Alois Anton Führer (26 November 1853 – 5 November 1930) was a German Indologist who worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). He is known for his archaeological excavations, which he believed proved that Gautama Buddha was born in Lumbini, Nepal. Führer's archaeological career ended in disgrace as "a forger and dealer in fake antiquities", and he had to resign from his position in 1898.
Early life Alois Anton Führer was born on 26 November 1853 in Limburg an der Lahn, Germany, into a German Catholic family. He studied Roman Catholic theology and Oriental studies at the University of Würzburg, was ordained in 1878 and received his PhD in 1879. His Sanskrit lecturer, Julius Jolly, was associated with the Bombay School of Indology. Probably due to him, he was appointed as a teacher of Sanskrit at St Xavier's Institute in Bombay.
In 1882, Führer was able to publish two lectures about Hindu Law in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Retrospectively, the lectures have been shown to be almost entirely plagiarized from earlier works: only about one-tenth of the content has been shown to be his own.
Führer left the Catholic Church around 1884 and converted to Anglicanism which cost him his job; he returned to Germany, from where he applied for a new job in the museum in Lucknow in India.
Appointment in India and archaeological activities
Curator of Lucknow Provincial Museum Führer came back to India in 1885 and on his arrival Alfred Comyn Lyall appointed him Curator of the Lucknow Provincial Museum. Führer started work in March and immediately set about improving the museum. Impressed by the changes, Lyall, the Chair of the Museum's Management Committee, wrote to Calcutta asking whether a part-time job for Führer could be found with the Archaeological Survey of India., see note 18 citing India Office Records, Archaeology and Epigraphy, Proceedings 4-18, File no. 6 of 1898, but however add Part B. . The same events with some further details in Charles Allen, The Buddha and Dr Führer (London: Haus, 2008), p. 33 but without supporting references. He thus came to hold a double appointment, one as Curator at the museum and the other as Archaeological Surveyor to the North-Western Provinces. As his Progress Reports show, he was part of the N-W.P. and Oudh Circle of the Archaeological Survey.
Nepal (1886) In 1886, Führer was instructed by the government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh and the Government of India to carry out an expedition to Nepal.
Mathura glory (1889–1891)
Later, Führer carried out very successful excavations at the Kankali Tila site of Mathura between 1889 and 1891 which improved understanding of the history of Jainism and gained him a reputation "as the most successful of the professional excavators". Still, Führer's reports continued to be the result of extensive plagiarization, taking especially from the work of his superior Georg Bühler at that time, although this is not clear-cut and may only be the result of intensive cooperation between the two. Führer's reports are also noted for being particularly vague and lacking details.
From 1888 severe lobbying aimed at reducing Government expenses started, and at curtailing the budget of the Archaeological Survey of India, a period of about ten years known as the "Buck crisis", after the Liberal Edward Buck. In effect, this severely threatened the employment of the employees of the ASI, including Führer, who had just started a family and become a father. These existential threats to his livelihood may have become "a motive for misbehaviour" on the part of Führer.
Ramnagar failure (1891) In 1891, Führer started excavations at the Ramnagar site of Ahichchhatra."Some years later A. Führer undertook the excavation of a temple without much result." in The excavations were quite disappointing. Pressured by the need to get results, Führer started to report invented discoveries, such as ancient dated inscriptions that never existed, and non-existent Jain inscriptions. Heinrich Lüders would later be able to show that the supposed Jain inscriptions were fakes compiled from earlier real inscriptions found in Mathura. In 1912 Lüders summarized "As all statements about epigraphical finds that admit of verification have proved to be false, it is very likely that no inscriptions at all have turned up".
In 1912, the German Indologist Heinrich Lüders identified in the Lucknow Provincial Museum forged inscriptions in Brahmi on artefacts belonging to Führer's excavations at Mathura and Ramnagar, forgeries which he attributed to Führer himself. Some of the forged inscriptions were direct copies of inscriptions on other objects, previously published in Epigraphia Indica.
Sanchi inscriptions (1891–1892) Führer went to Sanchi during the 1891–1892 season and recovered tens of unpublished donative inscriptions, but these could not have the impact he hoped for. Only a new inscription by King Ashoka, for example, could achieve sufficient impact on public opinion.
Meanwhile, Edward Buck announced in 1892 that the Archaeological Survey of India would be shut down and all ASI staff would be dismissed by 1895, in order to generate savings for the Government's budget. The prospect of being fired anyway may have prompted Führer to act recklessly with his discoveries in a desperate attempt to avoid that fate. A great discovery within the next three years for example might be able to turn public opinion and save the funding of the ASI.
Burma invented inscriptions (1893–1894)
In 1893–1894, Führer was on a survey tour to Burma. In 1894, he published in his Progress Reports of the Epigraphical Section in the Working Season of 1893–94 the revolutionary discovery of three ancient Gupta inscriptions he said he found at Pagan and Tagaung in Burma, which pushed back the epigraphical knowledge of interactions with India by close to six centuries, generating huge acclaim. He elaborated a detailed description of the inscriptions he had supposedly found, without ever producing a drawing or a photographic proof, although he had a draftsman and a photographer with him on the expedition. Large extracts of his report were reproduced in The Indian Antiquary Vol. xxiv (1895). His "discovery" was taken at face value, and its conclusions repeated by many scholarly works such as the Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States in 1900, before being adopted by popular works as well: "by the early 1900s, anyone with an interest in the archeology of Burma had ample opportunity to read about the Gupta inscriptions in Fuhrer's own words".
It was only uncovered many years later that the inscriptions were actually inexistent, a fact which was revealed openly by Charles Duroiselle in 1921: "This Sanskrit inscription never existed, but was invented in toto by Dr Fuhrer while on a tour in Burma". Source analysis shows that he imagined the content of these inscriptions by basing himself on older publications and a list of kings from the Indian Hatthipala Jataka. These events marked "a scandalous career of forgery which would, some years later, come to an end in Kapilavastu".
Nigali-Sagar pillar of Ashoka (1895)
The Nigali Sagar pillar (also called "Nigliva" pillar) was initially discovered by a Nepalese officer on a hunting expedition in 1893."In 1893 a Nepalese officer on a hunting expedition found an Asokan pillar near Nigliva, at Nigali Sagar." In March 1895, Führer inspected the Nigali Sagar pillar, one of the pillars of Ashoka, and identified a Brahmi inscription said to be also from the time of Ashoka.
Besides his description of the pillar, Führer made a detailed description of the remains of a monumental "Konagamana stupa" near the Nigali Sagar pillar, which was later discovered to be an imaginative construct. Furher wrote that "On all sides around this interesting monument are ruined monasteries, fallen columns, and broken sculptures", when actually nothing can be found around the pillar.""On all sides around this interesting monument are ruined monasteries, fallen columns, and broken sculptures." This elaborate description was not supported by a single drawing, plan, or photograph. Every word of it is false." in In the following years, inspections of the site showed that there were no such archaeological remains, and that, in respect to Führer's description "every word of it is false". It was finally understood in 1901 that Führer had copied almost word-for-word this description from a report by Alexander Cunningham about the stupas in Sanchi.
For the time being, the announcement of these great "discoveries" succeeded in bringing the "Buck Crisis" to an end, and the ASI was finally allowed in June 1895 to continue operations, subject to yearly approval based on successful digs every year. Georg Bühler, writing in July 1895 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, continued to advocate for the preservation of the Archaeological Survey of India, and expressed that what was needed were "new authentic documents" from the pre-Ashokan period, and they would "only be found underground".
Lumbini Ashoka inscription (1896)
In 1896, accompanied by the regional Nepalese governor, former Commander-In-Chief of the Nepalese Army General Khadga Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, Führer discovered a major inscription on a pillar of Ashoka, an inscription which, together with other evidence, confirmed Lumbini as the birthplace of the Buddha. The pillar itself had been known for some time already, as it had already been reported by Khadga Shamsher to Vincent Arthur Smith a few year earlier. Führer made his great discovery when he dug the earth around the pillar and reported the discovery of the inscription in a pristine state about one meter under the surface.
According to other accounts General Khadga Samsher Rana knew the location of the pillar and led Führer to it. Reportedly, Führer was not present when the inscription was discovered, as he arrived only "a little later", but Ricketts was witness to it. Initially, only the top of the pillar was visible, with a medieval inscription on it. The Nepalese authorities dug around the pillar, to find the ancient Brahmi inscription, which therefore had remained underground, hidden from view.
Führer claimed that the locals called the site "Rummindei", which he identified with the legendary "Lumbini", whereas it was found that the site was only called "Rupa-devi".
The authenticity of the discovery was questioned by some scholars, though in a 2008 book the British writer Charles Allen has concluded, "there is no doubt at all that it was Asoka the Great who erected the Asokan rock and pillar edicts". Harry Falk—a leading scholar of Ashoka's inscriptions—has stated that the authenticity of Ashoka's Lumbini inscription is "beyond dispute," and that "features of truly Aśokan script, some of them extinct at the middle of the second century BC" could not realistically have been forged by the "extremely clumsy" Führer who "was ill-educated in Prakrit phonology and morphology" and "was ignorant to the same degree of Brāhmī palaeography," therefore "disqualifying Führer as the author of a perfect fake."
Following the discovery of the pillar, Führer relied on the accounts of ancient Chinese pilgrims to search for Kapilavastu, which he thought had to be in Tilaurakot. Unable to find anything, he started excavating some structures he said were stupas, and was in the process of faking pre-Mauryan inscriptions on bricks, when he was caught in the act by Vincent Arthur Smith."Fuhrer's attempt to associate the names of eighteen Sakyas, including Mahanaman, with the structures, on the false claim of writings in pre-Asokan characters, was fortunately foiled in time by V.A. Smith, who paid a surprise visit when the excavation was in progress. The forgery was exposed to the public." in The inscriptions were bluntly characterized by Smith as "impudent forgeries".