Hermann Oldenberg

Hermann Oldenberg (October 31, 1854, Hamburg – March 18, 1920, Göttingen) was a German scholar of Indology, and Professor at Kiel (1898) and Göttingen (1908).

His 1881 study on Buddhism, entitled Buddha: Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, based on Pāli texts, popularized Buddhism and have remained continuously in print since their first publication. With T. W. Rhys Davids, he edited and translated into English three volumes of Vinaya texts (presumably the Theravada Vinaya), as two volumes of the (Vedic) Grhyasutras and two volumes of Vedic hymns on his own account, in the monumental Sacred Books of the East series edited by Max Müller. With his Prolegomena (1888), Oldenberg laid the groundwork to the philological study of the Rigveda.