HARDOUIN, JEAN (1646-1729), French classical scholar, was born at Quimper in Brittany. Having acquired a taste for literature in his father’s book-shop, he sought and obtained about his sixteenth year admission into the order of the Jesuits. In Paris, where he went to study theology, he ultimately became librarian of the Collège Louis le Grand in 1683, and he died there on the 3rd of September 1729. His first published work was an edition of Themistius (1684), which included no fewer than thirteen new orations. On the advice of Jean Garnier (1612-1681) he undertook to edit the Natural History of Pliny for the Delphin series, a task which he completed in five years. His attention having been turned to numismatics as auxiliary to his great editorial labours, he published several learned works in that department, marred, however, as almost everything he did was marred, by a determination to be at all hazards different from other interpreters. It is sufficient to mention his Nummi antiqui populorum et urbium illustrati (1684), Antirrheticus de nummis antiquis coloniarum et municipiorum (1689), and Chronologia Veteris Testamenti ad vulgatam versionem exacta et nummis illustrata (1696). By the ecclesiastical authorities Hardouin was appointed to supervise the Conciliorum collectio regia maxima (1715); but he was accused of suppressing important documents and foisting in apocryphal matter, and by the order of the parlement of Paris (then at war with the Jesuits) the publication of the work was delayed. It is really a valuable collection, much cited by scholars. Hardouin declared that all the councils supposed to have taken place before the council of Trent were fictitious. It is, however, as the originator of a variety of paradoxical theories that Hardouin is now best remembered. The most remarkable, contained in his Chronologiae ex nummis antiquis restitutae (1696) and Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum, was to the effect that, with the exception of the works of Homer, Herodotus and Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius. He denied the genuineness of most ancient works of art, coins and inscriptions, and declared that the New Testament was originally written in Latin.
See A. Debacker, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1853).
HARDT, HERMANN VON DER (1660-1746), German historian and orientalist, was born at Melle, in Westphalia, on the 15th of November 1660. He studied oriental languages in Jena and in Leipzig, and in 1690 he was called to the chair of oriental languages at Helmstedt. He resigned his position in 1727, but lived at Helmstedt until his death on the 28th of February 1746. Among his numerous writings the following deserve mention: Autographa Lutheri aliorumque celebrium virorum, ab anno 1517 ad annum 1546, Reformationis aetatem et historiam egregie illustrantia (1690-1691); Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense concilium (1697-1700); Hebraeae linguae fundamenta (1694); Syriacae linguae fundamenta (1694); Elementa Chaldaica (1693); Historia litteraria reformationis (1717); Enigmata prisci orbis (1723). Hardt left in manuscript a history of the Reformation which is preserved in the Helmstedt Juleum.
See F. Lamey, Hermann von der Hardt in seinen Briefen (Karlsruhe, 1891).
HARDT, THE, a mountainous district of Germany, in the Bavarian palatinate, forming the northern end of the Vosges range. It is, in the main, an undulating high plateau of sandstone formation, of a mean elevation of 1300 ft., and reaching its highest point in the Donnersberg (2254 ft.). The eastern slope, which descends gently towards the Rhine, is diversified by deep and well-wooded valleys, such as those of the Lauter and the Queich, and by conical hills surmounted by the ruins of frequent feudal castles and monasteries. Noticeable among these are the Madenburg near Eschbach, the Trifels (long the dungeon of Richard I. of England), and the Maxburg near Neustadt. Three-fifths of the whole area is occupied by forests, principally oak, beech and fir. The lower eastern slope is highly cultivated and produces excellent wine.
HARDWAR, or Hurdwar, an ancient town of British India, and Hindu place of pilgrimage, in the Saharanpur district of the United Provinces, on the right bank of the Ganges, 17 m. N.E. of Rurki, with a railway station. The Ganges canal here takes off from the river. A branch railway to Dehra was opened in 1900. Pop. (1901), 25,597. The town is of great antiquity, and has borne many names. It was originally known as Kapila from the sage Kapila. Hsūan Tsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, in the 7th century visited a city which he calls Mo-yu-lo, the remains of which still exist at Mayapur, a little to the south of the modern town. Among the ruins are a fort and three temples, decorated with broken stone sculptures. The great object of attraction at present is the Hari-ka-charan, or bathing ghat, with the adjoining temple of Gangadwara. The charan or foot-mark of Vishnu, imprinted on a stone let into the upper wall of the ghat, forms an object of special reverence. A great assemblage of people takes place annually, at the beginning of the Hindu solar year, when the sun enters Aries; and every twelfth year a feast of peculiar sanctity occurs, known as a Kumbh-mela. The ordinary number of pilgrims at the annual fair amounts to 100,000, and at the Kumbh-mela to 300,000; in 1903 there were 400,000 present. Since 1892 many sanitary improvements have been made for the benefit of the annual concourse of pilgrims. In early days riots and also outbreaks of cholera were of common occurrence. The Hardwar meeting also possesses mercantile importance, being one of the principal horse-fairs in Upper India. Commodities of all kinds, Indian and European, find a ready sale, and the trade in grain and food-stuffs forms a lucrative traffic.