Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper was a distinguished scholar in Indology, and "one of the last great Indologists of the past century.
Education
Kuiper was born in The Hague, in the Netherlands, studied Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Indo-European linguistics at Leiden University, and in 1934 completed his doctoral thesis on the nasal presents in Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages.
Career
His very innovative work covers virtually all the fields of Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan philology, linguistics, mythology and theater, as well as Indo-European, Dravidian, Munda and Pan-Indian linguistics". After 5 years as a high school teacher of Latin and Greek at the lyceum of Batavia (Jakarta), Indonesia, in 1939 he was appointed Professor of Sanskrit at Leiden University. He became a member again in 1948.
He was buried in the Rijnhof cemetery at Leiden.
By Professor Michael Witzel of Harvard University"s Department of Sanskrit Studies in the Indo-Iranian Journal reprinted in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS 11-1 2004).