Hermann Georg Jacobi (11 February 1850 – 19 October 1937) was an eminent German
Indologist
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.
The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is o ...
.
Education
Jacobi was born in
Köln (Cologne)
on 11 February 1850. He was educated in the
gymnasium of Cologne
and then went to the
University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
, where initially he studied mathematics, but later, probably under the influence of
Albrecht Weber, switched to
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and comparative linguistics, which he studied under Weber and
Johann Gildemeister
Johann Gildemeister (20 July 1812 – 11 March 1890) was a German Orientalist born in Kröpelin.
Biography
He studied Oriental languages and theology at the Universities of Göttingen and Bonn and graduated from the latter institution in 1838. F ...
.
[ He obtained his ]doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
from the University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...
. The subject of his thesis, written in 1872, was the origin of the term "hora" in Indian astrology.
Jacobi was able to visit London for a year, 1872–1873, where he examined the Indian manuscripts available there. The next year, with Georg Buehler, he visited Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
, India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, where manuscripts were being collected.[
] At Jaisalmer Library, he came across Jain
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
Manuscripts, which were of abiding interest to him for the rest of his life. He later edited and translated many of them, both into German and English, including those for Max Mueller's Sacred Books of the East
The ''Sacred Books of the East'' is a monumental 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious texts, edited by Max Müller and published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910. It incorporates the essential sacred texts ...
.
Academic appointments
In 1875, he became a docent
The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French " ''maître de conf ...
in Sanskrit at Bonn; from 1876-85 was professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
extraordinarius of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
, Westphalia; in 1885 was made professor ordinarius of Sanskrit at Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...
; and in 1889 was appointed professor of Sanskrit at Bonn. He served as professor in Bonn until his retirement in 1922. After his retirement, Jacobi remained active, lecturing and writing till his death in 1937.
Work
Apart from Jaina studies, Jacobi was interested in Indian mathematics, astrology and the natural sciences, and using astronomical information available in the Vedas
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
, he tried to establish the date of their composition. Like Alexander Cunningham
Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham (23 January 1814 – 28 November 1893) was a British Army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group who later took an interest in the history and archaeology of India. In 1861, he was appointed to the newly ...
before him he tried to systematise how, from the evidence available in inscriptions, a true local time could be arrived at.
Jacobi's studies in astronomy have regained importance today in the context of the Out of India theory
Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homel ...
, because his calculations led him to believe that the hymns of the Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
were to be dated as early as 4500 B.C. Thus he is the only renowned Western Indologist whose research supports the claim of the proponents of the theory that the Vedas are to be dated back much earlier than the first half of the second millennium B.C. According to mainstream Indology, the Indo-Aryan Migration
The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages, the predominant languages of today's North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lank ...
took place during this period of time and the Vedas were only composed after the migration. When Jacobi published his views in an article on the origin of Vedic culture in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1908), he therefore triggered off a major controversy in Indology.
In his later life, Jacobi interested himself in Poetry, Epics and Philosophy, particularly the school of Nyaya-Vaisheshika.
It is said that Jacobi was greatly influenced by Jain Philosophy and wished to be a Jain in his next life.
Honors
Among the honours he received were a doctorate from the University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...
where he had gone in the winter of 1913-14 to lecture on poetics, while the Jain community conferred the title Jain Darshan Divakar — Sun of the Jain doctrine — upon him. He became an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1909.
Publications (selection)
*''Zwei Jainastotras'' (1876)
*''Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Maharashtri'' (i.e. Selected tales of the Maharashtri, 1886)
*''The Computation of Hindu Dates in the Inscriptions'' (1892)
*''Das Ramayana, Geschichte und Inhalt nebst Concordanz nach den gedruckten Rezensionen'' (1893)
*''Compositum und Nebensatz, Studien über die indogermanische Sprachentwicklung'' (1897)
*''On the Antiquity of Vedic Culture'' (1908)
*''Schriften zur indischen Poetik und Ästhetik'' (i.e. Writings on Indian poetics and aesthetics, 1910)
*''Die Entwicklung der Gottesidee bei den Indern und deren Beweise für das Dasein Gottes'' (i.e. The development of the Indians' idea of God and their proofs for God's existence, 1923)
*''Über das ursprüngliche Yogasystem'' (i.e. About the original system of Yoga, 1929 / 1930)
Notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobi, Hermann
1850 births
1937 deaths
German Indologists
Scholars of Jainism
University of Calcutta alumni
German male non-fiction writers