NOBEL, Julius Adolf Johannes. Forst/Lausitz 25.6.1887 — Wehrda bei Marburg 22.10.1960. German Indologist and Buddhist Scholar. Professor in Marburg. Son of a clerc, Oskar Nobel, and Elisabeth Teichert. Educated in Fulda, became early interested in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The parents wished of him a Roman Catholic priest, but in…
NEUMANN, Karl Friedrich (originally Justus Lazarus Bamberger). Reichmannsdorf near Bamberg 28.12.1793 (?) — Berlin 17.3. or 28.3.1870. German Oriental Scholar and Historian. Professor in Munich. Son of a poor Jewish merchant, Lippmann Bamberger, after Jewish school worked himself in the shop. Date of birth is his own statement, which has…
MÜLLER, Herbert (Mi Sung-lin). Gumbinnen, Ostpreussen (now Russian Gusev) 29.8.1885 — Bonn 9.8.1966. German Sinologist, Lawyer, Journalist and Art Dealer. Son of Eduard Müller, owner of a brewery, and AnnaKiupel. Matriculated 1904 from Gumbinnen. Law studies at Berlin, Kiel and Bonn, also linguistics and ethnology. Dr.jur. 1909 Bonn, with Indian…
MASPÉRO, Henri Paul Gaston. Paris 15.12.1883 — Buchenwald 17.3.1945. French Sinologist. Son of the Egyptologist Gaston Maspéro (1846–1916, of Italian ancestry) and Louise Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque. After school in Paris he began himself with a study on Hellenistic Egypt, but soon turned into Sinology under —> Chavannes…
MARSHMAN, Joshua. Westburg Leigh, Wiltshire 20.4.1768 — Serampur 5.12.1837. British Missionary and Pioneer of Indology in India. Son of John Marshman, a weaver, and Mary Couzener, educated at the village school of Westbury Leigh. Apprenticed to a bookseller he read extensively. In 1794-99 Master of a Baptist school in Bristol,…
LIEBENTHAL, Walter. Königsberg 12.6.1886 — Tübingen 15.11.1982. German Indologist, Sinologist and Buddhist Scholar. Professor in Peking and Santiniketan. Son of Robert L. (1854–1942), an attorney, and Grete Becken. In 1899 the family moved to Berlin, then gymnasium there. After a brief period of university studies of law he started in…
LESSING, Ferdinand Dietrich. Essen-Altenessen 26.2.1882 — Berkeley 31.12.1961. German Sinologist and Central Asian Scholar in the U.S.A. U.S. citizen 1946. Professor in Berkeley. Gymnasium in Lingen, matriculated in 1902. Studies of Chinese and Russian in Berlin (diplom 1905), guided by F. W. K. Müller. From 1907 on spent 17 years…
LE ROUX DESHAUTESRAYES, Michel-Ange-André (des Hautesrayes). Conflans-Sainte-Honorine near Pontoise 10.9.1724 — Rueil Malmaison near Paris 9.2.1795. French Orientalist and Sinologist, a Pioneer of Buddhist Studies. Professor in Paris. Son of Antoine Le R. H. and Catherine Geneviève Fourmont. Through his mother nephew of the Orientalist brothers Etienne and Michel Fourmont,…
LEGGE, James. Huntly, Aberdeenshire 20.12.1815 — Oxford 29.11.1897. British (Scottish) Missionary and Sinologist. Professor in Oxford. Son of Ebenezer Legge, a prosperous businessman, and Elspeth Cruikshank (d. 1817). Educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. Studied mathematics and graduated 1835 from King’s College, Aberdeen, but then turned to theology. After studies Highbury…
KLAPROTH, Heinrich Julius von. Berlin 11.10.1783 — Paris 28.8.1835. German Oriental Scholar in Russia and France. Son of the mineralogist and chemist Martin-Heinrich Klaproth (1743–1817) and Christine Sophie Lehmann (d. 1803). Gymnasium in Berlin. As a fifteen years old schoolboy he started the study of Chinese from Bayer’s book. From…