ZIGMUND-CERBU, Anton. Bucharest 19.10.1923 — New York City 10.3.1964. Romanian Buddhist and South-East Asian Scholar in France and the U.S.A. Born in a family of Jewish intellectuals, grew up in Bucharest. Studies at Bucharest, graduated 1946. Left Romania with his wife in 1947, first to Paris. There both studied languages at É.P.H.É. and E.L.O.V. He began with classics and Sanskrit, soon took also Tibetan, Chinese and South-East Asian studies. From 1952 worked in C.N.R.S. preparing his diss. on Tantric Buddhism under J. Filliozat and R. A. Stein. In 1959 travelled in South-East Asia. From 1960 Assistant Professor of Buddhism and Oriental Religions at Columbia University in New York. He was deemed to be too many-sided and could not complete his doctorate before the early death. In last years he had continually heart problems, died of coronary thrombosis. Married Liza (Elise) Zigmund-Cerbu (1924–1965), a specialist of Church Syriac and Patristic Literature, who moved together with his husband to France and U.S.A. Because of early death the major part of his studies remained unpublished. A friend of Eliade.
Publications: ”Aspects socio-politiques du bouddhisme contemporain”, Les missions catholiques N.S. 67-68, 1957, 292-300; “A Tun-Huang version of the āśrayaparāvṛtti”, ALB 25, 1961, 40-48.
–“A propos d’un vajra khmer”, Art. As. 24, 1961. 425-431, 2 pl.
– ”The Ṣadaṅgayoga”, Hist. of Rel. 3, 1963, 128-134; “Lumières nouvelles sur le yoga et l’hésychasme”, Acta philos. et theol. (Rome) 2, 1964, 505-527; a couple of further articles.
Sources: A. Roşu, “De L’histoire des études orientales à Paris: Anton et Liza Z-C”, BEI 17-18, 1999-2000, 21-32 & *“Anton et Liza Z.-C., orientalistes de talent en exil”, Studia Asiatica (Bucharest) 1, 2000, 11-23; angkordatabase.asia.
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