Ludwig Alsdorf

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Ludwig Alsdorf (born August 8, 1904 in Laufersweiler ; † March 25, 1978 in Buchholz in the Nordheide ) was a German Indologist .

Family and education

Ludwig Alsdorf was the son of pastor Hermann Alsdorf and Emilie Alsdorf, née Chelius. His maternal grandmother, Lina Bruch, was a close relative of the composer Max Bruch . Hermann Alsdorf was the Protestant pastor of Laufersweiler from 1900 to 1911. The family then moved to Scheidt in Saarland , as he was now the pastor of this community.

After completing his A-levels at the Ludwigsgymnasium in Saarbrücken , Ludwig Alsdorf began studying at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 1922 and studied Indology with Heinrich Zimmer and Comparative Linguistics with Christian Bartholomae . A year later he moved to the University of Hamburg and studied Indology under Walther Schubring , where he received his doctorate in 1928 in the field of Jainism . In 1929 he moved to the Humboldt University in Berlin and studied under Heinrich Lüders .

The romanist Annegret Bollée is the daughter of Ludwig Alsdorf.

Professional background

From October 1930 to May 1932 he was a reader at the University of Allahabad . He used his stay in India to photograph the manuscripts he needed for his habilitation and to deepen his knowledge of Sanskrit . He also toured India, Burma and Ceylon . In 1935 he completed his habilitation at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1938 he had to go to the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In 1941, after Subhash Chandra Bose had fled to the German Reich , he was appointed to the Foreign Office and assigned to the India Special Unit. Under the pseudonym “Botho Ludwig” he wrote the anti-England propaganda pamphlet “India's Way to Freedom” in the sense of Bose's nationalist government-in-exile Azad Hind (“Free India”).

In 1950, Ludwig Alsdorf first returned to the University of Münster and then received a chair for Indian history and culture at the University of Hamburg. In 1972 he retired, but continued to give lectures until the 1977/8 winter semester. In March 1978, while traveling through Ceylon, he was stung by an insect. The sting caught fire and Ludwig Alsdorf died on his return to Germany.

Since 1959 he was a full member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and a member of the Joachim Jungius Society of Sciences .

Publications (selection)

  • Contributions to the history of vegetarianism and veneration of cattle in India (= treatises of the humanities and social science class of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. 1961, No. 6).
  • Aśokas Separatedicts of Dhauli and Jaugaḍa (= treatises of the humanities and social sciences class of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. Born in 1962, No. 1).
  • The Āryā Stanzas of the Uttarajjhāyā. Contributions to the Text History and Interpretation of a Canonical Jaina Text (= treatises of the humanities and social sciences class of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. 1966, No. 2).
  • The Āryā stanzas of the Pali canon, produced metrically and examined for textual history (= treatises of the humanities and social science class of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. Born 1967, No. 4).

Literature and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saarland biographies: Hermann Alsdorf ( Memento from July 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Hans Michael Hensel (2019): Hafiz Manzooruddin Ahmad. The Asia Declaration of the National Socialists . (16th paragraph)
  3. ^ Joachim Jungius Society of Sciences: Members. Retrieved March 26, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Alsdorf, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Indologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Laufersweiler
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1978
Place of death Buchholz in the north heath