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Romantic Age scholars’ engagement with Sanskrit sources as revealed by a Latin catalogue of German Oriental manuscripts

By Gleb Sharygin

As part of my work in the Qalamos project, I had to process the entries of the old Latin catalogue of South Asian manuscripts kept at the University of Bonn, written by Johann Gustav Gildemeister in the late 19th century. It took some effort, as my Latin is not perfect, but my endeavours were exceedingly rewarded when I learned that many of the manuscripts described there were produced, owned or worked on by the famous Romantic scholars of Indology August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845), Christian Lassen (1800-1876), and Friedrich August Rosen (1805-1837), whom I always highly admired. So I decided to provide a few glimpses into their work and share some of the interesting and curious moments from it.1

I will start with a brief definition of Romanticism, followed by an introduction to the catalogue and a discussion of the Romantic Age scholars referred to in it. The Age of Romanticism (the late 18th and early 19th centuries) was characterised by a turn towards imagination, emotion, and the sublime in reaction to Enlightenment rationalism. German Romanticists in particular developed a pronounced fascination with the cultures and wisdom of the “East,” especially ancient India. The Romantic imagination saw in India a primordial wellspring of poetry, religion, and philosophy – a realm of Urbild (primordial/prehistoric archetypes/prototypes/patterns) that could “rejuvenate” European art, culture and thought. Figures like Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) and Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), brother of August Wilhelm von Schlegel, proclaimed India as the cradle of civilization and sought in Sanskrit texts the “Oriental” analogues to European – and their own – spiritual seeking. By the early 1800s, a genuine Indomania had seized German intellectuals: they eagerly studied Sanskrit, translated Hindu scriptures, and wove Indian themes into literature and scholarship. This Indo-Romantic enthusiasm was both cultural, feeding into art and poetry, and intellectual, giving rise to the new discipline of Indology (Indian Studies). Scholars of the Romantic age viewed India’s ancient spiritual culture as a key to understanding the mysteries of language, religion, and the human soul. As such, they invested tremendous energy into obtaining and deciphering Sanskrit manuscripts.2

Gildemeister’s catalogue of Oriental manuscripts in Bonn University Library

Fig. 1: Johann Gustav Gildemeister, around 1850. Universitätsmuseum Marburg © Bildarchiv Foto-Marburg, Inv. Nr. 222.238.

It was in this context that German libraries began amassing collections of Sanskrit manuscripts, often brought from India or copied from other archives. One important repository was the University of Bonn, where the pioneering Romanticist scholar August Wilhelm von Schlegel had taught from 1818 until shortly before his death in 1845. A few decades after the Romantic era’s zenith, the Orientalist Johann Gustav Gildemeister (1812-1890) compiled a comprehensive Latin catalogue of the oriental manuscripts held at the Academic Library in Bonn, that was published in the years in 1864 to 1876.3

Fig. 2: The catalogue, front cover.

This work – Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum orientalium qui in Bibliotheca Academica Bonnensi servantur (which literally translates as Catalogue of Oriental handwritten works kept in the Academic Library of Bonn) – remains a valuable record of what sources the early German indologists collected and worked on. Gildemeister’s catalogue is organized by language and genre; fascicle VII, published in 1876, is dedicated to the Sanskrit manuscripts. In elegant, although meticulous, Latin prose, Gildemeister describes each manuscript’s contents, physical attributes, provenance, and notes any notable owners or annotators. Through these entries, we gain insight into how German Romantic Age scholars, in this particular case, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Christian Lassen, and Friedrich Rosen (in Latin, Schlegelius, Lassenius and Rosenius respectively) engaged with Sanskrit works: some texts were copied in their own hand, some obtained from far-off collections, and others painstakingly analyzed and annotated with their scholarly notes. The Gildemeister catalogue thus offers a window into the scholarly practices of the Romantic generation – their direct interaction with primary sources from India – and how those manuscripts came to be preserved in German libraries. The following sections will highlight key examples from the catalogue, focusing on manuscripts of the Bhagavad-Gītā (sometimes characterized as “the Romanticists’ Bible”), Rāmāyaṇa, and other works associated with Schlegel, as well as the contributions of Lassen and Rosen.4

August Wilhelm von Schlegel

Fig. 3: August Wilhelm von Schlegel, University Archive Bonn (UAB), nr. 97.

One of the towering figures of German Romanticism and Indology, August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845), left an indelible mark on Bonn’s Sanskrit manuscript collection. Schlegel was a professor of Sanskrit and an editor of texts, yet in several cases, he personally copied or annotated manuscripts that later found their way into the library. Gildemeister, one of Schlegel’s most devoted students, provides in his catalogue concrete evidence of Schlegel’s hands-on engagement. For example, under an entry for the Bhagavad-Gītā, Codex 59, Gildemeister describes a volume containing Varia potissimum ad Bhagavadgîtam spectantia (“Various materials chiefly pertaining to the Bhagavadgītā”). The entry notes:

“P. 1-35 […] continent prima tria carminis capita a SCHLEGELIO litteris devanagaricis hieme 1817.8. e codd. Paris […] transscripta.”

(“Pages 1-35 contain the first three chapters of the poem, transcribed by Schlegel in Devanāgarī characters in the winter of 1817-18 from Paris manuscripts.”)

Schlegel’s personal involvement is further evidenced by the annotations he left. An example is a manuscript of the Rāmāyaṇa, the great Sanskrit epic which Schlegel famously began editing.5 He intended to publish the entire text but only managed the first two books (Ayodhyā– and Bala-kāṇḍas). The Bonn collection contains the massive apparatus he assembled for this task.

Gildemeister groups Codices 66–84 under the heading “Schlegelii supellex critica ad Rāmāyaṇam edendum collecta” (“Schlegel’s critical apparatus collected for editing the Rāmāyaṇa”). One of Schlegel’s major contributions was identifying that the Rāmāyaṇa existed in different regional versions (recensions). The catalogue entries for Codices 62–64 (The Malcolm Codex) are crucial here:

“Codicem in Guzerata quae hodie dicitur peninsula acquisitum Ioannes Malcolmius Eques dono dedit Schlegelio.”

(“Sir John Malcolm, Knight, gave this codex, acquired in the peninsula which is today called Guzerata [Gujarat], as a gift to Schlegel.”)

This entry links Schlegel to Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), the Governor of Bombay. It demonstrates the high prestige Schlegel enjoyed; colonial governors were acting as his suppliers. Gildemeister dedicates several pages to analyzing this specific manuscript, proving that it represented a unique “Western” recension distinct from the Bengali and Northern versions Schlegel already knew. This manuscript forced a re-evaluation of the text’s history. This re-evaluation was only possible after meticulously analyzing all the available manuscript traditions of the text. Thus, the catalogue numbers 72, 73, 74 do not refer to texts but to lists of differences (varietas):

“Collatio codicis M Telingani […] a LASSENIO […] instituta.”

(“Collation of the Telinga codex M […] instituted by Lassen.”)

So, in a way, Schlegel and Lassen created a “virtual library” in Bonn. Since they could not keep the manuscripts (many were loaned from Paris or London), they created abstract representations of them – books of lists recording every deviation. These collations allowed them to reconstruct the text’s archetype in their study in Bonn.

Gildemeister’s entry for a Rāmāyaṇa codex in the Bonn collection mentions Schlegel’s ownership and scholarly jottings. Schlegel had acquired the manuscript and studiously annotated it in the margins. These marginalia – in Latin and Sanskrit – provide a fascinating glimpse of a Romanticist at work, puzzling through verses and variant readings of Vālmīki’s epic poem. Indeed, Schlegel’s rigorous philological approach to Sanskrit texts was ahead of its time. As noted by scholars, he applied the strict methods of classical text criticism to Sanskrit; for the Bhagavadgītā and Rāmāyaṇa, he collated multiple manuscripts and even commissioned new copies to ensure he had a reliable text. The catalogue entries corroborate this: in some cases, Schlegel is explicitly named as the collator or scribe.

By directly copying texts like the Gītā and curating manuscripts of the Rāmāyaṇa, Schlegel ensured that Bonn’s library held premier sources for these works. The catalogue also includes other Sanskrit works associated with Schlegel’s scholarly activity. One notable example is the Hitopadeśa, a famous collection of fables and a source for the famous OneThousand and One Nights. Schlegel and his student Lassen published a critical edition of the Hitopadeśa in 1829–1831, and the Bonn catalogue duly lists a manuscript used in that project.6

Christian Lassen

Christian Lassen (1800–1876), one of Schlegel’s foremost students and eventually his successor in Bonn, is another key Romantic-era Indologist whose imprint is visible throughout Gildemeister’s catalogue. Lassen’s name (Latinized as Lassenius in the catalogue) appears in connection with manuscripts that he either copied himself, owned, or used intensively for research. For example, the catalogue’s Sanskrit section includes the drama Mudrā-rākṣasa (the “Signet of the Minister”), a political play that Lassen studied. Remarkably, the entry reveals that the Bonn manuscript is based on a copy made by Lassen in Paris, as Lassen spent years there and in London in the 1820s and 30s, specifically to copy manuscripts for the Bonn library. The catalogue entries frequently mention him as the scribe. For instance, Codex 96 (Mudrārākṣasa):

“A LASSENIO litteris latinis e cod. Paris […] descriptum.”

(“Transcribed by Lassen in Latin letters from a Paris codex.”)

Lassen’s role in enriching the collection was not limited to copying manuscripts abroad. He also acquired manuscripts, studied them, and even prepared them for printing, such as Codex 97, which is a copy of the same play, but in Devanāgarī:

“Mudrarâkshasae pars […] a LASSENIO litteris devanagaricis e cod. 96 in typographi ut videtur usum descripta.”

“A part of the Mudrarākṣasa […] transcribed by Lassen in Devanāgarī characters from codex 96, apparently for the use of the typesetter.”

As Indian typesetters, understandably, were not available in Bonn, German typesetters had to be trained to pick Devanāgarī letters. Lassen had to produce a highly legible handwritten Devanāgarī copy specifically to guide the German workers setting type for the printed edition. Thus, the manuscript was a tool of industrial production!

By 1848, Lassen was a famous scholar (“Cl.” = Clarissimi, illustrious). He no longer had to seek the manuscripts; they were seeking him. He used agents like Hans Heinrich Eduard Roer (1805-1866) in Calcutta to commission copies. The entry for Codex 55 (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa) notes the manuscript was made by a “homo mercenarius” (a hired man/”mercenary” scribe).

“Codex procurante Roerio in usum Cl. LASSENI post annum 1848 […] Calcuttae exaratus […] Exemplar confecit homo mercenarius haud incuriosus, nec tamen ita, ut nunc quidem usui esse possit.” 

(“A codex produced in Calcutta after 1848, procured by Roer for the use of the illustrious Lassen […] A mercenary man [hired scribe] produced the copy, not without care, yet not in such a way that it can be of use now.”)

Gildemeister critiques the work (“he omitted accents”), highlighting the tension between the German scholar’s demand for perfection and the commercial reality of the manuscript trade in Calcutta. By 1876, Lassen had recently passed away and the catalogue served in part as a memorial to his scholarly legacy. Many entries can thus be seen as reflecting Lassen’s legacy, documenting how the texts he interacted with became part of Bonn’s collection. Many entries end with the phrase: “Anno 1870 hunc codicem […] donavit Cl. LASSENIUS” (“In the year 1870, illustrious Lassen donated this codex …”). In 1870, nearing the end of his life and blind, Lassen donated his entire private collection to the university. This act, in many ways, “institutionalized” his Romantic Age legacy, ensuring that personal working papers of the 19th century became the public property of the 20th.

The legacy of Friedrich August Rosen

Fig. 5: Friedrich August Rosen

A third major figure explicitly mentioned in Gildemeister’s catalogue is Friedrich Rosen (1805–1837) – referred to in Latin as (Fridericus) Rosenius. Rosen was a German-born oriental scholar and something of a prodigy: he became a professor of Sanskrit in London in his early twenties and had begun an ambitious project of an English translation of perhaps the most important and at the same time most elusive ancient Indian text, the Ṛgveda (The Veda of Hymns). Rosen was the first European to prepare a critical edition of the first book that was based on his transliterations of Vedic manuscripts and published posthumously in 1838.7 His early death at 32 cut short a career that promised to redefine the field. Although Rosen spent much of his brief career in Britain, his scholarly legacy extended to Bonn’s manuscript holdings. The catalogue entries show Rosen’s name linked to specific manuscripts, indicating texts he had copied or once owned that later entered the Bonn collection.8

If we look at Codices 89–93 of Gildemeister’s catalogue, we will find that they are grouped under the heading “Roseniana” and explicitly linked to Rosen. Particularly, Codex 90 says in German: “Noten zum ersten Buche des Rigveda… Die mit R bezeichneten sind aus Rosens Nachlasse”. (“Notes on the first book of the Rigveda… Those marked with R are from Rosen’s estate.”) Or, Codex 92 containing the Nirukta, a Vedic etymological text:

“Nirukta. Nach Rosens Abschrift […] rubro colore usus est [Lassenius].

“(Nirukta. After Rosen’s copy [Lassen] used red color.)

Interesting is the case of Codex 89 (the first from “Roseniana”), that is described as a collection of loose sheets (schedas) and excerpts. In many ways, it reveals Rosen’s “inductive method”. Confronted with a massive, unknown literature in London, he created a “database” of excerpts on paper slips, trying to piece together the grammar and vocabulary of the Vedic language from scratch. These scraps of paper, carefully catalogued by Gildemeister, are almost “archaeological” remains of the first decipherment of the Veda in Europe. Through these references to Rosenius, we observe the continuity of the German Romantic Age engagement with Sanskrit: Rosen, a younger contemporary of Schlegel, shared the same passion for India. The Bonn manuscripts that bear Rosen’s name are relics of a collaborative enterprise – scholars from Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom jointly unlocking the Sanskrit literature.

Conclusion

The panorama offered by Gildemeister’s 19th-century Latin catalogue is one of dedicated Romantic Age scholars avidly engaging with Sanskrit sources – copying manuscripts by hand, exchanging them across countries, and building up institutional collections that would long outlast them. August Wilhelm von Schlegel’s fascination with Indian antiquity led him to personally ensure that those texts (such as the Bhagavadgītā and portions of the Rāmāyaṇa) were available in Europe in reliable manuscript form, in addition to publishing pioneering editions of those Sanskrit texts. Christian Lassen carried that torch forward, travelling to seek out manuscripts, refining the texts, and donating his own copies and notes to Bonn’s library. Friedrich Rosen, working abroad, likewise contributed his part, which was later integrated into the German collections posthumously.

It can be said that today’s projects, such as Qalamos, directly continue what Romantic scholars so splendidly began. The Qalamos project aims to preserve and make accessible catalogues of Islamic, African, Middle Eastern and Asian manuscripts, mainly in the libraries of German-speaking countries. It is an initiative that in many ways parallels what Schlegel and his peers were doing in the 1800s, albeit with modern technology. Qalamos, in turn, converts the analogue data from these catalogues into a digital format, thus enabling worldwide online access and interactive research. Seen from that perspective, the Latin Catalogus by Gildemeister appears to be more than a dry inventory. Through its entries, we glimpse Romantic-era Germans (and a Norwegian) conversing with ancient Indians (in Latin!): Schlegel passionately dialoguing with Vyāsa and Vālmīki, Lassen with the playwright Viśākhadatta, Rosen with Vedic seers. The Qalamos project continues that conversation by ensuring these manuscripts – and the scholarship surrounding them – remain alive and accessible. The dedication of those early scholars, as revealed by the catalogue, set high standards of thoroughness and care.

Additional quotations

Lastly, I enclose a few additional quotations from Johann Gildemeister’s Catalogus librorum manu scriptorum orientalium that caught my attention, specifically focusing on the collaborative work, personal interactions, and scholarly labour of August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Christian Lassen, and Friedrich Rosen.

1. Source: Codex 86 (Hitopadeśa), p. 143. This entry is particularly evocative, tracing a manuscript from a Paris “junk shop” through the hands of three great Orientalists: Antoine-Léonard Chézy (1773-1832), who was Schlegel’s teacher in Paris, Schlegel himself, and finally Lassen.

Latin: “Codicem anno 1831 a Chézyo, qui eum a scrutario quadraginta solidis (sous) emerat, dono sibi datum SCHLEGELIUS LASSENIO (cf. Catal. p. XXX n. 26) legaverat, hic bibliothecae cum 87. 88 a. 1870 donavit.”

English Translation: “Schlegel had bequeathed to Lassen the codex, which had been given to him as a gift in the year 1831 by Chézy, who [originally] had bought it from a junk dealer for forty solidi (sous); he [Lassen] donated it to the library together with [codices] 87 and 88 in the year 1870.”

2. Source: Codex 60 (Varia ad Bhagavadgītam), p. 125. This manuscript illustrates the Master-Disciple collaboration. Schlegel prepares the “elegant” base text, and Lassen follows up with critical notes, creating a layered scholarly record.

Latin: “P. 1–64. Excerpta e Madhusûdani commentario in Bhagavadgitam a SCHLEGELIO eleganter exarata usque ad I 38. Tum LASSENIUS notabilia ad singulos locos Madhusūdanae scholia exhibuit maxime ea, in quibus alii scriptores afferuntur […] P. 65–72. Discrepantia lectionis in codd. Bhagavadgitae Londinensibus et Gottingensi […] P. 75–77. Exordium Sarvânukramanis Rigvedae e codd. Chambers. 58 et 81 […] et apographo ROSENII.”

English Translation: “Pages 1–64. Excerpts from Madhusūdana’s commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, elegantly written out by Schlegel up to I, [verse] 38. Then Lassen presented notable scholia of Madhusūdana for individual passages, especially those in which other writers are cited […] Pages 65–72. Discrepancies of reading in the London and Göttingen manuscripts of the Bhagavadgītā […] Pages 75–77. The introduction of the Sarvānukramaṇī of the Rigveda from the Chambers codices 58 and 81 […] and from the transcript of Rosen.”

3. Source: Codex 89 (Roseniana), p. 143. Friedrich Rosen died young in London. This entry shows Lassen meticulously organizing the loose sheets and letters sent to him by his deceased friend to extract valuable data.

Latin: “Codex formae quartanariae […] cui titulum dedit: Roseniana. E schedis ROSENII sibi missis (indicem fasciculorum 22 continet charta hic inter pp. 10 et 11 inserta) multa excerpsit LASSENIUS. Collectanea haec tum ad res grammaticas et metricas spectant, tum ad quaestiones de argumento indole historia libri, quas in prolegomenis editionis Rigvedae tractare voluisse videtur ROSENIUS.”

English Translation: “A quarto codex […] to which he gave the title: Roseniana. From the sheets sent to him by Rosen (a paper inserted here between pages 10 and 11 contains an index of 22 fascicles), Lassen excerpted many things. These collections pertain partly to grammatical and metrical matters, and partly to questions regarding the argument, nature, and history of the book, which Rosen seems to have wished to treat in the prolegomena of his edition of the Ṛgveda.”

4. Source: Codex 61 (Annotated Bhagavadgītā), p. 125. This entry describes a printed book that became a manuscript through heavy annotation. It reveals Lassen’s hesitation to publish a glossary and his constant revision of the text.

Latin: “Bhagavadgītā rec. Schlegel, ed. alt. cura Lassenii. Bonn. 1846… cum annotationibus manu scriptis […] In margine LASSENII plerumque, raro SCHLEGELII manu additae sunt lectiones et scholia nonnulla e Madhusūdana collecta, loci paralleli, alia. Annotationem ad 13, 4 p. 230 retractavit et correxit LASSENIUS.”

English Translation: “The Bhagavadgītā recension by Schlegel, second edition under the care of Lassen, Bonn 1846… with handwritten annotations […] Readings and some scholia collected from Madhusūdana, parallel passages, and other things are added in the margin mostly by Lassen’s hand, rarely by Schlegel’s. Lassen retracted and corrected the annotation to [Chapter] 13, [verse] 4 on page 230.”

5. Source: Codex 103 (Padārthadharmasaṃgraha), p. 147–148. This shows the breadth of their interests beyond poetry, delving into complex logical texts.

Latin: “Inter paginas 56 et 57 insertum est apographum Tarkabhashae […] Utrumque opusculum a. 1826 a LASSENIO litt. lat. exaratum est.”

English Translation: “Inserted between pages 56 and 57 is a transcript of the Tarkabhāṣā… Both opuscules were written out by Lassen in Latin letters in the year 1826.”

Bibliography

Gildemeister, Johann (1864-1876): Catalogus librorum manu scriptorum orientalium qui in Bibliotheca Academica Bonnensi servantur. Bonn.

Gründendahl, Reinhold (2012): Archives des artifices. The Reinvention of “German Indology” in Terms of a Mythical Quest for National Origins. Halle.

Grünendahl, Reinhold (2015): “‚Romantische Indomanie‘ oder ‚orientalische Renaissance‘? Zu einigen Erklärungsmustern für das Entstehen der Indologie in Deutschland.ZDMG 165/1: 185–210.

Hanneder, Jürgen (2012): “Präsenz in der indischen Philologie” in Sonja Fielitz (ed.), Präsenz Interdisziplinär: Kritik und Entfaltung einer Intuition. Heidelberg: 287–303.

Hay, Katia D. (2024): “August Wilhelm von Schlegel“, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).

Hoffmann-Ruf, Michaela (2016): „Einer der gescheidsten Männer, die ich je habe kennen lernen“. Johann Gustav Gildemeister und die orientalischen Studien im 19. Jh. Bd. 4. Berlin.

Huschens, Franz-Josef (2000): Die orientalischen Handschriften der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn: ein Verzeichnis unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Provenienzen und der Bestandsgeschichte. Bonn.

Karttunen, Klaus (2024): „Schlegel, August Wilhelm von“, in:Persons of Indian Studies. Who was who of Indian studies.

Michaels, Axel (2004): “Wissenschaft als Einheit von Religion, Philosophie und Poesie. Die Indologie als frühromantisches Projekt einer ganzheitlichen Wissenschaft,” in Brandstetter & Neumann (eds.), Romantische Wissenspoetik. Würzburg: 325–339.

Michaels, Axel (2015): “Replik”. ZDMG 165/2: 481–485.

Paulin, Roger (2016): The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel. Open Book Publishers.

Rosen, Georg (2021): Notizen von einer Reise durch Serbien, Anatolien und Transkaukasien in den Jahren 1843 und 1844. Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Agnes Stache-Weiske und Frank Meier-Barthel. Berlin.

Rocher, Rosane and Agnes Stache-Weiske (2020): For the sake of the Vedas, the Anglo-German life of Friedrich Rosen 1805–1837. Wiesbaden. (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes; 118)

  1. At this point, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues Anett Krause and Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf for their support in editing the text and for important references to literature. I would further like to thank them for pointing out the recent controversy regarding Romanticism and Indology in the German Indological community and especially for clarifying the main features of this controversy. Lastly, I am grateful to Ralf Kramer for referring me to a number of crucial publications on the “Romantic Indology” topic. []
  2. See, for instance, Jürgen Hanneder’s August Wilhelm Schlegel und die Begründung der Indologie in Deutschland, in Aufbruch ins romantische Universum. August Wilhelm Schlegel. Herausgegeben von Claudia Bamberg und Cornelia lbrig. Freies Deutsches Hochstift – Frankfurter Goethe-Museum 2017, S. 192–195. Here is also a good place to remark that the question about connection between German Romanticism and German philological Indology, and particularly about the origin of the latter from the former, has been a subject of a lasting controversy in German Indology in the last decades. In the current piece about Gildemeister’s catalogue, I adopted the standard view that sees them tightly intertwined – and it is undeniable that August Schlegel was one of the key Romantic intellectuals, – a view which I soaked up reading not American, English or German, but Russian literature about the Romantic Age in Germany in my teenage and student years. However, this view was heavily contested by a few German researchers in the last two decades. In particular, Reinhold Grünendahl especially sharply criticized the idea that there is a causal relation between Romanticism and Indology, which is, in his view, constantly postulated and repeated, but can hardly be substantiated. The opposite position is that of Axel Michaels, who sees in Romanticism an attractive, holistic cultural project that sought to unite science with religion, philosophy and art, from which Indological Philology later crystallised through losing the “wholeness”. Jürgen Hanneder sees in “Romantic Indology” largely a later construct or ‘myth’ that was important for later generations. A few major publications are Michaels 2004, Hanneder 2012 (specifically against the former), Grünendahl 2012, Grünendahl 2015, Michaels 2015 (a reply to the former). The escalation of this controversy followed Grünendahl’s sharp criticism of ‘Romantic’ origins of German Indology at the DOT 2013, Münster, which ensued in a long, heated debate on the German “Indologie” mailing list and resulted in the last two mentioned publications. []
  3. For more information on Gildemeister and his cataloging work, see also the blog post by Lindermann and Hoffmann-Ruf; Hoffmann-Ruf 2016. []
  4. All Latin quotations from the catalogue are accompanied by English translations. []
  5. He published the first volume of the text and Latin translation in 1829: Ramayana id est carmen epicum de Ramae rebus gestis poetae antiquissimi Valmicis opus. Textum recensuit interpretationem latinam et annotationes criticas adjecit Aug. Guil. a Schlegel. Bonnae: 1829. []
  6. Hitopadesas id est institutio salutaris/[Nārāyaṇa]. textum codd. mss. collatis recensuerunt interpretationem latinam et annotationes criticas adiecerunt Augustus Guilelmus a Schlegel et Christianus Lassen. 2 vols. Bonnae: Weber, 1829-1831 []
  7. Rigveda-Sanhita [Saṃhitā]: Liber 1. Sanskritè et Latinè. Ed. Fridericus [Friedrich] Rosen. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland 1838. []
  8. For more information on Friedrich August Rosen see Rosen 2021, pp. 19-21 and Rocher & Stache-Weiske 2020. []

OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Gleb Sharygin (3. März 2026). Romantic Age scholars’ engagement with Sanskrit sources as revealed by a Latin catalogue of German Oriental manuscripts. Alte Kataloge in neuem Gewand. Abgerufen am 9. Mai 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/15so6


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