Bhutia Boarding School, Darjeeling

Its first director was Sarat Chandra Das and Professor of Tibetan Ugyen Gyatso, a monk of Tibeto- Sikkimese origin.

Its purpose was to provide education to young Tibetans and Sikkimese boys resident in Sikkim or the Darjeeling area.

However, according to Derek Wallers, it aimed to train interpreters, geographers and explorers may be useful in the event of an opening of Tibet to the English.

In 1879, Sarat Chandra Das, sometimes disguised as a Tibetan lama, sometimes as a merchant from Nepal and Ugyen Gyatso made several trips to Tibet as secret agents of British India services in order to establish and collect cards.

[2] The opening coincided with the school 's educational initiatives William Macfarlane, a Scottish missionary in the region.

Staff and students of the Bhutia Boarding School, Darjeeling, 1888 with Sarat Chandra Das standing in back, third from the left, and Ugyen Gyatso seated in the back row, fifth from the right.