20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

William Rockhill's observations of Inner Mongolian tribal rituals... 48119 th century. In 1913, he also was the first American official to go to Urga(Ulaanbaatar), Mongolia. These Mongolian travels are why ROCKHILLcan be called the “American Father of Mongolian Studies”.Before speaking about ROCKHILL’s Asian journeys, I wanted to makea few remarks this quite atypical American diplomat. Although born inPhiladelphia in 1854, he moved to Paris at 9 years old with his family afterhis father’s death. There he was educated in a French polytechnic and themilitary academy at St. Cyr. It was at the academy that he began his studiesof Asia and Asian languages under Hebrew Professor Ernest Renan at theCollege of France. ROCKHILL’s inspiration was the travelogue Souvenirsd’un voyage Dans la Tartarie about the journeys to Tibet of Catholic priestsHuc 2 and Gabet, and so he began a study of Tibetan. At 19 after hisgraduation, ROCKHILL became an officer in the French Foreign legionand spent two years in Algeria. Because he received an inheritance fromhis uncle, he returned to Philadelphia in 1875. His time in France lefthim with accented English and a style of writing in English, which seemsto be as if translated from the French. 3 Young ROCKHILL married andthen went into the cattle business in New Mexico. During the cold wintermonths at his ranch, he taught himself Sanskit and Chinese. In 1880 hepublished his first book, The Sūtra in Forty-Two Chapters translated fromthe Tibetan in the Journal of the American Orientalist. After three years asa rancher, he moved to his mother’s home in Montreaux, Switzerland totake up full time study of Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhism. He used the timeto begin correspondence with other Asian scholars in Peking and Europe,which he continued all his life. In 1882, ROCKHILL translated the TibetanUdanavarga and a few years later the first biography of Buddha in English,The Life of Buddha. 4Now, a few remarks on ROCKHILL’s years in Romania. He was the2Abbé Huc (Évariste Régis Huc) (1813-1860) was a French Vincentian Catholicmissionary who mastered Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages and traveledextensively in Inner Mongolia. After he entered Lhasa in 1846, he returned to Europe andwrote a book on his travels in 1850 entitled Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, leThibet, et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846.3ROCKHILL had a thoroughly French education and corresponded in French withsuch Asian luminaries as Henri Cordier. See Braham Norwick, “A Report on WilliamWoodville ROCKHILL, 1854-1914”, Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library, Vol. 2/1, 281-306.4The Life of the Buddha and the Early History of his Order, derived from Tibetanworks in the Bkah-hgyur and Bstan-hgyur followed by notices on the early history of Tibetand Khoten, translated by W. Woodville ROCKHILL, Trübner Oriental Series (London:Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1884) and Kenneth Wimmel, William Woodville Rockhill(2003, Bangkok: Orchid Press), 5-15.