Ippolito Desideri; SJ; Jesuit mission in Tibet; Tibetan revolt against Mongol Regime (1719–1720); Qing intervention in Tibet (1720); attempted conscription; home invasion; abortive return to India; Desideri—Account Book; Jesuit accounts: reliability and historicity
摘要
In this essay I reconsider the narrative of Ippolito Desideri's escape from being conscripted into a Tibetan militia during the 1720 Qing military intervention to expel the Dzunghar Mongols, who had occupied Tibet since late 1717. Desideri presents this event in his Historical Notices of Tibet (Notizie Istoriche del Tibet), a relation meant for a wide European clerical and lay audience, in a manner that highlights his personal credit and prestige among the Tibetan elite. Using data from his unpublished expense diary (the Account Book) and from a private letter to his superiors in Agra and Rome, a very different picture emerges of this episode and related contemporary events not covered in the Notizie: the invasion and looting of his home at the Capuchin residence in Dakpo and his abortive attempt to return to India. Differences in Desideri's public and private accounts are related to questions of his strategic representations of himself, the Society of Jesus, and the Tibetan people as worthy recipients of missionary effort.
