MOHL, Jules (Julius von Mohl). Stuttgart 25.10.1800 — Paris 4/5.1.1876. French (German-born) Oriental Scholar in Paris. French citizen 1838. Professor of Persian at Collège de France. Son of a high civil servant in Württemberg, Benjamin Ferdinand von Mohl (1766–1845) and Louisa Friederica Autenrieth, his brothers were Robert (1799–1875, scholar of…
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 (1856–1953). 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 and Sinology 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…
LIEBENTHAL, Walter. Königsberg 12.6.1886 — Tübingen 15.11.1982. German Indologist, Sinologist and Buddhist Scholar. Professor in Peking and Santiniketan. Son of Robert Liebenthal (1854–1942), an attorney, and Margarethe (Grete) Becken. In 1899 the family moved to Berlin, then gymnasium there, matriculated 1904. After a brief period of university studies of law…
LESSING, Ferdinand Dietrich (Diedrich). Essen-Altenessen 26.2.1882 — Berkeley, Calif. 31.12.1961. German Sinologist and Central Asian Scholar in the U.S.A. U.S. citizen 1946. Professor in Berkeley. Son of Edward Lessing (1854–1926) and Elisabeth Brockhaus. Gymnasium in Lingen, matriculated in 1902. Studies of Chinese and Russian in Berlin (diplom 1905), guided by…
LE ROUX DESHAUTESRAYES, Michel-Ange-André (des Hautesrayes, des Hautes-Rayes). 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 Roux Hautesrayes and Catherine Geneviève Fourmont. Through his mother nephew of the Orientalist brothers Etienne and…
LEGGE, James. Huntly, Aberdeenshire 20.12.1815 — Oxford 29.11.1897. British (Scottish) Missionary and Sinologist. Professor in Oxford. Son of Ebenezer Legge (1772–1848), a prosperous businessman, and Elspeth Cruikshank (1781–1817). Educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. Studied mathematics and graduated 1835 from King’s College, Aberdeen, but then turned to theology. After studies Highbury…
LA VALLÉE POUSSIN, Louis Étienne Marie de. Liège 1.1.1869 — Brussels 18.2.1938. Belgian Indologist, a specialist of Buddhism and History. Professor in Ghent. Son of a French father, Gustave de La Vallée Poussin (1829–1910), and Belgian mother, Marie Pauline de Monge de Franeau (1845–1876), both of families with great scholarly…
LAUFER, Berthold. Köln 11.10.1874 — Chicago 13.9.1934. German Sinologist and Anthropologist in the U.S.A. Son of Max Laufer (of Jewish background) and Eugenie Schlesinger, a wealthy family. His younger brother was —> Heinrich Laufer (1877–1925). After gymnasium in Cologne studied at Berlin 1893-95, first law, but soon ethnology and Oriental…
KRESSLER, August Eduard Oscar. Konstanz 16.4.1876 — Hongkong 1970. German Japanologist, began as Indologist. Son of a postal officer, educated in Aachen, Colmar (Alsace) and Wernigerode. From 1896 studies of Sanskrit, Latin and Oriental philology at Leipzig (Windisch, et al.), one term at Geneva, then at Strassburg (E. Leumann). Ph.D.…