HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Eugène Burnouf (; April 8, 1801May 28, 1852) was a French scholar, an Indologist and orientalist. His notable works include a study of Sanskrit literature, translation of the Hindu text '' Bhagavata Purana'' and Buddhist text '' Lotus Sutra''. He wrote a foundational text on Buddhism and also made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian
cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
.


Life

He was born in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. His father, Professor Jean-Louis Burnouf (1775–1844), was a classical scholar of high reputation, and the author, among other works, of an excellent translation of
Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...
(6 vols., 1827–1833). Eugène Burnouf published in 1826 an ''Essai sur le
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 ...
...'', written in collaboration with Christian Lassen; and in the following year ''Observations grammaticales sur quelques passages de l'essai sur le Pali''. The next great work he undertook was the deciphering of the Avesta manuscripts brought to France by Anquetil-Duperron. By his research a knowledge of the Avestan language was first brought into the scientific world of Europe. He caused the ''Vendidad Sade'', to be
lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
ed with the utmost care from the manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and published it in folio parts, 1829–1843. From 1833 to 1835 he published his ''Commentaire sur le Yaçna, l'un des livres liturgiques des Parses''. At about the same time in his life, Eugène Burnouf made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform. Copies of cuneiform inscriptions from Persepolis had been published by Carsten Niebuhr many years earlier in 1778 and some preliminary inferences had already been made by other scholars such as Georg Friedrich Grotefend about these Persian inscriptions. In 1836, Eugène Burnouf discovered that the first of the inscriptions contained a list of the satrapies of Darius. With this clue in his hand, he was able to identify and publish an alphabet of thirty letters, most of which he had correctly deciphered. Sayce, Rev. A. H., Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
"The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions"
Second Edition-revised, 1908, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, Brighton, New York; at pp 9–1
Not in copyright
/ref>Prichard, James Cowles, "Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind", 3rd Ed., Vol IV, 1844, Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London, at pages 30-31 A month earlier, Burnouf's friend Professor Christian Lassen of Bonn, had also published a work on "The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis". He and Burnouf had been in frequent correspondence, and (Burnouf's?) claim to have independently detected the names of the satrapies, and thereby to have fixed the values of the Persian characters, was in consequence fiercely attacked. However, whatever his obligations to Burnouf may have been, according to Sayce, Lassen's "contributions to the decipherment of the inscriptions were numerous and important." A year later in 1837, Henry Rawlinson had made a copy of the much longer
Behistun inscription The Behistun Inscription (also Bisotun, Bisitun or Bisutun; , Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the place of god") is a multilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions, Achaemenid royal inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun i ...
s in
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522 BC–486 BC), the inscriptions consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. Rawlinson sent a translation of the opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society. Before this paper was published, however, the works of Lassen and Burnouf reached him, prompting a series of revisions and a delay in publication. In 1847 the first part of Rawlinson's Memoir was published, followed by the second part in 1849. The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform texts was virtually accomplished. Eugène Burnouf received many Sanskrit texts from Indologist and anthropologist
Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer natural history, naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident (title), Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals fr ...
. He published the
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 ...
text and French translation of the ''Bhagavata Purana ou histoire poétique de Krichna'' in three folio volumes (1840–1847). His last works were ''Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien'' (1844), and a translation of ''Le lotus de la bonne loi'' (''The Lotus Sutra'', 1852). According to Jonathan Silk, Burnouf can be regarded as "the founding father of modern Buddhist scientific studies."Silk, Jonathan (2012)
Review: "A Missed Opportunity: Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism by Eugene Burnouf
Translated by Katia Buffetrille and Donald Lopez. University of Chicago Press 2010." History of Religions 51 (3), 262
He had been for twenty years a member of the Academie des Inscriptions and professor of Sanskrit in the Collège de France. "''Introduction à l'Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien''" is recognized as an introduction to Buddhist
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
which influenced many French occultists in the nineteenth century for whom indianism and Sanskrit texts were a source of inspiration. See a notice of Burnouf's works by Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, prefixed to the second edition (1876) of the ''Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien''; also Naudet, ''Notice historique sur MM. Burnouf, père et fils'', in ''Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions''. A list of his valuable contributions to the ''Journal asiatique'' and of his manuscript writings, is given in the appendix to the ''Choix de lettres d'Eugène Burnouf'' (1891). His cousin Emile-Louis Burnouf (1821–1907) continued his work on Sanskrit language.


Works

* ''Essai sur le Pali'' (1826) * ''Vendidad Sade, l'un des livres de Zoroastre'' (1829–1843) * ''Commentaire sur le Yaçna, l'un des livres liturgiques des Parses'' (1833–1835) * ''Mémoire sur les inscriptions cunéiformes'' (1838) * '' Bhâgavata Purâna ou histoire poétique de Krichna'' (3 volumes, 1840–1847) * ''Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien'' (1844 ; 1876) * ''Le Lotus de la bonne loi, traduit du sanscrit, accompagné d'un commentaire et de vingt et un mémoires relatifs au buddhisme'' (Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1852). Reprint: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient A. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1973. *
Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, la Perfection de sagesse en huit mille stances
', traduite par Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852), éditée par Guillaume Ducoeur, Université de Strasbourg, 2022. *
Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852) et les études indo-iranologiques
', actes de la Journée d'étude d'Urville (28 mai 2022) suivis des ''Lalitavistara'' (chap. 1-2) et ''Kāraṇḍavyūha'' traduits par E. Burnouf, édités par Guillaume Ducoeur, Université de Strasbourg, 2022. *


See also

* '' L'Inde française'' * List of works by Eugène Guillaume


Notes


References

*Delisle, Laure Burnouf: Choix de lettres d'Eugene Burnouf. Suivi d'une bibliographie, Paris: H. Champion (1891
Internet Archive
*Burnouf, Eugène (trad.): Le lotus de la bonne loi traduit du sanscrit, accompagné d'un commentaire et de vingt et un mémoires relatifs au buddhisme. Paris : Maisonneuve frères 1925
Internet Archive
(PDF 34,9 MB) *Burnouf, Eugène: Legends of Indian Buddhism; New York, Dutton 1911
Internet Archive
*Burnouf, Eugène: Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme indien, Paris: Imprimerie royale1844
Internet Archive
Attribution: *


External links

* * * Guillaume Ducoeur (2022).
Burnouf, Eugène
, INHA, Collectionneurs, collecteurs et marchands d'art asiatique en France 1700-1939 (in French and English). {{DEFAULTSORT:Burnouf, Eugene 1801 births 1852 deaths Writers from Paris French scholars of Buddhism French Indologists French orientalists Indo-Europeanists Pali École Nationale des Chartes alumni Academic staff of the Collège de France Academic staff of the École Normale Supérieure Translators from Sanskrit Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Members of the Société Asiatique Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French translators Translators of the Bhagavad Gita