Richard Pischel

Richard Pischel (January 18, 1849 - December 26, 1908) was a German Indologist who was a native of Breslau.

In 1870 he received his doctorate from the University of Breslau under the guidance of Adolf Friedrich Stenzler (1807-1887). His graduate thesis was De Kalidasae Cakuntali recensionibus (On the Recensions of Kālidāsa's Shakuntala). In 1875 he received an appointment to the University of Kiel, where he was a professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics.

From 1885 to 1902 Pischel was professor of Indology and comparative linguistics at the University of Halle. At Halle he collaborated with Karl Friedrich Geldner (1852-1929) on important Vedic studies (Vedische Studien; three volumes). In 1900 he was appointed rector of the University, and from 1886 to 1902 he was director and librarian of the Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society).

In 1902 he was appointed professor of Indology at the University of Berlin. He died on December 26, 1908 in Madras shortly after setting foot in India, where he was scheduled to give a series of lectures. One of Pischel's better known works was the masterful Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen (Grammar of the Prakrit languages) (1900). Two years prior to his death, he published a book on the teachings of Buddha titled Leben und Lehre des Buddha.

Well-known students of Pischel were Friedrich Schrader (not to be mixed up with Friedrich Otto Schrader (1876-1961), who became known as a writer, newspaper editor and art historian in Constantinople, and Baron Alexander von Stael-Holstein, who became a famous scholar of Central Asian languages and Sinology.

References

• Jainology Web Site (biography)