66 E. H. Walsh —Tibetan Language , fy "Recent Dictionaries . [No. 2, 
have been recently published in his “Journey to Lhasa and Central 
Tibet.” i 
The qualifications of the workmen are undoubted; it remains there¬ 
fore to see to what extent and in what respects the present dictionary 
is an advance on its predecessors. 
The Tibetans themselves have possessed dictionaries of their own 
language from very early times, from soon after the date of its first re¬ 
duction to writing. 
These lexicons, or lists of words, so far as any of them have been 
attainable, have been previously utilised by Jaschke in his Dictionary, 1 2 
but they are not “dictionaries” in the accepted use of the term, as 
containing a complete list, of the recognised words of the language, but 
rather lists of certain words, chiefly of Sanskrit importation, found in the 
early religious works, and which from the very fact of their not being 
generally known require explanation. Such lists are therefore of little 
value as regards the current language. 
The earliest European Dictionary of Tibetan was compiled by the 
Capuchin Friars who were settled in Lhasa in the early half of the 
eighteenth century, two of whom, Francisco Orazio della Penna and 
Cassian di Macerata, sent home materials they had collected which were 
Compiled by the Augustine Friar, Giorgi da Rimini, and published under 
the title of “ Alphabetum Tibetanum ” at Rome in 1762. The Tibetan 
characters for this work were drawn by Della Penna and were engraved. 
This also is an incomplete list of words, and many of which subsequent 
knowledge has shewn to be of doubtful accuracy. The next Dictionary 
of Tibetan was published at Serampur in 1826 at the expense of the East 
India Company, and Tibetan types were employed. This was edited by the 
Rev. John Marshman, from the notes of an unknown Italian Missionary 
whose manuscript came into the hands of Father Schroeter, a Mission¬ 
ary in Bengal, who merely transcribed the Italian into English. These 
manuscripts consisted of all the sentences that the unknown Italian 
Missionary could get transcribed by a native teacher, to which he had 
added extracts from the Padma tangyig, a series of popular legends about 
the Tibetan saint Padma Sambhava. The proofs had to be left unrevised 
as there was no Tibetan scholar to revise them. “ Though richer in 
words than later dictionaries, the work cannot therefore be accepted as 
1 Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet, by Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E. Edited by 
the Hon’ble Mr. Kockhill, London. John Murray, 1902. 
2 “ A Tibetan English Dictionary, with special reference to the prevailing 
dialects.” Prepared and published at the charge of the Secretary of State for 
Jndia in Council. London, 1881. 
