Lifetime
Born: 10.12.1881, LübeckPassed away: 13.04.1969, Hamburg
About
1881-1969Walter Schubring enriched Jainology and Prakrit studies with his vast contributions. It was owing to his untiring efforts that the Jain Canon was made known to scholars.
Walter Schubring was born on 10.12.1881 in Luebeck, the youngest child of the headmaster of a famous high school, Julius Schubring .After his matriculation, he first studied in Muenchen University and later in Strassburg. His teachers were A. Weber, R. Pischel, H. Jacobi and E. Leumann. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in 1904 for the dissertation Das Kalpasutra, die alte Sammlung jinistischer Moenchsvorschriften ("The-Kalpasutra, the Ancient Collection of Rules for Jain Monks"), published in "Indica", Leipzig, 1905. An English translation by Burgess (without the text) appeared in "Indjan Antiquary", 1910. From 1904 to 1920 Schubring served as an academic librarian in the Royal Prussian State Library, Berlin, where he prepared a voluminous descriptive catalogue of Jain manuscripts, Die Jaina Handschriften der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek, Neuerwerbungen seit 1891, Leipzig, 1944. In 1920, Schubring was appointed professor of Indology in Hamburg University as the successor of Prof. Sten Konow. From 1922 onwards, he edited "Journal of the German Oriental Society". In the winter of 1927/28 he went to India together with Mrs and Prof. Lueders. He visited a number of Jaina institutions and gave lectures. He worked for some time in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. Schubring retired from the university in 1951 but continued his scholarly pursuits. He died in an accident on 13.4.1969 in Hamburg.