In memoriam: Theodore Duka, 1825-1908. : A lecture read before the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, October 27, 1913 / by M. Aurel Stein.

  • Stein, Aurel, Sir, 1862-1943.
Date:
1914
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: In memoriam: Theodore Duka, 1825-1908. : A lecture read before the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, October 27, 1913 / by M. Aurel Stein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    he turned up at the hill-station of Subathu, near Kasauli, at the close of 1824, Moorcroft’s letter and the convincing evidence of his own single-hearted devotion to the task he had undertaken soon secured for him from Govern- ment what little he needed to provide for his singularly modest sustenance while pursuing his labours. The years during which, thus supported, he continued his researches in the peaceful retirement of a Besarh village until 1830, were probably the happiest of his life. There an eye-witness. Dr. Gerard, himself a great Himalayan explorer, describes him as ‘ living in the most frugal manner and taking no interest in any object around him except his literary avocationsThen followed his move to Calcutta, where he laboured for years to redeem what he considered his pledge to Government by preparing and printing his Tibetan dictionary and grammar. Duka’s painstaking researches enable us to call up vividly the picture of the strange, sequestered life he had under the historic roof of the Bengal Asiatic Society’s buildings, respected by all, but accessible only to the few Orientalist scholars, like Wilson and Prinsep, of whom the Indian capital could then boast. On a salary which he persistently refused to have raised above the mere pittance of fifty rupees per mensem, he managed to effect savings, and used them for endowing modest scholarships in his distant home-land. Much has been said of the hardships which Csoma faced during that first winter in his monastic cell of Zanskar. But I have reasons for doubting whether that experience in the healthy if bitterly cold climate of Tibet could possibly have tried Csoma’s constitution and powers of endurance so much as the long years passed in voluntary imprisonment in the steamy heat of what may justly be described as the tropical suburb of London. We must feel grateful, too, to Duka for having unearthed for us those scanty fragments of conversations and notes which prove that by the side of his solid Tibetan researches Csoma never abandoned his old dream of penetrating to those Central-Asian regions where he had hoped to search for his Hungarian and supposed Hun ancestors’ traces.