Wilhelm Geiger

Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger (21 July 1856 – 2 September 1943) was a German Orientalist in the fields of Indo-Iranian languages and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He was known as a specialist in Pali, Sinhala language and the Dhivehi language of the Maldives. He is especially known for his work on the Sri Lankan chronicles Mahāvaṃsa and Cūlavaṃsa of which he made critical editions of the Pali text and English translations with the help of assistant translators.

He was born at Nuremberg, the son of an evangelical clergyman, and was educated especially at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg under the Iranian scholar Friedrich von Spiegel. During his studies, he joined the fraternity Uttenruthia. After completing his Ph.D. thesis in 1878, he became a lecturer on ancient Iranian and Indian philology and then a master at a gymnasium. In 1891 he was offered a chair in Indo-European Comparative Philology at the University of Erlangen, succeeding Spiegel. His first published works were on ancient Iranian history, archaeology and philology. He travelled to Ceylon in 1895 to study the language. He appeared on a stamp in Sri Lanka, in 1989.

The physicist Hans Geiger, inventor of the Geiger counter, was his son.

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