Walter Liebenthal

Walter Liebenthal, 1968

Walter Liebenthal (born June 12, 1886 in Königsberg , East Prussia ; † November 15, 1982 in Tübingen ) was a German philosopher and sinologist who specialized in Chinese Buddhism . He translated numerous philosophical works from Pali , Sanskrit and especially from Chinese into German . In the course of his extensive research in the field of Indian Buddhism and the Chinese religions , he came to the conclusion that the Chinese Buddhist schools from their inception up to Chan Buddhism were not a Chinese version of Indian Buddhism, but rather derived from Daoism , a Chinese religion. Indian elements are present, but the essential elements correspond to Chinese ideas.

Life

Liebenthal was born the son of the lawyer Robert Liebenthal. In 1914 he married Charlotte Oenike, with whom he had four children: Frank, Ludwig, Johanna and Walter. His professional career was extremely changeable. He originally started studying law, but then followed his artistic inclinations and became a sculptor in 1907. At the beginning of the First World War , he volunteered for the Prussian Landwehr in 1914 , was wounded twice and taken prisoner in France. He spent 1918 to 1920 in French captivity.

In 1920 he returned to Berlin and made various attempts in the Weimar Republic to earn a living and to support his family. Together with friends, he opened a movie theater, ran a chocolate factory and strawberry plantation, and eventually tried his hand at making film sets, but none of these ventures turned out to be profitable enough. His wife successfully ran a workshop in the family home, in which she embroidered children's clothes and from which they could earn a living.

During this time Walter Liebenthal met Paul Dahlke , the founder of the first Buddhist monastery on German soil in Berlin-Frohnau, and began to take a serious interest in Buddhism . He began to study Pali , Sanskrit , Tibetan and Chinese . In 1928 he began studying Indology and subsequently studied at the universities of Berlin , Marburg , Heidelberg , Halle and Breslau . Among his teachers and mentors were Johannes Nobel , Max Walleser (1874–1954) and Otto Strauss. In 1933 he received his doctorate from the University of Breslau. phil with a dissertation on Satkärya in the representation of his Buddhist opponents . Due to the National Socialist discrimination laws - his father was Jewish - he was unable to get a job at a German university after completing his doctorate.

In 1934 he received an appointment as a research assistant at the Sino-Indian Institute of the Yanjing University in Beijing, China . In the following two years he created a Chinese Sanskrit index on the Kasyapa-parivarta , which was lost during the Japanese occupation of Beijing in 1937. In 1937 he switched to the Beida (National University in Beijing) as professor of Sanskrit and German and followed her to Changsha and Kunming during the coming war . In 1946 he returned to Beijing and published The Book of Chao , which cemented his reputation as a sinologist.

In 1952 he left Beijing and went to the Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan , India, founded by the Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore . Initially he worked as a research officer, from 1959 as a professor emeritus and head of the Institute for Sino-Indian Studies. On his 70th birthday, the University of Santiniketan published a commemorative publication with articles "by von Liebenthal colleagues from all over the world", "who responded with great enthusiasm to the call to honor his work."

In 1958 his wife Charlotte died and he decided to leave India. He went back to Europe and gave lectures and lectures, was visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Israel (1959) and taught from 1960 to 1961 on the recommendation of his friend Paul Demiéville at the Sorbonne , France. At the age of 77 he finally settled in Tübingen (Germany), where he held exercises on his specialty on behalf of the directors of the Department of Indology and the Department of East Asian Philology at the University of Tübingen .

In 1965 he was appointed honorary professor for the subject of "Chinese Buddhism" at the University of Tübingen on the recommendation of Germanist Klaus Ziegler, dean of the Philosophical Faculty and the Senate of the University of Tübingen . He lectured and continued to work on his magnum opus, On World Interpretations, until his death in 1982.

“The long and profound preoccupation with the religious and philosophical teachings of India and China finally led him beyond his specialty to comparative studies on the fundamental topics and the framework of ideas that determine a culture. In his publication On World Interpretations (Shantiniketan 1956) he laid down his thoughts on this and at the same time pleaded for mutual understanding among peoples. "

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Liebenthal translated numerous philosophical works from Pali , Sanskrit and especially from Chinese into German . In the course of his extensive research in the field of Indian Buddhism and the Chinese religions , he came to the conclusion that the Chinese Buddhist schools from their inception to Chan Buddhism were not a Chinese version of Indian Buddhism, but rather derived from Daoism , a Chinese religion. Indian elements are present, but the essential elements correspond to Chinese ideas.

Several writings appeared in the Monumenta Serica. Journal of Oriental Studies , in Monumenta Nipponica and the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies .

Publications (selection)

• "Satkarya in the representation of his Buddhist opponents". 8 vo. 151 ff. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart-Berlin 1934
• "Sutra t + o the Lord of Healing" (Bhaishajya-green Vaiduryaprabha Tathagata), 32 ff. by Chou Su-Chia and translated by Walter Liebenthal. Buddhist Scripture Series No. 1, Society of Chinese Buddhists, Peiping 1936
• "The Book of Chao". Monumenta Serica, Series XIII 8 vo. 195 ff. Beijing 1948
• "Tao-sheng and His Time". Monumenta Nipponica , XI, XII, 34 ff, Tokyo 1955/6, Monograph No. 17th
• "The World Conception of Chu Tao Sheng". Monumenta Nipponica, 8 vo. Nbrs.1 & 2, Tokyo 1956
• "On World Interpretations". 8vo. 88 ff. Santiniketan 1956. (appeared in sequels in the Visvabharati Quarterly XX. 1, 3 & 4; XXI. 1 & 4 between 1954/6)
• "Chao Lun: The Treatises of Seng-Chao", 2nd revised edition, 152 pages, Hong Kong University Press, available from Oxford University Press, ISBN 0196431042
• "The Wu-men kuan: Access only through the wall / Wu-men Hui-k'ai". 142 ff. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1977

literature

• Liebenthal Festschrift, 294 ff, Santiniketan, Visvabharati Quarterly, Vol V, Numbers 3 & 4, 1957.
• University of Tübingen, press release No. 18, “Prof. Dr. Walter Liebenthal on his 80th birthday ”, June 3, 1966.
• University of Tübingen, article by Tilemann Grimm, Attempto 66/67, “Prof. Dr. Walter Liebenthal on his 95th birthday ”, p. 73, 1980.
• Kurt Forstreuter, Fritz Gause, Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research, Klaus Bürger, Christian Anton Christoph Krollmann (Eds.): Old Prussian Biography, Volume 5, Part 2, Elwert, 2007, ISBN 3770813014 . Page 1858.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Liebenthal in the catalog of the German National Library
• Institute for Sinology, University of Heidelberg, Germany
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johanna Kohlberger (daughter of Walter Liebenthal) unpublished biography; Liebenthal Festschrift (Santiniketan 1956); Letters and documents kindly supported by the University Archives Tübingen and an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 11, 1966) on the 80th birthday of Walter Liebenthal: Investigations of East Asian religions in the translation of John Barlow in his article “The mysterious case of the brilliant young Russian orientalist ”- Part 2 - International Association of Orientalist Librarians, Vol. 43, 1998 http://wason.library.cornell.edu/iaol/Vol.43/barlow2.htm ( Memento of June 9, 2007 on the Internet Archives )
2. ^ Tilemann Grimm, "Prof. Dr. Walter Liebenthal on his 95th birthday ”f, Attempto 66/67, p. 73, (1980), published by the University of Tübingen.
3. ↑ Liebenthal Festschrift, 1957, p. 4.
4. ↑ Liebenthal-Festschrift, 1957, p. 1, foreword.
5. ^ Letter of December 23, 1964 to the Academic Rector's Office of the University of Tübingen von Ziegler; University archive of Tübingen.-Signature: 298/828.
6. ^ Excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of the Grand Senate on February 13, 1965; University archive of Tübingen.-Signature: 357/67.
7. ↑ University of Tübingen, press release No. 18 (6-3-66), quoted in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of June 11, 1966 in the translation by John Barlow, IAOL # 43, 1998 http: //wason.library.cornell. edu / iaol / Vol.43 / barlow2.htm ( Memento from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Tilemann Grimm, “Prof. Dr. Walter Liebenthal on his 95th birthday ”, Attempto 66/67 (1980), published by the University of Tübingen.