Leszek Dunin Borkowski: 19th-century Galician Explorer of Old Indian Literature

The article presents Leszek Dunin Borkowski, the unique personage from the bygone Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Borkowski was a Polish writer, poet, publicist and politician who took active part in the November Uprising in 1830, and who – after its fall – arrived in Königsberg, Prussia, where he studied Sanskrit language and literature under Peter van Bohlen, renown German Orientalist of the period, himself a pupil of A.W. Schlegel and F. Bopp. When the Prussians discovered that the student of Sanskrit is a rebellious citizen of the Austrian monarchy and that his presence in Prussia was illegal, they forced him to return to Lemberg (Lviv). Undeterred, Borkowski followed his interest in Sanskrit culture and literature for many succeeding years. His continued explorations in the field resulted in publishing two indological essays. In the one titled Setka Bhartiharis’a (Centuries by Bhartṛhari, 1845), Borkowski interpreted chosen excerpts for the collection of Sanskrit poems known as Three Hundred Poems on Love, Right Conduct and Renunciation ascribed to the poet Bhartrihari (~5 c.). In the second work: O najdawniejszych zabytkach pisemnych (On the Oldest Written Records, 1850) he probed into Vedic literature, which he saw as the oldest testimony of human ideas about God and transcendence. The article introduces the reader to the writings of the Galician intellectual who, to all probability, was the first in the region to undertake a scholarly investigation of Old Indian Literature.
 

Leszek Dunin Borkowski: 19th-century Galician Explorer of Old Indian Literature

The article presents Leszek Dunin Borkowski, the unique personage from the bygone Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Borkowski was a Polish writer, poet, publicist and politician who took active part in the November Uprising in 1830, and who – after its fall – arrived in Königsberg, Prussia, where he studied Sanskrit language and literature under Peter van Bohlen, renown German Orientalist of the period, himself a pupil of A.W. Schlegel and F. Bopp. When the Prussians discovered that the student of Sanskrit is a rebellious citizen of the Austrian monarchy and that his presence in Prussia was illegal, they forced him to return to Lemberg (Lviv). Undeterred, Borkowski followed his interest in Sanskrit culture and literature for many succeeding years. His continued explorations in the field resulted in publishing two indological essays. In the one titled Setka Bhartiharis’a (Centuries by Bhartṛhari, 1845), Borkowski interpreted chosen excerpts for the collection of Sanskrit poems known as Three Hundred Poems on Love, Right Conduct and Renunciation ascribed to the poet Bhartrihari (~5 c.). In the second work: O najdawniejszych zabytkach pisemnych (On the Oldest Written Records, 1850) he probed into Vedic literature, which he saw as the oldest testimony of human ideas about God and transcendence. The article introduces the reader to the writings of the Galician intellectual who, to all probability, was the first in the region to undertake a scholarly investigation of Old Indian Literature.