Christian Lassen - Life

Life

He was born at Bergen, Norway. Having received a university education at Oslo, he went to Germany and continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Bonn. In Bonn, Lassen acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit. He spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating manuscripts, and collecting materials for future research, especially with reference to Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with Eugène Burnouf, his first work, Essai sur le Pâli (Paris, 1826).

On his return to Bonn he studied Arabic, and took the degree of Ph.D., his dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the Punjab (Commentario geographica historica de Pentapotamia Indica, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted Privatdozent, and in 1830 was appointed extraordinary and in 1840 ordinary professor of Old Indian language and literature. In spite of a tempting offer from Copenhagen, in 1841, Lassen remained faithful to the university of his adoption to the end of his life. He died at Bonn, having been affected with almost total blindness for many years. As early as 1864 he was allowed to give up lecturing.

Read more about this topic:  Christian Lassen

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to stand by each other and be brothers and never separate till death relieved them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans. Joe was for being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and dying, some time, of cold, and want, and grief; but after listening to Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Judgments, value judgments concerning life, whether for or against it, can in the end never be true: their only value is as symptoms, they only come into consideration as symptoms—in themselves such judgments are stupidities. We must reach out and attempt to put our finger on this astonishing finesse, that the value of life cannot be assessed.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    The striking point about our model family is not simply the compete-compete, consume-consume style of life it urges us to follow.... The striking point, in the face of all the propaganda, is how few Americans actually live this way.
    Louise Kapp Howe (b. 1934)