author
Richard Garbe
1857–1927
A pioneering scholar of Indian philosophy, he helped bring Sanskrit thought to a wider European audience through studies of Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and the Bhagavad Gita. His work joined close textual scholarship with a lifelong interest in how Indian ideas were understood in the modern West.
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About the author
Richard Karl von Garbe was a German Indologist and professor, born on March 9, 1857, in Bredow near Stettin and died on September 22, 1927, in Tübingen. After beginning with law, he turned to Sanskrit studies at the University of Tübingen and went on to build a career centered on Indian philosophy, religion, and literary traditions.
He is especially remembered for his research on Sāṃkhya and Yoga and for influential work on the Bhagavad Gita. Garbe also traveled in India in the 1880s, an experience that informed both his scholarship and his travel writing. Later he held the Sanskrit chair at Tübingen, where he became one of the notable German scholars working on classical Indian texts.
His books and translations helped introduce many readers to Hindu thought at a time when European knowledge of it was still developing. Even when some of his interpretations were debated, his work remained an important part of early modern Indology and the study of Indian philosophy in the West.