Johannes Nobel (25 June 1887 – 22 October 1960) was a German indologist and Buddhist scholar.

Early life and education

Johannes Nobel was born on 25 June 1887 in

Forst (Lausitz) Forst (Lausitz) ( dsb, Baršć) is a town in Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, Germany. It lies east of Cottbus, on the river Lausitzer Neiße which is also the German- Polish border, the Oder-Neisse line. It is the capital of the Spree-Neiße distri ...

. He studied

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

, Arabic, Turkish and Sanskrit at the

University of Greifswald The University of Greifswald (; german: Universität Greifswald), formerly also known as “Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald“, is a public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pom ...

from 1907, then from 1908 at the Friedrich Wilhelms University Berlin. In 1911 he completed his PhD thesis on the history of the Alamkãraśāstra, and decided to work as a librarian. In 1915 he passed the library examinations and found employment at the

Old Royal Library The Royal manuscripts are one of the "closed collections" of the British Library (i.e. historic collections to which new material is no longer added), consisting of some 2,000 manuscripts collected by the sovereigns of England in the "Old Royal ...

in Berlin. In the First World War, Nobel joined the

Landsturm In German-speaking countries, the term ''Landsturm'' was historically used to refer to militia or military units composed of troops of inferior quality. It is particularly associated with Prussia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Sweden and the Nethe ...

and was temporarily employed by the Supreme Army Command as chief interpreter for Turkish.

Academic career

In March 1920, Nobel joined the Preußische Staatsbibliothek as a librarian and in the same year, he successfully defended his habilitation thesis, a work on Indian poetics. He received his teaching qualification in Indian philology at the University of Berlin in 1921. At the same time, he learned Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese and devoted himself to the research in Buddhist Studies. In 1927, Nobel was appointed extraordinary professor in Berlin. On 1 April 1928 he accepted a professorship for

indology 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'') is ...

at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

, which he held until his retirement in 1955. He did not try to ingratiate himself with

national socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

, although he had, in November 1933, been one of the signers of the confession of professors at German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the national socialist state. His successor on the Marburg chair was Wilhelm Rau; Claus Vogel is one of Nobel's Marburg pupils. Nobel's extensive studies and critical editions of Suvaraprabhāsasūtra (

Golden Light Sutra The Golden Light Sutra or ( sa, IAST: Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājaḥ), also known by the Old Uygur title Altun Yaruq, is a Buddhist text of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the full title is ''The Sovereign King of Sutr ...

), one of the most important Mahāyāna-Sūtras, appeared between 1937 and 1958. In 1925, Nobel published the translation of the Amaruśataka by

Friedrich Rückert Friedrich Rückert (16 May 1788 – 31 January 1866) was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages. Biography Rückert was born in Schweinfurt and was the eldest son of a lawyer. He was educated at the local '' Gymnasium'' ...

. Nobel's study book, his personal files and some unpublished manuscripts, including a corrected German version of his habilitation thesis, were discovered in his former institute in 2008.

Selected publications

* ''Suvarabhāsottamasūtra. Das Goldglanz-Sūtra: ein Sanskrittext des Mahāyāna-Buddhismus''. Nach den Handschriften und mit Hilfe der tibetischen und chinesischen Übertragungen hrsg. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1937 * ''Suvarnaprabhāsottamasūtra. Das Goldglanz-Sūtra: ein Sanskrittext des Mahāyāna-Buddhismus. Die tibetische Übersetzung mit einem Wörterbuch''. Band 1: T''ibetische Übersetzung'', Stuttgart:

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-l ...

, 1944. Band 2: ''Wörterbuch Tibetisch-Deutsch-Sanskrit'', Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1950 de Jong, J. W. (1952)
Review: Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra by Johannes Nobel
T'oung Pao (Second Series) 41 (1/3), 247-250 * ''Suvarnaprabhāsottamasūtra. Das Goldglanz-Sūtra: ein Sanskrittext des Mahāyāna-Buddhismus. I-Tsing's chinesische Version und ihre tibetische Übersetzung''. Volume 1: ''I-Tsing's chinesische Version''. Volume 2: ''Die tibetische Übersetzung''. Leiden: Brill, 1958 * ''The Foundations of Indian Poetry and Their Historical Development''. Calcutta 1925 (Calcutta Oriental Series, vol. 16) * ''Udrāyana, König von Roruka, eine buddhistische Erzählung''; Wiesbaden, O. Harrassowitz, 1955.

References

Sources

Bekenntnis der Professoren an den deutschen Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat
Überreicht vom National-sozialistischen Lehrerbund Deutschland/Gau Sachsen, 1933, p. 136 * Dimitrov, Dragomir
Nachlaß Nobel
Universität Marburg, Indologie und Tibetologie * Hanneder, Jürgen (2010). ''Marburger Indologie im Umbruch. Zur Geschichte des Faches 1845–1945''. München: Kirchheim-Verlag (Indologica Marpurgensia, Band 1), . pp. 60- * Nobel, Johannes (1911). ''Beiträge zur älteren Geschichte des Alamkãraśāstra''. Berlin: Schade * Nobel, Johannes (1925). ''The Foundations of Indian Poetry and Their Historical Development'', Calcutta Oriental Series, vol. 16. Calcutta: R N Seal * Rau, Wilhelm; Vogel, Claus (1959). "Johannes Nobel", in: Claus Vogel (ed.): ''Jñānamuktāvalī. Commemoration volume in honour of Johannes Nobel. On the occasion of his 70th birthday offered by pupils and colleagues''. International Academy of Indian Culture, New Delhi (Sarasvati-Vihara, vol. 38), pp. 1-16 * Rückert, Friedrich, trans.; Nobel, Johannes, ed. (1925). ''Die hundert Strophen des Amaru'', aus dem Sanskrit metrisch übersetzt von Friedrich Rückert. Nach der Handschrift der Preußischen Staatsbibliothek. Hannover: Lafaire

Early life and education

Academic career

Selected publications

References

Sources

Further reading