Mabel Haynes Bode


Mabel Haynes Bode was one of the first women to enter the academic fields of Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhist studies. She lectured in Pali and Sanskrit, made an edition of the Pali text Sāsanavaṃsa, and helped with translating into English of the German translation of the Mahāvaṃsa. She was specializing in the Pali literature of Burma, about which she wrote a book published in 1909. She was the first woman to have an article published in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Early life

Mabel Kate Haynes was born on 28 October 1864 to Robert and Emily Haynes. Her father was a well-known law publisher and bookseller, and a partner in the firm Stevens & Haynes. Her mother died of typhoid fever in 1870. In 1879 Mabel's father passes away. She and her older sister Lily continued to live with their aunt, Janet Mary Hayes, their mother's sister, who had moved in after their mother died. On 15 November 1888 she married William Ernest Bode, an actor professionally known as Milton Bode at St Pancras parish church. The marriage didn't work out and within four years of their marriage William was living with another woman.

Education

Bode writes in the curriculum vitae she provided to the University in Berne:
"After attending private schools in my childhood I went through the curriculum on the Notting Hill High School for Girls, taking prizes for Latin and English Literature, and finishing at the age of seventeen in the top-form."
In 1891 she studied Pali language and Buddhist literature under Prof. T.W. Rhys Davids at University College London. In 1894 she studied Sanskrit with Prof. E. Muller-Hess at Berne University. In 1895 she attended the Sanskrit lectures of Professor Cecil Bendall at University College London. In 1896 she attended lectures in Classical and Vedic Sanskrit of Prof. Sylvain Lévi at the Collège de France in Paris and Prof. Victor Henry at Sorbonne besides those of Prof. Sylvain Lévi and Prof. Louis Finot at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. She also did courses in History. In Paris she became fluent in French and continued living there on and off until 1908.
In 1897-1898 she studied Sanskrit at Berne with Professor E.Muller-Hess and history with Professor Woker.
She received her phD at the University of Berne in 1898. Her dissertation was called "A Burmese historian of Buddhism". It is a study of the Burmese Pali historical text Sāsanavaṃsa and its author Paññāsāmi.
In 1904-1906 she attended studied Sanskrit with Prof. Carlo Formichi at the university in Pisa. Prof. Carlo Formichi described her as "one of the cleverest and best women I ever met".

Career

She gave her debut lecture Women leaders of the Buddhist Reformation at the ninth International Congress of Orientalists in London in 1892. The following year this lecture was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, making her the first woman to contribute an article to this academic journal.
In 1909 she became Assistant Lecturer at University College London. In 1911 she was awarded a Civil List Pension of £50 "in consideration of the value of her contributions to the study of Pali"
From 1911 to 1917 she was lecturer at the Indian School, University College London and the first lecturer in Pali at the School of Oriental Studies.
She contributed materials to The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary of T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede.
Viet.Net mentions how she translated Wilhelm Geiger's German language version of the Mahavamsa into English, in 1921, one year before she died.
During World War I she was a helper to the Belgian committee and the French Red Cross.
One of her private pupils was the composer Gustav Holst, who learnt Sanskrit from her. She wrote articles for the Times Literary Supplement'' in collaboration with Mr T.W. Rolleston.
In 1918 she resigned from her teaching posts due to ill health.

Later life

In 1918 she moved to reside with her sister and brother-in-law in London, and then to The Chantry, Shaftesbury, Dorset, where she died on 20 January 1922.
She is buried at St James Church, Shaftesbury. Her gravestone's inscription reads "phD. Et prope et procul usave cor cordium dum vivam et ultra".

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