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<\/p>\nToday, 9th June, marks the anniversary of the death of William Carey. Born in 1761, he died on this day in 1834. Having spent most of my childhood in Northamptonshire, Carey was an important part of my local history. But it was only when I joined the RAS as the archivist, I discovered more of his contribution to the study of Asian culture and language. In our Lecture Hall we have an engraving of Carey with his pundit, Mritunjaya, by W. Worthington from a portrait by R. Home.<\/p>\n
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Along with William Ward and Joshua Marshman, William Carey comprised the \u201cSerampore Trio\u201d, three Baptist missionaries based in the town of Serampore, near Calcutta, in the early nineteenth century. The three men were British, but they resided in Serampore, a Danish colony, because at that time the East India Company prohibited British missionary work in the regions under its influence. One of the main objectives of the Serampore Trio was to translate the Bible into vernacular languages, so that scripture could be more easily accessed by people in India and elsewhere in Asia. Below, the Society\u2019s Librarian, Edward Weech, describes some of Joshua Marshman\u2019s correspondence, which can be found in the RAS Archives:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1810, the English scholar Thomas Manning arrived in Calcutta, hoping to enter China from India. At that time, Europeans were strictly prohibited from entering the Chinese empire by its Qing government. Manning eventually tried to enter China via Tibet, getting as far as its capital, Lhasa. Manning was the first Englishman to visit Lhasa and, while he was there, he was lucky enough to have several meetings with the young Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n But before he left India for Tibet, Manning became acquainted with Joshua Marshman, who was at that time trying to translate the Bible into Chinese. In the early 1800s, hardly anyone in Britain knew anything about the Chinese language, and so the arrival of Manning \u2013 who had studied Chinese, albeit briefly, in Canton (Guangzhou) \u2013 in Calcutta was a major event, providing a great opportunity for Marshman. Marshman therefore solicited Manning\u2019s help with his translations, and his requests for help and advice are contained in the series of letters to Manning which can now be found in the Society\u2019s archives. These have been digitized and are available to view online, via the RAS Digital Library<\/a><\/span> (RAS TM 5\/19).<\/p>\n The relationship was not all one-way, however, and Manning sought Marshman\u2019s help, too. For his Chinese translation work, Marshman relied on the assistance of an Armenian man, Johannes Lassar, who had been born in the Portuguese colony of Macao. There, Lassar would have learned to speak Cantonese, and judging by his literary work he must also have learned at least some written Chinese. Marshman\u2019s letters show that Manning enquired whether he might recruit Lassar as an assistant for his own journey to China. In the end, Manning instead recruited a Chinese Catholic, Zhao Jinxiu, who was working in a wine shop in Calcutta, to accompany him into Tibet as his assistant. But that is a story for another day!<\/p>\n Marshman\u2019s letters to Manning make for interesting reading. Today, it can be hard for people to relate to what missionaries like the \u201cSerampore Trio\u201d were trying to achieve. But Marshman\u2019s letters provide evidence not only of his religious devotion and scholarly erudition; they testify as well to his humility, self-awareness, and even humour. When Manning floated the idea of trying to enter China through Burma, Marshman cautioned him against it, on account of the landscape and its natural hazards: \u201ca great part of the country which you pass is complete jungle, and they (the tygers) discover no partiality to literary men.\u201d Marshman continued:<\/p>\n I only add if I had Pacolet’s wooden horse I would take you up and put you down in the midst of Pekin, and after staying with you a month or two turn the pin and remain at Serampore till your talisman reminded me you were ready for your return, when I w[oul]d fetch you hither with all imaginable safety.<\/p>\n \u201cPacolet\u2019s horse\u201d is a now-obscure reference to a magic horse that featured in the early French romance Valentine and Orson<\/em>, which could transport its owner anywhere he wanted to go. It was referred to by the Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sydney in his Defense of Poesy<\/em>, and this is perhaps the likeliest source for Marshman\u2019s own use of the image. Manning \u2013 who personally knew major English Romantic writers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb \u2013 was, like other Romantics, an enthusiast for English Renaissance literature. As well as the works of Shakespeare, this genre encompassed the poetry of Sidney and Edmund Spenser, as well as the plays of Christopher Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, and many others. Marshman\u2019s use of this image gives us a hint as to the kind of thing that might have informed their conversation during their occasional meetings in Calcutta; that is, whenever Marshman could restrain himself from asking Manning\u2019s advice about his translations into Chinese!\u201d<\/p>\n My thanks go to Edward for providing these fascinating insights into these gentlemen based in Serampore. It is obvious from Marshman’s letters that he respected Carey and valued his opinion and advice. For those of you interested in finding out more about the Serampore Trio, within our Library Collections is a copy of “The life and times of Carey, Marshman and Ward: embracing the history of the Serampore mission” by John Clark Marshman. This is also available on the website of the William Carey University<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/TM_9_3_013-200x300.jpg\")
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