Willibald Kirfel

Willibald Kirfel ( born January 29, 1885 in Reifferscheid, † October 16, 1964 in Bonn ) was a German Indologist, who made ​​significant contributions to the study of the Puranas and the Indian cosmography.

Life

He studied from 1904 to 1908 Indology in Bonn and worked as a librarian at the University Library, before he took over at the University of Bonn as professor of the chair of his teacher Hermann Jacobi.

Early on, he devoted himself to one of his most important research fields, the cosmography of the Brahmins, Jains and Buddhists. In 1920 he published his habilitation thesis on the cosmography of the Indians, which appeared in 1967 as a reprint.

Kirfel also studied intensively the Puranas and tried to work out those passages which appear again and again in different variants in many texts. The result of his research he published entitled The Purânapancalakshana, try a text story. Many more articles about Purana topics to follow, and also books written about the symbolism of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Together with H. Hilgen castle, he translated the Ashtângahridayasamhitâ, an important treatise on medicine.

Writings

• Cosmography of the Indians, Bonn 1920
• The Purânapancalakshana, try a text story, Bonn 1927
• Krishna's youth story in the Puranas (1926 )
• Symbolism of Buddhism (1959 )
• Symbolism of Hinduism and Jainism (1959 )