Marco Alexander Pallis (19 June 1895 – 5 June 1989) was a Greek-British author and mountaineer with close affiliations to the Traditionalist School. He wrote works on the religion and culture of Tibet.
Early life: Education, Travels, and Wartime Experiences Born in Liverpool on 19 June 1895, he was the youngest son of wealthy and cosmopolitan Greek parents.For more on Pallis' family see Laura Cameron and David Matless, "Marietta Pallis", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Pallis was educated at Harrow School and the University of Liverpool, where he studied entomology.See Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Books, 1975), p. 71-72. In 1911 he traveled to British Guiana to study insects, and in 1912, he joined the Greek campaign against the Ottoman Empire during the first of the Balkan Wars. During the siege of Ioannina, the ancestral town of the Pallis family, he worked at a field hospital in Arta.
During the First World War, Pallis initially aided the Salvation Army in the region along the Sava River in Serbia. In 1916 he enlisted in the British Army and received a commission as an army interpreter in Macedonia. Malaria and a severe inflammation of his right eye cut short his Macedonian service. After a lengthy convalescence in Malta, Pallis applied to and was accepted by the Grenadier Guards. He received basic training, then advanced training as a machine-gunner. In 1918, as a second lieutenant, he was sent to fight in the trenches of the Western Front. During the battle of Cambrai, in a charge that killed his captain and first lieutenant, Pallis was shot through the knee and was forced to retire from combat.
Mountaineering, the Himalayas, and Introduction to Buddhism Following the war, Pallis climbed and explored against doctor's orders for his injured knee.According to one of his Himalayan climbing partners, "Pallis hides a good deal of determination behind his mild manner" (F. Spencer Chapman, Helvellyn to Himalaya: Including an Account of the First Ascent of Chomolhari [London: The Travel Book Club, 1941], p. 84). He went on expeditions to the Arctic, Switzerland, and the Dolomites, and Snowdonia, the Peak District, and the Scottish Highlands when closer to home. In 1933 Pallis led a small mountaineering party to the area of Kinnaur, one of the Himalayan borderlands. Near the village of Nako, at the border with Tibet, Pallis and his team succeeded in making the first ascent of Leo Pargial (22,280 feet).The Pallis led ascent is cited by Stephen Venables, Everest: Summit of Achievement (London: Royal Geographic Society, 2003); Walt Unsworth, Everest: The Mountaineering History (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 2000); and Harish Kapadia, Trekking and Climbing in the Indian Himalaya (London: New Holland Publishers, 2001).
In 1936 Pallis returned to the Himalayas at the head of another expedition. His party traveled first to Sikkim, an "antechamber of Tibet", where their failure to scale the summit of Simvu (22,360 feet) was, at least for Pallis, more than made up for by their encounter with the saintly abbot of Lachhen, in whom, according to Pallis, "intelligence, compassion, and initiatic authority were reflected in equal degree".Peaks and Lamas, p. 360.
From Sikkim Pallis had hoped to cross the border into Tibet proper, but due to political circumstances it was impossible to obtain the necessary permissions. Forced to alter his plans, he decided instead to make his way to Ladakh. He was accompanied by his close friend Richard NicholsonPallis and Nicholson met in the 1920s when both were pupils of Arnold Dolmetsch, and remained thereafter life-long friends. They were frequent climbing partners before traveling together to the Himalayas. and one other member of their climbing party, Dr. Robert Roaf. Once in Ladakh, they discarded Western clothes in favor of the chuba,The traditional dress of Tibetan men. Made of wool and often fur-lined, the chuba is a long-sleeved and ankle-length robe that is worn belted at the waist. and assumed as much as possible a Tibetan manner of living. "It was our way of saying to our hosts: 'We wish to be as one of you. Please make no unusual arrangements on our behalf. We love your tradition, and hope it will not be rashly changed. We have found means of attuning ourselves to its ways.'”Peaks and Lamas, p. 201.
Pallis by now saw himself as a "pilgrim" of Tibetan Buddhism and in both Sikkim and Ladakh he received his religious education directly from qualified instructors within the living tradition. He dedicates his Peaks and Lamas to four teachers in particular, "the great contemplator, abbot of Lachhen, the venerable Dawa, bursar of Spituk, the venerable Konchhog Gyaltsan of P’hiyang, and the venerable Geshe Wangyal of Drepung, Lhasa who for my benefit and for the good of all creatures set in motion the Wheel of the Doctrine".Peaks and Lamas, DedicationThe diversity of Pallis' instructors is further indicated in a story told by Arnaud Desjardins, the French writer and filmmaker. Guided in the early 1960s by the Dalai Lama's personal interpreter, Desjardins met and interviewed many of the most respected Tibetan spiritual leaders, then in exile. He relates: "I remember a conversation, one evening in Sikkim, when the question which arose was of Westerners who had really come near enough to tantrayana to understand something more than words and formulas. One such person, of whom those present spoke with the greatest regard and deference, was repeatedly referred to in this conversation by the English word 'Tradition.' 'Tradition' had spent some time with such-and-such a guru; 'Tradition' has visited such-and-such a monastery. And all of a sudden it became apparent to me that this Mr. 'Tradition' was Marco Pallis (under his Tibetan name of Thubden Tendzin). . .” (Arnaud Desjardins, The Message of the Tibetans [London: Stuart & Watkins, 1969], p. 20).
The Second World WarPallis served as a Liverpool police officer during World War II. prevented further travels until 1947, when Pallis and Richard Nicholson were able to visit the Tibetan heartland before the coming Chinese invasion. They traveled widely throughout Tibet's Tsang province, seeking to fulfill their shared desire to "absorb the spirit of the Tradition by direct experience".Peaks and Lamas, p. 200. Over the course of their stay they were able to make contact with each of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism (Gelugpa, Nyingmapa, Kagyudpa, and Sakyapa), visiting such holy sites as the ancient Pel Sakya monastery, seat of the Sakyapa and "a treasure-house of all the arts at their very best",Marco Pallis, "The Marriage of Wisdom and Method", The Middle Way: Journal of the Buddhist Society, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, August 1961, p. 54. as well as the Tashilhunpo monastery, seat of the Panchen Lama and one of the four great monasteries of the Gelugpa.
After his departure from the Tibetan plateau, Pallis lived in Kalimpong, India, for nearly four yearsA fellow English expatriate and acquaintance of Pallis, the then novice monk Urgyen Sangharakshita (born Dennis Lingwood), provides us with a brief but informative glimpse into Pallis' domestic life in Kalimpong: "The bungalow was situated at the top of a flight of irregular stone steps, and what with trees looming up behind and shrubs pressing in on either side it was a sufficiently quiet and secluded place. Here Thubden La, as he liked to be called, lived with his friend Richard Nicholson, otherwise known as Thubden Shedub, the companion of the travels recorded in Peaks and Lamas. As lunch was not quite ready, he showed me around the place. Tibetan painted scrolls hung on the walls, and the polished wooden floors were covered with Tibetan rugs. There were silver butter-lamps on the altar, and massive copper teapots on the sideboard, all gleaming in the shuttered semi-darkness. In one room I could just make out the unfamiliar shape of a harpsichord" (Sangharakshita (D.P.E. Lingwood), Facing Mount Kanchenjunga: An English Buddhist in the Eastern Himalayas [Glasgow: Windhorse Publications, 1991], p. 173). before returning to England in 1951.In 1959, Pallis made a return visit to northern India and Sikkim. Kalimpong was then a center of literary and cultural activity, as well as a refuge for many of those who were being forced to leave Tibet. Pallis formed many lasting relationships during this time, including an acquaintance with the then queen of Bhutan and her family, whom he later visited in England, and with the Dalai Lama's former tutor Heinrich Harrer, with whom Pallis later collaborated in exposing the fraudulent writer Cyril Hoskin, alias “Lobsang Rampa”.See "Private v. Third Eye", Time Magazine, Monday, 17 February 1958. While in Kalimpong, Pallis also met with the Dalai Lama's Great Royal Mother, and he developed a close relationship with the abbot of the nearby Tharpa Choling monastery.
After the political upheavals in Tibet in the 1950s, Pallis became active in the affairs of the Tibetan Society, the first Western support group created for the Tibetan people. Pallis also was able to house members of the Tibetan diaspora in his London flat. Pallis also formed a relationship with the young Chögyam Trungpa, who had just arrived in England.For more on the relationship between Trungpa and Pallis, see Pallis' article "Discovering the Interior Life", published in The Sword of Gnosis: Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism (New York, NY: Penguin, 1974). Trungpa asked Pallis to write the foreword to Trungpa's first, autobiographical book, Born in Tibet. In his acknowledgment, Trungpa offers Pallis his "grateful thanks" for the "great help" that Pallis provided in bringing the book to completion. He goes on to say that "Mr. Pallis when consenting to write the foreword, devoted many weeks to the work of finally putting the book in order".Chögyam Trungpa, Born in Tibet (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2000), p. 15.
Musical career Pallis studied music under Arnold Dolmetsch, the distinguished reviver of early English music, composer, and performer,Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), was a true pioneer in his field. His circle of friends and collaborators extended to many of the major literary and artistic figures of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, including William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, and W.B Yeats. See Margaret Campbell, Dolmetsch: The Man and His Work (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975). and was considered "one of Dolmetsch's most devoted protégés".Harry Haskell, The Early Music Revival: A History (New York: Dover Publication, 1996), p. 38. Pallis soon discovered a love of early music—in particular chamber music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—and for the viola da gamba. Even while climbing in the region of the Satlej-Ganges watershed, he and his musically-minded friends did not fail to bring their instruments.