Johann Grueber


Johann Grueber or Grüber was an Austrian Jesuit missionary who served as an explorer of China and Tibet. He worked as an imperial astronomer in China.

Life

Grueber was born in Linz on 28 October 1623. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1641 and studied philosophy, mathematics and theology in Graz. he was ordained as a priest in May 1655.
He went to China in 1656, where he was active at the court of Peking as professor of mathematics and assistant to Father Adam Schall von Bell. In 1661 his superiors sent him, together with the Belgian Father Albert Dorville or d'Orville, to Rome in order to defend Schall's work on the Chinese calendar on the charge of having encouraged 'superstitious practices'.
As it was impossible to journey by sea on account of the blockade of Macau by the Dutch, they conceived the daring idea of going overland from Peking to Goa by way of Tibet and Nepal. This led to Grueber's memorable journey, which won him fame as one of the most successful explorers of the seventeenth century. They first travelled to Xining, on the borders of Gansu; thence through the Kukunor territory and Kalmyk Tartary to Lhasa. They crossed the difficult mountain passes of the Himalayas, arrived at Kathmandu, Nepal, and thence descended into the basin of the Ganges: Patna and Agra, the former capital of the Mughal Empire. This journey lasted 214 days.
Dorville died at Agra, a victim of the hardships he had undergone. Jesuit Father Heinrich Roth, a Sanskrit scholar, substituted for Dorville and with Grueber carried on the overland journey. They travelled through Persia and Turkey, reaching Rome on the 2 February 1664. Their journey showed the possibility of a direct overland connection between China and India, and the value and significance of the Himalayan passes.
Biographer Richard Tronnier says: "It is due to Grueber's energy that Europe received the first correct information concerning Thibet and its inhabitants". Although Oderico of Pordenone had traversed Tibet, in 1327, and visited Lhasa, he had not written any account of this journey, while Antonio de Andrada and Manuel Marquez had pushed their explorations as far as Tsaparang on the northern Setledj.
Emperor Leopold I requested that Grueber return to China via Russia in order to explore the possibility of another land route through central Asia, but the journey ended at Constantinople as Grueber fell seriously sick. He was obliged to return to Rome and spent the last 14 years of his life as preacher, military chaplain and spiritual guide in the Jesuit schools of Trnava and Sárospatak, in the latter of which he died on 30 September 1680.

Works

Grueber left his journals and charts, with written additions to Athanasius Kircher, who published them in 1667 under the name "China illustrata"; the 1670 French edition of the book also incorporated a letter Grueber had written to Ferdinand II de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany.
For other letters of Grueber see "Neue Welt-Bott", no. 34; Thévenot, "Divers voyages curieux", II; extracts in Ritter, "Asien", II, 173; III, 453; IV, 88, 183; Anzi, "II genio vagante", III, 331-399.
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