 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Paul Deussen" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Paul Deussen | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Paul Deussen, circa 1914 | |
| Born | (1845-01-07)7 January 1845 |
| Died | 6 July 1919(1919-07-06) (aged 74) |
Paul Jakob Deussen (German:[ˈpaʊlˈjaːkɔpˈdɔʏsn̩]; 7 January 1845 – 6 July 1919) was a GermanIndologist and professor of philosophy atUniversity of Kiel.[1] Strongly influenced byArthur Schopenhauer, Deussen was a friend ofFriedrich Nietzsche andSwami Vivekananda. In 1911, he founded theSchopenhauer Society (Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft). Professor Deussen was the first editor, in 1912, of the scholarly journal Schopenhauer Yearbook (Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch).
Deussen, whoSanskritised his name to "Deva-Sena"[2] as a mark of his admiration for the language, is one of the distinguished roll of Europeans who — often with lyrical admiration — participated in the scholarly Western discovery of Sanskrit and Hinduism that took place in British India itself, Germany, France and England.
Paul Deussen was born on 7 January 1845 inOberdreis,Neuwied in theRhine Province,[3] one of eight children of a clergyman of modest means. He became a student, and lifelong devotee, of the German philosopher Schopenhauer, and of the philosophy ofKant; and he became a friend of Friedrich Nietzsche. Deussen was educated atBonn,Tübingen andBerlin Universities between 1864 and 1881, writing his dissertation on Plato's philosophy. Deussen was appointedPrivatdocent (1881-7) andExtraordinarius (1887-9) at the university of Berlin, andOrdinarius (1889–1919, the year of his death), at theUniversity of Kiel. Until 1919, Deussen continued to edit the Schopenhauer Yearbook, as well as working on an edition of Schopenhauer's works.
It was when he attended a lecture at the University of Bonn by ProfessorChristian Lassen (1800-1876), expounding theShakuntala, that Deussen was fired by Sanskrit and Hinduism. Deussen's first publication (1877) was published in English asThe Elements of Metaphysics in 1894. It was followed by the translations ofThe Sutra of the Vedanta in 1906;The Philosophy of the Upanishads also in 1906; andThe System of the Vedanta in 1912. His visit to India in 1904 was published in English asMy Indian Reminiscences in 1912. However, his autobiographical papers, edited by his daughter Erika (1894-1956) and published in German in 1922, have so far not been translated into English.[citation needed]
Deussen'sSystem of the Vedanta has been reprinted several times: he uses theBrahmasutra and – rather less — Adi Shankara's commentary on it, as the structure for his exposition.
His scholarship has been described as immense, perceptive, and meticulous. Mahinder Gulati refers to him as anOrientalist andSanskrit scholar.[4]
Paul Deussen's name is thus linked with George Boucher,Sir William Jones andSir John Woodroffe in British India,Anquetil-Duperron andEugène Burnouf in France,Heinrich Roth,Franz Bopp,Friedrich von Schlegel andMax Müller in Germany, in the European revelation of the wealth of Hinduism as revealed by Sanskrit documents.[citation needed]
Deussen has been called an "outstanding scholar",[5] a "great scholar" who spearheaded study of the Upanishads and Vedic literature,[6] and as a "critical scholar".[7]
