A Pictorial Encyclopaedia of the Tibetan World: 1 Reading Illustrated Mid-19th Century Maps of Tibet Diana Lange When Ulrike Roesler asked me to deliver this year’s Aris lecture I felt deeply honoured for various reasons. I never had the chance to meet Michael Aris although I did get to know Anthony. At the time of Michael’s death, I was just planning my first stay in Tibet as a student of Tibet University (Lhasa) in the summer of 1999. Ten years later, I started following in his giant footsteps when I picked up a research baton from among what he called his “projects in progress”: the British Library’s Wise Collection. My research on this collection started with my interest in water transport in Tibet. I was introduced to the Wise Collection by my supervisor Toni Huber in 2008, at which time I had just finished my PhD on fishing and yak hide boats in Tibet and was looking for historical illustrations of Tibetan ferries and boats for a publication. Several such illustrations appear in the Wise Collection’s picture maps of Central Tibet. I first encountered the original maps and drawings in the summer of 2009 during a visit to the British Library. Burkhard Quessel, lead curator of Tibetan Collections, kindly showed me the three ‘Wise Albums’. I remember that I was so overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of the material that I decided—on the spot, still in the Prints and Drawings Room—to work on the collection. Ferries and boats in the Wise Collection. Add. Or. 3017 f 4, © The British Library Board In the very beginning of my research, I contacted Anthony Aris to inform him about my plans and his answer was very encouraging: “I was truly delighted to hear from you about your intentions to study the Wise Collection. Michael always considered that it deserves a major piece of research, as well as a publication to be timed with an exhibition. Michael was planning to find the time for this but sadly he died, leaving many projects uncompleted. It is most heartening to know that his work will one day be completed.”2 1 I am very grateful to John Bray and Ulrike Roesler for proofreading this written version of this lecture. 2 Email correspondence 25 June 2011. 1 In a way, the Aris brothers accompanied me in some way or other from the very start of my research. I am sure both would be very pleased to see that I finished the ‘Wise Collection project’ and it feels very natural for me to dedicate my forthcoming book to them both. Michael Aris noted that the Wise Collection “may represent the most ambitious pictorial survey of Tibetan topography and culture ever attempted by a local artist.”3 This ambition is reflected in six large picture maps. Placed side by side, five of these picture maps add up to a 15m–long panorama showing the west-east route between Leh in Ladakh and Lhasa, and the north-south route leading from Lhasa southwards to Bhutan and today’s Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India. The maps are accompanied by 28 related drawings showing detailed illustrations of selected monasteries, monastic rituals, wedding ceremonies, ethnic groups and other topics. Altogether, there are more than 900 numbered annotations on the drawings. Explanatory notes referring to these numbers were written in English on 24 separate sheets of paper. One of the maps. Add. Or. 3016 f 2, © The British Library Board Two of the accompanying drawings. Add. Or. 3021 and 3033, © The British Library Board The Wise Collection captured my attention in two ways: First, I was fascinated by the things I could see: the material, the colours, the content, the style. Secondly, I was captured by the collection’s history. This lecture presents the results of ‘reading’ and analysing the maps and drawings over a period of ten years. In a way, my research on the Wise Collection was comparable to a detective story, and I want to share this tale with you in this talk. 3 Aris 1992: 126. 2 Let me start with the collection’s story in the late 1960s. At that time, the former British Political Officer and Tibetologist Hugh Richardson noticed a collection of drawings in the India Office Library. These were catalogued as the ‘Wise Albums’, but the circumstances of the origin of this collection were unrecorded. A typewritten note stated that the drawings appeared to be by a Tibetan artist, probably a lama, who had contact with Europeans, and that they appeared to have been commissioned by the writer of the accompanying explanatory texts. The drawings were dated between 1844 and 1862, while the bindings were dated to the late 19th century and inscribed with the name ‘Wise’. This was the start of the long search for ‘Wise’. Michael Aris and Hugh Richardson corresponded extensively – before the invention of emails – and it has been exciting to go through their letters in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, and to follow their discussion of the question ‘Who the devil was Wise?’4 He was finally identified in the late 1990s by Hugh Richardson as Thomas Alexander Wise, a Scottish polymath and collector who served in the Indian Medical Service in Bengal in the first half of the 19th century. However, while the collection was named after Wise, he was not the one who commissioned the drawings. When I started my research, I thought I knew where I was going. Being trained in Tibetology, I focused on the stories in the drawings – hundreds of little details – and on a research field that was new to me: the history of cartography. In the beginning of my research, I spent many days in the Berlin State Library making notes from the History of Cartography, Volume 2, bound as two separate books.5 Later, Anthony Aris made me a wonderful present during one of my stays in London: he gave me copies of these books that had once belonged to Michael. He told me that the books seemed to be more useful for me than for him. Shortly afterwards, I found a note by Michael inside the book stating “a gift from Catherine Delano Smith”. By chance, I had met Catherine – one of the leading historians in the history of cartography – the day before I received the books from Anthony. I told her about that note and she answered “how funny – but also how appropriate – that Anthony Aris passed you that History of Cartography volume; I remember well giving it to Michael—actually, to his mother in London to pass on to him. (…) I am touched that you have it now.”6 These books have been accompanying me now for many years; they provided an excellent starting point in studying the history of cartography of Tibet, and I don’t want to lose them! Toby Lester, in presenting his research on the ‘Waldseemüller map’ – the map that gave America its name – stated: “The map draws you in, reveals itself in stages, and doesn’t let go.”7 This certainly proved true for me and the maps and drawings of the Wise Collection. Some of them reveal themselves more easily than others. In drawing the maps, the lama produced a visual account of his travel route, which was more than 1,800km in length. Furthermore, he addressed a range of topics in the accompanying drawings that represent an overwhelming wealth of information on Tibet and the Western Himalayas. In studying the material, I developed both a feeling for the lama’s drawing style and an understanding of his way of thinking. The so-called ‘scale’ used in the maps is not uniform, nor is their orientation. Some are oriented to the south, some to the north, and still others to the east. Buildings on the maps 4 Letter by Hugh Richardson to Michael Aris, 3 May 1994, Bodleian Library Oxford, Special Collections, MS. Or. Aris 17/280. 5 Harley and David 1994. 6 Email correspondence 23 May 2014. 7 Lester 2009: xxi. 3 usually face the viewer, regardless of their actual geographic location. Instead of showing the whole building, only significant architectural characteristics are highlighted. As a result, many people who look at the maps comment that they are ‘wrong’ – especially concerning their geographical and architectural accuracy. While the maps might not always seem accurate from a Western scientific point of view, they can give much information about their maker. If we imagine ourselves shrunk to the dimension of the maps and ignoring scale and cardinal orientation, we could ‘walk’ through the landscape along the travel route shown on the maps. As the most important orientation points are depicted accurately, these maps would pass a test for practicality. The mapmaker himself travelled along this route, familiarizing himself with its topographical and infrastructural details, which he in turn depicted on the drawings. Detail showing Zangskar’s capital Padum and the nearby Sani Monstery. Add. Or. 3018 f 4, © The British Library Board Each map and drawing consists of numerous small detailed illustrations such as mountains, rivers, bridges, animals, buildings, trees and people. Upon closer examination, each of these detailed illustrations contains even more minute details. For example, monastic buildings are often shown with specific characteristics, such as different kinds of roof construction, flag poles, or entrance doors. In a similar way, illustrations of people often show not just individual pieces of clothing, such as hats, shoes, and outer garments, but also ornaments and jewellery. Places of strategic importance are depicted on the maps on a larger scale than the surrounding areas.