Ágnes Kelecsényi

A Hungarian on the Silk Road

The Sir Aurel Stein Collections
in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

 

... Aurél Stein was born in Budapest, on November 26, 1862. He first attended schools in his home city, and continued his studies in Dresden, whence he returned for his final examinations in the prestigious Evangélikus Főgimnázium (Lutheran Gymnasium) in Budapest. He then went on to study under the leading scholars on India and Iran in Vienna and Leipzig, then prepared his PhD dissertation at Tübingen University, at the age of 21, under the guidance of Professor Rudolf von Roth, a great authority on Vedic language and literature. Between 1884 and 1886 he held scholarships to London, Oxford and Cambridge, where he continued his studies in the Oriental languages. In 1885 he interrupted his scholarship to spend a year on the reserve officer course of the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest. The knowledge of cartography he acquired there greatly contributed to his achievements in mapping Central Asia, which secured him fame in the history of this disclipine as well.
From 1888 he lived in India, where he was first Principal of the Oriental College, Lahore, and then also Registrar of Punjab University; after various positions in the educational service, he was employed by the Archaeological Survey of India until his retirement.
His tranquil home, a camp at an altitude of 3000 metres on Mohand Marg, Kashmir, where he stayed from spring to autumn, provided him with perfect conditions for the writing of his books, and the processing of the findings of his expeditions. His first important publication (1892) was the critical edition of the 12th-century Rajatarangini, a chronicle by the Kashmiri poet Kalhana. It was followed by an English translation (A Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir) in 1900. In the course of this work he gained a thorough knowledge of the folklore, historical geography and archaeology of Kashmir. It was from here that, in 1900, he set out on his first expedition into Central Asia. From this journey to Khotan and its region, he returned with not only valuable archaeological finds, but also priceless written relics. A popular narrative of the expedition, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, appeared in 1903, followed by the two-volume scholarly Ancient Khotan in 1907.
The second expedition took three years (1906-1908), continuing the route of the previous one further east, to the Lopnor region. It was during this expedition that he discovered and traced over 240 kilometres the westernmost remains of the Chinese limes, built in the 2nd century B.C. under the Han dynasty, to protect merchants from nomads. This was also when he made the greatest of all his discoveries: the finding of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, almost 500 cave temples carved into the sandstone walls of Tun-huang, containing thousands of square metres of frescoes, and a hidden library walled-up in the 11th century, holding, in perfect condition, thanks to the extremely dry air, tens of thousands of 5-10th-century Tibetan, Chinese, Sanskrit, Khotanese, Kuchean, Sogdian and Runic Turkish manuscripts. The finds included the oldest known printed book, a Chinese translation of the Buddhist philosophical treaties, the Diamond Sutra, dated A.D. 868, and silk paintings combining the Chinese painting of the Tang period with the Graeco-Buddhist style of Gandhara. The expedition is recounted in Ruins of Desert Cathay (1912) and in the five volumes of Serindia (1921).
In the course of the third and longest of his Central Asian expeditions, in 1913-16, he once again spanned the territories previously covered, and extended his research as far as Eastern Iran. No popular narrative was written of this journey, "merely" the four scholarly volumes of Innermost Asia (1928).
On a journey to North-Eastern India in 1926, he traced certain routes of Alexander the Great's eastern campaigns, on the basis of Antique sources. In 1929 he travelled to the United States, lecturing at the Lowell Institute, Boston. In the first half of the 1930s, he conducted excavations in Persia; in 1938, at the age of 76, he turned to the study of the Roman limes in Iraq, Syria and Transjordan-utilising aerial photography and the services of the RAF.
Nearing eighty and still vigorously active, his long-standing wish was granted and he was allowed to explore Ancient Bactria in Afghanistan. He set off immediately, but a few days after his arrival in Kabul he caught a cold and died, on October 26, 1943. His last words were: "I have had a wonderful life, and it could not be concluded more happily than in Afghanistan, which I have wanted to visit for sixty years."
A variety of scholarly societies, universities and academies heaped their honours on Aurel Stein. A British subject from 1904, he was made a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1912, and thenceforth called Sir Aurel Stein K.C.I.E. His many awards included the Back Grant and the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Julien Prize of the Académie des Inscriptions, the Flinders Petrie Medal of London University, the Lucy Wharton Medal of the University of Pennsylvania, the Gold Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He became a member of the British Academy and was an honorary doctor of, among others, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge...

... His gratitude was reflected both in his spiritual, moral and financial support of Hungarian scholars and scholarship all his life, and in the significant bequest he made to the Library. Thus he arranged to have copies of his books sent to the Library. In 1921, Stein donated his family correspondence to the Academy. The correspondence between Ernő Stein, his older brother and Professor Ignaz Hirschler, his uncle, discussing Goethe, was deposited at his request in the Goethe Room of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. At the general meeting of the Academy held on 30 January 1922, the chief librarian reported that the Library had received a copy of Stein's Serindia and gave details of a letter from Stein, dated 24 December 1921, indicating his intention to donate part of his library to the Academy. The letter starts with the words quoted above about the "fine" Library, and continues, "so I do not have to give any reason why I have bequeathed my books to the Library of the Academy in a will made many years ago. It is a rather small collection consisting of about 2,000 volumes mostly on subjects like Indian and Central Asian linguistics and archaeology.
I do not know whether this donation will be of much use to the Library. Notwithstanding, I have arranged that these books should be transported to Budapest at my expense and no terms whatsoever should prevent the Library from selling works it does not want for its own profit." The library consisted of books on the subject of Indology, Iranian studies, Central Asian linguistics and archaeology that Aurel Stein could dispense with. There were also a small number of works in Hungarian and several runs of periodicals. This first donation also contained manuscripts, including his school and university notes, notes for his Ph.D. theses, and the manuscripts for several of his own publications, for example: Memoir on the Ancient Geography of Kashmir, Jammu Sanskrit manuscripts- Rough inventory list, Notes on Rajatarangini, etc.

The second major donation was the bequest. In a will dated 28 July 1934, there were two sections which concern Hungary: he wished to bequeath his printed books to the Academy and to establish a fund to support British and Hungarian scholars in the exploration of Central Asia. The fund, known as the Stein-Arnold Fund, is still administered by the British Academy. Stein gave the following specifications.

I give all my printed books (other than those selected as hereinafter provided otherwise) to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to be added to its Library in token of my grateful rememberance of the help I received from the latter as a student and of the encouragement which the Academy accorded me as one of its Members.
I direct that in addition to my book-plate a mark or label with the suitable Latin inscription showing that the books were bequeathed by me shall, at the expense of my estate, be placed on each book before being sent to Budapest.

The instructions may have been simple, however, the execution of the will was a lengthy process, further compounded by international politics. Therefore the bequest only arrived in Budapest in October 1957, fourteen years after Aurel Stein's death. The bequest added 2300 books and offprints and 180 volumes of periodicals to the Library of the Academy.
In addition to the books, the bequest contains one Turkish, two Sanskrit and three Persian manuscipts of more recent date, and an important collection of photographs, containing over four and a half thousand photographs, many of them arranged in albums.
The bequest also contains Stein's correspondence, over 1,400 letters written between 1897 and l943, received from around 300 different persons and institutions. There are both private and official letters, and some have a carbon copy of Stein's letter or reply attached. This correspondence contains new biographical details and also the complete documentation of certain scholarly and academic problems. The rest of the bequest is diverse, comprising maps, captioned prints usually found together with the related correspondence, proof-sheets, manuscripts of some of his works, anthropometric notes, expedition invoices, diaries, photographic notebooks, diploma certificates, etc. Stein subscribed to Durrant's press-cutting service, and to the Authors' Syndicate, and there are several hundred press-cuttings on his expeditions and publications.
Aurel Stein maintained contact with eminent scholars in Hungary, all his life seeking their opinion and in many cases helping them to solve their problems. His extant correspondence attests how diverse the help was which he provided to his fellows in the Academy, including the acquisition of manuscripts or the sending of soil samples to Hungarian geologists interested in Central Asia. But the relationship was never onesided. In particular it is worth noting that Stein's most famous discovery, the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas at Tunhuang, was the direct result of his communication with the Hungarian geologist and geo-grapher Lajos Lóczy (1849-1920). Lóczy had discovered the caves in 1879 as a member of an expedition led by Count Béla Széchenyi (the son of Count István Széchenyi, the founder of the Academy).
"It is a great satisfaction to me that the work in recent months was conducted in the Tun-huang region, an area where a Hungarian expedition deserves credit for first systematic exploration. Lóczy, my highly esteemed friend, drew my attention first to the Sa-chou "Thousand Buddhas' grotto temples", and I believe he will be glad to know that their research there has added many precious finds to my collection."...

... Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936). Stein became a friend of Rudyard Kipling's father, Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), who had come to Lahore in 1875 to take up the dual position of Principal of the Mayo School of Art and curator of the Lahore Museum, "the wonder house", as the museum was immortalised in his son's novel Kim. From him Stein learned much about the iconography of India and with his tutelage became familiar with Greco-Buddhist art. During his early years in India, Stein spent many evenings with the Kiplings and though Rudyard had left India in 1888, the parents remained and through them a lifelong friendship had formed.
Another friend from the early days was Major-General Lionel C. Dunsterville, who as a junior officer won Stein's lasting affection. Dunsterville had been at school with Rudyard Kipling and he was the model for the character Stalky in Stalky and Co.

Sep. 18, 1916

Dear Stein,
Thank you very much for your letter. Ruins of Desert Cathay has just arrived and I have stolen time from my book just to look over it "in anticipation" of a good evening. It's a superb thing and an enduring record. But the cities you photo are-curiously enough-more traceable as cities than some of the villages I have seen on the French line. They have been reduced to little mounds of variously coloured dust-not rubble but fine dust. Thus we see how modern
"science" is in advance of mere nature!
I had a letter from Dunsterville only last week. He's had an extra allowance granted-to him and local brigadiers-by the Govt. which is even more pleasant than ADC ships and C.B's.
With all good wishes
Ever sincerely yours
Rudyard Kipling ...

... Sven Hedin and Sir Aurel Stein felt considerable mutual respect for each other despite the rivalry between them. Hedin was primarily an explorer, Stein was an Orientalist, who sought evidence for his theories in the field. Hedin usually preferred not to enter into discussions on archeological questions, but, as this note from the Stein Collections shows, he was not pleased by being corrected by Stein.

I have read Dr. Stein's wonderful paper with the greatest interest and although it was impossible for me to be present at the lecture itself* I cannot help writing a few words expressing my sincere and deep admiration for the splendid work Dr. Stein has carried out on his second expedition in Central Asia as well as on his first. The tremendous treasures of old records and documents he has brought home now will form a most important addition to the first one, and he and his collaborators will be able to spread new light over the ancient history of those immense countries where now nothing but deserts and moving sands prevail. We are in a most interesting and unexpected era of Central Asian exploration just now. The époque of geographical discoveries is almost gone although a lot of detailed work is still left to be done. The time of archaeological investigation has set in. It began already years ago with "Bower's Manuscript", Petrovsky's, Macartney's and Dutreuil de Rhin's collections and with my discovery of Dendan Uilic and Kara-Dung, those sand-buried cities in Takla-makan which later on were visited and examined so carefully by Dr. Stein. The archaeological investigation has now taken a great step forward. From several different countries, England, Germany, France, Russia, America, expeditions have been sent out, but we can hardly talk of any competition-the deserts are big enough for as many parties as Europe, India and America can afford to send out-and to some more still. From what we already know we have every right to draw the conclusion that there must still rest under the moving sands whole civilizations of different ages and races. The records now brought home by Stein, Grünwedel, Lecocq** and the rest is so overwhelming as to keep a whole staff of experts busy for years to come and in Paris I heard from Sénart and Chavannes that they could hardly see any end of the work before them. A quite new science or anyhow a new branch of ancient history is in this way steadily growing up from the deserts of Central Asia and I congratulate my friend Stein most heartily to the splendid and glorious place he has conquered for himself in this fascinating branch of science.
When in the beginning of 1896 I travelled down the Keriya-darya to its end and thence through the desert to Shah-yat I did not regard this journey as any particularly great risk as the river and its underground continuation showed me the road. It was a much more, incomparably more dangerous task Dr. Stein faced when he went the same way-in the opposite direction. Everybody will easily understand this from a single glance at the map. Wherever I went, keeping fairly straight north, I could not help reaching the Tarim river sooner or later, whereas Stein, coming from the north, had only one single point to keep on, namely the point where Keriya-darya dies away in the sand. Everybody who has travelled in the Takla-makan will understand what it should have meant for Stein if he had not reached this very point-he should very likely have lost both his own and his followers lives in the Killin desert situated to the east and the west of the Kerya-darya. As nothing else existed from this part of Asia except my map I should have had a terrible responsibility for his fate if he had not found the inland or desert delta of the river. So nobody can be more glad than I that this most dangerous journey of Stein went off in such a happy way. The fact that the delta had changed its place some miles is only a new proof of the instability of the rivers in the desert, a phenomenon that both Stein and I have studied and described at so many different occasions.
I am very glad also to hear from Dr. Stein's paper that he was able to find the old site of Lou-lan from my map. It is by no means easy to find the place, everything is grey and yellow, the "yardangs" are very like ruins, and the ruins like yardangs, old dry trees look like parts of houses and vice versa, and one can be quite near the place without seeing it. I, or rather one of my Russian cossaks, discovered the ruins only by chance, but one year later I visited it again coming from the north and of course following my own map. It was more difficult to find the place from the south as Stein did. I am not an archaeologist so I cannot take part in a discussion as to whether this place is Lou-lan or not. I have called it Lou-lan from a communication by Karl Himly in Wiesbaden, who undertook to work out and publish my records, almost all of them Chinese. Dr. Stein says in his paper that these ruins were not Lou-lan, this place being situated further south. After the death of Karl Himly my collection had a rather long time of rest until Professor Conrady of Lepzig continued Himly's work, and is still busy with it. I asked Prof. Conrady the other day abot Lou-lan and he positively said that the site in question is Lou-lan and nothing else and that there are absolutely sure proofs of the fact in the collection of manuscripts I brought home. But as I said before, the discussion about the real situation of Lou-lan is a matter which I leave, without the slightest jalousie, to the experts.
It is of very great interest to learn from Dr. Stein that those new lakes I found in the Lop desert, had almost disappeared at the time of his visit. Does that mean that the lakes are just in a period of wandering and changing of place, or that in general the volume of water carried down by the Tarim has been diminishing during the last years. Dr. Stein's maps and measurements of the river will tell us about this question and will give us all the material necessary for comparison and conclusions.
There are several other things in Dr. Stein's paper which invite to interesting discussions, but I have no time now. This last journey has opened up magnificent perspectives not only in the field of archaeology, but also in the field of physical geography, formation of deserts and dunes, wind-erosion, dessication, the wanderings of rivers and lakes etc. and it is most difficult to understand how closely the physical phenomena of Central Asia are connected with the archaeology, the explanation and understanding of the possibilities of ancient culture, the cause of migrations of nations, the dying away of empires, the disappearing of roads and stations etc. The one cannot be understood without the other. From a verbal communication of Dr. Stein I am glad to hear that he quite agrees with my theory (Vol. II Scientific Results) of the curious morphology of the Lop desert, and specially about the formation of "yardangs" by the action of the wind erosion. A detailed description of any art of the earth is always extremely valuable, not only for its own sake, but also because it gives the next explorer the possibility of deciding in which direction the changes go, and this holds good specially for deserts like Takla-makan and Lop where the changes are so very rapid. No doubt Dr. Stein will later on give us a lot of important conclusions to which he has come by comparing his own observations with mine and which he had no time to mention in his lecture. He will be able to tell us the changes in the bed of Keriya-darya which he visited ten years after me and he will tell us a good many things about the desperate struggle between the water and the sand in the Lop desert.
It is surprising that the present Government of India does not seem to realise what a treasure they have to their disposition in the person of Dr. Stein. He is much too good for the place he occupies and he ought to be created a Director General of an Archaeological Department with some lakhs of rupees per annum to his disposition for archaeological exploration in a big scale.
If I should be asked to express my opinion of Dr. Stein as an explorer, in one single word, I should use the word: EXCELSIOR!

Leipzig,
March 26th, 1909.
(signed) Sven Hedin ...