Karl Friedrich Geldner - Academic Achievements

Academic Achievements

Geldner's first significant publication, though made public only in 1877, was written while he was still a doctoral student. The essay, which was in its expanded and published form titled Über die Metrik des jüngeren Avesta ("On the meter of the Younger Avesta"), was originally an answer to a prize essay question posed by the University of Tübingen's Faculty of Philosophy. His analysis revealed that although the texts had not retained a metrical form, the majority of the manuscripts were in 8 syllable verse (10 or 12 syllable lines also occurred).

Although the theory was subsequently revised by others, Geldner's hypothesis was reinstated in 1983, and the lines of the Younger Avesta are today considered to be historically related to the Vedic meters of the gayatri family. Unlike the meters of the Gathas, which are recited, the meters of the Younger Avesta are mostly sung.

Although Geldner would have preferred to research the Vedas (he would later state to had "lost" 15 years working on the Avesta), following the publication of his doctoral thesis, Geldner began to work on a revision of Westergaard's edition of the Avesta. What he initially assumed would occupy him for only a few years, eventually took 20 and it was not until 1886 that the first volume was published. That first volume (the Yasna) was followed by the Visperad and Khordeh Avesta in volume 2 (1889) and the Vendidad and Prolegomena in volume 3 (1895). Altogether, Geldner collated and documented over 120 manuscripts, and the greatest achievement of this laborious undertaking was "undoubtedly the Prolegomena, which provided an exact description of all manuscripts and their genealogical relationship" (so Schlerath, see references below).

Although Gelder published several Avesta-related articles while working on the revision, following the publication of volume 3 he returned to work almost exclusively on Sanskrit texts. Only two publications after 1895 deal with Avestan topics. Together with Richard Pischel he began to work on the Vedas, and their collaboration was subsequently published in the three volume Vedische Studien (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1889–1901), which - unlike previous translations - avoided a purely linguistic methodology and instead took indigenous tradition into account. Following his return to Marburg in 1907, Geldner dedicated his efforts to a translation of the RigVeda, which was sent to his publisher in 1928 but did not reach the public until after the author's death in February 1929. The three volumes of his monumental Der Rig-Veda aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche übersetzt were finally released in 1951.