Hermann Oldenberg

Hermann Oldenberg, around 1895

Hermann Oldenberg (born October 31, 1854 in Hamburg , † March 18, 1920 in Göttingen ) was a German Indologist who did pioneering work in the fields of Buddhist studies and the Veda .

Life

Hermann Oldenberg was born in Hamburg in 1854. His father was a pastor and inspector in the Rauhe Haus there . Hermann Oldenberg studied Classical Philology and Indology at the Georg-August University in Göttingen and the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . There he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD . In 1878 the habilitation for Sanskrit followed .

In 1889 he became a full professor at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel , where he was rector in 1906/07. In 1908 he moved to Göttingen. In 1912 and 1913 he was studying in India .

Oldenberg was a corresponding member from 1890 and a full member from 1909 of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

The dipterologist Lorenz Oldenberg (1863–1931) and the lawyer Karl Oldenberg (1864–1936) were his brothers.

research

Oldenberg devoted himself mainly to the study of Indian religions, initially Buddhism . 1879-1883 he published the Vinayapitaka , an important text with rules for life in Buddhist monasteries, which he later published in English translation in the Sacred Books of the East . His book title Buddha, His Life, His Teaching, His Congregation has been a classic of specialist literature for decades and has been translated into French, Russian and English. Oldenberg relied on sources in Pali and showed that Buddha was a historical figure.

Many of his studies were in the Rigveda , his book The Religion of the Veda (1894) was an important specialist publication. In his studies he not only used linguistic methods, but also used ethnology as an auxiliary science for his interpretations. He tried to reconstruct the original text of the Rigveda, which had been handed down orally by priestly families over many generations before it was put into writing. In further studies Oldenberg dealt with the Upanishads , the Brahmanas and the Mahabharata . His title The Literature of Ancient India appeared in 1903.

Awards

1879: Sponsorship award from the Bopp Foundation

Works

The Dîpavamsa; an ancient Buddhist historical record . Williams and Norgate, London 1879
"Buddha: His life, his teaching, his community" , Verlag Wilhelm Hertz , Berlin 1881.
The Grihya-sûtras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies. Vol. 1, The Clarendon press, Oxford 1886
The Grihya-sûtras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies . Vol. 2, The Clarendon press, Oxford 1886
Goethe's and Carlyle's correspondence (eds.), Berlin, 1887
The hymns of the Rig Veda. Vol. 1: Metric and text-historical prolegomena . Berlin 1888; Reprint: Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-515-03800-0
" On the history of the Indian caste system ", magazine of the German Oriental Society , vol. 51 (1897), p. 267 ff.
The religion of the Veda . Berlin 1894; 2nd edition Stuttgart, Berlin 1917
Veda research . Stuttgart, Berlin 1905 ( Djvu )
Rigveda. Critical and exegetical notes. Part 1: Berlin 1909, Part 2: Berlin 1912 (Treatises of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen, phil.-hist. Class, NF 11.5 and 13.3)
The teaching of the Upanishads and the beginnings of Buddhism. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1915.
On the religion and mythology of the Veda. In: News from the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class from 1915. Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1916, pp. 167–403 ( at Internet Archive )
Small fonts. 2 parts. Stuttgart 1967 (Glasenapp Foundation 5, 1 + 2)
Small fonts. Part 3. Stuttgart 1993 (Glasenapp Foundation 34), ISBN 3-515-06122-3

literature

Alfred Bertholet : Hermann Oldenberg. In: Nachrichten von der Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Business Messages 1920, pp. 53–63
Helmuth von Glasenapp : Afterword. In: Hermann Oldenberg: The Buddha. 13th edition Stuttgart 1959, p. 455 ff.
Tetsuro Watsuji: Genshi bukkyō no jissen tetsugaku, Joron: Compos shiryō no toriatsukaikata ni tsuite [The methodology of studying early Buddhist texts]. Tokyo 1937
Friedrich Wilhelm: Oldenberg, Hermann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 507 f. ( Digitized version ).
Louis Renou : Les maitres des la philologie védique. Paris 1928, pp. 56-72
Walter Troxler: OLDENBERG, Hermann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 1177-1178. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Wikisource: Hermann Oldenberg - Sources and full texts

Literature by and about Hermann Oldenberg in the catalog of the German National Library
The history of the subjects of Indology and Tibetology at the University of Göttingen. Seminar for Indology and Tibetology, University of Göttingen (short biography)

Individual evidence

↑ Rector's speech (HKM)
↑ 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. 182.

personal data
SURNAME	Oldenberg, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Indologist
DATE OF BIRTH	October 31, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH	March 18, 1920
Place of death	Goettingen

[1] Rector's speech (HKM)

[2] 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. 182.