[INDOLOGY] Passing Away of Prof. Dr. Chlodwig Werba!

Tue Jan 29 19:06:47 UTC 2019

I am really sorry to hear of the premature death on 25 January 2019 of my old friend Chlodwig (which name he sanskritized as ;Srutavega, at one time used in his e-mail address and elsewhere), especially as the last time I was in contact with him, he was in a very happy mood. I take the liberty of quoting these very private messages, also as a consolation to his surely devastated wife: 

24 Nov 2017: the ensuing weekend … my patnii and I will celebrate our 243rd maasika vivaahadina.

26 Nov 2017: By the way, yesterday we just had a wonderful Chinese lunch, some shopping and a private concert with some piano pieces of Mozart (sanskritized by me yathaartham as Mok.saartha), Bach and Gershwin I played for my wife. A bunch of flowers introduced the whole on Friday evening. … Yours happily, Chlodwig

A little earlier, 14 Nov 2017, he had written me: "For the time being I am concentrating on the second volume of my VIA [Verba Indo-Arica] (II: Radices secundariae) for which I’ll be looking for a fine printer in the second half of next year.” Although the first volume, I: Radices primariae (1997, 600 pp.), was printed by the publishing house of the Viennese Academy of Sciences, it was not included in any publication series (apparently the author was too shy to ask), and Werba had to pay the printing himself.  It is to be hoped that his Viennese colleagues now have the second volume duly published in an appropriate series.

If one glances at the publications of Chlodwig Werba between 2000 and 2016 that he has listed on his homepage (https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/persons/chlodwig-h-werba(88283a73-c246-4c13-9668-78e1acc6677e)/publications.html) <https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/persons/chlodwig-h-werba(88283a73-c246-4c13-9668-78e1acc6677e)/publications.html)>, one is struck that a prominent place among the is occupied by eleven volumes of Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (each approximately 250-300 pages). Chlodwig Werba is mentioned only in the third place among the editors, but knowing his extreme carefulness, he must have spent much of his time on the editing of these volumes. In fact, he was an editor of this important journal already before 2000 (e.g. number 38/1994 containing the Festschrift of his teacher Gerhard Oberhammer, xix, 522 pp.). 

One can get an idea of the meticulous perfectionism characteristic of Chlodwig Werba from the extensive indices (pp. 587-679) that he compiled to the very important and voluminous study of the Vedic ritual by Hertha Krick (1945-1979), his Viennese colleague who passed away at the age of 33, published posthumously in 1982: Das Ritual der Feuergründung (Agnyaadheya). In his preface the editor, Gerhard Oberhammer, acknowledges Werba’s work, which make the rich contents of the study truly accessible, in the following words: “… Es ist das besondere Verdienst von Herrn Chlodwig Werba, Studienassistent am Institut für Indologie, diese Register mit grosser Gründlichkeit und Sachkenntnis hergestellt zu haben” (p. VII). 

Werba’s list of publications does not include his Viennese doctoral dissertation from 1982, which indeed has remained unpublished: Die arischen Personennamen und ihre Träger bei den Alexanderhistorikern: Studien zur iranischen Anthronomastik (xix, 403 pp.). Considering the importance of Aryan personal names among the publications of the Viennese Academy of Sciences, perhaps a posthumous publication is worth consideration. 

Sit tibi terra levis!  Asko

> On 29 Jan 2019, at 20.38, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
> 
> Sad news indeed.
> 
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus
> Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan
> [Residence: Campbell, California]
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 11:29 PM Dr. Debabrata Chakrabarti via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
> I am sorry to inform the learned circle that my friend Prof. Dr. Chlodwig Werba of the South Asian Institute of Indoloy & Tibetan Studies in Vienna has died a premature death on 25 January 2019. We miss not only an outstanding scholar of Indology, but a man of intense feeling and a heart full of humour. May he attain Sadgati.  
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> Photo Courtesy: Edgar Leitan
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> ???This body is like a musical instrument; what you hear depends upon how you play it.??? ??? Anandamayi Ma
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> ???Inside every human being there exists a special heaven, whole and unbroken.??? - Paracelsus
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