Reinhold Rost (1822–1896) was a German orientalist, who worked for most of his life at St Augustine's Missionary College, Canterbury in England and as head librarian at the

India Office The India Office was a British government department in London established in 1858 to oversee the administration of the Provinces of India, through the British viceroy and other officials. The administered territories comprised most of the mo ...

Library, London.

Life

He was the son of Christian Friedrich Rost, a Lutheran minister, and his wife Eleonore Glasewald, born at Eisenberg in Saxen-Altenburg on 2 February 1822. He was educated at the Eisenberg gymnasium school, and, after studying under Johann Gustav Stickel and Johann Gildemeister, graduated Ph.D. at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

in 1847. In the same year he came to England, to act as a teacher in German at the

King's School, Canterbury The King's School is a public school in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's oldest public school and is considered to be the oldest continuously op ...

. After four years, on 7 February 1851, he was appointed oriental lecturer at St. Augustine's Missionary College, Canterbury, founded to educate young men for mission work. This post he held for the rest of his life. In London, Rost met Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, and was elected, in December 1863, secretary to the

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

, a post he held for six years. Through Rawlinson he became on 1 July 1869 librarian at the

, on the retirement of FitzEdward Hall, and imposed order on its manuscripts. He secured for students free admission to the library. He retired in 1893 after 24 years of service at the age of 70. His successor as head librarian of the

Library became the Orientalist and Sanskritist Charles Henry Tawney (1837–1922). Rost gained many distinctions and awards. He was created Hon. LL.D. of Edinburgh in 1877, and a Companion of the Indian Empire in 1888. He died at Canterbury on 7 February 1896. Rost maintained a close friendship with Filipino novelist

José Rizal José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda (, ; June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is popularly considered a na ...

, who visited London in 1888.

Works

Rost was familiar with some twenty or thirty languages in all. His own works were: * ''Treatise on the Indian Sources of the Ancient Burmese Laws'', 1850. * ''A Descriptive Catalogue of the Palm Leaf MSS. belonging to the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg'', 1852. * ''Revision of Specimens of Sanscrit MSS. published by the Paleographical Society'', 1875. Rost's India Office Library catalogue of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

works was a significant bibliographic advance. He edited: *

Horace Hayman Wilson Horace Hayman Wilson (26 September 1786 – 8 May 1860) was an English orientalist who was elected the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University. Life He studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, and went out to India in 1808 ...

, ''Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and on Sanscrit Literature'', 5 vols. 1861–5; *

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer natural history, naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident (title), Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals fr ...

, ''Essays on Indian Subjects'', 2 vols. 1880; * ''Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago'' (Trübner's "Oriental Series", 4 vols. 1886–8); * The last three volumes of Trübner's ''Oriental Record''; and * Trübner's series of ''Simplified Grammars''. He contributed notices of books to Luzac's ''Oriental List'', articles on "Malay Language and Literature", "Pali", "Rajah", and "Thugs" to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and published in '' The Athenæum'' and '' The Academy''.

Family

Rost married, in 1863, Minna, daughter of late Chief-justice J. F. Laue, of

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...

; they had seven children, two of whom died in childhood. Son Ernest Reinhold Rost (born 1872) became Major of the

Indian Medical Service The Indian Medical Service (IMS) was a military medical service in British India, which also had some civilian functions. It served during the two World Wars, and remained in existence until the independence of India in 1947. Many of its officer ...

(IMS), led newly founded Yangon General Hospital in

Rangoon Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

(

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

) and was active in the propagation of

Buddhism in England Buddhism in England has growing support. 238,626 people in England declared themselves to be Buddhist at the 2011 Census and 34% of them lived in London. History Early Buddhist presence could be seen in the 1810s. Adam Sri Munni Ratna, a Bud ...

.Weise 1897, 55

Biography

* Oskar Weise: ''Der Orientalist Dr. Reinhold Rost, sein Leben, und sein Streben. Leipzig: Teubner 1897.'' 71 p. (Mitteilungen des Geschichts- und Altertumsforschenden Vereins zu Eisenberg).

Notes

External links

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Rost, Reinhold 1822 births 1896 deaths German orientalists 19th-century German librarians German book editors Writers from Thuringia People from Eisenberg, Thuringia