Bilingual Glossary of The Nagananda (An Old and Rare Book)

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Like the other branches of oriental researches in India, Tibetan studies were initiated by the western scholars and Christian missionaries in the 19th century A.D. Their primary motive was to facilitate their missionary work among the Tibetan speaking peoples of Pamir, Central Asia, Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan. In 1826, the first Tibetan Dictionary in a European language was composed by an Indian Roman Catholic Missionary of Serampore near Calcutta. His name had unfortunately been lost, but his work was appreciated by the East India Company, which arranged to publish the work after endorsing English equivalents in place of Italian ones with the assistance of Rev. Schroter, a Protestant missionary of Bengal. The author of the dictionary had dwelt near Bhutan for a considerable period where he picked up the language.

In this regard we are also indebted to Csoma de Körös, who was a pioneer in the field of Tibetology in India. His Tibetan English Dictionary appeared in 1834. Csoma's contributions to Tibetan subjects were found very useful and those were published in the Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. Subsequently Jäschke, a Moravian Jesuit missionary compiled Tibetan English Dictionary in 1881. The scholarship of the late Sarat Chandra Das, was a universally recognised and his papers were published in the Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. Sarat Chandra Das's Tibetan English Dictionary, still remains an incomparable work of fundamental importance in Tibetan studies.

The Tibetan text 'Nagananda' by Pandit Vidhusekhara Bhattacharya was published by the Asiatic Society in the year 1957. Unfortunately the author could not finish Index to the aforesaid text before his death. .

The work of Indexing was entrusted to Sri Suniti Kumar Pathak. Now I have the pleasure to release the 'Index' to the Tibetan text Nāgānanda' which I believe will be equally useful to Indologists and Tibetologists. Thanks are due to the author, Sri Suniti Kumar Pathak, for his sincere services in preparing the Index satisfactorily.