DAHLMANN, JOSEPH. — Jesuit Orientalist, born in Coblenz on 14 October 1861, died in Tokyo on 22 June 1930. He entered the Society of Jesus at Exaeten in 1878. Initially destined to teach in Bombay, he studied Oriental philology and archaeology for three years in Vienna under the great Sanskritist Buhler, and then in Berlin, where he took his degree (1893–1900).
From this period date his highly esteemed technical studies, such as Das Mahâbhârata als Epos und Rechtsbuch, Berlin 1895; Das Nirvana. Eine Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Buddhismus, 1896; Buddha, ein Kulturbild des Ostens, 1898; Die Genesis des Mahâbhârata, 1899, etc. Of more general missiological interest is the historical study: Die Sprachkunde und die Missionen, Freiburg im Br. 1891.
Having become editor of the periodical Stimmen aus Maria Laach in Luxembourg in 1902, he undertook a three-year journey through China, Japan, and India. One of its fruits was his most widely circulated work: Indische Fahrten, 2 vols., Freiburg im Br. 1908, 2nd enlarged edition 1927. But as soon as he had landed in Europe, he had obtained from the superior general of the Society and from Pius X himself the return of the Jesuits to the scene of their former Japanese missions. He decided to found a Catholic university in Tokyo, went there among the first three (1908, the first German missionary in Japan), and, owing to his great authority, was one of the principal promoters of the arduous rise of the «Sophia Daigaku» (University of Wisdom). There he held the chairs of German literature and Indian philosophy, and for several years also taught German literature and Greek at the same Imperial University. Of the numerous writings from this period, the following may be mentioned: Die Thomaslegenden und die ältesten Beziehungen des Christentums zum Fernen Osten, Freiburg im Br. 1912; Japans älteste Beziehungen zum Westen 1542-1614, ibid. 1923; The Great Tokyo Earthquake, New York 1924.