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 752

Obituary Notices
365
PROFESSOR DR. ERNST WALDSCHMIDT b. 15-7-1897 1
[ d. 25-2-1985
Prof. E. Waldschmidt, Honorary Member of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (1978), breathed his last on February 25, 1985. He was 87. In his death Indological studies in general and Buddhist studies in particular have lost a diligent and painstaking scholar,
Prof. Waldschmidt was born on July 15, 1897 at Lünen (Westfalen). He began his University education in 1919 under Prof. Paul Deusssen and Prof. Emil Sieg. He obtained the Ph. D. degree in 1924 at Berlin by writing a dissertation on Das Beichtformular der buddhistischen Noonen'. He served for some time in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin wbere, as the Curator, he was in charge of the Indian colletions. In these collections were stored, among other things, the Turfan manuscripts discovered in Central Asia. Here Prof. Waldschmidt got his first opportunity to study the materials which later were destined to be the mainstay of his and bis pupils' brilliant research work.
In 1930 Prof. Waldschmidt was appointed Lecturer in Indologie at the University of Berlin. He left this appointment in 1936 when he was called upon to be the successor to Prof. B. Sieg at the University in Göttingen. He remained at this post for nearly thirty years until in 1965 he retired as Professor Emeritus.
It was during this period that Prof. Waldschmidt and his pupils (to name only a few, Dr. H. Härtel, Prof. D. Schlingloff, Dr. Mrs. V. StacheRosen, Prof. H. Bechert) made significant contributions to the study of Buddhism. With single-mioded devotion they worked on the Turfag manuscripts, mostly fragmentary in nature, and published them along with parallel versions in other languages, translations and explanations. Whatever work was done by Prof. Lüders and Prof. Waldschmidt on these manuscripts before 1939 was misplaced during the second world war. Most of this could be recovered and Prof. Waldschmidt aad his pupils made a fresh bid to work on the Turfan fragments.
Among Prof. Waldschmidt's major publications - besides, of course, a number of papersi - may be mentioned Das Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra (1950-51), Das Mahāvadānasūtra ( 1956 ), Das Catusparişatsūtra ( 1952-62 ), Faksimile
1 A collection of his writings appeared in 1967 under the title
on his 70th firthday.
Von Ceylon bis Turfan
Madhu Vidyā/727