Laurence Waddell - Life

Life

Laurence Waddell was born on 29 May 1854, and was the son of Rev. Thomas Clement Waddell, a Doctor of Divinity at Glasgow University and Jean Chapman, daughter of John Chapman of Banton, Stirlingshire. Laurence Waddell obtained a Bachelor's degree in Medicine followed by a Masters degree in both Surgery and Chemistry at Glasgow University in 1878. His first job was as a resident surgeon near the university and was also the President of Glasgow University's Medical Society. In 1880 Waddell joined the British Army and served as a medical officer for the Indian Medical Service (I.M.S), subsequently he was stationed in India and the Far East (Tibet, China and Burma). The following year he became a Professor of Chemistry and Pathology at the Medical College of Kolkata, India. While working in India, Waddell also studied Sanskrit for 4 years, and became a prominent philologist, he also edited the Indian Medical Gazette, contributing zoological or medical articles such as "Are Venomous Snakes Autotoxic? An inquiry into the effect of serpent venom upon the serpents themselves" (1889) later becoming the "Assistant Sanitary Commissioner" under the government of India.

After Waddell worked as a Professor of Chemistry and Pathology for 6 years, he became involved in military expeditions across Burma and Tibet. Between 1885-1887 Waddell took part in the British expedition that annexed Upper Burma, which defeated Thibaw Min the last king of the Konbaung dynasty. After his return from Burma Waddell was stationed in Darjeeling district, India, and was appointed Principal Medical Officer in 1888, as well as an officer for the Deputy Sanitary Commissionar. While stationed in Darjeeling, Waddell first took an interest in the colony of Tibetan monks who dwelt there and later became the first European to have acquired Tibetan manuscripts on Buddhism. The Times magazine in 1895 described Waddell as the "first European to have penetrated the esoteric Buddhism of Tibet". His first publications were essays and articles on medicine and anthropology, most notably "The Birds of Sikkim" (1893) followed by "Some Ancient Indians Charms from the Tibetan" published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1895. He also published several articles in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal between 1891 and 1899. In 1895 he obtained a doctorate in law.

Waddell traveled extensively in India throughout the 1890s (including Sikkim and areas on the borders of Nepal and Tibet) and wrote about the Tibetan Buddhist religious practices he observed there. Stationed with the British army in Darjeeling, Waddell learned the Tibetan language and even visited Tibet several times secretly, in disguise. He was the cultural consultant on the 1903-1904 British invasion of Tibet led by Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, and was considered alongside Sir Charles Bell as one of the foremost authorities on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. Waddell studied archaeology and ethnology in-between his military assignments across India and Tibet, and his exploits in the Himalayas were published in his highly successful book Among the Himalayas (1899). Various archaeological excavations were also carried out and supervised by Waddell across India, including Pataliputra, of which he did not receive recognition of discovery until long after his death, in 1982, by the government of Bengal. His discoveries at Pataliputra were published in an official report "Discovery of the exact site of Asoka's classical capital of Pataliputra, the Palibothra of the Greeks" (1892). During this period he also specialised in Buddhist antiquities and became a collector, between 1895-97 he published "Reports on collections of Indo-Scythian Buddhist Sculptures from the Swat Valley", in 1893 he also read a paper to the International Congress of Orientalists: "On some newly found Indo-Grecian Buddhistic Sculptures from the Swat Valley". In 1895 Waddell published his book Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, which was one of the first works published in the west on Buddhism. Waddell had come across many ancient Tibetan manuscripts and published them, but soon left these studies because the Tibetan manuscripts contained no reference to any ancient civilization, which he had hoped to discover.

Waddell continued his military service with the Indian Medical Service the next years. He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1901), including the Relief of Peking in August 1900, for which he was mentioned in despatches, received the China War Medal (1900) with clasp, and was in 1901 appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE). By late 1901 he had moved to North-West Frontier Province and was present during the Mahsud-Waziri Blockade, 1901–02. He was in Malakand in 1902 and took part in the PMO Tibet Mission to Lhasa 1903–04, for which he was agin mentioned in despatches, received a medal with clasp and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). Waddell then returned to England and briefly became Professor of Tibetan at the University College of London (1906–1908). Shortly after he retired and dedicated his life to writing.

In 1908, Waddell began to learn Sumerian. Thus in his later career he turned to studying the ancient near east, especially Sumeria and dedicated his time to deciphering or translating ancient cuneiform tablets or seals, most notably including the Scheil dynastic tablet. In 1911, Waddell published two entries in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Waddell's son died having served in the World War. By 1917, Waddell was fully retired and first started exclusively writing on Aryans, beginning in an article published in the Asiatic Review entitled "Aryan Origin of the World's Civilization". From the 1920s Waddell published several works which attempted to prove an Aryan (i.e., Indo-European) origin of the alphabet and the appearance of Indo-European myth figures in ancient Near Eastern mythologies (e.g. Hittite, Sumerian, Babylonian). The foundation of his argument is what he saw as a persistence of cult practices, religious symbols, mythological stories and figures, and god and hero names (based on etymology) throughout Western and Near Eastern civilizations, but also based his arguments on his deciphered Sumerian and Indus-Valley seals, and other archaeological findings. He is commemorated in the Giant Babax Babax waddelli.