BOGLE, George. Daldowie on Clyde near Glasgow 26.11.1746 — Calcutta 3.4.1781. British (Scottish) Traveller and Diplomat. Youngest son of George B., an important Glasgow merchant, and Ann Sinclair. Educated at Haddington, Glasgow, then at Edinburgh University. After four years in family business in 1769 joined E.I.C.’s service. Soon became private…
BLEICHSTEINER, Robert. Vienna 6.1.1891 — Vienna 10.4.1954. Austrian Linguist, Scholar of Iranian and Caucasian Languages and Ethnology, later also of Mongolian and Tibetan. Son of Josef Ludwig Bl. School and studies in Vienna. Ph.D. 1913 Vienna, then worked in a library. From 1922 PD for Caucasian Linguistics there, tit. ao.…
BLAVATSKY, Helena Petrovna (née Hahn, Russian Jelena Petrovna Blavatskaja, née Gan). Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro in Ukraina) 12.8.1831 — London 9.5.1891. Russian Noblewoman, the Founder of the Theosophical Society. Born in Ukraina as daughter of colonel Peter Hahn, of a noble family of Mecklenburg settled in Russia. Married at 17 a…
BIČURIN, Iakinf (Hyacinth, originally Nikita Jakovlevič B.). Akulevo, Tsivil’skij district, Kazan Province 29.8.1777* — St.Petersburg 11.5.1853. Russian (Čuvaš) Monk, Orthodox Priest, Sinologist and Central Asian Scholar. Son of a deacon, graduated from Kazan Ecclesiastical Academy in 1799. Ordained as monk in 1802. Head of the Ninth Spiritual Mission of the…
GIUSEPPE MARIA DA GARGNANO (Iosephus Maria a Gargnano; lay Bernardino Bernini). Gargnano near Brescia (then Venetian Republic) 2.9.1709 (hardly 1711) — Bettia in Bihar Terai 15.1.1761. Count. Italian Missionary in Tibet. Son of Count Giuseppe De Bernini and Giovanna De’ Bettoni, partly grew up in Vienna. Joined the Capuchin order…
BERNARD, Theos Casimir Hamati. Los Angeles 10.12.1908 — Kosar, Pakistan ?.9.1947. U.S. Bauddha and Yogi. Son of Glen Agassiz B. and Aura Crable, nephew of the yogi Pierre Arnold Baker (1875–1955). Graduated from the University of Arizona Law School (L.L.B. 1931) and Columbia University (M.A. 1936 in Philosophy). Prompted by…
BELL, Charles Alfred. Calcutta 31.10.1870 — Oak Bay, Victoria, B.C. 8.3.1945. Sir. British Tibetan Scholar, Traveller, and Civil Servant in India. Born as a son of a civil servant (in India) Henry B., educated at Winchester and Oxford (New College). In 1891 joined Indian service in Bengal. In 1900 started learning…
BECKH, Christoph Eugen Hermann. Nürnberg 4.5.1875 — Stuttgart 1.3.1937. German Indologist and Tibetan Scholar, later turned into Anthroposophist Priest. Son of a factory owner, Eugen B., and Marie Seiler, studied economy and law at the Maximilianeum of Munich until 1896 and worked as assessor, but was soon frustrated with law…
BAYER, Theophilus (Gottlieb) Siegfried. Königsberg 5/6.1.1694 — St.Petersburg 10.2.1738. German Orientalist and Historian, from Königsberg, was elected to the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences and moved to St.Petersburg. In Russian his name is variously spelled as Beer, Beèr, and Bajer’. Son of painter Johann Friedrich Bayer and Anna Katharina Porath,…
BARUCH, Willy. Herford, Kr. Detmold 1900 — Montfavet, Avignon ?.3.1954. German Indologist, Sinologist, Buddhist and Central Asian Scholar. Born of a Jewish family in Westfalen. Studies at Berlin and Leipzig, student of Lüders and F. Weller, then of Kirfel at Bonn. Ph.D. 1937 Bonn. Leaving Germany he was living in…