Jesuit on the Roof of the World: Ippolito Desideri's Mission to Tibet [Hardcover]

Trent Pomplun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2009

Jesuit on the Roof of the World is the first full-length study in any language of Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733), a Jesuit explorer and missionary who traveled in Tibet from 1715 to 1721.

Based on close readings of a wide range of primary sources in Tibetan, Italian, and Latin, Jesuit on the Roof of the World follows Desideri's journey across the great Western deserts of Tibet, his entry into the court of the Mongol chieftain Lhazang Khan, and his flight across Eastern Tibet during the wars that shook Tibet during the early-eighteenth century. While telling of these harrowing events, Desideri relates the dramatic encounter between his Jesuit philosophy and the scholasticism of the Geluk monks; the personal conflict between his own Roman Catholic beliefs and his appreciation of Tibet religion and culture; and the travails of a variety of colorful characters whose political intrigues led to the invasion of Z�nghar Mongols of 1717 and the establishment of the Chinese protectorate in 1720.

As the Tibetans fought among themselves, the missionary waged his own war against demons, sorcerers, and rival scholastic philosophers. Towering over all in the mind of the missionary was the "fabulous idol" Avalokitesvara and its embodiment in the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso. In describing his spiritual warfare against the Tibetan "pope," the missionary offers a unique glimpse into theological problem of the salvation of non-Christians in early modern theology; the curious-and highly controversial-appeal of Hermetic philosophy in the Asian missions; the political underbelly of the Chinese Rites Controversy; and the persistent European fascination with the land of snows.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great feat of historiography, this at-once sympathetic and unblinking account of Desideri's missionary career and the collective fantasies behind it makes for terrific reading. Treated to a feast of intimate details drawn from letters, journals, and theological tracts alike, the reader comes to understand from the inside the ambitions and the disappointments of this seminal moment in the history of what we now call interreligious dialogue. Desideri's fascinating story helps us appreciate his complex combination of admiration, accommodation, and refutation of Tibetan Buddhist thought, all set against the turbulent period in Lhasa during the life of the Sixth Dalai Lama, not to mention virulent competition between Christian missionary sects at the time."
-- Janet Gyatso, author of Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary

"This is a very important book. It is the first in English seriously to treat the life and work of Ippolito Desideri, an eighteenth-century Italian Jesuit who was the first Christian intellectual seriously to engage Tibetan Buddhism in its own terms, to the point of writing extensive treatises in scholastic Tibetan. Pomplun is a first-rate Tibetanist as well as a good theologian, and he writes beautifully. The result is a book of considerable intellectual weight that is a delight to read."
--Paul J. Griffiths, author of Lying: An Augustinian Theology of
Duplicity, and Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Gramma

"The Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri, who lived in Lhasa during the turbulent years of the early 1700s, has been perceived as a uniquely fascinating and sympathetic figure by Western observers of Tibet ever since the rediscovery of his writings over a century ago. Previous scholarship, however, has not clearly situated Desideri in the context of his times and of his spiritual and intellectual formation. In Jesuit on the Roof of the World, Trent Pomplun vividly portrays Desideri's world in its remarkable contours, at once at the intersections of Asia and Europe, and medieval and modern. The book is a pleasure to read, and one, at last, that I can recommend to readers in both European and Asian studies."
-- Matthew T. Kapstein, Director of Tibetan Studies, �cole Pratique des Hautes �tudes, Paris

"It would be hard to imagine a scholar more ideally suited to understand Desideri's story in all its aspects, from every important perspective, and to appreciate its wonder, irony, and ultimately futility." --First Things

"This is a brilliant book, a fascinating account that is part review of the intensity of Jesuit formation, part biographical and historical narrative, and part philosophical and theological review of missiology and soteriology in the post-Tridentine era. Pomplun's work has that none-too-common quality for nonfiction books: being a page-turner. . . The book is a delight to read, shedding light on a little known area of Jesuit and Tibetan studies, one whose historical context has a particularly vivid contemporary significance--namely, the philosophical, social, and theological meanings and values layered in 'interreligious dialogue.' This is a great book."
--CHOICE

"Pomplun's study is well researched and elegantly written, a sophisticated sympathetic, even exciting account of Ippolito Desideri's (1684-1733) five-year mission to Tibet. . . generous, thought provoking, and exceptionally well-researched. I recommend it highly for both its treatment of initial Christian contact with Tibet and for its historiographical methodology."--Theological Studies

"An insightful book. . . This volume is highly recommended for both the serious student of Jesuit history, and Tibetan culture."--CatholicBooksReview.org

About the Author

Trent Pomplun is Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland. His research interests include late medieval and early modern Catholicism, missions history, and Indo-Tibetan religion and culture. Jesuit on the Roof of the World is his first book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195377869
• ISBN-13: 978-0195377866
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #963,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When Will We Learn the Details of The Dramatic Encounter?, December 21, 2009

By 

James S. Taylor (Scarborough, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesuit on the Roof of the World: Ippolito Desideri's Mission to Tibet (Hardcover)

The strength of this book is in the immense detail that goes into situating Desideri in his cultural, historical and theological context. It also gives a critical reading of his reports against other documents from the time, showing that the way he presents things is not always exact. All of this was very helpful and added greatly to my understanding of the Jesuit missionary.

However, having been interested in Desideri for nearly three decades, I already know the story. The odd thing about him is that while everyone goes on about how engaging was his dialogue with Tibetan Buddhism, no one gives you details to decide for yourself. This book, for example, while the reviews and description bring his story up as a "seminal moment in...interreligious dialogue" with "the first Christian intellectual to engage Tibetan Buddhism on its own terms" showing a "dramatic encounter between [Desideri's] Jesuit philosophy and the scholasticism of the Geluk monks" leaves us nearly completely in the dark about the details, yet again. I find this typical of discussions about Desideri; even English translations of his own writings leave out these sections.

What this book does cover, instead, are Christian theological issues and the details are about doctrinal and procedural debates between different Christian groups, predominantly the Jesuits and the Capuchins. We are repeatedly brought to the door of Desideri's opinions about why he disagreed with Buddhism, but are not really let inside. More than once we are drawn into the fact that he greatly disagreed with the idea of rebirth, enough so that he wrote a large document on the subject, but we are not told any details of why he disagreed with it or what arguments he put forward against it. The only hint, in another context, is that he felt the Dalai Lamas used it as a social control mechanism. Surely there has to be more to it than that. Again, more than once we are drawn in to Desideri's study with Buddhists in monastic settings, where it is clearly shown that he was reading the right books and had a special interest in Madhyamaka, even though he disagreed with aspects of it. Other than that part of the disagreement centered on the denial of a Creator God by Madhyamika authors, we are given no idea of the details of this incredibly interesting worldview encounter. Pomplun knows the details enough to mention, more than once, that Desideri had some strange ideas about Madhyamaka, but, again, no details. And all this in a book with a chapter titled "Tibetan Religion in Theological Perspective," which is one of the main reasons I bought it.

Readers can be excused for starting to wonder if the emperor has no clothes. At one point, Pomplun notes that, despite Desideri's claim that many Tibetan intellectuals came to read his refutation of Buddhist doctrines, there is no reference to this in any contemporary Tibetan accounts. Is it because they didn't find anything of real substance? ;) Someone needs to write a book on what Desideri actually wrote on the subject and the arguments he used. Perhaps Michael Sweet's upcoming book or the one Pomplun says he wants to write next on Desideri's Tibetan documents, will finally fill the gap for those of us who neither read Tibetan or Italian nor have easy access to the journals where some of this work is starting to appear.

Either way, if none of that is your concern, than this book will not disappoint your quest to understand Desideri in a more thorough manner. It reveals the man at his best and worst, as well as disbanding a number of romantic myths about both him and Tibetan culture. If you have any interest in Desideri, it is rich in historical detail and well worth your time. Each of the six chapters is a self-contained unit focusing on a major issue in his life, picked up in chronological order. We are given a detailed examination of his Jesuit background, the literary context of his writing style, a general overview of how he situated Tibetan Buddhism in relationship to Catholicism, his understanding of the Tibetan politics during his visit, his theological disputes with other Christian groups, and how all of this fits into the European cultural context of his time. By the time you are done the introduction, you will clearly see that Pomplun is not going to get into the issues that interested me. Too bad the Amazon preview cuts off before then.