Harry Falk (Indologist)

Harry Falk (born 1947 in Emmendingen^[1]) is a retired professor of Indology at the Freie Universität in Berlin.^[1][2][3] He has also been Director of the Institute of Indian Philology and Art History at the Free University in Berlin. He is a noted Indologist.^[4][5]

Kushan era

He realized that the astrological Sanskrit-Text Yavanajātaka (79,15) defined the era of the Kushans, i.e. of Kaniṣka I, as śaka 149, that is AD 227. This he linked to the long-established practice of the “dropped hundreds”, which allowed to include contemporary data from the Chinese annals Hou Hanshu. The start of the Kushan era was so defined in AD 127.^[6] In addition, it became apparent that the Kushan era was used with dropped hundreds up to the fifth century under Gupta rule in Western India.^[7][8]

Works

• Quellen des Pañcatantra (Freiburger Beiträge zur Indologie) (German Edition, 1978) ISBN 978-3447019569
• Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des vedischen Opfers (German Edition, 1986) ISBN 978-3925270000
• Schrift im alten Indien: Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen (ScriptOralia, German Edition, 1993) ISBN 978-3823342717
• Asokan Sites and Artefacts: A Source-Book with Bibliography Mainz 2006 ISBN 978-3805337120
• The tidal waves of Indian history in "Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE" (Oxford University Press 2006)^[9]
• Foreign terms in Sanskrit in "The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity (Brill, 2010)^[10]
• Harisyenalekhapañcasika: Fifty Selected Papers on Indian Epigraphy and Chronology, 2014 ISBN 978-3944312040