In 1808 Friedrich Schlegel publishes On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, the book that launches the German Oriental Renaissance. Schlegel, who had learned Sanskrit in Paris, presents India as the source of a primordial wisdom and coins the comparative frame in which the West will read Asian religion for a century.
Tagged: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
The Event
- Date
- 1808 (exact)
- Era
- The Oriental Renaissance; Periodization of the construction and its sources
- Location
- Heidelberg; today Heidelberg, Germany
- Traditions
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Streams
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Key figures
- Friedrich Schlegel
- Key texts
- On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians
Primary Sources
- Schlegel, Friedrich. Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Heidelberg, 1808.
Secondary Sources
- Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997.
- Halbfass, Wilhelm. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
- King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London: Routledge, 1999.
Provenance: HIST-1373; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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