Heinrich Zimmer | |
|---|---|
 Heinrich Zimmer (1933) | |
| Born | 6 December 1890 |
| Died | 20 March 1943 (age 52) |
| Alma mater | University of Berlin |
| Occupations | Academic,Indologist, linguist, and historian of South Asian art |
| Spouse | |
Heinrich Robert Zimmer (6 December 1890 – 20 March 1943) was a GermanIndologist and linguist, as well as a historian of South Asian art, most known for his works,Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization andPhilosophies of India. He was the most important German scholar in Indianphilology afterMax Müller (1823–1900).[1]
He was born inGreifswald, Germany. Zimmer began studyingSanskrit andlinguistics at theUniversity of Berlin in 1909. He earned his doctorate in 1914 with a thesis entitledStudien zur Geschichte derGotras and directed byHeinrich Lüders.
He completed his Ph.D. in philology and comparative linguistics in 1914 at the University of Berlin.[2]
Between 1920 and 1924, he lectured at theUniversity of Greifswald, moving toHeidelberg University to fill the Chair of Indian Philology (1924–1938).[1]
In 1938, he was dismissed by theNazis based on the fact that his Christian wife was the great-great-granddaughter ofa Jewish Austrian, and he emigrated to England, where between 1939 and 1940 he taught atBalliol College,Oxford. In 1940 he moved toNew Rochelle, New York, where he eventually accepted a visiting lecturer position inphilosophy atColumbia University. Here,Joseph Campbell, who was then working on his first book,A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (1944) attended his lectures. The two men became good friends.
Zimmer died unexpectedly of pneumonia in 1943, two years after his arrival in the United States. According to Joseph Campbell, "Zimmer was at the opening of what would have been the most productive period of his career. . . hardly had he begun to find his stride, however, when, suddenly stricken, he passed from full career to his death within seven days."[3] After Zimmer's death, Campbell was given the task of editing and posthumously publishing Zimmer's papers, which he did over the next 12 years, turning Zimmer's lecture notes into four books, in the Bollingen Series:Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization,Philosophies of India,[4]The Art of Indian Asia,[5] andThe King and the Corpse, which in turn became Zimmer's lasting legacy.[6]
"On all levels there arerituals capable of transforming man. But it is everywhere the tradition and trend to rank the spiritual, sublime practices above the sensual and magical ones, since the general course of cultural development has favored the spiritual element over the material and feminine. This development has taken place under the predominance of the male principle. But with the cult of the GreatGoddess in lateHinduism, the archaic heritage of sensual earth-bound rites rises once again overwhelmingly to the zenith."[7]
Zimmer's method was to examine religious images using their sacred significance as a key to theirpsychic transformation. His use of (Indian) philosophy andreligious history to interpret art was at odds with traditional scholarship. His vast knowledge ofHindu mythology and philosophy (particularlyPuranic andTantric works) gave him insights into the art, insights that were appreciated byJoseph Campbell among others. Campbell edited many of Zimmer's writings after his death. In the foreword to Zimmer's book,Artistic Form and Yoga in theSacredImages of India, Campbell makes reference to a memorial to Heinrich Zimmer, which was read at the New York Oriental Club meeting in the spring of 1949: "Dr. Zimmer stood alone, forming a class by himself, not only for the wide range of subjects he was proficient in, but also for his unique genius of interpretation. . . Zimmer strove to understand both Eastern and Western ideas from Universal conceptions lying at the root of spiritual andpsychological developments everywhere."[8] The psychiatristCarl Jung also developed a long-standing relationship with Zimmer, and incidentally edited a volume of Zimmer's entitled Der Weg zum Selbst (The Way to the Self). The two men first met in 1932, after which Zimmer, along withRichard Wilhelm, became one of the few male friends ofJung.
Zimmer is credited by many for the popularizing ofHindu art in the West, as he was the first to identify the radical difference betweenWestern classical andIndian art.[9]
In 1929 he married Christiane von Hofmannsthal (1902–1987), daughter of Austrian novelistHugo von Hofmannsthal and Gertrud (née Schlesinger) von Hofmannsthal. Her younger brother,Raimund von Hofmannsthal, was twice married, first to American heiressAva Alice Muriel Astor (whose daughter from a later marriage eventually married Zimmer's son) and Lady Elizabeth Paget (a daughter ofCharles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey). Together, they were the parents of:
Zimmer died of pneumonia in New Rochelle, New York, on March 20, 1943.
In 1932, his wife's widowed mother, Gerty von Hofmannsthal boughtSchloss Prielau inZell am See and began restoring the castle.[17] To avoid expropriation by theNazis due to the family's Jewish heritage, she wanted to give the castle away to Christiane and Heinrich Zimmer, who could then have sold the property to Gustav Kapsreiter, a friend of the family, but the sale, which was initially approved, was ultimately prohibited and the family property was expropriated. Kapsreiter's attempts to acquire the property were unsuccessful, instead the sculptorJosef Thorak was able to acquire the property forℛℳ 60,000, which at the time was described as a "small fifteenth-century residence, beautifully furnished and immaculately maintained".[18] In 1947, however, Schloss Prielau was restituted to thevon Hofmannsthal family.[19]
A chair has been named after Heinrich Zimmer since 2010. The Heinrich Zimmer Chair for Indian Philosophy and Intellectual History is awarded by the Indian Council forCultural Relations (ICCR) in New Delhi and is based both at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" and at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University. The first holder of this new endowed chair inIndian philosophy andintellectual history was the Indianhistorian of scienceDhruv Raina.[20] Heeraman Tiwari, the second holder of the Heinrich Zimmer Chair,[21] was followed by Prof.Amiya Prosad Sen.[22]
