Indische Studien – Beiträge [1 (1850): Zeitschrift] für die Kunde des indischen Altertums. Im Vereine mit mehreren Gelehrten herausgegeben von Dr. Albrecht Weber. 1 (1850) – 18 (1898). Berlin: Dümmler (nos. 1-8) / Leipzig: Brockhaus.

This is a DjVu bundle of the whole journal, refined by postprocessing of the scans and equipped with a browsing sidebar Nos. 6 & 7 are not included (Aufrecht’s edition of Die Hymnen des Ṛigveda has more or less become obsolete after the second edition came out in 1877), and also nos. 11 & 12 are left out (Weber’s edition of the Taittirīyasaṃhitā is done already, but I am going to share that otherwise), 6922 pages.

Briefly on Albrecht Weber as a background of the Indische Studien

The silesian Friedrich Albrecht Weber [1] was born on the 17.2.1825 in Breslau (Wrocław). 1841 he began to study at the local University and decided to devote himself mainly to Sanskrit studies under the tutelage of Adolf Friedrich Stenzler (1807-1887), who had become Extraordinarius (associated professor) there in 1833, and who was a friend of the family. In 1844 he studied in Bonn with Christian Lassen (1800-1876) and Johannes Gildemeister (1812-1890, Weber learned Hebrew in the cloister school). In 1845 he spended one semester in Berlin at Franz Bopp (1791-1867), and there he also listened to the famous classicists Karl Lachmann and August Boeckh [2]. In Berlin he became friend to Theodor Aufrecht, Adalbert Kuhn and Rudolf von Roth; namely with the latter (who became Extraordinarius in Tübingen in 1848 and Ordinarius in 1856 as the successor of Heinrich Ewald) a close relationship began these days (later Weber contributed to the Petersburger Wörterbuch towards Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras). 1845 Weber returned to Breslau and finished his dissertation Yajurvedae specimen cum commentario – as far as I know that’s the first edition of a Yajurvedic text (9th Adhyāya of the VS). After that, like it was compulsory for these days, he travelled to London, Oxford and Paris to work with the manuscripts there. He made transcriptions for the planned edition of the White Yajurveda, and in Paris he also met Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852). 1848 Weber moved to Berlin and made his habilitation and became Privatdozent. Berlin was the place to be for the forming up new discipline of Vedic studies in Germany after the acquisition of the famous Chambers Collection of manuscripts for the Königliche Preußische Bibliothek in 1842 (see below), which was outstanding rich even of Vedic texts. In the same year Weber got married. 1849 he begans to publish the Indische Studien (IS) [3]. It took a while until Weber became Extraordinarius of altindische Philologie in 1856, and later in 1867 he was appointed professor for indische Altertumskunde [4]. In Berlin he spended always a diligent, extremely productive academic life. In the last years Weber got almost blind [5], and he died 30.11.1901 in Berlin. His pupil Richard Pischel succeeded him on the chair. Weber educated a whole generation of Indologists and among his students there were Berthold Delbrück, Julius Eggeling, Angelo de Gubernatis, Alfred Hillebrandt, Hermann Jacobi, Julius Jolly, Hendrick Kern, Franz Kielhorn, Ernst Kuhn, Ernst Leumann, Alfred Ludwig, Ivan Pavlovič Minaev, Hermann Oldenberg, and William Dwight Whitney. He is certainly to be considered being one of the greatest Indologists of the 19th century.

Bendall writes that “as a writer no man has explored so many new fields“. Weber is renown for his immane workload and the range of topics he has covered is really impressive [6]. He was a pioneer on many fields of Indology, but it’s right to say that his special subjects were Vedic studies and Jaina literature. Towards the Veda the contribution which has be mentioned first definitely is his edition of the whole White Yajurveda in the Mādhyandina recension in three parts which appeared from 1852 on [7]. Weber also edited the Taittirīyasaṃhitā in IS 11 (1871) & 12 (1872), and these editions remained standard to this day (reprinted several times, see Parpola). In vol. 4 of the IS he published also the Pratiśākhya belonging to the VS, and in IS 13 there is a detailed study of the Padapāṭha of the TS to be found. Weber contributed much to the founding period of Vedic studies, in IS 1 there is a translation and a edition of a survey of Vedic literature from the 16th century by the Vedāntin Madhsūdhana Saravatī. In IS 3 there is a examination of the Caraṇavyūha, an important text on the Vedic schools. A survey of Sāmaveda literature appeared already in IS 1. I’ve got the feeling that Weber also was the first ever to write on Kāṭhaka in IS 3. There are also several pieces on Vedic history, on specific legends, a couple of translations of parts of texts also as articles next to several articles on specific Vedic issues which mostly appeared in a series of Vedische Studien in the Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. From Weber’s deep knowledge of the Vedic ritual as a Yajurvedin he also published a treatise on the Vājapeya in the Sitzungsberichte of 1892, and another one on the Rājasūya in the Academy’s Abhandlungen of 1893. In the IS 10 & 13 there already was a survey of Vedic ritual. He published also a lot towards other Vedāṅgas (Metrics, Astronomy etc.), and there are some articles and editions of Upaniṣads [8] – it would by far go to far to get into more detail (…. hey that’s only a blog posting here).

The development of Weber’s research is closely related to the history of the manuscript stocks in Berlin. Like said above, the acquisition of the Chambers Collection in 1842 brought many unique items even of Vedic literature from Bengal [9]. In 1851 Weber began to compile a manuscript catalogue which appeared 1853 [10], and which is more or less a catalogue on the Chambers Collection. In the semester 1851/52 Weber delivered his first lecture on Indian literature history which appeared as book in 1852, and which could be seen as a kind of supplement to the manuscript catalogue [11]. To obtain a relative chronology of Indian literature is also the background of many of Weber’s articles, for example also of the one on Pāṇini (IS 5), and the one on the Mahābhāṣya (IS 13). Weber was one of the first people in Europe which wrote on Jaina literature, a treatise on the Śatrunjayamāhātmya appeared 1858, and another one on the Bhagavatī in two parts in 1865 and 1866. In the year 1868 a huge manuscript raid began in India and in the years 1873-78 Georg Bühler sended a lot of items to Berlin – among them a whole Śvetāmbara canon. Weber compiled another manuscript catalogue of the growths which appeared 1886-91 in three fascicles as second part of the catalogue of 1853 [12]. This time again as a kind of supplement Weber wrote a survey Über die heiligen Schriften der Jaina in IS 16 & 17. In many articles Weber contributed as a pioneer of Jaina studies as much as of Middle Indo-Aryan literature – up to this time only the Prākṛt passages of the plays have been known. For example he worked intensively on the Sattasaī, Hāla’s compilation of erotic verses in Māhārāṣṭrī [13].

Notes

[1] Obituary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland January 1901, 228 sq. (previously appeared in *Athenaeum 3867 (1901)). Another one by M. Winternitz is to be found in the Kleine Schriften, Part 2, 919 sq. (originally: *Bibliographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog 6 (1901), 346 sq.). The obituary of Pischel in the Abhandlungen der Königlich-Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften of 1903 I haven’t got at hand (as always: in the Hamburg state library even this volume is missed). See also W. Morgenroth’s article on Weber in the Altorientalische Forschungen 5 (1977), 97 sq. (shorter forerunner of this article in *Indologica Taurinensia 3/4 (1975/76), 321 sq.). The incorrect “Albrecht Friedrich Weber” obviously goes back to Brockhaus’ Conversations-Lexikon, see Parpola’s bibliography, fn. 1.

[2] He remained close to the “Bonn school” of Indology which was somewhat opposing the “Berlin school” these days (the opposition surely is rooted in the respectful enmity between August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Bopp; it seems the term “Bonn school” was introduced in the research history by Windisch in his Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie, although he writes that Burnouf coinined that term). Weber’s dissertation is dedicated to Lassen, Stenzler (also Schlegel’s student) and Gildemeister, and furthermore Weber also took the side against Hoefer [the rivalry of the both schools erupted after Bopp's pupil Albert Hoefer (1812-1883, appointed in Greifswald 1840) attacked Lassen's Anthologica Sanscritica from 1838 in a malice and dimissive tone (Sengupta 33) in the Berliner Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik of 1840, as if would have been in vengeance of Lassen's review of Bopp's Sanskrit grammar (Windisch 217: "wie in Vergeltung von Lassens Anzeige der Boppschen Sanskritgrammatik") in the Indische Bibliothek of 1830. Obviously in return, in the same year Gildemeister published the pamphlet Die falsche Sanskritphilologie am Beispiel des Herrn Dr. Hoefer in Berlin aufgezeigt. The attacks on Hoefer continued after came up with his Chrestomathie in 1850 which was crushed by Weber in the ZDMG 4 (1850), 399 sq. It didn't came to an end, a rejoinder followed and a re-rejoinder, furthermore there was a rivalry between Hoefer's and Lassen's Prākṛt grammars etc. Although Hoefer played an intrumental role in the acquisition of the Chambers Collection (see his remark in the Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft der Sprache 2 (1850), 437) and Weber possibly made use of preliminary works on that collection made by him (see Morgenroth, fn. 4), Hoefer isn't even mentioned in the introduction of his manuscript catalogue of 1853. On that all see Sengupta's excellent work From salon to discipline (Heidelberg 2005), 27 sq.; and Windisch, 216 sq. on Hoefer].

[3] The Indische Studien (which were first planned to be titled Vedische Studien) were mend as follower of the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, which was edited by Christian Lassen (last volume is no 7. in 1850), see Morgenroth fn. 9 and Parpola 193. The journal contains also very useful indices.

[4] Which was a new chair next to one of Bopp’s for “Sanskrit und vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft”, see Alsdorf’s Die Indologie in Berlin von 1821-1945 (Kleine Schriften, 2nd ed., Hamburg 2001), 723 sq. and Morgenroth, 100. Towards the political background of Weber’s appointment see Sengupta, 68 sq. By the way, Webers inaugural speech is available here. The establishment of a new chair in Berlin definitely played a role for the emancipation of Sanskrit resp. Vedic studies from Comparative linguistics resp. Indogermanistik which happened that time.

[5] Eye complaint surely is the Berufskrankheit of philologists, for example also Christian Lassen suffered extreme low vision in his last years. So Weber tells already 1891 that his eyesight had become deteriorated substantially in the introduction to the third part of his second manuscript catalogue (XVII: “Es ist ein mühsames Werk, das ich hiermit abschliefse. Ein gut Stück meiner Sehkraft liegt darin begraben“), but after some accident in 1897 (hard to find out something more specific) it got even worse.

[6] Windisch treats Weber’s (and the related) research in detail in his encyclopaedic Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie und indischen Altertumskunde, see there 319 sq. (chapters 46-50: Yajurveda, Katalog und Literaturgeschichte, Abhandlungen, Prākṛt-Studien, Jaina-Literatur). The task of compiling a bibliography was undertaken by Parpola (Remota relata. Essays on the History of Oriental Studies in honour of Harry Halén. Ed. by Juha Janhunen and Asko Parpola (Helsinki 2003), 189 sq.), it also containes a short, rich bibliographical sketch.

[7] The Vâjasaneyi-Sanhitâ in the Mâdhyandina- and the Kâṇva-çâkhâ with the Commentary of Mahîdhara. Berlin: Dümmler / London: Williams and Norgate 1852; *The Çatapatha-Brâhmaṇa in the Mâdhyandina-Çâkhâ with extracts from the commentary of Sâyaṇa, Harisvâmin and Dvivedaganga. 1855 (Parpola 1855:1); *The Çrautasûtra of Kâtyâyana with extracts from the commentaries of Karka and Yâjnikadeva. 1859 (Parpola 1859:1).

[8] There is no collection of his kleine Schriften up to today, but Weber himself collected several articles and particularly reviews in the Indische Skizzen (1857), and in the three volumes of the Indische Streifen (1868-1879).

[9] On the Chambers Collection see Morgenroth: Indische Hanschriften (AoF 5 (1977)), 276 sq.; Schmieder-Jappe: Die Sammlung der orientalischen Handschriften der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin 2004), 10 sq.; Sengupta 126 sq. Sir Robert Chambers (1737-1803) was Chief Judge of the Supreme Court at Fort William in Kolkata and a friend of Sir William Jones (1746-1794).

[10] Verzeichnis der Sanskrit- [und Prākṛit-]Handschriften [1]. Berlin: Nicolai 1853 (Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Könglichen Bibliothek; 1), see Janert’s Annotated bibliography of the catalogues of Indian manuscripts (Wiesbaden 1965), 30 (no. 20). Aufrecht in the Catalogue Catalogorum (Leipzig 1891), IV: “This is a pattern of what a Catalogue ought to be, and it deals with MSS. which in their bulk are not surpassed in value by any other collection in Europe“. With this catalogue Weber created the foundations of the “Berlin school” of manuscript cataloguing (text beginning and end are recorded, shorter texts are given in little editions, etc.) to which also the Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD) belongs – probably one of the most refined series of catalogues of oriental manuscripts worldwide. Before the Chamber Collection came the Königliche Bibliothek possessed only 31 pieces, see Morgenroth, Indische Handschriften.

[11] III: “… als deren Resultat ein ausführlicher Catalog ziemlich gleichzeitig mit diesen Vorlesungen, die etwa als ein Commentar dazu gelten können, erscheint“. An ebook is available here. The second edition with supplemental additions appeared in 1878 (ebook here), and was the basis for the English translation of the same year (French translation 1859). In comparison to the work of F. Adelung (Versuch einer Literatur der Sanskrit-Sprache. St. Petersburg 1830), which was grounded mainly on secondary literature, Weber wrote completely out of the manuscripts. For that Weber is considered to be the founder of modern Indian history of literature, see Morgenroth 103. It must be emphasized that the catalogue and the history were completed in a period of approx. two years!

[12] Verzeichnis der Sanskrit- und Prākṛit-Handschriften 2. Berlin: Schade / Asher 1886-91 (Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek; 5), see Janert loc. cit. This catalogue played a fundamental role for early Western Jaina research (see Leumann, ZDMG 45 (1893), 455).

[13] Edition from a single manuscript of the commentary of Kulanātha with translation and extensive introduction in 1870 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes; 5,3), additions to that in ZDMG 26 (1872) and 28 (1874). A more complete edition appeared in 1881 (Abhandlungen; 7,4). On Bhuvanapāla’s commentary in the Sitzungsberichte of the Academy of 1882, and then in IS 16. Weber also published a few translations in the Deutsche Rundschau of 1885 (because that one could be pretty rare I’ve uploaded it here). On the Sattasaī see Hinüber’s Das ältere Mittelindisch im Überblick (2nd ed., Wien 2001), §53.