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365
DECEMBER, 1898.]
IN MEMORIAM GEORGE BÜHLER.
Since I have read this touching memoir however, I feel the rashness of my promise. With the accuracy of a thoroughly well informed witness, and the pious fervour of heart-felt devotion, the writer reviews the entire life and work of the master, bringing into prominent relief the originality and importance of his role. Nothing further would therefore remain for me to say, were I not eager to accept the opportunity that is offered to me to add to such numberless expressions of homage and sincere regret the tribute of the high and respectful esteem that is felt by his French fellow-workers for this indefatigable pioneer of Indianism.
In spite of the fact, that, but for a friendly exchange of correspondence, I only made the personal acquaintance of Bühler a few years before his death, I cannot forget that having followed the same course of studies under the same "Guru," there existed, if I may be allowed the expression, a bond of common origin between us. When I began the study of Sanskrit, under the direction of Benfey, I remember what high expectations that clear-sighted judge had already formed of the distinguished destiny that awaited the man, still so young, whom he loved to proclaim his most remarkable pupil. Bühler himself never failed to acknowledge on his part, with fervent gratitude and faithful sympathy, the value of his instruction and the encouragement of such flattering predictions. Benfey was not only singularly suggestive in his teaching, and his conversation; he was not only an admirable grammarian and linguist. One of the first, he had fully perceived, beyond the mere linguistic interest that had first excited the attention of the West to the study of Sanskrit, the attraction which was offered to the highest curiosity of the mind by the insight into the past history of India and the development of its life, religious, political and social. He was the first who ventured to sketch a general view of it in his famous article, which appeared in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopædia; and so he was certainly most influential in the course which his pupil's ideas early adopted. Bühler wanted to study India in itself, and for itself, and to trace, before all else, chronological, and positive data as given by its literature, and monuments With this object, he decided to seek, in the familiar intercourse of the country itself, in its scholastic traditions, in a methodical research for manuscripts and documents, the information that this great work required.
It was to himself alone, however, to his own perseverance and ardour, to his enormous capacity for work that he was indebted for the success that so largely crowned his plan. Always distrusting specious deductions and brilliant generalisations, he showed in his whole aspect that harmonious fusion of qualities peculiar both to the German and the English mind to which Dr. Winternitz has so happily alluded. Varied and profound science, decided precision, unflinching tenacity, a practical knowledge of both men and affairs, nothing was wanting to make him, not exactly the leader of a certain school, but what was even better, a diligent leader of workers, or, as I may express it, a chef d'atelier, endowed to a striking degree, with authority and power. Such he showed himself in India, where he succeeded in making enthusiastic fellow-workers of several Natives, as well as of those of his own countrymen whom he attracted and embued with his enterprising spirit, and still more so in Europe when he returned to Vienna and there founded a course of teaching which proved so fruitful. By the current use of Sanskrit, by certain ways of teaching and even by certain habits, of mind, he used some coquetry to maintain the stamp of his long and affectionate familiarity with the Hindu world.
Thanks to the high position he enjoyed both with the Administration of the British Government, as well as with the Indianists of the East and West, he became under all circumstances, the natural intermediary between India and Europe, and he never refused his aid, whenever it was required, either by men or by useful enterprises. Of this I had a striking proof during the latter part of his life, the memory of which is all the more agreeable to me,
