Truths. Prodosh Aich
600 guilders would be not too much, to support him during his still necessary stay in Paris. His later transfer to England will then ask for further grace by our sovereign in accordance with the higher prices in that country. Besides this grace the firmest support by the Royal Legation might be necessary to warrant a more free use of the sources. Recommending the whole matter to your favour, I remain in deepest reverence Your Excellency’s most obedient servant Windischmann.”
This document alone, kept in Würzburg-state-archive, manifests the then academic culture in all facets of its factitiousness, as well as of the privileged section of the society. In 1816 in Frankfurt Franz Bopp publishes his book: Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenen der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Nebst Episoden des Ramayan und Mahabharat in genauen metrischen Übersetzungen aus dem Originaltext und einigen Abschnitten aus den Vedas (On the conjugation system of the Sanskrit language in comparison with that the Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic language. With episodes of Ramayan and Mahabharat in precise metric translations from the original text and with some sections from the Vedas). Edited and prefaced by K. J. Windischmann. This book would have appeared – this is just our impression – also without Franz Bopp’s meeting Antoine Léonard de Chézy. But the issue is: how does Franz Bopp come to know all this between 1812 and 1816? Fantasies? Revelations? And what is right and what is wrong in this book? Who could and who should have checked? There had never been questions like these. And we know: no questions, no answers. This is the wonder that is this culture.
Franz Bopp is now 24 years old. He gets the scholarship. Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann could not have had personal knowledge of anything he has written down as “expert opinion” in his argumentation. He had to believe in the contents of those letters written by Franz Bopp from Paris. We refrain from a comment at this place. We read instead in Franz Bopp’s application in 1816 to get a scholarship for England:
“Royal high commissioner's office! During a four-year stay in Paris I have dedicated myself to the study of oriental languages and literature, particularly the Sanskrit, to the best of my ability, with uninterrupted eagerness. The first two years I covered my maintenance at the expense of my father, a Servant of the Bavarian king, who did not shun the greatest sacrifices to support me, to my best, in order to make me useful for the state and the science regardless of his limited means and humble circumstances. For the last two years His Royal Majesty had gracefully been pleased to grant me highly magnanimously a benefit payment of 600 guilders annually. Though this sum did not suffice to cover the complete costs of my stay in Paris, I considered this most gracious help as the highest luck, because it had enabled me to approach my scientific goals aided by a small support from my father and my consequent austerity and renunciation.
In a book published recently in Frankfurt I sought to show how much my arduous attempts might have been successful. This publication will show the aspect from which I set out to my studies of languages in general and at the same time perhaps also an evidence of the importance of the Sanskrit language and convince of the truth about the great benefit the philologist could draw from the exact knowledge of the same for the scientific understanding of the inner architecture and organism of the languages of the classical antiquity as well as of the still living ones. Which additional benefits might otherwise originate through the knowledge of the treasure of Indian Literature is generally known. Through the knowledge I have been able to acquire painstakingly I feel fit to contribute towards publishing these so far unused sources, if I had the privilege of availing myself furthermore of the big collections of this kind in Paris or even better in London.
A stay of several years in London would be necessary to complete my already started and partly published comparison of languages and to carry out at all my plan to show all languages about which some information is obtainable in regard to their possible kinship with or dissimilarity from each other, to show their inner spirit and essential character and thus to set up a scientifically based system of the general linguistics: an endeavour linked with most important results for the scholars of language and history.”
Instead of 2000 guilders annually for the first two years 1000 guilders were granted on September 30, 1817. For the academic year 1819/1820 Crown Prince Ludwig personally added an allowance of another 1000 guilders. The scholarship was extended for another year.
The stay in London is only a step and was supposed to be a transitional station. He is already dreaming of a stay in India. Of course receiving a grant of Crown Prince Ludwig. Accordingly he writes on August 24, 1815 to Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann:
“In view of the enormous range of the Indian literary works it is difficult to come to some epitome of Indian literature. The poems are like the Egyptian obelisks. The first part of Mahabharata does not reach up to the actual beginning of the poem, it contains as a whole little noteworthy. The year that I shall still stay here I will now completely dedicate to Indian literature, and read so much as possible, in order to know in advance about which issues I shall have to ask Brahmins for advice when I go to India, and I shall be able to do a lot there in a short time.”
His dream is not fulfilled. We do not know whether that Prof. Othmar Frank played a role, who is by now well integrated in the Munich-clique. Franz Bopp, however, was to become a “Pope of Sanskrit” even without ever being in India and before he ever had an opportunity to hearing the sound of the Sanskrit language. In the annals we find him also as the founder of “vergleichende Sprachwissenschaften” (comparative language-sciences). Again, we must confess, we are too simple to understand the difference between comparative language-sciences and Linguistics.
Antoine Léonard de Chézy became in 1816 the first professor for Sanskrit in continental Europe at the age of 33. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, as already mentioned becomes a professor for European Literature in 1818 in Bonn at the age of 53, later claiming to be a professor for Sanskrit as well. The first one in Germany. In 1825, Franz Bopp becomes professor for Sanskrit in Berlin at the age of 34. He was to spread Sanskrit in Europe. He is the same Franz Bopp who saw no future for himself as an academician in 1810.
After becoming professor for Sanskrit in Berlin, he has enriched the wonder that is this culture further as the founder of so-called linguistic science. How does he do it? No questions, no answers. He even publishes six volumes under the title: Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslawischen, Gotischen und Deutschen (Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend (Avestan), Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Gothic and German).
As simple-minded straightforward persons we do not comprehend the benefit for human knowledge comparing languages and their grammars. On top of it Franz Bopp did not know quite a few of these languages. Did he not evolve to a first class swindler? Should we withdraw our question? Do we have to withdraw our question? Whatsoever. We add a remark: Linguistics is going strong since Franz Franz Bopp’s invention.
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For the present, however, we must continue our search finding out how the Sanskrit language arrived in Europe. Franz Bopp has claimed to have learnt the Sanskrit language all by himself. No one knows how. The question has not been raised yet. We raise this issue along with a polemic question. Was the knowledge of Sanskrit “revealed” to him while he practised spelling mentally (he had no chance hearing any sound from written letters or words in Sanskrit how it was pronounced) the many robbed Sanskrit manuscripts again and again in the Royal Library in Paris? Whatsoever. We go on with our evaluation of the available documents.
Franz Bopp invents his own grammar and translates Sanskrit texts. At that time in Paris there was only a single person, as reported, who claimed to have known Sanskrit: Antoine Léonard de Chézy. He also claimed to have taught himself. How? How can we know? His Sanskrit was, however, not up to the mark, as reported by Franz