2023

Edmund Hardy (1852–1904) was a Catholic priest, Indologist, and religious scholar who lived and worked during the period of the Kulturkampf struggle between the German Chancellor Bismarck and the Catholic church as well as early German colonialism. The lecture he gave under the title “Einleitung in die vergleichende Religionswissenschaft” (“Introduction to Comparative Religion”) at the German University of Freiburg in 1890 and his appointment as professor for “Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft und altindische Literatur” (“Comparative Religion and Ancient Indian Literature”") in 1894 at the Swiss University of Fribourg were key steps in establishing the discipline of Religionswissenschaft (Science of Religion) in the German-speaking world. The essay he wrote in 1898 entitles “Was ist Religionswissenschaft?” (“What is the Science of Religion?”) was perhaps his key statement of the nature of this discipline, which he defines as a strictly empirical Geisteswissenschaft and Kulturwissenschaft (Arts and Humanities). This essay was the first article to appear in the new journal Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, edited by the secondary school teacher Thomas Achelis (1850–1909). Hardy’s approach was methodologically based on historicism and on the early understanding of psychology according to Wilhelm Dilthey and Wilhelm Wundt. However, as similarly befell Joachim Wach’s empirical approach, Hardy’s methodological work was barely noticed during the long reign of the phenomenology of religion. This observation raises fundamental questions of how the history of our discipline has been constructed and, in particular, of what are considered “classics” in the study of religion.

In the course of the academic establishment of the Study of Religion (Religionswissenschaft) as an independent academic discipline in the second half of the 19^th century, the first specialised journals also appeared. In the German-speaking world, the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, first published in 1898, is of particular importance. Its founder and first editor was the Bremen grammar school teacher Thomas Achelis (1850-1909). The first volume opened – as an editorial – with Edmund Hardy’s (1852-1904) text “Was ist Religionswissenschaft? A Contribution to the Methodology of the Historical Study of Religion”. The following study first places the beginnings of the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft in the context of the history of science, then gives an overview of the most important biographical data of Edmund Hardy and the fundamental aspects of his scientific work. Finally, we will consider the further development of the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft with the transition to the new editorship by Albrecht Dieterich (1866-1908) and finally briefly review the reception of Hardy’s work.

Edmund Hardy (1852-1904) was a Catholic priest, Indologist and religious scholar in times of German Kulturkampf and colonialism. With his lecture “Einleitung in die vergleichende Religionswissenschaft” (“Introduction to Comparative Religion”) at the German University of Freiburg from 1890 and his appointment as professor for “Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft und altindische Literatur” (“Comparative Religion and Ancient Indian Literature”) in 1894 at the Swiss University of Fribourg, the young discipline took its first steps towards academic establishment in the entire German-speaking world under the term Religionswissenschaft (Science of Religion). Especially in his essay “Was ist Religionswissenschaft?” (“What is the Science of Religion?”) from 1898, Hardy defines the discipline as a strictly empirical Geisteswissenschaft and Kulturwissenschaft (humanities and cultural studies), methodologically based on historicism and on the early understanding of psychology according to Wilhelm Dilthey and Wilhelm Wundt. Just as the empirical approach of Joachim Wach, Hardy’s methodological work was hardly noticed in the long period of the phenomenology of religion. This observation leads to the fundamental question of the construction of our disciplinary history and in particular of the so-called “classics” in the study of religion.

With his will from 1901, the Indologist and religious scholar Edmund Hardy (1852-1904) donated a large sum of money to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities for the annual funding and awarding of Indological research. In its active years from 1905 to 1922 and from 1930 to 1936, the Hardy Foundation supported numerous individual researchers as well as a number of international publication projects. The isolation of German scholarship that accompanied the outbreak of World War I eventually led to a national provincialisation of the foundation.

The article first illuminates the background of the foundation, then the central persons of the committee and finally the funding practice under its changing economic and political conditions.