SCHMID, Toni (Antonia Elisabeth Magdalena). Fischamend near Vienna 25.9.1897 — Uppsala 16.12.1972. Austrian Scholar of Religious History and Tibetan Iconography in Sweden. Swedish citizen 1927. The only child of a wealthy mill-owner, Georg Josef Leander Schmid, and Antonia Maria Lindemmer. School and studies in Vienna, one year (1921) in Sweden. Dr.ph. 1922 Vienna (history and church history). She moved to Sweden, continued studies at Lund and from 1929 worked in Swedish national archives cataloguing medieval manuscript fragments. Fil.dr. 1931 Lund. Hon. teol.dr. 1958 Uppsala. In 1944-68 eo. Antikvarie in Vitterhetsakademie. In her later years she developed an interest in India and Tibet. She is said to have learned some Sanskrit in Vienna, in the 1940s she studied under H. Smith at Uppsala and then started working on the antiquites brought by Hedin expedition 1927-35 to Stockholm Ethnographical Museum. In 1955-56 visited Nepal and Sikkim, 1958-59 Nepal and India. Unmarried.
Publications: Many studies on medieval Swedish religious history (the first was her 1922 diss.), edited medieval fragments.
– The Cotton-clad Mila. The Tibetan Poet-Saints’ Life in Pictures. 152 p. Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China 1952. Stockholm 1952.
– Tantrisk mark. 103 p. 25 ill. Stockholm 1956.
– The Eighty-five Siddhas. 171 p. 18 pl. Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China 1958. Stockholm 1958.
– Buddhas vägar. En reseberättelse från Tibets gränstrakter. 94 p. Stockholm 1959 (travels).
– Saviours of Mankind. Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China 1961 och 1964. 1. The Dalai Lamas and former Incarnations of Avalokiteshvara. 48 p. 25 pl. Stockholm 1961; 2. with G. Montell, Pančhen Lamas and former incarnations of Amitāyus. 102 p. Stockholm 1964.
Sources: *J. Brunius, Sv. biogr. lex. 31, 2000-02, 577 with full bilbiography and photo; U. Hammar in iabs2014.univie.ac.at/academic-program/list-of-sections/24-tantric-buddhism/; S.E. Nilsson in Svenskt kvinnohistoriska lexikon with the same photo (skbl.se); Swedish Wikipedia with photo.
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