In 1972, I was appointed as the Librarian at Tibet House, New Delhi. This was my first experience working in an office setting and required sitting at the desk whether or not there was any work to do. The job was mainly of a custodian of the manuscripts and books. An additional task given to me was to write the introduction to each volume of Bodong Panchen’s collected works being reprinted by Tibet House under the title Encyclopedia Tibetica. I wrote introductions to 38 volumes of this encyclopaedia. The exercise was useful to me because it made me read and study commentaries in Tibetan on tantric texts.
The library was a small room on the top floor of 16 Lodhi Road, Jor Bagh. There were few visitors apart from one or two staff members from the Hungarian Embassy, our next-door neighbour, and a young researcher from Poland. In those days both these were communist countries. I was quite impressed by the discipline of these people. The Hungarians were looking for some material about the pioneer Hungarian Tibetologist Csoma de Koros. The person from Poland, Piotr Klafkoski, was studying Tibetan. Later he went to Dharamsala where he married a Tibetan girl.
Tibet House was then considered a prestigious institution, mainly because it functioned under His Holiness’s directions. Rev. Tara, His private secretary, was extremely effective in carrying out His Holiness’s orders, in the right spirit. When I joined Tibet House as the librarian, there was no director. The secretary (then called general secretary) functioned as the executive head of the institution. There had been directors earlier. The first was Domo Geshe Rinpoche who later went to the USA and settled there till his death. Dagyab Kyabgon Rinpoche was also a director. He moved to Germany to work as an academic at the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Studies at the University of Bonn. After retiring he established a Tibet House in Germany. This Tibet House was established by a Tibetan, unlike most Tibet Houses which have mushroomed everywhere.
Dr Nirmal Chandra Sinha was appointed the director while I was the librarian at Tibet House. A professor of Tibetology, he was the only non-Tibetan director. I was quite amused because he came in the morning, sat in his office the whole day without having any interaction with the staff, and left in the evening. Once when he wanted the office to buy him a dictionary, I remember the cashier Kungo Ngawang Rigdol complaining about this man who shut himself in the room like a prisoner and demanded expensive books.
The problem, as I now understand, was the lack of a job description for the director. I still don’t know what was the thinking behind his appointment. He was a well-known scholar in Buddhist studies, who had worked on the Kalachakra Tantra. He could have compiled a publication of great academic value. But he did not last long in Tibet House. Later, he became the director of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Sikkim for two terms, where he produced some publications on Tibetan iconography.
In those days, the main activity of Tibet House was the emporium. It was a commercial venture which was managed by the general secretary, Mrs Gelek. Jampa Tsultrim, a monk from Gaden Jangtse Monastery, was in charge of the museum. He was quarrelsome and we often heard him shouting at the top of his voice at the secretary for some reason or the other. This was a source of amusement for me.
I recollect His Holiness visiting Tibet House one day and walking into the library. I happened to be reading a commentary by Khedub Je on the Haivajratantra. His Holiness just enquired which scripture it was and seemed to be pleased to know what I was reading. His interest and manner of enquiry left me feeling very fortunate.
Working in the Tibet House was a completely new experience for me. It was also a challenge because my lifestyle shifted from the study of Buddhist teachings to providing service in an establishment. Without noticing, I was being gradually dragged forward on a path which would not be easy to retrace.
I started feeling that the lifestyle of a city was not conducive for someone of my background, which was predominantly monastic. I had the option of going to Karnataka as the Buxa Duar camp was being remodelled once again, this time along the lines of a traditional monastery. All the monasteries had shifted to Karnataka from Buxa Duar. As I had already deviated from monastic study to a different path, at that time it did not seem appropriate to go to south India. I requested His Holiness’s office to shift me to another position. The reply was prompt. Rev. Tara asked me to wait until a replacement was found for my current position.
Around that time I came in touch with Prof Lal Mani Joshi, a very learned scholar with a modern outlook. Among Indian scholars in Buddhism in those days, it was rare to find an English-speaking scholar and Prof Joshi was one of those rare beings. He was working at the Punjabi University in Patiala near the foothills of the Himalayas. He tried to interest me in some research at his university. An additional advantage, I could see, was the proximity to the German Buddhist monk, Bhikkhu Pasadika, who was doing research with Joshi. Well versed in Sanskrit, Pali and many European languages, Bhikkhu Pasadika also had a working knowledge of Chinese, Vietnamese and Tibetan. Apart from his scholarship, he was a real Bhikkhu. He never indulged himself in worldly affairs such as craving for name, fame, power or money. At one time he advised me to go to a forest monastery in Thailand and do some research as well as meditation, but I lacked the courage to take the decision. He is a shining example of the combination of scholarship and saintly qualities.
Meanwhile, I wrote to Gyatso Tsering, the director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala, asking if I could get a research position there. He wrote back promptly to say that at the moment there was no vacancy, but I should contact them if I visited Dharamsala.
After some time, a letter from LTWA arrived inviting me to join them. However, I had to remain in Tibet House for some months until Gala Tulku came to take over the work from me. He asked me to stay for some more time to help him become familiar with the nature of the work. I agreed to that. His main worry was about writing the introductions to the Bodong publications. To my utter surprise, after some days he decided to quit the post. So he left before I could leave! I had to remain in Delhi some time longer. Donthog Tulku, who had been in Tibet House earlier, was then appointed to look after the library and it was to him that I handed over my responsibilities.
When I joined the LTWA, I was given a large, empty desk and a chair in a huge room called the “manuscript room” where many bundles of woodblock print and handwritten Tibetan books were piled up. They included sets of the Kangyur and Tengyur.
The change of job suited me well. The work environment was also very conducive. Every major point of decision was reported to and consulted with the Kuyig, or the Private Office of His Holiness. There was none of the red tape prevalent today in the Tibetan society in exile.
My job was regarding the cataloguing of Tibetan manuscripts. The basic idea was to catalogue in a modern system, all the books which were in the traditional pothi format. But there was no one in Dharamsala who could give me the slightest idea as to how it might be done. Later, it occurred to me that they should have made arrangements for me to visit some of the established libraries in India holding Tibetan collections. One such place was the library attached to the Bihar Research Society in Patna. The rare collection of Tibetan manuscripts brought out of Tibet by Pandit Rahul Sankrityayana were kept there and a cataloguing system was created in which Panchen Otrul1 and some others were involved. This might not have been the perfect system but it certainly would have given me some idea about how to proceed.
There were also many other sungbums (collected works). To invent a system along the lines of the modern system of cataloguing was a big challenge for me. Something inside me made me decide to face this challenge on my own. I brought in two senior monks whom I knew to assist me in my task. One was Sangtshang Rinpoche from Gaden Shartse Monastery, who passed away a few years ago, and the other was Chomze Wangyal from my monastery, Drepung Loseling, who also passed away recently. Both were very sincere and hardworking. I made them sort out the manuscripts. The traditional method of cataloguing was just to list the titles in a particular collection. We tried to make a subject-heading system so that we might find a new way of making divisions. It was, of course, not easy because no model for such a kind of work was available, to my knowledge at least.
On the whole, the work was enjoyable and interesting because when we are facing a challenge or are given a chance to be creative, we feel satisfied with even a small achievement. After many experiments, we were able to come up with a reasonably well-organised system of subject headings. It may not have been the perfect one, but it was definitely a breakthrough in the field. Even though I created the system relying entirely on my knowledge and intuition, it has withstood the test of time and is still being used by LTWA in Dharamsala and has also been adopted by CIHTS in Sarnath, with some modifications.
Excerpted with permission from Taken Away: The Ordinary Life of a Lama, Doboom Tulku and Sudhamahi Regunathan, Bloomsbury India.
