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Isaline Blew Horner Biography
Isaline Blew HornerIsaline Blew Horner OBE1 (30 March 1896 – 25 April 1981), usually cited as I. B. Horner, was an English Indologist and a leading scholar of Pāli literature responsible for translations of many Tipitaka texts, including the Majjhima Nikāya (The Collection of The Middle Length Sayings, three volumes), the entire Vinaya Piṭaka (The Book of the Discipline, six volumes) and the Milinda Pañha (The Questions of King Milinda, two volumes). She was also president of the Pali Text Society between 1959 and 1981.
On 30 March 1896 Horner was born in Walthamstow in Essex, England.
In 1908, when she was 11 or 12 years old, Horner met Thomas William Rhys Davids, the founder of the Pali Text Society. This meeting would eventually shape her entire career.
Based on accounts of Horner’s friends, one of her surviving relatives2, described this meeting:
“One of the most interesting things I learned during those conversations concerned the first meeting of IBH with Prof. TW Rhys Davids. I was told that this encounter happened at a garden party in Cambridge, in about 1908.
At that time, TWRD was resident in Manchester, being the professor of Comparative Religion at the university there; IBH was 11 or 12 years old. Why they both happened to be in Cambridge that day is unclear, but there seems to have been a large social event of some kind, and at this gathering the young girl and the 65-year-old academic happened to be seated next to each other at the lunch table.
Apparently, as they started to make polite conversation, an avid and engaging dialogue developed, and TWRD became very impressed with the quick-witted and forthright youngster. At a certain point, so taken with her interests and her obvious abilities, he made the now historic suggestion: “You know, young lady, when you grow up, you ought to study Pāli and Sanskrit.”
This conversation, under the summer skies of a garden in Cambridge, clearly made a deep impression on her for, when she finally returned to Cambridge as a student at Newnham College, this is exactly the course of study she pursued.”
In 1917, at the University of Cambridge's women's college Newnham College, Horner was awarded the title of a B.A. in moral sciences.
After her undergraduate studies, Horner remained at Newnham College, becoming in 1918 an assistant librarian and then, in 1920, acting librarian. In 1921, Horner traveled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India and Burma where she was first introduced to Buddhism, its literature and related languages.
In 1923, Horner returned to England where she accepted a Fellowship at Newnham College and became its librarian. In 1928, she became the first Sarah Smithson Research Fellow in Pali Studies. In 1930, she published her first book, Women Under Primitive Buddhism.
In 1933, she edited her first volume of Pali text, the third volume of the Papañcasūdanī (Majjhima Nikāya commentary). In 1934, Horner was awarded the title of an M.A. from Cambridge. From 1939 to 1949, she served on Cambridge's Governing Body.
From 1926 to 1959, Horner lived and traveled with her companion "Elsie," Dr. Eliza Marian Butler (1885–1959).
In 1936, due to Butler's accepting a position at Manchester University, Horner left Newnham to live in Manchester. There, Horner completed the fourth volume of the Papañcasūdanī (published 1937). In 1938, she published the first volume of a translation of the Vinaya Piṭaka. (She was to publish a translation of the last Vinaya Piṭaka volume in 1966.)
In 1942, Horner became the Honorary Secretary of the Pali Text Society (PTS). In 1943, in response to her parents' needs and greater PTS involvement, Horner moved to London where she lived until her death. In 1959, she became the Society's President and Honorary Treasurer.
In 1964, in recognition of her contributions to Pali literature, Horner was awarded an honorary Ph.D by Ceylon University.
In 1977, Horner received a second honorary Ph.D from Nava Nālandā Mahāvihāra.
In 1980, Queen Elizabeth II made Horner an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her lifelong contribution to Buddhist literature.
Horner passed away in London on 25 April 1981, leaving her fortune to the Pali Text Society. 3
Books
• Women under primitive Buddhism : laywomen and almswomen (1930/1975)
• Papañcasūdanī: Majjhimanikāyaṭṭhakathā of Buddhaghosâcariya (1933)
• Early Buddhist theory of man perfected : a study of the Arahan concept and of the implications of the aim to perfection in religious life, traced in early canonical and post-canonical Pali literature (1936/1975)
• Book of the discipline (Vinaya-pitaka) (1938), translated by I. B. Horner
• Alice M. Cooke, a memoir (1940)[11]
• Madhuratthavilāsinī nāma Buddhavaṃsaṭṭhakathā of Bhadantâcariya Buddhadatta Mahāthera (1946/1978), ed. by I.B. Horner.
• Living thoughts of Gotama the Buddha (1948/2001), by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and I.B. Horner
• Collection of the Middle Length Sayings (1954)
• Ten Jātaka stories (1957)
• Early Buddhist poetry (1963)
• Milinda's questions (1963), translated by I. B. Horner
• Buddhist texts through the ages (1964/1990), translated and edited by Edward Conze in collaboration with I.B. Horner, David Snellgrove, Arthur Waley
• Minor anthologies of the Pali Canon (vol. 4): Vimanavatthu and Petavatthu (1974), translated by I. B. Horner
• Minor anthologies of the Pali Canon (vol. 3): Buddhavamsa and Cariyapitaka (1975), translated by I. B. Horner
• Apocryphal birth-stories (Paññāsa Jātaka) (1985), translated by I.B. Horner and Padmanabh S. Jaini
Sources
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaline_Blew_Horner
• https://www.sati.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sati-Journal-Volume-2.pdf
• https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/download/8590/2497/
Footnotes
1. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organizations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female.
2. Jeremy Charles Julian Horner (known as Ajahn Amaro), a second cousin of IB Horner and a Theravada Buddhist monk himself. According to his account, Ajahn Amaro came across Horner’s books while in Thailand, but without being aware that they were related. He learned from his father upon returning to England about being related: “Once I knew of her existence, I wrote to her [in 1979] and let her know that Young Tom’s son was a Theravādan bhikkhu, and how grateful I was for all of the translation work she had done over the years, particularly of the Vinaya Piṭaka. She replied with a polite letter but did not seem to be interested in having much closer contact. There was no, ‘What a marvelous coincidence! Please come and see me in London when you can.’ It was more along the lines of, ‘Thank you for letting me know. I hope that your life as a bhikkhu will be fulfilling’; and that was it.” He attempted another meeting in 1980 but was unsuccessful. In 1981 she passed away.
3. Ajahn Amaro also noted: “She was very highly respected by the Sri Lankan monks of the London Buddhist Vihāra, and particularly by the abbot, Ven. Dr. Saddhātissa also a noted Pāli scholar. When she died, they came to chant with the body and to perform blessing ceremonies for her.
She died on Saturday April the 25th but, owing to the marriage at Marylebone Register Office on April 27th of Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach, the place was in an uproar, so it wasn’t until Tuesday the 28th that her death could be registered and her body taken care of. The monks from the London Buddhist Vihāra thus went to her apartment every day and carried out the various ceremonies and blessings for her.
I have a vivid memory of being at her funeral, I believe on May the 2nd, and one of the Sri Lankan monks telling me: ‘We went every day, for so many days, but her body did not decay at all. And another thing: her eyes were open and they completely changed in color over that time; eventually they were perfectly blue!’ He was very impressed and took these signs to be indications of the vast merit she had developed through the gift of her Buddhist scholarship to the world and the generous support of Buddha-Dhamma throughout her life.”
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