VASCONCELOS (DE) ABREU, Guilherme Augusto (de). Coimbra 20.5.1842 — Lisbon 1.2.1907. Portuguese Indologist. Professor in Lisbon. Son of Victor Madail de Abreu (1811–1868), an official and liberal activist, and Guilhermina de Vasconcellos Abreu. School in Coimbra and 1854-56 in Porto, then some time in Brazil, also visited India. Then studied then mathematics at Coimbra University and artillery at military school, also attending engineer class at navy school. The death of his father interrupted these studies and he moved to Lisbon. Now he studied Oriental languages and in 1873 was among the founders of Associação Promotora dos Estudios Orientais e Glótizos. Though often ill, he was able to study Sanskrit abroad: in 1874-75 in Paris (Bergaigne) and in 1875 in Germany (Haug) and the U.K. From 1877 Professor of Sanskrit in Curso Superior de Letras in Lisbon, until his death (succeeded by Dalgado). Also knew Pāli.
In Portuguese sources his name is variouly given as G. de V. A. and G. V. de A., or just G. V. A., also as Vasconcellos.
Publications: Importancia capital do sãnskrito como base da glottologia árica. 39 p. Lisboa 1878; Principios element. da grammatica da lingua sãoskrita. 1. Phonología. 48 p. Lisbon 1879; Manual para o estudo do sânskrito classico. 23+186 p. Lisbon 1881; Exercícios e primeiras leituras de sânscrito. 2. Lisbon 1898.
– Investigações sobre o caracter de civilisação Arya-Hindou. 56 p. Lisbon 1878.
– Translated: O reconhecimento de Chakuntalá, impressão specimen do acto 1 do celebre drama de Kálidása, transladado litteralmente do Sãoskrito segundo a recensão Bengalí. 31 p. Lisbon 1878 (act 1).
– Fragmentos d’uma Tentativa de Estudio Scoliastico da Epopeia Portugueza. Lisbon 1880 (on Camões); abridged transl. of D. Ferguson, “Buddhist Legends”, IA 13, 1884, 33-48; critical ed. of the legend of Barlaam and Joasaf.
– Passos dos Lusíadas estudados à luz da mitolojía e do orientalismo. 85 p. Lisbon 1892.
– Report of his European travels in Revista de Filosofia Positiva 1875; also wrote on Portuguese orthography.
Sources: Grande enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira 34, 310f.; E.V. Macado in A Participação Portuguesa nos Congressos Internacionais de Orientalistas (1873-1973): Textos e Contextos. 2019, 164-167 with photo; Nota Biográfica in the new ed. of his Investigações, Macao 1999, xxii-xxiv; Wikipedia (more in Portuguese version, with drawing).
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