RIDDING, Caroline Mary. Meriden, Warwickshire 30.8.1862 — Cambridge 9.11.1941. Miss. British Indologist. Daughter of Rev. William Ridding (1830–1900) and Caroline Selina Caldecott. Studied classics and Sanskrit (under Cowell) at Cambridge, for a while scholar of Girton College (1883-86). Then further studies financed by tutoring. Living in Clapton (1892) and London (1897). In 1904 she secured Cowell’s books for Girton College and was employed cataloguing them. Then Librarian in Cambridge University Library. M.A. 1923 Cambridge (when the degree was finally allowed to women). Unmarried.
Ridding was one of the first fully competent female Indologists. Beside Sanskrit and Pāli she also knew Bengalī and Hindī.
Publications: “A Manuscript of the Nārada Smṛiti”, JRAS 1893, 41-47.
– Translated: The Kādambarī of Bāṇa. 24+231 p. Or. Tr. Fund N.S. 2. L. 1896.
– Edited E. B. Cowell’s posthumous “Index to the first words of the slokas of the Dhammapada”, JRAS 1904, 711-717.
– With L. de La Vallée Poussin: “A fragment of the Sanskrit Vinaya, Bhikṣunīkarmavacana, edited with notes”, BSOS 1:3, 1919, 123-143.
– Obituary notice of M. Bode, JRAS 1922, 307f.; of T. W. Rhys Davids, BSOS 3:1, 1923, 201-207; “Professor Cowell and his Pupils”, BSOS 6:2 (Rapson Vol.), 1931, 461-468; reviews in JRAS, in later years also of Tibetan books.
Sources: *Br. Huett, “Woman of Books: Miss C.M.R. and the Younghusband-Waddell Collection”, Inner Asia 14, 2012, 173-187; *F. H. Perrone in Oxford D.N.B. 2004; lib.cam.ac.uk with photo; Wikipedia.
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