Joan Mascaró i Fornés

Joan Mascaró i Fornés (born December 8, 1897 in Santa Margalida , † March 19, 1987 in Comberton , Cambridge ) was a Spanish orientalist .

Life

He was born on the Spanish Mediterranean island of Mallorca and taught English literature and oriental languages at Cambridge . He was particularly specialized in the language and culture of Sanskrit . In Oxford he worked as a lecturer. He went to Sri Lanka and became vice rector of Paramesvara College in Jaffna .

In the 1930s he translated parts of the Bhagavad Gita into Catalan and English . In 1939 he settled in Cambridge. In 1958 he published Lamps of Fire, a selection of texts with mystical content from different cultures. He translated various works from Sanskrit and Pali into English, including the Upanishads and the Dhammapada . His translations received a great deal of attention in the western world, particularly in Anglo-American countries, during the 1970s. Joan Mascaró i Fornés was friends with John Lennon . The work of Mascaró i Fornés influenced the composition of George Harrison's The Inner Light .

Joan Mascaró i Fornés was buried in his birthplace, Santa Margalida. His gravestone is inscribed in Catalan and English with a quote taken from his books. In German it reads in a sense We come from God, we live with God, we go to God.

literature

• Joan-Antoni Adrover i Mascaró: 600 questions about Mallorca. Campos, 2010, ISBN 978-84-614-1808-4 , page 156.