From a modest family, Alexander Csoma Körös worked as servant to pay for his studies at school, then he took up a course in oriental languages in Göttingen in Allemagne. In 1819, he decided to travel by foot across Asia to get to India via notably Iran and Afghanistan, with a mere bagatelle of 17 languages en route. Staying in Tibet and living with monks, he discovered holy Buddhist scriptures and set about translating them, works which inspired notably Schopenhauer. His first Tibetan dictionary (40 000 words) was published in an English version after his death from malaria. Today, his tomb, at the feet of Himalayas, is a place of pilgrimage, and the Dalai Lama qualified him as a saint during his visit to Hungary.