AL-GEORGE, Sergiu Anatol. Tărgu Mureş 13.9.1922 — Bucharest 10.11.1981. Romanian Indologist. Born in Transylvania, son of Vasile Al-G., a lawyer and poet, and Antonina Donos. Educated at military high school in Tărgu Mureş and Chișinău, then in a civil high school in Bucharest From 1941 studied medicine at Bucharest and specialized in phoniatrics, Dr.med. 1947. From 1939 also studied privately Sanskrit.  Worked as a physician and continued with Sanskrit and Tibetan. To some extent pupil or follower of M. Eliade. While others emigrated, he worked still in Bucharest, and eventually became the last member of the old school of Indology in Romania, suppressed by the Ceau­sescu régime. In 1958-64 he was in prison, which apparently broke his health. In 1971-73 he was able to teach Indology in the newly founded Faculty of Oriental languages. Ph.D. Delhi 1981. He died of a heart-attack a few days after his return from the 5th World Sanskrit Conference in Varanasi. His main interests were in Pāṇini, in Semiotics, Linguistics and Logic. As physician he was rather succesful as otorhinolaryngologist. Married another physician, Dorina Bucur.

Publications: “Le mythe de l’atman et la genése de l’absolu dans la pensée indienne”, REIE 4, 1947, 227-246; “Le sujet grammatical chez Pāṇini”, St&AOr 1, 1957, 39-49; “La fonction révélatrice des consonnes chez les phonéticiens de l’Inde antique”, Cahiers de linguistique théorique et appliquée 2, 1966, 11-15; “The Semiosis of Zero according to Pāṇini”, E & W 17, 1967, 115-124; “The Extra-linguistic Origin of Pāṇini’s syntactic Categories and their Linguistic Accuracy”, JOIB 18, 1968, 1-7; “Sign (lakṣana) and Propositional Logic in Pāṇini”, E & W 19, 1969, 173-193; “Lakṣana ‘grammatical rule’”, JGJhaKSVp 27, 1971, 213-221; “Are Pāṇini’s sūtras descriptive or prescriptive sentences?”, ABORI Diamond Jub. Vol. 1977-78, 27-36; “On negative compounds: a parallel between Pāṇini and Aristotle”, Dacoromania 5, 1979-80, 1-4; “Un manuscrit tibétain en Roumanie”, Annals of the “Sergiu Al-George” Institute 1, 1992, 11-14 & “Nouvelles données sur le manuscrit tibétain de Conţeşti”, ibid. 15-22; etc.

– With A. Roşu: “Indriya et le sacrifice des prāṇa”, MIO 5, 1957, 346-397; “Pūrṇa ghaṭa et le symbolisme du vase dans l’Inde”, Arts as. 4, 1957, 243-254.

– “Brâncuşi et l’Inde”, Revue Roumaine d’histoire de l’art, série Beaux Arts 18, 1981, 3-53.

– Filozofia indiana in texte. Bhagavad-Gita, Samkhya-Karika, Tarka-Samgraha. Traducere din limba sanscrita, studiu introductiv, notiţe introductiv, comentarii şi note. 253 p. Bucharest 1971; Limbă şi gîndire în cultura indiană. Bucharest 1976; Archaic si universal. Bucharest 1981.

Sources: C. Nicoa & R. Bercea in Annals of the “Sergiu Al-George” Institute 1, 1992; A. Rosu, ABORI 63, 1982, 382f.; tititudorancea.com with photo; not in Ionesco’s WWW; *Romanian Wikipedia.