Giuseppe’s Jeep

A screen shot from the Swat Museum’s virtual tour website

Now that the Crown Virus lockdown seems doomed to be forever, we need to find more productive ways of wasting our time indoors. Not wasting it might mean doing what a lot of the world’s museums want us to do, which is to visit them virtually, online. It may be because their employees have nothing else to do but primp up their online incarnations. If you don’t believe me just go here, and get lost in a universe of awesome art. But if you are like me you know that big metropolitan museums are not always the best, and even when they are they can be simply overwhelming, not to mention exhausting. So today I’d like to invite you to take a tour in a smaller place without much-too-much space, and with collections especially interesting to us.

By now every Tibeto-logic reader has heard the news that the Swat Valley in modern-day Pakistan is the homeland of Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava, known to Tibetans as O-rgyan or U-rgyan. If your memory is dim, as mine tends to be, try to recall that old blog, “Swat’s Good Feng Shui.”  Many know that a 13th-century Tibetan actually visited the place, and for this was rewarded with the name O-rgyan-pa.  But  besides yourself of course, few are aware that a study of O-rgyan-pa’s life was done by Giuseppe Tucci back in the ’40s already, and even fewer that Tucci involved himself in the archaeological excavations in the Swat Valley itself, excavations that continued over many decades. But I can hardly imagine how miniscule the number who could conceivably be aware that Tucci’s jeep has been made into a museum display in the newly furnished Swat Museum. Well, that’s why I’m putting out this brief blog-ette, to let everyone in on this amazing fact. That would probably be the first ever Tibetologist’s motor vehicle valued highly enough to be placed on display. Not that it has a price tag on it, it was a gift from Italy.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Tucci (1894-1985) was a man who packed a pistol wherever he went, it’s true. But that was common in those days in all parts of Central Asia, not just in Tibet. And he received financing for his expeditions from Fascist labor organizations, something we might tend to forget when we witness the poetic paeans to transcendence wresting control over his prose writings that tend at times to soar just a little too high. I’m not here to praise or condemn Tucci, not today. His super-deluxe publication called Tibetan Painted Scrolls, grandiose as it is, is still something we cannot live without, since so much of what we can find there (if we can master the alphabetic system used in the index!) has never been covered in the 80 years since. Academic Tibetan Studies has supposedly made such great strides in the mean time, but has it really?

One thing Tibetanists will be thankful for in aeons ahead is his employment of photographers, some of them what we would call multi-taskers. One was Eugenio Ghersi (1904-1997) who also served as physician on some of Tucci’s expeditions.* One of them, Francesca Bonardi, had the additional role of wife. Perhaps the most famous among them was Fosco Maraini (1912-2004), who accepted the job in 1937. He went on to write quite a lot of books and articles, some of them famously critical of Tucci, not an easy person to work with or for, no doubt about that. He published his own first book already in 1939, entitled Il Dren-Giong. Appunti di un viaggio nell’Imalaia.** Another photographer was Felice Boffa, who also made maps. For more on Tucci expedition photographs, see Nalesini’s essay listed below, or the articles by Deborah Klimburg-Salter. 

(*Subject of an obituary by D. Klimburg-Salter & D. Bellatalla, see East and West, n.s. vol. 47 [1997], pp. 435-437. **Dren-Giong is an Italian way of spelling the Tibetan name of Sikkim, ’Bras-ljongs.)

 

In closing I’ll just say this, in a spirit of constructive criticism. If the Italian people would like to make a nice gift to the Tibetan people, one worth much more than any jeep, I’d suggest open access digitization for the entire Tucci archive of not only photographs of Tibet, but also woodblock prints and manuscripts of works composed in Tibetan language. It’s high time this kind of cultural restitution became the new normal. I hesitate to use this sometimes overused word, but it surely smacks of fascism to maintain exclusive control over these cultural assets, withholding them from the endangered culture in question, for such a long, long time. Something needs to be done about this as soon as possible.*

(*And since I promised to be constructive it's clear what models ought to be followed. For supplying digital scans of Tibetan texts, nobody does it better than TBRC/BDRC recently upgraded to BUDA, to ensure they will be available to the interested public worldwide. For photographs of Tibetan and Himalayan subjects, follow the pattern of The Tibet Album and their collection of British photographs from the early 20th century.)

Tucci enjoying high Tibetan tea

Books and Articles in Print (or Printable, or Readable On-Screen)

I’ve mostly listed here scholastic publications put out in his honor, or in order to criticize him, obituaries, and some literature concerned with his photographers. Some of these things I mention just because they can be damnedly difficult to locate in a library, let alone online. For much more bibliography than I will provide here, see East and West, n.s. vol. 34, nos. 1-3 (Sept. 1984), pp. 23-42, or most recently Oscar Nalesini, Giuseppe Tucci’s Chronological Bibliography, Scienze e Lettere (Rome 2018).

Atti del convegno internazionale di studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci (Macerata 1998).

Gustavo Benavides, “Giuseppe Tucci, or Buddhology in the Age of Fascism,” contained in: Donald S. Lopez Jr., ed., Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, University of Chicago Press (Chicago 1995), pp. 161-196.

A.A. Di Castro and David Templeman, Asian Horizons: Giuseppe Tucci’s Buddhist, Indian, Himalayan and Cental Asian Studies, Serie Orientale Roma CVI, Monash University Publishing (Melbourne 2015). Quite a diverse set of essays by various authors as we expect from conference-based publications.

G. Gnoli & L. Lanciotti, Orientalia Iosephi Tucci Memoriae Dicata, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome 1988), in three volumes.

Gururâjamañjarikâ: Studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci, vol. 1 (Naples 1974).

Felice Boffa, “La spedizione italiana al Tibet (1939),” Bollettino del Club Alpina Italiano, vol. 45 (1946), pp. 126-152. Felice Boffa-Ballaran (1897-1994) was Tucci’s map maker and photographer.

Alice Crisanti, “Il memoriale di Giuseppe Tucci,” Quaderni di Storia, vol. 41, no. 81 (Jan. 2015), pp. 267-276.  Starting in July 1944, Tucci was about to be purged from the academy because of his commitments to the fascist regime. Here can be found transcribed a document Tucci wrote in his own defense, dated Nov. 20, 1944.

Mircea Eliade, “Giuseppe Tucci (1895-1984),” History of Religions, vol. 24, no. 2 (Nov. 1984), p. 157 ff.

Enrica Garzilli, Mussolini's Explorer: The Adventures of Giuseppe Tucci and Italian Policy in the Orient from Mussolini to Andreotti — With the Correspondence of Giulio Andreotti. This book is on my list of things to read, but I don't have any access to it yet.

 

Raniero Gnoli, Ricordo di Giuseppe Tucci, Con contributi di Luciano Petech, Fabio Scialpi, Giovanna Galluppi Vallauri, ISMEO (Rome 1985), 79 pp.

R. Hadl, “Zu Giuseppe Tuccis Bericht über seine Expedition nach West-Tibet, MCMXXXIII (1933),” Artibus Asiae, vol. 5 (1935), pp. 278-287.  PDF.  On Tucci’s expedition in western Tibet in 1933.

Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, “The Tucci Himalayan Archive,” East and West, vol. 41 (1991), pp. 379-384.  About photographs, etc. from Tucci’s expeditions.

Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, Oscar Nalesini, and Talamo Giulia, Inventory of the Tucci Photographic Archives, 1926-1936 (Western Himalayas, Nepal, Tibet), Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome 1994).

Simeon Koole, “Photography as Event: Power, the Kodak Camera & Territoriality in Early Twentieth-Century Tibet,” Comparative Studies in Society & History, vol. 59, no. 2 (2017), pp. 310-345.

Rob Mayer, “Uḍḍiyāna, the North West, and Treasure: Another Piece in the Jigsaw?” posted at Kîla Kîlaya blog (July 15, 2020).  Look for it here.  Uḍḍiyāna is U-rgyan is Swat Valley, it seems fairly sure to us.

Oscar Nalesini, “Pictures from the Roof of the World: Reorganization of the Giuseppe Tucci Photographic Archives,” East and West,  vol. 44, no. 1 (March 1994), pp. 185-210.

Bhikkhu Nanajivako, “The Technicalisation of Buddhism: Fascism and Buddhism in Italy, Giuseppe Tucci - Julius Evola,” Buddhist Studies Review, vol. 6, no. 1 (1989), pp. 27-38; vol. 6, no. 2 (1989), pp. 102-115; vol. 7, no. 1-2 (1990), pp. 3-17.

Luciano Petech, “Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984),” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (1984), pp. 137-142.

Ramon Prats, “Giuseppe Tucci e il Tibet,” contained in: F. D’Arelli, ed., Le Marche e l’Oriente: Una tradizione ininterrotta da Matteo Ricci a Giuseppe Tucci, Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (Rome 1998), pp. 306-316.

Giuseppe Tucci, Cronaca della missione scientifica Tucci nel Tibet occidentale (1933), Reale Academia d’Italia (Roma 1934).  Coauthored with Eugenio Ghersi. English tr. published as Secrets of Tibet, Being the Chronicle of the Tucci Scientific Expedition to Western Tibet (1933), Blackie (London 1935), in 210 pp.  

Giuseppe Tucci, Travels of Tibetan Pilgrims in the Swat Valley, The Greater India Society  (Calcutta 1940). Unless you’re a total vegan I recommend the leather-bound versions available in India even now. It is really Tucci’s most enduringly fascinating accomplishment if you were to ask me.

I almost forgot what I set out to do, but I do much recommend visiting the Swat Museum’s website.  Just go here:

https://www.kparchaeology.com/virtual_tours/swat/

then aim a click at the middle of the screen and see where it takes you.  See you later, don’t get lost, have a nice trip!

Tibschol Downloadable

This is just a brief message to announce Tibschol (Tibetan Scholarship Bibliography) has today been made available to the public for the first time ever. This is a bibliography of works (primarily journal articles, but also books, etc.) about Tibet primarily in English (and Western European languages). What that means is that it will probably be of use to a larger number of persons than the more specialized Tibskrit, which I circulated once again not so very long ago.

 (I should add that the 2009 version is available HERE and HERE).  [Sorry, these links have expired as of Sept. 2014; try doing an internet search for "Tibskrit" and it should be findable)

Some people might think that the power of internet searches has done away with the usefulness of bibliographies such as this. I don't agree. If you think it's true, I recommend that you download Tibschol and make use of it along with your internet searches and let me know the outcome of your experiment.

I will first wish you all happy holidays, safe travel, tolerable weather, good health, and happy times with people you like to be with and who feel great having you around!

Here is a long quote from the introduction followed by the download links (which should be active for the forseeable future).

This bibliography covers primarily Tibetan studies, and only secondarily Nepalese/Himalayan and general Buddhist studies. To anticipate your next question, No, this isn't a proper bibliography in the sense that I have personally inspected every single item listed here. In fact, one of the motivations, in the beginning at least, was to keep references to articles and books that I would have liked very much, but hadn't so far been able, to see. Still, the overwhelming majority of entries do indeed result from my direct perception of the publications in question.

A few, but not many, general anthropological articles, or otherwise not especially relevant items, are included. I hope this won't irritate anyone.

Articles in non-Tibetan languages are the main emphasis, although I have included Tibetan language articles that have appeared in the proceedings of the IATS (International Association of Tibetan Studies).

I include as well Euro-American books that would very likely not be readily available in local libraries, which means in particular older and less-known travel literature, books by members of the Younghusband Expedition and the like.

There is some, but not very much, missionary, mountaineering and specialized geological literature (these have never been at the center of my personal research interests). If these are your main interests you will proably find better bibliographies elsewhere.

The word 'scholarship' in the title is used loosely, with the intention that the emphasis should be on articles in specialized periodicals and collective publications of some degree of scholarly repute; the secondary emphasis is on works that, regardless of (or because of) the metaphysical/materialist assumptions or the methodologies employed, ought to be interesting to serious researchers and academics. (Inclusion here does not mean I approve of or otherwise endorse the content. Sometimes the very badness of a publication is enough to make it interesting or remarkable.)

As far as general Buddhist studies are concerned, the emphasis is on published texts and translations of individual Kanjur and Tanjur works (although a separate bibliography, with diacritic marks, which supplies greater coverage for these has been made, entitled "Tibskrit Philology." It has already been available for free download on the internet, the link given above).

There is less emphasis on East and Southeast Asian and Sri Lankan Buddhism, and on general Indological works (a bit stronger on Central Asian and Indian Buddhism).

References to literature in Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Russian languages are all given at second hand. Be warned.

American master's theses and doctoral dissertations are usually, but not always, accompanied with their UMI (University Microfilms International) purchasing numbers.

I estimate that there are at present at least 17,000 entries. Hence it would seem to be larger than Halvard K. Kuløy & Yoshiro Imaeda, Bibliography of Tibetan Studies, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1986), which contains 11,822 entries. (There is, however, much in the Kuløy/Imaeda bibliography that is not included here, and vice versa; I have only on occasion made use of the Kuløy bibliography while making my own, so one ought to consult both bibliographies.)

Unfortunately, the bibliographical database "Karma dgon Tibetan Bibliography: by Erwan Temple has according to my latest information been "deactivated." It was once available at this website: http://www.bibliographietibet.org/. Although it was only possible to search through keywords or author names (and impossible to see the entire bibliography all at once), it was (and probably is) a quite extensive listing (one source estimated it had about 40,000 records!). If it were still available, or if it eventually becomes available again, I would certainly suggest using it as an alternative place to turn in order to find things that are not to be found here, or as a way of verifying or filling out bibliographic details.

I am aware of a few other major bibliographic resources, but since these are only supplied in return for payment, I will not advertise them here. I have neither purchased nor made use of any of them.

If you are fortunate to have a good research library nearby, it is likely it will have the otherwise quite expensive book by Julie G. Marshall, Britain and Tibet, 1765-1947: A Select Annotated Bibliography of British Relations with Tibet and the Himalayan States including Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, Routledge/Curzon (New York 2004). As may be known from the subtitle, this is a specialized bibliography. I sometimes wish I owned a copy.

For more bibliographical resources for Tibetan studies, see this link.

Diacritics: Please note that certain diacritical marks in common use for Sanskrit transcriptions have simply been omitted (for typographical reasons going back to the time the bibliography was first started, but also because these may not translate into different software environments unless they are equipped for Unicode fonts). Hence, both ´s ('s' with slash mark above, in case it doesn't display properly) and .s ('s' with dot below) are represented by simple 's' (except where the original title in fact uses the 'sh' spelling). Dots above or below 'h,' 'n' or 'm' are omitted. For an example: Astamangalakamâla, in which the 2nd & 3rd letters ought to have dots beneath, and the 7th letter a dot above. Length-marks are represented by "ˆ" above the lower-case vowel, but omitted above capitalized vowels (example: Acârya, in which the initial letter ought to have a length-mark, but does not).

In order to make word searches more effective, Tibetan-language proper names & book titles have been repeated in my own preferred way of transcribing them (employing Wylie system with dashes), and "keywords" (which may include proper names) have often been added (especially when the title is in a language other than English).

So if you are ready for it, go to Tibschol by pressing HERE and following he links you will find there.  In any case, have fun with it. It is free and will continue to be free forever.

TIBSCHOL is unfortunately unavailable at the moment (September 2010), but I will try to have a working link up again soon.