Charlotte Vaudeville

Charlotte Vaudeville (1918 — 28 April 2006) was a French Indologist, best known for her researches into the bhakti traditions and literature. Her treatises on the medieval saint Kabir have been lauded. She retired as a professor at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 in 1988.

Switching from Hindi to Marathi, Vaudeville published her investigations into the Haripath of Dnyandev in 1982.

Recognising the currency of medieval religious songs even in the 20th century, she continued her studies of the works of Mirabai, Surdas, and Jayasi. Her Dhola-Maru (1962), a compendium of Rajasthani ballads, and Barahmâsâ (1965) demonstrated how Hindu tradition fed folksongs and vernacular poetry.

Vaudeville worked at the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) between 1958–63. She then worked at the Institut français d'indologie (French Institute of Indology) at Pondicherry, concentrating on Hindi and Marathi languages. She became Head of Studies at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) in 1963. Until 1971, she also ran EFEO's Poona, which became part of the Deccan College. She retired from her professorship at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 in 1988.

In 1945, she studied classical Avadhi at Allahabad, with the Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas becoming the subject of her thesis. This was her first book, published in 1955. She also worked on Kabir's poems at the Banaras Hindu University, translating them into French. Her two monographs, Kabir Granthavali (1957) and Kabir (in English, 1974), became the definitive references on the saint. Especially conclusive was her establishment of the corpus of sayings that could be attributed to him personally via critical analyses of the texts.

Charlotte Louise Marie Vaudeville was born in La Tronche, France in 1918. She graduated with a degree in Classics in 1939, a diploma in Indian studies in 1942 and in Hindi in 1943 from the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales. A Doctor of Letters degree followed in 1950.