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“Expansion of Oriental Studies in the Early 19th Century” KLAUS KARTTUNEN

Published in Melammu Symposia 4: A. Panaino and A. Piras (eds.), Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Ravenna, Italy, October 13-17, 2001 (Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIao 2004), pp. 161-7. Publisher: http://www.mimesisedizioni.it/

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KARTTUNEN E XPANSION OF ORIENTAL STUDIES IN THE EARLY 19 TH CENTURY

KLAUS KARTTUNEN Helsinki

Expansion of Oriental Studies in the Early 19th Century *

hile the first roots of Oriental pherment of Old Persian cuneiform writ- studies in the West go back to ing go back to the 1790s, but in the first Wthe 18th century and even ear- decades of the 19th century it was still lier, it is clear that the first half of the possible to put forth the serious claim 19th century is a sort of “Achsenzeit,” that the cuneiform writing in fact con- with important breakthroughs and fun- sists of stylised Cuphic script and ex- damental methodological developments plain a Behistun relief as a representation in almost every field of the wide area of of a cross and twelve apostles. 4 By the studies dealing with the languages and middle of the 19th century, after the civilisations of Asia and North Africa. work of Grotefend, Rawlinson and oth- On a general level, this is seen in the ers, 5 Old Persian was more or less com- growing specialisation: In the 18th cen- pletely understood and the Akkadian and tury and even at the beginning of the the Elamite tablets were already begin- 19th, it was still common that individual ning to reveal their secrets. At the same scholars tried to encompass the whole time, the fieldwork of Botta and Layard vast area in their studies, 1 while by 1850 had initiated Mesopotamian archaeology. 6 everyone hoping to be taken seriously as The centuries of fantastic and entirely a scholar was only representing one or, at erroneous speculation about the character most, two fields. 2 of hieroglyphic writing 7 came to an The beginnings of Grotefend’s 3 deci- abrupt end in 1822 when Champollion

* An asterisk before a book title denotes that I have Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vor- not seen it myself. Margot Stout Whiting has kindly nehmsten Völker der alten Welt. 1805. corrected my English. 4 A. A. H. Lichtenstein (1753-1816): * Tentamen pa- 1 For instance, the names of Joseph de Guignes laeographiae Assyro-Persicae. 1803; Paul-Ange-Louis (1721-1800), Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763-1824), de Gardane (1765-1822): * Journal d’un voyage... and Julius von Klaproth (1783-1835) come easily to Paris 1809. mind. 5 Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895). In addi- 2 There still were (and even now are) combinations tion, names such as Rasmus Rask (1787-1832), of such related fields as Egyptology and Assyrio- Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852), Christian Lassen logy, Hebrew and Arabic, Indology and Iranian (1800-1876), Edward Hincks (1792-1866), Félicien studies. (Caignart) de Saulcy (1807-1880), and Jules Oppert 3 Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853). His deci- (1825-1905) deserve to be mentioned here. pherment was first presented to the Göttingische 6 The French Paul-Émile Botta (1802-1870) and the Gelehrte Gesellschaft by the classical scholar and British Henry Austin Layard (1817-1894) both started historian Thomas Christian Tychsen (1758-1834) and excavations in Mesopotamia in the 1840s. published as a summary in Göttingische Gelehrte 7 The most famous figure in the history of this Anzeigen in 1802. The second, more complete ver- speculation is, of course, Father Athanasius Kircher sion, was appended to the second edition of A. H. L. (1601-1680). Heeren’s (1760-1842) famous history, Ideen über die A. Panaino & A. Piras (eds.) MELAMMU SYMPOSIA IV (Milano 2004) ISBN 88-88483-206-3 161 KARTTUNEN E XPANSION OF ORIENTAL STUDIES IN THE EARLY 19 TH CENTURY

published his famous Lettre à M. Dacier 8 author. For the sake of brevity, I will just presenting his decipherment of the hiero- refer in passing to the new developments glyphs of the Rosetta Stone. 9 The stone in textual criticism and source analysis, itself was among the finds of Napoleon’s to the ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums,’ to expedition and the publication of the the beginnings of topographical and ar- scholarly results of this expedition, De- chaeological fieldwork in Palestine, 16 as scription de l’Egypte ,10 made ancient well as to the development of compara- Egypt really popular. Before the middle tive Semitic linguistics and of Semitic of the century, Demotic writing had been epigraphy. 17 deciphered by Brugsch 11 and the first The Arabic studies in the West – with archaeological expeditions 12 had laid the some beginnings in the Middle Ages – foundation for Egyptological field re- had started in the 16th century, but after search. the solid foundation laid in the 17th While the roots of Hebrew (and Ara- century, 18 little progress was made and a maic) studies go back to the 16th century critical scholar such as Reiske 19 remained and even earlier 13 – and some valuable a solitary figure. In the beginning of the work was indeed done during the fol- 19th century, Silvestre de Sacy 20 and his lowing centuries 14 – the defective under- numerous pupils initiated a new era char- standing of the true nature of the Semitic acterised by rapid evolution in grammati- languages together with the Biblical idea cal and lexicographical 21 as well as in of Hebrew as the parent of all languages textual and historical studies. 22 had much hampered serious study. The In Iranian studies, too, beside the Old famous Hebräische Grammatik of Ge- Persian cuneiform mentioned above, senius 15 appeared in 1813, three years there were important new developments. after the popular dictionary by the same The Avesta was already known at the end

8 Jean François Champollion le jeune (1790-1832): ginning in 1838. Lettre à M. Dacier, relative à l’alphabet des hiéro- 17 This development did in fact begin in the 18th glyphes phonétiques, employés par les Egyptiens century. Abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (1716-1795) pour inscrire sur leur monuments les noms des presented the decipherment of the Palmyran inscrip- souverains grecs et romains. Paris 1822. tions in 1754 (publ. Mémoires de littérature of the 9 Some preliminary observations were earlier pub- Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 26, 1759; lished by Johan Georg Zoëga (1755-1809), Johan independently also by John Swinton [1703-1777] in David Åkerblad (1763-1819), and Thomas Young *Philosophical Transactions 1754 & 1766) and of (1773-1829). the Phoenicean in 1758 (publ. Ibid. 30, 1764). 10 Description de l’Égypte: ou recueil des observa- 18 Especially the grammar of Thomas Erpenius tions et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte (1584-1624)) in 1613 and the Arabic-Latin dictionary pendant l’Expédition de l’Armée française. Eight of Jacobus Golius (1596-1667) in 1653. volumes of text and 12 of plates, Paris 1809-22. Gen- 19 Johann Jakob Reiske (1716-1774) was a brilliant eral editor was François Jomard (1777-1862). specialist in Greek and Arabic historical literature 11 Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827-1894). His earlier whom his contemporaries were unable to appreciate. work on the subject was completed in his * Grammaire 20 Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838). Note démotique. 1855. that Silvestre is part of the surname. 12 Champollion 1828-29, Lepsius 1842-45, Mariette 21 Silvestre de Sacy: Grammaire arabe. Paris 1810, 1850-54. Georg Wilhelm Freytag (1788-1861): Lexicon Arabico- 13 The most famous names being, perhaps, Johann Latinum. Halle 1830-37. Reuchlin (1455-1522) and Sebastian Münster (1489- 22 At least Étienne Quatremère (1782-1857), Joseph 1552). Toussaint Reinaud (1795-1867), Heinrich Leberecht 14 I have personally found Samuel Bochart’s (1599- Fleischer (1801-1888), and Edward William Lane 1667) learned study Hierozooicon (1661) very useful. (1801-1876; not a pupil of Silvestre de Sacy) deserve 15 Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842). mention here. 16 Especially by Edward Robinson (1794-1863) be-

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of the 18th century through the transla- help of Arabic sources, the idea behind tion by Anquetil-Duperron, 23 who had the Uzv reš, which until then had been learnt the language and obtained manu- ununderstandable for scholars. The first scripts in Surat in the 1760s. However, Western edition of a Pahlavi text ( Bun- the majority of scholars received the text dahišn ) was published, again by Wester- translated by Anquetil-Duperron with gaard, in 1851. great suspicion; some even accused the After some preliminary attempts by translator of deliberate deception while missionaries and travellers, the first others explained the Avestan language as flourishing of Indology took place far a sort of corrupt late Sanskrit. 24 Only the from Europe, in the 1790s in British new development of Sanskrit philology, Calcutta. 27 Early Calcutta publications leading to the birth of comparative Indo- were often republished or translated in European linguistics, together with the Europe where they soon found an eager decipherment of the Old Persian inscrip- readership. The very first academic chair tions, made it possible for Rask (1826) of Sanskrit was founded in 1814 in the and Burnouf (1833ff.) to establish the Collège de France and the next January role of Avestan as an ancient Iranian lan- A. L. de Chézy 28 started his teaching. guage and of the Avesta as a genuine Franz Bopp’s famous books Conjuga- corpus of early Zoroastrian literature. It tionssystem 1816 and Nala 1819 29 strongly is suitable for our present theme that the promoted the study of Sanskrit and gave first complete text edition of the Avesta rise to the completely new field of com- was published in the middle of the cen- parative Indo-European linguistics. Around tury by Westergaard, 25 who had himself 1850 there were nearly 20 Professors of acquired a number of Avestan and Mid- Sanskrit (or nominally Professors of dle Persian manuscripts in Iran and India. Oriental Studies, mainly teaching and In Middle Persian studies, Silvestre de studying Sanskrit) in European universi- Sacy’s early epigraphical breakthrough ties, 30 and some monumental works still in 1793 26 was followed by a similar in use, such as the #gveda edition by Max achievement with literary Pahlavi in Müller and the multi-volume Sanskrit- 1835, when Quatremère showed, with the German dictionary by Böhtlingk and

23 Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731- 28 Antoine Léonard de Chézy (1773-1832). 1805): Le Zend -Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre. 1-3. P. 29 Franz Bopp (1791-1867): Ueber das Conjuga- 1762-69. French translation with a “Discours tionssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit préliminaire” of 500 pages including a description of jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und his travels, and various appendices. There was also a germanischen. Nebst Episoden des Ramajan und *German translation by Kleuker, Riga 1775, and of Mahabharat. Frankfurt a.M. 1816; Nalus, carmen Vol. 1 by J. G. Purmann 1776. samscritum e Mahabharato. London 1819 (text edi- 24 The last to hold to this opinion was the German tion with Latin translation). Indologist Peter von Bohlen (1796-1840) in 1831. 30 The teaching advanced as follows: Paris 1815, 25 Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815-1878): * Zend- Bonn 1818, Berlin 1821, Königsberg 1825, Munich avesta or the religious books of the Zoroastrians. 1826, London 1927, Breslau, Halle and Oxford 1833, Copenhagen 1852-54. Göttingen 1834, St. Petersburg 1835 (with intervals), 26 His *“Mémoires sur diverses Antiquités de la Greifswald 1840 (1824), Kazan, Leipzig and Leuven Perse,” Journal des Savans 1793, contains, inter alia , 1841, Tübingen 1845, Copenhagen 1845 (1831), the decipherment of Sasanian inscriptions. Vienna 1846, and Prague 1850. In addition, Sanskrit 27 Sanskrit was first studied, among Europeans in was taught by Professors of other subjects, e.g., at the Bengal, by men such as Charles Wilkins (1749/50- universities of Jena in the 1820s, Leiden in the early 1836), Sir William Jones (1746-1794), Henry Thomas 1830s, Helsinki 1835, Uppsala 1838. During the next Colebrooke (1765-1837), and Horace Hayman twenty or thirty years many Italian and other German Wilson (1784/86-1860). universities founded a chair for Sanskrit.

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Roth, were well on the way to publica- Rémusat and his pupil and successor tion. 31 Stanislas Julien, 34 Sinology became a East Asian studies do not properly be- fully academic discipline. long to the sphere of M ELAMMU , but in It remains to round off the first part of the present discussion they cannot be left my discussion with a few words on Japan. completely out. There was, in fact, a After a period of early Jesuit activity, flourishing tradition of Sinology since Japan had been since 1650, and still was, the 17th century, but this was mainly a closed country, and two or three travel achieved by the Jesuits and some other books were the only ones to offer some Catholic missionaries working in China, new information. 35 But now the new in- and their few followers in Europe did not terest in Asian studies was reflected even count as much more than interested dil- in Japanese studies. The old books of ettantes. Thus Fourmont’s Grammatica Jesuits were dusted off, republished and Sinica 32 was full of learned speculation, studied. Nevertheless, the real expansion often far from correct, but it did not of Western Japanology belongs to the really teach the language. This was done second half of the 19th century. in the manuscript grammar written by the It was necessary to give this survey in Jesuit Prémare 33 and from this book order to show that there really was an young Abel-Rémusat started his Sino- exceptional expansion of Asian studies in logical studies. the first half of the 19th century. There The influential Baron Silvestre de Sacy, are, however, other surveys, often more himself a famous scholar already men- detailed, written by others and even by tioned several times, was a sort of god- myself. At present, I think it is more im- father of Asian studies in early 19th portant to make an attempt to find out the century Paris. As early as in 1795, he reasons for and common elements of this had, together with Langlès and others, development. founded the famous school of languages, On a general level, the rise of a new École spéciale des langues orientales vi- concept of the university certainly had an vantes, still operating under the revised important rôle. In the 18th century, even name of INALCO. It was he who took an institution like the Collège de France young Champollion under his wing, and (then called the Collège royal), though it was through his influence that two new originally founded for the promotion of chairs were founded at the Collège de liberal arts, had petrified into a sort of France for two other protegés of his, scholasticism, and most universities were Sanskrit for Chézy and Chinese for Abel- little more than theological colleges. As Rémusat. Through the work of Abel- far as there existed any real desire for

31 Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900): Rigveda. portant Jesuit Sinologists include, e.g., Martino Mar- Sa !hit  and Pada texts and S ya $a’s commentary tini (1614-1661), Prospero Intorcetta (1625-1696), and index. 1-6. 1849-74; Otto Nikolaus von Böhtlingk Philippe Couplet (1628-1692), François Noël (1651- (1815-1904) and Rudolf Roth (1821-1895): Sanskrit - 1729), Antoine Gaubil (1689-1759), and Joseph Wörterbuch nebst allen Nachträgen. 1-7. St. Petersburg Amiot (1718-1794). 1853-1875 (the so-called “Petersburger Wörterbuch” 34 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788-1832); Aignan- or “PW”). Stanislas Julien (1797/99-1873). 32 Étienne Fourmont (1683-1745): Linguae Sinarum 35 Especially those by Engelbert Kämpfer (1651- Mandarinicae hieroglyphicae grammatica duplex. 1716), Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), Isaac Paris 1742. Titsingh (1745-1812), and Philipp Franz von Siebold 33 Joseph-Henri Prémare (c. 1670-1735); other im- (1796-1866).

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knowledge and passion for research, it studies, attracting students from all parts was mainly found outside the universi- of Europe. There was a time when there ties, in the learned societies and acade- was hardly any Professor of Arabic in mies. 36 Europe, worthy of being taken seriously, It is customary to connect the new who had not been among the students of concept of the university as the seat of Silvestre de Sacy. learning and humanist values with Ger- In addition to the universities, we must many and particularly with Wilhelm von also note the societies. The 18th century Humboldt, and this certainly contributed was still a time of large general societies, to the rapid growth of Oriental studies in but now many fields felt the need of their German universities, a development often own organ. Although general according to headed by Bonn and Berlin. However, their statutes, 39 the colonial societies of the paramount position in Oriental studies Batavia and Calcutta are usually counted unquestionably belonged to Paris. After as the first among Oriental societies. The the French Revolution, there was not Royal Bataviaasch Genootschap van much left of the dusty scholasticism of Kunsten en Wetenschappen was founded the ancien régime and even during the in 1778, and The Asiatick Society, later repressing days of the Restoration, the known as the (Royal) Asiatic Society of atmosphere of intellectual exchange and Bengal, in 1784. In Europe, this activity search – and often even heated contro- again concentrates in the first half of the versy – seems to have been extremely 19th century. The French Société Asiatique stimulating. At least as far as Asian is the oldest, founded in 1823, and was studies are concerned, the Sorbonne was soon followed by the Royal Asiatic Soci- not very important, the activities con- ety of Great Britain and Ireland in 1828, centrated around the old Collège de the American Oriental Society in 1842, France and the new École des langues and Deutsche Morgenländische Gesell- orientales vivantes. 37 schaft in 1845. 40 Their respective jour- In Indology, a pattern was soon estab- nals soon became an important channel lished in Germany and in Northern and of publication of new information and Eastern European countries: after one research. had learned the basics at one’s own uni- The world was changing, not only in versity, it was time to go to Paris, where Europe, but also in Asia and North Africa. the advanced learning was, 38 and then to Travelling was slowly becoming less dan- England, where the rich manuscript col- gerous and less time-consuming. While lections brought from India allowed in- the majority of Oriental scholars still dependent research work. In the same never left Europe, journeys for study and way, Paris was the Mecca for Arabic exploration were rapidly increasing. The

36 Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in “hindoustanie”) was founded in 1830 for Joseph- France, Accademia dei Lincei in Italy, the Prussian Héliodore Garcin de Tassy (1794-1878). Academy and the Göttingen Society in Germany, the 38 This was mainly due to Chézy’s brilliant successor Royal Society in the U.K., and the Imperial Academy Eugène Burnouf. in Russia are good examples. 39 In early years, their meetings and publications 37 The word “vivantes” was not taken too literally. actually often dealt with the study of nature and other Silvestre de Sacy taught classical Arabic and the such fields. Professor of Persian concentrated on classical litera- 40 Società Asiatica Italiana apparently only in the ture. However, there also was a chair for “arabe vul- 1880s. gaire” as early as 1803 and one for Urdu (called

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expanding military and colonial interests India, Arabia and China. of European powers (mainly Britain and This leads us to Orientalism, not in the France) also brought a great number of Saidian, but in the Schwabian sense. Side Westerners to the East, and, as a more by side with Oriental scholarship was the or less unintended by-product, turned “Orient-as-fashion,” in literature, art and some of them into scholars. In addition, thought, 42 and while it certainly was a some local governments like those of source of interest and motivation, it also Muhammad Ali’s Egypt and the Sikh led, with its highly romantic interpreta- kingdom in the Pañj b employed many tion, to a seriously distorted idea. But European soldiers and specialists. By while the general idea of the Orient was 1850, there was already a vast literature often seen through this Romantic mist, it describing both the antiquities and the seems that, in many cases, scholarship present situations of Egypt, Palaestina, preceded and criticised it rather than Turkey, Mesopotamia and India, and, in blindly followed its ideas, which a little a few cases, also of Arabia, Iran, Tibet expertise could easily put in their place. and China. Here we can also note that early 19th It would be easy to explain the whole century scholarship was, with the obvi- development of Oriental studies in the ous exception of Hebrew, mainly secular Saidian sense as a side issue of coloni- in character. The church was not much alism. But although Said’s ideas can by interested and the time of missionary no means be ignored, this would be just scholars, working in the field or after the kind of oversimplification that often returning home, really came after the troubles Said’s arguments. In most cases, middle of the century. the scholars were interested in Asia be- We must also keep in mind that the fore the soldiers were. With the excep- great flourishing of scholarship in this tion of British India, 41 the colonial in- period was by no means restricted to volvement in Asia was still at the initial Asian studies, which in fact are only stage. Moreover, all this happened before a sideline to the intellectual activity of Western racism was developed as a for- the time. Technology and science, but mal doctrine by Count de Gobineau and also philology, linguistics and history others. Unlike their colleagues at the end were all rapidly advancing. Perhaps the of the century, the early 19th century most important part of this was the de- Orientalists were not yet fully convinced velopment of strict and more or less reli- of the supposedly complete intellectual, able methodologies. The rise of new spiritual and, of course, scientific and methods and disciplines such as archae- technological superiority of the West. To ology, textual criticism, 43 critical evalua- some extent, they were still capable of tion of sources, comparative linguistics, meeting Asians on the same level; they and the history of religions strongly could still believe that the West could contributed to the development of Asian learn something from the literatures of studies. What had been before was frag-

41 And here the relative open-mindedness of many hauer can be mentioned here. late 18th - early 19th century officers is in striking 43 The roots of textual criticism as a part of classical contrast to the situation in the middle and at the end philology lie far back in the Renaissance and even of the 19th century. Hellenism (Alexandrian school), but even here the 42 Names such as J. W. von Goethe, Lord Byron, first half of the 19th century meant a new age in the Friedrich Rückert, Heinrich Heine, and A. Schopen- way of methodology.

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mentary, often one-sided and represented defined and methodologically more or the confused interests of some individual less sound disciplines eagerly pursued by scholars, most of them long ago forgot- a great number of scholars in many ten; what resulted was a series of well- countries.

REFERENCES

Karttunen, Klaus (1992) Itää etsimässä. Eurooppalaisen Aasian-tutkimuksen historia. Helsinki (“In Search for the East. A History of European Research on Asia,” English edition planned). Pedersen, Holger (1962) The Discovery of Language. Linguistic Science in the 19th Century. Translated by John Webster Spargo. Bloomington (first published in English 1931, in Danish 1924). Said, Edward W. (1978) Orientalism (paperback edition of 1985 used). Schwab, Raymond (1950) La renaissance orientale. Paris.

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