Edvard Amundsen

Edvard Amundsen (January 27, 1873 – December 21, 1928) was a Norwegian Lutheran missionary in China and Tibet. He is also remembered as an explorer and Titeban specialist.

Amundsen was born in Lille Kirkeholmen in the Municipality of Sannidal.[1] In 1896, together with Theo Sørensen, he traveled to Darjeeling and Kalimpong as a missionary for the China Inland Mission, where he studied Tibetan religion and customs.[2] Unlike Sørensen, after their language studies he was able to travel from there to Lhasa. Later the two of them went to Dartsedo in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau to the west. His wife Petrea Ness (1862–1928), from Mandal, Norway, was also a missionary and accompanied him on his trips to China and Tibet.[3]

During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 he had to leave China for Darjeeling,[1][4] but in 1903 he returned and then worked in Yunnan for the British and Foreign Bible Society until 1911. From 1918/19 to 1924 he served in China for the last time for the Mission Covenant Church of Norway.[1]

He died in Larvik.[1] A species of rhododendron is named after him: Rhododendron amundsenianum.[1][5]

Selected works
  • Primer of Standard Tibetan (Darjeeling, 1903)
  • In the Land of the Lamas: The Story of Trashilhamo (novel; London, 1910)
  • Tibetan Manual, with Vocabulary (by Vincent E. Henderson, edited by Amundsen; Calcutta, 1903)

References
  1. Jørgensen, M. 2008. Edvard Amundsen – en norsk rhododendron-misjonær? Lapprosen: medlemsblad for den norske rhododendronforening 2(3): 4–6.
  2. Kaul, H. K., & Hari Krishen Kaul. 1997. Travellers' India: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. lx.
  3. "Historisk blikk på vårt arbeid i Kina". Misjonskirken Norge. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  4. Kværne, Per. 1973. A Norwegian Traveller in Tibet: Theo Sörensen and the Tibetan Collection at the Oslo University Library. New Delhi: Mañjuśrī Pub. House, p. 4.
  5. Rhododendron Handbook. 1947. London: Rhododendron Group, The Royal Horticultural Society, p. 5.
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