Christian Lassen

Christian Lassen

Christian Lassen (born October 22, 1800 in Bergen ; † May 8, 1876 in Bonn ) was a Norwegian Indologist who, among other things, deciphered the ancient Persian cuneiform.

Life

Christian Lassen was born on October 22, 1800 as the son of the legal scholar Nicolai Christian Vendelboe Lassen (1748-1818) and Frederikke Elisabeth Frisch (1761-18?) In Bergen. After the death of his father, he and his mother moved in 1819 to live with his sister in Altona, which was then Danish .

Lassen studied in Heidelberg and Bonn , where he learned Sanskrit from August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845). This soon noticed Lassen's extraordinary philological talent and he entrusted him with the task of making copies of Indian manuscripts in London and Paris, for which Schlegel obtained a travel grant from the Prussian Ministry of Culture and probably made a private contribution. From autumn 1823 to May 1825, Lassen worked in London and then in Paris on the holdings of the Bibliothèque royale (today's National Library ). From pieces in London and Paris he made many copies for Schlegel and for himself. In Paris, then the Mecca for Sanskrit studies in Europe, he made the acquaintance of the first professor of Sanskrit at the Collège de France , Antoine-Léonard de Chézy (1773-1832), and his peer and later successor of Chézy, Eugène Burnouf (1801-1851) ), with whom he soon became friends and with whom he arranged the Indian manuscripts of the Paris collection at the suggestion of the sinologist and then responsible person Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832). The correspondence between Schlegel and Lassen, edited by Kirfel, mainly contains letters that Lassen wrote from Paris during this period.

Lassen's grave in the old cemetery in Bonn

After it big coped with the applied Schlegel work, he returned to Bonn, where he in 1827 with his dissertation Commentatio Geographic atque historica de pentapotamia indica (Geographical and historical performance over the Panjab ) doctorate was and as lecturer adjusted at the University of Bonn has been. In the same year Schlegel and Lassen are guests of Goethe in Weimar. In 1830 Lassen was appointed associate professor and in 1840 was promoted to full professor for "ancient Indian language and literature". In 1841 Lassen turned down an offer at the University of Copenhagen . One of his students was Johannes Gildemeister (1812–1890), who would later assist him and also edited the new edition of Lassen's Sanskrit chrestomatie published in 1865 . In 1849 he married Auguste Caroline Wiggers (1808–1879). In 1850 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1868 Lassen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In the later years of his life, Lassen was afflicted by an eye disease that increasingly prevented him from working and, according to some sources, even led to blindness. He died in Bonn on May 8, 1876. Like Schlegel, he is buried in the old cemetery in Bonn .

Lassen's successor at the Bonn chair was Theodor Aufrecht (1822–1907).

For his scientific merits Christian Lassen was the Prussian on May 31, 1857 Order pour le Mérite for Science and Art was added. A street in the Buschdorf district of Bonn has been named after him since 1983; A street in Berlin-Grunewald has been commemorating him since 1937.

Research focus and editing activities

While working on the Paris manuscripts of the time, Lassen and Burnouf also came across some pieces written in the Central Indian Pali , which French missionaries had brought from Siam to Paris. The Pali language and its literature have already been mentioned in the West , but the Essai sur le Pali from 1826, prepared by Lassen and Burnouf, is the first scientific treatise on this topic and is therefore to be regarded as the cornerstone of Pali philology. Lassen continued to occupy himself with the Middle Indian, which he constantly encountered in the dramas of Indian classical art poetry and in numismatics . In 1837 he published the Institutiones lingua pracriticae , a Prakrit grammar, which also contains an edition of parts of Vararuci's classic Prakrit grammar Prākṛtaprakāśa and notes on it. This grammar quickly replaced that of Albert Hoefer as the standard work.

Lassen's dissertation on the history of Panjab already shows his interest in Indian history. This scientific discipline was significantly enriched at the time by the work of James Prinsep (1799–1840) on the coins that had accumulated in the possession of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In his book History of the Indoscythian Kings in Bactria, Kabul and India , published in 1838, Lassen summarized what had been achieved up to this point in the field of Indian numismatics , which can be seen as a preparatory work for his later Indian antiquity . This publication is one of the first western academic contributions on the subject of the history of India. In this book, Lassen also succeeded in deciphering parts of the Kharosthi script parallel to Prinsep .

Lassen was also active in the field of ancient Iranian studies . He participated in early publications on the Persian cuneiform inscriptions through a monograph on the subject from 1836 and through various articles.

Lassen has published some Sanskrit texts in the course of his life, including the Hitopadeśa and the Singspiel Gītāgovinda with Latin translation together with Schlegel . Another pioneering work was Lassen's edition and translation of the Sāṃkhyākārikās of Īśvarakṛṣṇa under the title Gymnosophia sive indicae philosophiae documenta in 1832.

The magazine for the customers of the Orient

The time before the appearance of Lassen's magnum opus , the Indian antiquity , was significantly shaped by the publication of the magazine for the customer of the Orient , which was suggested by the Göttingen orientalist Heinrich Ewald (1803-1875) and initially by this and other scholars , including Lassen, were published. This journal, which is being created for the first time in an interdisciplinary manner and as part of a research collective, plays a special role in German research history. The forerunners of this periodical were August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Indian Library and the Vyāsa published by Othmar Frank (1770–1840) in the field of Indology . The first issue appeared in 1837, but shortly afterwards Ewald had to stop his main editorial work because he was expelled from the university there in the same year as one of the Göttingen Seven .

Issue two appeared in 1839, number three in 1840. From number four of 1842 onwards, the editorship fell on Lassen, who was heavily burdened by this. Three more issues of the magazine appeared, number five in 1844, six in 1845 and seven in 1850. In the end, Lassen gave up the magazine, probably so that he could concentrate entirely on his work on his archeology . The fact that new journals became available, Albrecht Weber's Indian Studies first published in 1849 and above all the journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG) first published in 1847 , may have encouraged Lassen in his decision. Today, the ZDMG is generally regarded as the successor to the magazine for the customers of the Orient .

The Indian archeology

Christian Lassen's extensive work Indian Archeology presents for the first time the entire state of research of ancient Indian philology and archeology and presents the entire history of India up to the end of the empire of Vijayanagara . Windisch describes the work as the conclusion of the entire first period of western scientific research on India. The work follows the historical program that was practiced in classical philology at the time . With this approach to the ancient philology discipline, which was extremely influential at the time, attempts were also made to further legitimize Indology as an academic subject that was still emerging.

A detailed table of contents and comments on the sources used by Lassen can be found in the first part of Windisch's History of Sanskrit Philology in Chapters XXII – XXVI, in which the scientific advances up to the year of their publication in 1917 are noted. Unfortunately, the extremely extensive archeology still lacks an index.

Even if sections such as the one on the geography of India (vol. 1, pp. 1–414) can claim validity to this day as sources of education, antiquity is nowadays particularly relevant in terms of the history of science and the majority of leaves Research results are now out of date.

Selected bibliography

• with Eugène Burnouf: Essai sur le Pali ou langue sacrée de la presqu'île au-delà du Gange . Paris 1826.
• Commentatio geographica atque historica de pentapotamia india (dissertation). Bonn 1827.
• About Mr. Bopp's grammatical system of the Sanskrit language [Review by Franz Bopp's detailed teaching structure of the Sanskrit language , Berlin 1827]. In: Indian Library. Volume 3.1, 1830, pp. 1-113.
• Gymnosophista sive indicae philosophiae documenta I, 1: Isvaracrishnae Sankhya-caricam tenens. Bonn 1832.
• The ancient Persian wedge inscriptions from Persepolis. Deciphering the alphabet and explaining its content. Bonn 1836.
• Institutiones linguae pracriticae . Bonn 1837.
• On the history of the Greek and Indoscythian kings in Bactria, Kabul and India by deciphering the Old Cabulian legends on their coins . Bonn 1838.
• Indian Classical Studies I: Geography and Ancient History . Bonn 1847 (2nd edition 1867).
• Indian Antiquity II: History of the Buddha down to the Ballabhi and later Gupta dynasties . Bonn 1849–52 (2nd edition 1873).
• Indian Antiquity III: History of trade and Greco-Roman knowledge of India and history of northern India from 319 AD up to the Muslims . Bonn 1857/58.
• Indian Antiquity IV: History of the Dekkhans, Hinterindiens and the Indian archipelago from 319 AD to the Muslims and the Portuguese. Along with an outline of the cultural and commercial history of this period. Bonn 1861.

literature

• Klaus Karttunen: Christian Lassen (1800–1876), a neglected pioneer of indology . In: K. Preisendanz (Ed.): Expanding and merging horizons. Contribution to South Asian and Cross-cultural Studies in commemoration of Wilhelm Halbfass. Austrian Academy of Science Press, Vienna 2007 (memoranda of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, philological-historical class, volume 351), pp. 109–119 [with bibliography].
• Willibald Kirfel (ed.): Correspondence between AW von Schlegel and Christian Lassen . Cohen, Bonn 1914.
• Willibald Kirfel: Christian Lassen 1800–1876 . In: Bonn scholars. Contributions to the history of science in Bonn. Linguistics . Bouvier / Röhrscheid, Bonn 1970 (150 years of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1818–1968), pp. 296–299.
• Johannes Klatt:  Lassen, Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 784-788.
• Friedrich Wilhelm:  Lassen, Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 673 ( digitized version ).
• Heiko Uecker : A look back: two Norwegian researchers in Bonn ( Georg Valentin von Munthe af Morgenstierne and Christian Lassen). In: dialog. Announcements from the German-Norwegian Society e. V., Bonn , No. 46, pp. 56-57. ( http://www.dng-bonn.de/images/dialog/dialog_46.pdf )
• Ernst Windisch: History of Sanskrit Philology and Indian Classical Studies. I., II. Part and postponed chapters of III. Partly . de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1992 [see pp. 154–158 (XX) and 164–197 (XXII – XXVI), see here .].

Web links

Wikisource: Christian Lassen  - Sources and full texts

Commons : Christian Lassen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Christian Lassen in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

1. ↑ See: Kartunnen, p. 198
2. ↑ Many of the copies from Schlegel's and von Lassen's bequests are now in the possession of the University and State Library of Bonn . See: Franz-Josef Huschens: The oriental manuscripts of the ULB Bonn. A directory ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Bonn 2000. 
3. ↑ See: Windisch, p. 125
4. ↑ See the entries from April 24th and 25th, 1827 in Eckermann.
5. ↑ Strictly speaking, Lassen and not Schlegel is the first professor of Sanskrit or Indology in Bonn: Schlegel had received a more general educational mandate. See: Indra Dasgupta: From salon to discipline. State, university and Indology in Germany, 1821-1914 . Heidelberg 2005, p. 15 ff. For the details of the appeal, see p. 64 ff.
6. ↑ The chair was finally taken by Niels Ludwig Westergaard (1815–1878), see Kartunnen, p. 109.
7. ↑ Anthologica Sanscritica glossario instructa. In usum scholarum edidit. Editio altera a J. Gildemeister . Bonn 1865. First edition 1838.
8. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 146.
9. ↑ There are different death dates in circulation. Kirfel, p. 299: May 5th. But see his tombstone!
10. ↑ Orden Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. The members of the order. Volume 1: 1842-1881 . Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7861-6189-5 , p. 198.
11. ^ Christian-Lassen-Strasse in the Bonn street cadastre
12. ↑ Lassenstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
13. ↑ See: Manfred Mayrhofer: Handbuch des Pali , Heidelberg 1951, p. 28.
14. ↑ For Prākṛtaprakāśa see: Vit Bubenik: Prakrits and Apabhramsa . In: Cardona / Jain (eds.): The Indo-Aryan languages . London 2003, pp. 204-249; 210. The full text was later edited by EB Cowell, Hertford 1854.
15. ↑ See: Kartunnen, p. 110: "Hoefer's much inferior work".
16. ↑ See: Richard Salomon: Indian Epigraphy. New York (etc.) 1998, p. 212.
17. ↑ Hitopadesas id est Institutio saltaris. Textum codd. mss. collatis recensuerunt, interpretationem latinam et annotationes criticas adjecerunt . Bonnae 1829.
18. ↑ Gita Govinda, Jayadevae poetae Indici drama lyricum. Textum ad fidem manuscriptorum recognovit, scholia, selecta, annotationem criticam, interpretationem latinam adjecit Chr. Lassen . Bonnae 1836. The text was then translated into German by Friedrich Rückert .
19. ↑ ZDB-ID 540630-4
20. ↑ See: Kartunnen, p. 110, note 6.
21. ↑ ZDB-ID 513349-x .
22. ^ Journal of the German Oriental Society at bibliothek.uni-halle.de
23. ↑ See: Holger Preissler: The beginnings of the German Oriental Society . In: Journal of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 145 (1995), pp. 241–327; 253 ff. (Predecessors and models of orientalist organizations and communications).
24. ↑ See: Windisch, p. 154.
25. ↑ See: Friedrich August Wolf: Presentation of antiquity science . In: Small fonts in Latin and German. Edited by G. Bernhardy. II: German essays . Halle 1869, pp. 808–895.
26. ↑ See: Dasgupta, op.cit., P. 38.
27. ↑ AL Basham: “Such much historical material has come to light and so many lacunae in the story of India's past have been filled since Lassen's day that his work is now practically useless. His chronology has since been proved almost completely false; ... “, Modern historians of ancient India , In: CH Philips (Ed.): Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon . London 1961, pp. 260-293, 262.