Role of Hastings English Scholars In the discovery of Indo-European language family-2

 

When Warren Hastings took charge of the Bengal Presidency, he wished to apply the traditional Hindu jurisprudence to their civil suits of marriage, Inheritance, etc. The Code of the Gentoo (Hindu) laws, prepared by Halhed, based on the oral translation of the so-called Vivad-aranava-setu, compiled by the Brahmins from some Sanskrit manuscripts, was not finally used for its faulty transcription. The onus of preparing an authentic Code of the Hindus laws fell to the lot Sir William Jones and Henry Thomas Colebrooke. 

Sr Jones was already a well-known orientalist when he was appointed a judge in the Supreme Court of Calcutta He learned Sanskrit in India and rose to fame for his preposition of a common source for the Indo- European languages, including Sanskrit. Colebrooke became famous for his Vedic scholarship and translations of the code of Hindu inheritance given in Mitakshara and Dayabhaga schools Alexander Hamilton, who also learnt Sanskrit in India, taught this language to a number of French and German scholars during his forced stay in Paris when England and France were at war.

We will deal briefly with the contributions of all these scholars with special reference to the so-called discovery of Sanskrit and the Indo-European Language Family .

Contribution of William Jones

It will be unjust to the spirit of Sir William Jones who loved India, its people and culture, if we do not recall his major achievements before he came to Calcutta, the destination of his ultimate fame and glory and final salvation. Sir Jones came to India at the age of 37 years and died in harness in Calcutta when he was just 47 years. He was buried in Calcutta and his fomb exists there.

Jones was born in London in 1746. His father, also known as William Jones, was a mathematician and a friend of Isaac Newton In 1753 Jones, when he was seven-year old, entered Harrow, one of the greatest schools in England. Here, he turned out to be a linguistic prodigy. In 1764, Jones entered University College, Oxford and got his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1768 in college he honed up his linguistic skills and became a well-known orientalist. Besides his native languages, he knew Greek, Latin, Persian Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew and many other languages.

At this stage, Jones was too poor to prosecute his of postgraduate studies. He started tutoring the seven-year-old son of Lord Althorp, the Earl of Spencer About the same time he was engaged by Christian VII of Denmark to translate a copy of Mirza Mahdi's Persian manuscript about the life of Nadir Shah, King of Persia, into French. Jones followed it by writing numerous works on Persia, Turkey and Middle East. 

Jones entered Middle Temple (Oxford) in 1770 for his postgraduate course in law. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1771 and two years later he earned his MA degree. In the same year he was elected to Dr Samuel Johnson's 'Club' which included such well-known figures as James Boswell, Edmund Burke and Thomas Percy.

Willam Jones was, also, a radical political thinker and wrote in favour of American Independence, which went against the policy of the Tory government. He was posted as a circuit judge in the Wales, a job that did not give him enough financial satisfaction. Nevertheless, Jones was Knighted on 20 March 1783 and appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of India, at Calcutta. He joined the post in October, the same year. 

William Jones in India 

In spite of his well-known facility with languages and Persian scholarship, Sir Jones achieved his lasting fame and glory in India. The first and the most important step in this  direction was his initiative of founding of The Asiatic Society Bengal (on January 15, 1784), Nathaniel Hained, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, and a few other English scholars had collaborated with him in his maiden enterprise and Jones was elected the President of the Asiatic Society. Soon after, he brought out the journal, called Asiatic Researches, for recording the proceedings of the Asiatic Society.

Sir William learnt Sanskrit in India, guided by a Pandit, called Ramalochana, who taught at the Nadia Hindu University Jones picked up this new language very rapidly and, in his third annual address to the members of the Asiatic Society, in 1786, on the history and culture of the Indians, Jones praised Sanskrit to the hilt, while comparing with Greek and Latin: In his address Jones put forth his famous preposition of a common ancestor for the Indo- European Languages. The philologer passage of his address is reproduced hereunder.

"The Sanskrit language whatever may be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity both in the roots of the verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident so strong indeed that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a different idiom had the same origin with the Sanskrit and the old Persian might be added to the same family" 

It is apparent that Jones had established the Asiatic Society and the Asiatic Researches to acquaint the western scholars with the rich cultural heritage of India and prompt them to learn Sanskrit. The work of the Asiatic Society also generated interest among the Indian people in their ancient literary heritage.

"In 1789 a brahman pandit told him (Jones) of the existence of the Sanskrit drama and in that year he astonished the western world by a translation of Kalidasa's famous masterpiece Sakuntala say Friedrich Wilhelm and HG Rawlinson, in the book A Cultural History of India (Ed AL Basham) They added that the scholars now prosecuted the search for Sanskrit manuscripts with the avidity of explorers seeking Australian goldfields. Jones's Sakuntala was translated by Forster into French in 1791 and was greeted with great enthusiasm by such judges as Herder and Goethe. In 1792, Jones printed, for the first time, a Sanskrit text of Kalidasa's poem, Ritusamhara (cycle of seasons). Jones also published his famous version of the Code of Manu, the greatest of the Hindu law book

In India, Jones was also influenced by the fundamental tenets of the Vedic philosophy in the last of his essays "On the philosophy of Asiatics, published in Asiatic Researches, vol. IV, p 164, Jones wrote "The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta School consisted not in denying the existence of matter but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception that existence and perception are convertible terms. Arthur Schopenhauer, a famous German philosopher who found his salvation in the Upanishads, has quoted Jones in support of his own view in his work "The World as Will and Representation" (1819

(to be concluded)

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Courtesy:-  Dr. P.L. Ganju   and Koshur Samachar June ,2018