KRAUSE, Charlotta. Halle 18.5.1895 — Gwalior 27.1.1980. German Indologist in India. Daughter of Hermann Kr., a merchant, and Anna. Matriculated 1914 from Dessau. From 1916 studied science at Marburg, soon also philosophy and history, at Leipzig, Tübingen and Berlin. Studies of Indology, German and linguistics at Tübingen (Garbe), then at Leipzig under Windisch and Hertel. Ph.D. 1920 Leipzig (not in Indology). In 1923 habilitation at Leipzig, where she was also Hertel’s Assistant. In 1925 she arrived at Bombay, intending to spend 2 years in India studying Jainism, but remained there for the rest of her life. She soon became engaged in traditional āśrama life in Shivpuri, Gwalior, under Vijaya Indra Suri, and also taught English and German. She visited many Jaina centres and became a Jaina nun as Subhadrā Devī in 1928. An extension of two years was granted, but after that she definitely gave up her career at Leipzig. From now on she no longer published works as Indologist, but as a sympathetic Western observer. After seven years she left the Shivpuri Centre in 1932 and settled in Gwalior, where she for a while was tutor of Princess Kamalā Rājā, the sister of the young Rāja, and then Deputy Inspector General of Female Education. During the war the Raja Jivaji Rao Scindia gave her sanctuary in Scindia Oriental Institute, Ujjain, where she was Curator in 1942-47. In 1952 she returned as Indian citizen to Gwalior, where she lived to an advanced age, from 1962 until her death in a small house near the Christian church (she was now converted to Roman Catholic Christianity), but wrote no more. She had a small pension as Inspector and occasionally taught English and German.

Krause was mainly a Jaina scholar interested in hagiography and narrative literature in Sanskrit, Prakrit and (Old) Gujarati, also in Zoroastrianism and Parsis. Her posthumous papers are preserved in B.O.R.I. in Poona.

Publications: Habil.diss. Nāsaketarī kathā, an Old-Rājasthanī Tale. Edited with notes, a grammar and a glossary. Manuscript,. Lp. 1923, publ. 11+124 p. Lp. 1925, text and transl. publ. in Asia Major 1, 1924, 347-427.

– Transl. Indische Novellen. 1. Prinz Aghata. Die Abenteuer Ambadas. 208 p. Lp. 1922.

– “Eine neue Pañcatantra-Mischrecension in Alt-Gujarātī” Streitberg Festgabe 1924, 202-217; “Indo-Iranian Fire-Worship”, Samaldas College Magazine 11, 1928, 1-23; review of Alsdorf, Kumārapālapratibodha. 1928, OLZ 33, 1930, 672-674.

– An interpretation of Jaina Ethics. 37 p. Bhavnagar 1929; The Kaleidoscope of Indian Wisdom. 37 p. Bhavnagar 1929; The Heritage of the last Arhat. 29 p. Bhavnagar 1930 (all publ. lectures).

– “The Social Athmosphere of Present Jainism”, CR 1930, 276-286; “Individual and Society in Jainism”, CR 1931, 71-96; “The Jain Canon and Early Indian Court Life”, CR 1934, 2-5, and other articles, also in Gujarati.

– Transl. Sayings of Vijaya Dharma Suri. 120 p. Bhavnagar 1933.

– “Siddhasena Divakara and Vikramaditya”, Vikrama Vol. Ujjain 1948, 213-280.

– Edited: Traṇ Prācīna Gujarātī kṛtioṁ. 32+80 p. Ahmedabad 1951; Ancient Jaina Hymns. Critical edition with introduction, discourse, notes and index. 23+144 p. Scindia Oriental Series 2. 1952.

– “Jāvaḍa of Mandu”, Journal of Madhya Pradesh Historical Parishad 4, Bhopal 1962, 131-144.

Sources: *S. Pandey (ed.), German Jaina Sravika. Dr. Ch.K. Her Life and Literature. 1. 664 p. 1999; L. Soni, “Ch.K. (1895–1980), Indologist and Jaina Scholar”, BEI 15, 1997, 299-310 with bibliogr.; D.G.K. 1935; works in GesVz and N.U.C.