Theodor Goldstücker (also Theodore;Theodore Goldstucker, ''Literary Remains of the Late Professor Theodore Goldstucker'', W. H. Allen, 1879. January 18, 1821March 6, 1872) was a German

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 ...

scholar.

Biography

He was born of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

. After attending the gymnasium of that town, he entered its

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in 1836 as a student of Sanskrit. In 1838 he removed to

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

, and, after graduating at Königsberg in 1840, proceeded to Paris; in 1842 he edited a German translation of the ''Prabodhacandrodaya'' by Kṛṣṇamiśra Yati (fl. c. 1050-1100), a standard text widely read by Sanskrit students in India. From 1847 to 1850 he resided at Berlin, where his talents and scholarship were recognized by

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

, but where his political views caused the authorities to regard him with suspicion. He was asked to leave Berlin during the

revolutions of 1848 in the German states In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. In 1850 he moved to London at the invitation of

H. H. Wilson Horace Hayman Wilson (26 September 1786 – 8 May 1860) was an English orientalist who was elected the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University. Life He studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, and went out to India in 1808 as as ...

. In 1852 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit in

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. He worked on a new edition of Wilson's Sanskrit dictionary, of which the first instalment appeared in 1856. But his work became infeasibly long and detailed, and publication of the dictionary ground to a halt. In 1861 he published his best known work '' Panini: his place in Sanscrit Literature.'' He was the founder of the Sanskrit Text Society (four volumes appeared); he was also an active member of the Philological Society, of which he was president at the time of his death; and of other learned bodies. He died in London.

Works

As ''Literary Remains'' some of his writings were published in two volumes (London, 1879), but his papers were left to the

India Office The India Office was a British government department established in London in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of I ...

with the request that they were not to be published until 1920.

Biography

Works

References

Further reading