A Century of Indology at the University of Hamburg

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development of Indology at the University of Hamburg and analyzes the contribution of Hamburg Indologists to the study of ancient and medieval India and the study of modern languages and literature of India in the discipline’s development in the sister city of St. Petersburg. The authors note that the development of Indology has a long history in Germany and the uniqueness of the Hamburg school is observed. Germany had more than forty Indology departments in the 19th century, much more than Great Britain then had. The teaching of Indian languages in Hamburg began in 1914 in the classrooms of the university’s predecessor, the Hamburg Colonial Institute founded in 1908 and dissolved in 1919, soon after World War I. The University of Hamburg started as new and progressive institution of education in Weimar Germany, and continued for the next hundred years, where the teaching of Sanskrit, studying ancient medieval monuments of Indian literature, philosophy, and religious texts reached a global level thanks to outstanding Indologists, such as Walter Schubring, Ludwig Alsdorf, Albrecht Welzer, and Lambert Schmithausen. The article also considers the contribution to the development of Indology in Hamburg by current Professors Eva Wilden, Michael Zimmermann, Harunaga Isaacson et al. Thanks to the activities of these professors and their colleagues from Russia and India such as Tatiana Iosifovna and Ram Prasad Bhatta, the study and teaching of the languages and cultures of India within the framework of the Center for Culture and History of India and Tibet of the Institute of Asia and Africa now includes the study of Tamil language and literature as well as North Indian languages and literature.