Heinrich Blochmann facts for kids
Heinrich Blochmann, also known as Henry Ferdinand Blochmann, was a smart German scholar. He was born on January 8, 1838, and passed away on July 13, 1878. He loved studying languages and cultures from the East, especially Persian and its literature.
Blochmann spent most of his life in India. There, he worked as a professor and later became the principal of the Calcutta Madrasa. Today, this school is called Aliah University in Kolkata. He is also famous for being one of the first people to translate a very important book called Ain-i-Akbari into English. This book was written in the 1500s in Persian and tells about the Mughal emperor Akbar. Blochmann's translation came out in 1873.
Early Life and Education
Heinrich Blochmann was born in Dresden, Germany, on January 8, 1838. His father was Ernest Ehrenfried Blochmann, who worked as a printer. His uncle was Karl Justus Blochmann.
Young Heinrich went to school at the Kreuzschule. Later, he studied at the University of Leipzig starting in 1855. There, he learned about languages from the East, called oriental languages, from a teacher named Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer. In 1857, he also spent some time studying in Paris, France.
Career in India
In 1858, Blochmann traveled to England because he wanted to go to India. He joined the British Indian Army as a private soldier that same year. When he arrived in Calcutta, he was given office work at Fort William. He also started teaching Persian lessons.
After about a year, he left the army. For a short time, he worked for the Peninsular and Oriental Company as an interpreter, helping people understand different languages. He became friends with William Nassau Lees, who was the principal of the Calcutta Madrasa.
Thanks to this friendship, Blochmann got his first government job in 1860, when he was just 22 years old. He became an assistant professor of Arabic and Persian at the Madrasa. In 1861, he earned his M.A. and LL.D. degrees from the University of Calcutta. For his exam, he chose to study Hebrew.
The next year, he left the Madrasa to work at Doveton College. There, he was a pro-rector and a professor of mathematics. But in 1865, he returned to the Calcutta Madrasa. He stayed there for the rest of his life and was the principal when he passed away.
Blochmann also went on trips to explore old historical sites in India and British Burma. However, he usually lived in Calcutta. In 1868, he became the secretary for languages (philological secretary) at the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He died on July 13, 1878, and was buried in the Circular Road cemetery in Calcutta.
Important Works
Blochmann's most important work was his translation of the Ain-i-Akbari. This book was written by Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak. Before Blochmann, another person named Francis Gladwin had made a shorter version. Blochmann's translation was much more complete.
Sadly, Blochmann only finished translating the first volume of the Ain-i-Akbari before he died in 1873. The rest of the work was completed by Henry Sullivan Jarrett. Blochmann's notes in the book gave lots of details about the Emperor Akbar, his royal court, and how the Mughal Empire was run. He also included a life story of Abul-Fazl at the beginning of the translation. Later, from 1927, Douglas Craven Phillott and Jadunath Sarkar updated this translation.
Another important book Blochmann wrote was The Prosody of the Persians, which came out in Calcutta in 1872. He also wrote many papers for the Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. These papers included a series called Contributions to the History and Geography of Bengal.
Family Life
Blochmann was married to an Irish woman. She lived longer than him, and they had three children together.
