1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lassen, Christian

LASSEN, CHRISTIAN (1800–1876), German orientalist, was born on the 22nd of October 1800, at Bergen in Norway. Having received his earliest university education at Christiania, he went to Germany, and continued his studies at Heidelberg and Bonn. In the latter university Lassen acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit. He next spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating MSS., and collecting materials for future research, especially in reference to the Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with E. Burnouf, his first work, Essai sur le Pâli (Paris, 1826). On his return to Bonn he studied Arabic, and took the degree of Ph.D., his dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the Punjab (Commentatio geographica atque historica de Pentapotamia Indica, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted Privatdozent, and in 1830 was appointed extraordinary and in 1840 ordinary professor of Old Indian language and literature. In spite of a tempting offer from Copenhagen, in 1841, Lassen remained faithful to the university of his adoption to the end of his life. He died at Bonn on the 8th of May 1876, having been affected with almost total blindness for many years. As early as 1864 he was relieved of the duty of lecturing.

In 1829–1831 he brought out, in conjunction with August W. von Schlegel, a critical annotated edition of the Hitopadeśa. The appearance of this edition marks the starting-point of the critical study of Sanskrit literature. At the same time Lassen assisted von Schlegel in editing and translating the first two cantos of the epic Rāmāyana (1829–1838). In 1832 he brought out the text of the first act of Bhavabhūti’s drama, Mālatīmādhava, and a complete edition, with a Latin translation, of the Sānkhya-kārikā. In 1837 followed his edition and translation of Jayadeva’s charming lyrical drama, Gītagovinda and his Institutiones linguae Pracriticae. His Anthologia Sanscritica, which came out the following year (new ed. by Johann Gildemeister, 1868), contained several hitherto unpublished texts, and did much to stimulate the study of Sanskrit in German universities. In 1846 Lassen brought out an improved edition of Schlegel’s text and translation of the “Bhagavadgītā.” He did not confine himself to the study of Indian languages, but acted likewise as a scientific pioneer in other fields of philological inquiry. In his Beiträge zur Deutung der Eugubinischen Tafeln (1833) he prepared the way for the correct interpretation of the Umbrian inscriptions; and the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (7 vols., 1837–1850), started and largely conducted by him, contains, among other valuable papers from his pen, grammatical sketches of the Beluchi and Brahui languages, and an essay on the Lycian inscriptions.

Soon after the appearance of Burnouf’s Commentaire sur le Yaçna (1833), Lassen also directed his attention to the Zend, and to Iranian studies generally; and in Die altpersischen Keilinschriften von Persepolis (1836) he first made known the true character of the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions, thereby anticipating, by one month, Burnouf’s Mémoire on the same subject, while Sir Henry Rawlinson’s famous memoir on the Behistun inscription, though drawn up in Persia, independently of contemporaneous European research, at about the same time, did not reach the Royal Asiatic Society until three years later. Subsequently Lassen published, in the sixth volume of his journal (1845), a collection of all the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions known up to that date. He also was the first scholar in Europe who took up, with signal success, the decipherment of the newly-discovered Bactrian coins, which furnished him the materials for Zur Geschichte der griechischen und indo-skythischen Könige in Bakterien, Kabul, und Indien (1838). He contemplated bringing out a critical edition of the Vendidad; but, after publishing the first five fargards (1852), he felt that his whole energies were required for the successful accomplishment of the great undertaking of his life—his Indische Altertumskunde. In this work—completed in four volumes, published respectively in 1847 (2nd ed., 1867), 1849 (2nd ed., 1874), 1858 and 1861—which forms one of the greatest monuments of untiring industry and critical scholarship, everything that could be gathered from native and foreign sources, relative to the political, social and intellectual development of India, from the earliest times down to the Mahommedan invasion, was worked up by him into a connected historical account.