Wilhelm Geiger (1856-1943): His Contributions in the Corpus of Philology

Wilhelm Geiger (1856-1943): His Contributions in the Corpus of Philology

Ahmad Yunus Mohd Noor¹, Asmilyia Mohd Mokhta²

¹Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Islam Hadhari & Associate Professor at the Research Centre for Theology & Philosophy, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

²Postgraduate student at the Faculty of Major Language Studies, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.8100266

Received: 16 October 2024; Accepted: 22 October 2024; Published: 22 November 2024

ABSTRACT

Philology is the study of the history of language including the historical study of literary texts. It is also intersections between literary criticism, history, and linguistics. This study will be conducted on an orientalist who is a philologist, Wilhelm Geiger (21 July 1856-2 September 1943). Wilhelm Geiger was a German scholar of Iranian and Indian. He also was known as specialist in Pali, Sinhala Language, and the Dhihevi Language of the Maldives. For Wilhelm, language means to explore the religion, history, and civilization of a people. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the methodology and the approach of philology by Wilhelm Geiger as well as to identify the contribution of Wilhelm Geiger in this field. This study will be in the form of qualitative using facts, articles review, and also analyze the contribution of Wilhelm Geiger in the corpus of philology. The finding shows that Wilhelm Geiger has contributed much in the corpus of philology, especially in Indo-Iranian languages and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He is especially well known for his work on the Sri Lanka chronicles which he made critical editions of the Pali text and English translations. Geiger’s contribution not only gives limited interest to philological and historical subjects.

Keywords: Wilhelm Geiger, Philology, Methodology, Contribution, Corpus

INTRODUCTION

 In the field of language, there are various disciplines that are organized for own respective and reason. This is because the language has diversity, and might differ according to their respective states. Language also is very important in the field of social sciences and also the field of academic knowledge because the interaction between humans and other human beings could be with the language aspects. This article will explain one discipline in the field of language which is also one of academic language, it is called ‘philology’.

Philology

Philology, originating from the Greek term ‘philologia’ meaning ‘love of words,’ is the study of language through both oral and written texts. It integrates text criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics, focusing on identifying, editing, and interpreting historical languages and their development. Classical philology has its roots in ancient libraries, being preserved through various cultural periods. With the emergence of modern linguistics in the 19th century, the field of philology began to narrow, placing greater emphasis on classical languages while simultaneously evolving to encompass broader aspects of language history and literary traditions.

Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger (1856–1943) was a prominent German philologist renowned for his specialization in Indo-Iranian languages. Studying under Friedrich von Spiegel, he earned his doctorate in Avestan and subsequently held teaching positions at various institutions, including the Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich. In 1891, he became a professor at Erlangen University. Geiger’s research significantly contributed to the fields of philology, history, and cultural studies, particularly through his exploration of Iranian culture and the Sinhalese language.

His academic journey led him to Ceylon in 1895, where he focused on Sinhala and Pali. Geiger’s significant publications include critical editions of the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa (1905) and an edited version of the Mahāvaṃsa (1908). He played a pivotal role in establishing Sinhala as an Aryan language derived from a Prakrit dialect of North Western India. His collaborative efforts resulted in the creation of a Dictionary of the Sinhalese Language, along with numerous articles on Pali literature and grammar.

Despite retiring in 1924, Geiger continued to work on Ceylonese studies and completed his major work, Culture of Ceylon in Medieval Times, posthumously. Over his career, he garnered numerous accolades, including honorary memberships in several prestigious societies and recognition in Japan for his contributions to Buddhist studies, solidifying his status as a key figure in the realms of philology and cultural scholarship.

According to Wikipedia, philology is a language study in sources of oral and written history, it has a cross between text criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics. Philology is also commonly defined as a literary text study written with many written records, establishing legitimacy, and authenticity of the text, as well as the determination of its meaning. According to Oxford English Dictionary, philology is knowledge related to structure, historical development, and language or language relations.

In the meantime, Encylopedia Britanica also defines philology as a history of language studies, including historical studies of literary texts. It is also called a comparison philology when emphasizing the contrast of different language history states. Traditionally, philology is one of the finest textual analyzes, often associated with literary history and using a rather traditional descriptive framework. Nowadays, this study has been substantially replaced by modern linguistics, which studies historical data more selectively as part of the discussion of broader issues in linguistic theory, such as the nature of language change.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht defines philology as referring to a configuration of scholarly skills that are geared toward a historical text curatorship that refers exclusively to written texts (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017). Accordingly, philological practice:

1. Has an affinity with those historical periods that see themselves as following a greater cultural moment.
2. Philology’s two-part core task is the identification and restoration of texts from each cultural past.
3. Philology establishes a distance with due respect to the intellectual space of hermeneutics and of interpretation as the textual practice that hermeneutics informs.
4. Philology plays a particularly important and often predominant role within those academic disciplines that deal with the most chronologically, and cultural remote segments of the past.

According to Jacobus & Cynthia (2017), Gumbrecht identifies five basic philological practices: identifying fragments, editing texts, writing historical commentaries, historicizing, and teaching by using the texts and cultures of the past. However, at different times and different places, the precise nature of the goals and methods of philology have manifested themselves in different ways.

There is also classic philology and the backgrounds of classic philology studies begin by classifying classical languages. The Classical philology is mainly derived from the Perfamum Library and the Alexandria Library in Egypt around the fourth century BCE, then it passed by the Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman Empire. It was preserved and promoted during the Islamic Golden Age and eventually resumed by the European Renaissance scholar which was shortly followed by other non-Asian philology, Eurasian and Arabic. Indo-European studies involve the comparison phonology of all Indo-European languages (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

In the 15^th century there was a widespread readiness to believe that the churched could be healed of its many ills through the discovery of hidden knowledge which was available in the Jewish writings. Textual philology thus demanded the knowledge of Hebrew and Greek alongside Latin (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

In addition, in the field of philology there is also a comparison. Linguistic comparative philology is to examine the relationship between language. At the beginning of the 16th century, there was an equality between the Sanskrit and the first European languages mentioned which led to the speculation of the same ancestral language from which all this was revealed and is now called Proto-Indo-European. In the 18th century, philological importance in ancient languages led to an “exotic language” study. It is to illuminate the problem of understanding and decipher the origins of old texts. From the definition given, we can conclude that comparisons of this philology are to make comparisons between languages by looking at language studies, literary texts in historical development (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

In the philology there is also an element of text criticism that attempts to rebuild the original text of the author based on variations of manuscript copies. The criticism was due to emergence among the early 4th century BC, who spoke Greek and wanted the establishment of a well-known standard text writer for the purpose of good interpretation and safe transmission (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

Therefore, since then the principle of original text has been corrected and applied to other widespread texts such as those which occur to the Bible, namely the hermeneutic method. The scholars have tried to rebuild the original Bible reading from manuscript variants. This method applies to classical studies and medieval texts as a way of rebuilding the original author’s work. This method is referred to as the ‘critical edition’ which provides to rebuild texts with ‘critical tools’. The critical tool mentioned is the addition of footnotes listing various variations of existing manuscripts, allowing scholars to gain insights into the tradition of manuscripts and variations. Research methods related to higher criticisms are to study authors, dates and texts that arise to place text within the context of history. Since these philological issues are inseparable from the interpretation issue, we see that there is no clear boundary between philology and hermeneutics (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

However, some scholars avoid making critical texts especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to know the actual footage. Thus, this movement is known as New Philology which has denied criticism of the original texts. The denial of criticism in this text is that it injects editorial interpretation into the text and destroys the integrity of the individual manuscript, thereby damaging the reliability of the data (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

In addition, there is another branch of philology called cognitive philology. It is a written and verbal study. This cognitive physiology assumes that oral texts are the result of human mental processes and this method is to compare textual science results with experimental results of both psychological production and artificial intelligence systems (Jacobus & Cynthia 2017).

Due to the rapid advancement in understanding good laws and language changes, the meaning of ‘love of learning and literature’ is enhanced to ‘study history of language development’ in the use of the term 19th century. In the use of English and in academic English, ‘philology’ is still synonymous with ‘historical linguistics’, while US and US academic English, the philology meaning is broader about ‘studying grammatical, historical and literary traditions’.

According to Jacobus & Cynthia (2017), at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the scope of Modern Philology began to narrow and the process of solving and reforming began. The 19th-century “noble” field of philosophy in one of the “two main divisions” was seized by a new linguistic science. Thus, as a discipline category, philology was then used to refer exclusively to classical Greek and Latin studies.

Biography

After a clear discussion about the field study and the chronology of philology, the study will reveal one of the scholars from Germany who is called a philologist, Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger, and was known as Wilhelm Geiger.

He was born on 21 July 1856 in Nuremberg and died on 2 September 1943. He was a German Orientalist in the field of Indo-Iranian language and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He is best known as a specialist in the Pali, Sinhala, and Dhivehi languages of the Maldives. His corpus of Philology that has made him known is that he made a Pali critical text edited on Sri Lanka Mahayamsa and Culavamsa chronicles and translations into English.

Wilhelm Geiger is a scholar who covers an extraordinary field of research as he is a pioneer who has opened a new path and field of study. His work is not only focused on Pali’s philology. In fact, he also has three major studies, namely the study of Iran, the Pali study, his study of Ceylon and Sinhalese. However, for Pali and Pali lexicography, he compiled a Pali dictionary. In addition, his study of the history of Ceylon was inseparable from his work in Pali, as the previous Ceylon chronology had been revealed in Pali.

Education and Career

Wilhelm Geiger is a great scholar, and well-known as German scholar in Iran and India. He studied classical and Oriental languages in Bonn, Berlin, and eventually at Erlangen-Nuremberg University under Iranian scholar, where he studied with Friedrich von Spiegel and received his doctorate in 1876. After completing his Doctorate of Philosophy in 1878 with the title His thesis on Avestan ‘Die Pehlevi-version of Ersten Capitels des Vendīdād (‘Pehlevi Version from First Chapter of Vendādād’), he has been a lecturer in the field of philology of ancient Iran and Indians. In addition to being a lecturer, he was also active in the gym until he became a master at the gym (Heinz Bechert 1977).

His career began in 1880 to 1884, he taught at the classic high school in Neustadt an der Hardt and then in Munich until 1891. Although Geiger was forced to earn livelihoods as Latin and Greek teachers at the Gymnasium in Neustadt an der Haardt, away from any major library, he has successfully published a series of very important studies, especially in Iran’s language, literature, and history. In 1884 Geiger was appointed teacher at the Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich and he also became a lecturer at Munich University in 1886 and currently he has a close friendship with Ernst Kuhn and Mark Aurel Stein (Heinz Bechert 1977).

In his doctoral thesis, Geiger is of the view that the Avestan’s scriptures come from East Iran before the Median and Persian empires. As other scholars suspect this view, Geiger wrote in the “Proceedings of the Bavarian Academy”, 1884 in the work of Vaterland und Zeitalter des Avesta und seiner Kultur (“The House and the Age of Avesta and Its Culture”). The most important book of Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum “The Civilization of Eastern Iran in Ancient Period” was translated by D.D.P. Sanjana, 1885/87. “Zarathustra in Gathas and in Greek and Roman Roman, translated from German Drs Geiger and Windischmann”, 1899.

In 1891, he was offered a seat in the field of Indo-European Comparative Philosophy at Erlangen University, replacing Spiegel. In 1920, he moved to Munich to replace his friend Ernst Kuhn as a member of the Aryan filaments. He had been teaching there until he retired in 1924. Although Geiger continued to work on the subject of Iran for several years after he became Professor Philharmonic Comparative at Erlangen University in 1891, replacing Spiegel, he also began to develop interest in Pali and Sinhala.

On 18 November 1895, Geiger began his first trip to Ceylon which was clearly described in his book (Ceylon, Tagebuchblätter und Reiseerinnerungen: 1898). Shortly after his arrival in Colombo, answering the questions of the Ceylon correspondent in Colombo about his visit, he said (according to the article in Professor W. Geiger in Colombo published in the Ceylon newspaper):

“I was sent to study Sinhalese, especially for scientific purposes, I hope to know whether it is under the Aryan language category or not. It is still the subject of a dispute among the leading people in Europe, and I have come to see whether I can finish the bones of the quarrel. “

In 1897 he published a pamphlet on Rouguiyas in Ceylon, in 1898 the first edition (German) from his etymologic glossary of Sinhalese and in 1900 he was ‘Litteratur und Sprache der Singhalesen’. He himself wrote about the importance of his journey:

“It was a matter of course that the journey meant so much to me, but it became absolutely crucial to my entire scientific life. Ceylon has become my domain of work. “

Again, his studies of Ceylon led him to an intensive study of Pāli. We may refer here to his own words once more:

“But Ceylon had done to me, not only his language, but also his history and his culture, so it goes without saying that I was particularly absorbed in the language of the psalm (a sacred song or hymn, in particular any of those contained in the biblical Book of Psalms and used in Christian and Jewish worship) and in the Mahāvaṃsa, who were then quite imperfect Chronicle of the island, which I edited and translated in three volumes each time The English Government in Ceylon financially supported this work and in 1925/6 also made a great [second] trip to Ceylon and through enabling the most diverse parts of the island, on which I could acquire the necessary vivid intuition of the scenes, where the various historical events took place. ”

Wilhelm Geiger studied the Avesta and ancient Iranian culture. Later, he became interested in Buddhism and Ceylon culture. Geiger’s contributions are outstanding in both fields (Heinz Bechert 1977). Its importance is not limited to the philological and historical subjects. In fact, he also studied contemporary political issues and contributed articles to daily newspapers. Therefore, we can conclude here that Wilhelm Geiger is a scholar involved in many fields such as philology, language studies, historical studies and cultural studies.

Works & Contributions

Geiger’s first publication in 1877 was an edited version and a translation of the Pahlavi version taken from the first chapter of Geiger’s thesis, Vidēvdād. Then in 1880 he published a translation with a third chapter review. In addition, he also made excellent editions and translations from Aogəmadaēčā which is very difficult text (in Pazand with the passages of the missing parts of the translation of Avesta and Sanskrit) that are only known in poor manuscripts. According to Spiegel’s teacher, Pahlavi is a mixture of Iranian and Semitic elements created with arbitrary, a kind of style (Stilgattung) that never really speaks. The Pazand is Pahlavi where the Semitic elements are abolished. He was unaware that Semitic elements, which were the Aramaic ideograms, were simply scripts (Schaeder, p. 175, saying that Geiger, following Westergaard, took the right view that Pahlavi was pure Iran with Semitic ideology) (Heinz Bechert 1977).

In 1879 he published the ‘Handbuch der Awestasprache’, which is a descriptive text solely. Soon, two other manuals appeared by Charles de Harlez (Manuel de la langue de l’Avesta, Paris, 1882) and Christian Bartholomae (Handbuch der altiranischen Dialekte, Leipzig, 1883); which includes the Old Persian and proto-Old Iran, which makes it more attractive to students, most of whom are interested in Indo-European studies. Therefore, the Geiger manual does not get much recognition even though it has been organized more clearly and easier to use. In 1890 Geiger published the manuscript and translation of Pahlavi Ayādgār ī Zarērān, a pioneering work which laid the foundation for further study of this difficult text by Theodore Nöldeke, A. Pagliaro, Emile Benveniste, and Davoud Monchi-Zadeh (Heinz Bechert 1977). Geiger brought out a geographical monograph on the Pamirs, 1887. He also contributed a paper Yatkar-i-Zariran and its relations to the Shahname’ to “Proceedings of the Bavarian Academy”, 1890. This only extant piece of Middle Iranian epic poetry was partly incorporated in the Shahname of Firdausi (Heinz Bechert 1977).

In the years 1889-95 Geiger published five articles on Balūčī and three articles on Paṧtō, based on the materials published by other scholars. His last contributions to the Iranian studies were his articles in the Grundriss, where he describes and gives brief grammatical sketches of modern Iranian languages. Geiger was also interested in anthropology and politics. He published a number of articles on the latter subject in newspapers and journals, especially on the Russian policy in Central Asia (Heinz Bechert 1977).

For his published works in ancient Iranian history, archeology and philology. He traveled to Ceylon in 1895 to learn the language. Geiger worked exclusively in this field of study in Iran until 1895, following his trip to Ceylon in the winter of 1895-1896, he was increasingly interested in Singhalese, Pali and Ceylon languages. His last contribution to Iran’s study was the chapter he wrote for Grundriss that he and Kuhn edited. He also compiled the first volume index. Since the chapters he wrote for Grundriss based on his previously collected material, it was concluded that Geiger had left an Iranian study in 1894 to become one of the first and most productive scholars in the history and culture of Ceylon, Pali and Sinhalese (Heinz Bechert 1977).

Geiger’s occupation with the languages of Iran in ancient times led him to study modern dialects, i.e. Baluchi and Afghan. Together with E. Kuhn, Geiger published Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (“Encyclopedia of Iranian Philology”), 1895-1904.

The ‘Great Chronicle’ (Mahāvaṃsa) is a critical work of editions of philology and has been published between 1908 and 1930. He also contributed to the knowledge of Pali’s book with research into the source and development of the Pali book in his book ‘Dīpavaṃsa und Mahāvaṃsa und die geschichtliche Überlieferung in Ceylon ‘in 1905. Besides, some of his works have been translated into English by Ethel M. Coomaraswamy such as ‘Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa and its historical development in Ceylon’, Colombo 1908) and ‘Noch einmal Dīpavaṃsa und Mahāvaṃsa’. Geiger became famous as one of the most famous Pali scholars, he was given two tasks, first to give his aid to the Pali dictionary plan, and secondly, to write Pali grammar.

In early 1903, Wilhelm Geiger was asked to collaborate in dictionary work. According to an article published in 1909 by T. W. Rhys Davids at the Pali Text Society Report, Geiger and M. Bode as co-workers are writers for volume III consisting of P-M. Geiger’s letters and then expanding their lexicographical collection of materials. Initially, the list of words from Pali and he began to collect words and references from various other texts, especially from several parts of Vinaya, parts of the four Nikaya, Dhammapada, Udana, Suttanipata, Jataka with his commentary (especially volumes I and III), Dhammapadaṭṭhakatha, Daṭhavaṃsa, Hatthagallaviharavaṃsa, Rasavahini and others (Heinz Bechert 1977).

Geiger’s first Indological study was Elementarbuch des Sanskrrit Unter Beruecksichtigung der vedischen sprache, (Elementary book of Sanskrit under consideration of the Vedic language). Its third edition appeared 1923 and was reprinted in 1982. His journey to Ceylon enabled him to study the languages of that island, and he published the results in “Proceedings of the Bavarian Academy.” He contributed Literatur und Sprache der Singhalesen to the “Encyclopedia of Indo-Aryan Research.” Geiger estab­lished beyond doubt that Singhalese is an Aryan language, which he consi­dered to be based on a Prakrit dialect of North Western India. The languages of the Rodiyas, a ‘low’ caste and the tribal Veddas were also subjects of Geiger’s studies. He came to the conclusion that Rodiya was similar to the Singhalese spoken by the lower strata of society. Likewise, the language of the Veddas was Singhalese in character. A considerable number of words, however, were remnants of the original language of the Veddas. The Maladive Islands were colonised by the Singhalese, Geiger showed in his Maldivian Linguistic Studies, Colombo 1919. In 1938, Geiger wrote a Singhalese Grammar. His Glossary of the Singhalese Language, and Studien zur Geschichte und Sprache Ceylonsappeared in 1941 (Heinz Bechert 1977).

In 1916, Geiger contributed Pali Literatur und Sprache (Pali Language and Literature) to the “Encyclopedia of Indo-Aryan Research”. He thought that Pali was a lingua franca based on Magadhi and that it was the language used by the Buddha. The Critical Pali Dictionary that Geiger had planned did not materialise. The material that he had collected for this project was later used by the Danish Academy of Sciences. His “Dictionary of the Singhalese language” appeared in 1935 (Wilhelm 1994).

In collaboration with his wife Magdalene he wrote a monograph Pali Dhamma, vornehmlich in der kanonischen Literatur (Pali dhamma, especially in canonical literature), in which the authors discussed the meanings of terms like law, order, character, teaching and others. Geiger translated several sermons of the Buddha from the Samyutta Nikaya. He also contri­buted many papers for the journal Zeitschrift fuer Buddhismus, which he edited (Wilhelm 1994).

Geiger also contributed to the study of Ceylonese history and culture. In 1905, Geiger wrote Dipavamsa und Mahavamsa und die geschichtliche Ueberlieferung in Ceylon. In 1908, he edited the chronicle Mahavamsa. In 1912 the translation of this text followed. The Culavamsa appeared in 1925, and 1927, as well as the translation in 1929, and 1930. In Die Quellen des Mahavamsa (The Sources of the Maha­vamsa), in 1929, Geiger stated that other sources too must have been used.

In the meantime, Geiger was invited to succeed Kuhn in the chair of Indology and Iranian studies at the University of Munich in 1920. A few years later, after he had passed the age of 68, he retired from his chair and spent the rest of his life in the small village of Neubiberg near Munich. Many honours were conferred upon him during these years: in 1926 he was appointed Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, in 1929 Honorary Member of the American Oriental Society, in 1930 Honorary Member of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in 1934 Honorary Member of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, in 1935 Honorary Member of the Société Asiatique in Paris, and in the same year Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Even as far as Japan, his name was celebrated now: in 1934 a Japanese medal in memory of the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha’s birthday was conferred on him as one of only seven scholars in the field of Buddhist studies who were deemed to deserve this honour. And there was no interruption of his prolific work after his retirement (Heinz 1977).

But during the last 15 years of his life, Geiger concentrated more and more on studies of Ceylon, and therefore he no longer published works on Pāli philology in the strict sense of the word. His notes about the interpretation of difficult passages in the Pāli canon and about the development of the Buddhist doctrine in the canonical books remained unpublished. One of Geiger’s letters written in Pāli to A. P. Buddhadatta Mahāthera, however, has been published by this Sinhalese scholar and since then, it figures as a part of the standard materials in Ceylonese school books on Pāli (Heinz 1977).

But even in his Ceylonese studies Geiger did not lose contact with Pāli philology. First, he completed the redaction and translation of the Mahāvaṃsa, the first part of which had already appeared in 1908, as mentioned above. In order to help this undertaking, the Government of Ceylon invited him to visit the island in 1925/6. And after he had agreed to become director of the “Dictionary of the Sinhalese Language” in Colombo he went to Ceylon in 1931/2 for a third time. In this task he closely collaborated with Helmer Smith, who, invited by Geiger, joined as a director of that dictionary in 1936 (Heinz 1977).

After the completion of “A Grammar of the Sinhalese Language” (1938) and other important contributions to Sinhalese philology, he again concentrated on a study of the Mahāvaṃsa, but now for an entirely new purpose, namely to investigate mediaeval Sinhalese culture. When he had succeeded in completing the manuscript of “Culture of Ceylon in Mediaeval Times” in 1940 (published in 1960) and in providing an examination of the Sinhalese syntax in “Studien zur Geschichte und Sprache Ceylons” and “Beiträge zur singhalesischen Sprachgeschichte” (1942), he had achieved the rounding-off of his lifework, as it had been his aim from his youth.

After Geiger’s death, H. Bechert published his Culture of Ceylon in Medieval Times, 1960. Here Geiger describes Ceylonese culture from 362 to 1505 in all its aspects. Geiger’s work now can serve the purpose for which it was originally intended to help in the preparation of a Pāli dictionary by international collaboration of scholars. It might be mentioned here that Geiger’s Pāli Dictionary is written on paper slips measuring 10.4 x 8.5 cm. For each reference the meaning of the word is stated.

In 1916, Ernst Kuhn was appointed editor of the number after Edmund Hardy’s death. When Kuhn wanted to retire from this task, Kuhn wrote to Geiger to ask Geiger to take over this task. Hence, here are list of the works and contributions of Wilhelm Geiger from 1877 until 1977:

English Works and Translation:

1. The Age of the Avesta and Zoroaster, co-authored with Friedrich Spiegel, translated into English by Dārāb Dastur Peshotan Sanjānā, London 1886.
2. Civilization of the eastern Iranians in ancient times, with an introduction on the Avesta religion, translated into English by Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana, London 1885–1886.
3. Zarathushtra in the Gathas, and in the Greek and Roman classics, co-authored with Friedrich Heinrich Hugo Windischmann; translated into English by Dārāb Dastur Peshotan Sanjānā, Leipzig 1897.
4. The Dīpavaṃsaand Mahāvaṃsa and their historical development in Ceylon, translated into English by Ethel M. Coomaraswamy, Colombo 1908.
5. The Mahavāmsa or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon, English translation assisted by Mabel Haynes Bode, Pali Text Society, London 1912.
6. Maldivian Linguistic Studies, Colombo 1919.
7. The Language of the Väddās, Calcutta 1935.
8. A Grammar of the Sinhala language, Colombo 1938.
9. Pali Literature and Language, translated by Batakrishna Ghoshfrom the German original, Calcutta 1943. Revised by  R. Norman under the title A Pali Grammar, Oxford 1994.
10. Cūlavamsa : being the more recent part of the Mahāvamsa, English translation assisted by Christian Mabel Duff Rickmers, Colombo 1953.
11. Culture of Ceylon in mediaeval times, edited by Heinz Bechert, Wiesbaden 1960.

German Corpus

1. Die Pehleviversion des Ersten Capitels des Vendîdâd herausgegeben nebst dem Versuch einer ersten Uebersetzung und Erklärung.Erlangen, 1877.
2. Handbuch der Awestasprache. Grammatik, Chrestomathie und Glossar.Erlangen, 1879.
3. Etymologie des Balūčī. Aus den Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akademie der Wiss. I. Cl. XIX. Bd. I. Abth.München, 1890.
4. Etymologie des Singhalesischen. Aus den Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akademie der Wiss. I. Cl. XXI. Bd. II. Abth.München, 1897.
5. Tagebuchblätter und Reiseerinnerungen.Wiesbaden, 1898.
6. Wilhelm Geiger & Ernst Kuhn(Hrsg.): Grundriß der iranischen Philologie. Bd., 1. Abt., Straßburg 1895–1901; Anhang zum 1. Bd., Straßburg, 1903; II. Bd., Straßburg, 1896–1904.
7. Litteratur und Sprache der Singhalesen.Straßburg, 1900.
8. Dīpavamsa und Mahāvamsa, die beiden Chroniken der Insel Ceylon. Sonderabdruck aus der Festschrift der Universität Erlangen zur Feier des achtzigsten Geburtstages Sr. königlichen Hoheit des Prinzregenten Luitpold von Bayern.Erlangen & Leipzig, 1901.
9. Dīpavaṃsa und Mahāvaṃsa und die geschichtliche Überlieferung in Ceylon, Leipzig, 1905.
10. Wilhelm Geiger & Magdalene Geiger: Pāli Dhamma vornehmlich in der kanonischen Literatur, München, 1920.
11. Wilhelm Geiger: Elementarbuch des Sanskrit, de Gruyter, Berlin und Leipzig, 1923.
12. Wilhelm Geiger: Besprechung zu Heinrich Junker, Arische Forschungen, um 1930.
13. Wilhelm Geiger: Singhalesische Etymologien.Stephen Austin and Sons, 1936.
14. Wilhelm Geiger: Beiträge zur singhalesischen Sprachgeschichte, Bayerischen Akad. der Wiss., München 1942.
15. Wilhelm Geiger: Kleine Schriften zur Indologie und Buddhismuskunde, hrsg. von Heinz Bechert. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1973.
16. Wilhelm Geiger: Die Reden des Buddha: Gruppierte Sammlung, Saṃyutta-nikāya, translation of Saṃyutta-nikāya, Beyerlein-Steinschulte, Stammbach, 1997.

METHODOLOGY AND APPROACH

This part will discuss about methodology and approach by Wilhelm Geiger regarding his philological study. Geiger is a philologist who has no interest in pure linguistics. For him, language is to explore religion, history, and human civilization. It means that Geiger’s understanding in the field of philology is different from linguistics.

Based on Geiger’s point of views, he has taken the approach to empowering the Pali language as he is obsessed with exploring religions, history, and human civilization especially in Iran and Sri Lanka. This is because Geiger agrees and accordingly strengthens the collection of materials for the dictionary. The communication between different breeds of scholars was cut off by the First World War, he could not tell, of course, the plans for the international Pali dictionary were out of date. At the same time, in Copenhagen, Dines Andersen (who was appointed as the fourth volume author of the internationally designed dictionary) and Helmer Smith practiced Pali dictionary editing based on material left by V. Trenckner without the help of foreign collaborators. Therefore, they started the “Critical Critical Dictionary”. Independently, T. W. Rhys Davids decided to supply a temporary dictionary to be written as quickly as possible in England and edited by the Pāli Text Society, a task carried out with the help of William Stede in 1921-1925 (Wilhem 1994).

In this situation, Kuhn and Geiger in October 1919 decided to assist the development of the Pali Text Society dictionary by sending all the materials into their hands, including the Kuhn Pali collection, to T. W. Rhys Davids. Additionally, they asked the Bavarian Academy to pay the amount aside from “Hardy-Stiftung” for the Pali Dictionary to Pāli Text Society. Geiger’s own collection, however, remained with him, and he continued to raise them (Wilhelm 1994).

During the search on the method used by Wilhelm Geiger, the researcher found that Wilhelm had made additions to the original text. This can be seen in his A Pali Grammar book that he has added a footnote as a reference point and convenience to others. Furthermore, based on the searches conducted, researcher did not find Wilhelm Geiger criticizing other religions, even he admired Buddhism. This is because the researcher’s viewpoint that Wilhelm Geiger ventures into philology in Pali and he only focuses on classical textual studies. Therefore, his main focus is to translate Pali’s classic texts and at the same time did not change the original texts of Pali’s history.

Findings

The findings show that Wilhelm Geiger has contributed much to philology especially in Indo-Iran and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He is also famous for his work on Sri Lankan chronicles which made critical editions of Pali texts and English translations. In addition, Geiger’s contribution can also be seen in the compilation of the Pali dictionary, publication and translation of many books on Pali culture including religion and history into English and German. As a result, Geiger’s contribution was not limited to the philology and history subjects but he has also left a great contribution through his writing and publication of Pali, Indo-Iran, English, and German.

About Pali’s Dictionary, although it has became useful for the public only many years after his death, his grammar of Pāli has been an indispensable book since 1916 for every Pāli scholar. This book, too, has a remarkable history. The collections gathered by Geiger for the dictionary were, of course, a valuable help for the fulfilment of writing the first (and up to this day the only) comprehensive grammar of Pāli based on the study of texts.

CONCLUSION

It can be concluded that Geiger has an intellectual character in the field of philology. This was evidenced by his contribution as a translator of books from Pali to English and German.

In addition, he also contributed to the compilation of the Pali dictionary, the Pali grammar and many more. Although the Geiger field focuses only on philology in Iran, its academic contribution is particularly useful today among scholars in Pali and also scholars who learn about Iran because Wilhelm’s work is in philology in Iran and Sri Lanka. This means that Geiger has translated and contributed to all scholars in understanding the Pali Language, indirectly it will also help scholars to understand and learn more about Indo-Iranian history.

REFERENCES

1. A Critical Pali Dictionary Online. Wilhelm Geiger. Accessed on 1 November 2023. http://cpd.uni-koeln.de/intro/wilhelm geiger obituary
2. Encyclopedia Iranica. Geiger, Wilhelm. Accessed on 1 November 2023. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/geiger-wilhelm
3. Jacobus A. Naude & Cynthia L. Miller-Naude. (2017). the Displinary of Linguistics and Philology. University of the Free State.
4. Heinz Bechert. (1977). Wilhelm Geiger: His Life and Works,
5. Wilhelm Geiger. (1957). Pali Literature and Language. (Trans.) Batakrishna Ghosh. India: Calcutta.
6. Wilhelm Geiger. (2005). A Pali Grammar. (Trans.) Batakrishna Ghosh. Oxford: The Pali Text Society.
7. Wilhelm Geiger. Accessed on 1 November 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm Geiger