by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/21/20
Max Muller's first visit to Burnouf was paid on March 20, and was the beginning of a friendship to which he looked back with affectionate gratitude to the last year of his life.
Diary.
Translation.'Went to Burnouf. Spiritual, amiable, thoroughly French. He received me in the most friendly way, talked a great deal, and all he said valuable, not on ordinary topics but on special. I managed better in French than I expected. "I am a Brahman, a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian; I hate the Jesuits " — that is the sort of man. I am looking forward to his lectures.'
Max Muller describes his teacher as'Small, his face decidedly German, only lighted up with a constant sparkle which is distinctively French. I must have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to explain what I really wanted to do in Paris. He told me afterwards that he could not make me out at first. His lectures were on the Rig-veda, and opened a new world to me. He explained to us his own researches, he showed us new MSS. which he had received from India, in fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers.'...
It was the influence of Burnouf that decided him to take up the Hymns of the Rig-veda, with the great native commentary of Sayana, as his distinctive work. 'Either study Indian philosophy or study Indian religion and copy the Hymns and Sayana,' said Burnouf. To the youth of only twenty-one, knowing hardly half a dozen people, living alone up five flights of stairs, often not speaking to a soul for twenty-four hours round, life may well have seemed dreary; and yet he never for one moment really regretted the choice he had made...
-- The Life and Letters of The Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller, Edited by His Wife [Georgina Adelaide Grenfell Muller]
Eugène Burnouf
Born: April 8, 1801, Paris, France
Died: May 28, 1852 (aged 51)
Occupation: Orientalist
Eugène Burnouf (French pronunciation: [øʒɛn byʁnuf]; April 8, 1801 – May 28, 1852) was a French scholar, an Indologist and orientalist. His notable works include a study of Sanskrit literature, translation of the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana and Buddhist text Lotus Sutra. He wrote an introductory text on Buddhism and also made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform.
Life
He was born in Paris. His father, Professor Jean-Louis Burnouf (1775–1844), was a classical scholar of high reputation, and the author, among other works, of an excellent translation of Tacitus (6 vols., 1827–1833). Eugène Burnouf published in 1826 an Essai sur le Pali ..., written in collaboration with Christian Lassen; and in the following year Observations grammaticales sur quelques passages de l'essai sur le Pali [Google translate: Essay on the Pali..., written in collaboration with Christian Lassen; and in the following year Grammatical observations on some passages from the essay on Pali.].[1]
The next great work he undertook was the deciphering of the Avesta manuscripts brought to France by Anquetil-Duperron. By his research a knowledge of the Avestan language was first brought into the scientific world of Europe. He caused the Vendidad Sade, to be lithographed with the utmost care from the manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and published it in folio parts, 1829–1843.[1]
From 1833 to 1835 he published his Commentaire sur le Yaçna, l'un des livres liturgiques des Parses [Google translate: Commentary on the Yaçna, one of the liturgical books of the Parses.].[1]
At about the same time in his life, Eugène Burnouf made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform. Copies of cuneiform inscriptions from Persepolis had been published by Carsten Niebuhr many years earlier in 1778 and some preliminary inferences had already been made by other scholars such as Georg Friedrich Grotefend about these Persian inscriptions. In 1836, Eugène Burnouf discovered that the first of the inscriptions contained a list of the satrapies of Darius. With this clue in his hand, he was able to identify and publish an alphabet of thirty letters, most of which he had correctly deciphered.[2][3][4]
A month earlier, Burnouf's friend Professor Christian Lassen of Bonn, had also published a work on "The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis".[4][5] He and Burnouf had been in frequent correspondence, and his claim to have independently detected the names of the satrapies, and thereby to have fixed the values of the Persian characters, was in consequence fiercely attacked. However, whatever his obligations to Burnouf may have been, according to Sayce, Lassen's "contributions to the decipherment of the inscriptions were numerous and important."[3]
A year later in 1837, Henry Rawlinson had made a copy of the much longer Behistun inscriptions in Persia.
In London, [Reinhold] Rost met Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, and was elected, in December 1863, secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, a post he held for six years.Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, GCB FRS (5 April 1810 – 5 March 1895) was a British East India Company army officer, politician and Orientalist, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology. His son, also Henry, was to become a senior commander in the British Army during World War I...
Rawlinson was appointed political agent at Kandahar in 1840. In that capacity he served for three years, his political labours being considered as meritorious as was his gallantry during various engagements in the course of the Afghan War; for these he was rewarded by the distinction of Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1844.
Serendipitously, he became known personally to the governor-general, which resulted in his appointment as political agent in Ottoman Arabia. Thus he settled in Baghdad, where he devoted himself to cuneiform studies. He was now able, with considerable difficulty and at no small personal risk, to make a complete transcript of the Behistun inscription, which he was also successful in deciphering and interpreting. Having collected a large amount of invaluable information on this and kindred topics, in addition to much geographical knowledge gained in the prosecution of various explorations (including visits with Sir Austen Henry Layard to the ruins of Nineveh), he returned to England on leave of absence in 1849.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in February 1850 on account of being "The Discoverer of the key to the Ancient Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Inscriptions in the Cuneiform character. The Author of various papers on the philology, antiquities, and Geography of Mesopotamia and Central Asia. Eminent as a Scholar".
Rawlinson remained at home for two years, published in 1851 his memoir on the Behistun inscription, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He disposed of his valuable collection of Babylonian, Sabaean, and Sassanian antiquities to the trustees of the British Museum, who also made him a considerable grant to enable him to carry on the Assyrian and Babylonian excavations initiated by Layard. During 1851 he returned to Baghdad. The excavations were performed by his direction with valuable results, among the most important being the discovery of material that contributed greatly to the final decipherment and interpretation of the cuneiform character. Rawlinson's greatest contribution to the deciphering of the cuneiform scripts was the discovery that individual signs had multiple readings depending on their context. While at the British Museum, Rawlinson worked with the younger George Smith.
An equestrian accident in 1855 hastened his determination to return to England, and in that year he resigned his post in the East India Company. On his return to England the distinction of Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath was conferred upon him, and he was appointed a crown director of the East India Company.
The remaining forty years of his life were full of activity—political, diplomatic, and scientific—and were spent mainly in London. In 1858 he was appointed a member of the first India Council, but resigned during 1859 on being sent to Persia as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. The latter post he held for only a year, owing to his dissatisfaction with circumstances concerning his official position there. Previously he had sat in Parliament as Member of Parliament (MP) for Reigate from February to September 1858; he was again MP for Frome, from 1865 to 1868. He was appointed to the Council of India again in 1868, and continued to serve upon it until his death. He was a strong advocate of the forward policy in Afghanistan, and counselled the retention of Kandahar.
Rawlinson was one of the most important figures arguing that Britain must check Russian ambitions in South Asia. He was a strong advocate of the forward policy in Afghanistan, and counselled the retention of Kandahar. He argued that Tsarist Russia would attack and absorb Khokand, Bokhara and Khiva (which they did – they are now parts of Uzbekistan) and warned they would invade Persia (present-day Iran) and Afghanistan as springboards to British India.
He was a trustee of the British Museum from 1876 till his death. He was created Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1889, and a Baronet in 1891; was president of the Royal Geographical Society from 1874 to 1875, and of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1869 to 1871 and 1878 to 1881; and received honorary degrees at Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.
-- Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, by Wikipedia
Through Rawlinson he became on 1 July 1869 librarian at the India Office, on the retirement of FitzEdward Hall, and imposed order on its manuscripts.
-- Reinhold Rost, by Wikipedia
Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522 BC–486 BC), the inscriptions consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. Rawlinson sent a translation of the opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society. Before this paper was published, however, the works of Lassen and Burnouf reached him, prompting a series of revisions and a delay in publication. In 1847 the first part of Rawlinson's Memoir was published, followed by the second part in 1849.[6] The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform texts was virtually accomplished.[3]
Eugène Burnouf received many Sanskrit texts from Indologist and anthropologist Brian Houghton Hodgson.[7] He published the Sanskrit text and French translation of the Bhagavata Purana ou histoire poétique de Krichna [Google translate: Bhagavata Purana or poetic story of Krichna] in three folio volumes (1840–1847). His last works were Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien [Google translate: Introduction to the history of Indian Buddhism] (1844), and a translation of Le lotus de la bonne loi (The Lotus Sutra, 1852).[1][8] According to Jonathan Silk, Burnouf can be regarded as "the founding father of modern Buddhist scientific studies."[9]
He had been for twenty years a member of the Academie des Inscriptions and professor of Sanskrit in the Collège de France. "Introduction à l'Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien" [Google translate: Introduction to the history of Indian Buddhism] [1] is recognized as an introduction to Buddhist metaphysics which influenced many French occultists in the nineteenth century for whom indianism and Sanskrit texts were a source of inspiration.
See a notice of Burnouf's works by Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, prefixed to the second edition (1876) of the Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien; also Naudet, Notice historique sur MM. Burnouf, père et fils, in Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions [Google translate: Historical notice on MM. Burnouf, father and son, in Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.]. A list of his valuable contributions to the Journal asiatique and of his manuscript writings, is given in the appendix to the Choix de lettres d'Eugène Burnouf [Google translate: Choice of letters by Eugène Burnouf] (1891).[1]
His cousin Emile-Louis Burnouf (1821–1907) continued his work on Sanskrit language.
Works
• Essai sur le Pali (1826)
• Vendidad Sade, l'un des livres de Zoroastre (1829–1843)
• Commentaire sur le Yaçna, l'un des livres liturgiques des Parses (1833–1835)[1]
• Mémoire sur les inscriptions cunéiformes (1838)
• Bhâgavata Purâna ou histoire poétique de Krichna (3 volumes, 1840–1847)[1]
• Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien (1844 ; 1876)[1]
• Le Lotus de la bonne loi,[1] traduit du sanscrit, accompagné d'un commentaire et de vingt et un mémoires relatifs au buddhisme (Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1852). Reprint: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient A. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1973.
• Eugène Burnouf (in French) .
See also
• L'Inde française
• List of works by Eugène Guillaume
Notes
1. Chisholm 1911, p. 855.
2. Burnouf, Eugène (1836). Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions Cunéiformes trouvées près d'Hamadan et qui font partie des papiers du Dr. Schulz [Memoir on two cuneiform inscriptions [that were] found near Hamadan and that Sayce, Rev. A. H., Professor of Assyriology, Oxford, "The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions", Second Edition-revised, 1908, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, Brighton, New York; at pp 9–16 N Prichard, James Cowles, "Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind", 3rd Ed., Vol IV, 1844, Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London, at pages 30-31
5. Lassen, Christian (1836). Die Altpersischen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des Alphabets und Erklärung des Inhalts [The Old-Persian cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis. Decipherment of the alphabet and explanation of its content.] (in German). Bonn, (Germany): Eduard Weber.
6. Rawlinson Henry 1847 "The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, decyphered and translated; with a Memoir on Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions in general, and on that of Behistun in Particular", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol X. It seems that various parts of this paper formed Vol X of this journal. The final part III comprised chapters IV (Analysis of the Persian Inscriptions of Behistunand) and V (Copies and Translations of the Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis, Hamadan, and Van), pp. 187-349.
7. Davidson, Ronald M. (2008). "Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature I: Revisiting the Meaning of the Term Dhāraṇī". Journal of Indian Philosophy. Springer Nature. 37 (2): 97–147. doi:10.1007/s10781-008-9054-8.
8. Akira Yuyama (2000), Eugene Burnouf: The Background to his Research into the Lotus Sutra, Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica, Vol. III, The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Tokyo 1998, pp. 61-77. ISBN 4-9980622-2-0
9. Silk, Jonathan (2012). Review: "A Missed Opportunity: Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism by Eugene Burnouf. Translated by Katia Buffetrille and Donald Lopez. University of Chicago Press 2010." History of Religions 51 (3), 262
References
• Delisle, Laure Burnouf: Choix de lettres d'Eugene Burnouf. Suivi d'une bibliographie, Paris: H. Champion (1891) Internet Archive
• Burnouf, Eugène (trad.): Le lotus de la bonne loi traduit du sanscrit, accompagné d'un commentaire et de vingt et un mémoires relatifs au buddhisme. Paris : Maisonneuve frères 1925. Internet Archive (PDF 34,9 MB)
• Burnouf, Eugène: Legends of Indian Buddhism; New York, Dutton 1911. Internet Archive
• Burnouf, Eugène: Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme indien, Paris: Imprimerie royale1844. Internet Archive
Attribution:
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Burnouf, Eugène". Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 885.
External links
• Media related to Eugène_Burnouf at Wikimedia Commons
• Notice sur les travaux de M. Eugène Burnouf (in French).