Johannes Hertel (13 March 1872,

Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ' ...

– 27 October 1955,

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

) was a German

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') i ...

. Hertel wrote numerous essays and books on Indological topics. His research focus was Indian narrative literature and the

Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

. Above all, he is known for his scientific work on the textual history of the ''

Panchatantra The ''Panchatantra'' (IAST: Pañcatantra, ISO: Pañcatantra, sa, पञ्चतन्त्र, "Five Treatises") is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story ...

''. Hertel obtained his Ph.D. from the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...

in 1897 with a thesis on the ''

Hitopadesha ''Hitopadesha'' (Sanskrit: हितोपदेशः, IAST: ''Hitopadeśa'', "Beneficial Advice") is an Indian text in the Sanskrit language consisting of fables with both animal and human characters. It incorporates maxims, worldly wisdom and ...

''. From 1919 to 1937 he was full professor and Chair of Indian Studies at the University of Leipzig, where he taught Asian and Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit, Vedic, and Avestan, and he translated numerous works from these into German. Most of his works on Vedic and Avestan subjects appeared in the series ''Indo-Iranische Quellen und Forschungen'' ("Indo-Iranian Sources and Research"), which he also edited. In November 1933 Hertel signed the ''

Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State Bekenntnis der Professoren an den Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat officially translated into English as the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Ad ...

''. Hertel was a member of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences and the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

in London. Hertel's extensive correspondence is located in the University Archives of Leipzig and in the manuscript department of the Leipzig University Library.

Publications

* * * * *

Notes

External links

Article at Encyclopædia Iranica
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hertel, Johannes Translators from Sanskrit German translators German Indologists German Sanskrit scholars Leipzig University alumni 1872 births 1955 deaths