Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, or Csoma Kőrösi (1784?–1842) is a founding father of Tibetan studies and a culture hero in Hungary. He famously set out in search of the origins of the Hungarian people, which he hoped to find in the land of the Uighurs, a place he thought to be located in the vicinity of eastern Tibet and western China. He spent many years in Zanskar and Kinnaur studying Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy, and worked for the Asiatic Society in Calcutta before obtaining the financial means necessary to set out to achieve his goal in Tibet and beyond. Sadly, he died in Darjeeling in preparation for the first leg of his trip.

The late P. J. Marczell's collection of revised and previously unpublished essays that comprise the first volume of his work documents aspects of the life and career of Csoma and examines the growth of the cult of Csoma with particular reference to how he has been popularized as a culture hero. The first two chapters detail Csoma's relationship to power, and to his patron in British India, William Moorcroft. Here and in chapters 4 and 5 it is evident that Csoma's financial situation was unsettled, as a result of which he gained a perhaps undeserved reputation for privation and found himself dependent on patronage. Chapter 3 considers the three important lamas who acted as Csoma's tutors in language and philosophy in Zanskar. Chapter 6 presents a minor work by Csoma and chapter 7 considers his work as librarian of the Asiatic Society. Marczell gives a sketchy portrait of a dedicated scholar rather overshadowed by the large personalities surrounding him. As Marczell states in the preface, he is not in the business of hagiography, and this professional reticence accounts for the lack of a narrative life history.

In the second part the focus shifts from Csoma's life and career to its mythologization and an assessment of the agents at work in the “cult of Csoma”. Chapter 8 considers the backgrounds, inspirations, careers and characters of Csoma, his illustrious biographer and popularizer Dr Theodore Duka, and the explorer and scholar Sir Aurel Stein. While Marczell does not see this triumvirate as existing as any sort of an academic lineage, he observes that “[b]y their Magyar culture the three men inherited a common dream world (the French would call it l'imaginaire) which inspired them to undertake pioneering research projects leading to sets of scientific results and self-realization” (p. 113). One notes also that all three men were intimately connected with the British Empire. The complex matrices of Hungarian cultural politics and this shared dream or collective imperative for (self-)discovery lies at the heart of this and the following chapters. Chapter 9 analyses the names by which Csoma chose to be known in India, including reflections on whether the Anglicization of his given name, Sándor, as Alexander, was intended to imply Alexander the Great. Most of the emphasis, however, is laid on Csoma's desire to be known as a “Siculo-Hungarian of Transylvania”, and the nationalist pride that this expressed for the Siculian ethnic group who would go on to play a major role in the Hungarian war for independence of 1848–49. Chapter 10 gives a broad overview of the mythology surrounding Csoma. Here Marczell deconstructs the image of Csoma as a “hermit-hero” enduring hardships in his quest for knowledge and/or enlightenment. One intriguing line of enquiry considers Csoma's role in the “Bengal Renaissance” as a proponent of vernacular studies and traditional literature against an encroaching promotion of exclusively English-language-medium education in European literature and science. Chapter 11 introduces the extraordinary tradition according to which Csoma was canonized as a bodhisattva at Taisho University in Japan, and exposes this event as a comedy of errors in which the Hungarian delegation, led by an unscrupulous journalist, summarily presented the Japanese with a statue depicting Csoma as Maitreya Buddha and inscribed with the words “Kőrösi Csoma Sándor The bodhisattwa [sic] of the western world”. It seems the Japanese delegation was too polite to decline, and the legend of Csoma as bodhisattva flourished as a result. Chapter 12 introduces the main cast of characters in the promotion of the “cult of Csoma” in Hungary. While damning at times the forces that have monopolized the hero's legacy, Marczell in the end endorses the mythologization of Csoma, stating that it has played an important role in Hungarian national cohesion and that “… besides offering an example of courage, sense of purpose, will power, stamina and diligence matched with austerity, frugality and modesty, it satisfied nearly sacred needs” (p. 215).

Volume II is a substantial sourcebook for further research on Csoma's life that should be of considerable use in this field. Marczell has faithfully transcribed over 400 pages of handwritten documents and provided the occasional reproduction. These cover the entirety of Csoma's career in India and are organized chronologically. This is followed by a smaller section containing extracts of often-rare printed sources that the author has collected over the course of his research. The third section, essentially a long appendix, gives lists of sources relating to Csoma's life and an overview of relevant materials kept in various archives in Britain, Hungary and Austria.

In the appendix to volume I, “The most consequential agents in Csoma's cult, their background and effects on the hero's image”, the author's entry for himself begins, “P. J. Marczell (1936–), a former Hungarian political refugee in Switzerland, views Csoma as a valuable common reference of intellectual curiosity and endurance for Hungarians irrespective of their place of residence”. One comes away with the impression that the image of the lonely and displaced scholar striving for discovery in a foreign land acted as a sort of talisman for the author in perhaps the same way as it had for his illustrious fellow countrymen, Duka and Stein.