Anthony Kennedy Warder (8 September 19248 January 2013) was a British Indologist. His best-known works are ''Introduction to Pali'' (1963), ''Indian Buddhism'' (1970), and the eight-volume ''Indian Kāvya Literature'' (1972–2011).

Life

Warder was born in England on 8 September 1924. He studied

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

and

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

at the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

, and received his doctorate from there in 1954. His thesis, supervised by John Brough, was entitled ''Pali Metre: A Study of the Evolution of Early Middle Indian Metre Based on the Verse Preserved in the Pali Canon''. (When it was published in 1967, the title was changed to ''Pali Metre: A Contribution to the History of Indian Literature''.) For a number of years, he was an active member of the

Pali Text Society The Pāli Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts." Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The ...

, which published his first book, ''Introduction to Pali'', in 1963. He based this popular primer on extracts from the

Dīgha Nikāya The ''Dīgha Nikāya'' ("Collection of Long Discourses") is a Buddhist scriptures collection, the first of the five Nikāyas, or collections, in the Sutta Piṭaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipiṭaka of Th ...

, and took the then revolutionary step of treating Pali as an independent language, not just a derivative of Sanskrit. His began his academic career at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

in 1955, but in 1963 moved to the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. There, as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies, he built up a strong programme in Sanskrit and South Asian studies. He retired in 1990. ''Studies on Buddhism in Honour of Professor A. K. Warder'' was published in 1993, edited by Narendra K. Wagle and Fumimaro Watanabe. He and his wife, Nargez, died of natural causes almost simultaneously on 8 January 2013. He was eighty-eight, and she was ninety. They had no children. They were buried together following a Buddhist service.

Notable works

''Introduction to Pali''
(1st ed. 1963, 2nd ed. 1974, 3rd ed. 1991)
''Pali Metre: A Contribution to the History of Indian Literature''
(1967)
''Indian Buddhism''
(1st ed. 1970, 2nd ed. 1980, 3rd ed. 2000) *''A Course in Indian Philosophy'' (1st ed. 1971, 2nd ed. 1998) *''An Introduction to Indian Historiography'' (1972) *''Indian Kāvya Literature: Volumes IVIII'' (19722011)

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warder, A. K. 1924 births 2013 deaths Academic staff of the University of Toronto Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of SOAS University of London British Indologists British orientalists British Sanskrit scholars British scholars of Buddhism Linguists of Pali Pali Theravada Buddhism writers