The Western Contribution to
Buddhism
William
Peiris
(1973) Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications.
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CHAPTER III
GERMANY
“He who knows
Pali needs no borrowed light; when the sun is shining we do not need the
moon.”
-K.E. Neumann
A Brief Survey
Germans can claim to be the first Westerners to gain an insight into
Buddhism and to extol it. In 1819 Schopenhauer, the philosopher,
assigned it the highest place among world religions. Another
philosopher, Nietzsche, describes it as “the only real positivistic
religion which history has shown us”. Richard Wagnar, the composer and
dramatist, used Buddhist themes in his compositions and openly declared
himself a lover of the Buddha’s teachings.
While
two profound philosophers and a great composer thus aroused interest in
Buddhism in the last century, German Indological research penetrated to
its very roots. Great scholars such as Hermann Oldenberg, K.E. Neumann,
Paul Dahlke, George Grimm, Karl Seidenstucker, Nyanatiloka Maha Thera
(Anton Gueth), the first German to be a Buddhist monk, and a host of
others provided excellent translations of the Pali canon as well as
original works on the doctrine and history of Buddhism.
For
the first time in West a German edited and published a Pali text with a
German translation. It was Professor F. Spiegel’s Anecdota Palica, which
was a part of a Pali text, the Uraga Vagga of the Sutta Nipata. It was,
however, not in Roman script, but in Devangari characters. Again, for
credit for rendering into German a full Pali text, the Dhammapada, goes
to a German, Professor A. Weber. It was published in 1860. The
Dhammapada, the most popular Buddhist book in Germany, was further
translated into German by Leopold von Schroeder (1892), by K.E. Neumann
(1893), Walter Markgraf (1912), Paul Dahlke (1919), and F. Otto Franke
(1923).
Translations into German
Besides the Dhammapada, almost the whole of the Sutta Pitaka (Discourse
Collection) of the Pali canon, and important post-canonical works such
as the Visuddhimagga and Milandapanhi, and commentaries have been
translated into German. K.E. Neumann was one of the best known
translators. Among his translations are: The Majjhima Nikaya (3 volumes,
1896-1902); The Theragatha and Therigatha (1899); the Digha Nikaya (4
volumes, 1907-1928) and Sutta Nipata (1905). Other noteworthy
translators were: Karl Seidenstucker, who translated the Sutta Nipata
(1931), extracts from Oldenberg’s five volumes of the Vinaya Pitaka
(1924-1925), and Pali Buddhism in Translation (1911); Wilhelm Geiger,
who edited and translated the Mahavamsa (1908) and Culamsa (2 volumes,
1925-1927), and translated the Samyutta Nikaya (2 volumes, 1925-1930);
Julius Dutoit, who translated in seven volumes (1908-1911) the Jataka
stories; R. Otto Franke, who translated the Diha Nikaya (1907), and
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera, who translated numerous Pali texts, including
the Visuddhimagga.
Important Mahayana texts have also been translated into German. Among
these are: A. Weber’s edition and translation of Asvaghosa’s Vajrasuci
(1859); Th. Schultz’s translation of Asvaghosa’s Buddhgacarita (1895);
Schiefner’s translation of Taranatha’s History of Buddhism (1869); Max
Walleser’s translation of Nagarjuna’s Madhymika-karikas (1911); Eric
Frauwallner’s translation of’Dignaga’s Alambanapariksa; Dharmakirti’s
Sambandhapariksa and Philip Schaffer’s translation of Nagarjuna’s
Yuktisastika.
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera stood in a class by himself. From Ceylon, where
he spent 54 years of his life, he had done immense service to Buddhism
in Germany. To enable his countrymen to study Pali and to read the
teachings of the Buddha in the Master’s own words, he provided them with
an intelligible Pali grammar and an anthology of Pali texts with a
dictionary. Of his numerous publications, The Word of the Buddha, first
published in 1905, ran to three German impressions, and was of great
benefit to his compatriots. He was perhaps the pre-eminent German
Buddhist author of the first half of the present century.
Zimmermann’s
catechism – a best-seller
Apart
from Nyanatiloka, Dr. Paul Dahlke was the most widely known German
Buddhist. He published numerous books on Buddhism and gave radio talks.
He founded the Buddhist House in Berlin which is today the Buddhist
temple there, acquired for the purpose by the German Dharmaduta Society
of Ceylon.
Dr.
Karl Seidenstucker, described as the apostle of Buddhism in Germany,
founded the Buddhist Society in Leipzig in 1903, and was a leader of the
Buddhist movement between the two world wars. Martin Steinke, Kurt
Schmidt and George Grimm were associated with him. Dr. H. Palmie, who
published in Hamburg almost single-handed the Studia Pali Buddhica and
other periodicals, was an exponent of the Dhamma. Dr. F. Zimmermann
wrote a Buddhist catechism which proved a bestseller. Later, he changed
the title of the catechism to The Message of the Buddhism.
Professor R. Otto Franke has been described as a “professional”, while
Professor Helmuth von Glasenapp as “one between the professionals and
real Buddhist scholars by conviction.”
The
original works of Paul Dahlke, Nyanatiloka, George Grimm, Hans Much,
Seidenstucker, and Zimmermann have been of great value not only to
Germans but to others as well. They were not mere scholars but led real
Buddhist lives.
The
Hamburg Institute for the study of Asia has brought out a book entitled
Buddhism, State and Society by Heinz Bechert, and German Indologist. It
deals with Ceylon’s Pali Buddhism, and has been highly commended by Dr.
H. Berger in Mundus, a German quarterly review.
Discovery of Turfan Manuscripts
Thousands of fragments of Buddhist scriptures discovered in the cave
temples of Turfan by the German expeditions under Le Coq and Albert
Gruenwedel have been restored. These form the main interest of Professor
Ernst Waldschmidt, the Gottingen Indologist, and his school. He has
restored the Sanskrit Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which had been lost, with
the aid of the Turfan manuscripts. These also have helped him to restore
and edit the Catuparisa Sutra, which deals with the foundation of the
Sangha or the Order as well as the meeting between the Buddha and King
Bimbisara of Magadha.
Helmuth Hoffman, the Munich Indologist, has dealt comprehensively with
Tibetan Buddhism, while Willibald Kerfel, Professor Emeritus of Indology,
Bonn University, has written on Buddhist cosmology and surveyed the
symbolism of Buddhism. Herbert Guenther’s work on the problems of the
soul in ancient Buddhism is worthy of mention.
Germany is perhaps the only Western country where there are avowed
Buddhists among the printers and publishers. Two of them are Oskar
Schloss, the owner of the once famous Banares Verlag, Munich, and the
present publisher, Dr. Paul Christani of Konstantz. They are described
as “believing Buddhists who devote their whole life to the making known
of the Buddha’s Dhamma by enabling authors have their books published
even if the publisher in the end risks being ruined; but a Buddhist does
not mind losing all his money and wealth in the service of the Dhamma.”
To
the German Buddhist, religion is not a mere label but a living force. He
practises it conscientiously and with proverbial German thoroughness. He
scrupulously observes the Five Precepts and devotes a good part of free
time daily to the cultivation of mindfulness through meditation. Among
German Buddhists are not only intellectuals but also ordinary people
engaged in various walks of life which do not involve them in the breach
of the Five Precepts. Almost all of them follow Pali Buddhism. Not all
Buddhists are members of Buddhist societies scattered in various cities
such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen, Rostock, and Utting,
but they practise Buddhism in their daily lives at home since
congregations are unnecessary for the practice of Buddhism.
Utting’s
Old Buddhist Community
Hamburg is one of the most active centres of Buddhism. A Federation of
Buddhist Unions composed of all Buddhist societies formed in pre-war
days exists there. Facilities are provided there for Buddhists to listen
to expositions of the Dhamma and to spend long hours in meditation.
Munich, Berlin, and Utting are other big centres where Buddhists have
organized themselves into societies for the practice of the religion.
A
House of Silence has been set u in Roseburg, a suburb about 25 miles
from Hamburg, where Buddhists meet for meditation and seminars under the
guidance of teachers.
The
Altbuddhistische Gemeinde (Old Buddhist Community) in Utting am Ammersee
has features of a lay Order, the members of which have vowed to attain
in the present life itself at least the first stage of the Path to
Enlightenment – Sotapannamagga. It was several Elders. They are called
so because their extraordinary piety and deep learning in the Dhamma.
They give regular talks and lectures to ordinary members and instruct
them in meditation.
Established in 1921 by Dr. George Grimm and Dr. Karl Seidenstucker, the
community is located in a picturesque site in the forelands of the Alps.
The main building, which is known as the George Grimm House, is the gift
of Sister Maya Keller-Grimm, daughter of George Grimm, and the
guest-house abutting it as the gift of an anonymous donor. There is a
meditation-cell in an isolated part of the premises. The present joint
heads of the institution are Sister Maya Keller-Grimm and Max Hoppe, a
devoted disciple of George Grimm. The institution has its own physician
in the person of Dr. S. Schoenwerth who lives in the premises with his
family. Himself a practising Buddhist, he is a Pali scholar and a
prolific writer on Buddhist themes. Mrs. Emily Knothe, also known as
Sister Mallika, is an Elder and lives in the premises. A German by birth
and an American graduate, she translates German into English and vice
versa. The membership stands at 850 men and women. The ordinary members
have taken the vow to observe the Five Precepts daily and to devote some
time to meditation. Weekly meetings are held. A Fellowship Week is held
twice a year in Gottingen. The institution runs a bimonthly called Yana
which has a wide circulation.
Continuing influence on German thought
It is
estimated that members of various Buddhist organizations in Germany
number over 20,000. But the number of those who practise Buddhism
without publicly announcing it is believed to be much higher. If the
present trend continues, Buddhism might be before long to be force not
only in Germany but also in countries closely associated with it. It is
gratifying to observe that the pioneer efforts of her scholars have
continued to influence German thought despite the cataclysms of two
world wars.
ARTHUR
SCHOPENHAUER
Arthur Schopenhauer, who had been since the first quarter of the 19th
century the most widely read German philosopher, was the first to tell
the West about Buddhism. According to his British biographer, Lt. Col.
E.F.J. Payne, Schopenhauer was a Buddhist. He kept a gilded Tibetan
statue of the Buddha on his mantelpiece “for the purpose of reminding
his visitors of the fact that he was a Buddhist.”
Schopenhauer made the first allusion to Buddhism in the very first
edition of his monumental work, The World as Will and Representation
published in 1819. There were then no translations of Buddhist texts in
European languages, nor did he know any Asiatic languages. How, then,
did he gain his knowledge of Buddhism? In his own words, his knowledge
of Buddhism was based on “imperfect and inadequate accounts”. But he was
a genius, and men of genius have the capacity to grasp the essence of a
thing even from imperfect material.
In
1844 he brought out the second edition of The World as Will and
Representation in two volumes. By that time he had a read a number of
books on Buddhism by Russian, German, and French scholars. In the second
edition he pays the following tribute to Buddhist: “it almost seems that
as the oldest languages are the most perfect, so too are the oldest
religions. If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the
standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism pre-eminence
over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my
doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of
men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than
any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, in as
much as in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its
influence.”
Western scholars were greatly influenced by this tribute to Buddhism. It
may be said that this tribute led to the study of Buddhism widely in the
West.
He
brought out the third and last edition of The World as Will and
Representation in 1859 – the year before his death.
Wider and more intelligent readership
In
1851 he published two volumes of essays under the title of Parerga and
Paralimpomena, in which he states that the “purpose of Buddha Sakyamuni
was to separate the kernel from the shell to free the exalted teaching
itself from the admixture with images and gods, and to make its pure
intrinsic worth accessible and intelligible even to the people. In this
he was marvellously successful, and his religion is therefore the most
excellent on earth and its represented by the greatest number of
followers”.
The
appearance of these two volumes marked the beginning of a wider interest
in Schopenhauer’s philosophy among an increasing number of intelligent
and unprejudiced readers.
Schopenhauer has been described as “father of pessimism”. But he adopted
the Buddhism term samsara “explicitly in his deduction of the basic idea
that pessimism in this connexion is the indispensable motive for urging
the human mind on the path of liberation, in the direct, adequate and
literal meaning of the term Nibbana,” says Bhikkhu Nanajovoka, the
Hungarian Buddhist monk, who in lay life was a University Professor.
When
his housekeeper, a Roman Catholic spinster, first saw Schopenhauer’s
gilded state of the Buddha on his mantelpiece, she asked him
astonishment what it was.
“It
is the Victoriously Awakened One,” he replied.
Theory of knowledge, the basis of his whole system
Born
in 1788, Arthur Schopenhauer was the son of Heinrich Floris
Schopenhauer, a merchant, and Johanna Trosiener, the daughter of a
Danzig senator. From the very beginning Arthur was, out of regard for
his father’s standing as a merchant, destined for a commercial career.
He attended school in Hamburg, and it was soon apparent that he had
mental ability far above the average. He, however, showed a marked
disinclination for a commercial career, and begged of his father for
permission to attend the Gymnasium, but the father, to whom an academic
career was inseparable from penury, was unwilling to accede to the son’s
request. In the end the boy was offered the choice of accompanying his
parents on an extensive tour abroad on condition that he took up a
commercial career at the end of it, or of entering the Gymnasium at
once.
The
15- year old boy accepted the former. In 1803 the family set off for
England via Holland. Young Arthur was sent to a boarding school in
Wimbledon, while his parents toured France, Switzerland, and Austria.
These travels were of great educational value to him. He kept a diary in
which he recorded his impressions of the visits.
In
1805, Schopenhauer took up commercial studies. Shortly afterwards his
father died. His mother disposed of the business and left Hamburg for
Weimar where her house soon became the meeting place of Goethe, Wieland,
and other celebrities. He abandoned his commercial studies, and started
an intensive course of study at Gotha and Weimar. So rapid was his
progress that his teachers declared at the end of two years that he was
fit to enter a university. During the years in which he made up for lost
time, he did not neglect to read the great book of Nature and of Life.
He rode and fenced, attended concerts, parties and the theatre, and met
many famous people.
Entering Gottingen University in 1809, he studied medicine because he
loved natural science, particularly anatomy and physiology. He also
attended lectures in metaphysics, and psychology, and logic, and
mastered Plato and Kant before embarking on the works of other thinkers.
He went to Berlin University in 1811 and remained there until 1813, when
he withdrew to Rudolfstadt. There he wrote his first book on the theory
of knowledge which afterwards became the basis of his whole system of
thought. For this thesis the University of Jena awarded him the
doctorate in philosophy. Goethe, who was then 64, was so impressed by
the lucidity of young Schopenhauer’s exposition that he invite the young
man to collaborate with him on a theory of colours.
Repeated attacks on Hegel’s philosophy
In
Weimar, Schopenhauer presumably made a study of Buddhism and Hinduism.
His keen insight was quick to discern the agreement between Buddhism and
his own philosophy.
He
was only thirty years of age when he published The World as Will and
Representation. His whole thought is expounded in it. His later works
were merely amplifications of his original conception. At the early age
of thirty, he had attained a finality of view such as is reached by
other thinkers only at a more mature age – an astonishing intellectual
feat. In 1836, he brought out another book, On the Will in Nature, in
which he attacked Hegel’s philosophy which he described as “nonsensical
mystification.” Neither of these books, however, achieved success.
Public recognition of his work came in 1840 when a Norwegian academy
awarded him a prize a for his essay on Free Will, which has been
described as “a masterpiece of lucid exposition.” About the same time he
submitted to a Danish academy an essay on The Basis of Morality, but
received no award for the judges took strong exception to his strictures
on Hegel and other post-Kantian philosophers. In 1841 he published both
these essays in one volume. “He wrote a long preface to it in the form
of a caustic philippic in which Hegel and others came in for the full
blast of his withering scorn,” states his biographer.
In
1844 he published his principal work, The World as Will and
Representation in two volumes, the second volume supplementing the first
and “yet representing one of the most readable books in any language
although plumbing to the depths life’s most difficult problems,” states
his biographer.
Will – ‘the only thing without a cause’
From
1844 to 1850 he wrote a number of essays which are calculated to appeal
to a wider public. These were published in two volumes under the title
of Parerga and Paralipomena; two Greek words meaning secondary work and
belated observations. This two-volume work of popular essays came to the
notice of John Oxenford, who in 1852 wrote in the Westminster and
Foreign Quarterly Review a long article on them headed Iconoclasm in
German Philosophy. This article came to the notice of one of
Schopenhauer’s friends, and it was translated into German and published.
Almost overnight Schopenhauer in his own country passed from obscurity
to fame. Even the professors of philosophy who had for forty years
pursued a policy of complete silence about him could no longer ignore
him.
What
Schopenhauer calls Will is the Buddhist Tanha, i.e. thirst, craving,
hunger, excitement, the fever of unsatisfied longing, according to his
biographer, Lt. Col. Payne. “It is in the entire world the only thing
without a cause and also without a beginning in time.”
“A
happy life is impossible;” says Schopenhauer. “The best that a man can
attain is a heroic life, such as is lived by one who struggles against
overwhelming odds in some way and some affair that will benefit the
whole of mankind, and one in the end triumphs, although he obtains a
poor reward or none at all… His memory lasts and is celebrated as that
of a hero; his will, mortified by toil and trouble, failure and the
world’s ingratitude throughout his life, is extinguished in Nirvana.
Schopenhauer was never in want. In September 1860 he was found dead on
his sofa, his face showing no trace of any death pang. To the end he was
physically and mentally active.
“A
man sterling and independent character, of untruthfulness and
conscientiousness, of immense industry and erudition, Schopenhauer was,
like all mortals, not without faults”, states Lt. Col. Payne. “He was
conscious of his intellectual superiority and smarted under the scorn
and malicious silence of less gifted men. The wonder is that forty years
of ridicule, hostility and discouragement did not deter him from what he
knew to be his life’s task. He worked on conscious of his mission,
convinced that he had the truth, and in the end his message would
triumph. Undaunted, he stood alone – alone because he was unique. He has
been an inspiration to many thinkers and authors, some of who, alas,
have not had the honestly or the courage to acknowledge their
indebtedness to him.”
HERMANN OLDENBURG
“The
oldest traditions of Buddhism are those which have preserved themselves
in Ceylon and are being studied by the monks of this island up to the
present day,” declared Dr. Hermann Oldenburg in asserting his
preference for the Pali tradition which had not been given sufficient
consideration by the older Indologists.
T. W.
Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenburg were the great masters of the “Older
Anglo-German School,” based squarely on the Pali canon, “which is held
to have preserved the Buddha’s doctrines more faithfully than any other.
Until about 1914 it dominated the scene, and from it the general public
still derive their ideas of what is the ‘original’, ‘pure’ and ‘true’
Buddhism.”
Oldenburg made a distinct contribution to Pali Buddhism in the West. He
it was who first introduced to the West Theragatha and Therigatha, the
exultations in Pali verse by early monks and nuns on attaining
Enlightenment. These have been rendered into choice English verse by
Mrs. Rhys Davids under the titles of Psalms of Brethren and Psalms of
Sisters.
Writings on Buddhist and Vedic themes
Born
in Hamburg on 31 October, 1854, Hermann Oldenburg was the son of a
Prtesant priest, Frierich Oldenburg and his wife Eleonore. He studied
Sanskrit and Indian philology under Professors Weber and Kircheff, and
obtained his doctorate from Berlin University in 1875. He then became a
lecturer in Berlin University, and in 1879 succeeded Professor of
Comparative Philology and Sanskrit at Gottingen University. While yet an
undergraduate he wrote a book entitled De Sacris fratrum Aryallum
queaestiones. He published his first book entitled De Platonis arte
dialectica when he was only 19 years of age. This won him a prize in
1873. Then followed an uninterrupted succession of writings – articles,
reviews, original works – particularly on Buddhist and Vedic themes.
These relate to phonetics, etymology, literature, and history of
religions. The last subject was one of his main interests. Until his
death he did not cease to write.
In
1912 he visited India long after he had written books on the
sub-continent. “This journey came too late to influence his picture of
India, which he had viewed in books during the work of several decades,”
writes his biographer, Professor Helmuth von Glasenapp. “He often
confessed, it enriched him in many respects in so far as what he has
viewed mentally was followed up by actual sight.”
The
great result of his Pali scholarship was his outstanding work, The
Buddha, His Life, His Doctrine, His Community, “a successful endeavour
to present a historical, life-resembling Buddha.” This book appeared in
1881. Earlier, he had published in London in 1879 the Dipavamsa, the
Ceylon chronicle. It was translated into English. Next came his
monumental edition of the Vinaya Pitaka, in five volumes, which he and
Rhys Davids translated and published in the Sacred Books of the East
series between 1881 and 1885.
The Buddha as a human being
“The
older occidental Indology was principally based on Sanskrit texts in
which the Buddha is represented as a superhuman being around whom
legends have been woven,” states Oldenburg. “But in the Pali tradition
the life and teaching of the Buddha are historically and really
comprehensible.” It was his endeavour to bring before Western eyes the
historical Buddha. But the task was a difficult one, since, as Bartholet
states, “the old Indians lacked the ability for individual contruction,
and for them the Buddha is no person…… merely the type which the
countless past Buddhas have made real and which will also be realized by
the future Buddhas.” Oldenburg was convinced that Gautama Buddha was a
real human being and he proved it by the comparison of sources.
Oldenburg’s book on the Buddha was a great success. He himself brought
out seven editions. Based o his own further investigations and those of
other scholars, he made a few alternations and additions in later
editions. The subsequent editions remain unchanged. The Buddha, His
Life, His Doctrine, His Community was translated into English by Hoet
(1882); into French (with a Foreward by Sylvain Levi) by Foucher (1894);
and into Russian by Nikolaeva (1893). Translations have also come out in
several editions. The book remained the standard work in German on the
Buddha and his teaching until the appearance of George Grimm’s The
Doctrine of the Buddha – the Religion of Reason and Meditation, in 1915.
K. E. Neumann states that Grimm’s work is incomparably deeper and more
comprehensive” considered from all points of view than Oldenburg’s book.
Other scholars have expressed similar views.
The
main weight of Oldenburg’s work as a whole lies on Vedas, Upanishads and
Brahmanas. He has to his credit quite a number of books on these themes.
From 1880 to 1919 he worked in this field. The Government of India had
engaged his services for this purpose and he worked for a time in the
India Office, London.
Severe criticismby Dr. Carus
Oldenburg found a severe critic of his conception of Buddhsim in Dr.
Palu Carus, the German-born American pioneer of Buddhsm.
In a
letter to Paul Carus, Oldenburg states: “Buddhism in my opinion suffers
from the contradictions historically quite conceivable, that on the one
hand, it retains the old concrete and popular conception of a
transmigration of the soul, on the other hand, dissolves in its
philosophy the idea of a soul as a substratum, an ego-being. This is a
contradiction which will never be overcome by your attempt at
sublimating the category of karma. Had the Buddha not believed in a
transmigration of the soul, suicide should have appeared to him as the
quickest and best adopted means of making an end of suffering. A few
drops of prussic acid would be a better and at any rate a more rapid
remedy than the holy eightfold path.”
Paul
Carus answers: “if this proposal of the learned Pali Professor be
tenable, the Buddha, who is generally regarded as one of the keenest
thinkers that ever lived on earth, would have both denied the existence
of a thing and at the same time have taught that it migrates from place
to place. And we are requested to believe that the Buddha should have
been guilty of such a gross contradiction! No, I would rather run the
risk of doubting the infallibility of a German professor!
“While Professor Oldenburg’s summary solution is prima facie improbable,
it is at the same time based upon incorrectly-stated facts: Buddhism
teaches reincarnation, but it does not teach the migration of the soul,
Professor Oldenburg’s book, although good in many respects, is very
deficient in its exposition of the Buddhist psychology, which is just
the most important part of Buddhism. Oldenburg must have overlooked the
passages in which the theory of soul-migration, in the sense of an
ego-soul migrating from one body to another, is rejected.”
“Buddhism denies that the soul is a substance, and in spite of Professor
Oldenburg’s statement to the contrary, it denies also most emphatically
and unequivocally that there can be any transmigration or transportation
of a soul-substance. Yet Buddhism asserts the reappearance of the same
soul-forms.”
In
support of his contention, Paul Carus cites the questions of King
Milinda and the Ven. Nagasena’s answers to them from the Milindapanho,
and states: “Professor Oldenburg is a great scholar, and, I repeat, I
gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to him as a philologist; he may also
be a good historian, but he has shown himself to be incompetent as an
interpreter of Buddhism.”
Oldenburg died on 18 March, 1920.
GEORGE GRIMM
The
driver of a horse-drawn carriage going along the busy street in Munich
one day accidentally slipped the rein over the most sensitive part of
the animal’s body. The ticklish feeling thus caused became so intense
that the mare galloped madly. The pedestrians screamed and ran in panic.
A serious accident was imminent. Just then an old man emerged from the
crowd, darted forward, seized the rein fearlessly and brought the
infuriated animal to a halt. Handing the rein to the frightened driver,
who clung helplessly to his seat, the old man disappeared without
uttering a word. The newspapers carried the story the next morning under
banner headlines such as “Courageous action of an unknown old man saves
grave accident.” The unknown old man was no other then George Grimm, a
retired judge of the German Supreme Court and a celebrated exponent of
Pali Buddhism.
This
was not the only time when George Grimm, regardless of his own safety,
came to the rescue of his fellowman. When he made Utting am Ammersee in
Upper Bavaria his home, he used a motor-boat for his recreation.
Whenever he saw a sailing boat in difficulties, he would rush there,
despite bad weather, and tow the sailing vessel and its crew to safety.
Thus he saved many a man from a watery grave.
From Law Department to the Bench
Born
on 28 February, 1868, at Rollh bei Lauf on the Pegnitz, George Grimm was
the eldest son of a forge-master. His parents desired him to be a
catholic priest and, in fact, he took the lower orders. But he soon
changed his mind, and entered the University on a government
scholarship. He passed the Final Examination in Law with first-class
honours. He joined the Law Department as a prosecutor and showed such
brilliance in his legal work that he was soon appointed to the Supreme
Court Bench.
About
this time, Schopenhauer’s philosophy attracted George Grimm, and he came
in contact with an eminent disciple of Schopenhauer, Dr. Paul Deussen
(1845-1919), the philosopher and brilliant exponent of Indian
philosophy. A close and lasting friendship developed between them.
Desseun often spent weeks at a time with Grimm in the latter’s home.
Schopenhauer’s high appreciation of Buddhism and his avowal that he was
a Buddhist led George Grimm to the study of Buddhism. He read the
Majjhima Nikaya in K. E. Neumann’s translation, and was deeply stirred
by it. But certain points were not quite clear to him. So he studied
Pali and Sanskrit which he mastered in an incredibly short time, and by
reference to original texts he clarified understanding. He has
acknowledged his indebtedness to K. E. Neumann for his assistance in
Buddhist studies.
George Grimm was generous to a fault. Many were the people and causes
that received financial assistance. He spent large sums of money on
Neumann who was often in financial difficulties. He would never ask for
a return of a loan, nor would he refuse a loan even though there was an
earlier loan was outstanding. He gave till giving hurt him. But
fortunately, he was never in the want.
He
retired prematurely from the Supreme Court Bench, and spent in all 37
years of his life on the study, practise, and propagation of Buddhism in
his fatherland. His lectures on various Buddhist topics in Munich
University and elsewhere in Germany brought him a large number of
followers. He pointed out to them the need to work ceaselessly for the
attainment in the present life itself of the first stage of the path to
Enlightenment – Sotapanna. With this end in view he established in 1921,
with Dr. Karl Seidenstucker, the Altbuddhisisch Gemeinde (Old Buddhist
Community) in Utting am Ammersee. A large number of French Buddhists
were attracted to George Grimm who gave them lectures and held
discussions with them. These led to the formation of a French group with
Louis Ansiano as its head.
Return to Buddha’s original doctrine
The
author of eight books on Buddhism, George Grimm wrote numerous articles
to various Buddhist journals. His main work, which is popular in all
Buddhist countries, was first translated into English by Bhikku Silacara,
the British monk, shortly after the original appeared in German in 1915.
It was titled The Doctrine of the Buddha: the Religion of reason and
meditation. A fresh English translation of it by Lt. Col. E.F.J. Payne
was published in 1958. This edition carries a brilliant introduction by
Grimm’s daughter, Mrs. Maya Keller-Grimm, and his devoted disciple, Max
Hoppe. The book has run to fifteen editions in all.
Based
on Sutta Pitaka, the book’s 414 pages, contains an illuminating
interpretation of the Dhamma. Grimm makes an effort to “return to the
original doctrine of the Buddha”. Taking only those passages in the Pali
canon which have the mark of authenticity, he reconstructs a complete
exposition of Buddhist thought. He builds exclusively upon the Buddha’s
sayings and those of his disciples who lived contemporaneously with him.
Of
the Buddha’s anatta doctrine, Grimm states that “it points to detachment
from everything personal that narrows and limits from the all too
personal, from the arrogant notion that I am precisely such and such a
superior person, an attitude which causes a wall of selfishness to be
built around us. But on the other hand, a detachment in the sense of
anatta idea causes us to become broader and freer and also to understand
the others in their efforts and endeavours. ‘As I am, so are they, as
they are, so am I. identifying himself with others, let him not kill or
harm, nor cause anyone to kill or harm’”. (Sutta Nipata)
Seeking Atta in the indirect way
Grimm
devotes a good part of his book to the elaboration of the anatta
doctrine, and states that the Buddha had sought for the Atta in the
indirect way, by taking away from the Atta everything that is not the
Atta. The Buddha followed this way so radically and with so much success
that everything cognizable revealed itself to him as Anatta. And for
this reason, he says: “You teach the Atta, but I only know what the Atta
is not. You know the Atta, but I only know what the Atta is not. You are
always speaking about the Atta, but I speak of Anatta. In short, you
have the Atta-method, the atta-vada. And this I have because only thus
is the Atta, that is myself, able to become free from suffering and be
happy. Monks, cleave ye to any I-doctrine (atta-vada) whereby no sorrow
can come to him cleaves, neither lamentation nor suffering, neither
grief nor despair. Know ye of any such I-doctrine? - Indeed, we do not,
Lord – Well said, monks, neither do I know of any such I-doctrine.” (Samyutta
Nikaya XLV, 4)
This
is not generally accepted view of Pali Buddhists. Commenting on Grimm’s
book, Edward Conze states: “The more I am concerned with these things,
the more convinved I become that George Grimm’s interpretation of the
Buddhist theory of atman comes nearest to the original teaching of the
Buddha.”
Dr.
Karl Seidenstucker states: “What I had long surmised, namely, doctrine
of the Buddha represented the message of supreme transcendence, George
Grimm has succeeded in expressing clearly.”
The
Ven. Agga Maha Pandita Polwatta Sri Buddhadatta Maha Nayaka Thera, one
of the greatest Pali scholars of Ceylon, describes George Grimm as “the
recoverer of the old genuine doctrine of the Buddha which had been
submerged.”
Rebirth and a form of belief in annihilation
George Grimm does not agree with Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of
rebirth, namely, that “man’s essential nature consists in bodily and
mental forces which, when acting together syle themselves as ‘I’. like
everything else, these forces calling themselves as ‘I’ naturally
disappear in death. But in continuation of them, there then sprang up in
a different germinating material, made ready by the parents in the act
of copulation, new forces which are equivalent to those that have
perished, and which again form a new being, and in him, thus describing
himself, once more say ‘I’. it is exactly the same as if a new candle
were kindled from an old one burnt almost to extinction.” “This is said
to be rebirth as taught by the Buddha”, states Grimm. “In point of fact
this theory, which has no basis in the words of the Buddha himself as
naturally nothing but a special form of the belief in annihilation which
the Buddha rejects in a solemn manner. For precisely because the forces
springing up in a different germinating material are new, they are no
longer the old; the forces that had formed the previous human being have
perished definitely and for ever. If I perish with the disappearances of
the forces themselves that formed my essential nature, how then am I
concerned with the new forces that are said to spring up in a new
germinating material after my death, even if such new forces are
equivalent to those that have disappeared? What clear-thinking mind
still speaks here of rebirth, in the sense in which the Buddha describes
it in the parable of the one wanderer? ‘Just as when a man went from his
place to another place, and from this place again to another, and from
this place returned to his own place, the thought then occurred to him:
I have gone from that place, I have stood there, sat there, spoken
there, and been silent there; there from that place, however, I have
gone to this place. And then I have stood there, sat there, spoken
there, and been silent there; then I have returned again from this place
to my own place; in the same way do my disciples call to mind many
different forms of previous existences.” (Majjhima Nikaya 77th
discourse). Grimm continues: “The interpretation that is not to be read
from the words of the Buddha himself is obtained only by the explanation
that the discourses of the Buddha must not be taken literally just as
they are given. This certainly resulted in the direct opposite to what
we were previously came to know as the Aryan Indian genius with its
powerful atman doctrine, which revealed itself through the centuries.
Thus it cannot be a matter for surprise that this Buddhism not only
evoked so much contempt from Shankara, the great Vedic commentator, that
he called the Buddha (whom he previously knew only in the form of the
Buddhism of the commentaries) an old prattler, but also that the
doctrine of the Buddha disappeared entirely from India between 800 and
1000 A.D. In fact, this Buddhism is no religion for the Indian Arya.”
A
perversion without practical consequence
Further Grimm states: “The opposition in which many commentaries stand
not only to the teaching of the Buddha himself, but also to the Aryan
Indian genius generally, really forces one to the assumption that these
commentators were not pure Aryans at all, but Dravidians (the original
inhabitants of India) who lived in South India in large numbers in the
time of the Buddha, and still do today. The Sinhalese also consist of
Aryan and Dravidian elements.”
The
Buddhist laity in the countries in which Buddhism continues to exist
has, of course, not bothered at all about the theoretical reversal of
the Buddha’s idea by Buddhist scholars (the misfortune was just that the
monks had for the most part become mere scholars), so that this
perversion of his idea its competent wardens has been without practical
consequence. And this was very fortunate for historical Buddhism. This
is what Sir Edwin Arnold, author of the famous didactic poem, The Light
of Asia, has in mind when he states in his preface that it is his “firm
conviction that a third of mankind would never have been brought to
believe in blank abstractions, or in Nothingness as the issue and crown
of Being.”
Grimm
expresses the view that “the Maha-Atthaktha is undoubtedy mainly
responsible for the fact that the Order of the Buddha was at an early
date split into sects.” This applies in particular to the schism into
Theravadins, as the advocates of the Buddhism of the commentaries, and
into Mahasanghikas, as the opponents – a schism that had already
occurred at the second Council of Vesali in the year 383 B.C. In the
first century A.D. we have the origin of Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle”
as it was called by its followers themselves. By contrast, they
contemptuously described as Hinayana, the small (defective) Vehicle”,
the older modes of thought which were based ultimately on the Pali
canon. The Buddha teaches that the man who works for his own salvation
as well as for the salvation of others, “is the greatest, the best, the
most venerable, and the most sublime”. (Anguttara Nikaya IV, 95). Here
he emphasizes that only the man “who is himself not drawn into the swamp
can pull out another who is submerged. (Majjhima Nikaya 8th discourse).
The Mahayana set up a Boddhisattva ideal which will attain its own
supreme salvation only after the salvation of every other being.”
Grimm
wrote for his own edification. So he said. He experienced the truth that
the teaching of the Buddha is like the paw of the lion: “What it
strikes, be it lofty or low, that it strikes soundly.”
Monthly journal published in 1919
In
1919, George Grimm started with Dr. Karl Seidenstucker a monthly
journal, The Buddhist World Mirror, one of the best known contributors
of which was Dr. Hans Much, the celebrated TB specialist, and discoverer
of what is famous in the medical world as the “Much-granule”. He became
a Buddhist by reading Grimm’s books.
In
the first days of World War II, the French sacked the place where he
lived, but his house was spared “as if by superior guardianship.”
He
felt the deepest gratitude to those who had pointed out the Buddha’s
teachings to him. Schopenhauer’s picture, adorned with a garland, hung
over his bed. Of K.E. Neumann and Paul Deussen he often spoke in the
highest terms.
George Grimm died on 26 August, 1945. “To Bavaria’s Gentlest Judge”,
runs the inscription over his grave. This is quote appropriate, for it
was in a spirit of gentleness that he meted out justice from the Supreme
Court Bench. Over his grave also the following words of Goethe echo:
“This is indeed is the virtue of noble natures, that their departure
from life into loftier regions has a blissful effect just as their
dwelling on earth had; that from those regions, like stars, they beam at
us as points of direction to which we have to steer our course on a
journey that is only too often interrupted by storm and tumult; that
those to whom we turned as well-wishers and helpers in life now cause us
to look longingly at them as blessed, perfect ones.”
In
his life George Grimm exemplified the Buddha’s saying that “whoever
clears his own field of weeds helps his neighbour”.
PAUL DAHLKE
An
uncompromising critic of men and matters for all his life, the Anagarika
Dharmapala of Ceylon paid a handsome tribute to Dr. Paul Dhalke, the
great German Buddhist, while the latter was yet alive.
“Dr.
Paul Dahlke of Berlin,” declared the Anagarika, “is well-known all over
the world as a thinker of great originality, and as an author of
Buddhist essays, which were translated into English by Bhikkhu Silacara.
The Sinhala Buddhists have every reason to be proud of the achievements
of Dr. Dahlke of Germany, for it was in Ceylon that he learned Pali
under such well-known scholars as the Thera Sumangala and Pandit
Wagiswara. For more than twenty years he has been reading and
translating Pali texts, and in Europe there is no more
spiritually-minded Pali scholar than Dr. Dahlke. He was travelled all
over Ceylon, visited the ancient Viharas, and has been to historic
Buddhist places in India and Burma.”
“It
is the personality of Dr. Dahlke that attracts people to him,” continued
the Anagarika. “In his daily life he is a living example to his
disciples, strictly observing the Five Precepts, and still attending to
his professional duties. It will be hard to find a better Buddhist than
Dr. Dahlke. He is a strict vegetarian and takes no alcohol. His literary
labours have won him fame in Germany.”
Drawn to fields outside medicine
The
son of a civil servant who brought up a large family on a modest income,
Paul Dahlke was born on 25 January, 1865, in East Prussia. As a child he
experienced some of life’s hardships.
On
the completion of his secondary education, he took up medical studies.
After passing his final examination in medicine and surgery, he applied
himself to homeopathy, realizing that this method of healing was most
suited to his talent. He proved himself a splendid healer, establishing
himself in private practice. His reputation as a healer extended far
beyond his place of work – Berlin.
But
he did not confine himself to his practice. He was drawn to fields
outside medicine. Schopenhauer’s writings made the first impact on him.
Soon he switched on to the teachings, of the Buddha.
Dahlke describes his first contact with Buddhism and its effects on him
thus: “It was not in the shape of an emotional shock or of some decisive
event that Buddhism entered my life. Slowly, imperceptibly, like the
seed in the ground, did it take root and grow when in 1898 I started on
my first long voyage. I had already known Buddhism for some time, but in
spite of it, at that time, not India but the South Seas were the goal of
my desire. Tahiti and Oweihi, as described in Chamisso’s writings,
attracted me more than all the wisdom of India; and when in June 1898, I
landed at Apis on the Island of Sama, it appeared to me as the perfect
fulfilment of my life.”
“After about a year I returned home, and the Buddha’s teachings must
have been developing silently in me, unperceived; for already when in
the following year, I set out again on reveals, it was with the avowed
aim of India; and not India along but Buddhism.”
Official entry into Buddhism in 1900
“In
the spring of 1900 I reached Colombo, and had the great and good fortune
to find at once good teachers who could give me instruction on Buddhism:
Sri Sumangala Thera of Maligakanda Vihara, at a suburb of Colombo, was
already an old man, but his intellect was astonishingly keen; and
Nanissara Thera, his first co-worker, who took place after his death,
and who now, unfortunately, has passed away. Then there was the young
Bhikku Suriyagoda Sumangala of Sri Vardanaramaya (Colpetty) with whom I
have ever since kept up a close friendship; and finally the Pandit
Wagiswara who at that time lived at Payagala, on the south coast of
Ceylon. To him I owe my first understanding of Buddhism, because it was
he who could best adopt himself to the Western viewpoint, and also had a
thorough grasp of English.”
“It
was then, in 1900, that I made my official entry into Buddhism and its
teachings. Since that time I have been constantly travelling back and
forth between India and my native Germany; and most of the time I was
ill, partly due to the climate, partly through my own fault; being
dissatisfied with these restless wanderings, and yet ever drawn back to
India.”
Bhikku Silcara, the third man from the British Isles to enter the Order
of Buddhist monks, has paid tribute to the memory of Dahlke: “In Dr.
Paul Dahlke, the Buddhist in Europe possessed one of the most efficient
and able pens, backed by what was certainly the most able and efficient
brain that has so far appeared in Europe to champion and propagate the
ideas contained in the Buddha-dhamma. Now that pen is still, that brain
ceased from its endless activity in exploring every promising line of
Buddhist thought, and seeking to probe it to the bottom. Dr. Dahlke was
a great man; and like all great men, he did not advertise himself. The
great do not need to do so. What they are, they are. It is only the
would-be great and the essentially little, who need to call attention to
themselves. So Dr. Dahlke never in any way strove to make men look at
him. He just went on his way ceaselessly working in his own way for the
propagation of the ideas in which he believed, and the result was a body
of writings which will long remain as one of the most lucid, and at the
same time (most unusually) the most profound expositions of Buddhism
that European Buddhism has so far obtained.”
Ideas brought into complete being
“For
Dr. Dahlke was not content just to take what was given him in the
Buddhist scriptures and swallow it whole. He sought to digest it, and
incorporate it into his own mental life as part of that life; and to do
this turned everything over and over in his mind until he had seen all
the implications, full and complete, of every statement in Buddhist
books which he deemed worthy of attention. Nay, not only that! When he
had seen the truth of any of these statements, he then proceeded to put
them into effective embodiment in his own life. As an acute thinker, he
early realized the limitations of mere intellectualism. He saw that the
only intellect is only a limb of life, not life itself, and that an idea
is not fully rounded and complete until it is expressed in life, in
living; that up till then it is more or less of a toy, an interesting
plaything, but not yet brought into real, complete earnest being. It was
into full being that he sought to bring his ideas of the Dhamma by
giving them actual expression in his life; and it was to this end that
he founded, after much difficulty overcome, his ‘Buddhist House’. He
felt that if the Buddha produced the effect he has upon human history
through the effect he produced upon the history of Asia, it was not only
because he spoke the words he spoke, but because he lived the life he
led; and with all the reverence he felt that his European followers who
are his followers in more than name, had to do the same – albeit at a
great distance behind the Master’s great example – in also making their
lives a living presentation of the Dhamma, as the only possible
effective way of making Buddhist ideas impress themselves upon their
fellow-continentals. In short, he felt that we must not only talk
Buddhism but be Buddhists – be embodiments, to the best of our ability,
of the ideas we believe in, and spare no pains towards making ourselves
more and more complete embodiments of these ideas.
“When, if ever, the history of Buddhist life in Europe comes to be
written, among the names that will stand highest will be that of Paul
Dahlke.”
" Buddhist House” converted into temple
Dahlke was the author of some 12 books on Buddhism, besides being editor
of a Buddhist journal and translator of selections of the Digha and
Majjhima Nikayas, and of the Dhammapada. Some of his major works have
been translated into English, Dutch, and Japanese.
The
“Buddhist House” which he founded in Berlin, he explains, “was to
provide a possibility for a life of self-collectedness or at least to
improve the conditions for leading such a life.” This “House” has been
purchased by the German Dharmaduta Society of Ceylon and converted into
a Buddhist temple.
In
his Essays and Poems, Paul Dahlke states under the heading ‘Is the
Buddhist Selfish’: “If the Buddhist is really a Buddhist, he will act
rightly, not for the sake of a favourable rebirth – ever and again does
the Buddha warn against this – but simply because his new insight
compels him to act rightly. And the favourable rebirth follows as a
natural consequence, just as blue sky will appear when the cloud
disperses, or like the feeling of comfort after a satisfying meal. Just
as one does not eat for the sake of having that comfortable feeling, but
in complying with natural conditions of life, so also the right action
of a Buddhist is not to bring about future comfort, but it is in
pursuance of the natural conditions of existence, which, of course,
demands a good measure of keen insight to be recognized as such. Thus
the right action of the Buddhist is of a nature that serves not for the
affirmation of self but for not giving up of self.”
Dahlke concludes his Last Lecutre, which was read on his behalf,
shortly before his death, over the Berlin Radio, thus: “Buddhism has a
great mission to fulfil in the life of mankind that cannot be performed
by any other religion or philosophy. Irreplaceable for the for the
seeker after Truth, and entirely unique in its mental structure for the
thinker, the Buddha Dhamma stands secure in the power of its inner
Truth, waiting serenely for that recognition of its worth which other
religions seek to obtain by eager propagation.”
Among
Dahlke’s works available in English translations are: Buddhist Essays
(1903), Buddhism and Science (1914), Buddhist Stories (1921), Buddhism
and its place in the Mental Life of Mankind (1928).
Dahlke died in 1928.
K.E. NEUMANN
Karl
Eugen Neumann, one of the earliest Buddhist scholars of Germany, was at
one time so strained financially that thoughts of suicide had entered
his head. “If matters come to a point when one has to fight daily with
the most disgusting conditions of life, with law suits, bailiffs, and
creditors, then one must be wise enough to say: I pass,” he once wrote
to George Grimm who had been of immense financial assistance to him.
In
1894 Neumann spent ten months in India where he visited all the places
of interest to a student of Buddhism. From India he crossed over to
Ceylon, made an extensive study of Pali and engaged himself in the
interpretation of Buddhist texts with the assistance of learned Sinhala
monks. He did not join the company of Europeans in Ceylon as other
Westerners did at the time, but mixed freely with Sinhala monks and lay
Buddhists. He kept aloof from the Europeans because he knew they were
then generally prejudiced against Buddhism and Sinhala culture in which
he was keenly interested.
Inspired by Schopenhauer’s philosophy
Neumann had numerous disappointments and financial difficulties almost
throughout his life. He was born in Vienna on October, 1865, and
baptized as a Roman Catholic. But his name appeared in the Great Jewish
National Biography, which led to the belief that he was a Jew. Neither
he nor his father had, however, acknowledged that they belonged to the
Jewish race. His father, Angelo Neumann was a reputed bandmaster of
Prague, who had been of much service to Richard Wagner, the great
composer and dramatist. His mother, Aurelie Mihalovits, was a highly
gifted woman who was keenly interested in Indian literature.
He
first attended Thomas School in Leipzig, where the family had then moved
to. After completing the four lower classes there, he went in 1879 to
the Leipzig Commercial School in order to learn modern languages. In
1882 he travelled in England and Italy.
In
1884 a sudden change took place in his life: he came across
Schopenhauer’s works, and inspired by these studies, he occupied himself
with Buddhism in the spring of 1884 for the first time. Later he wrote:
“I was so deeply moved that inwardly I broke with my whole past.”
He
next secured a minor post in a bank in Germany. After his official
duties, he devoted his time – often until three o’clock in the morning –
with philosophical studies and Indian translations. After three years,
he resigned his post at the bank and went to an Obergymnasium in Prague
where he passed his Abitur in 1887. In the summer of the same year he
matriculated at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin, where he
studied for five semesters. He attended in particular lectures on
comparative religion and philosophy by Paul Deussen, sinology by G.
Grube, indology by Hermann Oldenburg and Albrecht Weber, archaeology by
I. Wahlea, medicine by Ae. DuBoius-Reymond, W. Waldeyer, and G. Preyer,
and astronomy by W. Forester. He became disappointed in his studies,
however, because he “very soon realized that universities offer no room
and opportunity for higher knowledge.”
Buddhist Anthology – his first major work
In
1889, while yet a student, Neumann married Kamilla Nordmann, the
daughter of Johannes Nordmann, the poet. E. Reinhard, the publisher of
Neumann’s complete edition, describes her as “a fine pianist and
kindhearted woman.”
The
next year saw Neumann at the University of Halle, where Professor R.
Pischel became his much admired teacher. In January 1891, he obtained
his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Leipzig. His thesis
for the doctorate was a textual criticism: Des Sarasangaho ein
Kompendium Buddhischer Anscauungen Brstes Kapital (The First Chapter of
the Sarangaho a Compendium of Buddhist Views).
He
next went to Vienna. Towards the end of 1891 he stayed for six weeks in
Holland, where his first major work, Buddhistsche Anthologie (Buddhist
Anthology) was published.
In
1893 he applied from England for a permanent post in India, but was
unsuccessful. His next application which he made to an India Maharajah
for means for a permanent stay in India was not answered. He complained
bitterly: “It is not my fault if I have to work all my life here in
Europe in this age of electricity”. His Indian trip, which he made in
1894, exceeded his expectations. He described this trip in a valuable
diary which was found in his literary bequest. On his return from India
and Ceylon, he spent a year in London. He had known London from his
youth and felt more at home there than elsewhere in Northern Europe. In
London he came in contact with Rhys Davids and enlarged his knowledge of
Buddhist research. He also translated the first fifty dialogues of the
Buddha in the Majjhima Nikaya. On his return to Vienna, after about
three dozen refusals he found a publisher in Wilhelm Friedrich in 1896
for this translation.
Serious financial difficulties
Neumann worked at the Oriental Department of the University of Vienna
with George Buhler on Indian inscriptions, most of which had not yet
been published. Although this work made great demands on his time, he
translated the Theragatha and Therigatha under the title Der Lieder der
Monche und Nonnen Gotama Buddhos. It was published in 1899. When Buhler
was drowned in the Lake of Constance in 1898 Neumann became very lonely,
for he was the only man with whom he kept company. So he left Vienna and
went to Germany to work independently. However, he soon returned to
Vienna where he worked on the translation of the first part of the
Majjhima Nikaya, which was published in 1902. He spent the next two
years in translating the Sutta Nipata. This was published by Johannes
Ambrosius Barth. In September 1905, he started the translation of the
Digha Nikaya and completed the first volume by the end of January 1906.
It was published shortly afterwards.
In
1906 Neumann lost all his money in a bank crash, and in order to live
had to sell gradually all the valuables he possessed. Among other
things, he had to sell his library of over 4,000 books which he had
collected with great love since his fifteenth year. He had been in
serious financial difficulties since 1910, and his friend, Dr. George
Grimm, gave him considerable sums of money several times. He had to pawn
even the complete Pali canon presented to him by the King of Siam and
could not prevent it from being forfeited. About this time, however, his
father died, leaving him a small fortune. With this money he bought back
his Siamese edition of the Pali canon, and started on translating the
second volume of the Digha Nikaya, which, as he wrote to Lorenzo, he
completed in January 1913, “under unutterable pains.”
Neumann had a premonition that he would die in September 1915. He wrote
to George Grimm to that effect in August. But he died on 18 October
1915, on his fiftieth birthday, of an attack of pneumonia.
KARL SEIDENSTUCKER
Dr.
Karl Seidenstucker occupied a prominent place among active Buddhist
workers in Germany for more than a quarter century. He forged a link
between the Buddhist movement in the East and that in Germany when, on 1
May 1911, he and his co-workers established in Leipzig a German branch
of the Mahabodhi Society of India and Ceylon, he founded in 1891 by the
Anagarika Dhamapala of Columbo.
As
early as 1907, Seidenstucker had conceived the idea of a German branch
of the Mahabodhi Society. He stressed the merits of the Mahabodhi
Society when he said that it understood the spiritual needs of the
various countries and that it was able to adapt itself to the needs of
the West. Dr. F. Zimmermann, the author of the Buddhist catechism,
subsequently published under the title of The Message of Buddhism, was
the first president of the German branch, and Seidenstucker himself
became its secretary.
In
1905 started and edited The Buddhist, an independent monthly, to which a
supplement was added subsequently under the title of The Buddhist World.
The latter exclusively carried news about Buddhist missionary
activities. Later, he and George Grimm edited Buddhisischer Weltspiegel,
and monthly journal devoted to Buddhist and Buddhist culture.
Seidenstucker was born on 23 March, 1875, and studied natural science,
medicine, philosophy, and philology at the Universities of Gottingen,
Leipzig, and Halle. From 1902 he had been engaged on a detailed study of
Pali Buddhism and Pali literature. He was a pupil of Professor Moritz
Winternitz of Prague. In 1910 he translated and published the Khuddaka
Patha, and in the next year he brought out his Pali Buddhismus in
Ubersetzungen (Pali Buddhism in translations). A second enlarged and
improved edition of this work was published in 1923.
He
was a co-founder with George Grimm of the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde (Old
Buddhist Community) in Utting am Ammersee in 1921. he was known as
Girimananda, a name sacred to Buddhists. (Girimanda was the name of one
of the eighty Great Disciples of the Buddha.)
He
died on 29 October, 1936.
FRIEDRICH ZIMMERMANN
Friedrich Zimmermann, a civil engineer by profession, became an ardent
Buddhist in the 1880’s and adopted the name of Bhikshu Subhadra without
going through the formal ceremony of ordination as a Buddhist monk. He
did not shave his head, nor did he change his mode of dress.
Not
satisfied with Buddhist catechisms of the day in European languages, he
wrote a catechism based on the Sutta Pitaka and Vinaya Pitaka and
published it in 1888. Like Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia, it
proved a best-seller and ran to fourteen impressions. This work made him
famous throughout the German-speaking world and beyond. Later, he
changed the title of the book to The Message of Buddhism. England and
America published English translations of the book in 1890 and 1895,
respectively. A French edition came out in France in 1889 and in
Switzerland in 1897. A Japanese edition was published in 1889 and an
Italian edition in 1897. Hungary published a translation in 1901 and
again in 1906. In the next year the book was published in Spanish. A
Russian translation was printed, but the Czarist regime banned its
publication. Ceylon published an English translation in 1908.
Zimmermann spent the proceeds of the sale of the book on the
dissemination of the Buddha Dhamma in Germany.
Born
in 1851, Zimmermann was a mathematician and graduated in engineering. He
was led to the study of Buddhism by Schopenhauer’s high appreciation of
the Buddha’s teachings. He studied Pali, read the Pali canon, and
studied with care the Majihima Nikaya in Neumann’s translation.
He
was a co-worker of George Grimm and Karl Seidenstucker in the
dissemination of the Dhamma in Germany. Grimm was his closest friend.
“As deeply religious men, both found their innermost contentment in the
Buddha’s teaching, which for them was the greatest joy of their lives.”
Zimmermann had decided to revise his The Message of Buddhism in the
light of the interpretations of George Grimm in his outstanding work The
Doctrine of the Buddha: the religion of reason and meditation, but,
unfortunately, death prevented him from doing so. Zimmermann’s book
however, was not forgotten. In 1921 Seidenstucker brought out a new
edition of the book. Out of respect for Zimmermann the contents of the
book were left unaltered, and all revisions were made in the form of
notes and comments.
A
forthright critic of the view that Nibbana is nihilism, Zimmermann was
firmly convinced that Nibbana is extinction of greed, hatred, and
delusion—not the extinction of the self.
He
died on 30 June, 1917.
HANS MUCH
A
Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Physiology at the early age of 22,
the discoverer of what is well known in the medical world as the
“Much-granule” and an internationally famous tuberculosis specialist,
Dr. Hans Much became a Buddhist after reading a book by George Grimm on
Buddhism, and devoted fifteen years of his life of fifty-two to the
study, practice and discrimination of Buddhism in his fatherland.
Born
of Protestant parents in 1880 in Neuitrelitz, Germany, Hans Much was a
prodigy from his early boyhood. He excelled both in sciences and
humanities at the grammar school, carrying away all the coveted prizes.
At the medical school he won the gold medal at the M.D. examination, and
obtained his doctorate in physiology as well. Not only did he show
extraordinary brilliance in medicine and physiology, but he also
blossomed into a poet.
An
intensive researcher in medicine for which he became world-famous, Hans
Much worked with the great German physician, Dr. Emil von Behring at
Eppendorf hospital, Hamburg, where he discovered a form of tubercle
bacilli which, when coloured by a process he had himself evolved,
presented themselves as fine granules. The medical world named them
after him.
Appointed Professor of Medicine, he was placed in charge of experimental
therapy at Eppendorf hospital where the most serious cases of
tuberculosis quickly responded to his treatment. He saved the lives of
innumerable patients.
His
ideal of a medical man Hans Much sums up as follows: “One becomes a
physician or surgeon not to amass wealth, nor to prolong a man’s life to
enable him to continue to enjoy what are called the good things in life,
but to help him to become a man of purity. That is the only
justification for being a physician or surgeon.”
His
conception of the attitude of a patient who seeks a longer life, Hans
Much sums up thus: “If a patient wants to prolong his life, he must do
so with the intention not of enjoying what are called the good things of
life, but of winning the possibility of working for self-purification.”
Book
that completely changed his life
Hans
Much found his way to Buddhism through The Doctoring of the Buddha: the
Religions of Reason and Meditation by George Grimm, which appeared in
1915. Much was then 35, and was at the zenith of his fame as a
tuberculosis specialist. He had a fabulous income from his private
practice.
“This
book completely changed my life,” wrote Much. “When I read Grimm’s
interpretations of the anatta idea there, I felt as if the Buddha held
me completely in his grip. Grimm says that the kernel of the Buddha
doctrine is in the anatta idea. I quite agree. For one who was
understood this all other parts of the doctrine are self-evident. The
anatta thought is the mightiest thought that has ever been conceived, as
Grimm says. Nevertheless, this thought is at the same time of an
astonishing simplicity. As Grimm explains, it denotes: Nothing,
absolutely nothing perceptible in myself is my true being. The whole
world, by which all that is perceptible about myself is understood, is
anatta, not-self. Of this world it has to be said: This belongs to me
not, this I am not, this is not my self.”
“I
have already felt what Nirvana is like,” Hans Much once wrote to Grimm.
“Just this about it! One fine day when I was lying down in the grass,
thinking of nothing, the world around me disappeared and I was
absolutely free from any wish. Our greatest happiness, if we think about
it, is not the few moments when wishes come true, but those rarer moment
of being completely without wishes. These one keeps in memory as
something precious. They are the anticipation of Nirvana. Nirvana is
reached when we no longer wish for anything.”
Money for dissemination of Buddhism
In
1919, at the age of 39, Hans Much became an active co-worker for George
Grimm in the dissemination of Buddhism in Germany, spending considerable
sums of money for the purpose. He assisted George Grimm and Karl
Seidenstucker in editing The World Buddhist Mirror. He was one of its
regular contributors. He gradually gave up his practice, and treated
only poor patients free of charge. He spent long hours daily in the
practice of meditation.
The
first book that Hans Much wrote was Buddha, der Schritt in des
Heimatlossigkett (Buddha, the Step into Homelessness). It proved a great
success. It was soon followed by a novel about the Buddha’s visit to
Kapilavatthu entitled Die Heimkehr des Vollendeten (The home-coming of
the Accomplished One). This too was a best-seller. In another work,
which was serialized in The Buddhist World Mirror, he paraphrased with
remarkable clarity the verses of the Dhammapada.
Much
wrote a brilliant preface to Grimm’s book, Buddhistische Weisheit, to
which he added a supplement in verse of a high order. America published
an English translation of it under the title Buddhist Wisdom.
His
last book was a fine poetical work under the title An Buddhas Hand,
Lider der Erweckung (On the Buddha’s Hand, Songs of Awakening) in which
he emphasizes that “our real being has nothing in common with our
personality. The suffering of impermanence is the reminder that we are
imperishable.”
This
view is contrary to that of Buddhagosa, the great 5th century
commentator of Pali Buddhism.
Dr.
Hans Much scrupulously followed the Buddhist Way of Life from his 35th
year. His untimely death in 1932 at the age of 52 created a void which
German Buddhists have found it difficult to fill.
WILLIAM
GEIGER
Wilhelm Geiger carved for himself a niche in the world of oriental
scholarship by covering an unusually wide field of research. We have to
recognize three main parts of equal importance in hi work: his Iranian
studies, his Pali studies, and his studies of Ceylon and the Sinhalese
languages and literature.
Geiger was born in Nuremburg in 1856, and studied oriental languages in
the University of Erlangen under Professor Friedrich von Spiegel.
Spiegel was the first German scholar to study Pali (after the
Norwegian-born Christian Lassen) and the first German scholar to edit
Pali texts (Kammavokya in 1841 and Anecdota Palica in 1845) and to
collect material systematically for a Pali dictionary. The manuscript of
this dictionary (Lexicon Palicum) was never published. Later, Spiegel
turned to Iranian philology. When Geiger studied under him, Spiegel had
already put aside his Pali studies.
Geiger took his Ph. D. with a thesis on an Avestan text in 1877. Shortly
afterwards he published a study in the field of Western classics: De
Callini elegiarum scriptoria aetate (1878). It is still referred to in
modern books of Greek literature. But soon he concentrated again on
oriental studies and became a lecturer. Although he was forced to earn
his livelihood as a lecturer in Latin and Greek at Houstadt Gymnasium
from 1880 to 1884, far away from any big libraries, he published a
series of important studies of the Iranian language, literature and
history.
Mahavamsa
translation ‘a masterpiece’
His
first visit to Ceylon was in 1895. Geiger vividly describes it in his
book on Ceylon (1898). A few days after his arrival in Ceylon he
answered the questions of a local journalist about the purpose of his
visit.
“I
have been sent here to study Sinhalese, especially for scientific
purposes,” he said. “I hope to find out whether it comes under the
category of Aryan languages or not. That is still a subject of dispute
among the leading men in Europe, and I have come to see if I can settle
that bone of contention.”
“And
he could,” states Professor Heinz Bechert. “In 1897 he published a
treatise on the languages of the Rodiyas in Ceylon, in 1898 the first
German edition of his etymological glossary of the Sinhalese language,
and in 1900 his Litteratur und Sprache der Singhalessa. He wrote at
length of the importance of his visit to Ceylon.”
His
edition and translation of the Mahavamasa, described as a “masterpiece
of critical philology,” was published between 1908 and 1930. Further, in
the words of Professor Bechert, “he contributed to our knowledge of Pali
literature by investigations into the sources and development of the
Pali chronicles in his editions and translations of the Dipavamsa and
the Mahavamsa, 1905.”
When
Geiger was already reputed to be one of the most eminent Pali scholars,
states Professor Bechert, two tasks fell to him; first to lend his
assistance to the plan for an international Pali dictionary and,
secondly, to write a Pali grammar. The former was abandoned for various
reasons. Geiger sent all his lexicographical material to Rhys Davids for
his Pali-English Dictionary. His Pali grammar has been an indispensable
book for every Pali scholar since 1916. It was translated into English
and published by the Calcutta University in 1943 and 1956.
Indispensable handbook on Pali philology
In
1918 Geiger and his wife, Magdalene, edited and translated the second
edition of the famous collection of stories called Rasavahini: the first
section had been edited and published by Spiegel in 1848 in his Anecdota
Palica.
Magdalene and Wilhelm Geiger published a treatise in 1920 on the meaning
of the Pali word Dhamma. It has become an indispensable handbook on Pali
philology. An important addendum to this work is his Dhamma and Brahman.
(1921).
He
translated volumes I and II of the Samyutta Nikaya which “is remarkable
both for the utmost preciseness and for the beauty of the language
employed.”
Geiger succeeded Ernst Kuhn as Professor of Indology and Iranian Studies
in the Munich University in 1920. He retired from this post at the age
of 68 and spent the rest of his life in a small village near Munich. But
there was no interruption of his prolific literary activities. He
interpreted difficult passages in the Pali canon which, however, have
remained unpublished. One of his letters written in Pali to Polwatte
Buddhadatta Maha Thera of Ceylon has been published by the latter in his
autobiography. Buddhadatta’s Aids to Pali Conversation also containts
this letter.
At
the invitation of the Government of Ceylon, Geiger visited the Island
for the third time in 1931 to be editor of the Dictionary of the
Sinhalese Language. Professor Helmer Smith collaborated with him in this
task as joint editor.
After
the completion of a Grammar of the Sinhalese Language (1938), he again
concentrated on a study of the Mahavansa, this time to investigate
mediaeval Sinhalese culture. When he had completed the manuscript of
Culture of Ceylon in Mediaeval Times in 1940 (published in 1960) and
provided an examination of Sinhalese syntax in Studies Zur Geschiete und
Sprache Ceylon und Beitrage zur singhaleisischen Sprachgeschicte (1942),
he had achieved his life’s work.
He
died on 2 September, 1943.
MORITZ
WINTERMITZ
An
Austrian by birth and a friend of Rhys Davids, Moritz Winternitz was a
professor in the German University of Prague, and a scholar of the front
rank.
The
History of Indian Literature (Geschicte der Indischen Literatur) is the
most outstanding of his numerous publications. It deals with Indian
literature from the earliest times in all its aspects, and is considered
a work of the highest standard.
He
was a great Advocate of women’s rights, and was the author, of several
works on the subject of women such as The Widow in the Veda, Women in
the Indian Religions, Women in Brahamanism, Women in Ethnology, Women
and War in the Light of the Ethnology, Women in the Cultural Moment of
the Present, Should Women be Allowed to Vote?, Women’s Compulsory
Service, On the Moments on the Right of Vote for Women, and Cultural
Ideals and Womanhood.
Another subject which he vigorously wrote was war. He was a pacifist.
The Stupidity of War was his best book on the theme.
Winterneitz was born in Horn, Lower Austria, on 23 December, 1863, and
obtained his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1885. In 1888,
he went to Oxford and worked as Max Muller’s assistant. He carried on
intensive research in indology at the Royal Asiatic Society library
under the direction of Rhys Davids.
He
died in Prague on 9 January, 1937.
ERICH
FRAUWALLNER
An
intensive researcher and author of some twenty works on Theravada and
Mahayana Buddhism, Erich Frauwallner was a professor in the University
of Vienna and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
“In
a remarkable piece of inspired detective work, Professor Frauwallner in
The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature (1956) has
proved almost conclusively that before Asoka a great work, the Skandhaka,
was produced, which divided and arranged the enormous material
concerning monastic rules according to a well-conceived plan,” states
Dr. Edward Conze in his book Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies. “It
regulates the fundamental institutions of Buddhist monastic life, the
admission to the Order, the confession ceremonies, the retiring during
the rainy season, and discusses clothing, food and drugs for the sick,
as well as the rules to be observed in the punishment of offenders. This
Skandhaka is in fact the earliest Buddhist literary work of which we
have any definite knowledge.”
Among Frauwallner’s other works are: Investigations on Moksaddharma( The
Relation towards Buddhism), On the Fragments of Buddhist Logicians in
Nyayavarttikam, Dharmakirti’s Sambandhapariksa ( text and translation),
Dharmutara’s Ksanabhangasiddhih ( text and translation), The Buddhist
Councils, The Ceylon Chronicles and the first Buddhist Mission to
Indo-China, The Philosophy of Buddhism,Vasubandhu’s Vadavidhih,
Abhidharma Studies, Pancaskandhakam 1 and 2, The Canonical Abhidhamma
Works, and The History of Indian Philosophy. In the first volume of the
last work the Buddha’s doctrine is dealt with.
Frauwallner accepts the Buddha’s statement that the five groups of
grasping do not constitute one’s self, but states that the Buddha has
not answered the question of self because it was one of those questions
that lead to fruitless discussion and divert us from the goal of
salvation.
Frauwallner was born on 28 December, 1898.
GUSTAV
MENSCHING
Professor Gustav Mencshing is a great scholar of Buddhism who has to his
credit not only works on Buddhism who has to his credit not only works
on Buddhism but also on other religions.
He
writes at length on the problem of self (atta) in his Buddhistische
Geisteswelt (the Spiritual World of Buddhism). He states: “Research in
the West is not wholly in agreement on what was meant in the original
teaching of the Buddha. Is each and every self denied, or does the
Buddha wish to deprive of the real self only the world of phenomena, and
hence that which has concrete existence, and thus all knowledge and
dominability? “I, for my part,” he states, “regard the latter view as
being very much to the point, and believe that the texts also support
this conception. By illusion of personality is clearly understood the
complex of the five groups of clinging which is comprised in the
individual. Apart from these factors that constitute personality, there
is no personality. But the man who is unredeemed erroneously identifies
with self certain of these factors of existence. The famous sermon on
the not-self says in effect that the Buddha makes it clear that none of
the finite and fleeting elements of existence is ‘my self’. Thus there
is stated perfectly clearly the existence of an ultimate absolute behind
the fleeting factors. The refusal of a statement concerning the
existence or non-existence of a self proper means that the categories of
‘being’ and ‘not-being’, which spring from, and refer only to, the
finite world, do not apply to the absolute. A distinction is drawn
between three kinds of the (finite) self as possible (but erroneous)
views, namely the material self, the spiritual self, and the self
consisting only of consciousness. Man must be delivered from all three
forms of the so-called self. Even consciousness is, as we see, a group
of existence-factors, and consequently is not maintained in the cycle of
rebirth; it arises and passes away in accordance with the law of
dependant origination. The pernicious character of a finite individual
existence is in particular characterized by the assumption of ten
fetters, the first five of which lead to a lower rebirth, and the sixth
to the tenth, in so far as the first five are broken, lead to a higher
existence, which of course, is also in need of salvation.”
Buddha’s assumption of an ultimate self
Mensching agrees with Frauwallner that the Buddha assumed an ultimate
self which he did not speak for the reason that it would lead to
profitless discussion and would divert us from the goal of salvation.
Born
on 6 May, 1901, in Hannover, Mensching studied at the University of Bonn
and qualified in theology, philosophy, and comparative religion,
Sanskrit and Pali. Among his teachers was Rudolf Otto, the famous author
of The Holy, which ran to thirty editions. He obtained his doctorate
with a thesis on The Holy Silence which was published in 1926. In 1927
he was appointed Professor of Religious History at the Latvian
University, Riga, where he remained until 1935. He then returned to the
University of Bonn as Professor of Comparative Religion. He continues in
that post which has enabled him to make a special study of Buddhism.
Amongst his numerous publications are Buddhist Symbolism (1929) and
Buddhist Spiritual World (1955).
H. VON
GLASENAPP
“Buddhism still has for the general history of philosophy an
incomparably great significance”, states H. von Glasenapp, one of
Germany’s greatest scholars of Buddhism, in his monumental work, The
Philosphy of the Indians. “It has established philosophy in Ceylon,
Further India, Tibet and Mongolia and has there remained its great
representative down to the present day. It has introduced the spirit of
India into China and Japan and there it has again become, either
directly or indirectly, the starting point of fresh metaphysical system,
which even today has retained their vital force.”
H.
von Glasenapp takes a view on self opposite to that of some other
scholars.
The
anatta doctrine is central to any understanding of Buddhism. “There has
been a persistent tendency to attribute to primitive Buddhism the
Upanishadic teaching of the Self, or atman. Little can be adduced from
the existing scriptures in support of this thesis, but it has been the
curse of Buddhist studies that people will persist in believing that the
Buddhists must have radically misunderstood the Buddha, and so they
hanker, in the words of Professor Murti, after a ‘soul-affirming
primitive Buddhism followed by a soul-denying scholastic Buddhism.’ To
again quote from Professor Murti, ‘if the atman had been a cardinal
doctrine with Buddhism, why was it so securely hidden under a bushel
that even the immediate followers of the Master had no inkling of it?
The Upanishads, on the other hand, blaze forth the reality of the atman
in every page, in every line almost’. “The word atman was to such an
extent a ‘bad word’ for the Buddhists that they carefully avoid using it
for Nirvana, and that even the ‘Personalists’ always speak of a pudgala,
and never of an atman”, states Dr. Edward Conze, in his Thirty Years of
Buddhist Studies, adding: “The question has meanwhile once and for all
been settled by Professor von Glasenapp’s book Vedanta and Buddhism. He
shows that the Upanishadic doctrine is mentioned in the Buddhist
sciprtures very rarely, and then always polemically, that most arbitrary
translations which contradict the whole of the Buddhist tradition’, and
he points out that the researches of the Leningrad school have made ‘the
attempts to find room for the atman in the teachings of the Buddha quite
antiquated’. ‘There can’, as Von Glasenapp says, ‘be no doubt that the
works of Rosenberg and Stcherbatsky have for the first time put the
understanding of Buddhism as a well-balanced philosophical system on a
new and firm basis, which is all the more solid because it can enlist
the agreement of all Buddhist schools of Asia’. And ‘it is the basic
idea of the whole system that all dharmas are devoid of atman, and
without cogent reasons one ought not to claim that the Buddha himself
has taught anything contrary to that which his disciples have for more
than two thousand years been regarding as the quintessence of their
doctrine’. It is well-known, of course, that theories often manage to
linger on, long after their validity has been exploded. So it will be
here also. As long as people insist on writing about the orthodox
nairatmaya theory without practising the meditations which were designed
to disclose it, misconceptions are bound to crop up.”
Buddhism in India and the Far East (1936), The Wisdom of the Buddha
(1946), and The Indian Image of German Thinkers (1960) are among his
numerous works. Lt.Col. E.F.J. Payne has translated some of his books
into English.
Awarded Schopenhauer medallion in 1960
Glasenepp had been an active member of the German Schopenhauer Society
since 1928 and had contributed many articles to its Yearbooks. In 1960,
on the occasion of the centenary of Schopenhauer’s death, he was awarded
the Schopenhauer medallion for his great contributions to the study of
Indian philosophy and religion. Only twenty of these medallions were
struck and presented to men and women who had distinguished themselves
in spheres allied to Schopenhauer’s philosophy.
Born
in Berlin in September 1891, Glasenapp was a lecturer from 1918 to 1928
at Bonn and then in Berlin. He was Professor of Indology in Koenigsberg
from 1928 to 1945. After the war he was appointed Professor of Indology
and Comparative Religion in Tubingen until he was made an emeritus
professor in 1960.
As
the result of a road accident, Glasenapp died in June, 1963, in Tubingen.
With his death the German world of learning lost one of the acknowledged
masters of indology. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, former President of India,
described him as a “guru”. A guru is both a master and a spiritual
leader. Glasenapp was a savant who was able to give a graphic account of
the results of his many world-wide investigations, and a teacher who to
the end of his life was always ready to learn and to convey to others
his idea and experiences and the rich treasures of his vast knowledge.
MRS.
MAYA KELLER-GRIMM
Professor Paul Deussen, the eminent indologist, used to call an
eleven-year-old girl “my little girl philosopher.” That was early in the
present century. Today in her seventieth year, she has become t6he most
ardent evangelist of Theravada Buddhism in Western Germany. She is Frau
Maya Keller-Grimm also known as Sister Maya, the daughter of Dr. George
Grimm.
The
story of her life is one of no little human interest, and it is best
related in her own words. “When I was a girl of eleven, my parents and I
used to sit together to read a Buddha dialogue”, she wrote to me. “And
since I was the one allowed to read to my parents, I did so with double
the usual pleasure and carefulness. Sometimes, two evenings were
necessary for a dialogue. Never did we go through a dialogue all at
once, but did so in sections. Whether the subject was the Four Noble
Truths or the Path in particular or Nibbana or Tathagata, my father
always clearly explained to us with appropriate similes and
illustrations what I had read.”
“I
listened with rapt attention to my father’s expositions. Not only the
contents of the dialogues themselves, but also the respective narratives
around them aroused my greatest interest. Soon I knew every dialogue in
which the Accomplished One himself led the dialogue, and also those in
which his place was taken by Sariputta or Moggallana, or other great
disciples. I knew all about Visakha, the great laywoman adherent,
Anathapindika, the illustrious benefactor of the poor and of the Buddha
and his Order, Gathikara, the potter, and his friend, Jotipala, Queen
Mallika and King Pasenadi of Kosala.
Deussen’s
‘little girl philosopher’
“The
persons figuring in the canon were quite alive to me. The Psalms of the
Brethren and Sisters strongly appealed to me. My great adoration went to
Mahaprajapati Gotami, the woman who was responsible for the creation of
the Order of Nuns, and Dhammadinna, the peerless woman exponent of the
Dhamma. That even children could attain holiness made a strong appeal to
me.
“The
culmination of our evening readings was for me The Last Days of Gotama
Buddha, The Mahaparinibbana Sutta, which details the facts about the
Buddha’s passing away. It greatly stirred me. My father arranged these
readings for the Christmas vacation. You may call it sentimental or what
you like. The passing away of the Accomplished One moved me so much I
felt like standing beside weeping Ananda, and I burst into bitter tears.
It took all my strength to pull myself together to continue the reading.
Even later, as a grown-up woman, the same thing happened to me whenever
I read The Mahaparinibbana Sutta.”
“Paul
Deussen, who almost every year was our guest for several weeks, often
told me about Schopenhauer. From my father I learnt that Deussen was a
man of great learning and renown. I was mighty proud when he took me
upon his knees and chatted with me. He used to call me ‘my little girl
philosopher’. He said one did not know what would become of her. Today I
cannot but smile when I reflect on the eagerness with which I tried to
follow the talks between him and my father. Even though I did not
understand much of the talk, yet I was able to grasp a few points. It
may be that part of my strong religious philosophical nature was perhaps
due to acquisitions of past births. It may also be due to the training
my father gave me. Almost imperceptibly philosophy became for me the
queen of all arts. The words of Schopenhauer that a true philosopher
knows no other striving for truth, that he accepts nothing as being
known but that everything in like degree is strange to him…… led me to
see quite a few things with different eyes. Thus it has become a matter
of course in my thinking that all is Great, Good and Noble would always
have to be looked for in a spiritual level.”
A
life devoted to Buddhism
To
this spiritual outlook of which the seed was laid in her girlhood, Frau
Keller-Grimm has remained true. She has dedicated her life to Buddhism.
She had the consent of her father to renounce the comforts of a life
which she might have led as the wife of a highly successful man. She
meditates several hours a day both in the morning and at night. The rest
of her time she devotes to the service of Buddhism. She is a remarkably
strong and active woman for her age. She enjoys perfect health, which
she attributes to control of the mind through meditation.
Frau
Keller-Grimm is co-head of the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde, Utting, a lay
Order of men and woman dedicated to Buddhism. Besides her contributions
to the Yana, the bimonthly published by the Gemeinde, and her
introductions to some of her father’s works she is the author of a
Buddhism catechism.
MAX HOPPE
Max
Hoppe, also known as Anagarika Dharmapala, is the joint head of the
Altbuddhistische Gemeinde. He is a celibate. Since the end of World War
II, Hope has devoted all his time to meditation and to the dissemination
of the Dhamma in Germany.
Born
in 24 April 1907, Max Hoppe had a liberal education. His father was a
postmaster. His parents desired him to read theology, which he did not
like. He took to business, but was unhappy in it, for he was inclined
towards philosophy. Schopenhauer’s works made him turn to Indian
thought, the perfection of which he saw in the Buddha. In 1936 he came
across George Grimm’s works on Buddhism which he read with keen interest
and earnestness. He then joined the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde and began
the study of Pali and Sanskrit, becoming a pupil of George Grimm.
With
the outbreak of war in 1939, his services were requisitioned as a
wireless operator. He abhorred any kind of war service, but under
Hitler’s regime he had no choice. His work as a wireless operator,
however, did not require the use of weapons and that he considers a good
fortune – the fruit of a wholesome karma. Despite his war service, he
continued his Buddhist studies, snatching every possible minute for the
purpose.
War
convinced him of teaching’s truth
At
the height of war, amid great hardships and hazards, he visited George
Grimm. On one such occasion, Grimm read out and explained to him the
Mahanama Sutta in which the Buddha points out that whoever has
unshakable faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha may not fear death in
the tumult of everyday life. The war convinced Max Hoppe of the truth of
the Buddha’s teaching.
Shortly after the end of the war he settled down in the Altbuddhistische
Gemeinde. Not long afterwards, the Elders there approached him with that
request that he takes charge of the management of the institution
together with another Elder. Since then he has been engaged in this
work.
The
15th German edition of George Grimm’s great work the Doctrine of the
Buddha: The Religion of Reason and Meditation and its second English
edition have been published with an illuminating introduction by Max
Hoppe and Mrs. Maya Keller-Grimm, the daughter of George Grimm. Together
they have brought out seven other works of George Grimm in new editions,
two of which are in a fourth enlarged edition. Max Hoppe himself is the
author of a work entitled The Buddha, His Teaching and His Way.
Max
Hoppe is joint editor with Mrs. Keller-Grimm of yana, the bi-monthly of
the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde. It enjoys a wide circulation in the
German-speaking world.
At
the first meeting of the German branch of the Congress of Faiths in
1957, Max Hoppe gave a forceful address on The Relation of Buddhism to
Other Religions which evoked high appreciation.
MRS. EMILY KNOTHE
A
67-year-old German woman who graduated in America later served as a
secretary in such big firms as Gillette, Mitsui of Japan and Standard
Oil Company of New Jersey is today a dedicated Buddhist worker in
Germany. She is Mrs. Emily Knothe, also known as Sister Mallika of the
Altbuddhistische. She is an Elder of the Community’s Order of laymen and
laywomen who have vowed to realize in the present life itself the fruit
of the first stage – Sotapanna – of the path to full Enlightenment.
She
has related at the author’s request the full story of her life with the
utmost candour. The story has its poignancy and reveals the grim
determination and courage with which she faced the trials and
tribulations in her life.
The
daughter of the chief steward of a passenger liner, Emily Knothe was
born in Hamburg on 27 October, 1904. She had her primary education in
her home town. At the outbreak of World War I her father’s ship happened
to be in New York harbour and could not return to Hamburg. She was a
little girl then. Her adventurous mother decided to follow her husband
to New York. A Dutch steamer took them there through the heavily-mined
English Channel. The family reunion, however, was not to last long, for
when America entered the war on the side of the Allies, her father was
interned, and mother and daughter were left alone in a foreign land.
Soon, however, some Americans of German descent helped them to tide over
their difficulties.
A
cure for dread of life and fear of death
“As a
little girl I was wondering about life,” she writes. “Americans were
quite well off and lived in comfort. We were poor, living on the charity
of friends. That seemed queer to me. I dreaded life, and always feared
to lose my mother. The fear of death haunted me like a spectre. But
today fear has vanished from me. The Buddha’s doctrine of impermanence
and meditation has opened my eyes to the realities of life and its
vicissitude. After all, birth and death are two phases of one process.
So why fear death?”
Released after the war, her father started a printing business in
America which he carried on quite successfully for many years. She
studied and graduated, and obtained employment in various big companies
in the capacity of secretary. They returned to Germany on the insistence
of her mother who died three years later, and then life seemed worthless
to her. At about the same time another misfortune befell them: they lost
all their money in the currency inflation. But “as I had gained
considerable experience in America as a secretary and stenographer both
in German and English, I was able to secure a well-paid job. With my
earnings I supported my broken-down father,” she writes.
Emily
Knothe disclosed the fact that her engagement with the man who became
her husband lasted thirteen years. He did not want to marry her during
that long period because he was among the unemployed. Four years after
their marriage, her husband was killed in Russia in the early days of
the German invasion. With his insurance money and her own savings she
purchased a house in the country near Luneberg to be away from “the
terrible bombing” at the time. She has a son.
The Gemeinde – her last station in life
She
first came into contact with the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde through the
German Vegetarian Union in which she was an honorary worker. One of
George Grimm’s books, Happiness – the Message of the Buddha, and the
expositions in Yana, impressed her and convinced her of the truth of
Suffering. She established contact with Grimm’s daughter, Mrs.
Keller-Grimm, and at the latter’s invitation went to Utting am Ammersee
where she spent four months studying the Dhamma from Grimm’s books.
In
writing about her impressions of her first visit to Utting am Ammersee
in 1949 she states: “When I first came here I was overwhelmed with
tears. I knew during the first few days of my stay at the
Albuddhistische Gemeinde that this would be my life station in life. I
was yet a 100 per cent worldling and was likely to lose my way again and
to get on the wrong track. But all the time I kept in touch with Sister
Maya Keller-Grimm and Max Hoppe and with their help I was able to get on
my feet and start to follow the Buddha’s path.”
“My
inner and outer difficulties,” she continues, “were great, but the paw
of the lion had hit me and I managed to overcome them all to such an
extent as to be able to study the Pali canon and all the works of George
Grimm which is my greatest joy every day. It would never have been
possible for me to go along the Buddha’s path had it not been for the
good counsel of Sister Maya and Max Hoppe, who untiringly led me along
the right way.”
“During our regular weekly gatherings on Saturday afternoons and Sunday
mornings all these many years Sister Maya and Max Hoppe expounded to me
the Buddha’s teachings in an extremely lucid manner. The hints and
directions they gave me for meditation, coupled with the wonderful
example they set, inspired me in no small measure. With their unstinted
help and guidance, I gradually opened my eyes to realities of life. The
change that has come over me is truly remarkable. From a
never-satisfied, death-fearing, vacillating person, I have become a
satisfied, fearless, steady, quiet and happy devotee of the Buddha.”
Resigned from church over 30 years ago
Emily
Knothe lives with two other members of the Order in a cottage she built
on the premises of the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde. A wealthy member of
the institution purchased the first house she built there, and gifted it
to the Gemeinde for use as a guest-house.
A
great lover of animals, she cares for them most affectionately. Many are
the animals she has saved from the slaughterhouse. They roam about
happily in her garden, says Mrs. Keller-Grimm.
Emily
Knothe hails from a family of Protestant Christians. Her grandmother,
who was a pious Church-goer, related Biblical stories to Emily when she
was a little girl. She officially resigned from her church more than
thirty years ago, and became a seeker after truth.
She
has studied Pali, meditates several hours a day, and belongs to the most
faithful group of workers of the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde. She does
English and German translations for the institution, besides attending
to many other duties.
SIGURD
SCHOENWERTH
Dr.
Sigurd Schoenwerth was a surgeon in the German army throughout World War
II. In the course of his work he saw great human suffering and despair
which made him ponder over it often. Despite the hardness of heart he
had acquired in his training as a surgeon, the gruesome sights he beheld
shocked him immensely. He had never thought that human beings could bear
up so much pain and misery. Towards the end of the war, a fellow worker
at the military hospital lent him a remarkable book entitled Die
Wissenschaft des Buddhismus (Science of Buddhism) by George Grimm. He
thus became acquainted for the first time with the Buddha’s teachings
and the impression that it made him was so strong that it became the
turning point of his life.
Immediately after the war, he became a member of the Albuddhistische
Gemeinde, Utting. The founder of the institution, George Grimm, had then
died. Today the Altbuddhistische Geimeinde House George Grimm is the
home of Dr. and Mrs. Schoenwerth. He looks after the health of the
inmates of the House, assisted by his wife, besides living the Buddhist
way of life.
Leaders and teachers of the Community
A
short time after he had joined the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde, he had to
leave for the Argentine, where he spent fifteen years on the preventive
side of medicine on the invitation of his relatives there. During that
long stay there, it was only their knowledge of the teachings of the
Buddha that helped him and his wife to live cheerfully. On his return to
Germany, he went straightaway to the Albuddhistische Gemeinde. “It is my
great good fortune that my wife, out of her own conviction, is also
treading the Noble Eightfold Path,” he says. “The daughter of George
Grimm, Mrs. Maya Keller-Grimm, and Max Hoppe, his great disciple, are
the leaders and teachers of the Community. They belong to the small
group of persons who have not only grasped the teachings of the Buddha
to the very core, but are also living in accordance with the Dhamma. The
clear, decidedly spiritual radiation of these two persons deeply
impresses every religiously inclined person and seeker after truth.
There are many clever Buddhists, but only a few of them are as wise as
these two persons.”
The
son of a well-known surgeon, Sigurd Schoenwerth was born in Munich on 9
October, 1908. His wife, Hannah, (nee Gottschau), was born on 3 August,
1910, in Bonn. They were married in 1936. There are four children of the
marriage, two boys and two girls, aged between 25 and 32 years. All of
them are Buddhists, two of them being particularly devoted to the
religion.
Schoenwerth passed his medical examination in 1932 and 1935 in Munich.
He specialized in surgery and diseases of the liver. During the entire
period of the Second World War, he was an army surgeon, serving in
France and Russia. While in Argentine after the war he was also
consultant to pharmaceutical factories there. On his return to Germany,
he secured an appointment as medical officer to one of Siemens’
factories. He proposes to retire shortly from this post.
He is
a keen student of Pali and writes regularly on various Buddhist themes
for Yana, the bi-monthly magazine conducted by the Altbuddhistische
Gemeinde. Upon his retirement, he proposes to devote all his time to the
practice and dissemination of the Dhamma.
NYANATILOKA MAHA THERA
Of
all the Western Bhikkus, the best known and most successful was the ven.
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera, who spent in Ceylon 54 years of his life of 80.
By his scrupulous observance of the rules of the Code of Discipline and
his serene deportment he so endeared himself to the Buddhists of Ceylon
that upon his death the government accorded him a state funeral, a very
rare honour indeed. Half a million men, women and children attended it.
His
lay name, which very few know, was Anton Walter Flurs Gueth. Born in
Wiesbaden, Germany on 19 February, 1878, he was the son of Professor A.
Gueth. After his college education, he studied music and musical
composition at conservatoires in Frankfurt and Paris. He encountered
Buddhism in Frankfurt, and was drawn to the East. He accepted an
engagement as a violinist, which brought him via Turkey and Egypt to
India. From there he crossed over to Ceylon, and, after a short stay,
went to Burma, where he was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1903.
Back
in Ceylon in 1905, Nyanatiloka, the first German to enter the Order at a
time when Germany was much admired in the East, was received with the
highest respect by the Buddhists. In 1911 he selected for his hermitage
a small island in Dodanduwa Lake on the south-west coast of Ceylon. The
island was then uninhabited because it was infested by poisonous snakes.
There he lived all alone, practising meditation day and night. He was
quite unaffected by the presence of snakes all around him, and no snake
ever harmed him. The Buddhists of the townlet of Dodanduwa conveyed alms
to him by boat every morning and offered it with the utmost reverence.
They built him a tiny cottage to protect him from sun and rain.
Thousands flock to Hermitage each month
A few
other Westerners joined the Order under him later, and the hermitage
rapidly gained a high reputation as the abode of pious European monks.
Buddhists from all parts of Ceylon began to flock there by the thousands
on full moon days. Men and women vied with each other to offer alms to
the monks. There was such a scamble that it became necessary to assign
days and times to those seeking to offer alms. This system obtains there
to the present day.
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera’s first book, The Word of the Buddha, made him
famous. First published in 1906, it has since appeared in nine
languages, comprising three German and twelve English editions, some of
these numbering 10,000 copies. The Guide Through The Abihdharma Pitaka,
The Path of Deliverance, Fundamentals of Buddhist, And Buddhist
Dictionary are the best known of his English works. To the Germans,
Nyanatiloka is well known for the above books in German and for his
translations of the Visuddhimagga, Anguttara-nikaya, Milindapanho,
Puggalapannatti and other works. Among his early writings for the
Germans are a Pali grammar, Pali Anthology, and a Pali dictionary.
Since
1905, Nyanatiloka had been a regular contributor to the periodicals, der
Buddhist, Die Buddhistische Welt and Die Buddhistische Warte founded and
edited by Dr. Karl Seidenstucker, Nyanatiloka was a great inspiration to
early students of Buddhism in Germany. His expositions were forceful and
lucid.
Founder of several seats of learning
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera ordained two generations of Bhikkus and founded
several seats of learning and meditation. Among his bhikku-pupils were
Germans, Britons, Frenchmen, Americans, Dutchmen, Italians, and Jews.
One of his earliest pupils was Vappa Maha Thera (Ludwig Stolz) who was
born in 1875, ordained in 1910, and died in 1960. He lived mainly a
comtemplative life. He was the author of Four Buddhist Essays and an
essay on “Earnestness”. He remained longest in the Order. Another was
Sumana Samanera (a novice) who published an essay under the title of
Going Forth. He died young.
At
the invitation of the Government of Burma, Nyanatiloka Maha Thera went
to Burma in 1951 in connexion with the preparation for the Sixth
Buddhist Council held in Rangoon, the opening session of which he
attended.
Nyanatiloka and his German pupils were interned in Ceylon and later in
India, during the two World Wars. With the end of the wars, they
returned to Ceylon. In 1950, the government of Ceylon made Nyanatiloka a
distinguished citizen.
He
died on 28 May, 1957, and his remains were cremated in Independence
Square with full honours. His last wish was to be reborn in Ceylon and
to be a monk.
NYANAPONIKA MAHA THERA
A
pupil of Nyanatiloka Maha Thera, the ven. Nyanaponika Maha Thera is the
head of the Forest Hermitage, Kandy, Ceylon, and an outstanding Pali and
Sanskrit scholar. He is the author of several original works both in
English and German, and translator of Buddhist texts. Like his teacher,
Nyanatiloka, he is also a distinguished citizen of Ceylon.
Born
of Jewish parents in Hanau am Main, Germany, on 29 July, 1901,
Nyanaponika’s lay name was Siegmund Feniger. He made his first
acquaintance with Buddhism in his late teens by reading Buddhist books
while living in Upper Silesia. Finally he became a Buddhist by
conviction. But it was only in 1922, when he and his perents moved to
Berlin, that he came in contact with other German Buddhists for the
first time. Later, when living in Koenigsberg in East Prussia he formed
a Buddhist Study Circle and established a free landing library.
Nyanatiloka accepted him as a candidate for ordination, and he came to
Ceylon in February, 1936. He received ordination as a monk at the Island
Hermitage, Dodanduwa, in 1936, and the higher ordination the next year.
In 1951 he accompanied Nyanatiloka Maha Thera to Burma for the Sixth
Buddhist Council on Vesak day in 1956. As Nyanatiloka was sick,
Nyanaponika alone attended the concluding session of the Council in
1956, marking the 2500-year Buddha Jayanti. He was a delegate at the
conferences of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Rangoon, Bangkok and
Phnom Pehn, and was elected one of the Vice- Presidents of the
organization for a term. He has been in charge of the Forest Hermitage,
Kandy, since 1952.
In
1958, he founded, with the co-operation of two Sinhala lay Buddhists,
the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy. He is the editor of the
Society’s publications and its President. So far, a million copies of
books and booklets covering all aspects of Buddhism, including carefully
selected and edited translations of Pali texts, have been distributed in
70 countries. Nyanaponika himself is the author of many of these
publications. The work of the society continues to expand.
His
publications in English include The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, and
Abhidhamma Studies, and in German Sattipatthana, Sutta-nipata, and
Dhammasangani and translations of some Nikayas.
NYANASATTA MAHA THERA
“I
received Buddhism as a Christmas present 21 years ago,” wrote the ven.
Nyanasatta Maha Thera in 1957. “A few days before Christmas in 1935, I
received from Germany a little packet of printed matter and a letter
informing me to open that parcel only on December 25, for it ought to be
viewed in the festive atmosphere of peace. I did accordingly and found
essays on Pali Buddhism, printed lectures, cyclostyled summaries of
talks on Buddhism, pages torn out of books, and passages copied from
books on Buddhism. The sender of this first introduction to Pali
Buddhism that changed my whole outlook on life was my wife at that time,
who went to Potsdam to see her aunt and to stay for some time in Germany
perhaps never to return to Czechoslovakia.
“The
first sight that attracted her attention after her return home from
three and a half years of married life in Czechoslovakia were posters
announcing a series of lectures on Buddhism in Berlin. She went to hear
the first talk, and as soon as she saw the German Buddhist lecturer and
heard his first words, there passed through her mind the thought that
her husband would one day become a Bhikku and lecture to audiences all
over the world instead of her belonging to her.
“She
listened to all the lectures, asked the lecturer for printed texts of
his present and past lectures, visited the Buddhists House of Dr. Paul
Dahlke at Berlin Frohnau, bought a number of books and reviews, borrowed
books and read them. Three months later she sent me as a present
writings by Buddhists on the Dhamma. Two years later, when I decided to
become a Bhikku in Ceylon, she became a Buddhist nun in Berlin, where a
centre of study had several persons devoted to the life of studying,
living and teaching Buddhism in Germany.
Exponent of Dhamma in three languages
“After my arrival at the Island Hermitage, Dodanduwa, Ceylon, in March
1938, I found there Bhikkus of many lands of the West, and I found that
this stream of fresh students of the Dhamma in the East had started
already at the close of the 19th century, for already in 1905 a British
Bhikku called Asoka died at Akyab in Burma after several years of living
the life of a Bhikku in Ceylon and in Bumra.”
The
ven. Nyanasatta Maha Thera is the head of a Verdant Hermitage,
Bandarawela, Ceylon. He is a Pali scholar, a prolific writer, an author
of several original works, a translator of Pali texts, and a brilliant
exponent of the Dhamma in German, English, and Sinhala.
His
lay name was M. Novosad. He was born on 25 January, 1908, in
SouthMoravia of the ancient Greater Austria, a part of which became
after 1918 a part of Czechoslovakia. He was a language master in a
secondary school and had special qualifications in Esperanto. He began
the study of Pali and Buddhism in 1935. He left Prague and arrived in
the Island Hermitage, Dodanduwa, Ceylon, on 15 March, 1938, where
Nyanatiloka Maha Thera ordained him two months later.
Since
December, 1940, he has been incumbent of the Verdant Hermitage,
Bandarawela. He divides his time between study, meditation, writing,
teaching, giving radio talks and sermons in Sinhala and English. He is
the first Western Bhikku to speak fluently in literary Sinhala. His best
known work is The Basic Tenats of Buddhism.
FRITZ HUNGERLEIDER
An
avowed Buddhist for the past 28 years, Fritz Hungerleider is the
President of the Buddhist Society (Buddhistische Gesellschaft) of
Vienna.
The
Society is comparatively a young one. It was founded in 1949. The
founder-president of the Society, Dr. Oprachal, died in 1955.
Hungerleider succeeded him and continues in office. The membership of
the society is only 120. “But one has to consider that we are living in
a strict Roman Catholic country,” he says. There are, however, many,
many sympathisers for each one of these who dare to declare openly to be
Buddhists.
The
Society does not belong to any particular Buddhist sect. among the
members are Theravadins, Mahayanists, believers in Vajrayana and Zen.
They all join in observing the uposatha and in offering puja. The
Society meets every Thursday. Lectures are given regularly on pali and
Chinese Tipikata and Tibetan Kanjur and Tanjur as well as on the history
of Buddhism, philosophy, psychology, and Buddhist art. Meditation, in
particular and Burmese Satipatthana method, is practised by members.
Apart
from his work for the Society, Hungerleider regularly conducts seminars
on Buddhism at the Haus der Stille (House of Stillness) at Roseberg near
Hamburg. He also conducts courses on Buddhism at the Folks High School
for adult education in Vienna.
Hungerleider was born in 1920 in Vienna. In 1960 he sold his business in
order to devote his entire life to the practice and propagation of
Buddhism. He visited Ceylon in 1938 and proceeded to China, where he
spent nine years. He again visited Ceylon in 1958 and studied the
Satipatthana method of meditation. He has travelled widely in Buddhist
countries such as Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietname, and Kapan. He
spent two years in the Universities of Ryokoku and Otani and practised
Zen meditation. In 1966 he gave a series of lectures on Buddhism in
Buenos Aires. Later, he lectured before the University of Ibadan,
Nigeria. On his return to Vienna, he began a tour, giving some 240
lectures on Buddhism. He published in Hamburg a work under the title
Three Modern Sermons. He has also lectured on Buddhism in the United
States, Northern Italy, Peru, and Chile.
MAX WALLESER
Max
Walleser, the founder of the Institut Fur Buddhismus Kunde (the
Institution for the Knowledge of Buddhism), where he trained a large
number of Indian and Japanese students, besides Germans, was one of the
outstanding scholars of Pali Buddhism. He edited for the Pali Text
Society, London, in 1924, the first volume of Manorathapurani, the
commentary on the Angut-Philosophie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklund
(The Buddhist Philosophy in its Historic Development) which includes
translations from Tibetan and Chinese, and Die Sekten des alten
Buddhismus (The Sects of Ancient Buddhism). He translated from Sanskrit
the Vajracchedika and parts of the Astashasrika Prajnaparamit (1913)
under the title Die Vookommenheit der Erkenntnis (The Perfectness of
Comprejemsopm). He founded in 1928 his famous Walleser Institute of
Buddhism in Heidelberg and brought out some 21 books on Buddhism.
Born
in Heidelberg in 1874, Walleser was educated at the Universities of
Heidelberg and Freiburg. He obtained his doctorate with a thesis on the
Problem of the I. he died in 1954.
SISTER
UPPALAVANNA
Forty
years ago a German woman, attracted by Buddhism, visited Ceylon, where
she now lives as a Buddhist Sister, setting an example to the women of
the country of her adoption. She is known as Sister Uppalavanna (Uppalavanna
was the name of one of the two chief women disciples of the Buddha). She
is today 80 years of age, but still vital and, vigorous and brimming
with zest and enthusiasm. For the past 20 years she has been living in a
two-roomed hermitage near Gampola, in the hill-country of Ceylon.
Before she came to Ceylon as a disciple of the late ven. Nyanatiloka
Maha Thera, the first German Buddhist monk, she was Fraulein Else
Buchholz and lived in a fashionable quarter of Berlin. She was a
musician, and came from a prosperous middle-class family. She hardly
talks about her home in Germany, nor does she care to talk much about
her life after she came to Ceylon. Few people know her; but she may be
seen going long distances on foot to receive alms on invitation. She
lives alone because she loves solitude; but she is not really alone for
there are some dozen dogs in her compound, dogs which as puppies were
left on her door-step by villagers who wanted to get rid of them.
Whatever alms she receives she gives to the dogs, keeping a morsel for
herself.
She
cheerfully endures the hardships of her chosen life. Occasionally, when
invited to an alms-giving in Nuwara Eliya, which is over 6000 feet above
sea-level, she trudges there across hills and dales. On her way back
home at night during one of these trips she met a leopard on the road,
but had no fear, for she believes that the harmlessness of mind she has
acquired as a result of long and intensive meditation is a sure
protection against such dangers.
FRIEDRICH SPIEGEL
Friedrich Spiegel was among the first editors and translators of Pali
texts. His Anecdota Palica was printed in 1845. it contains in
“Devanagari” script the Pali text of the Uraga Sutta with extracts from
the commentary, as well as an extract from the Rasavahini, a collection
of stories written in Ceylon.
ALBRECHT WEBER
Albrecht Weber made the first translation of the Pali Dhammapada in a
living Western language – German. It was published under the title
Zeitschrift der Morgenlandischen Gesellschft in Leipzig in 1860. He
published numerous papers, books, and translation in the field of
indology.
KURT SCIMIDT
Kurt
Scimidt was born in Berlin in 1879. He obtained his LL.D. in 1901 from
the University of Rostock. He first went into journalism and became an
editor. Thereafter he engaged himself in Buddhist studies. He was a
Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese scholar. Apart from numerous essays, he
published several books on Buddhism. Among these were introductions to
the doctrine, biographies of Buddhist saints, two anthologies from the
Pali scriptures, a popular Pali grammer, and a condensed translation of
the Majjhima Nikaya.
MARTIN
STEINKE
Martin Steinke was born in 1882. He founded in 1922 the Gemeinde um
Buddha (Fellowship around the Buddha) which published a periodical up to
1932. He was engaged in lecturing and conducting courses in Buddhism,
and in 1933 received Mahayana ordination in China under the name of Tao
Chuen. Among his works is Das Lebensgesetz (The Law of Life) published
in 1962.
KURT FISCHER
Friend and secretary of Dr. Paul Dahlke, Kurt Fischer was born in 1892
and died in 1942. After the death of Dahlke he continued lecturing,
teaching and conducting the Uposatha celebrations. He edited a Buddhist
quarterly, Buddhistisches Leben and Denken (Buddhist Life and Though)
(1930-1942).
MAX LADNER
Max
Ladner was born in 1890 and died in 1963. He was the editor of Die
Einsicht which became the leading Theravada monthly for all
German-speaking countries. He wrote two important books: Wirklichkeit
und Erloesung, ‘Existence and Deliverance’ and Gotama Buddha. He was a
writer of great literary charm combined with profound philosophical
acumen.
LIONEL STUETZER
Lionel Stuestzer was born in 1901, and joined the Fellowship around
Buddha in 1922. at the end of World War II during which all Buddhist
societies were prohibited from functioning by the Nazi regime, he
founded in 1946 the Buddhistische Geimeinde (Buddhist Community) in
Berlin which continues to date. In 1952 he was initiated into the
Western branch of the Order Ariya-Maitreya-Mandala. He lectures
extensively to both groups.
ANTON
KROPATSCH
Dr.
Anton Kropatsch was born in 1897. He was famous dermatologist. He was
retired chief physician of the Leprosy Hospital, Vienna. Apart from
medical works, he wrote numerous Buddhist essays in Indische Welt, The
Maha Bodhi, and other publications. He published books in German: Die
Letzte Freiheit des Menschen (Man’s Last Freedom; on Anatta), 1957.
Wiedergeburt und Erloesung in der Lehre des Buddha. (Rebirth and
Deliverance in the Buddha’s Doctrine) 1903.
PAUL DEBES
Paul
Debes was born in 1906. He was widely known lecturer and writer in the
northern parts of West Germany. He wrote Das Dasein und seine Meisterung
nach der Lehre des Buddha (1963) (The Analysis of Human Existence
according ot the Dosctrine of the Buddha). Paul Debes has been
conducting Siminars for beginners and advanced students of the Buddha-Dhamma.
He is the founder of Buddhistische Seminar fur Seinskunde, situated near
Hamburg, which issues a monthly magazine, Wissen und Wandel (Knowledge
and Conduct).
HELMUTH HECKER
Dr.
Helmuth Hecker was born in 1923. He is an international jurist and
Buddhist scholar. He wrote numerous scholarly articles for the magazine
Die Einsicht, and published Die Ethik des Buddha (Buddhist Ethics).
HERMANN KOPP
Dr.
Hermann Kopp is yet another noteworthy modern Buddhist scholar. He
studied Protestant theology, Sanskrit and Pali at the University of
Heidelberg (Sanskrit under Heinrich Zimmer and Pali under Max Walleser),
and continued his Sanskrit and Pali studies at the University of Leipzig
from 1922 to 1927. He was Research Fellow at Max Walleser’s Institute of
Buddhism from 1930 to 1934. His post-graduate studies were done under
Heinrich Zimmer, Hermann Guentert, Karl Jaspers, and he received his
doctorate in 1935.
From
1936 to 1939 and after World War II till 1953 he was on the editing
staff of the Pali Text Society, London, in addition to his duties as
textual critic, lexicographer, and translator. He was Director of the
Institute of Buddhism from 1954 to 1958, giving courses in Sanskrit and
Pali. From 1959 to 1964 he was full-time redactor of the Academy of
Sciences and Literature, Mainz, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences and
Letters, Copenhagen. Since 1964 he had been Associate Research Scholar,
South East Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg.
Dr.
Kopp has assisted in the compilation of the Critical Pali Dictionary,
Denmark, and has made translations from English and French into German.
He has a large number of books to his credit.
LAMA GOVINDA
German-born Lama Govinda is a well-known Buddhist worker of both the
East and the West. He has travelled widely in the East, particularly in
Tibet where he stidied Tibetan Buddhism while residing in a Tibetan
Buddhist monastery. Lama Govinda has assisted various Buddhist
organizations in Europe. He is a noted Buddhist scholar and is the
author of an outstanding work, Foundation of Tibetan Mysticism.
