From Turfan to Ajanta- Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Set of 2 Volumes)

Preface The dedicated study of South Asia, its classical culture in all its myriad forms, including its literature and religion and not least, its art, has distinguished the entire scholarly life of Dieter Schlingloff. With his vast panoply of interests and his insa tiable curiosity, well reflected by his publications, both in their impressive number and their diversity, he has enriched the field of South Asian Studies to a momentous degree. Thus, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, it gives us the editors and participants of this volume-great pleasure to offer him this Festschrift. Its length has become quite imposing, which certainly reflects the impact that Dieter Schlin gloff has made on his colleagues as well as more than one generation of students. Despite the jubilarian's characteristic humbleness and dislike of any sort of to-do or commotion, we sincerely hope that it can nevertheless be received as an appropriate token of our deep appreciation, respect and affection.

Through his life, Schlingloff, who was born in Kassel on 4 April 1928, has been active at a number of centres of German Indology. He began his career at the Berlin Academy of Sciences, where he was responsible for cataloguing and editing the Sanskrit manuscripts found during the Turfan expeditions at the beginning of the 20 century. To this period of his life we owe some of the most important mono graphs about these manuscripts, such as his work on Sanskrit metrics (Chandoviciti, Texte zur Sanskritmetrik) and his famous reconstruction of the manual of meditation which he named the Yogalehrbuch (for a complete list of his monographs and arti cles, see the annotated bibliography below). In these years he also published a gen eral introduction to Buddhism (Die Religion des Buddhismus, 1961-1963), based in part on his work on the Turfan manuscripts, two succinct volumes that have become a classic in the field.

When the construction of the Berlin Wall put an end to his work at the Academy, he became a lecturer at the Institute for Indology and Iranian Studies at the University of Göttingen. Later, as one of a long line of illustrious Indologists, he took on the professorship at the University of Kiel (of the predecessors who also held this chair, one might mention Hermann Jacobi, Hermann Oldenberg, Heinrich Lüders, Frie drich Schrader and Siegfried Lienhard).

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