History of Sanskrit studies

[Jan E.M. Houben]

I am happy that George mentioned Renou.
To be added to the list is:
Oldenberg's Vedaforschung (1905)
and
W. Caland, Ontdekkingsgeschiedenis van den Veda
["history of the discovery of the Veda, in
Dutch], Amsterdam 1918.
A very interesting recent contribution, just as
Caland's study in Dutch, is:
De late 'ontdekking' van het Sanskrit en de
Oudindischen cultuur in Europa, farewell lecture
of Prof. H.W. Bodewitz.
The upshot of Bodewitz' overview of the history
of the late European 'discovery' of Sanskrit and
the old Indian culture is the following: romantic
reconstructions of the history of the 'discovery'
present it as a very difficult one; however,
Sanskrit and old Indian culture were not all that
difficult to discover for those India-travellers
who could invest sufficient perseverance. The
main hindrance was the unwillingness of both
catholics and protestants to give free too much
information (knowledge of Sanskrit grammar) that
was felt to be threatening to its own authority.




--- George Thompson <gthomgt at ADELPHIA.NET> wrote:

> Louis Renou's *Les maitres de la philologie
> v�dique* [Annales du Mus�e
> Guimet, xxxviii, 1927] should be added to
> Francois Obrist's useful list.
>
> It is narrowly focused, of course, but it
> treats in detail the early
>


=====
Jan E.M. Houben,
Directeur d'�tudes,
Sources et Histoire de la Tradition Sanskrite
�cole Pratique des Hautes �tudes,
� la Sorbonne,
45-47, rue des �coles,
75005 Paris -- France.
J_E_M_Houben at yahoo.com
Homepage: http://home.planet.nl/~j.e.m.houben
Website: www.jyotistoma.nl



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