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It is a splendid title for a book, but is it accurate? The author justifies it
by explaining in the Foreword that although Brian Houghton Hodgson
was not literally a prisoner in Kathmandu, he remained there for
twenty-three years 'forced by a combination of health and politics to
live a restricted life'. It is a weak argument and not the only
disappointment in this eagerly awaited book. Hodgson was not
untypical of his time and class. The son of a country gentleman in
Cheshire, he was probably born in 1801 and sought a career in the East
India Company. He hoped, like other young men, this would give him
the opportunity to redeem the family fortune, his father having lost
money in a banking venture. He was a star pupil at Haileybury and on
arrival in Calcutta, continued his language studies at Fort William
College. However, a bad attack of fever led him to the hills, and
through various recommendations he became Assistant Resident at
Kathmandu, when only nineteen.
Initially unhappy and isolated, he was advised to be patient and to learn
all he could of Nepal, and gradually this he what he did and what he is
known for today. With the help of local people he began to collect
Sanskrit manuscripts and was perhaps the first of the 'Orientalists' to
realise that Buddhist literature, completely eliminated in India, still
existed in Nepal. He hired local artists to draw Buddhist shrines and
with the help of savants started to interpret the various Buddhist
schools of thought. At the same time he began a study of native birds
and animals and was soon contributing to learned journals, notably that
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. Later, on becoming
Resident, he was not adverse to meddling in intemal Nepalese politics,
which eventually led to his downfall and exile from Kathmandu. The
place haunted him for the rest of his long life. It should be a fascinating
story, but it is very dryly told, often wandering too far away from its
subject. Surprisingly there is no index which makes referring back
difficult. Poor editing means that errors were not questioned - on page
265 Dursley is not only mis-spelt, but placed in Gloucester, not
Gloucestershire as it should be. Page 172 refers to the Calcutta
Englishman newspaper - presumably The Englishman and Military
Chronicle. As a long time admirer of the author, the reviewer finds this
latest book both hurried and at times unsatisfying.
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