Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf (April 8, 1801 – May 28, 1852) was a French scholar, an Indologist and orientalist. His notable works include a study of Sanskrit literature, translation of the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana and Buddhist text Lotus Sutra. He wrote a foundational text on Buddhism and also made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform.
Quotes
[edit]- We will study India with its philosophy and its myths, its literature, its laws and its language. Nay It is more than India it IS a page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher.
- Eugene Burnouf, Discourse on Sanskrit and Its Literature as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture
- [The Bhagavad Gita was] "probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man."
- Louis Revel, The Fragrance of India: landmarks for the world of tomorrow (1946), Kitabistan Allahabad p. 163 as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture
About
[edit]- At that very time, however, now about forty years ago, a new start was made, which has given to Sanskrit scholarship an entirely new character. The chief author of that movement was Burnouf, then professor at the Collège de France in Paris, an excellent scholar, but at the same time a man of wide views and true historical instincts, and the last man to waste his life on mere Nalas and Sakuntalâs. Being brought up in the old traditions of the classical school in France (his father was the author of the well-known Greek Grammar), then for a time a promising young barrister, with influential friends such as Guizot, Thiers, Mignet, Villemain, at his side, and with a brilliant future before him, he was not likely to spend his life on pretty Sanskrit ditties. What he wanted when he threw himself on Sanskrit was history, human history, world-history, and with an unerring grasp he laid hold of Vedic literature and Buddhist literature, as the two stepping-stones in the slough of Indian literature.
- Max Muller, quoted in Subrata Chattopadhyay Banerjee - The Development of Aryan Invasion Theory in India, A Critique of Nineteenth-Century Social Constructionism-Springer (2020)
