Sándor Kőrösi Csoma
| Alexander Csoma de Kőrös | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
27 March 1784 Kőrös, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary |
| Died | 11 April 1842 (aged 58) Darjeeling, India |
| Occupation | Linguist, philologist, traveller |
Sándor Csoma de Kőrös (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈʃaːndor ˈkøːrøʃi ˈt͡ʃoma]; 27 March 1784/8 – 11 April 1842), born Csoma Sándor (Csoma being the family name) was a Hungarian philologist and Orientalist, author of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book. He was called Phyi-glin-gi-grwa-pa in Tibetan, meaning "the foreign pupil" and was given the title of Bosatsu or Boddhisatva (Buddhist sainthood) by the Japanese in 1933. He was born in Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania (today Chiuruş, Romania). His birth date is often given as 4 April, although this is actually his baptism day and the year of his birth is debated by some authors who put it at 1787 or 1788 rather than 1784. The Magyar ethnic group, the Székelys, to which he belonged believed that they were derived from a branch of Attila's Huns who had settled in Transylvania in the fifth century. Hoping to study the claim and to find the place of origin of the Székelys and the Magyars by studying language kinship, he set off to Asia in 1820 and spent his lifetime studying the Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy. Csoma de Kőrös is considered as the founder of Tibetology. He was said to have been able to read in seventeen languages. He died in Darjeeling while attempting to make a trip to Lhasa in 1842 and a memorial was erected in his honour by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Csoma de Kőrös was born (Parish register record of 4 April 1784 was noted by Duka but others think this might be the baptization date and the year 1787/1788 is suggested by other authors) into a poor Székely family, as the sixth child of András Csoma and his wife, Krisztina Getse (Ilona Göcz). His name in English would be written as Alexander Csoma of Koros and in Hungarian as Kőrösi Csoma Sándor where Kőrösi means "of Koros" (i.e., a praedicatum of nobility) and alternate continental forms include "Sándor Csoma de Koros". His father served with the Székely Border Guards. His early schooling was at the local village school. In 1799, he went to Nagyenyed (present day Aiud) to join the boarding school Bethlen Kollégium. The education was free (so called gratistae) in return for manual labor. Here he was influenced by a Professor Samuel Hegedüs. He left the school in 1807 and continued university studies, taking an interest in history, a subject made popular by Professor Ádám Herepei. In 1815 he passed the public rigorosum his studies at the Bethlen Kollégium. A scholarship allowed him to continue studies at Göttingen where he began to learn English under Professor Fiorillo. Csoma de Kőrős also came under the influence of Professor Johann Gottfried Eichhorn.
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