Christian Lassen (22 October 1800 – 8 May 1876) was a Norway-born, German oriental studies and Indologist. He was a professor of Old Indian language and literature at the University of Bonn.
Biography
He was born at Bergen, Norway where he attended Bergen Cathedral School. Having received an education at the University of Oslo, he moved to Germany and continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Bonn where Lassen acquired a sound knowledge of
Sanskrit. He spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating manuscripts, and collecting materials for future research, especially with reference to
Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with Eugène Burnouf, his first work,
Essai sur le Pâli (Paris, 1826).
On his return to Bonn he studied Arabic language, and took the degree of Ph.D., his dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the Punjab region ( Commentario geographica historica de Pentapotamia Indica, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted Privatdozent, and in 1830 was appointed extraordinary and in 1840 ordinary professor of Old Indian language and literature. Lassen remained at the University of Bonn to the end of his life. Having been affected with almost total blindness for many years, by 1864 he was allowed to give up lecturing.
He died at Bonn and was buried at Alter Friedhof.
Work
In 1829–1831 he brought out, in conjunction with August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a critical annotated edition of the
Hitopadesha. The appearance of this edition marks the starting-point of the critical study of Sanskrit literature. Lassen assisted von Schlegel in editing and translating the first two cantos of the epic
Ramayana (1829-1838). In 1832 he brought out the text of the first act of
Bhavabhuti's drama,
Mālatīmādhava, and a complete edition, with a
Latin translation, of the
Sānkhya-kārikā. In 1837 followed his edition and translation of
Jayadeva's charming lyrical drama,
Gita Govinda and his
Institutiones linguae Pracriticae. His
Anthologia Sanscritica, which came out the following year, contained several hitherto unpublished texts, and did much to stimulate the study of Sanskrit in German universities. In 1846 Lassen brought out an improved edition of Schlegel's text and translation of the "
Bhagavad Gita".
As well as the study of Indian languages, he was a scientific pioneer in other fields of philological inquiry. In his Beiträge zur Deutung der Eugubinischen Tafeln (1833) he prepared the way for the correct interpretation of the inscriptions; and the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (7 vols., 1837–1850), started and largely conducted by him, contains, among other valuable papers from his pen, grammatical sketches of the Beluchi and Brahui languages, and an essay on the Lycian inscriptions.
Old Persian cuneiform
Soon after the appearance of Burnouf's
Commentaire sur le Yacna (1833), Lassen also directed his attention to the
Zend language, and to
studies generally; and in
Die altpersischen Keilinschriften von Persepolis (1836) he greatly improved the knowledge of the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions, following the early efforts of
Grotefend (1802) and Saint-Martin (1823).
thereby anticipating, by one month, Burnouf's
Mémoire on the same subject, while Sir Henry Rawlinson's famous memoir on the Behistun Inscription, though drawn up in Persia, at about the same time, did not reach the Royal Asiatic Society until three years later, 1839.
[Rawlinson received Lassen's copy in 1839, three years after publication "It was at this period that I received through the Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society, a letter from Professor Lassen, containing a précis of his last improved system of interpretation, and the Bonn alphabet I recognized at once to be infinitely superior to any other that had previously fallen under my observation" ]
Subsequently, Lassen published, in the sixth volume of his journal (1845), a collection of all the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions known up to that date. According to Sayce:
Brahmi script
The first successful attempts at deciphering the
Brahmi script were made in 1836 by Christian Lassen, who used a bilingual Greek-Brahmi coin of
Indo-Greek king Agathocles to correctly identify several Brahmi letters.
The task was then completed by
James Prinsep, who was able to identify the rest of the Brahmi characters, with the help of
Major Cunningham.
[
]
File:AgathoklesCoinage.jpg|Lassen used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coinage of Indo-Greek kings Agathocles and Pantaleon to correctly decipher the Brahmi script.[
File:Announcement of the decipherement of Brahmi letters by Lassen in the JASB in 1836.jpg|Announcement by James Prinsep of the secure decipherement of the first Brahmi letters by Lassen in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 1836.][
]
Kharoshthi
He also was one of the first scholars in Europe who took up, with signal success, the decipherment of the newly discovered Bactrian, Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian coins with Kharoshthi legends, which furnished him the materials for Zur Geschichte der griechischen und indoskythsschen Könige in Bakterien, Kabul, und Indien (1838).
He contemplated bringing out a critical edition of the Vendidad; but, after publishing the first five fargards (1852), he felt that his whole energies were required for the successful accomplishment of the great undertaking of his life—his Indische Altertumskunde. In this work—completed in four volumes, published respectively in 1847 (2nd ed., 1867), 1849 (2nd ed., 1874), 1858 and 1861—which forms one of the greatest monuments of untiring industry and critical scholarship, everything that could be gathered from native and foreign sources, relative to the political, social and intellectual development of India. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1868.
Other sources
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“Christian Lassen,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Band 17, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1883, S. 784–788.
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“Christian Lassen,” Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 4. Auflage von 1888–1890.
External links
