Heinrich Roth (Indologist)

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Heinrich Roth SJ (born December 18, 1620 in Dillingen an der Donau , † June 20, 1668 in Agra , India ; also Henricus Rodius or Henrique Roa ) was a German Jesuit and missionary . Through his Sanskrit studies he became a pioneer of modern Indology .

Life

Youth and Studies

Heinrich Roth was born in 1620 as the son of the doctor of both rights and prince-bishop's bailiff Konrad Roth († 1637) and his wife Maria Susanne († after 1664) in Dillingen, where he also attended school. From 1635 he first studied rhetoric at the Jesuit University of Dillingen , then philosophy at the Innsbruck Jesuit College , before joining the Jesuit order on October 25, 1639 in Landsberg . From 1641 to 1645 he taught as a master at the universities of Munich and Ingolstadt . In 1645 he began again to study theology in Dillingen , which he completed in 1649 in Ingolstadt. In the same year - on 29 May 1649 - he received in Eichstaett the priesthood .

Trip to India and first Sanskrit studies (1650–1662)

In 1649 Roth (together with Franz Storer) was assigned to the Ethiopian and Indian mission by the Jesuit General Francesco Piccolomini . The two Jesuits first came via Italy to Smyrna (1650) and from there by land via Isfahan to what was then the Portuguese colony of Goa (1652), Roth's first missionary place of activity. On the island Salsette Roth temporarily worked as a Portuguese interpreters before as an envoy of a regional leader over stations in Srinagar and Uttarakhand finally in 1654 to Agra at the residence of the Great Mughals arrived. There he worked as a missionary and pastor, as well as a doctor and teacher; Around 1659 Roth took over the rectorate of the Jesuit college of Agra, which at times suffered from persecution by the Mughals against Christians and Hindus alike. In addition to Kannarese , Hindustani and Persian, Roth also learned the basics of classical Sanskrit in several years of study with local pandits and devoted himself to his own studies of Indian grammar and literature. At the imperial court he met the French philosopher and physician François Bernier , who was the personal physician of the great mogul Aurangzeb and who was impressed by Roth's knowledge of Indian culture.

Journey to Europe (1662–1665)

Together with his Austrian friar Johann Grueber , who had come to Agra on his way back from the Chinese imperial court in Beijing , Roth traveled again by land in 1662, this time via Kabul , to Europe, where the two arrived in Rome on February 20, 1664 . The polymath Athanasius Kircher published her detailed travel description in his encyclopedia China illustrata in 1667 . In 1664 Roth held a number of public lectures on the history and culture of the Mughal Empire in Neuburg , which were printed in abridged form in 1665. At the imperial court in Vienna, he successfully applied for financial support from Leopold I for the printing of a Sanskrit grammar that he had written; however, a publication failed due to the resistance of the Jesuit order general Giovanni Paolo Oliva .

Return to India and Death (1665–1668)

Commissioned by Oliva to set up a Nepalese Jesuit mission, Roth first traveled with Grueber to Constantinople in 1665 , where the companion stayed, while Roth returned in 1666 via Surat to his former place of work in Agra. There he died on June 20, 1668 without having started to carry out his commission. His tomb in the Padri Santos Chapel in the suburb of Lashkarpur has been preserved.

Work and meaning

Henry Roth's 1660 in Latin resulting language lingua Grammaticca Sanscretanae Brachmanum Indiae orientalis whose manuscript now in the Italian National Library is located in Rome, was the first written by a European, Sanskrit grammar and established his reputation as a pioneer of modern Indian studies. The same applies to his preserved preliminary work on a Sanskrit-Latin dictionary and an outline of the Indian Vedanta philosophy, which represented the first attempt to reproduce Hindustani in Latin transcription . More of his research, including the Devanagari script , the deity Vishnu and the apostle Thomas ' trip to India , found its way into Athanasius Kircher's China illustrata . Furthermore, 35 letters from Roth that he wrote from India and during his travels to Europe have survived.

Fonts

  • Arnulf Camps / Jean-Claude Muller (eds.): The Sanskrit grammar and manuscripts of Father Heinrich Roth, SJ (1620-1668). Facsimile edition of Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome, Mss. Or. 171 and 172. Brill, Leiden 1988. ISBN 90-04-08608-0 . (with catalog raisonné).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Vogel, NDB p. 106.
  2. ↑ Instructio ARP Generalis Francisci Piccolomini per P (atre) Henrico R (oth) Ingolstadio ad missionem Aethiopicam profecturo (1639); see. Anton Huonder: German Jesuit missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries , Freiburg 1899, p. 213 f.
  3. ↑ Roth is mentioned several times in François Bernier: Voyage dans les États du Grand Mogol . Paris: Claude Barbin, 1671 (modern text edition: Paris: Fayard, 1981. ISBN 978-22130-0954-4 ).
  4. ↑ Athanasius Kircher: China monumentis qua sacris qua profanis nec non variis naturae et artis spectaculis aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata . Amsterdam 1667; here p. 91 f .: Iter ex Agra Mogorum in Europam ex relatione PP . Joh (anni) Gruberi et H (enrici) Roth.
  5. ↑ Cf. Claus Vogel: The Jesuit missionary Heinrich Roth (1620-1688) and his burial place at Agra. In: Lars Göhler (ed.): Indian culture in context. Rituals, texts and ideas from India and the world. Festschrift for Klaus Mylius. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005 (Contributions to Indology, Vol. 50), pp. 407–412 (English) (with images of the grave).
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German missionary and pioneer of Sanskrit research
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1620
PLACE OF BIRTH Dillingen on the Danube
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1668
Place of death Agra , India