Moriz Winternitz ( Horn, December 23, 1863 –

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, January 9, 1937) was a scholar from

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

who began his Indology contributions working with

Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and oriental studies, Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious s ...

at the Oxford University. An eminent Sanskrit scholar, he worked as a professor in

in the German part of Charles-Ferdinand University after 1902, for nearly thirty years.Isidore Singer and Cyrus Adler, , Volume XII
Article on Winternitz, Moriz
/ref> His ''Geschichte der indischen Literatur'', published 1908–1922, offered a comprehensive literary history of Sanskrit texts. The contributions on a wide range of Sanskrit texts by Winternitz have been an influential resource for modern era studies on

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and

Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its s ...

Education

An Austrian Orientalist, he received his earliest education in the gymnasium of his native town, and in 1880 entered the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, receiving the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in 1886. In 1888 he went to

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, where until 1892 he assisted the preparation of the second edition of the '' Rig-Veda'' (4 vols., Oxford, 1890–92), collating manuscripts and deciding on the adoption of many new readings. Winternitz remained in Oxford until 1898, acting in various educational capacities, such as German lecturer to the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (1891–98), librarian of the Indian Institute at Oxford (1895), and frequently as examiner in German and

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 ...

both for the university and for the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

Work

In 1899, attending the Oriental Congress in Rome, he proposed the establishment of a society dedicated to studying Sanskrit texts, and particularly noted the need for a new critical edition of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. In that same year, he went to Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague as '' privatdozent'' for Indology and general

ethnology Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...

, and in 1902 was appointed to the professorship of Sanskrit (made vacant by the retirement of Ludwig) and of ethnology. The Winternitz family were friendly with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, when he was in Prague around 1911.

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

visited Prague in 1920 and met Winternitz. On an invitation from the poet, he went to Santiniketan and worked as a visiting professor from February 1923 to September 1924. During this time in India, he continued his advocacy for Mahabharata studies, working with the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and advising them in editing their critical editions of the Mahabharata. He additionally published several research papers that studied the Mahabharata, including analyses on versions of the epic common in South India, and studies of the figure of Ganesha in the epic. Among his students were Vincenc Lesný, Wilhelm Gampert and Otto Stein, who themselves went on to become prominent Indologists. In addition to valuable contributions on Sanskrit and ethnology to various scientific journals, Winternitz edited the ''Apastambiya Gṛihyasutra'' (Vienna, 1887) and the ''Mantrapaṭha, or the Prayer-Book of the Apastambins'' (part i, Oxford, 1897); translated Müller's ''Anthropological Religion'' and his ''Theosophy, or Psychological Religion'' into German (Leipzig, 1894–95); and published ''Das Altindische Hochzeitsrituell'' (Vienna, 1892), which also contains valuable ethnological material; ''A Catalogue of South Indian Manuscripts Belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'' (London, 1902); and ''Geschichte der Indischen Literatur'' (part i, Leipzig, 1905). He also published expansive studies of Indian literature, publishing a two-volume book on the same.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winternitz, Moriz 1863 births 1937 deaths People from Horn, Austria Austrian Indologists Austrian Jews Visva-Bharati University alumni Academic staff of Charles University Linguists of Sanskrit Scholars from Austria-Hungary

Education

Work

See also

References