ERNST LEUMANN REVISITED.

• Author: ROCHER, LUDO

Ernst Leumann's many published works and his huge handwritten "Nachlass" have been largely forgotten. Yet, recently, in the course of five years, four volumes have been devoted to the author and his contributions, mainly to the study of Jainism, but also to other important areas of research.

IN 1997 THE GENERAL EDITOR of the JAOS sent me for review two volumes entitled Avasyaka-Studien; that year marked the one-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Ernst Leumann's (EL) Avasyaka-Erzahlungen (EL 1897b). In fact, the two complementary volumes are a combined tribute to this 1897 publication: Nalini Balbir reprints the Erzahlungen, accompanies the Prakrit text with a French translation, and supplies extensive introductory and explanatory materials; Thomas Oberlies compiles a glossary of selected words.

While reading these two scholarly volumes, I rapidly went from wondering why a one-century-old publication should deserve so much attention, to asking the question why it took scholars of Jainism so long to realize that it did. I could not help wishing to know more about Leumann's contributions to avasyaka, to Jainism, and, as it turned out, to other fields of research as well. [1] What was intended as a review of the Balbir and Oberlies volumes gradually expanded into a broader inquiry into the scholarly activities of the person whom Balbir describes as an "admirable pionnier" (p. 9). [2]

I spent considerable time reading up on Leumann's biography and compiling as complete a list of his works as possible. [3] However, unbeknownst to me, and on a much grander scale, Nalini Balbir had been working along the same lines, and in 1998 she republished a number of EL's articles and shorter works, as his Kleine Schriften (KS), in the Glasenapp-Stiffung's series. Balbir begins with a fifty-page-long "Vorwort." In it she provides a biographical account of Leumann and his family, far more detailed than I was able to reconstruct from sources available on this side of the Atlantic. She did not leave a stone unturned to get access to a number of private documents (EL's Stucke zu einer Geschichte des thurgauischen Geschlechtes Leumann [1900]; his Tertianer-Erinnerungen eines Sprachforschers [1924]; his son Manu's eulogy on the occasion of his father's cremation; internal reports from the University of Strassburg and other institutions; information provided by living members of the Leumann family; etc.). The bibliography (pp. xxx-1), "strebt naturgemass nach Vollstandigkeit und"--a very revealing part of EL's writings--"berucksichtigt auch ausserakademische Publikationen" (p. xxvii). Such a bibliography had never been published; Balbir compiled it with the help of a handwritten list prepared by Manu Leumann, preserved in Zurich. She divided the publications into various categories and sub-categories, [4] and, in many cases added brief but useful notes.

When it comes to Leumann's scholarly output and his place in the academic world of his day--and after his death--Balbir and I reached remarkably similar conclusions. I summarize some of these conclusions in the next few pages.

Ernst Leumann was born in Berg, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland, on 11 April 1859; he died in Freiburgim-Breisgau on 24 April 193 1931. [5] His preoccupation with Jainsism, generally, and with avasyaka, "sozusagen das Vaterunser der Jaina's" (EL 1934: i), in particular, spanned about two decades, from 1880, when he studied under Albrecht Weber, Hermann Oldenberg, and Johannes Schmidt in Berlin, [6] and 1881, when he earned a doctorate in Leipzig with a thesis on the Aupapatikasutra (EL 1882, 1833a), [7] until 1900, when he wrote the introduction to the Ubersicht uber die Avasyaka-Literatur (EL 1934). [8] Most of these years were spent at the University of Strassburg. [9] According to Klaus Bruhn (1981: 11) Leumann's activities between 1880 and 1900 remain "a chapter in the annals of Indology which is still to be written." [10] Balbir may not--or not yet--have written the kind of article Bruhn had in mind, but in the "Vorwort" to KS she undeniably provides the necessary background materials. [11]

As early as 1883 [12] and, again, in 1885, [13] Weber acknowledged Leumann's contribution to his major article "Ueber die heiligen Schriften der Jaina." Also in 1883, at the age of twenty-four, Leumann addressed the sixth International Congress of Orientalists in Leiden on the relation between Jaina literature and other literary genres in India (EL 1885). In 1894, at the tenth Congress of Orientalists in Geneva, he presented a general survey, "Ueber die A vasyaka-Literatur" (EL 1897a). Differently from other papers read at the conference which were printed in full in the proceedings, his is reduced to a single page. It is clear, however, that, at Geneva in 1894, he was introducing to his fellow orientalists a publication that was eventually to become the Ubersicht. [14]

At the time when the A vasyaka-Erzahlungen was published, in 1897, the book did not arouse much enthusiasm. The only substantial review I have been able to find was written by Auguste Barth, [15] in one of his regular surveys of recent indological research in the Revue de l'histoire des religions (Barth 1902). I wish to quote some extracts from it, because in this review Barth probably foresaw the main reasons why EL's Erzahlungen--and, as we know now, his later work as well [16]--was largely ignored by his fellow-workers for quite some time to come. [17]

In the first place, Barth did not conceal his frustration with the unusual complexity of EL's publication and the extraordinary demands it put on the reader:

Ce sont ces recits ou kathanakas, rediges en pracrit jaina, que M. Leumann a extraits de trois commentaires de I'Avasyaka (le texte meme du traite parait ne plus exister a l'etat separe), ceux de Haribhadra et de Cilanka, qui sont du [IX.sup.e] siecle et la vieille curni, de date incertaine, mais beaucoup plus ancienne. It y a joint en outre les passages paralleles de deux commentaires appartenant a une autre section du canon: en tout cinq series de textes paralleles, qu'il nous presente emboites dans celui de Haribhadra pris pour base, de facon a occuper le moins de place possible, avec toutes leurs omissions, additions, variantes et fausses lecons, et sans qu'il puisse s'y produire de confusions, si le lecteur VeUt bien y mettre la peine. Mais il faudra qu'il en metre beaucoup; car on devine a quel prix ce resultat a ete obtenu: trois especes de caracteres, parentheses et crochets, trois et meme quatre sortes de sigles, asterisques simples, doubles, triples, multiples, sans compter les abreviations, les chi ffres de renvoi affectes de conventions diverses et qu'il s'agit de ne pas confondre avec d'autres chiffres, bref tout un jeu de patience superpose 'a des textes tres difficiles, qui se suivent sans rubriques ni sous-titres, avec une simple division chiffree dont il faut deviner le sens. Ce sont d'excellents materiaux, ou tout a prevu et combine en vue d'un double but, l'etude critique de contenu, c'est-a-dire des recits eux-memes, et l'etude de la langue et de ses alterations graduelles; mais pour pouvoir en faire usage, ceux memes qui sont rompus aux difficultes de ce pracrit devront passer d'abord par une initiation laborieuse (Barth 1902: 179; emphasis added). [18]

Many years later, when Chandrabhal Tripathi heralded the Ubersicht as "one of the most remarkable monographs ever published in the field of Indology," he too, added:

Leumann's Monograph not only remained a torso, it also makes very difficult reading. The contents of the work have not been arranged in a systematic way. Rather, it presents the appearance of a loose collection of notes. It is difficult, therefore, even for the experienced scholar, to consult this work without constant reference to the original texts (Tripathi 1975: xiii).

Barth also foresaw a second reason why the Erzahlungen was to receive less attention than it deserved: it was left unfinished. "Par un scrupule qui l'honore, M. Leumann, avant d'etre arrive a mi-chemin, a interrompu l'impression de ces textes, afin de se procurer de nouveaux manuscrits" (Barth 1902: 179-80). [19] Leaving projects unfinished indeed became a hallmark of EL's oeuvre. Walther Schubring wrote about the Ubersicht:

Leumann war mit dieser Arbeit semen Zeit um Jahrzehte voraus. Vielleicht infolge der Erkenntnis, dass [diese Arbeit] allzu gross angelegt war, brach en (1900) den Druck mit dem 14. Bogen ab, jedoch selbst dieses Fragment blieb liegen (Schubring 1935: 7). [20]

Elsewhere Sehubring added (1934: 86): "Hatte er es in tief zu beklagender Weise nicht unterlassen, das in der Anlage und durch Beigaben vielleicht allzu gross gedachtes Werk abzuschliessen, so wurde seine Jaina-Forschung in diesem ihre Kronung gefunden haben." In connection with the manuscripts which Leumann collected at Strassburg, Tripathi noted (1975: xiii):

In view of the fact that many of Leumann's studies remained incomplete, it is not surprising that Leumann himself published only two lists of the Strasboung Manuscripts [i.e., EL 1891 and 1893], but did not carry Out his plan of preparing a catalogue of his Manuscripts.

Of the "Bharata-Sage" only the first part was published (EL 1894). [21] The Etymologisches Worterbuch der Sanskrit-Sprache was abandoned after ju (EL 1907a). Of the Buddhistische Literatur only the "Nebenstucke" were published (EL 1920a). [22] Neue Metrik never went beyond part one (EL 1920b). Leumann was expected to write the volume on Jainism for the Grundriss der indoarischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, a task that was eventually taken over, after his death, by Schubring (Schubring 1935). [23]

Before I proceed I need to emphasize that, even though Leumann left many of his own projects unfinished, he was generous in helping other scholars and contributing to their publications. I referred earlier to his contributions to Weber's "Ueber die heiligen Schriften der Jaina." [24]...