Modern encounters: Lhasa Tibetan, Christian mission schools, and religious conversion in modern Tibetan autobiographies

Abstract

This article examines three rare early twentieth-century Tibetan autobiographies composed by Karma Sumdhon Paul, Trin Chen, and Phüntsok Lungtok. They worked as mission teachers in the regions of Darjeeling and Kalimpong at a time when Protestant missionaries were barred from entering Tibet and were eagerly waiting for the forbidden city of Lhasa to be opened up to the Christian faith. All three men served as cultural and linguistic intermediaries, teaching Tibetan to missionaries as well as in mission schools, hereby contributing to the dissemination of Christianity among Tibetans. Their life writings constitute several of the earliest Tibetan-language sources which document, from a personal perspective, the experiences of working with Protestant missionaries, undergoing religious conversion, as well as individual transformations. Having established bases in the Himalayas, the Scandinavian Alliance Mission, the Tibetan Mission, and the Church of Scotland initiated education reform by establishing English-medium mission schools, studying Lhasa Tibetan, recruiting literate Lhasa Tibetan speakers, and translating texts to be printed in Lhasa Tibetan. These interactions embodied a unique modern character, emerging for the first time during the early twentieth century and stemming from the encounter between Protestant missionaries and Tibetans. The remarkable life stories recorded by Karma Sumdhon Paul, Trin Chen, and Phüntsok Lungtok present us with a rare Tibetan perspective into the historiography of Tibet and the West, a phenomenon predominantly shaped by written accounts authored by European missionaries, intellectuals, colonial officials, and travellers.