God Spoke Tibetan


Alan sets up his mobile clinicAlan Maberly, the author of this book, was for many years a missionary in Kalimpong, on the border between India and Tibet. Using a Willy's Jeep estate, whose back he had filled with drawers containing medicines, he would drive to various villages around Kalimpong on the day of their weekly market and set up a folding chair and a card table. Taking out his trumpet, he would play a selection of hymn tunes, quickly attracting a large crowd. Soon people would be pressing forward with their complaints - scabies and ringworm, goitre, malaria, eye disease, painful teeth, and much, much more.

If the drawers contained an appropriate medicine, Alan scribbled a prescription for the patient to take to the dispenser who sat in the back of the vehicle and dealt with his customers through the side window. Every prescription was accompanied by a Christian tract or a Scripture portion. If a tooth needed pulling, Alan got out his forceps and set to work, watched by the interested crowd. If an injection was reqjuired, Alan had developed such a painless way of giving it that we always went to him for our annual innoculations. He pinched up the flesh and then literally threw the needle in, like someone throwing darts. It was all over so quickly that there was virtually no pain.

Alan examines a patientOnce every month or so Alan would seek for and obtain permission to hold his clinic in either Sikkim or Bhutan, one of the very few foreigners permitted to enter those forbidden countries. Many times he tried to enter Tibet - and on several occasions we went with him right up to the border. The Indian officials, who knew him, waved him through, knowing that he would soon be back - as, indeed, he was when first Tibetan, and later Chinese, officials refused him entry.

Alan learned to speak Nepalese and Tibetan fluently and a variety of Hindi more than adequately. He established a Christian church in Kalimpong which was attended by many Nepalis and Tibetans, though only a few proved willing to worship the Christian God alone. One of these latter was a Tibetan lama with whom Alan had been friendly for several years.

This man told of how, as part of his final "exams", he was taken out into the courtyard of his monastery in midwinter, clad only in a thin cotton robe. He was ordered to squat down in the snow and several buckets of water were poured over him. Almost immediately the water froze, enclosing him in a sheath of ice, and the other monks returned to the relative warmth of the monastery.

The test was whether, by using the meditation techniques he had learned, he could raise his body temperature sufficiently to not only melt the ice, but dry his garment. Only when his robe was completely dry would he be considered to have passed the test.

One day when Alan visited this man he told the missionary that the previous night he had dreamed that he and Alan were standing beside a pool of water. Alan had led him into the pool and when the water reached waist depth had pushed him under the water. Puzzled by this dream, he asked Alan if he could explain its meaning?

Alan stared at him in astonishment, for although he had discussed many things with the lama, he had not talked about baptism (which Alan's church practiced through total immersion). He explained that the lama had seen himself being baptised by Alan. After studying the topic with him from the Bible, the lama agreed that this was, indeed, the most likely interpretation of the dream and a short while later gave up his former beliefs and his position in society and accepted baptism into Christ.

It was another lama, however, who gave Alan one of the worst moments of his life. Alan visited this wandering mendicant in his crude tent and presented him with a copy of the Bible. In return the lama offered Alan a cup of tea (Tibetan tea is flavoured with salt and rancid yak butter!) and as it would be impolite to refuse, Alan accepted. The lama brewed the horrid mixture and then, from a fold of his robe, took out a bowl. Even in the dim light that filtered through the tent Alan could see that the bowl had not been washed since it was last used - or, indeed, ever.

Horrified at the thought of all the germs that might be breeding in the scraps of food clinging to the side, Alan employed all the honorifics available in Tibetan to humbly suggest that possibly the honourable gentleman's most esteemed bowl might be just ever so slightly less than perfectly clean. The surprised lama held the bowl up to the light, tipping it this way and that to see better. Then, before Alan's disbelieving eyes, he stuck out the longest, purplest tongue Alan had ever seen and ran it round the inside of the bowl.

The demands of cleanliness thus satisfied, he poured out the tea - and Alan had to drink it!

In telling the story of the translation of the Tibetan Bible, Alan Maberly was greatly helped by the late David McDonald, who lived in Kalimpong. Mr McDonald was the son of a Scottish trader and a Tibetan mother, had spoken Tibetan since childhood and lived all his life near the Tibetan frontier. He was personally acquainted with many facets of this story and was one of the people asked to check Yoseb Gergan's translation for accuracy and acceptability.

Alan also drew on a tract by Canon Chandhu Ray, The Story of the Tibetan Bible, and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Another source was an article in Christian News Digest entitled "Bible 188". He also interviewed a number of other people who were involved in the actual production of the Tibetan Bible.

Some details of the story vary from source to source. For example, one version has it that a careless Indian post office employee spilled water over the manuscript and ruined it. McDonald, on the other hand, was adamant that the manuscript was ruined in a mountain storm while in the courier's saddlebags. Alan endeavoured to follow the story as told by those most intimately acquainted with the events they described.

For the chronlogy of the story, Alan carefully researched the Tibetan calendar and had his conclusions checked by several eminent authorities. The names he uses - Wood Hare, Fire Dragon, Water Dragon, Fire Dog - are all genuine and authentic.

Alan watches the Tibetan New Year ceremonyAlan and his wife Ivy had three daughters - Dawn, Carol and Ruth. Our family was very friendly with the Maberlys and often spent our holidays with them. Alan's success in crowd-gathering so impressed me that I actually learned the trumpet in order to emulate him. (Alas, my life took a different turn and I never used my meagre skills to summon people to a clinic!) On one occasion Dawn pretended to be a barber and selected me as her client. Somehow or other she managed to cut my head and I had to seek help to staunch the copious flow of blood. I still have the scar!

For a while we were romantically attached to one another, but nothing came of it in the end and she ended up marrying a splendid young chap called Paul Giblett and serving with him in various mission fields while I married Shirley and came to Wales as a "missionary"!

Eventually Alan Maberly and his family returned to Australia, where Alan died from cancer. His loss was mourned by all who knew him.

God Spoke Tibetan was long out of print and it is still difficult to get, so I have no hesitation in posting this summary of the story on the Internet, both in memory of a very good friend and man of God, and also as a tribute to another great man of God, Yoseb Gergan, whose name is numbered among God's saints, but who deserves to be remembered on earth as well.

The three photographs of Alan Maberly on this page are from a set of slides of Kalimpong produced by Alan himself and copyright properly belongs to him. However I have altered them slightly in order to make them fit on the web page (for example, the original of Uncle Alan watching the Tibetan New Year festival has an extra figure in it where Alan now stands!) and therefore take the liberty of putting NWTV's mark on them.

Kendall K. Down