August Hermann Francke (1870–1930)

Brückenbauer zwischen Tibet und Europa als Missionar und Wissenschaftler

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of August Hermann Francke (1870–1930), Moravian missionary, historian, ethnologist and bible translator, as a mediator between Tibet and Europe. Trained as an elementary school teacher, he became not only an able educator but also an outstanding self-taught Tibetologist and explorer whose achievements are still of great value to present-day researchers. Among his major publications are a history of Ladakh, a thorough study Antiquities of Indian Tibet, with the texts and translations of the chronicles on Ladakh history, an edition and translation (with his wife Dora) of a Lower Ladakh version of the Kesar saga recorded from oral tradition, and a partial edition and translation of a basic work of the Bon religion, the gZer-myig (a biography of gShen-rab, the mythical founder of Bon) – besides the translation of the Bible into Tibetan, undertaken together with Yoseb Gergan.