POPE, George Uglow. Bedeque, Prince Edward Island 24.4.1820 — Oxford 11.2.1908. British (born in Canada) Missionary Indologist (Tamil Scholar) in India and the U.K. Son of John Pope (1791–1864), a merchant of Cornish origin, and Catherine Uglow, they had come to Canada in 1818. The family moved soon to Nova…
POLEY, Karl August Ludwig (Louis, born Karl Heinrich Koch). Hordorf, Sachsen-Anhalt 7.9.1805 (hardly 1809) — Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, Austria 14.8. 1885. German Indologist. Illegitimate son of German judicial officer Johann Friedrich Poley and, according to his own, perhaps not too reliable, account, a Frenchwoman (in fact she was Dorothea Koch). He…
POKORNY, Aron Julius. Prague 12.6.1887 — Zürich 8.4.1970. Austrian (Bohemian) IE and Celtic Scholar in Swizerland. Professor in Berlin and Zürich. Son of lawyer Samuel Christian Pokorny (1855–1943) and Margarete Riegner (thus Schmitt, German Wikipedia has Anton Pokorny and his wife Rosalia, but as they are called a Jewish family, perhaps…
POHRT, Hermann. 18?? — 19??. German Traveller. Dr. Participated as Grünwedel’s Assistant and Photographer in the Turfan expedition in 1906-08. He spoke Chinese. There is one H. Pohrt, a lawyer, who served in WW I as fighter pilot and in 1919 moved from Berlin to Rheinsberg. He knew Göring and…
POGOR, Vasile. Iaşi 20.8.1833 — Iaşi 20.3.1906. Romanian Author, Philosopher and Politician interested in India. Son of a boyar nobleman, comisul Vasile Pogor (1792–1857) and Zoița Cerchez, educated in Iaşi. Studies of law in Paris. Worked as a lawyer in Iaşi, belonged to the literary circle “Junimea”. From 1871 in…
PLUNKET, Emmeline Mary. Dublin 1.10.1835 — 6.4.1924. British Historian of Astronomy. Daughter of the Right Hon. John Span, the 3rd Baron Plunket (1793–1871), and Charlotte Bushe. Unmarried, living in Wimbledon. Publications: “Astronomy in the Rig Veda”, OC 12, Rome 1899, 1, 1901, 55-100. – Ancient Calendars and Constellations of the…
PLATTS, John Thompson. Calcutta 1.8.1830 — London 21.9.1904. British Indologist (Hindī Scholar) in India. Son of Robert Platts and Elizabeth Kennaway (1802–1862). Lost early his father and grew up in modest circumstances (but both geni.com and ancestry.com give his father the years 1795–1855), educated at Bedford School in London. Returned…
PLATNER, Samuel Ball. Unionville, Conn. 4.12.1863 — at sea 20.8.1921. U.S. Classical Scholar also interested in Sanskrit. Son of William Platner (1818–1883), a factory owner, and Emily Childs Ball, brother of theologian John Winthrop Platner (1865–1921). Studies of Classics and Sanskrit at Yale (A.B. 1883, Ph.D. 1885), further studies in…
PLĀĶIS, Juris. Kabile, Courland 22.6.1869 — Usol’lag near Perm, Russia 1.8.1942. Latvian IE Scholar. Worked long as teacher, from 1921 Professor of Comparative Linguistics (Lithuanian, Sanskrit and IE) at Latvian University in Riga (in 1924 and in the 1930s). Also taught Sanskrit. In 1920-21 Latvian Minister of Education. Arrested in…
PIZZI, Italo. Parma 30.11.1849 — Turin 5/6.12.1920. Italian Indo-Iranian Scholar. Professor in Turin. Born in a large family of nobility, son of Agostino Pizzi and Maria Teresa Prussia. At school Kerbaker was his teacher and made him interested in Indo-Iranian studies. Studied at Pisa Semitic, Indian and Germanic languages under…