Herbert V. Guenther

Herbert Vighnāntaka Guenther (born March 17, 1917 in Bremen ; † March 11, 2006 ) was a German orientalist , Tibetologist and Buddhist researcher .

Life

As a teenager, Guenther attended the Alte Gymnasium in Bremen and was fascinated by everything Asian from a very early age. He began to learn the Chinese language from a Chinese engineer at the age of nine, and when he was ten he gave German lessons to a Russian seaman in exchange for Russian. After graduating from the Alte Gymnasium, where he studied Sanskrit in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew , he studied at the LMU Munich and the University of Vienna . In Munich he met his future wife Ilse Rossrucker, who had studied comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies in Vienna. The two felt connected through their mutual interest in music (she played the piano, he the flute), Heidegger's philosophy and the Upanishads, as well as their rejection of National Socialist politics. Guenther had studied with Wilhelm Geiger and Walther Wüst (the latter since 1933 member of the NSDAP, since 1934 V-Mann of the SD, since 1936 member of the SS) (Indo-Aryan philosophy and antiquity, minor subjects Iranian and English) and in 1939 with the already emeritus Wilhelm Geiger with a dissertation on the grammar of the Buddhist mixed prakrit , the language of Mahavastu .

In 1941 Guenther went to Vienna, where he continued his studies and completed his habilitation in 1943 with a thesis on Sidat-Sagarava, the native Sinhalese grammar. This work was accepted by Erich Frauwallner (member of the NSDAP since 1932, of the Nazi teachers' association since 1933). At Frauwallner's suggestion, Guenther also began studying Tibetan at this time, as Tantric Buddhism has been handed down in Tibet to the present day. Frauwallner was called up for military service in spring 1943 and Guenther held lectures in Indology from the winter semester of 1943/1944. Frauwallner's license to teach was revoked after the war because of his Nazi past (he got it back in 1952).

When Frauwallner returned to Vienna in 1947 and began trying to regain his teaching license, there were scientific, political and personal disputes between Frauwallner and Guenther; Frauwallner accused Guenther of systematically stealing Buddhological frameworks from his private library, which had been moved to the university. The university authorities followed these allegations, as Frauwallner was able to provide evidence. Since 1947 the Guenther family planned to leave for India, with Herbert Guenther trying to become a teacher there. The main reason was that he felt that an Indologist should also work and research in India. In addition, there was the increasingly unbearable atmosphere at the University of Vienna.

In 1950 the Guenther family moved to India . At the University of Lucknow taught Guenther 1950-1958 Russian; At the same time he continued his studies and during this time he published a book on Theravada Buddhism, two titles on Tantric Buddhism: Yuganaddha - the Tantric View of Life (1952) and Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism (1956) and a work on the Buddhist Abhidharma ( Philosophy and Psychology in the Abhidharma (1957)).

In 1958 he was appointed to the Sanskrit University in Benares, where he became Head of the Department of Comparative Philosophy and Buddhist Studies and stayed until 1963. During this time he had the opportunity to study with numerous Tibetan and Mongolian lamas from all Buddhist schools and to pursue his own research on Tibetan Buddhism. While teaching and researching in Benares, Guenther published his first major translations from Tibetan: sGam-po-pa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation (1959) and The Life and Teaching of Naropa (1963).

After his time at Sanskrit University, Guenther was appointed to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon , Canada , in 1964, where he became Head of the Department of Far Eastern Studies and remained until his retirement in 1984. Even after that, he continued his Buddhist studies until he died and published numerous other books and articles.

Works (in German)

• The soul problem in older Buddhism . Weller, Constance 1949
• The Buddha and his teaching. According to the tradition of the Theravadins . Rascher, Zurich 1956
• Tantra as a view of life . Translated from the English by Ursula von Mangoldt . Barth, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-502-61240-4
• Tantra in the light of reality (with Chögyam Trungpa ). Aurum, Freiburg im Breisgau 1976, ISBN 3-591-08026-8
• Jewelery of Spiritual Liberation . The book of Tibetan Buddhism . Diederichs, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-424-00996-2
• Swirling light. Texts on the holistic process philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism of the older tradition . Buddhist Studienverlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-937059-05-9
• Down and up again. Allegorical stories about becoming and transcendence . Edited by Peter Gang . Buddhist Studienverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-937059-17-4
• Divine and demonic dimensions of the feminine. Ral-gcig-ma and Mukhale - two goddesses of Tantric Buddhism . Buddhist Studienverlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-937059-18-1
• The teachings of Padmasambhava . Buddhist Studienverlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-937059-21-1

Web links

• interdependentscience.com: Herbert V. Guenther

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Stuchlik: The Aryan Approach: Erich Frauwallner and National Socialism . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2009. (= ÖAW. Philos.-hist. Kl. Meeting reports; 797.) pp. 177, 181 f .; Walter Slaje: Review by Stuchlik 2009. In: Asian Studies 44: 2 (2010), pp. 447–463, here: pp. 454f.