Academic Study of Buddhism in The Netherlands
The scientific study of Buddhism began in the Netherlands with the appointment of Hendrik Kern as the first professor for the chair for Sanskrit at Leiden University. He published two histories and a manual of Buddhism. Kern, like Émile Senart, portrayed the Buddha as a legendary being or a hero representing the sun. Kern was succeeded by Jacob Speyer (1849–1913), who translated several Mahayana texts and the Jatakamala for the series ‘The Sacred Books of the Buddhists’. The subsequent chair, Jean Philippe Vogel (1871–1958), became famous as an archaeologist by proving that Kasia in India must have been Kusinara, the place of the Parinirvana of the Buddha. He also conducted investigations on the Borobudur, the great Buddhist monument on the Isle of Java.
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