Otto von Bohtlingk

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Otto von Böhtlingk (May 30, 1815 - April 1, 1904) was a German Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Having studied Oriental languages, particularly Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit, at the University of Saint Petersburg, he continued his studies in Germany, first in Berlin and then (1839-1842) in Bonn. Returning to Saint Petersburg in 1842, he was attached to the Royal Academy of Sciences, and was elected an ordinary member of that society in 1855. In 1860 he was made Russian state councillor, and later privy councillor with a title of nobility. In 1868 he settled at Jena, and in 1885 removed to Leipzig, where he resided until his death there.

Bohtlingk was one of the most distinguished scholars of the nineteenth century, and his works are of pre-eminent value in the field of Indian and comparative philology. His first great work was an edition of Panini's Grammatik Aṣṭādhyāyī, with a German commentary. (Bonn, 1839-1840).

This book Bohtlingk again took up forty-seven years later, when he republished it with a complete translation under the title Panini's Grammatik mit Übersetzung (Leipzig, 1887). The earlier edition was followed by:

  • Vopadevas Grammatik (Saint Petersburg, 1847)
  • Über die Sprache der Jakuten (Saint Petersburg, 1851)
  • Indische Sprache (2nd ed. in 3 parts, Saint Petersburg, 1870-1873, to which an index was published by Blau, Leipzig, 1893)
  • a critical examination and translation of Chandogya-upanishad (Saint Petersburg, 1889)
  • a translation of Brihad-Aranyaka-upanishad (Saint Petersburg, 1889)

In addition to these he published several smaller treatises, notably one on Vedic accent, Über den Accent im Sanskrit (1843).

But his magnum opus is his great Sanskrit dictionary, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (7 vols., Saint Petersburg, 1853-1875; new ed. 7 vols, Saint Petersburg, 1879-1889), which with the assistance of his two friends, Rudolf Roth (d. 1895) and Albrecht Weber (b. 1825), was completed in twenty-three years.

[edit] Bibliography

  • with Rudolph Roth, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch Saint Petersburg 1855-1875.
  • Sanskrit-Wörterbuch In kürzerer Fassung 1879-1889, repring Buske Verlag, 1998, 2003, ISBN 3-87548-199-2
  • Panini's Grammatik 1887, reprint 1998 ISBN 3-87548-198-4
  • Indische Sprüche 3 volumes, Saint Petersburg, Akad. d. Wissenschaften, 1863-65.
  • Sanskrit-Chrestomathie reprint 1967, ISBN B0000BUGAE

[edit] References