Madeleine Biardeau (16 May 1922

Niort Niort (; Poitevin: ''Niàu''; oc, Niòrt; la, Novioritum) is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department, western France. It is the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres. The population of Niort is 58,707 (2017) and more than 177,000 people live in the ...

- 1 February 2010 Cherveux) was an

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'') is ...

from

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Early life

Madeleine Biardeau was born into a middle-class family of small entrepreneurs. She was educated at the Ecole normale supérieure in

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for ...

, where she studied philosophy. Here, she was attracted to the

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

spirituality and started learning

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

in order to study

Hindu philosophy Hindu philosophy encompasses the philosophies, world views and teachings of Hinduism that emerged in Ancient India which include six systems ('' shad-darśana'') – Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.Andrew Nicholson ( ...

Indology

Curious about India, Biardeau joined the

University of Travancore University of Kerala, formerly the University of Travancore, is a state-run public university located in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala, India. It was established in 1937 by a promulgation of the Maharajah of Travancore, Chit ...

for two years in the 1950s, and studied Sanskrit texts with pandits. She visited India almost every year until the 1990s, and worked closely with pandits at the

Deccan College (Pune) Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, also referred to as Deccan College, is a post-graduate institute of Archeology, Linguistics and Sanskrit & Lexicography in Pune, India. History Early years (1821 to 1939) Established on ...

and the

French Institute of Pondicherry The French Institute of Pondicherry (french: Institut français de Pondichéry) UMIFRE 21 is a French research centre in Puducherry, India, under the joint supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French National Centre ...

. She visited places of worship in towns and villages, surveying people from different castes and collecting information about the various cults and rituals. Meanwhile, she also taught at the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

. She studied the philosophy contained in the '' Puranas'' and the ''

Advaita Vedanta ''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term ''Advaita'' ( ...

'' in detail. She translated the works of Mandana Misra, Vacaspati Misra, and Bhartṛhari (grammarian) into French. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on ''The Theory of Knowledge and the Philosophy of Speech in Classical Brahmanism'' in 1964 (in French) The Hindu epics constituted a main area of Biardeau's scholarship. She translated the ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

'' of

Valmiki Valmiki (; Sanskrit: वाल्मीकि, ) is celebrated as the harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature. The epic ''Ramayana'', dated variously from the 5th century BCE to first century BCE, is attributed to him, based on the attributio ...

into French (1991), in collaboration with two other scholars: Marie-Claude Porcher and Philippe Benoit. Her last major work comprised the two edited volumes of the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the s ...

'' published in 2002. Biardeau retired to Cherveux in 2008, and died there in 2010.

Bibliography

* Histoires de poteaux : Variations védiques autour de la Déesse hindoue, École Française d'Extrême Orient, 2005. ** Stories about Posts: Vedic Variations around the Hindu Goddess (1994). . Translated by Alf Hiltebeitel. * L'hindouisme, anthropologie d'une civilisation, Flammarion, 1995. ** ''Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization'' (1994). . Translated by Richard Nice. * ''Le Mahabharata'', Le Seuil, 2002. A two-edition French translation of the Mahabharata.

References

External links

Obituary
in ''Indologica'' Volume XXXVII (2011) {{DEFAULTSORT:Biardeau, Madelein 1922 births 2010 deaths People from Niort École pratique des hautes études faculty French Indologists Translators from Sanskrit Translators to French 20th-century translators Indian expatriates in France