Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/250

Rh in the production of the 'Essai sur le Pali' (1826). On his return to Germany he settled at Bonn, whither he was attracted by the presence of Schlegel and Bopp. Like them, he was devoted to the study of Sanscrit and the literature of India; and in conjunction with Schlegel he became the founder of Sanscrit philology in Germany. In 1829, he assisted him in the publication of the Râmâyana, and subsequently edited other ancient texts. In 1830, he received a Professorship at the University with the munificent stipend of three hundred thalers, or about forty-five pounds, a year; and ten years later, when he had attained a wide celebrity, a chair of Indian Languages and Literature was created for him with a salary of seven hundred thalers. Here he spent his life, writing and lecturing on his favourite studies, which also included modern Persian and English literature. His chief works were the 'Prakrit Grammatik' (1837), the Vendidad (1852), and notably the 'Indische Alterthumskunde,' begun in 1847 and continued down to 1867.

Lassen was troubled during the greater portion of his life by a weakness of sight, which from 1840 became a serious impediment to his studies. His last lectures were delivered in the session 1868-9, but he lived on to 1876, when he died in the city which partly from his own labours had acquired the name of 'the second Benares, on the shore of a second Ganges.'

When he left Paris in 1826 he continued to correspond with Burnouf, and received letters from him subscribed with the cuneiform sign for B. Burnouf had in fact long devoted himself to cuneiform studies, as is apparent from his edition of the Yaçna in 1833; but it is not stated when Lassen first directed his attention to the same subject. Both scholars published their essays upon it in 1836. When Burnouf com-