author
Richard Garbe
1857–1927
A pioneering German Indologist, he helped open up Indian philosophy for Western readers through influential studies of Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and the Bhagavad Gita. His work combined close Sanskrit scholarship with a lasting interest in how philosophical ideas travel across cultures.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born on March 9, 1857, in Bredow near Stettin and later based in Tübingen, Richard Karl von Garbe became one of the notable European scholars of Indian thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is especially remembered for his work on Sanskrit texts and for bringing sustained academic attention to major traditions such as Sāṃkhya and Yoga.
Garbe studied and edited important Indian philosophical works, and he also wrote for broader readers interested in religion and comparative thought. His scholarship on the Bhagavad Gita and on classical Indian philosophy helped shape how many Western readers first encountered these traditions.
He died on September 22, 1927. Today he is mainly remembered as a careful, influential interpreter of Indian philosophy whose work reflects both the strengths and the limits of early modern European Indology.