Hoernle, A.

Rudolf Hoernle(1841 - 1918)

Augustus Frederic Rudolf Hoernlé (1841–1918), also referred to as Rudolf Hoernle or A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, was an Indologist and philologist. He is famous for his studies on the Bower Manuscript (1891), Weber Manuscript (1893) and other discoveries in northwestern China and Central Asia particularly in collaboration with Aurel Stein. Born in India to a Protestant missionary family from Germany, he completed his education in Switzerland, and studied Sanskrit in the United Kingdom. He returned to India, taught at leading universities there, and in the early 1890s published a series of seminal papers on ancient manuscripts, writing scripts, and cultural exchange between India, China, and Central Asia. His collection after 1895 became a victim of forgery by Islam Akhun and colleagues in Central Asia, a forgery revealed to him in 1899. He retired and settled in Oxford in 1899. (Source Accessed December 5, 2019)

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Appendix F: Inventory List of Manuscripts in Sanskrit, Khotanese, and Kuchean

The following preface was added by Aurel Stein to Appendix F, which was prepared for this publication by A. F. Rudolf Hoernle:

[NOTE. The materials embodied in this list were received in a final form from Dr. Hoernle. early in 1918. The typed press copy prepared from them was after his death in November of that year checked with the original under the kind supervision of Dr. F. W. Thomas.

Owing to various reasons difficulty was experienced about verifying the exact reading of all extracts quoted by Dr. Hoernle from particular MSS., mainly in Khotanese language. It being thus impossible to assure in this respect the degree of accuracy which that most painstaking collaborator would have aimed at, I have thought it advisable to reduce the reproduction of such quotations within narrow limits. For convenient reference by future students the original Inventory ' slips' as received from Dr. Hoernle's hand, as well as a typed copy of them, have been deposited at the India Office Library.—A. STEIN.]

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Indo-Scythian Studies: Being Khotanese Texts, Vol. 5

The vast expansion of Indian culture by Buddhists who penetrated through Bactria into the region of modern Kashghar, Yarkand, Khotan, Maralbashi, Kucha and Loulan has been disclosed by the results of expeditions sent out in the first decade of this century. Among the numerous documents was a considerable number written in Ancient Khotan, but in a dialect of the Śakas, or Indo-Scythians, who from the first century BC to the third century AD were dominant in North-western India. Volume I of Khotanese Texts was published in 1946, Volume II in 1954 and Volume III, which completed the publication of the longer texts in 1956. Volume IV containing the Śaka Texts from the Hedin Collection appeared in 1961. The fifth volume completed the printing of the texts. When it was published in 1963, it contained a large number of fragments and other pieces published for the first time, as well as the Hoernle Collection, the Samguata-Sutra folios and the Karma Text. (Source: Cambridge University Press)

Bailey, Harold W. Indo-Scythian Studies: Being Khotanese Texts. Vol. 5. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

Bailey, Harold W. Indo-Scythian Studies: Being Khotanese Texts. Vol. 5. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1963.;Indo-Scythian Studies: Being Khotanese Texts, Vol. 5;Textual study;History;Hoernle, A.;Uttaratantra;Stein, A.;Harold Walter Bailey; Indo-Scythian Studies: Being Khotanese Texts, Vol. 5.