This impressive book is the result of a huge amount of original work which adds immeasurably to the knowledge we have of Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733) himself. Most importantly, it reveals his remarkable ability in the Classical Tibetan language and his masterly grasp of Buddhist philosophy, the latter being the necessary tool for him to gain a suitable scholarly audience in the Land of Snow.

The details of his life do not form a major part of the book as they are well known from other sources. The major part deals with Lopez and Jinpa's thorough and imaginative translations from the Latin of two of Desideri's works. These are a selection from his Inquiry Concerning the Doctrines of Previous Lives and Emptiness (Inquiry) and a complete translation of his Essence of the Christian Religion (Essence). The latter text, it appears, had been translated by Elaine Robson in 2014 but had not been sighted by the authors prior to their own publication (p. 283, n. 49).

There are two particular Buddhist doctrines which Desideri felt made it impossible for a Buddhist to believe in the existence of God (p. 13): the first was the doctrine of Emptiness and the second was Rebirth. The two works contained in this book deal in great detail with Desideri's refutation of them. Desideri's rarely seen written works are finished in a wonderfully clear, perfectly formed writing and it is this reviewer's wish that several more relevant pages might have been reproduced rather than the single one as a frontispiece.

But the marvel lies not just in the minor part, the writing, but also in the complete command of the modalities of Buddhist belief which Desideri needed to make his refutations credible to Tibetan scholars at whom they were primarily aimed. Rather than a string of jeremiads such as several other Christian missionaries had engaged in, we find a cogent and well-argued line of thought based to a great extent on the content and style of Tsongkhapa's Lam rim chen mo. And to a great extent his extremely beautiful and appropriate language is the equal of any Tibetan author's. When one considers, as the authors certainly have done, the brief few years Desideri had in which to master the language and the philosophy, as well as the scholarly mode of argument which would have appealed greatly to his audience of cloistered literati, the remarkable nature of his writings becomes clear. Indeed Desideri claims that a Tibetan géshé who saw his works, “having carefully read and considered them … praised them profusely … declaring that he himself was not capable of writing a work equal to it, much less of responding to my strong logical arguments” (p. 19).

The authors locate the writings of Desideri within the existing Tibetan literary models of the time and note that, as he claimed that Tibetans had no history of studying other religions (an incorrect assumption), they must first be convinced of the necessity of examining another religious system (pp. 26–7). In the light of this his writings appear to be prima facie rather like those Tibetan texts which interrogate, for example, Hindu beliefs. As Tibetan authors have done previously, Desideri writes at times in a language which may be a sort of code, one which obscures whether in the Introduction he is talking about the Buddha or about God (p. 35). The importance of this obscuration becomes clearer as the book examines the extent to which he was deeply aware that his sojourn in Tibet was largely due to the whim of his major patron Lhazang Khan. Desideri was aware that to have offended him through a brusque approach would have ended his stay there (p. 283, n. 5). The strategies to get readers on his side are discussed in some detail on p. 43 and of note is his rather unskilful criticism of Tibet as an “unappealing, very unattractive and very painful place” (pp. 44 and 94). Indeed, in his reference to the need for “clearing away all the stains and misconception” (p. 141) in Tibet he is evoking a task rather like cleaning the Augean stables – such statements run against his generally well-argued and more philosophically oriented refutations.

The generous and lengthy introduction sets a solid and reliable interpretive basis for the two subsequent translations, and the readers will constantly need to refer back to it to check they have understood what Desideri intended correctly.

It is in the Preamble to the Inquiry that Desideri, in an entirely appropriately Tibetan style comes to his major point. He says (p. 85):

His argument is replete with analogies of considerable appeal to Tibetans, including that of medicine showing an awareness of Buddha as doctor in the Tibetan tradition (p. 93)

In the author's translation of the Essence they are dealing with a catechismal text and there is noticeably less philosophical content, although Desideri does take pains to mount a counter-argument to the doctrine of emptiness and rebirth in the first quarter of the work (pp. 192–206). Thereafter he discusses the Catholic Credo, the statement of basic beliefs, and it is in this section of the book in particular that both authors guide the reader through the often strange Tibetan language equivalents for basic Christian terminologies found in it. In discussing the Ten Commandments Desideri declines modestly from defining the possibilities of coveting one's neighbour's wife (the ninth Commandment) by claiming that because “these acts are of an embarrassing nature I shall not set (them) forth here” (p. 235).

This beautifully written and deeply interesting book reflects true scholarship and will be of relevance to anyone working in the cross-cultural religious field.