Arthur Coke Burnell

Arthur Coke Burnell (born July 11, 1840 in St. Briavels , Gloucestershire , † October 12, 1882 ) was an English Indologist, linguist and Sanskrit scholar.

Signature of A. Burnell on February 3, 1874 to Dr. Rust , London

life and work

Studies, admission to the Indian Civil Service and first stay in India 1857–1868

Burnell, the eldest son of a naval officer of the English East India Company , first attended Bedford School in Bedford and later King's College in London . His teacher there, Professor Viggo Fausböll from Copenhagen , brought him into contact with Indology , the study of the language and culture of the South Asian subcontinent , his lifelong passion. He studied Telugu and Sanskrit with the linguist and connoisseur of Hindu law Theodor Goldstücker (1821–1872) .

After taking the exam for service in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1857, Burnell went three years later (1860) as a member of the ICS to Chennai (formerly Madras ), where he was employed in civil administration at various locations of the Madras Presidency and simultaneously Sanskrit manuscripts collected and copied. 1868 had Burnell for health reasons to take a vacation and learned on the way home via Arabia , Egypt and Nubia with a German fellow, the Moravian missionary and Bible translator Heinrich August Jäschke (1817-1883), Tibetan , also Arabic (in which he already be ICS Exams), Kawi (Old Javanese with numerous Sanskrit loanwords), Javanese and Coptic .

Second stay in India 1870–1880

In England he left his collection of 350 manuscripts to the India Library of the India Office before he returned to India in 1870 , where he worked as a judge in Mangaluru (Mangalore) (on the west coast of what is now Karnataka ) and Thanjavur (now Tamil Nadu ) . There, too, he collected and sifted through the local Sanskrit manuscripts (often on palm leaves and in different fonts), which eventually led to the 12,000-title catalog Classified Index to the Sanskrit MSS in the Palace at Tanjore .

Burnell also made an extraordinary contribution to South Indian palaeography and epigraphy ( inscription ) with his work Elements of South Indian Palaeography (1874), which is still frequented today, which earned him an honorary doctorate from the University of Strasbourg .

In his work on South Indian Inheritance Law (1868) he criticized the then common British legal practice of applying Sanskrit legal sources in the south of the country, moreover in misleading English translations, as so-called Hindu Law ; this was inappropriate and misunderstood the situation in the Dravidian southern part of the country.

In other writings he went, partly citing early connoisseurs of Tamil literature and language such as the Jesuit missionary Beschi (1680–1747). on the grammar and dialects of this South Indian language and published, partly in collaboration with Henry Yule ( Hobson-Jobson ), numerous other works, mainly of a historical character and early travelogues.

Return to Europe and death 1880–1882

Already weakened by a weak constitution and overwork, the hot climate and a cholera attack, Burnell returned to Europe in 1880, where he spent the last two winters in San Remo . It was there that he became interested in Renaissance literature , which was reflected in his work on Cardinal Pietro Bembo . During his stay with his brother in England, he died of pneumonia in 1882 .

Works (in selection)

Handbook of South Indian Palaeography
Classified Index to the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Palace at Tanjore

literature

Stanley Lane-Poole, rev. JB Katz: Burnell, Arthur Coke . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), Vol. 8, pp. 895-897.

Individual evidence

↑ Wikisource: Burnell, Arthur Coke (DNB00)
↑ Burnell's position is quoted in Henry Nelson: A View of the Hindu Law as Administered by the High Court of Judicature at Madras . Madras / Calcutta / Bombay: Higginbottom, Thacker 1877, especially SI f, passim. The discussion is still topical today and may be. a. lectures at Ludo Rocher: Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśāstra. Edited with an introduction by Donald R. Davis, Jr. , London / New York / Delhi: Anthem Press 2014. - George Claus Rankin: Background to Indian Law . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1946 (First paperback edition 2016).

personal data
SURNAME	Burnell, Arthur Coke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English teacher of Sanskrit
DATE OF BIRTH	July 11, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Briavels , Gloucestershire
DATE OF DEATH	October 12, 1882

[1] Wikisource: Burnell, Arthur Coke (DNB00)

[2] Burnell's position is quoted in Henry Nelson: A View of the Hindu Law as Administered by the High Court of Judicature at Madras . Madras / Calcutta / Bombay: Higginbottom, Thacker 1877, especially SI f, passim. The discussion is still topical today and may be. a. lectures at Ludo Rocher: Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśāstra. Edited with an introduction by Donald R. Davis, Jr. , London / New York / Delhi: Anthem Press 2014. - George Claus Rankin: Background to Indian Law . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1946 (First paperback edition 2016).