Émile-Louis Burnouf (French:[emil.lwibyʁnuf]; 26 August 1821, inValognes – January 1907, inParis) was a leading nineteenth-centuryOrientalist andracialist author ofAryanism. He was a professor at thefaculté des lettres atNancy University, then principal of theFrench School at Athens from 1867–1875. He was also the author of aSanskrit-French dictionary.
Émile was the nephew ofJean-Louis Burnouf, a famous philologist, and cousin ofEugène Burnouf, the founder ofBuddhist studies in theWest. Following in their footsteps, Émile sought to connect Buddhist andHindu thought toWestern European classical culture. In doing so, he claimed to have rediscovered the earlyAryan belief-system.
Burnouf believed that only Aryan andSemitic peoples were truly religious in temperament.
Science has proved that the original tendency of the Aryan peoples is pantheism, while monotheism proper is the constant doctrine of Semitic populations. These are surely the two great beds in which flow the sacred stream of humanity. But the facts show is, in the West, peoples of Aryan origin in some sort Semiticised in Christianity. The whole of Europe is at once Aryan and Christian; that is to say pantheistic by its origin and natural dispositions, but accustomed to admit the dogma of creation from a Semitic influence.[1]
Burnouf's work takes for granted aracial hierarchy that places Aryans at the top as amaster race. His writings are also full of prejudicial and often deeplyantisemitic statements. He believed that "real Semites" have smaller brains than Aryans:
A real Semite has smooth hair with curly ends, a strongly hooked nose, fleshy, projecting lips, massive extremities, thin calves and flat feet… His growth is very rapid, and at fifteen or sixteen it is over. At that age the divisions of the skull which contain the organs of intelligence are already joined, and that in some cases even perfectly welded together. From that period the growth of the brain is arrested. In the Aryan races this phenomenon, or anything like it, never occurs, at any time of life, certainly not with people of normal development. The internal organ is permitted to continue its evolution and transformations up until the very last day of life by means of the never-changing flexibility of the skull bone.[2]
Burnouf believed that theHebrew peoples were divided into two races, worshippers ofElohim and worshippers ofYahweh. The former were Semites, but the latter were "probably" Aryans, as "their headquarters were taken up north ofJerusalem, inGalilee. The people of that country again form a striking contrast to those of the south; they resemble Poles".[3] The Galileans were in conflict with the more powerful Semitic priestly faction based in Jerusalem, explaining whyJesus was rejected by the Judeans but accepted by Greek speakers; Burnouf's ideas developed into theNazi claim that Jesus was really Aryan.
Burnouf was consulted byHeinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) over his discovery ofswastika motifs in the ruins ofTroy. Burnouf claimed that swastika originated as a stylised depiction of afire-altar seen from above, and was thus the essential symbol of the Aryan race. The popularisation of this idea in the twentieth century was mainly responsible for the adoption of the swastika in the West as an Aryan symbol. He died in 1907 aged 86.
Emile Burnouf.
