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DECEMBER, 1898.]
IN MEMORIAM GEORGE BÜHLER.
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GEORG BÜHLER.
IN MEMORIAM.
BY M. WINTERNITZ, PR.D. N the 16th of April, 1898, the terrible news reached Vienna that Hofrath Dr. J. G. Bühler,
C. L. ., Professor of Sanskțit and Indian Antiquities in the University of Vienna, bad met his death by drowning in Lake Constance. He had left Vienna on the 5th of April to spend the Easter vacation with his wife and son, who were staying with relations at Zürich. Terapted by the unasually fine weather, he broke his journey at Lindau on Lake Constance, to enjoy two days' rowing before proceeding to Zürich. On the 7th of April he hired a small boat, and returned to the Hotel towards evening. On Good Friday the 8th April he hired the same boat again - a small rowing boat, ominously called 'nat-shell' by the natives — to take Another trip across the lake. He was last seen about seven o'clock in the evening, Those acquainted with the locality believe that he must have lost an oar and, in attempting to recover it, over-balanced the boat, and so was drowned. Next day the boat was found floating on the lake bottom upwards, but no one knew who the old gentleman' was that had been seen in the boat the night before. While his servants in Vienna believed him to be in Zürich with his family, his wife thought that he had been unexpectedly detained in Vienna, though she was not a little distressed at receiving no reply to ber letters. A few days passed before the proprietor of the Hotel, in which the Professor had been staying, communicated with the police. Enquiries were set on foot, and at last, on the 15th of April, it was ascertained that the occupant of the boat was Hofrath Bühler of Vienna. The body has never been recovered.
Readers of this Journal, in which so many of Dr. Bühler's discoveries have been published, need not be told what an irreparable loss Sanskrit scholarship and Indology have suffered
by the death of the great scholar who seemed to be quite indispensable as a guide and worker ! in the field of Indo-Aryan research. Many of the readers of this Journal, too, were friends and
pupils of the deceased; need they he told of his untiring readiness to help, of the noble unselfishness with which he sacrificed any amount of time to those whom he had enlisted as coworkers in any branch of the science which was all in all to him, or of his wonderful enthusiasm as a teacher ? Yet & short sketch of the life-work of the eminent scholar and master whom we have lost, may not be unwelcome to readers of this Journal, which owes so much to
him.
Johann Georg Bühler was born at Borstel near Nienburg in Hanover on the 19th July. 1837. He was a student at the University of Göttingen where he took his doctor's degree in 1858. His master was the famous linguist and folklorist Theodor Benfey, and Benfey was always very proud of his pupil, while the latter was attached to him as long as he lived, in the sense that a Hindu pupil is attached to his Guru. I remember it was about a year after Benfey's death) Bühler saying that he did not agree with Benfey's theory, according to which the Buddhist fairy tales were the oldest source from which all Indian fairy tales were derived, but that he did not care to write anything in opposition to his old teacher.
The first articles published by Bühler were concerned with questions of Comparative Philology and Vedic Mythology. They were published in Orient und Occident (1862 and 1864), edited by Benfey :-an essay on the god Parjanye, an article on the etymology of eós, etc. A paper
On the origin of the Sanskrit Linguals' appeared, in 1864, in the Madras Literary Journal. But before long his enthusiasm turned more and more to the study of Sansksit as an independent branch of knowledge, and no longer & mere handmaid to Comparative Philology. It was this enthusiasm which awakened in him a strong desire to go out to India, and in order to form connections for achieving this purpose, he went to England in 1859. Here he continued his studies in the libraries of Oxford and London, entered into relations with Prof. Max Müller, and held for a short time the post of Assistant Librarian at the Royal Library in Windsor, After three years he returned to Göttingen, to take up an appointment at the University Library.
