DAVID-NÉEL, Alexandra (née Louise Eugènie Alexandrine Marie David). St.Mandé (Seine) 24.10.1868 — Digne (Basses-Alpes) 8.9.1969. French Bauddha and Traveller. The only child of Louis Pierre David, a huguenot freemason and ardent republican, also journalist and teacher , and Alexandra Borleman, a Catholic Belgian. From 1873 grew up in Belgium. At…
DAUMAL, René. Boulzicourt (Ardennes) 16.3.1908 — Paris 21.5.1944. French Poet interested in India. Educated at Lycée de Reims and Lycée Henri-IV, studies at Sorbonne. Born in rural milieu he became a socialist and active anticlerical, but at the same time he was also against materialism. In the late 1920s he…
DANTINNE, Jean. Liège 1930 — 1996. Belgian Buddhist Scholar (Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan). Studies of Buddhist philology, Chinese and Japanese at Louvain (i.al. under Lamotte) 1964-66, also Indology at Liège. From 1975 Lecturer in Modern and Classical Chinese at Liège, then Professor (?) at Louvain-la-neuve (1983). If he was born in…
DANDARON, Bidija Dandarovič. Kižinga, Buryatia 15.12.1914 — Vydrino, Buryatia 26.10.1974. Russian Buryat Lama, Tibetologist and Buddhist Scholar. Son of Dorji Badmaev, a Tantric practitioner. In 1921 he was declared the heir of Lobsang Samdan and in 1924 succeeded him as formal head of the Vajrayānic Balagat movement. In 1934 he…
DAHLMANN, Joseph. Koblenz 14.10.1861 — Tokyo 22.6.1928. Father. S.J. German Indologist, later in Japan. Son of a tailor, Johann Simon D., and Catharina Schulten, educated in 1873-78 at Feldkirchen Jesuit College, joined the S.J. in the age of 17 in 1878. Studies in the Netherlands, the U.K. and Puerto Rico,…
DAHLKE, Paul Wilhelm Eduard. Osterode, Ostpreussen (now Ostróda, Poland) 25.1.1865 — Berlin-Frohnau 29.2.1928. German Bauddha, Physician in Berlin. Son of a civil servant, August D. and Wilhelmine Reinholz, a big and poor family. Gymnasium in Osnabrück, Hannover and Frankfurt a.M., from 1883 studied medicine in Berlin and specialized in homeopathy.…
CYBIKOV, Gombožab Cebekovič. Urdo-Aga, district Čita, Transbaikalia 20.4.1873 — Aginskoe, Burjatia 20.9.1930. Russian Buryat Scholar of Buddhism. Son of Cebek Montujev, a literate and well-to-do Buryat. After gymnasium in Čita (one of the first four Buryat students admitted) studies of medicine at Tomsk, but after a visit to Urga switched…
CUNNINGHAM, Alexander. Westminster 23.1.1814 — Cranley Mansions, South Kensington (London) 28.11.1893. Sir. British (Scots) Colonial Officer and Archaeologist in India. The great pioneer of Indian archaeology and the first Director-General of the A.S.I. General-major. Born in England of Scots parents, poet Allan C. (1784-1842) and Jean Walker, brother of —>…
CSOMA DE KŐRÖS, Alexander (Kőrösi Csoma Sándor). Kőrös, Kovászna, Transylvania (now Chiuruş, Covasna in Romania) 27.3.1784 — Darjeeling 11.4.1842. Hungarian Tibetologist, in Ladakh and India 1822-42. Born of poor parents, András Csoma, a peasant and soldier, and Krisztina Getse (Ilona Göcz), belonging to the military nobility known as Székely (Sicules). Birth…
CROSBY, Josiah. Falmouth, Cornwall ?.5.1880 — 4.12.1958. Sir. British Diplomat interested in South-East Asian History. Son of Captain J. P. Cr. and his wife Christina, educated in Newcastle. Studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (B.A. 1902, M.A. 1928). Came to Thailand as young cadet in 1904, spent many years…