Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2020 8:31 am
David Macdonald
by Wikipedia (France)
Accessed: 2/1/20
Photographer: Evan Yorke Nepean
Collection: Evan Yorke Nepean
Date of Photo: August 7th 1936
Named Person: Sir Basil Gould, David Macdonald
Expedition: British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
David Macdonald
Birth: Towards 1870, Darjeeling
Death: July 6, 1962, Darjeeling
Activity: linguist
David Macdonald, born Dorjé in 1870 or 1873 in Darjeeling, died on July 6, 1962 Darjeeling is an Anglo-Sikkimese1 which was British commercial agent (trade agent) in Tibet in the first quarter of the 20th century. Born to a Scottish father and a Lepcha mother, he was fluent in English and Tibetan.
According to Peter Bishop, he belongs to the lineage of the British officers of Tibetan Affairs -- Charles Alfred Bell, Hugh Edward Richardson, Frederick Marshman Bailey, Leslie Weir, Derrick Williamson, Basil Gould (in) -- who formed the backbone of reports Britain with Tibet2.
The possibility of living and traveling in Tibet combined with his knowledge of spoken Tibetan and literary Tibetan enabled him to observe Tibetan culture and to make it accessible to Europeans in his publications3.
Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in) of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in) 4 . He was associated with the "Tibetan Translation of the New Testament" and founded a small church in Yatoung, Tibet5.
Biography
Origins and studies
Born in Darjeeling to a Scottish father and a Sikkimese mother of Lepcha ethnicity, David Macdonald was fluent in English and Tibetan. His father was a Scottish tea planter who left India when his son was six years old. He had, however, left to the mother of the child enough to live properly and a substantial allocation (for the time) of 20 rupees per month to pay for the studies of David 6. His mother made him wear Tibetan clothes so that he could enroll him in Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling7.
Early career
After completing his studies, he worked for the Bengal government's vaccination services, regularly touring villages in the Darjeeling district. He was thus able to familiarize himself with the mores and customs and the daily life of the peasantry of this Himalayan region8.
He then went to the service of the Tibetologist Laurence Waddell whom he helped in his research on the canons of Tibetan Buddhism and their commentaries as well as on the customs, traditions and superstitions of the Tibetans9.
Conversion to Christianity and participation in the translation of the Bible
Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in), of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in), as reported by Gergan Dorje Tharchin in 1970 4, and became a devout Christian10. Around 1903, he participated, with JF Frederickson, of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance, and H. Graham Sandberg, an Anglican chaplain, in the translation of the New Testament into Tibetan11. Around 1910, he revised the Old Testament translated into the same language by Joseph Gergan and August Hermann Francke12.
Participation in the British military expedition to Tibet
In 1904, he was Waddell's assistant along with an interpreter during the Younghusband military expedition to Tibet. He was responsible for collecting, classifying and cataloging, on behalf of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, books and works of art taken from monasteries and dzongs and transported to India on the back of 400 mules13,14,15. He knew how to get the good graces of the most important figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoid taking sides for one or the other of the existing factions among officers16.
For his skills and talents, Macdonald attracted the attention of British officials, including Charles Bell, who assured him the protection he needed to overcome the prejudices of Raj against Anglo-Indian17.
From the commercial agent in Tibet to the political representative in Sikkim
In 1909, when it was decided to appoint a public servant as a trade agent at Yatoung, Bell offered the post to Macdonald18. Of July 1909 at October 1924, he was the British commercial agent in Yatung and Gyantsé, then, for 4 months in 1921, the political representative (political officer) of the British empire in Sikkim19,20,21,22.
After their stay in Lhasa, the explorer Alexandra David-Néel, exhausted "without money and in rags", and her future adopted son Lama Yongden, were warmly welcomed by the Macdonald family (and their nine children) in Gyantsé in May 1924. Lodged with them for a fortnight, she was able to reach the north of India by Sikkim thanks in part to the 500 rupees which she borrowed from Macdonald and to the necessary papers which he and his son-in-law, Captain Perry, could give him.23,24,25.
In 1925 Macdonald welcomed and received Edwin Schary, an American who wandered through Tibet in search of the famous mahatmas (great initiates). He found him at his door, in his words "eaten away by vermin, hungry and very sick"26. A few years later, Macdonald was to preface the story of this quest published under the title In search of the Mahatmas of Tibet27.
The last years of his career were marred by problems related to his son-in-law, Captain Perry. In 1923, for the latter to obtain the post of chief of the brand new Lhasa police force, Macdonald had intermingled with the Dalai Lama. This earned him to be reprimanded and demoted by the government of India28.
At Gyantsé, Macdonald was replaced by Derrick Williamson, at least as soon as the latter arrived in May 1924, had survived an almost fatal fever which delayed the transfer of post by six weeks29.
Meetings with the 13th Dalai Lama
According to Lord Ronaldshay, Macdonald saved the life of the 13th Dalai Lama30 by helping to cross the Indian border when he was forced to flee31 in January-February 1910 32.
At Christmas 1920, he was invited by Charles Bell to accompany him to Lhasa. Unbeknownst to Delhi, he spent a month and met there several times the 13th Dalai Lama. When the government of India heard of his presence in Lhasa, he ordered him to return to Yatoung 33.
The Himalayan Hotel
The Himalayan Hotel in Kalimpong, was described in 1936 as the family home of Macdonald, then aged 34. In fact, Macdonald had the house built in 1925 and then, his children having grown up, converted it into a hotel, which it still is today. During the first half of the 20th century, the building, built in the style of English cottages35, welcomed the distinguished visitors, among other Tibetologists Charles Bell and Peter of Greece, the mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (the author of seven years adventures in Tibet), and Basil Gould, the British political representative in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet between 1935 and 1945 36.
In the 1930s and 1949 Macdonald made several attempts to return to Tibet on an official mission, but without success. His request for permission to travel to Gyantsé in 1931 was rejected by Leslie Weir, the British political agent at Sikkim37.
Epilogue
David Macdonald died on July 6, 1962 in Darjeeling. He was the husband of Alice Curtis, a Eurasian like him, of English origin and Sherpa38, under the influence of which, according to Alex McKay, he had become a Christian before entering government service39.
Work
David Macdonald is the author of several authoritative books on Tibet. His great work is The Land of the Lama, a work published in 1929 and dealing with the region and its population from the physical, social, cultural, administrative and economic aspects, a veritable encyclopedia on Tibet which inspired many later authors.40
In 1930, he published a travel guide, Touring in Sikkim and Tibet, where, after a quick presentation of the two regions, he describes the routes allowing to gain Gyantsé in Tibet while passing by Sikkim (at the time British protectorate) then the Tibetan valley of Chumbi, all with practical information for travelers of the time.
Two years later, he published Twenty Years in Tibet, a book in which he recounts the events that marked the first quarter of the 20th century in the border regions northeast of India, whose military Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa in 1904, the flight of 13th Dalai Lama in India in 1910 and his return to Lhasa in 1912 41.
Because of his knowledge of Tibetan spoken as literary Tibetan, Macdonald was entrusted by the British Tibetanist Charles Alfred Bell to proofread and correct his English-Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary published in 1920 42.
In addition to the Tibetan from Lhasa, Macdonald also mastered dzongkha, Bengali, lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. He was in contact with the promoters of the "Gazetteer of Sikkim" (Sikkim Gazetteer), the "Survey of Indian languages" (Linguistic Survey of India (in)) and the "Tibetan translation of the New Testament (Tibetan Translation of the New Testament)43.
Publications
• (en) The Land of the Lama: a description of a country of contrasts & of its cheerful, happy-go-lucky people of hardy nature & curious customs; their religion, ways of living, trade, and social life, With a foreword by the Earl of Ronaldshay , Seeley, Service & Co., 1929, 283 p. (reissued under the title Cultural Heritage of Tibet in 1963 by Light-Life Publishers, then in 1978 in New Delhi)
• (fr) Mœurs et coutumes des Thibétains , preface by the Earl of Ronaldshay, French translation by R. Bilot, Payot, 1930, 262 p. (French translation of the previous one)
• (en) Touring in Sikkim and Tibet , Kalimpong, 1930 (reissued in 1999 by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 142 p.)
• (en) Tibetan Tales , foreword by L. Austin Waddell, in Folklore , vol. 42, 1931 (English translation of 9 Tibetan tales)
• (en) Twenty Years in Tibet: intimate & personal experiences of the closed land among all classes of its people from the highest to the lowest, with a foreword by the Earl of Lytton , Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1932, 312 p.
• (en) Preface (with Canon CE Tyndale-Biscoe) of the book by Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet , Seeley, Service & co., 1937, viii + 294 p.
• (in) Tibet , H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1945, 31 p.
Notes and references
1. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, in Revue Tibetan Studies, Number 21, October 2011, p. 123-153, p. 137: " [...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) [...]".
2. (in) Peter Bishop , The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 195: " The lineage of British officers responsible for Tibetan affairs -- Bell, Macdonald, Richardson, Bailey, Weir, Williamson, Gould -- provided the backbone around which British contact with Tibet was organized."
3. Jeanne Masedo de Filipis, Tibet and the West, in Lhasa, place of the divine, ss the dir. by Françoise Pommaret, Olizane, 1997, pp. 19-34, p. 32: "This is how David Macdonald and Sir Charles Bell, the only foreigners admitted to live in Lhasa in 1921, became fine observers of the culture of Tibet, which through their publications they finally made accessible to Europeans."
4. (in) H. Louis Fader, Called from obscurity: the life and times of a true son of Tibet, God's humble servant from Poo, Gergan Dorje Tharchin: with particular attention given to his good friend and illustrious co-laborer in the Gospel Sadhu Sundar Singh of India, Volume 2 , Tibet Mirror Press, 2004 ( ISBN 9993392200 and 9789993392200), p. 54: "Macdonald [...] had not always been an adherent of the Christian faith. In fact, early in his primary education at Darjeeling, where he was born in 1873, he was first introduced [...] the religious "tenets" and "form of Buddhism, known as Lamaism, which is practiced in the Eastern Himalayas. [...] Tharchin himself, commenting much later in the 1970s, provides some interesting background information on Macdonald's subsequent Christian "missionary" activity and service. He, along with David Woodward, could report that Macdonald was led to Christ ... by Fredrik Franson of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission."
5. (in) David B. Woodward, Have a Cup of Tea Tibetan, 2003: "Yatung, Tibet, and as a Christian he started a small church there."
6. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "Macdonald's Father, a Scottish tea-planter, had left India when Macdonald was six years old. He did, however, leave Macdonald's mother, a Lepcha, well provided-for, with the then-generous sum of twenty rupees a month for David's education."
7. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "She dressed him as a Tibetan in order to enroll him in the Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling."
8. (in) Introducing Twenty Years in Tibet [archive], on the site indiaclub.com: "He joined the Dept. Immunization under the Govt. of Bengal and his duties entailed making regular tours of the villages in the Darjeeling Dist. The twelve years that the author thus spent gave him a comprehensive insight into the manners and customs, and everyday lives, of the peasantry of this part in the Himalayas."
9. (in) Foreword to Tibetan Tales, in Folklore, Vol. 42, No. 2, Jun. 30, 1931, p. 178: "I have known Mr. Macdonald intimately ever since, over forty years ago, he was a Dux boy in the Government High School in Darjeeling, and was recommended to me by the Headmaster, through his training in literary Tibetan and knowledge of the Tibetan vernacular, as a promising assistant in my researches into the great body of the Tibetan sacred canonical books and commentaries, and into Tibetan customs, floating traditions, and superstitions. Latterly, he was my official assistant, in the Lhasa Mission of 1904 in the task of collecting, classifying, and cataloging for the British National Libraries the greatest collection of Tibetan books, sacred and secular, that ever reached Europe before or since that expedition. As a result of this unusual acquaintance with the Tibetan religion, language and customs, and his business ability."
10. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xviii: "David Macdonald, who had become a devout Christian".
11. (in) Alexander McLeish, The Frontier Peoples of India [archive], Mittal Publications, 1984, p. 183.
12. (in) Jina Prem Singh, "AH Francke's contribution in the Cultural History of Ladakh," pp. 43-52 in Jina Prem Singh (ed.), Recent Researches on the Himalaya, New Delhi, Indus Publishing, 1997, p. 44.
13. (in) Michael Carrington, Officers, Gentlemen and Thieves: The Looting of Monasteries During the 1903/4 Younghusband Mission to Tibet in Modern Asian Studies, 37, 1 (2003), pp. 81–109: “[L. Austin] Waddell then, would be the perfect man for the job of Chief Medical Officer to the Tibet mission and after representations to the Government of India was chosen to be the official collector of materials for the British Museum. He was to be assisted by David Macdonald, an employee of the Government of India, Macdonald was the son of a Scot with a Sikkimise mother and he would be extremely useful as he spoke fluent Tibetan."
14. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, op. cit., p. 137: "[...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) 71 who writes,"in January 1905 I was sent to Calcutta to categorize books and treasures, which others and I gathered in Tibet and were brought back using more than 400 mules. They included Buddhist classics, statues of Buddha, religious works, helmets, weapons, books, and ceramics. The bulk of ceramics were sent to specialists for examination. All these treasures were formerly preserved in the India Museum, where I worked, and later in the British Museum, the Indian Museum, the Bodleian Library and the Indian Administrative Library.”
15. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xvi: "Macdonald first served as a translator on the Younghusband mission."
16. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: " Macdonald became favorably known to most of the significant figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoided being identified with either of the factions that developed among its officers."
17. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Clearly a capable and talented man, Macdonald attracted the favor of a number of senior British officials, of whom Bell was to be the most significant. Being of mixed race, Macdonald was in particular need of this patronage to overcome the Raj's prejudice against 'Anglo-Indians'."
18. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Bell offered the position to the Anglo-Sikkimese David Macdonald, a quiet and modest man [...]."
19. (in) Barbara Crossette, The great hill station of Asia, Vol. 1938, 1998, 259 p. : "David Macdonald, who for twenty years in the first quarter of the twentieth century was the British trade agent in Tibet and later the empire's representative in Sikkim [...]."
20. (in) Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong [archive], on the website India Travelite: "Prior à son retirement he served as Briefly Britain's Political Officer in Sikkim, in support of Britain's relationship with Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. "
21. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 232: " D. Macdonald takes up post July 1909. Macdonald then served at Yatung, without official leave, until his retirement in October 1924."
22. (in) Alex McKay, The History of Tibet: The modern period: from 1895 to 1959, the encounter with modernity, 1904-1947 , pp. 417: "he became Yatung Trade Agent in 1909, and remained serving there and in Gyantse until 1924. He was Political Officer [in] Sikkim for four months in 1921."
23. Joëlle Désiré-Marchand, Alexandra David-Néel, life and travel: geographic routes, 2009, 700 p., P. 445.
24. Jean Chalon, The Luminous Destiny of Alexandra David-Néel, Perrin Academic Bookstore, 1985.
25. Biography (part 6 [archive], on the alexandra-david-neel.org website
26. (in) Peter Bishop, The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 201: "In 1925 Edwyn Schary, an American struggled desperately across Tibet in search of the famed Mahatmas. Macdonald, the British trade agent at Gyantse, described his arrival: 'One evening at dusk, a begrimed and filthily clad figure covered with festering sores crawled up to the main gate of the Gyantse fort -- he was really in a terrible condition, verminous, ill-nourished, and really very ill.'"
27. (in) Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet, Seeley, Service & Co., 1937, viii + 294 pp., Preface by David Macdonald (with Canon CE Tyndale Biscoe).
28. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 100: "Perry's problems inevitably began to involve his father-in-law [...]. News emerged that Macdonald had written to the Dalai Lama in 1923 asking him to employ Perry in the newly-formed Lhasa Police Force. [...] he was censured for his attempt to find Perry work with the Lhasa Police and it was decided to reintroduce the system of having separate agents at Yatung and Gyantse, with Macdonald reverting to the lower ranked post at Yatung."
29. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 132: “Early in May 1924, 'Derrick' Williamson arrived in Gyantse to replace the long-serving David Macdonald, who was retiring. But six weeks passed before Macdonald could hand-over to his successor, who was suffering from a near-fatal fever. "
30. (in) The Spectator, Vol. 142, 1929: "Lord Ronaltlshay tells us in a preface that Mr. David Macdonald, the author of The Land of the Lama (Seeley, Services, 21 s.), Saved the Dalai Lama's life in 1909 [...]"
31. (en) C. Mabel Rickmers, The Land of the Lama, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, January 1930, 62, 180-182: "When compelled to flee to India in 1909, it was to Macdonald that His Holiness owed his safe passage over the frontier, a fact he has never forgotten."
32. (in) Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso [archive]
33. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier cadre, 1904-1947, op. cit., p. 68: "Bell did invite David Macdonald to join him in Lhasa for Christmas 1920, without asking permission from Delhi. Macdonald spent a month in Lhasa and had several meetings with the Dalai Lama. But the Government of India was reluctant to allow too many officials to visit the Tibetan capital. When they discovered where Macdonald was, he was ordered to return to Yatung."
34. (en) Robert Croston, Robert Roaf, in British Medical Journal , 2007: "[Sikkim, 1936] Kalimpong, where they put up at the Himalayan Hotel -- the family house of David Macdonald, now an old man and former Trade Agent Gyantse, Tibet."
35. History of the Himalayan Hotel [archive]: "The Himalayan Hotel, whose building was built in the style of English cottages [...]. David Macdonald erected the main building in 1925."
36. Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong, op. cit.: "After he retired, with his large family grown up, Macdonald turned the family home into a Hotel, and it has remained in the Macdonald family ever since. [...] The great names of the region have all been guests here. [...] it has also played host to Mme Alexandra David-Neel, Charles Bell, and many of the other British officials who traveled to Tibet in the first half of the twentieth century, as well to other Tibetologists such as Prince Peter of Greece, Rinchen Dolma Taring, authoress of “Daughter of Tibet”, Dr. Joseph Rock, Heinrich Harrer, author of “Seven Years in Tibet”, Sir Basil Gould, formerly Political Officer, Sikkim [...]."
37. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 134: "Macdonald [...] made several attempts in the 1930's and '40's to return to Tibet in an official capacity. [...] Macdonald recalled that in 1931, when he asked for permission to visit Gyantse, Weir replied that [...] he could not see his way to giving me permission."
38. (in) Toni Schmid, David Macdonald, in Ethnos, volumes 28 to 29, Routledge On Behalf of the National Museum of Ethnography, 1963, p. 254: “Friday July 6th 1962 David Macdonald died at Darjeeling. He was 89. His was a remarkable life. His ancestry was Scotch-Lepcha, and he married Alice Curtis, who was of English-Sherpa origin."
39. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "David (born Dorje) Macdonald became Christian under the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Nepalese Alice Curtis, and entered local government service."
40. (in) Preface of Cultural heritage of Tibet, Light & Life Publishers, 1978, 267 pages, p. xv: “However his magnum opus was the 'Land of the Lama'. It deals with the country and its people in all its physical, social, cultural, historical, administrative and economic aspects. It is in fact an encyclopaedia on Tibet which has been freely used by the later writers."
41. Michael Buckley, in his tourist guide (in) Shangri-la: A Travel Guide to the Himalayan Dream (.. Bradt Travel Guides, 2008, p 191, p 127) hypothesizes that Heinrich Harrer, who stayed at Macdonald Darjeeling, was inspired by the title Twenty Years in Tibet for his own book Seven Years in Tibet: "Heinrich Harrer started writing his text, Seven Years in Tibet, after he departed Tibet in 1950 (see pages 92-3). He might have got the idea for the title from a book on the shelves [at Himalaya Hotel]: Twenty Years in Tibet, by David Macdonald, who was the British Agent in Tibet in the early 20th century."
42. (en) English Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary, 1920, preface: "And most of all are my thanks due to Mr. David McDonald, who has revised this book throughout and to whose unrivalled knowledge of both colloquial and literary Tibetan are largely due."
43. (en) Presentation of a reprint of Twenty Years in Tibet [archive]: “Having spent two decades in Tibet as British Trade Agent from 1905 to 1925, he gained the expertise of several languages., Viz. Bhutanese, Sikkimese, Bengali, Lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. [...] Macdonald had academic links with Sikkim Gazetteer, the Linguistic Survey of India and Tibetan Translation of the New Testament."
by Wikipedia (France)
Accessed: 2/1/20
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. [David] 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]....
Within British India, Anglo-Indians, those of mixed British and Indian parentage, were often subject to greater prejudice than Indians, and they were excluded from several areas of government employment.[30] But in Tibet, Anglo-Indians were preferred to Indians. The difference is difficult to account for, but certainly some aspects of British Indian social attitudes were relaxed on the frontier,[31] and there was the precedent of a number of legendary Anglo-Indian frontiersmen, such as the Hearsey family, and General James Skinner, founder of Skinner's Horse, an irregular cavalry division. Several Anglo-Indian Medical Officers were used, including Dr Dyer, who accompanied Bell to Lhasa in 1920. In the 1940s, two Christian Medical Officers, the Anglo-Indian Dr Humphreys, and Captain M.V. Kurian, paved the way for the subsequent posting of Hindu Medical Officers at Gyantse. [32]
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. 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]...
The Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1910 gave the cadre the chance to befriend the traditional Lhasa leadership. MacDonald earned the Dalai Lama's life-long trust by aiding his flight into exile, and once the Tibetan leader was in India, Bell successfully cultivated his friendship, becoming the Tibetans' most trusted foreign confidant. Bell encouraged the Dalai Lama to begin transforming Tibet into a modern nation-state, guided by British expertise in such matters as the development of mining, improvement of communications, and strengthening of its armed forces.
As the British were forbidden by the 1907 Anglo-Russian convention from intervening in Tibetan internal affairs, Bell concealed the extent to which he guided these changes....
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]....
MacDonald considered that both Laden La and Norbhu Dhondup were responsible for the downturn in Anglo-Tibetan relations, stating that they were working for their own ends, and giving political information to the Tibetans. In addition, Macdonald alleged that Tsarong had been demoted from Shape to Dzasci rank due to the assistance he had given Laden La in getting to Lhasa in 1930. MacDonald's negative view of Norbhu Dhondup was supported by Mr Rosemeyer, the telegraph officer who supervised the Gangtok to Lhasa line, (and himself an Anglo-Indian). He informed Bell that Norbhu was 'not a patch on your former Chief Clerk A-chuk Tse-ring[sic], who was both shrewd and clever'. [39]...
In 1909-11, the publication of books by White and Younghusband, and Bailey's 'Blackwoods' article, signaled the replacement of the discourse of war by a more sympathetic approach, which became pronounced in the later works of Bell and Macdonald.[28] Tibet was no longer portrayed as hostile; indeed in Bailey's article it was simply an exotic location for shikar. As will be seen, Bell and MacDonald explained Tibet and its culture in sympathetic and comparative terms designed to portray it as 'familiar'...
The works of officers such as Bell and MacDonald played an important part in bringing Tibet into the realm of the 'familiar'. One method they used was a common journalistic device, applying comparisons to translate Tibetan institutions and personalities into familiar images. Lhasa was compared with Rome, the Dalai Lama with the Pope, and Sera and Drepung monasteries with Oxford and Cambridge. Bell even translated Tibetan personal names in an effort to make them more 'familiar'; thus he refers to Tsarong (Shape) as 'Clear Eye'.[84]...
Thus MacDonald described how, 'The climate of the Chumbi Valley is ideal, not unlike that of England', although at the time he wrote this he had never been to England![85]...
While government expected to be able to trust the judgement of its officers as to what information to present to the public, officials were required, by both civil and military regulations additional to the Official Secrets Act, to submit their writings for censorship. Some officers actively supported this system. For example the India Office noted that Macdonald was 'anxious that we should strike out anything that is considered objectionable’....
Arms supplies to Tibet from India were an issue of particular sensitivity, in that they could have been seen as implying recognition of Tibet as an independent state. Hence both Bell and Macdonald's references to these supplies were censored. Where Bell commented on Tibetan troops being 'armed with the new rifles', mention of the source of these rifles (the Government of India) was removed. Macdonald's claim in his manuscript that demands for payment for weapons were a factor in the Panchen Lama's flight was also censored, along with a large section of suggestions on future policy, including support for Tibetan independence. Macdonald was told that it was 'most important that nothing should be said which could tend to damage relations with Tibet or any other foreign power'.[8]....
The condition of the lower classes was heavily criticised on occasion, Macdonald being particularly critical. But a positive image was maintained by attributing misrule to the era of Chinese domination, and describing how conditions were improving under the Dalai Lama's rule. This positive note was enhanced by the constant stress on the overall happiness and contentment of the peasant class, which is a recurrent theme in British accounts of Tibet, where even 'the slavery was of a very mild type'. [23]
-- Tibet and the British Raj, 1904-47: The Influence of the Indian Political Department Officers, by Alexander McKay
Photographer: Evan Yorke Nepean
Collection: Evan Yorke Nepean
Date of Photo: August 7th 1936
Named Person: Sir Basil Gould, David Macdonald
Expedition: British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
David Macdonald
Birth: Towards 1870, Darjeeling
Death: July 6, 1962, Darjeeling
Activity: linguist
David Macdonald, born Dorjé in 1870 or 1873 in Darjeeling, died on July 6, 1962 Darjeeling is an Anglo-Sikkimese1 which was British commercial agent (trade agent) in Tibet in the first quarter of the 20th century. Born to a Scottish father and a Lepcha mother, he was fluent in English and Tibetan.
According to Peter Bishop, he belongs to the lineage of the British officers of Tibetan Affairs -- Charles Alfred Bell, Hugh Edward Richardson, Frederick Marshman Bailey, Leslie Weir, Derrick Williamson, Basil Gould (in) -- who formed the backbone of reports Britain with Tibet2.
The possibility of living and traveling in Tibet combined with his knowledge of spoken Tibetan and literary Tibetan enabled him to observe Tibetan culture and to make it accessible to Europeans in his publications3.
Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in) of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in) 4 . He was associated with the "Tibetan Translation of the New Testament" and founded a small church in Yatoung, Tibet5.
Biography
Origins and studies
Born in Darjeeling to a Scottish father and a Sikkimese mother of Lepcha ethnicity, David Macdonald was fluent in English and Tibetan. His father was a Scottish tea planter who left India when his son was six years old. He had, however, left to the mother of the child enough to live properly and a substantial allocation (for the time) of 20 rupees per month to pay for the studies of David 6. His mother made him wear Tibetan clothes so that he could enroll him in Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling7.
Early career
After completing his studies, he worked for the Bengal government's vaccination services, regularly touring villages in the Darjeeling district. He was thus able to familiarize himself with the mores and customs and the daily life of the peasantry of this Himalayan region8.
He then went to the service of the Tibetologist Laurence Waddell whom he helped in his research on the canons of Tibetan Buddhism and their commentaries as well as on the customs, traditions and superstitions of the Tibetans9.
Conversion to Christianity and participation in the translation of the Bible
Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in), of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in), as reported by Gergan Dorje Tharchin in 1970 4, and became a devout Christian10. Around 1903, he participated, with JF Frederickson, of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance, and H. Graham Sandberg, an Anglican chaplain, in the translation of the New Testament into Tibetan11. Around 1910, he revised the Old Testament translated into the same language by Joseph Gergan and August Hermann Francke12.
Participation in the British military expedition to Tibet
In 1904, he was Waddell's assistant along with an interpreter during the Younghusband military expedition to Tibet. He was responsible for collecting, classifying and cataloging, on behalf of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, books and works of art taken from monasteries and dzongs and transported to India on the back of 400 mules13,14,15. He knew how to get the good graces of the most important figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoid taking sides for one or the other of the existing factions among officers16.
For his skills and talents, Macdonald attracted the attention of British officials, including Charles Bell, who assured him the protection he needed to overcome the prejudices of Raj against Anglo-Indian17.
From the commercial agent in Tibet to the political representative in Sikkim
In 1909, when it was decided to appoint a public servant as a trade agent at Yatoung, Bell offered the post to Macdonald18. Of July 1909 at October 1924, he was the British commercial agent in Yatung and Gyantsé, then, for 4 months in 1921, the political representative (political officer) of the British empire in Sikkim19,20,21,22.
After their stay in Lhasa, the explorer Alexandra David-Néel, exhausted "without money and in rags", and her future adopted son Lama Yongden, were warmly welcomed by the Macdonald family (and their nine children) in Gyantsé in May 1924. Lodged with them for a fortnight, she was able to reach the north of India by Sikkim thanks in part to the 500 rupees which she borrowed from Macdonald and to the necessary papers which he and his son-in-law, Captain Perry, could give him.23,24,25.
In 1925 Macdonald welcomed and received Edwin Schary, an American who wandered through Tibet in search of the famous mahatmas (great initiates). He found him at his door, in his words "eaten away by vermin, hungry and very sick"26. A few years later, Macdonald was to preface the story of this quest published under the title In search of the Mahatmas of Tibet27.
The last years of his career were marred by problems related to his son-in-law, Captain Perry. In 1923, for the latter to obtain the post of chief of the brand new Lhasa police force, Macdonald had intermingled with the Dalai Lama. This earned him to be reprimanded and demoted by the government of India28.
At Gyantsé, Macdonald was replaced by Derrick Williamson, at least as soon as the latter arrived in May 1924, had survived an almost fatal fever which delayed the transfer of post by six weeks29.
Meetings with the 13th Dalai Lama
According to Lord Ronaldshay, Macdonald saved the life of the 13th Dalai Lama30 by helping to cross the Indian border when he was forced to flee31 in January-February 1910 32.
At Christmas 1920, he was invited by Charles Bell to accompany him to Lhasa. Unbeknownst to Delhi, he spent a month and met there several times the 13th Dalai Lama. When the government of India heard of his presence in Lhasa, he ordered him to return to Yatoung 33.
The Himalayan Hotel
The Himalayan Hotel in Kalimpong, was described in 1936 as the family home of Macdonald, then aged 34. In fact, Macdonald had the house built in 1925 and then, his children having grown up, converted it into a hotel, which it still is today. During the first half of the 20th century, the building, built in the style of English cottages35, welcomed the distinguished visitors, among other Tibetologists Charles Bell and Peter of Greece, the mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (the author of seven years adventures in Tibet), and Basil Gould, the British political representative in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet between 1935 and 1945 36.
In the 1930s and 1949 Macdonald made several attempts to return to Tibet on an official mission, but without success. His request for permission to travel to Gyantsé in 1931 was rejected by Leslie Weir, the British political agent at Sikkim37.
Epilogue
David Macdonald died on July 6, 1962 in Darjeeling. He was the husband of Alice Curtis, a Eurasian like him, of English origin and Sherpa38, under the influence of which, according to Alex McKay, he had become a Christian before entering government service39.
Work
David Macdonald is the author of several authoritative books on Tibet. His great work is The Land of the Lama, a work published in 1929 and dealing with the region and its population from the physical, social, cultural, administrative and economic aspects, a veritable encyclopedia on Tibet which inspired many later authors.40
In 1930, he published a travel guide, Touring in Sikkim and Tibet, where, after a quick presentation of the two regions, he describes the routes allowing to gain Gyantsé in Tibet while passing by Sikkim (at the time British protectorate) then the Tibetan valley of Chumbi, all with practical information for travelers of the time.
Two years later, he published Twenty Years in Tibet, a book in which he recounts the events that marked the first quarter of the 20th century in the border regions northeast of India, whose military Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa in 1904, the flight of 13th Dalai Lama in India in 1910 and his return to Lhasa in 1912 41.
Because of his knowledge of Tibetan spoken as literary Tibetan, Macdonald was entrusted by the British Tibetanist Charles Alfred Bell to proofread and correct his English-Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary published in 1920 42.
In addition to the Tibetan from Lhasa, Macdonald also mastered dzongkha, Bengali, lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. He was in contact with the promoters of the "Gazetteer of Sikkim" (Sikkim Gazetteer), the "Survey of Indian languages" (Linguistic Survey of India (in)) and the "Tibetan translation of the New Testament (Tibetan Translation of the New Testament)43.
Publications
• (en) The Land of the Lama: a description of a country of contrasts & of its cheerful, happy-go-lucky people of hardy nature & curious customs; their religion, ways of living, trade, and social life, With a foreword by the Earl of Ronaldshay , Seeley, Service & Co., 1929, 283 p. (reissued under the title Cultural Heritage of Tibet in 1963 by Light-Life Publishers, then in 1978 in New Delhi)
• (fr) Mœurs et coutumes des Thibétains , preface by the Earl of Ronaldshay, French translation by R. Bilot, Payot, 1930, 262 p. (French translation of the previous one)
• (en) Touring in Sikkim and Tibet , Kalimpong, 1930 (reissued in 1999 by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 142 p.)
• (en) Tibetan Tales , foreword by L. Austin Waddell, in Folklore , vol. 42, 1931 (English translation of 9 Tibetan tales)
• (en) Twenty Years in Tibet: intimate & personal experiences of the closed land among all classes of its people from the highest to the lowest, with a foreword by the Earl of Lytton , Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1932, 312 p.
• (en) Preface (with Canon CE Tyndale-Biscoe) of the book by Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet , Seeley, Service & co., 1937, viii + 294 p.
• (in) Tibet , H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1945, 31 p.
Notes and references
1. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, in Revue Tibetan Studies, Number 21, October 2011, p. 123-153, p. 137: " [...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) [...]".
2. (in) Peter Bishop , The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 195: " The lineage of British officers responsible for Tibetan affairs -- Bell, Macdonald, Richardson, Bailey, Weir, Williamson, Gould -- provided the backbone around which British contact with Tibet was organized."
3. Jeanne Masedo de Filipis, Tibet and the West, in Lhasa, place of the divine, ss the dir. by Françoise Pommaret, Olizane, 1997, pp. 19-34, p. 32: "This is how David Macdonald and Sir Charles Bell, the only foreigners admitted to live in Lhasa in 1921, became fine observers of the culture of Tibet, which through their publications they finally made accessible to Europeans."
4. (in) H. Louis Fader, Called from obscurity: the life and times of a true son of Tibet, God's humble servant from Poo, Gergan Dorje Tharchin: with particular attention given to his good friend and illustrious co-laborer in the Gospel Sadhu Sundar Singh of India, Volume 2 , Tibet Mirror Press, 2004 ( ISBN 9993392200 and 9789993392200), p. 54: "Macdonald [...] had not always been an adherent of the Christian faith. In fact, early in his primary education at Darjeeling, where he was born in 1873, he was first introduced [...] the religious "tenets" and "form of Buddhism, known as Lamaism, which is practiced in the Eastern Himalayas. [...] Tharchin himself, commenting much later in the 1970s, provides some interesting background information on Macdonald's subsequent Christian "missionary" activity and service. He, along with David Woodward, could report that Macdonald was led to Christ ... by Fredrik Franson of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission."
5. (in) David B. Woodward, Have a Cup of Tea Tibetan, 2003: "Yatung, Tibet, and as a Christian he started a small church there."
6. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "Macdonald's Father, a Scottish tea-planter, had left India when Macdonald was six years old. He did, however, leave Macdonald's mother, a Lepcha, well provided-for, with the then-generous sum of twenty rupees a month for David's education."
7. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "She dressed him as a Tibetan in order to enroll him in the Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling."
8. (in) Introducing Twenty Years in Tibet [archive], on the site indiaclub.com: "He joined the Dept. Immunization under the Govt. of Bengal and his duties entailed making regular tours of the villages in the Darjeeling Dist. The twelve years that the author thus spent gave him a comprehensive insight into the manners and customs, and everyday lives, of the peasantry of this part in the Himalayas."
9. (in) Foreword to Tibetan Tales, in Folklore, Vol. 42, No. 2, Jun. 30, 1931, p. 178: "I have known Mr. Macdonald intimately ever since, over forty years ago, he was a Dux boy in the Government High School in Darjeeling, and was recommended to me by the Headmaster, through his training in literary Tibetan and knowledge of the Tibetan vernacular, as a promising assistant in my researches into the great body of the Tibetan sacred canonical books and commentaries, and into Tibetan customs, floating traditions, and superstitions. Latterly, he was my official assistant, in the Lhasa Mission of 1904 in the task of collecting, classifying, and cataloging for the British National Libraries the greatest collection of Tibetan books, sacred and secular, that ever reached Europe before or since that expedition. As a result of this unusual acquaintance with the Tibetan religion, language and customs, and his business ability."
10. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xviii: "David Macdonald, who had become a devout Christian".
11. (in) Alexander McLeish, The Frontier Peoples of India [archive], Mittal Publications, 1984, p. 183.
12. (in) Jina Prem Singh, "AH Francke's contribution in the Cultural History of Ladakh," pp. 43-52 in Jina Prem Singh (ed.), Recent Researches on the Himalaya, New Delhi, Indus Publishing, 1997, p. 44.
13. (in) Michael Carrington, Officers, Gentlemen and Thieves: The Looting of Monasteries During the 1903/4 Younghusband Mission to Tibet in Modern Asian Studies, 37, 1 (2003), pp. 81–109: “[L. Austin] Waddell then, would be the perfect man for the job of Chief Medical Officer to the Tibet mission and after representations to the Government of India was chosen to be the official collector of materials for the British Museum. He was to be assisted by David Macdonald, an employee of the Government of India, Macdonald was the son of a Scot with a Sikkimise mother and he would be extremely useful as he spoke fluent Tibetan."
14. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, op. cit., p. 137: "[...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) 71 who writes,"in January 1905 I was sent to Calcutta to categorize books and treasures, which others and I gathered in Tibet and were brought back using more than 400 mules. They included Buddhist classics, statues of Buddha, religious works, helmets, weapons, books, and ceramics. The bulk of ceramics were sent to specialists for examination. All these treasures were formerly preserved in the India Museum, where I worked, and later in the British Museum, the Indian Museum, the Bodleian Library and the Indian Administrative Library.”
15. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xvi: "Macdonald first served as a translator on the Younghusband mission."
16. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: " Macdonald became favorably known to most of the significant figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoided being identified with either of the factions that developed among its officers."
17. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Clearly a capable and talented man, Macdonald attracted the favor of a number of senior British officials, of whom Bell was to be the most significant. Being of mixed race, Macdonald was in particular need of this patronage to overcome the Raj's prejudice against 'Anglo-Indians'."
18. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Bell offered the position to the Anglo-Sikkimese David Macdonald, a quiet and modest man [...]."
19. (in) Barbara Crossette, The great hill station of Asia, Vol. 1938, 1998, 259 p. : "David Macdonald, who for twenty years in the first quarter of the twentieth century was the British trade agent in Tibet and later the empire's representative in Sikkim [...]."
20. (in) Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong [archive], on the website India Travelite: "Prior à son retirement he served as Briefly Britain's Political Officer in Sikkim, in support of Britain's relationship with Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. "
21. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 232: " D. Macdonald takes up post July 1909. Macdonald then served at Yatung, without official leave, until his retirement in October 1924."
22. (in) Alex McKay, The History of Tibet: The modern period: from 1895 to 1959, the encounter with modernity, 1904-1947 , pp. 417: "he became Yatung Trade Agent in 1909, and remained serving there and in Gyantse until 1924. He was Political Officer [in] Sikkim for four months in 1921."
23. Joëlle Désiré-Marchand, Alexandra David-Néel, life and travel: geographic routes, 2009, 700 p., P. 445.
24. Jean Chalon, The Luminous Destiny of Alexandra David-Néel, Perrin Academic Bookstore, 1985.
25. Biography (part 6 [archive], on the alexandra-david-neel.org website
26. (in) Peter Bishop, The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 201: "In 1925 Edwyn Schary, an American struggled desperately across Tibet in search of the famed Mahatmas. Macdonald, the British trade agent at Gyantse, described his arrival: 'One evening at dusk, a begrimed and filthily clad figure covered with festering sores crawled up to the main gate of the Gyantse fort -- he was really in a terrible condition, verminous, ill-nourished, and really very ill.'"
27. (in) Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet, Seeley, Service & Co., 1937, viii + 294 pp., Preface by David Macdonald (with Canon CE Tyndale Biscoe).
28. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 100: "Perry's problems inevitably began to involve his father-in-law [...]. News emerged that Macdonald had written to the Dalai Lama in 1923 asking him to employ Perry in the newly-formed Lhasa Police Force. [...] he was censured for his attempt to find Perry work with the Lhasa Police and it was decided to reintroduce the system of having separate agents at Yatung and Gyantse, with Macdonald reverting to the lower ranked post at Yatung."
29. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 132: “Early in May 1924, 'Derrick' Williamson arrived in Gyantse to replace the long-serving David Macdonald, who was retiring. But six weeks passed before Macdonald could hand-over to his successor, who was suffering from a near-fatal fever. "
30. (in) The Spectator, Vol. 142, 1929: "Lord Ronaltlshay tells us in a preface that Mr. David Macdonald, the author of The Land of the Lama (Seeley, Services, 21 s.), Saved the Dalai Lama's life in 1909 [...]"
31. (en) C. Mabel Rickmers, The Land of the Lama, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, January 1930, 62, 180-182: "When compelled to flee to India in 1909, it was to Macdonald that His Holiness owed his safe passage over the frontier, a fact he has never forgotten."
32. (in) Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso [archive]
33. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier cadre, 1904-1947, op. cit., p. 68: "Bell did invite David Macdonald to join him in Lhasa for Christmas 1920, without asking permission from Delhi. Macdonald spent a month in Lhasa and had several meetings with the Dalai Lama. But the Government of India was reluctant to allow too many officials to visit the Tibetan capital. When they discovered where Macdonald was, he was ordered to return to Yatung."
34. (en) Robert Croston, Robert Roaf, in British Medical Journal , 2007: "[Sikkim, 1936] Kalimpong, where they put up at the Himalayan Hotel -- the family house of David Macdonald, now an old man and former Trade Agent Gyantse, Tibet."
35. History of the Himalayan Hotel [archive]: "The Himalayan Hotel, whose building was built in the style of English cottages [...]. David Macdonald erected the main building in 1925."
36. Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong, op. cit.: "After he retired, with his large family grown up, Macdonald turned the family home into a Hotel, and it has remained in the Macdonald family ever since. [...] The great names of the region have all been guests here. [...] it has also played host to Mme Alexandra David-Neel, Charles Bell, and many of the other British officials who traveled to Tibet in the first half of the twentieth century, as well to other Tibetologists such as Prince Peter of Greece, Rinchen Dolma Taring, authoress of “Daughter of Tibet”, Dr. Joseph Rock, Heinrich Harrer, author of “Seven Years in Tibet”, Sir Basil Gould, formerly Political Officer, Sikkim [...]."
37. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 134: "Macdonald [...] made several attempts in the 1930's and '40's to return to Tibet in an official capacity. [...] Macdonald recalled that in 1931, when he asked for permission to visit Gyantse, Weir replied that [...] he could not see his way to giving me permission."
38. (in) Toni Schmid, David Macdonald, in Ethnos, volumes 28 to 29, Routledge On Behalf of the National Museum of Ethnography, 1963, p. 254: “Friday July 6th 1962 David Macdonald died at Darjeeling. He was 89. His was a remarkable life. His ancestry was Scotch-Lepcha, and he married Alice Curtis, who was of English-Sherpa origin."
39. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "David (born Dorje) Macdonald became Christian under the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Nepalese Alice Curtis, and entered local government service."
40. (in) Preface of Cultural heritage of Tibet, Light & Life Publishers, 1978, 267 pages, p. xv: “However his magnum opus was the 'Land of the Lama'. It deals with the country and its people in all its physical, social, cultural, historical, administrative and economic aspects. It is in fact an encyclopaedia on Tibet which has been freely used by the later writers."
41. Michael Buckley, in his tourist guide (in) Shangri-la: A Travel Guide to the Himalayan Dream (.. Bradt Travel Guides, 2008, p 191, p 127) hypothesizes that Heinrich Harrer, who stayed at Macdonald Darjeeling, was inspired by the title Twenty Years in Tibet for his own book Seven Years in Tibet: "Heinrich Harrer started writing his text, Seven Years in Tibet, after he departed Tibet in 1950 (see pages 92-3). He might have got the idea for the title from a book on the shelves [at Himalaya Hotel]: Twenty Years in Tibet, by David Macdonald, who was the British Agent in Tibet in the early 20th century."
42. (en) English Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary, 1920, preface: "And most of all are my thanks due to Mr. David McDonald, who has revised this book throughout and to whose unrivalled knowledge of both colloquial and literary Tibetan are largely due."
43. (en) Presentation of a reprint of Twenty Years in Tibet [archive]: “Having spent two decades in Tibet as British Trade Agent from 1905 to 1925, he gained the expertise of several languages., Viz. Bhutanese, Sikkimese, Bengali, Lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. [...] Macdonald had academic links with Sikkim Gazetteer, the Linguistic Survey of India and Tibetan Translation of the New Testament."