Charles Alfred Bell

Charles Alfred Bell KCIE (born October 31, 1870 in Calcutta , British India , † March 8, 1945 in Victoria , British Columbia , Canada ) was a British diplomat and Tibetologist . He joined the Indian Civil Service in 1891 , initially working in Bengal , Bihar and Orissa , and after 1900 as the British representative in Sikkim , Bhutan and Tibet . During this time he became a close confidante of Thubten Gyatsho , the 13th Dalai Lama .

In 1921 he retired from the diplomatic service and from then on devoted himself to Tibetan studies in Oxford . He has published several books on Tibet, including a biography of the 13th Dalai Lama.

Works

• Manual of Colloquial Tibetan . Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta 1905.
• Portrait of the Dalai Lama . Collins, London 1946.
• * German under the title: The Great Thirteenth. The unknown life of the XIII. Dalai Lama of Tibet . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2005, ISBN 3-404-61578-6 .
• Tibet. Past and Present . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1924.
• The People of Tibet . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1928. (digitized)
• The Religion of Tibet . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1931.
• Tibet. Caught in Time . Garnet, Reading 1997.

Web links

• Brief biography
• List of illustrations from 'The People of Tibet' , Sir Charles Bell, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928
• List of illustrations from 'Tibet Past & Present' , Sir Charles Bell, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1924
• List of illustrations from 'Portrait of the Dalai Lama' , Sir Charles Bell, London: Collins, 1946