Karl Seidenstücker

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Karl Bernhard Seidenstücker (born March 23, 1876 in Gerbstedt ; † October 29, 1936 in Leipzig ) was a pioneer of Buddhism in Germany , an Indologist , author and translator. With the "Buddhist Mission Association for Germany" founded on his initiative in 1903, he created the first organizational structures for the development of Buddhism in the German-speaking area.

Life

Karl Bernhard Seidenstücker was born as the son of the pastor Karl Seidenstücker in Gerbstedt . After graduating from the Francke Foundations in Halle , he studied natural sciences , philosophy , medicine and philology in Göttingen, Leipzig and Halle.

Inspired by his studies, Seidenstücker began to deal intensively with Indology and the spread of Buddhism and also translated books that had Buddhism as their content from English. From 1908 he was married to Martha Dönig, they had a son and two daughters. In 1913, Seidenstücker received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig with a dissertation on Das Udana , a canonical script of Pali Buddhism .

He criticized Christianity under the pseudonym Bruno Freydank . Although Seidenstücker also expressed criticism of undesirable developments in Buddhism in Asia, he declared Buddhism to be the "religion of the future".

The Buddhist Mission Association

In 1903, around the same time as the first German monk (Bhikkhu Nyânatiloka ) entered the Buddhist order, Seidenstücker played a key role in founding the first German Buddhist association, the "Buddhist Missions Association". Seidenstücker brought out some Buddhist magazines ( Der Buddhist , Buddhist Welt ) in cooperation with theosophical circles , but soon became a sharp critic of the theosophists. As a lecturer on the subject of Buddhism, Seidenstücker was in high demand, especially in Leipzig, Berlin and Halle.

Under changing names, such as "Buddhist Society" and "Mahabodhi Society", Seidenstücker tried, especially in 1906 and 1907, to create a Buddhist organization that would radiate into all parts of Germany. In 1909 he founded the German Pali Society (DPG) together with Walter Markgraf . Based on the British model of the Pali Text Society , this was supposed to be devoted to research into Buddhism and the publication of Buddhist texts, but was dissolved again in 1913 after Seidenstücker announced his withdrawal. In 1921 he founded the “Old Buddhist Community” with Georg Grimm .

In the mid-1920s, Karl Seidenstücker, who grew up in a Protestant rectory and had been a professed Buddhist for two decades, made a second conversion. He turned to the Catholic faith, which he practiced until his death in 1936. For this reason no one from the Buddhist community in Germany dedicated an obituary to their “founding father”.

plant

bibliography

Monographs

  • Bruno Freydank (pseudonym): Buddha and Christ: A Buddhist Apologetics . Buddhist Missionsverlag, Leipzig 1903.
  • Karl Seidenstücker: Buddhist forget-me-not. A collection of Buddhist sayings for every day of the year . Leipzig 1905.
  • Tsong Ka-Pa (pseudonym): The horrors of the "Christian" civilization. Letters from a Buddhist Lama in Tibet, edited by Bruno Freydank . Buddhist Missionsverlag, Leipzig 1903.
  • Karl Seidenstücker: Buddhist Gospels. A selection of texts from the sacred books of the Buddhists . Verlag von Anna Fändrich, Leipzig 1909 (from the 4th edition, published by Verlag Altmann, Max Leipzig 1923, under the title: Buddhist Gospels. A religious breviary based on the teachings of Buddha ).
  • Karl Seidenstücker: The Udana, a canonical script of Pali Buddhism . Leipzig, 1913.
  • Karl Seidenstücker: Pâli Buddhism in translations . Leipzig 1911. (2nd edition 1923)
  • Karl Seidenstücker: Elementary grammar (sound and form theory) of the Pāli language . Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1916.
  • Karl Seidenstücker: South Buddhist Studies . Part 1: The Buddha legend in the sculptures of the Ananda Temple at Pagan . Meissner, Hamburg 1916. (other parts not published)
  • Karl Seidenstücker: The secular follower of the Buddha. Waving and teaching for lay Buddhists . Sphinx-Verlag, Augsburg 1923.
  • Karl Seidenstücker: Twelve Jātaka reliefs at the Ananda Temple in Pagan . Publishing house Oskar Schloss, Munich-Neubiberg 1926.

As editor

The Buddhist

Footnotes

  1. ^ Finding aid Karl Seidenstücker (1876–1936) in the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography , Leipzig.
  2. ↑ Heinz Mürmerl: The Beginning of Institutional Buddhism in Germany - The Buddhist Mission Association in Germany (based in Leipzig) ( Memento from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: Universität Hamburg, Numata Center for Buddhist Studies (ed.): Buddhism in the past and present . Vol. 11: Renewal Movements in Buddhism . 2006, pp. 157–173, here p. 160 (online publication).
  3. ↑ Volker Zotz : On the blissful islands. Buddhism in German culture . Theseus Verlag, Berlin 2000. ISBN 3-89620-151-4 . Pp. 154-155.
  4. ↑ Bibliographical reference ( memento of the original dated February 3, 2014 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. the University and State Library Darmstadt @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Seidenstücker, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Girimananda (pseudonym); Bruno Freydank (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Buddhist, author and translator
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Gerbstedt , Saxony-Anhalt
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1936
Place of death Leipzig