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News from the Phe reng ki
The Pilgrim-Merchant Pūraṇ Giri as Cultural Mediator between Tibet, India, and the British
The Indian pilgrim-merchant Pūraṇ Giri (1745–1795) accompanied George Bogle on his first British diplomatic mission to Tibet in 1774 to the court of the Third Paṇchen Lama. A confidant of the Third Paṇchen, Pūraṇ Giri was one of the so-called gosains who maintained busy trade and pilgrimage between India and the Himalayan regions and Tibet in the eighteenth century. He played a key role in the transmission and circulation of knowledge between the culturally heterogeneous worlds of Tibet, India, and the British East India Company. Nevertheless, he fell into obscurity relatively quickly after 1800, and in the narrative of the early history of Anglo-Tibetan relations, he occupies at best a minor role alongside the two main actors George Bogle and Samuel Turner. This chapter examines Pūraṇ Giri’s role in the transmission of knowledge about India and the British in eighteenth-century Tibetan scholarly culture by looking, among other sources, at the writings of the Third Paṇchen Lama.
Keywords Pūraṇ Giri, George Bogle, Third Paṇchen Lama, cultural mediation, transmission of knowledge
