Paulinus of St. Bartholomew

Paulinus of St. Bartholomew (b. at Hof am Leithaberge in Lower Austria, 25 April 1748; d. in Rome, 7 January 1806) was an Austrian Carmelite missionary and Orientalist of Croatian origin. He is known by several names as Paulinus S. Bartholomaeo, Paolino da San Bartolomeo, Paulinus Paathiri, Paulin de St Barthelemi, Paulinus A S. Bartholomaeo, and was born Johann Philipp Wesdin, Ivan Filip Vezdin, or Johann Philipp Werdin.

He worked as a missionary in the Malabar region (modern day Kerala) and is credited with being the author of the first Sanskrit grammar to be published in Europe, and for being one of the first Orientalists to remark upon the close relationship between Indian and European languages, followed by others such as William Jones and Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux.

Life Vezdin was born in a Burgenland Croat peasant family in Cimof, Lower Austria, and took the religious habit at the age of twenty. He studied theology and philosophy at Prague. Having entered into the seminary of the missions of his order at Rome, he did Oriental studies at the College of St Pancratius.

He was sent in 1774 as missionary to Malabar, India. After spending fourteen years in India, he was appointed vicar-general of his order and apostolic visitor. He was very well versed in languages: he spoke German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, English, Malayalam, Sanskrit, and some other languages of India. He became known in Kerala as Paulinus Paathiri. He was one of the first to detect the similarity between Sanskrit and Indo-European languages, though the very first was likely Thomas Stephens.

Recalled in 1789 to Rome to give an account of the state of the mission in Indostan, he was charged with editing books – to correct the Catechisms and elementary books printed at Rome

Works

Paulinus wrote many learned books on the East, which were highly valued in their day, among them the first printed Sanskrit grammar. They include:

(Rome, 1791), translated into German (Gotha, 1797) (Rome, 1792) (Rome, 1793) (Rome, 1796), translated into German by Forster (Berlin, 1798) (Rome, 1799), another edition of which appeared under the title "Vyacaranam" (Rome, 1804) (Rome, 1794), on the history of missions in India

Other works bear on linguistics and church history: Viaggio alle Indie Orientali umiliato alla Santita di N. S. Papa Pio Sesto pontefice massimo (Rome, 1796) (Paris, 1808) (Rome, 1798) (Paris, 1808) (Rome, 1803) (Rome, 1792) (Rome, 1794) (Rome, 1800) (Padova, 1799) (Patavii, 1799) (Rome, 1793) (Rome, 1790) (Rome, 1791) (Rome, 1805) (Rome, 1804) [ scan] (Rome, 1937) (Vienna, 1799)