________________
MAY, 1908.)
FRANZ KIELHORN,
113
FRANZ KIELHORN.
BY DR. STEN KONOW. N OT long ago the mail brought the sad news that Professor Kielhorn of Göttingen died suddenly N o n the 19th of March.
It is now just a little more than 42 years since Dr. Kielhorn arrived in India, to occupy the chair of Professor of Oriental Languages at the Dekhan College, Poona, up to the beginning of the eighties. During this time he lived in the closest contact with Indian learning, and contracted friendships among Indian Pandits, which only ended with death. He always remembered with pleasure his stay in India, and he felt it very keenly, when one or two years ago a passing misunderstanding threatened to estrange him from some of his old friends. The influence Dr. Kielhorn exercised on Indian scholarship, by introducing modern critical methods, can hardly be overrateil.
Dr. Kielhorn came out to India with a well established reputation as a sound critical scholar. He had for some time assisted the late Professor Max Müller in his first edition of the Rigveda with Siyana's commentary, and be had already proved himself to be a good grammatical scholar in his edition of Santanava's Phitsúlra (Leipzig, 1866). In India he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity of studying Indian Grammar under the guidance of Indian Pandits. In Europe he was considered as the only scholar who had thorougbly penetrated into the depths of the old granimatical system of the Hindús. The results of these studies were masterly editions of Patañjali's Mahabhishya (Bombay, 1879-85) and Nagôjibhatta's Paribhashéndulékhara (Bombay, 1868-74), and several papers about Indian Grammar and grammarians, most of which have been printed in this very journal.
Later on Dr. Kielhorn turned his attention to Indian inscriptions, and in this field he has always played a leading role. He never took active part in the elucidation of the oldest Indian inscriptions. He confined himself to such records as illustrate the history of India in classical times. It would be impossible here to try to enumerate the many important contributions Indian history owes to his indefatigable and unselfish work. I shall only mention how he fixed the initial date of the Chedi era, how he threw new light on the important question about the dates of Kalidasa and Magha, bis contributions to the history of the Cholas and Pandyas, and, last but not least, bis invaluable Lists of Indian Inscriptions printed as appendices to the Epigraphia Inilica. The numerous papers he himself contributed to various journals about Indian inscriptions do not, however, represent all that epigraphy and history owe to his untiring zeal. It had become an established practice for every worker in Indian epigraphy to consult Dr. Kielhorn about difficult points, especially if the date of some inscription bad to be calculated, and nobody ever appealed to him is rain. He always unreservedly pilaced his great knowledge and large experience at the disposal of fellow-students.
When Dr. Kielhorn left India, he returned to Germany as Professor of Sanskrit in Göttingen. Together with his friend, the late Professor Bühler, he here exercised a great influence in opening the eyes of the learned world in Europe to the importance of traditional Indian scholarship. It had become fashionable to distrust Indian tradition, and to try to find the way back to the old Indian civilisation without consulting it. Bühler, and still more Kielhorn, showed that this is a very grave mistake. I remember hearing my own German guru, Professor Pischel of Berlin, derive the scientific investigation of Indian literary bistory from the example set by scholars like Fitzedward Hall, Kielhorn, and Bühler, but it was only the two last that have exercised an influence in Europe. The result of the new course in the study of Indian philology and history chiefly inaugurated by Bühler and Kielhorn, with whom a splendid army of young German scholars joined hands, is that Gerniany has long played the leading role in the investigation of Indian history and civilisation in Europe. The contributors to the great Encyclopedia of Inulu-Aryan Research, started by Bühler and after his death continued by Kielhorn, are, so far, with very few exceptions, Germans, and those few exceptions received their training in Germany.
It is not my intention to give a full sketch of Professor Kielhora's work. That would take hmore time than I can spare. My only aim is to recall the great debt Indian research owes to him.. Every worker in the field will feel the irreparable loss of the scholar and of the man, whom everybody that knew him, from personal intercourse or from letters, had learnt to consider as a dear friend, It is pathetic to think that he passed away whilo still engaged in strenuous work for the studies he loved, and while we were still looking forward to important contributions from him. There was no sign that old age bad begun to set in. His very last works baar testimony to the same profound knowledge, the same exactitude, and the same critical acumen, that have always formed a prominent feature in everything that proceeded from his pen.
