Theodor Benfey

This is about the German philologist. For Theodor Benfey (born 1925) who developed a spiral periodic table of the elements in 1964, see Otto Theodor Benfey.

Theodor Benfey
Born	(1809-01-28)28 January 1809 Nörten-Hardenberg
Died	26 June 1881(1881-06-26) (aged 71) Göttingen
Nationality	German
Occupation	philologist

Theodor Benfey (28 January 1809, in Nörten near Göttingen – 26 June 1881, in Göttingen) was a German philologist and scholar of Sanskrit. His works, particularly his Sanskrit-English dictionary, formed a major contribution to Sanskrit studies.

Biography

Theodor Benfey was born into a Jewish family in the small town of Nörten, near the city of Göttingen in Lower Saxony. He was born during the political upheaval of the Napoleonic War, when Lower Saxony was occupied by the French Army (1806-1814).^[1] His father, Isaak Benfey (d. 1832) was was a merchant and Talmud scholar,^[1] and the family had 8 children.^[2] In 1810, when Theodor was one years old, the family relocated to Göttingen.^[1] The French occupation ended when Benfey was 5, and Gottingen, which belonged to the Electorate of Hanover, became part of the Kingdom of Hanover which was ruled over by the British House of Hanover (1814-66). Most of Benfey's childhood and youth was lived during the post-war period, which was marked by economic impoverishment and political oppression of nationalists and liberals.^[1] Benfey attended school at the Gottingen gymnasium,^[2] and was also tutored in Hebrew by his father Isaak, at which he showed exceptional talent and a taste for philology.

In 1824 and at the age of 16, Benfey began studies at the University of Gottingen, where he studied Greek and Latin under Ludolph Dissen and Otfried Müller. In 1827, he relocated to Munich, where he studied under Friedrich Wilhelm Thiersch.^[1] In 1828, he returned to Gottingen, where he defended in thesis and received his Ph.D. at the age of 19.^[2] The following year he received his license to teach university courses (venia legendi) in Indo-Germanic philology.^[1] In 1830, he took a teaching position in Frankfurt am Main, where he published his first book, a translation of the comedies Roman playwright Terence.^[3] Benfey's pursuits were at first chiefly classical, and his attention was diverted to Sanskrit by an accidental wager that he would learn enough of the language in a few weeks to be able to review a new book upon it. He returned Gottingen in 1834, and took up an untenured, unpaid teaching position as a "privat-docent" (Privatdozent) at the University of Gottingen, teaching Sanskrit and comparative grammar.^[4] During this time, he was looking for paid employment in France, and working on small writing projects, such as a little work on the names of the Hebrew months, proving that they were derived from the Persian. He also prepared the great article on India in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste.^[4]

In 1839, he published his first major work, the Griechisches Wurzellexikon ("Lexicon of Greek Roots"). This financial and professional success enabled him to marry Fanny Wallenstein in 1840. Two years later, the Institut de France awarded Benfey the prix Volney for his Lexicon,^[5] and the University of Gottingen finally appointed Benfey to a paid lecturer position.

From this time Benfey's attention was principally given to Sanskrit. In 1848 he became an assistant professor, and published his edition of the Samaveda; in 1852–1854 his Handbuch der Sanskritsprache ("Manual of Sanskrit"), comprising a grammar and chrestomathy; in 1858 his practical Sanskrit grammar, afterwards translated into English; and in 1859 his edition of the Panchatantra, with an extensive dissertation on the fables and mythologies of primitive nations. All these works had been produced under the pressure of poverty, the government, whether from parsimony or from prejudice against a Jew, refusing to make any substantial addition to his small salary as an assistant professor at the university.^[6]

At length, in 1862, the growing appreciation of foreign scholars shamed it into making him a full professor, and in 1866 Benfey published the laborious work by which he is on the whole best known, his great Sanskrit-English Dictionary. In 1869 he wrote a history of German philological research, especially Oriental, during the 19th century. In 1878 his jubilee (50th anniversary) as doctor was celebrated by the publication of a volume of philological essays dedicated to him and written by the top scholars in Germany. He had designed to close his literary labours by a grammar of Vedic Sanskrit, and was actively preparing it when he was interrupted by illness, which terminated in his death at Göttingen.^[6]

A collection of Benfey's various writings was published in 1890, prefaced by a memoir by his son. Among his pupils was James Murdoch.^[7] Some of his ideas were developed in Russia by Fyodor Buslaev.^[6]

Works (titles translated into English)

Selected works:^[6]

• Lexicon of Greek Roots, 1839-1842.
• The Cuneiform Inscriptions, 1847.
• The Hymns of Sama-Veda, 1848.
• The History of Oriental Philosophy in Germany, 1868.
• A Practical Grammar of the Sanskrit Language for the Use of Early Students, 1868.
• A Sanskrit-English Dictionary: With References to the Best Edition of Sanskrit Author and Etymologies and Comparisons of Cognate Words Chiefly in Greek, Latin, Gothic and Anglo-Saxon, 1866.

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Benfey, Theodor". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 728–729.

Bibliography

• Willibald Kirfel (1955), Benfey, Theodor, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), vol. 2, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ISBN 3-428-00183-4, p. 46
• Adalbert Bezzenberger (1902), Benfey, Theodor. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 46, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 358
• Renate Heuer (ed.) (1993), Lexikon deutsch-jüdischer Autoren, vol. 2, München: Saur, pp. 31–50