Encyclopaedia of the Original Inhabitants of India

“We are of the opinion that Dr. Oppert’s conclusions are broadly correct; and that his results are nearly as perfect as they could be made by the method employed by the learned author. Dr. Oppert’s work will stand, and will form the basis for future progress.”

—The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, published by the Oriental University Institute German Orientalist was educated at the universities of Bonn, Leipsic, Berlin, and Halle, where he devoted his attention especially to the history and the languages of India. He left his job as the assistant librarian to the queen at Windsor in 1870 to accept the professorship of Sanskrit in the Presidency College, Madras, which chair he held until 1893, when he resigned, settling in Berlin, to became private-docent in Dravidian languages at the university. From 1878 to 1882 Oppert was editor of the Madras Journal of Literature and Science.

Oppert’s first Sanskrit work was his “Lists of Sanskrit Manuscripts in Private Libraries of Southern India”. His “Contributions to the History of Southern India” was an epigraphical study. Oppert further edited the philosophical works “Nítiprakasika” and “Sukranítisara”, and the “Sutrapatha of the Sabdanusasana of Sakatayana”, this being followed in the same year by an edition of Sakatayana’s grammar with the commentary of Abhayacandrasuri. He published at Madras in 1893 the very important first edition of Yadavaprakasa’s lexicon, the “Vaijayanti,” and likewise edited for the first time the “Rama Rajiyamu” or “Narapati Vijayamu,” a Telugu poem of the sixteenth century.