendezvous with her in Paris. Feeling too far from the situation to make an informed judgment despite Viola's description of the events, Theos suggested that Viola make decisions on both their behalves regarding their relationship with PA, and the club, and he would wait and see what she decided. In the meantime, Glen had come to his own conclusions, and suggested that they still make the trip to Bhurkunda the following weekend since it offered their strongest chance for success.
Consequently, Glen and Theos packed their bags and camera equipment, caught the train from Calcutta to Ranchi, and traveled to the ashram by train, rickshaw, and bullock cart and finally on foot -- a journey Theos thought was a nightmare. "It is hell," he wrote to Viola, "unless you just don't give a dam [sic] and then it is on the threshold of hell." With Trivikram Swami gone, Swami Syamananda had assumed the lead role at Bhurkunda and with the company of Glen's tantric brothers and sisters, he and Theos arranged for a meeting with Swami Syamananda. Without hesitation, Swami Syamananda agreed to allow Theos to photograph and film his and his students' demonstrations of the various asanas connected with kundalini yoga. and provided them with diagrams of the cakras as well.
Returning to Calcutta a few days later, Glen and Theos spent some time reorganizing their materials and planning the next steps of their trip. When he went to have his latest round of photographs developed, Theos got into an argument over the quality of service he was receiving at the Kodak office in Calcutta. The Bombay office always seemed to work just fine, but there was always, it seemed, a problem in Calcutta, from poor-quality prints to out-of-stock supplies. With the most crucial phase of his research looming ahead, Theos could not afford such uncertainties, so despite promises and offers of special consideration, he negotiated a new deal with the Agfa company, garnering a discount on film and services while preordering a large supply of 16-mm and 35-mm rolls of film for his cameras and buying a large assortment of accessories, including filters, lenses, and magazines. But Theos was anxious to head north, for even in the course of accomplishing what he wanted to do, after having "walked ten miles in this city under the blazing sun of the fall, and having knocked around with the rest of the hordes on the street cars" he was in one of his typically foul moods. Less deterred by the atmosphere of Calcutta, Glen in the meantime attempted to contact the various individuals they had missed on their previous stay in the city, especially at the Royal Asiatic Society.
The president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal at the time was the noted Dutch Tibetologist Johan van Manen.4 He had arrived in Calcutta in 1919, following an interest in Indian and Tibetan religion instilled in him by his early contact with the Theosophical Society in the 1890s as a young man in the Netherlands.5 In was through the study of Theosophy that van Manen came not only to his interest in Indo-Tibetan religion but also to his own deep-seated religious convictions. Working closely with two English-speaking Tibetans in India, he had studied literary and spoken Tibetan as well as Tibetan sectarian doctrines, rituals, and histories. He became a member of the Asiatic Society in early 1918, and by the end of the year he had taken the position of librarian at the Imperial Library in Calcutta, bringing his Tibetan friends with him. Three years later, he was the General Secretary of the society.
Over the next fifteen years, van Manen pushed the acquisition of Tibetan materials and the study of Tibetan Buddhism within the society, surveying the literature of Tibet and writing numerous articles. By the end of 1936, he was suffering from recurring health problems, and the last of his Tibetan manservants, Nyima, had left, replaced by a Chinese boy-the son of a Chinese soldier who had settled in Calcutta when the brief Chinese occupation of Lhasa ended twenty-five years earlier and the defeated soldiers were sent back to China, humiliatingly, via India, where many chose to remain. Twan Yang, who, like many Chinese, held Tibetan culture in high esteem, served van Manen well in those later years and even remembered the visit from Theos Bernard6 -- even if the opposite was not true. Having missed van Manen in September when they were last in Calcutta, Theos and Glen made a point of meeting with him this time, in December.
Visiting him at his home just opposite the Calcutta High Court House overlooking the Hooghly River, they sought van Manen's advice on the direction that Theos should pursue for his dissertation. As early as 1918, van Manen had articulated what he saw as the best approach to Tibetan studies, which required laying a sound basis for future Tibetan scholarship. This must be done, he thought, "by way of painstaking, laborious and to a certain extent inglorious and humdrum drudging away at small texts with scrupulous attention to the smallest minutiae for a secure fixing of illustrative examples by coordinating corrections of text, full discussion of meanings, sharp formulation of definitions and subtle analysis of all questions and problems involved."7
What Theos should do, van Manen thought, was follow in Evans-Wentz's footsteps; as Evans-Wentz had done with the notable figures of Padmasambhava and Milarepa, he should explore the subtleties of Buddhist philosophy through the lens of one person's life. Van Manen stressed, however, that he should not envision his dissertation as "something complete in and of itself" but rather as "only the foundation for future work and also so as to encourage others who want to work in this field." Already feeling that a trip to Tibet would be necessary, Theos began to allude to it in his letters to Viola, though he wrote only of "new plans in the air" that were "still a little premature to go into ... for things may happen in Sikkim which will again alter them." Theos could take van Manen's advice, recognizing its value, but he was determined to remain ultimately concerned with only "the one particular philosophy that is to be found here," gently suggesting to Viola that he would "inevitably be lead [sic] to such people who have attained this development of understanding." Nonetheless, he assured Viola, his world-traveling days would soon be over and he could settle into "a sedentary life of reading, writing, and translating"; to that end, he was starting to "hunt manuscripts for future work" and "learning a language completely" to make life easier for Viola and their life together. Theos thought he could make considerable headway by retracing the footsteps of those he had read about, beginning with Alexandra David-Neel. To that end, he and Glen set out for Darjeeling with the ultimate goal of reaching Lachen on the Sikkim-Tibet border, home to David-Neel's informant, Lama Yonden [Yongden], about whom he and so many others had read.
If Calcutta and the heat of the jungles were oppressive to Theos ("this stinking swill hole"), the foothills of the Himalayas had precisely the opposite effect. As they arrived in Darjeeling, Theos's spirits were immediately on the rise. "Each day is filled with beauty and inspiration," he told Viola. "It is impossible to look thru the azure blue of the Himalayan valleys and catch a fleeting glimpse of those majestic ranges of the distant north shoving their noses up into the heavens and not be effected [sic]; I tell you, it does things to you -- you want to run, fly, jump and love all at the same time." Even while riding through the mountains in a rickshaw, the views were inspiring. "Why a mountain should inspire one is hard to say," he wrote to her, "but one glimpse of what can be seen in any direction from this point is almost more than the insides can take. No wonder Milarepa could do things. If I was practicing in a land like this, just the view from my cave would throw me straight into samadhi." For Theos the Himalayan mountains were truly, as Jung had remarked, "that metaphysical fringe of ice and rock away up north, that inexorable barrier beyond human conception."8 [Civilization in Transition]
Best of all, Jinorasa [S.K. Jinorasa/Kazi Pak Tsering ('Phags tshe ring), a Sikkimese aristocrat turned Ceylon-educated Theravadin monk and educational reformer (1895/6-1943), the founder and director of the Young Men's Buddhist Association (YMBA) in Darjeeling] was by Theos's side the moment he arrived back in Darjeeling and expedited everything that Theos needed in order to leave as quickly as possible for Lachen. Indeed, Jinorasa was amazingly capable at affecting the outcome of any political process in the area. Where so many had met with bureaucratic obstacles at every turn, the people Jinorasa helped had doors opened to them without hesitation, for in addition to being a key player in the revival of Buddhism in the area, Jinorasa was also a relative of the Sikkimese royal family with cousins filling the administrative ranks of the government and a very powerful brother who would one day become the first Chief Minister, Kazi Lhendup Dorji. Consequently, in all that he asked for, Jinorasa's name carried the authority of his entire family's reputation.
Making his way to Gangtok, Theos was reluctant to travel to Lachen during the depths of winter. The private secretary to the Maharajah of Sikkim gave him a solid history of his many predecessors and fellow adventurers in the area, and impressed upon him that no amount of friendship or influence would allow him to circumvent the man who actually held the keys to the door into Tibet: the British Political Officer for Sikkim, Sir Basil Gould. Armed with this information, Theos left Gangtok and returned to Darjeeling briefly before going on to Kalimpong, the economic gateway to Tibet and home to a community of expatriate Tibetans and peddlers of British influence. Once there, he and Glen settled into the Himalayan Hotel, the former residence of David Macdonald and his family, a stately hill station establishment overlooking the center of town. The translator for Younghusband on his 1904 expedition to Tibet and subsequently the British Trade Agent in Gyantse for twenty years, David Macdonald was famous in the area, particularly for having turned down a knighthood for saving the life of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1910, asking in exchange only a small parcel of land in the heart of Kalimpong for himself and his family. His children grown, the old family home had been turned into a luxury hotel, then being run by his son-in-law, Frank Perry.
Theos and Frank immediately became friends, and Frank began talking with Theos at length about the mishaps and misadventures of all those who had gone before him -- including Edwin Schary, whose unpublished book manuscript he gave Theos to read9[In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet] -- speaking quite highly, in particular, of Alexandra David-Neel. Within days of checking in, Theos met another guest, Gordon T. Bowles, a Harvard-Yenching Fellow conducting an anthropological survey of the Tibetan borderlands.10 Quizzing Bowles on his experiences in and around Tibet, Theos discovered that he had traveled at one point with Harrison Forman, of whom Theos's erstwhile pilot in Shanghai, Chilly Vaughn, had spoke quite highly. Bowles was of a decidedly different opinion.
Harrison Forman (1904-1978) was an American photographer and journalist. He wrote for The New York Times and National Geographic. During World War II he reported from China and interviewed Mao Zedong.
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Oriental Philosophy. Forman and his wife Sandra had a son, John, who later changed the spelling of his name to Foreman, and a daughter, Brenda-Lu Forman, who collaborated with her father on one of his books, and also wrote a series of children's books on given names.
His collection of diaries and fifty thousand photographs are now at American Geographical Society Library at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Forman who travelled to the Tibetan Plateau in 1932 and filmed the Panchen Lama at the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, Gansu province, served as the Tibetan technical expert on Frank Capra's Lost Horizon film of 1937.
-- Harrison Forman, by Wikipedia
Theos noted Bowles's views without revealing anything, leaving the mystery of differing opinions for Viola to puzzle over in his letters to her.
No sooner had Theos and Glen settled into their hotel room, however, than Theos received word from Jinorasa: Lama Yongden [Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche???] was coming from his retreat cave in the mountains down to Lachen and would be available for an interview there if Theos could come quickly. Already envisioning the broader context of his activities, Theos realized that the greatest amount of time would be spent "in bringing the problems down to something concrete," and yet, "from the looks of things so far, the specifics have been found or rather decided upon and if they ever come to pass, I will feel that I have left a real addition to the culture of this old world for someone to dig it up in the next millennium." As always, though, for Theos "the job that presents itself at the moment is being able to get ahold of the mss."
Pinning their hopes for success on a meeting with Lama Yongden [Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche???], Theos and Glen made the trip to Lachen, convinced it was the only way "to get a line up on the literature and secure the right manuscripts." If the previous weeks had proven boring, on a cinematic level at least, the trip to Lachen from Gangtok was anything but. "We have taken many trips together in the mountains," he wrote to Viola, "but this so far surpasses everything that we have ever seen together that it is impossible for me to describe it to you by making a comparison." He continued,
On the trip coming up one finds everything from the grandeur of the tropics to the splendor of the frozen north. One passes over endless swinging bridges which span the gorges out by the foaming rapids far below, thru jungles of ferns and orchids constantly being lighted up by the reflecting misty veils thrown over this luxuriant growth by the rushing waters above in their efforts to find a way to their kind which are constantly passing by perpendicularly below. This entire country is built on end with all the trails carved into the side of walls. There are places where trails have been hung along sheer cliffs hundreds of feet above the rapids. What one does when they near one of these pack trains, god only knows. Luckily I rounded the more dangerous corners alone, but there have been a few tight squeezes.
Although Theos never missed a chance to practice his narrative skills, he had a slightly stronger motivation on this occasion for practicing his eloquence: he had "completely run out of film ... and as for the Leica," on his trip to Lachen he was "left with only two rolls," so had made "every effort to make each frame count." While Theos did his best to document the trip, he was still overcome by the scenery -- from tea gardens to mountain ranges to the sight of his first yak -- and shot the better part of both rolls on the trail.
Upon reaching Lachen, Theos continued up the mountain behind the small village to Lama Yongden's monastery, where he spent the winters away from his cave retreat, to obtain the audience he sought. "He spent hours relating the mental aspects to the problems of the investigation," he told Viola. Lama Yongden, having devoted "the years of his youth ... to make [an] inner develop[ment], having attained some perfection in this direction ... he is now in his eighties and his mind sparkles as a fountain ever flowing under the sun of understanding." More importantly, however, "the great meditator of Lachen"11 gave Theos very pointed advice on how to pass himself off as a Buddhist pilgrim -- just as he had advised David-Neel.
Equally patient and long-suffering in his way was the monk, Yongden, who served her untiringly and without pay for more than two decades. He was to die in France at the age of 55, a hopeless alcoholic, according to his doctor.
-- Forbidden travels of an opera singer: The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel by Barbara Foster and Michael Foster Overlook Press pounds 20, by Isabel Hilton
Half a world away, unfortunately, Viola was having no such comparable experiences. Besides coping with her mother's ongoing battle with cancer and her sister's impending divorce, she was still dealing with the aftereffects of the blow-up at the CCC [Clarkstown Country Club] between P.A. [Perry Arnold Baker] and DeVries.
The opportunity that Theos needed appeared in early spring 1934. Dan Hughes remembered that it was a warm spring afternoon in Tucson when he and Theos were sitting in the Law Library, working. Dan, in need of distraction, picked up a back issue of Fortune Magazine, and leafing through the pages, came across a story of a man in New York with his own elephant.20 He pointed out that the man in question was also named Bernard, and Theos immediately identified him as his uncle, someone his father had undoubtedly told him about.
A far cry from the press accounts of his past -- or anything else that Glen might have told him about his uncle -- the profile of Pierre Bernard in Fortune depicted a successful businessman and financial pillar of the community of Nyack, New York. Though there was mention of "teaching Yoga and Sanskrit around the country," the adventures of "the Omnipotent Oom" were little more than an anecdotal backdrop. Long forgotten as the fraudulent proprietor of "the Temple of Mystery" sanitarium, Pierre was described as having "a flourishing practice in treating brain and nervous diseases in New York City." Moreover, he was now a bank president; the head of construction, real estate, and mortgage companies; and the owner of his own stable of elephants and a fleet of vintage Stanley Steamers. In the depths of the Great Depression he was, in a phrase, stinking rich.
Without any hesitation, Theos took pen to paper and wrote a letter to his long-lost uncle introducing himself, speaking of his love of yoga, his hopes for the future, and his aspirations of attending school in New York. A few weeks later, a small envelope appeared in the mail for Theos, post-marked Nyack, New York. It was his uncle's reply, in the form of an invitation to attend the annual Easter Party at the Clarkstown Country Club...
As they set their plans in motion for their trip across America and the Pacific to India in the fall of 1936, Theos and Viola began packing up their apartment in New York. Although it was only June, Viola was due to start her internship at the Jersey City Medical Center the following January and so had to prepare for it in advance. Placing their possessions in storage and their apartment up for sale, they organized one last "send-off" picnic party at the club in Nyack with friends and family. P.A. [Perry Arnold Baker] himself even gave Theos and Viola recommendations and suggestions for people to contact in India, including P.C. Bannerji, who had taught at his New York Sanskrit College in the 1910s, and S.L. Joshi, who had served as Secretary of the CCC. Similarly, Ruth Everett,2 by then thoroughly enamored of all things Buddhist and Japanese,3 gave Viola letters of introduction when she heard that they were traveling on a Japanese cruise ship and would be passing through Yokohama.
-- Theos Bernard, the White Lama: Tibet, Yoga, and American Religious Life, by Paul G. Hackett
Discussing the matter with her, Theos resolved to support Viola's decision that they should renounce their membership and sever all ties with the club out of loyalty to DeVries and convince others to do so as well, since "like a child playing over an area charged with dynamite -- it is our duty to remove it even tho it has no way to realize why." Anticipating the worst for the future with P.A. [Perry Arnold Baker], Theos suggested that they take their decision one step further and dispense with their apartment in Nyack, suggesting that they could easily use the excuses of financial constraints and logistical inconveniences with Viola in New Jersey and Theos in India, Tibet and-he felt sure-soon studying at Oxford. Feeling more and more confident that he was embarking on research in unexplored territories, Theos had decided to abandon Columbia; neither the anthropology nor the philosophy department suited his needs and goals since the former was filled with people he didn't like, none of whom could "see what I wish to do," and the latter could only be considered a fall-back solution at best. Indeed, Theos felt assured of his ability to get accepted into the Ph.D. program at Oxford with Evans-Wentz, not just because of their now shared interest in Tibetan studies and his personal connection with the man through his father, but in particular, because he could bring to the field precisely the aspect that Evans-Wentz lacked: firsthand knowledge of the yogic tradition. It would be a challenging application to make, but if he had learned anything from traveling in social circles with Viola, it was the value and strength of a skillfully offered handshake and smile in the right quarters.
First, however, Theos needed sources -- texts -- and lots of them. Arriving back in Gangtok, he chanced upon a meeting with one of Jinorasa's cousins, who informed him that he could halve the Rs. 4,000 expense of copies of the Kangyur and the Tengyur in Calcutta by buying his own paper and shipping it up to Tibet to be printed there. He and Viola decided that it would be a worthwhile expenditure and placed the order with Jinorasa's cousin, who thought the manuscripts could arrive as early as mid-February.
Returning to Kalimpong, Theos began following up on recommendations in the area. He had asked for help in learning Tibetan when he was in Darjeeling, and Jinorasa recommended that Theos meet the one man in Kalimpong who could best assist him -- a young man known as Tharchin Babu, who had taught Tibetan to many in the area already -- and provided Theos with letter of introduction. At the same time, through Frank Perry Theos met the Pumsur brothers, distant relatives of a Lhasan aristocratic family who ran a wool trade operation in Kalimpong. Always eager to negotiate a business deal, they also offered to assist Theos in obtaining a copy of the Kangyur, the same new redaction recently printed in Lhasa, through one of their brothers there. For Theos, all of this was nearly overwhelming, but it was just the tip of the iceberg in Kalimpong.
Like Tashkent a thousand years earlier, Kalimpong was a cultural juncture -- the meeting place of age-old civilizations and a crossing-over point between radically different worlds. Below and to the south lay the jungles and lowlands of British India and most prominently of all, Calcutta, the commercial port for hill stations such as Kalimpong where the whole population of India-Lepchas, Nepalis, Bengalis, British, Chinese, Malaysians and a host of traders, missionaries, soldiers, and bureaucrats daily swarmed over each other in pursuit of their lofty and not-so-lofty goals. Above and to the north lay Tibet, perched atop the high Himalayas, stretching from the narrow valleys of Ladakh and Guge near Kashmir in the west to the wide-open plains of Amdo and the Chang-tang on the border of China to the east. It was a kingdom like no other and a monastic haven far above the mundane world, a place that six million people called home, whose natural borders were visible from space. Kalimpong was where these two worlds met.
Called "Da-ling Kote"12 by the local Bhutias after the old fort on the 4,000-foot ridge line, for most of its prehistory, Kalimpong was little more than the stockade (pong) of a Bhutanese minister (Kalon).13 Only after the annexation of the area by the British in the late nineteenth century did the small village formed around the ruins of the old fort begin to grow. In the wake of the 1904 Younghusband invasion of Tibet, Kalimpong took on greater significance as a trading post as the wool trade shifted from the administrative capital of the region, Darjeeling, to its new economic capital, slightly closer the Tibetan passes of Jelep-la and Nathu-la, with easy transport south to Calcutta for shipping to the textile mills of England, and eventually America.
Though still in many aspects a trading post and missionary enclave, by the 1930s Kalimpong had much to offer a Tibetophile. Most notably, it was home to the only Tibetan language newspaper in the world, The Mirror or Me-long, as it was known in Tibetan. It was also home to the newspaper's editor and the de facto center of the Tibetan expatriate community in Kalimpong, Dorje Tharchin, known affectionately as Tharchin Babu.
Born in 1890 in the village of Pu in the Khunu region of Spiti,14 Tharchin was the son of one of a handful of Moravian Christian converts in the western Tibetan borderlands of Spiti, and had spent the early years of his life in Khunu, being educated in missionary schools (taught in a mixture of Tibetan and Urdu15). When his parents died in the early years of the century, Tharchin finally left his village at the age of twenty and decided to try to go to Tibet in order to properly study the Tibetan language. Relocating several hundred miles south to the soon-to-be British capital of Delhi,16 Tharchin sought work to earn money for the trip. After a brief bout of malaria, however, he returned north to the British "summer capital" of Simla at the mouth of the Kulu valley, close to his old home in Khunu. Upon recovering, he went to work as a common laborer on the construction of the Hindustan-Tibet road. Spending his time between Simla and Delhi, by the late 1910s Tharchin was fully ensconced in his identity as a Christian and could often be found preaching in one of the local bazaars.
On one occasion, Tharchin reported, he was preparing to preach in a bazaar in Delhi when, looking at the last page in his Bible, he saw the phrase "Printed at the Scandinavian Alliance Tibetan Mission Press, Ghoom, Darjeeling." Discerning its import with the help of a friend, Tharchin saw an opportunity to get closer to Tibet and immediately wrote a letter (in Tibetan) to the press in Ghoom asking for an apprenticeship. To Tharchin's disappointment, the response informed him that the press had been sold, although he could be considered for missionary training as a Tibetan and Hindi teacher in the Ghoom Mission School if he knew Hindi -- which he did not. Nonetheless, Tharchin did not want to miss his opportunity, so, accepting this offer, he hurriedly bought a primer on Hindi grammar and after the Delhi Durbar of 1911,17 left for Ghoom in early January 1912.
For the next five years, Tharchin remained at Ghoom teaching Tibetan and Hindi (while learning Nepali) at the Christian school belonging to the Scandinavian Alliance Mission. There he met the onetime Christian convert Karma Sumdhon Paul, then acting as headmaster.18
The Bhutia Boarding School in Darjeeling is a school founded in 1874. Its first director was Sarat Chandra Das and Professor of Tibetan Ugyen Gyatso, a monk of Tibeto-Sikkimese origin. It was opened by order of the Lieutenant Governor of British Bengal, Sir George Campbell. Its purpose was to provide education to young Tibetans and Sikkimese boys resident in Sikkim or the Darjeeling area. However, according to Derek Wallers, it aimed to train interpreters, geographers and explorers may be useful in the event of an opening of Tibet to the English. Students learnt English, Tibetan and topography. In 1879, Sarat Chandra Das, sometimes disguised as a Tibetan lama, sometimes as a merchant from Nepal and Ugyen Gyatso made several trips to Tibet as secret agents of British India services in order to establish and collect cards.
The opening coincided with the school's educational initiatives William Macfarlane, a Scottish missionary in the region. If there was no link between these two initiatives, there was also no tension between them, sharing the same goals and methods with mutual benefit.
In 1891, the boarding school merged with the Darjeeling Zilla School to form the Darjeeling High School.
Bhutia Boarding School
• Kazi Dawa Samdup
• David Macdonald, (1870-1962)
Darjeeling High School
• Norbu Dhondup [Rai Bahadur], (1884-1944)[5]
• Pemba Tsering, (1905-1954)[5]
• Ekai Kawaguchi
• Karma Sumdhon Paul (alias Karma Babu). He later became director of the [Bhutia Boarding] school.Karma Sumdhon Paul (alias Karma Babu) worked as a translator and assistant for various British colonial officials in both India -- he accompanied the Sixth Panchen Lama's Indian pilgrimage in 1905-6 -- and Tibet. He was also employed by a number of other Europeans, including missionaries, before meeting and working for the Dutch orientalist John van Manen [1877-1943] at the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Karma Babu went on to become Tibetan lecturer at Calcutta University in 1924 and later published an English translation of the story of Drime Kunden (Dri-med Kun-Idan) from the Tibetan; see Richardus (1998:73-159) and Evans-Wentz (1954:89-91).
-- The Holy Land Reborn: Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India, by Toni Huber
-- Bhutia Boarding School, Darjeeling [Bhotia Boarding School] [Darjeeling High School] [Darjeeling School], by Wikipedia
Although Tharchin tried his best to proselytize to visiting Tibetans and the local residents of Sikkim and Bengal, he met with only mixed success. Nonetheless, he continued as a lay preacher, interacting from time to time with his cohorts in the region, including the increasingly influential Dr. [John Anderson] Graham, who ran an orphanage for Anglo-Indian children in Kalimpong. While some of Tharchin's missionary companions often earned the ire of both the British and Tibetan authorities for routinely flouting administrative restrictions on their activities -- making reference to a "higher calling" -- Tharchin actively cultivated the friendship of both the Tibetans and the British, and benefited greatly from it.
By 1917, Tharchin had managed to secure a government scholarship and so relocated to Kalimpong to enter the teacher training program operated by the Scottish Union Mission [Scottish Universities' Mission? [SUM?]]. Having recently published two small Tibetan language primers, a Tibetan Primer with Simple Rules of Correct Spelling and The Tibetan Second Book,19 he had sufficient knowledge of the language to capture the notice of W.S. Sutherland, a missionary who had spent the better part of forty years in the Kalimpong area running a combination orphanage and missionary school. He quickly put Tharchin to work teaching Tibetan to a mixture of Bhutia and Tibetan boys in the orphanage. Although claiming to offer a complete education, Sutherland's schools integrated Bible study as much as possible, offering a curriculum of "Grammar, Geography, History, Arithmetic, Euclid, Physics,... Old and New Testament History, Church History, Pastoral Theology, and Apologetics with special reference to Hinduism."20 After graduating two years later, Tharchin was asked to remain in Kalimpong as permanent teacher of Tibetan at the Scottish mission.
Despite all these activities and events, Tharchin continued his proselytizing trips throughout Sikkim during these years, as well as serving as a Tibetan translator for embassies to Bhutan and Sikkim. During this time, he had the opportunity to visit Tibet for the first time, in 1921, accompanying the wife of the British Trade Agent at Yatung, Mrs. David Macdonald, to her husband's post just over the Tibetan border.
The Government of India wanted a local officer at Yatung for financial reasons. While this meant that the Trade Agent there would have less status than a British officer, this factor would, if Bell was correct, be balanced by his greater ability to cultivate the friendship of local officials, which was of paramount importance to his role (an issue that is discussed in Chapter Four). In the event, the officer chosen signified a compromise. He was an Anglo-Sikkimese, David Macdonald, a local government employee who had served on the Younghusband Mission. While not from an aristocratic family, he was intelligent and got on extremely well with Tibetans, and even the Chinese.
Macdonald was uniquely well qualified, and thoroughly conversant with British concepts of prestige. As he later recalled 'There was the prestige and pomp of the empire to be maintained and this meant one reflected the glory.' In contrast, when the Lhasa Mission was headed by a local officer of Tibetan origin in the 1940s, it was felt that 'the want of a Political Officer [i.e. a British officer] in charge of the Mission was felt by our friends'. [33]
Questions of manpower and economy, allied to the need to reward local supporters, meant that local employees had to be given positions of authority, but they were generally kept away from the key positions in which policy decisions were made. MacDonald was the only local officer given a Political post in Tibet until the late 1930s, and he was originally appointed to Yatung, which had little or no influence on policy formation.
Ultimately, although the British had to use local employees, they felt that, with the exception of an exceptional individual such as Macdonald, their prestige could only be fully represented by British officers. Local officers had not been trained to command at British public schools, and thus could not be expected to understand and maintain public school codes of behaviour. In consequence, if a local officer failed to maintain the required status and standards of behaviour, his failure was blamed on his race or class, whereas if a British officer failed, it was the individual who was blamed: 'A man who does not play the game at the outposts is a traitor to our order.'[34]....
One Anglo-Indian was chosen for a Political post in Tibet, David MacDonald, the son of a Scottish tea planter, who became an important figure on the frontier. Although his father had left India when MacDonald was five years old, the boy was well provided for, receiving the then generous sum of twenty rupees a month in trust. His Sikkimese mother, Aphu Drolma, entered him in the Bhotia Boarding School, from where he entered local government service, before joining the Younghusband Mission.[33] While MacDonald began regular Tibetan service as a Trade Agent, not an intermediary, unlike the other two local officers classified here as Tibet cadre (Norbhu Dhondup and Pemba Tsering) he shared a similar background to the intermediaries, and his career may be more appropriately considered in this section.
MacDonald had a truly multi-cultural background. Raised as a Buddhist with the name of Dorji MacDonald, he converted to Christianity and adopted the name David under the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Nepalese, Alice Curtis. These various influences gave him command of all of the principal languages of the region, Tibetan, Nepali, Hindi, Lepcha and English, and insight into both Buddhist and Christian religious cultures.Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson of The Evangelical Alliance Mission.In 1890 [Fredrick Franson] founded the Scandinavian Alliance Mission in Chicago, later known as The Evangelical Alliance Mission, also several missions in Sweden.
His first class on October 14, 1890, is recognized as the "birthday" of TEAM, although the early name for the agency was "The Scandinavian Alliance Mission." This name reflected Franson's vision to bring churches together into an alliance enabling even small congregations to have a part in sending out missionaries. Classes were also initiated in Chicago, Minneapolis and Omaha. Soon a formal board of directors came into being, and on January 17, 1891, the first band of 35 missionaries boarded a train for the West Coast and eventually China.
Photographs of these early missionaries depict a dedicated group of people who chose to live and dress as the Chinese did. Other groups soon joined the first recruits, and Franson fervently challenged still more to go. In order to get to China, the early missionaries had to pass through Japan, and that soon became a new field for the mission. In a similar manner, by 1892, a small group also went to Swaziland.
-- Fredrik Franson, by Wikipedia
He was associated with the "Tibetan Translation of the New Testament" and founded a small church in Yatoung, Tibet.
-- David Macdonald, by Wikipedia (France)
MacDonald had the character and skills needed to attract the patronage of British officers, a necessary quality for an ambitious individual of his background. He assisted both Charles Bell and Colonel Waddell, Chief Medical Officer on the Younghusband Mission and early scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, to learn Tibetan, and their support gained him Political employ.[34]
Bell's patronage was crucial; MacDonald was held in high regard by Bell, and owed his position to Bell's support. When his patron left, MacDonald lost influence. His efforts to support his son John, and his son-in-law Frank Perry, in various employment schemes on the frontier brought him into conflict with Bailey, the new Political Officer Sikkim, and his final years in Tibet were difficult ones. In retirement however, he ensured the family security by turning his Kalimpong home into a successful hotel, which still exists today. [35]....
I have previously examined the Political Officers' attempts to gain access to Lhasa during the period 1910-20, when, after a change of policy by Whitehall, their efforts culminated in Charles Bell being permitted to take up a long-standing invitation from the Dalai Lama to visit Lhasa. [17]
The genesis of this invitation lay in the assistance given to the Dalai Lama by David Macdonald at Yatung in 1910. Macdonald had been specifically instructed that while he could shelter the Dalai Lama in the Trade Agency, he was to maintain neutrality in the Chinese-Tibetan conflict. But as the Tibetan leader fled south from the pursuing Chinese forces, Macdonald not only offered the Dalai Lama and his followers sanctuary in the Trade Agency, but deployed the Agency escort to protect him. [18]
Macdonald's interpretation of his orders attracted no censure from government. There can be little doubt that his actions were tacitly approved of by his immediate superior, the Political Officer Charles Bell, who was soon to benefit from the goodwill gained by Macdonald's action. Bell later described MacDonald's assistance to the Dalai Lama as being 'perhaps the chief reason why the British name stands high in Tibet.'[19]
During the Dalai Lama's period of exile, Bell succeeded in cultivating the personal friendship of the Tibetan leader and a number of his court followers. In practice, Bell was able to give the Tibetans very little concrete assistance, for Whitehall, and even many in the Government of India, considered the Dalai Lama was no longer an important political force. The Secretary of State, Lord Morley, for example, described the Dalai Lama as 'a pestilent animal... [who] should be left to stew in his own juice'.[20]
Even when the Dalai Lama returned to rule Tibet in 1912, Whitehall objected to any gestures of support being given to him. Bell and the Tibet cadre, however, offered what support they could. Bell instructed Basil Gould to escort the Dalai Lama as he passed Gyantse, and Macdonald played host to the Dalai Lama in Yatung for five days. Macdonald naturally gained great prestige from this with the local Tibetan community.[21]
-- Tibet and the British Raj, 1904-47: The Influence of the Indian Political Department Officers, by Alexander McKay