Alexander von Staël-Holstein
Encyclopedia
Baron Alexander Staël von Holstein (* January 1, 1877, in Testama
, then Governorate of Estonia
(Russian Empire
); † March 16, 1937, in Beijing
, Republic of China
); was a German-baltic aristocrat, Russian and Estonian orientalist, sinologist, sanskritologist, specializing in Buddhist texts
.
Related to Madame de Staël's husband, the future baron was born in the province of Estland (Estonia
), then belonging to the Russian Empire
,in an aristocratic family (with widespread relations in other German Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, Sweden and Northern Germany) on the New Year's Day. He was educated at home during his childhood. When he reached 15, he was sent to a Gymnasium
in the town of Pernau (now Pärnu
). He pursued his higher education at the Dorpat University (Tartu
), where some of his families had studied, majoring in comparative philology
. After his graduation, he left for Germany, studying oriental languages in the Berlin University.
Prussian public records of 1898 show that the young Baron was involved in a duel
in Berlin, which he apparently survived. In his second year in Berlin, as the only male heir he inherited the family estate in Testama (now Tõstamaa) and the baronage. In 1900, he gained his doctorate with his dissertation Der Karmapradīpa, II. Prapāthaka from the University of Halle-Wittenberg
. The first Prapāthaka of the Karmapradīpa had been translated in 1889 by Friedrich Schrader
, also as a dissertation in Halle. The supervisor of both dissertations was Professor Richard Pischel
, at that time the world's leading expert on Prakrit
, the ancient form of Sanskrit
, and long-time head of the "Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
", the German Orientalist Society.
During the following years, Baron de Stael traveled widely and studied with the best oriental scholars in Germany, England and India.
He started his academic career in 1909 when he was appointed assistant professor of Sanskrit
in the University of St. Petersburg and the member of the Russian Committee for the Exploration of Central and Eastern Asia. In 1912, he visited the US and lived in Harvard
for some time to study Sanskrit.
He was in China
when the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia broke out. The government of the new Estonian Republic, established in 1918 after the Versailles treaty, left him only a small part of his inherited estate. He then accepted an Estonian citizenship but remained in Beijing
. With the recommendation of his friend Charles Eliot
, the then principal of the University of Hong Kong, he was invited by Hu Shi to teach Sanskrit, Tibetan
and History of Indian Religion in the Beijing University, as lecturer from 1918 to 1921 and as professor from 1922 to 1929. He helped set up the Sino-Indian Institute in Beijing in 1927. In 1928 he was a visiting scholar in Harvard, helping the Harvard-Yenching Institute
to collect books. In 1932, he was selected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology (歷史語言研究所), Academia Sinica
.
Besides his works on Indian and Tibetan religions, he also contributed to the field of historical Chinese phonology
. His influential "The Phonetic Transcription of Sanskrit Works and Ancient Chinese Pronunciation" was translated by Hu Shi into Chinese and was published in Guoxue Jikan (國學季刊) in 1923.
Tõstamaa Parish
Tõstamaa Parish is a rural municipality in southwestern Estonia. It is a part of Pärnu County. The municipality has a population of 1,572 and covers an area of 261.01 km²....
, then Governorate of Estonia
Governorate of Estonia
The Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...
(Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
); † March 16, 1937, in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
); was a German-baltic aristocrat, Russian and Estonian orientalist, sinologist, sanskritologist, specializing in Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...
.
Related to Madame de Staël's husband, the future baron was born in the province of Estland (Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
), then belonging to the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
,in an aristocratic family (with widespread relations in other German Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, Sweden and Northern Germany) on the New Year's Day. He was educated at home during his childhood. When he reached 15, he was sent to a Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in the town of Pernau (now Pärnu
Pärnu
Pärnu is a city in southwestern Estonia on the coast of Pärnu Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea. It is a popular summer vacation resort with many hotels, restaurants, and large beaches. The Pärnu River flows through the city and drains into the Gulf of Riga...
). He pursued his higher education at the Dorpat University (Tartu
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...
), where some of his families had studied, majoring in comparative philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
. After his graduation, he left for Germany, studying oriental languages in the Berlin University.
Prussian public records of 1898 show that the young Baron was involved in a duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
in Berlin, which he apparently survived. In his second year in Berlin, as the only male heir he inherited the family estate in Testama (now Tõstamaa) and the baronage. In 1900, he gained his doctorate with his dissertation Der Karmapradīpa, II. Prapāthaka from the University of Halle-Wittenberg
University of Halle-Wittenberg
The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...
. The first Prapāthaka of the Karmapradīpa had been translated in 1889 by Friedrich Schrader
Friedrich Schrader
Friedrich Schrader was a German philologist of oriental languages, orientalist, art historian, writer, social democrat, translator and journalist. He also used the pseudonym Ischtiraki...
, also as a dissertation in Halle. The supervisor of both dissertations was Professor Richard Pischel
Richard Pischel
Richard Pischel 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 . His graduate thesis was De Kalidasae Cakuntali recensionibus...
, at that time the world's leading expert on Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
, the ancient form of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, and long-time head of the "Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
The Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft , in English the German Oriental Society, is a scholarly organization dedicated to studies of Asia and the broader Orient....
", the German Orientalist Society.
During the following years, Baron de Stael traveled widely and studied with the best oriental scholars in Germany, England and India.
He started his academic career in 1909 when he was appointed assistant professor of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
in the University of St. Petersburg and the member of the Russian Committee for the Exploration of Central and Eastern Asia. In 1912, he visited the US and lived in Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
for some time to study Sanskrit.
He was in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
when the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia broke out. The government of the new Estonian Republic, established in 1918 after the Versailles treaty, left him only a small part of his inherited estate. He then accepted an Estonian citizenship but remained in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
. With the recommendation of his friend Charles Eliot
Charles Eliot (diplomat)
Sir Charles Norton Edgecumbe Eliot GCMG, PC was a British knight diplomat, colonial administrator and botanist. He served as Commissioner of British East Africa in 1900-1904. He was British Ambassador to Japan in 1919-1925.He was also known as a malacologist and marine biologist...
, the then principal of the University of Hong Kong, he was invited by Hu Shi to teach Sanskrit, Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
and History of Indian Religion in the Beijing University, as lecturer from 1918 to 1921 and as professor from 1922 to 1929. He helped set up the Sino-Indian Institute in Beijing in 1927. In 1928 he was a visiting scholar in Harvard, helping the Harvard-Yenching Institute
Harvard-Yenching Institute
Harvard-Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture...
to collect books. In 1932, he was selected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology (歷史語言研究所), Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica
The Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
.
Besides his works on Indian and Tibetan religions, he also contributed to the field of historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...
. His influential "The Phonetic Transcription of Sanskrit Works and Ancient Chinese Pronunciation" was translated by Hu Shi into Chinese and was published in Guoxue Jikan (國學季刊) in 1923.
Selected works
- The Kāçyapaparivarta: a Mahāyānasūtra of the Ratnakūṭa class, edited in the original Sanskrit, in Tibetan and in Chinese, Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1926
- On a Tibetan text translated into Sanskrit under Ch'ien Lung (XIII cent.) and into Chinese under Tao Kuang (XIX cent.), Bulletin of the National Library of Peiping, 1932
- On two Tibetan pictures representing some of the spiritual ancestors of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Lama, Bulletin of the National Library of Peiping, 1932
- A commentary to the Kāçcyapaparivarta, edited in Tibetan and in Chinese, Peking: published jointly by the National Library and the National Tsinghau University, 1933
- On a Peking edition of the Tibetan kanjur which seems to be unknown in the West, Peking: Lazarist Press, 1934
- On two recent reconstructions of a Sanskrit hymn transliterated with Chinese characters in the X century A.D, Peking: Lazarist Press, 1934
- Two Lamaistic pantheons, edited with introduction and indexes by Walter Eugene Clark from materials collected by the late Baron A. von Staël-Holstein, Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series 3 and 4, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937