Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern

Hendrik Kern
(painting by Josseaud), (Leiden)

Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern(6 April 1833 – 4 July 1917) was a Dutchlinguistand Orientalist. In the literature, he is usually referred to asH. KernorHendrik Kern;a few other scholars bear the same surname.

Life

Hendrik Kern was born to Dutch parents in theCentral-Javanesetown ofPurworejoin theDutch East Indies,; however, when he was six, his family repatriated to the Netherlands. When he entered grammar school, he added the extra-curricular subjects of English and Italian to his studies.

In 1850, he went toUtrecht Universityto study Letters. In 1851, he moved toLeiden Universityto avail himself of the opportunity to readSanskritwith Professor A. Rutgers. After obtaining his Doctor's Degree in 1855, he moved toBerlin,where he continued his Sanskrit studies as a pupil ofAlbrecht Weber,and also took up Germanic and Slavonic languages.

On his return to the Netherlands in 1858, Dr Kern accepted a post as a lecturer of Greek atMaastricht.In 1863, he was offered a Professorship inBenares,Indiawhere he taught Sanskrit at Brahmana and Queen's Colleges until 1865, when he was offered the Chair of Sanskrit atLeiden University.He remained there until his retirement in 1903, when he moved to the city of Utrecht. In 1866 he became member of theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Kern continued work after his retirement. When his wife died in 1916, he was heart-broken and out-lived her by less than a year.

Work

Bust Hendrik Kern by Charles van Wijk

Together withHerman Neubronner van der Tuuk,Kern is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Oriental Studies in theNetherlands.His interest in languages was great, as witness his decision to take up English and Italian while still a secondary school pupil. In addition, he displayed an extraordinary ability to study, and to master, a wide variety of languages.

At first, his studies were restricted (if "restricted" is indeed the correct word) to Indo-European languages, ranging from the Germanic sub-group toSanskrit.His thesis, entitledSpecimen historicum exhibens scriptores Graecos de rebus Persicis Achaemenidarum monumentis collatos(1855) broadened the field toPersian,showing that inscriptions in that language could now be used to extend our knowledge of AncientPersia.While inBenares,he applied himself to the study ofDravidian languagesas well as picking up someArabicandHebrew,but also learnt sufficientHungarianto be able to read novels in that non-Indo-European language within a year. His studies also included theMalaylanguages.

In 1874, he published an edition of the astronomerĀryabhata's work, thus putting out the first publication inNagarascript in the Netherlands.

Apart from promoting the study ofSanskrit,Professor Kern laid the foundation forAustronesianstudies by Dutch scholars. It is as a comparativist and aphilologistthat he gained his great reputation. In 1879 he worked onCambodianinscriptions, then turned his attention toKawi(orOld Javanese) and in 1886 showed thatFijianandPolynesianwerecognatelanguages.He was the first scholar to propose that theOceanic languagesconstituted a sub-group ofAustronesian(orMalayo-Polynesian,as the language family was then called), and in 1906 he published a study ofAneityumandErromanga,two languages in theVanuatubranch of theOceanicsub-group.

His interests were not restricted to purelinguistics.Thus, in 1889 he made use of the "Wörter und Sachen"method (which compares designations for plants, animals and objects in cognate languages) to ascertain a putative dispersal centre for the"Malayo-Polynesian"peoples.

Kern's versatility also showed itself in his cultural studies. HisHistory of Buddhism in India(1881–83), displays a thorough command of its subject. However, the author has been criticised for an incomplete understanding of Easternastrologyand mysticism, which may in part have been due to hispositivistapproach. Professor Kern has also been said to have borne a deep distrust of his contemporaryNeogrammarians.

He published extensively, and his influence on subsequent linguists, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere, has been profound.

Select bibliography

Kern's chief work is considered to beGeschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indië(Haarlem,2 vols., 1881–1883). InEnglishhe wrote a translation of theSaddharma Pundarika(Oxford,1884, published as Vol. 21 ofMax Müller'sSacred Books of the East); and aManual of Indian Buddhism(Strassburg,1896) for Buhler Kielhorn'sGrundriss der indoarischen Philologie.

He also critically edited theJataka-Malaof Arya Shura in the original Sanskrit [in Devanagari] which was published as volume 1 of theHarvard Oriental Seriesin 1891. A second issue came in 1914.

(With two exceptions, the following publications are in Dutch. The translation of a title in quotation marks indicates that no English translation of the work has come to notice.)

• Handleiding bij het onderwijs der Nederlandse taal

( "A Guide to the Teaching of Dutch" )

two vols,Zutphen,1859–60, numerous reprints.

• Korte Nederlandse Spraakkunst

( "A Concise Dutch Grammar" )

Haarlem,1872.

• Over de schrijfwijze van eenige zamenst. in het Nederlands

( "On the Spelling of Some Compounds in Dutch" )

Utrecht,1858.

• Çakuntalā of het herkenningsteeken, Ind. tnsp. van Kālidāsa

( "Çacuntalā or the Mark of Recognition:Kālidāsa'sIndian Play ")

Haarlem, 1862.

• Over het aandeel van Indië en de geschiedenis van de Beschaving, en den invloed der studie van het Sanskrit op de taalwetenschap

( "On the Share of India and the History of Civilisation, and the Influence of the Study of Sanskrit on Linguistics" )

Leiden,1865.

• Die Glossen in der Lex Salica und die Sprache der Salischen Franken

( "The Glosses in theSalic Lawand the Language of the Salic Franks "[written in German])

The Hague,1869.

• Over de jaartelling der Zdl. Buddhisten

( "Concerning the Chronology of the Southern Buddhists" )

a publication of theKoninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen(Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), 1874.

• Wŗttasançaya, Oud-Javaans leerdicht over versbouw,tekst en vert.

( "Wŗttasançaya, an Old-Javanese Didactic Poem on Metrical Construction": Text and Translation)

Leiden, 1875.

• Eene Indische sage in Javaansch gewaad

( "An Indian Legend inJavaneseGuise ")

a publication of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), 1876.

• Over de oudjavaanse vertaling van 't Mahābhārata

( "On the Old-Javanese Translation of theMahābhārata)

a publication of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), 1877.

• Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indië

( "A History ofBuddhismin India ")

two vols, Haarlem, 1881–83. [Considered to be Kern's chief work.]

• Over den invloed der Indische, Arabische en Europese beschaving op de volken van den Indische Archipel

( "On the Influence of theIndian,ArabandEuropeanCivilisationson the Peoples of the IndonesianArchipelago")

Leiden, 1883.

• Saddharma-Pundarîka, or, the Lotus of the True Law

(First English translation ofLotus Sutra)

Oxford,1884.

• Verklaring van eenige woorden in Pali-geschriften

( "An Explanation of Some Words inPaliWritings ")

a publication of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), 1886.

• De Fidji-taal vergeleken met hare verwanten in Indonesië en Polynesië

( "TheFijiLanguage As Compared to Its Cognates in Indonesia and Polynesia ")

Amsterdam,1886.

• Tekstuitgave van het Oud-Javaanse heldendicht Rāmāyana

( "A Text Edition of the Old-JavaneseRāmāyanaEpic ")

The Hague, 1900.

• De legende van Kunjarakarna

( "The Legend ofKunjarakarna")

Amsterdam, 1901.

• Taalvergelijkende verhandeling over het Aneityumsch, met een Aanhangsel over het Klankstelsel van het Eromanga[sic]

( "A Comparative Treatise of Aneityum: With an Appendix on the Sound System of Erromanga" )

Amsterdam, 1906.

• Hendrik Kern,Verspreide Geschriften,'s-Gravenhage, M. Nijhoff, 15 v., 1913–28.
• Numerous contributions toBijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkundeand other learned journals.

Further reading

• Silk, Jonathan (2012).Kern and the Study of Indian Buddhism: With a Speculative Note on the Ceylonese Dhammarucikas.Journal of the Pali Text Society 31, 125–154.
• Thomas, F. W.; Vogel, J. Ph.; Blagden, C. O. (January 1918).Hendrik Kern,The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 173–184 – viaJSTOR(subscription required)
• Vetter, Tilmann (1999).Hendrik Kern and the Lotus Sutra,Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the year 1998, pp. 129–142

External links

• Kern's English-language translation ofSaddharma Pundarīka
• Biography in Dutch
• Biography in Dutch, outdated, but includes bibliography
• Portrait of Professor Kern