Betty Heimann

Betty Heimann (29 March 1888, Wandsbek, Germany - 19 May 1961, Sirmione, Italy) was the first woman Indologist to habilitate in Germany. After the Nazis banned Jews from holding academic positions in Germany in 1933, she taught at the University of London and became a British citizen. After the end of World War II she founded the Department of Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit at the University of Ceylon.

She is included with early pioneers of comparative philosophy. Her father died when she was ten. Her mother was noted for her beauty and was a leader of turn-of-the-century Hamburg society. The preface to her book Facets of Indian Thought mentions the close relationship between Betty Heimann and historian Ruth von Schulze Gaevernitz, "her friend and spiritual companion since student days in Heidelberg".

In 1918 Betty Heimann sat for state examinations in classical philology and philosophy, and graduated summa cum laude.

She accepted a position as an assistant and librarian to the professor of classical Semitic studies in Kiel from 1921 to 1923. Felix Jacoby was a professor of classics at Kiel and Friedrich Otto Schrader became a professor of indology there in 1921.

Habilitation Heimann apparently returned to Heidelberg in 1922-1923, where she presented a possible habilitation topic to the Faculty of Arts. However, the majority of the faculty rejected her application for Venia legendi, the right to teach. and the first woman indologist to habilitate in Germany. She used the linguistic methodology she had learned from philology as a way of approaching philosophical questions. Both her methods and her ideas were innovative. In 1930 she received a prize for the best scientific work by a woman from the IFUW for her research work "Studium der Eigenart indischen Denkens" (Study of the Character of Indian Thinking).

As of 11 August 1931 Betty Heimann was appointed as an associate professor (professor extraordinarius) at the University of Halle, filling a position previously held by Eugen Hultzsch.

Heimann had spoken out against Nazi policy on racial issues, and was denounced at the Ministry of Culture in Berlin for commenting as a Jew on the worthlessness of racial purity.

In September 1933, Heimann traveled to London, where she was invited to give a report about her trip to India to the International Federation of University Women (IFUW).

The book reveals "her long and serious consideration of the differences between these two cultures". In it, she argues that Western and Indian philosophies are grounded in fundamentally different worldviews that must be understood in their own terms. Western thought tends to regard man as both central and superior to the natural world, while Indian thought tends to regard man on terms of equality with nature and with other creatures.

This work has led her to be included with early pioneers of comparative philosophy, Rudolf Otto, Georg Misch, Paul Masson-Oursel and Walter Ruben.

For some time she held a half-time position in the Department of Indian Philosophy at the University of London, which was created specifically for her. and an address on "Plurality, Polarity, and Unity in Hindu Thought: A Doxographical Study" at the International Congress of Orientalists in Brussels on September 8, 1938. She may also have lectured at the University of Oxford. and Penelope Chetwode. Kramrisch described Heimann as "a refugee Professor of Sanskrit from Heidelberg". She was the first professor of Sanskrit and the first woman professor at the University of Ceylon. Her successor as professor of Sanskrit was O. H. de A. Wijesekera, who had been one of her students at the University of London.

Ceylon University College was formally opened in 1921 in Colombo, Ceylon, and was affiliated with the University of London. The College formed the nucleus of the University of Ceylon, officially created in 1942. As of 1948, Ceylon achieved political independence and became Sri Lanka. Betty Heimann therefore worked at the University of Ceylon, in Colombo, Ceylon, which became Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Although the University of Ceylon was the only university in Ceylon from 1942 to 1972, it had departments in various satellite locations. Between 1952 and 1963, the faculty of Oriental Studies and Arts was located in Peradeniya. Beginning in 1963, courses were offered in both Peradeniya and Colombo. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972 replaced the University of Ceylon with the University of Sri Lanka, which existed from 1973 to 1978. In 1978 the University of Sri Lanka was separated into four independent universities. One was in Peradeniya. Another was the University of Colombo, at the original location of Ceylon University College and the University of Ceylon. Although Heimann figures in the common history of both institutions, it can be argued that she did not, technically speaking, teach at either. a project that was still in manuscript form at her death. Her obituary, in the magazine Purana, concludes "Hail! May you attain the eternal abode of the Supreme Brahman, beyond all darkness".

The manuscript for her Facets of Indian Thought (1964) was edited and published posthumously by Ruth Gaevernitz, Terence Gervais, and Hilde Wolpe. Die Entwicklung des Gottesbegriffes der Upaniṣaden (1926) Studien zur eigenart Indischen denkens. Tübingen: Mohr, 1930. Indian and western philosophy: a study in contrasts. London: G. Allen & Unwin, ltd., 1937. India's past: a key to India's present. Rugby, Eng.: Printed for D. Thomas by A. Frost & sons, ltd., 1944. The significance of prefixes in Sanskrit philosophical terminology. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1951. Facets of Indian Thought. Posthumously edited by Terence Gervais, Ruth von Schulze Gaevernitz, and Hilde Wolpe. New York: Schocken Books; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964. An Indiens Tempelstätten: Fotoimpressionen der Indologin Betty Heimann; [Begleitpublikation zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Linden-Museum Stuttgart ...] (At India's temple sites: Photo impressions of the Indologist Betty Heimann; [Accompanying publication to the exhibition of the same name in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart ...) Stuttgart: Linden-Museum, 2003

Relations Betty Heimann (1888-1961) had a cousin of the same name. Betty Heimann (1885-1926) received her doctorate in 1916 under sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel in Strasbourg and taught at the University of Utrecht.