BROUGH, John. Dundee 31.8.1917 — Bishop’s Stortford, near Cambridge 9.1. 1984. British (Scottish) Indologist. Professor in London and Cambridge. Son of Charles and Elizabeth Brough. After Dundee High School he studied classical philology at Edinburgh (M.A. 1939), also Sanskrit under A. B. Keith. During the war he continued his classical, and soon also oriental studies at St.John’s College, Cambridge (under Bailey), B.A. 1941, M.A. 1945. He was also engaged in war-work in agriculture, and in 1943-44 as agricultural research assistant. In 1944-46 Assistant Keeper of Oriental Books and Manuscripts in British Museum. D.Litt. 1945 Edinburgh. In 1945-48 Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. From 1946 Lecturer and from 1948 Professor of Sanskrit at S.O.A.S., also head of the Department of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. From 1961 Fellow of the British Academy. From 1967 Bailey’s successor as Professor of Sanskrit and Fellow of St. John’s College at Cambridge, died in a road accident half a year before his retirement. Married with a botanist, Marjory Allan Robertson, he was himself interested in gardening and music. They had at least one son.
Brough started his career with studies on the gotra system and on Sanskrit language, where he applied the methods of general linguistics. He was interested in grammatical literature and linguistic philosophy (theory of meaning) as well as in classical poetry. Quite early he also became interested in Buddhism of Nepal (including Newari texts) and later on Buddhist literature became his main field. The long review (1954) of Edgerton’s work penetrated into the peculiarities of Nepalese scribes. His main scholarly work was the critical edition of the Prakrit Dharmapada, the first to give attention to all existing manuscript sources (including the Leningrad Manuscript). He was a specialist of the Kharoṣṭhī script, and familiar with Tibetan and Chinese sources. As a lay botanist he aptly criticised Wasson’s Soma theories. He was always a perfectionist, who worked slowly, and in his later years his as well as his wife’s worsening health deteriorated the situation. In his last years he planned a comprehensive dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms in collaboration with Japanese scholars (esp. A. Hirakawa). Some earlier works, too, like an edition and translation of the Dhvanyāloka from 1957, remained unpublished. His papers are kept at Cambridge. Among his students were Gelblum, P. S. Jaini and Warder in London.
Publications: Diss. The early brahmanical system of gotra and pravara. Critical ed., transl. and study of Gotrapravaramañjari. Manuscript 1945, publ. 18+228 p. Cambridge 1953; diss. 2. Pāpaparimocana. Sanskrit text and Newārī commentary. Ed. with tr., introd. and notes. Manuscript, Edinburgh 1945 (never published).
– “The early history of the Gotras”, JRAS 1946, 32-45; 1947, 76-90; articles on linguistics and linguistic philosophy, e.g. BSOAS 12:1, 1947, 148-162 & 14, 1952, 73-77, TPS 1951, 27-46 & 1953, 161-176.
– “Thus have I heard…”, BSOAS 13, 1950, 416-426; “Some notes on Maitrakanyaka: Divyāvadāna 38”, 20, 1957, 111-132, and other articles on Buddhist philology etc., in BSOAS 12, 1948, 333-339 & 668-676; 36, 1973, 248-260; 38, 1975, 581-585; Henning Mem. Vol. 1970, 81-88; IT 10, 1982, 65-70.
– Edited & translated: Selections from Classical Sanskrit Literature. 157 p. L. 1951, 2nd ed. L. 1978; translated: Poems from the Sanskrit. 151 p. Penguin Classics. 1968.
– “The Language of the Buddhist Sanskrit Texts”, BSOAS 16, 1954, 351-375 (on Edgerton, BHS); “A Kharoṣṭhī Inscription from China”, BSOAS 24, 1961, 517-530; “The Chinese pseudo-translation of Ārya-śūra’s Jātakamālā”, AM 11, 1964, 27-53; “Comments of the third-century Shan-shan and the history of Buddhism”, BSOAS 28, 1965, 582-612 & 33, 1970, 39-45; “The Arapacana Syllabary in the Old Lalita Vistara”, BSOAS 40, 1977, 85-95.
– “The tripartite ideology of the Indo-Europeans: an experiment in method”, BSOAS 22, 1959, 69-85.
– Edited: The Gāndhārī Dharmapada. 344 p. London Oriental Ser. 7. L. 1962.
– Criticism of Wasson’s fly agaric hypothesis: “Soma and Amanita muscaria”, BSOAS 34, 1971, 331-362; “Problems of the ‘Soma-Mushroom’ theory”, IT 1, 1973, 21-32.
– M. Hara & J. C. Wright (edd.), Collected Papers. 22+533 p. L. 1996.
Sources: *O. Botto, IT 11, 1983, 345f.; *J. Burton-Page, BSOAS 48, 1985, 334-339 (with photo, and bibliography by J.W. de Jong); M. Hara, JIPh 13, 1985, 103-106, also in *ALB 47, 1983, 187ff. and *IBK 32:2, 1985, 715-719; *P.S. Jaini, JIABS 7:2, 1984, 236-238; K.R. Norman, IIJ 27, 1984, 167-170 and Proc. of the British Acad. 75, 1989, 329-339 (with photo); Staal 1985, 402ff.; *J.C. Wright, JRAS 1984, 259-263; *J.C. Wright, life in Coll. Papers. 1996, with bibliography; Wikipedia.
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