TROYER von Aufkirchen, Anton (Anthony). Klattau, Bohemia (now Klatovy in Czech) 1775 (not 1769!) — Royaumont near Paris 2.6.1865. Austrian Officer and Indologist in India and Paris. Son of Lieutenant Joseph Tr. v. A. of an old family of nobility. From 1787 studied at Military Academy of Wien-Neustadt. From 1791 Cadet-Ensign, from 1793 Second Lieutenant of Austrian Infantry. He participated in campaigns of France, Flanders and Rhine, in 1793 wounded near Valenciennes. First Lieutenant 1795. In 1798 he was sent to Italy and soon promoted as Captain. In Italian war he met Lord William Bentinck before Genoa in 1800 and, obtaining a leave from Austrian Army, accompanied him to Madras in 1803 as Ensign. Probably he was accepted because of his linguistic talents and his experience as a surveyor. In India he was used in teaching mathematics and surveying in the new Madras Military Institution and promoted to Lieutenant, from 1807 also its director. Captain 181?. In 1816 the Institution was discontinued on economical grounds, and Troyer retired on half-pay and returned to Europe around 1817. Lived with his wife in Paris. Again with Bentinck, now Governor-General, he went in 1827 to Calcutta as his Aid-de-Camp. Now he started studying Sanskrit and worked as Secretary to the Government Sanskrit College. In 1835 returned to Europe and again settled down in Paris working for the Oriental Translation Fund and living in a learned seclusion. In Madras he had married a French lady from Pondichéry and had a son and two daughters.
The scholarly career of Troyer began, according to his own recollection, during the Flanders war in 1792, when he found a Polyglot Bible in an abandoned monastery and became interested in Arabic. In India he learned Hindustani, Tamil and Persian, later also Sanskrit. In Madras he introduced new, more exact methods of topographical survey and trained a generation of able surveyors. His Rājataraṅginī was an achievement, but because based on a defective manuscript basis also a failure.
Publications: “Remarks upon the second inscription of the Allahabad Pillar”, JASB 3, 1834, 118-123; “Lettre à M. E. Burnouf”, JA 2:16, 1835, 545-558 (about sandhi).
– Edited & translated with D. Shea: Radjatarangini. Histoire des Rois du Kachmír. 1-3. 24+584+657+ 727 p. P. 1840-52 (the first two fifths by Shea; also including an “Esquisse géographique et ethnographique du Kachmir, ancienne et moderne” by Troyer).
– Edited & translated: “Ananda-Lahari ou l’Onde de la Béatitude, hymne à Parvatî, attribué à Çag’kara Atcharya”, JA 3:12, 1841, 273-336 & 401-440; “Notice sur deux ms. de l’Hymne à Parvati, intitulé Ananda lahari, et remarques additionelles relatives à l’édition de cet hymne publiée dans le JA de 1841”, JA 4:9, 1847, 391-408.
– A review of the first vol. of the Rāmāyaṇa by Gorresio in JA 4:2, 1843, 230-263.
– Transl. from Persian: Dâbistân or the School of Manners. 1-3. Or. Tr. Fund. P. 1845 (began by David Shea), new ed. 1901.
– “Fragments du Humaïoun-nameh”, JA 4:13, 1849, 415-453.
– A manuscript history of the Austrian campaigns in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy in 1794.
Sources: Gosche, Wiss. Jahresber. der D.M.G. 1862-67, 62f.; *J. Mohl, JA 6:8, 1866, 13-18; A. Stein, “Notes on the Life and Labours of Captain Anthony Troyer”, JASB 3rd Ser., Letters 6, 1940, 45-59 (with important corrections to Mohl); information given in a letter by Peter Wyzlic (1996).
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