Catalogue of Himalayan Literature

CATALOGUE OF THE HIMALAYAN LITERATURE. Edited by Yoshimi Yakushi. Pp. 1320, 1994. (Hakusuisha, Tokyo, Yen 58,000).

(Available from Hakusuisha Publishing co., 3-24, Kanda-Ogawa¬machi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0052, Japan. Discount for overseas consumer 27%: available at net Yen 42,340 plus Yen 2570 for registered sea mail)

The Himalaya has inspired much literature about several aspects of it- mountains, people, culture, architecture, language …. . It would be most difficult to track of published material about the range but for the monumental work like this one from Yoshimi Yakushi. Sometimes I read a title of a book with ‘Yakushi No.’ written after the title. This work is exhaustive and continuing affair. The only other work of similar nature, but narrower in its listing, I know of is Jill Neate’s Mountaineering and its Literature.

Visiting Kyoto, where the author lives, I had a chance to interact with this member of the Himalayan Club. He is a high school teacher. I first asked him on which programme he had used to compile this Catalogue, assuming it all can be done only on a computer.

‘It is entirely on card-index’, he proudly said. ‘When I started there were not many computers and once started I continued with this life-long passion’. To understand the enormity of this project one must see the statistics about its contents.

The Catalogue contains 9400 titles (7600 in European languages and 1800 in Japanese) Yakushi is compiling this for past 35 years and only 700 copies of this work, now in third edition, has been printed. He has also printed an addenda (of 1100 new titles) to bring it update about books published till 1995.

The Catalogue has several other features. Sven Hedin has maximum entries for books by one author: 38 different titles are published by him. Some of these works are translated in different languages totalling 75 translated works, and some titles has several volumes totalling 25 different volumes. So Sven Hedin has in all 138 works under his name !

The Ascent of Everest (John Hunt) and Annapurna (M. Herzog) has maximum entries for translated works – 11 and 10 respectively. The oldest book listed here is Yakushi No. K212, Kircher, Athanasius : China Monuments (1667) followed by E 125, Giorgi, Antonio : Alphabetum Tibetanum (1759). There are more interesting facets of this catalogue and more one spends time with it more interest it creates. This is a tribute to the Himalayan literature by Yakushi and all Himalayan lovers owe him a debt for this work.

The Catalogue is very easy to refer to. In the first half all the books are listed under their authors. The second half contains list of books published in the Japanese with their titles written in English also. In the last part an Index lists all the books by its titles. The only references to the Journals are missing.
As we talked he produced a copy of the Catalogue, marked in red with several additions and improvements. ‘I have about 100 new cards ready at present which are not yet printed. After few years I hope that a 4th edition will be printed. But I am not sure, time, funds, publishers — there are several problems.’
This is a monumental work and those who can afford it (its steep price is the only constraint) must add to the collection. It is a record of sorts to produce such a Catalogue and it will be referred for ages. The Catalogue may hold another record too; being one of the heaviest books : it weights 3 kg and 125 grams !

More strength to your cards, Yoshimi Yakushi !

HARISH KAPADIA