Karel Werner

Karel Werner (12 January 1925 – 26 November 2019) was an indologist, orientalist, religious studies scholar, and philosopher of religion born in Jemnice in what is now the Czech Republic.

Life

Werner has described his childhood in the small town in south Moravia as idyllic. His father was a ‘master-baker’ and ran a small confectionery shop, and his mother was originally a qualified cook. The idyll ended when in 1933 their house was sold in an auction as a result of arrears in mortgage repayments during the great depression.

The family then moved to Znojmo, a district town, not far from the Austrian borders. Here Werner started his secondary education in the local grammar school (called reálné gymnasium) which was interrupted by the incorporation of Znojmo into the ‘Sudetenland’ after the Munich 'agreement' in 1938. He continued his studies in Brno, but could not undergo final, so-called ‘maturity’, examinations, because of restrictions imposed by the German occupation authorities in the closing years of the war. He passed them after the war in the liberated Czechoslovakia in autumn 1945 and enrolled in the Philosophical Faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno, reading philosophy and history and studying Sanskrit and classical Chinese from textbooks. He was earmarked for the post of assistant in the Philosophy Department headed by Professor J. L. Fischer who, upon being appointed Rector of Palacký University in Olomouc, asked him to follow him.

Here he was given the opportunity to study classical Chinese under Professor Jaroslav Průšek and to perfect his Sanskrit under Professor Vincenc Lesný, who accepted him as his assistant when, after the communist putsch of February 1948, Marxist philosophy became dominant and Werner could not hope to pursue the career in comparative philosophy which J. L. Fischer had originally foreseen for him. He gained his PhD, having defended his thesis on a semantological analysis of primitive languages and passed the rigorous examinations in philosophy and Indian philology in May 1949. He also took state examinations in philosophy and history as a qualification entitling him to teach in ''gymnasiums''.

In autumn 1950 Werner was entrusted with lectures on the comparative grammar of Sanskrit and on the History of India and published his first academic paper abroad. He was also asked to give a course in the history of ancient Middle East, but was criticised for failing to apply to it the Marxist method of historical and dialectical materialism. He was also investigated by the Secret police for his contacts with foreign visitors. In autumn 1951 Oriental Studies in Olomouc were closed down. Prof. Lesný’s request for Werner’s transfer to Charles University in Prague was turned down for political reasons and he was dismissed at a fortnight’s notice. His own application for a teaching post in a ''gymnasium'' was turned down for the same reasons.

In the chaos created by the communist government during the wholesale nationalisation of industry and commerce Werner found a job in an enterprise newly created for building roads and railways. One of his tasks was to produce detailed descriptions of work done by technical staff, which placed him in the category of technical (rather than administrative) clerks and this became the designation of his occupation entered in his identity card. When a year later he had to begin his two-year military service, he was given only the most basic training and became, as a ‘technician’, the assistant of the regimental caretaker-cum-quartermaster (1952–54). (After the purge of ‘bourgeois’ officers, the newly commissioned substitutes of working-class origin needed, owing to their lack of competence, the unofficial but tolerated help of educated soldiers who for political reasons were not deemed fit for officer training. After his military service, Werner did not get his previous job back, but was transferred, in a similar capacity, to the headquarters of the nationalised enterprise overseeing restaurants and canteens. A year later (1955) he lost even this job to a communist party member and after a short training period worked as a restaurant manager (1956–60).

Time permitting, Werner continued his studies and published articles on indological topics in England, West Germany, India and Sri Lanka. It was a time of court proceedings against suspected anticommunist dissidents who were often sentenced on trumped-up charges. Werner’s foreign contacts led to his being investigated by the secret police on suspicion of belonging to a spy ring, passing messages abroad under the pretence of academic articles. No evidence was found and Werner withstood intimidating pressure to confess. No charges were brought against him., Nyanaponika Thera, Jádro buddhistické meditace (''The Heart of Buddhist Meditation''), DharmaGaia, Praha, 1995, Translator’s Foreword, 12. but he was sent to work in a coal mine for one year and thereafter was allowed to work only in manual jobs - in gasworks (1961–64), as a plumber (1964) and as a tram driver (1964–67).

The investigation by the secret police had a side effect. The restaurant Werner was in charge of was being transferred in his absence to a new manager. A substantial deficit was figured out in its accounts and Werner was accused of stealing state property. Before the court proceedings he was allowed to check the accounts and found faults in them. Their correction reduced the assumed deficit to an insignificant sum due probably to a still undiscovered fault. Nevertheless, the judge, one of those newly appointed from working-class cadres after six week training, who did not even allowed Werner to speak during the court ‘hearing’, found him guilty. However, the appeal judge, still from the old fully qualified ranks, acquitted him.

After the loss of his academic position Werner came to appreciate some practical aspects of Indian teachings. He mastered the basic set of ''hatha yoga'' positions and procedures, adopted the practice of Buddhist meditation and headed a clandestine group of like-minded practitioners. He further entered into correspondence with foreign organisations and personalities, among them with the Buddhist Society in London, the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and its editor Nyanaponika Thera, The Yoga Institute in Santa Cruz, Bombay and Lonavla, ''the Buddhistisches Seminar für Seinskunde'', founded and conducted by Paul Debes from his isolated retreat in ''Lüneburger Heide'' near Hamburg, the Yoga Institute in Fulda, West Germany, founded by Dr Otto Albert Isbert, Mrs C. Walinski-Heller in Nürnberg, who had been in 1959 the Mother of Svami Shivanada’s ''ashram