Rudolf Kaschewsky
( from a letter sent to Enzo G. Bargiacchi, 7.3.2008, for the website http://www.ippolito-desideri.net )
Born in Köln (1939, April the 16th), I had a humanistic school education (with Latin, Greek and Hebrew), and then I studied Semitic Philology, Indology and Catholic Theology. Later on, I shifted to Tibetan and Mongolian studies. My main interest is on the relationship and/or comparison between different languages and cultures – and this is why I came into contact with the studies on Desideri and missionary activity
A rather similar
situation of mutual relationship and adaptation I found in the development of
Buddhism in different
cultural areas. It is fascinating to see how
Buddhist Philosophy
as expressed in the rather complicated
Sanskrit language was
“transferred” into Tibet and
Tibetan language,
creating there a new terminology. And several century later , the wealth of
Tibetan Buddhist
literature was “transferred” into
Mongolian, again
creating a new (adapted) terminology. These developments are quite comparable
with the transition from the
Hebrew Bible to Greek
and then to Latin.
As to my present activity, I am still teaching
Tibetan and
Mongolian at
Bonn University.
I made several expeditions (and also smaller journeys) to the Tibetan speaking
areas of India and
Nepal.
Connected pages:
António de Andrade
Enzo Gualtiero Bargiacchi
Luigi Foscolo Benedetto
Giotto Dainelli
Filippo De Filippi
Angelo De Gubernatis
Manoel Freyre
Gherardo Nerucci
Luciano Petech
Carlo Puini
Giuseppe Toscano
Giuseppe Tucci