Otto von Böhtlingk
Otto Nicolaus of Böhtlingk (born 30 Maijul / June 11 1815greg in Saint Petersburg, .. † April 1, 1904 in Leipzig ) was a major Indologist.
Life and work
Otto von Böhtlingk, co-founder of the scientific study of Sanskrit in Germany, was born in St. Petersburg, where his ancestors were from Lübeck in 1713 immigrated. He studied there since 1833 Oriental languages , especially Sanskrit, from 1835 in Berlin and Bonn. He was appointed 1845 1875 after his return (1842 ) to adjuncts of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, as a full member of the same in 1860 to the real State Council, the Privy after he had his normal residence in 1868 to Jena.
Epoch-making was his edition of the Sanskrit text of the famous grammar of Panini (Bonn 1840, 2 vols ), to which editions of Vopadevas grammar (Petersburg 1846) and Hemacandra joined Dictionary (ibid. 1847). The study of Indian dramas in Germany he was by his edition and translation of Kalidasa's " Shakuntala " (Bonn 1842) a firm foundation and collected the Indian language wisdom in his book " Indian Proverbs " (Petersburg 1863-65, 3 vols; 2 edition, 7613 sayings containing, 1870-71 ); no less rich is his " Sanskrit anthology " (Petersburg 1845, 2nd edition 1877).
One of the most interesting Indian dramas he had translated into German ( " Mricchakatika " Petersburg 1877). Many are its smaller papers in the publications of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy. However, his major work, which he published in association with Rudolph Roth in Tübingen with the participation of the most important German Sanskritists, is the great " Sanskrit Dictionary" (Petersburg 1855-75, 7 vols ), a job dictionary for which the very rich, yet mostly only through manuscripts or unreliable prints known Sanskrit literature of the Vedic and the later periods is excerpted in the most careful manner, and made a historical arrangement of word meanings for the first time. Böhtlingk had (Petersburg 1879 et seq ), in which the meanings given without specifying the locations, but also very many in the big dictionary words not contained, in part by requests from other Sanskritists issued a " Sanskrit dictionary in a shorter version ". Important for comparative grammar of the Ural-Altaic languages is his early work. "On the language of the Yakuts " (Petersburg 1851).