David Llewellyn Snellgrove

Snellgrove is a leading British Tibetologist who is revered for his work about Buddhism in Tibet. It was from a mosquito bite that he found the aim of his life. As an infantry officer, he traveled to India in the early years of his life. Soon, after some months he contracted malaria and was sent to recover in a hospital in the hill station of Darjeeling. And it was here that he found his life's calling after purchasing and reading some books about Tibet and its people. After this vaguely interesting period, he learned Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Pali to further his knowledge, traveled to various Buddhist sites for field research and became also became a student of Giuseppe Tucci. Snellgrove conducted research in various monasteries of Nepal which resulted in a book called "Buddhist Himalaya" in 1957. Then he visited the three cities of Kathmandu (Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur) and published Arts Asiatiques in 1961. Then Snellgrove crossed the main Himalayan lines and entered Dolpo which he has summarized in his Himalayan Pilgrimage. His paper on Buddhism has been helping western thought principle to understand the subject. Snellgrove also went on to publish the "Nine ways of Bon" that sheds light about the animist Bon religion. Snellgrove's contribution to Nepal is appreciated by the later researchers in Nepal.