Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup (17 June 1868 – 22 March 1922) is now best known as one of the first translators of important works of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
into the English language and a pioneer central to the transmission of
Buddhism in the West
Buddhism in the West (or more narrowly Western Buddhism) broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia in the Western world. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occu ...
. From 1910 he also played a significant role in relations between
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
and
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
.
Biography
Kazi Dawa Samdup was born in
Sikkim
Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Siligur ...
on 17 June 1868. His father was Shalngo Nyima Paljor of the Guru Tashi clan. On the
death of his mother, his father remarried and had three more sons and two daughters from his second wife.
Kazi Dawa Samdup's education began at the age of four learning the Tibetan script from his grandfather. In 1874 he joined the Bhutia Boarding School in Darjeeling where he impressed the headmaster Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Das. His Tibetan teacher was Ugyen Gyatso, a lama from the Pemayangtse monastery in West Sikkim.
After finishing school, he joined the service of British India as Chief Interpreter to the Commissioner of Raj Shahi Division and was posted to Buxaduar which was then part of
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
. During his stay in Bhutan, he became a pupil of a learned and ascetic lama, Lopen Tshampa Norbu (Slob dpon Mtshams pa Nor bu) d. 1916 of
Punakha
Punakha ( dz, སྤུ་ན་ཁ་) is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. It is abo ...
from whom he received initiation and instruction. Although he was interested in taking up a monastic life, at the request of his father, he married and later had two children, one son and a daughter.
When his father died he also became responsible for looking after his stepmother, and younger siblings. (Of the three younger half-brothers he took care of, the first would later become a lecturer of
Calcutta University
The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, C ...
, the second would be the prime minister of the king, and the third, "Sikkim Mahinda", joined the Buddhist priesthood in
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
and was an important figure in the Sri Lankan independence movement, and a well-known Sinhala poet and author.)
At that time the Chogyal of Sikkim, Sir Thutob Namgyal, was looking for a headmaster, who could teach both Tibetan and English, for the state Bhutia Boarding School for boys at
Gangtok
Gangtok is a city, municipality, the capital and the largest populated place of the Indian state of Sikkim. It is also the headquarters of the East Sikkim district, Gangtok District. Gangtok is in the eastern Himalayas, Himalayan range, at an e ...
and Kazi Dawa Samdup was proposed for this post by the Crown Prince Sidkeong Tulku. He also undertook the compilation and translation of the ''Sikkim Gazette'' for the Maharaja.
In 1905, he accompanied the Maharaja of Sikkim to
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
for the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
In 1910, he acted as interptetor to
Sir Charles Bell
Sir Charles Bell (12 November 177428 April 1842) was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in the s ...
and the 13th Dalai Lama during the later's visit to India.
In 1911 he accompanied the Maharaja of Sikkim to
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
for the
coronation Durbar
The Delhi Durbar ( lit. "Court of Delhi") was an Indian imperial-style mass assembly organized by the British at Coronation Park, Delhi, India, to mark the succession of an Emperor or Empress of India. Also known as the Imperial Durbar, it wa ...
of
King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...
.
In 1912 Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal entrusted his ''"confidante and spiritual sister"''
Alexandra David-Néel
Alexandra David-Néel (born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David; 24 October 1868 – 8 September 1969) was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer. She is most known for her 1924 visit to Lh ...
to Kazi Dawa Samdup to be her a guide, interpreter and teacher of Tibetan. He accompanied her to
Kalimpong
Kalimpong (Hindi: कलिम्पोंग) is a town and the headquarters of an eponymous district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located at an average elevation of . The town is the headquarters of the Kalimpong district. The re ...
where she went to meet the 13th Dalai Lama on 15 April 1912. At that time they also met, in the waiting room,
Ekai Kawaguchi
(February 26, 1866 – February 24, 1945) was a Japanese Buddhist monk who was famed for his four journeys to Nepal (in 1899, 1903, 1905 and 1913) and two to Tibet (July 4, 1900–June 15, 1902, 1913–1915). He was the first recorded J ...
from Japan.
In 1914, he again acted as an interpreter and translator for Sir Charles Bell during the historic
Simla Convention
The Simla Convention, officially the Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet, on the Indo-Tibet Border signed between India,
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
and China.
In 1920, he was appointed teacher in Tibetan at the University of Calcutta.
Kazi Dawa Samdup died in Calcutta on 22 March 1922.
Work with W. Y. Evans-Wentz
Kazi Dawa Samdup is probably best known for his path-breaking translations of Tibetan texts which were later edited and published by W. Y. Evans-Wentz.
Partial bibliography
*''A Tibetan Funeral Prayer''. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, n.s. vol. 12 (1916), pp. 147–159. – Includes Tibetan text.
* ''An English-Tibetan Dictionary: Containing a Vocabulary of Approximately Twenty Thousand Words with their Tibetan Equivalents''. Calcutta, The Baptist Mission Press, 1919. — This dictionary is significant because it contains some Sikkimese and
Dzongkha
Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...
Matthew Kapstein
Matthew T. Kapstein is a scholar of Tibetan religions, Buddhism, and the cultural effects of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He is Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Director of Tibetan ...
, this is ''"without doubt the Tibetan work best known in the West and in the three-quarters of a century since its initial translation it has won a secure place for itself in the Religious Studies canon."''
* Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa
* Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines
With Sir John Woodroffe:
*''Shrîchakrasambhâra Tantra: A Buddhist Tantra (Dem-chog Tantra)''. First published in 1918–1919. The title is misleading since it is not in fact a translation of the Cakrasamvara Tantra – but is a translation of a Tibetan sadhana of Chakrasambhâra.
Unpublished Works:
Sources
*
* Samdup, Dasho P. "A Brief Biography of Kazi Dawa Samdup" in Bulletin of Tibetology
Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup – at Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
* Taylor, Kathleen . ''"Sir John Woodroffe, Tantra And Bengal: An Indian Soul In A European Body?"''. Routledge, 2001, .
* Cuevas, Bryan J. ''"Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead"''. Oxford University Press, 2005,