Paul Thieme's passing

April 27, 2001

It is my sad duty to announce that my oldest Guru, Paul Thieme, has passed

away at London in the evening of April 24, aged 97.

He was one of the few surviving great scholars of a generation that still

encompasses all aspects of Sanskrit philology, from linguistics to

literature and grammar. As many of you know, he was equally well

specialized in Paninean grammar (he studied 1935-7 with Kamalakanta Mishra

at Allahabad), in the Vedas, in classical Sanskrit texts, as well as in

Avestan/Old Iranian and in Indo-European linguistics.

Due to his early studies in India, he was fluent in Sanskrit and gave one

of the main speeches in Skt. at the first World Skt. Conference at Delhi in

the early Seventies. We also had the chance to follow his discussion of

grammar and philosophy held in Skt. with Indian scholars visiting the

University of Tuebingen, where he taught until retirement in 1972. Before

this, he had taught at Yale, Frankfurt, Halle and Breslau.

He was a member of many scholarly socities and academies. In 1989 he

received the Kyoto Prize.

Well loved by all his students, -- who like to tell many anecdotes about

him -- they insisted that he teach well after retirement -- which he did.

During the last years he lived with his wife, Renate Soehnen, at London. He

is survived by her and his only son, Konrad, from an earlier marriage, who

also lives in England.

A nearly complete collection of his articles is available as "Kleine

Schriften" (Wiesbaden / Stuttgart : Steiner 1967/1984) and some of his

major works have been reissued by one of his last students, W. Knobl, at

Kyoto, in a series called Opera Maiora.

========================================================

Michael Witzel

Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University

2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)

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