Self-Portrait: Writings and Interviews

SARAT CHANDRA DAS
Autobiography: Narrative of the Incidents of My Early Life

Sarat Chandra Das, the famous Bengali explorer and scholar of the nineteenth century, went to Tibet twice, first in 1879 and second time in 1881-82. At a time, when Tibet was a forbidden land for foreigners, Das, in the guise of a Buddhist lama, surveyed unknown regions of Kangchenjunga massif and Tibet on behalf of the British Government of India. He was the third Indian to reach Lhasa in 1882. During his journeys through the Himalayas, Das crossed passes higher than 20,000 ft without the aid of modern mountaineering equipment, which has been acknowledged as a remarkable feat. Apart from his contributions on the geographical research, Das, a scholar of the Tibetan language and Buddhism, collected and later dispersed a lot of information on the cultural and social life, religion and politics of Tibet, which was, at his time, little known to the world. This Autobiography of Sarat Chandra Das was first published serially in the Modern Review during 1908-09. Later in 1969, it was published as a book by Indian studies: past & present, edited by Dr. Mahadevprasad Saha, which is the basis of this facsimile edition. The Autobiography, as the name suggests, narrates the early part of Sarat Das’s life and his first visit to Tibet made in 1879.