Recent from talks
Emanuel Forchhammer
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Emanuel Forchhammer
Emanuel Forchhammer (12 March 1851 - April 26, 1890) was a Swiss indologist, Pāli specialist, orientalist and the first professor of Pali in Rangoon College. He was a pioneer in Burmese Archaeology.
Forchhammer was born on 12 March 1851 in the town of St. Antönien Ascharina, Switzerland. He was the youngest son of Christian Gottlieb F. (1814–1859), a Lutheran minister, and Elisabeth Schlegel (1824–1891). After his father's death — when Emanuel was 8 — the family moved to nearby Chur. He had a brother, Theophil F., who would become a well-regarded organist in Magdeburg, and a sister, Emilie, who was a successful painter.
Forchhammer studied medicine in New York, where he also obtained a doctorate and became an assistant at a hospital. He then lived for several years studying Native American languages[citation needed]. In 1875, he returned to Europe, where he learned Armenian in the Armenian monastery of San Lazzaro near Venice and until 1878, studied oriental philology in Leipzig.
In 1878, he was offered two academic positions. He rejected the offer of the Emperor of Brazil to survey Indian languages but he accepted the chair of Pāli at Rangoon College, becoming the country's first professor in Pali. He scoured the libraries of Buddhist monasteries with tireless zeal to collect manuscripts. In 1882, he became an Archaeological Inspector for British Burma, engaging in excavations and the decipherment of ancient inscriptions in Pāli, Mon, and Burmese.
Forchhammer studied various languages of Burma including Shan and Karen and carried out, excavations and archaeological investigations, particularly in the ancient temple cities of Arakan and Pagan.
Among his collaborators were Taw Sein Ko, described as the first archaeologist in Burma. Taw spoke highly of Dr. Forchhammer, recalling his academic idealism in a speech to the Old Rangoon Collegians’ Annual Dinner:
Dr. Forchhammer used to say that the worship of Minerva was infinitely better than the worship of Mammon and to keep alight the lamp of learning in our age of materialism was an act of high altruism.
Taw would later edit and publish many of Forchhammer's unpublished transcriptions of inscriptions in Pagan, Pinya, and Ava.
Hub AI
Emanuel Forchhammer AI simulator
(@Emanuel Forchhammer_simulator)
Emanuel Forchhammer
Emanuel Forchhammer (12 March 1851 - April 26, 1890) was a Swiss indologist, Pāli specialist, orientalist and the first professor of Pali in Rangoon College. He was a pioneer in Burmese Archaeology.
Forchhammer was born on 12 March 1851 in the town of St. Antönien Ascharina, Switzerland. He was the youngest son of Christian Gottlieb F. (1814–1859), a Lutheran minister, and Elisabeth Schlegel (1824–1891). After his father's death — when Emanuel was 8 — the family moved to nearby Chur. He had a brother, Theophil F., who would become a well-regarded organist in Magdeburg, and a sister, Emilie, who was a successful painter.
Forchhammer studied medicine in New York, where he also obtained a doctorate and became an assistant at a hospital. He then lived for several years studying Native American languages[citation needed]. In 1875, he returned to Europe, where he learned Armenian in the Armenian monastery of San Lazzaro near Venice and until 1878, studied oriental philology in Leipzig.
In 1878, he was offered two academic positions. He rejected the offer of the Emperor of Brazil to survey Indian languages but he accepted the chair of Pāli at Rangoon College, becoming the country's first professor in Pali. He scoured the libraries of Buddhist monasteries with tireless zeal to collect manuscripts. In 1882, he became an Archaeological Inspector for British Burma, engaging in excavations and the decipherment of ancient inscriptions in Pāli, Mon, and Burmese.
Forchhammer studied various languages of Burma including Shan and Karen and carried out, excavations and archaeological investigations, particularly in the ancient temple cities of Arakan and Pagan.
Among his collaborators were Taw Sein Ko, described as the first archaeologist in Burma. Taw spoke highly of Dr. Forchhammer, recalling his academic idealism in a speech to the Old Rangoon Collegians’ Annual Dinner:
Dr. Forchhammer used to say that the worship of Minerva was infinitely better than the worship of Mammon and to keep alight the lamp of learning in our age of materialism was an act of high altruism.
Taw would later edit and publish many of Forchhammer's unpublished transcriptions of inscriptions in Pagan, Pinya, and Ava.