Madhuvidya

SR No.: 006525
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 762
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Philosophy
File Size: 17 MB

Page 744

Reviews
HANNS OERTEL: Kleine Shriften, Teil I and Teil II, edited by Heinrich Hettrich and Thomas Oberlies; Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart; 1994; Pp. XV+ 1669.
293
These two solid volumes containing selected papers, reviews, and monographs of H. Oertei have appeared in the famous Glasenapp-Stiftung series as Band 32.
H. Oertel (1868-1952) was born at Geithain (Sachsen). He studied Sanskrit with W. D. Whitney at Yale University in the United States. He taught Linguistics and Comparative Philology in different capacities at the same University from 1891 to 1917. In 1914 he went to Germany and then did not return to the States, probabby due to the difficulties of the first World War. He settled down at Basel in 1920. He taught there Indian Philosophy, Religion, and Literature at the University. In 1922 he succeeded K. F. Geldner at Marburg. Finally, in 1925, he took charge, as successor to W. Geiger, of the teaching post of Indian and Iranian Philology at München. He retired in 1935.
While Oertel was in München three dissertations were completed under his guidance: F. J. Meier's Der Archaismus in der Sprache des Bhagawata-Purana, V. Trapp's Die ersten fünf Ahnikas des Mahābhāṣyam (transleted into German and explained), and B. K. Ghosh's collection of the Fragments of Lost Brahmanas (all three are published).
In the second World War Oertel suffered an irreparable loss when during the b mbarding of München (1944) his entire library and his valuable card collection (on which he started work when he was 19) were completely destroyed. Undeterred, he took up teaching again after the end of the war and gave lectures until he was eighty.
Besides his teacher Whitney, scholars who decisively impressed Oertel were J. Wackernagel and B. Delbrück. Hence it is understandable that Oertel's main interest lay in the field of Vedic prose - especially the prose of the Jaimini ya Brāhmaṇa and Sanskrit Grammar- especially syntax. Oertel has also published his observations on words like sünṛta, causal of II (tapayate), vadaba, vägura and others.
In his younger years, comparative and general linguistics engaged the
1 The information given here about H. Oertel is taken from the Editor's Vorwort to Leil 1.
Madhu Vidya/719