Else Lüders (1880–1945)

Else Lüders, née Peipers, was born in Göttingen, Germany, a daughter of David Peipers, professor of Philosophy at Göttingen University. In 1900, she married Heinrich Lüders, an Indologist, with whom she had a daughter. Her husband soon became her Sanskrit teacher. From 1909, she devoted herself to deciphering numerous Sanskrit texts and in 1919, she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock. In 1922, she published The Buddhist Fairy Tales, a collection of 70 morally instructive Buddist stories. In 1930, she published Under Indian Sun, ]describing a trip she took with her husband to India and Ceylon in 1927-1928. She also assisted her husband in his studies of the Mahābhārata. In 1909, they jointly launched the study of Turfan fragments in Berlin, a project Elsa continued after the death of her husband in 1943. She prepared and edited the material left by him for publication, although her name did not appear on the works.