Simon Theodor Aufrecht (7 January 1822 – 3 April 1907) was a German
Indologist and
comparative linguist. He was the first Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at the University of Edinburgh, and subsequently spent two decades as Professor of Indology at the University of Bonn.
Biography
Aufrecht was born in
Leschnitz,
Prussian Silesia, into a
Jewish family;[1] he later adopted Christianity.[2] He was educated at
Humboldt-Universität in
Berlin, graduating in 1847, in which year he also published a treatise on
Sanskrit accent (De Accentu Sancritico,[3]Bonn, 1847), originally his dissertation. With
Kirchhoff, he collaborated in the publication of Die umbrischen Denkmäler (
Umbrian memorials, 1849–51). With
Adalbert Kuhn, he founded the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung (1852). In 1852 he moved to
Oxford to assist
Friedrich Max Muller in preparation of his edition of
Rigveda with
Sāyaṇa's commentary.[4] He studied at the
Bodleian Library and prepared a catalogue of its collection of Sanskrit manuscripts (Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum bibl. Bodleianae P. VIII. codices Sanscriticos complectens, 1859–64). From 1862 until 1875, he was professor at the
University of Edinburgh in
Scotland, where he occupied the newly established chair of Sanskrit and comparative philology. There, in 1875, he was granted the degree of
LL.D.
In 1875, Aufrecht was appointed to the chair of indology at the
University of Bonn, and remained at that post until 1889. Between 1891 and 1903, he published a three volume alphabetical catalogue of all
Sanskrit manuscript collections known at the time, in a work titled,
Catalogus Catalogorum. This was the first such attempt to catalogue all Indian manuscripts, built on Aufrecht's previous catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts of libraries of
Trinity College, Cambridge (1869),[5] Florence (1892), Leipzig (1901), and München (1909). Beginning in 1935, the
University of Madras began working on an updated catalogue called the
New Catalogus Catalogorum, which was completed in 2019 with the publication of its 42nd volume.