Leitner, Gottlieb Wilhelm

Leitner, Gottlieb Wilhelm (1840-1899), Anglo-Hungarian orientalist, was born at Budapest in 1840. He was the son of a physician, and was educated at Malta Protestant college. At the age of fifteen he acted as an interpreter in the Crimean War. He entered King’s College, London, in 1858, and in 1861 was appointed professor of Arabic and Mahommedan law. He became principal of the government college at Lahore in 1864, and there originated the term “Dardistan” for a portion of the mountains on the north-west frontier, which was subsequently recognized to be a purely artificial distinction. He collected much valuable information on Graeco-Buddhist art and the origins of Indian art. He spoke, read and wrote twenty-five languages. He founded an oriental institute at Woking, and for some years edited the Asiatic Quarterly Review. He died at Bonn in 1899.