• The Foucaux collection at the BnF: forgotten works of a forgotten scholar

    Author(s):
    Charles Li (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Group(s):
    Indology
    Subject(s):
    Manuscripts, Sanskrit, Tibetan literature, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Buriats, Russia, Mongolia, Buddhism, Marginalia, Mitākṣarā (Vijñāneśvara), Mānavadharmaśāstra (Manu (Lawgiver))
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Indology, Tibetology, codicology, Buddhology
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/6rjy-mk45
    Abstract:
    Although he was the first professor of Tibetan in Europe as well as the chair of Sanskrit at the Collège de France, Philippe-Édouard Foucaux (1811-1894) is little remembered today; Bernard le Calloc'h, in a series of biographical articles on Foucaux, has described him as “un Angevin oublié.” Nevertheless, Foucaux’s published works, especially those on Mahāyāna Buddhism, are well represented in libraries and still studied. On the other hand, a number of his unpublished works, preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, have lain untouched for a century. This article reunites the “Foucaux collection,” the books and manuscripts from Foucaux’s library that were acquired by the BnF in various purchases and donations over time. Of particular interest are his marginal annotations — they provide a window into the mind of a 19th-century Indologist and Tibetologist as he encountered, for the first time, the extraordinarily alien traditions of the Orient.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    1 year ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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