The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain

Lewin, in his ‘Manual of Tibetan,’ 1879, preface, states: “Tibet and its language are still comparatively unknown … the familiar tongue of the people, their folk-lore, songs and ballads are all unknown.” Far from contradicting this saying, Jäschke, the greatest Tibetan scholar of his time, stated two years later, in 1881, in the preface to the third edition of his Tibetan Dictionary: “(To) the student who has for immediate object to learn how to read and write the Tibetan language … existin...