Suzanne Karpelès

In 1917 Paris, Karpelès was the first woman to graduate from the École orientales (oriental school) of the École pratique des Haute Études, where she studied eastern cultures and languages including, Sanskrit, Pali, Nepali, Tibetan language and Tibetan religion.[1] There her teachers included the scholars Sylvain Lévi, Alfred Foucher and Louis Finot, and she graduated after publishing her translation of the Buddhist Sanskrit and Tibetan text Lokeçvaraçataka in 1919 in the Asian Journal.[2]

Karpelès was the first female member of the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), with a posting in 1922 to Hanoi (then part of French Indochina, now Vietnam) followed by an appointment to Phnom-Penh (now Cambodia) in 1925.[1] As soon as she arrived there, she began collating the Sri Lankan manuscript in the Pāḷi language, called the Kanikhâvitaranî, with a Khmer language version.[3] Then, in 1923, she was sent to Bangkok, Thailand to compare her work to another manuscript of the same text to improve her facility with the Thai language.[2]

In 1925 in Phnom Penh, the King of Cambodia, made Karpelès the first curator of his newly founded Royal Library. In that position, her first tasks were to collect, classify, preserve and publicize the library's treasures. To expand public knowledge of the library's holdings even more, in 1929, she suggested the establishment of a new institution dedicated to the study of Buddhism. Founded jointly by both Cambodia and Laos in 1930 as the Buddhist Institute of Cambodia, she was named its first secretary-general. The Royal Library of Phnom Penh (now the National Library) and a similar royal library created at the same time in Luang Prabang, Laos, were both charted with very specific missions: to collect and conserve existing texts.[2][4][5]

Karpelès's scope of work expanded greatly. She became the chief publications officer for the École Supérieure de Pāli,[1] and she also enabled regular broadcasts of programs about Buddhism on state radio.[5] She published the country's first Buddhist periodical, started a mobile library project and arranged for the distribution of the Tipiṭaka (the Pāli Canon) in Khmer script to every monastery in the Cambodia.[5]

With the start of World War II in 1940, Karpelès was one of 15 Jews living in Cambodia who were forced from their employment by the pro-Nazi Vichy-French government. She was reinstated when the war ended.[2] From that time until her retirement, she traveled between France and Cambodia, "continuing to make important contributions to Buddhism."[3]

Because Karpelès worked with the young religious monks of Cambodia to help them improve their knowledge of Buddhism as well as their culture, she was able to shape the work of the country's future leaders. According to EFEO sources, "She exerted a considerable influence on the intellectual formation of two successors to the position of Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia" — the Venerable Chhuon Nath (in office 1948–1969) and the Venerable Huot Tat (1969–1975).[2]

In all, she was known to communicate in multiple languages including: French, Sanskrit, Pali, Nepali, Tibetan, Thai and Khmer. Among her later efforts were French translations of the Dhammapada published in 1960 and her work in 1961 on Nyanatiloka's Buddhist Dictionary.[3][5]

After retiring, Karpelès moved close to Pondicherry (which by that time had become part of India when French colonialism ended) into the Sri Aurobindo ashram, where she taught French language and literature. She died in Pondicherry in 1968.[2][4]