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Early Life-a linguistic prodigy
The situation in India-Warren Hastings
The political situation in India was slowly consolidating in favor of the British. Post the battle of Plassey , in 1757 , the British East India company had started institutionalizing the governance structure. After Robert Clive , Warren Hastings became the governor of Bengal .Hastings was known as an Orientalist and had deep interest in Indian culture , language , religion and law. It might have been a part of his administrative strategy but the famous writer , William Dalrymple has noted ,
"He got quickly to work, beginning the process of turning the EIC into an administrative service. Hastings' first major change was to move all the functions of government from Murshidabad to Calcutta ... Throughout 1773, Hastings worked with extraordinary energy. He unified currency systems, ordered the codification of Hindu laws and digests of Muslim law books, reformed the tax and customs system, fixed land revenue and stopped the worst oppression being carried out on behalf of private traders by the local agents. He created an efficient postal service, backed a proper cartographical survey of India by James Rennell and built a series of public granaries, including the great Gola at Patna, to make sure the famine of 1770-71 was never repeated ... Underlying all Hastings' work was a deep respect for the land he had lived in since his teens ... Hastings genuinely liked India, and by the time he became Governor spoke not only good Bengali and Urdu but also fluent court and literary Persian"
It was during Hasting's rule that other Englishmen found interest and passion in Sanskrit and translation of classical Sanskrit literature to English. In 1785 Charles Wilkins published Bhagavad Geeta , which Hastings held, " of a sublimity of conception , reasoning and diction almost unequalled "
This was indeed a remarkable quote coming from a Christian administrator of the British East India Company. In 1776 Nathaniel Halhed wrote " A code of Gentoo Laws" ( Gentoo referring to Hindus) and in 1782 he delivered " The Grammar of Bengali language " and translations of Bhagavat Purana, Shiv Purana , Mahabharat and many others. By 1780s , The impact of India was being felt in the European minds.
The Christian missionaries which were active In India at that point of time often spoke lowly about Indian culture and religion, specially to the audiences in Europe. It can be understood that their motivation was coming from an urge to gain more grants and donations for their supposedly humanitarian work in the Indian soil to uplift the natives.
Hastings refuted the idea saying , " Great pains have been taken to inculcate into the public mind the opinion that native Indians are in the state of complete moral turpitude, and live in constant and unrestrained commission of every vice and crime that can disgrace human nature, I affirm by the oath that I have taken, that this description of them is untrue and unwarranted "
The sympathetic orientalist approach of Warren Hastings paved the way for a "Discovery of India" and created the cultural narrative of future India. Hastings lauded the power of the great works of Indian literature and philosophy, which he wrote would
“survive when the British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist and when the sources which it once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance”.
It was during Hasting's rule, that The Regulating Act 1773 was passed by the Parliament of Great Britain intending to overhaul the management of the East India Company's rule in India (Bengal).The Regulating Act of 1773 brought the presidencies of Madras and Bombay under Bengal's control. It raised Hastings from Governor to the new post of Governor-General and established The Supreme Court at Calcutta with Sir Elijah Impey as first chief justice.
The background was set for Sir William Jones entry to the sub continent.
Arrival in Calcutta
The Supreme court of Bengal already being established, gave Jones a reason to venture into India. The King of England , himself , wrote a recommendation letter to the Lord chancellor to appoint Jones. A few days later he was knighted and in few weeks he got married and set sail to Calcutta . He arrived in September 1783 to begin a new journey in his intellectual curiosity.
While he was sailing, in one of his notes he mentioned all the subjects that he wanted to study , while in Calcutta. This included the laws of Hindus and Muslims, the history of ancient world, the proofs and illustrations of scriptures, the tradition concerning the deluge ( great flood ), the politics and geography of Hindustan , the modes of governance in Bengal ,Arithmetic , Geometry and mixed sciences of Asiatics, Medicine , Chemistry , Surgery and Anatomy of Indians , the natural products of India, the poetry rhetoric and morality of Asia, the music of the eastern nations , accounts of Tibet and Kashmir Trade , manufacturer , agriculture and commerce of India, Mughal administration and the Maratha constitution. This list itself is a testimony of Sir William Jones's inquisitive spirit.
New love- Sanskrit
Around this period, Jones began to study Indian languages in earnest, employing a group of Indian scholars to collect and translate Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts. During weeks free from his court duties, he would move upriver to a thatch-roof bungalow in Krishnagar, a center of Sanskrit learning. There, he would exchange his judge’s robes for loose kurtas and spend more time conversing with pandits than with his fellow-countrymen. Only a handful of Europeans before him had acquired a working knowledge of Sanskrit, and none had his command over numerous other tongues. Reflecting on the structure of the language that had unlocked classical Indian learning for him, he reached a momentous conclusion, which he announced in his third annual address to the Asiatic Society on February 2, 1786:
"The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a 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 verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, 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 the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family."
In the same passage, he insightfully included Gothic, Celtic, and Persian in the list of languages that originated from the same root as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. With a few brief observations, he initiated the field of comparative linguistics and introduced the concept now known as the Indo-European family of languages. While other philologists had previously proposed similar hypotheses, his was the definitive statement. In other words, William Jones was the last to discover the Indo-European language family, much like Christopher Columbus was the last to discover the Americas and Charles Darwin the last to discover the evolution of species.
Asiatic Society-cultural respect vs colonial power
He landed in Calcutta in September , 1783 and 4 months later in January 1784 , he started the Asiatic Society. The society systematized and institutionalized inquiry into Indian languages, culture and religion. One of his primary imperatives were to understand and translate native laws in order to bring transparency to the judicial process. The judges then were mostly British and to fill the gap of communication Maulvis and Pundits were hired to aide the judges. This system was not very comfortable for the British rulers as the power of manipulation rested in the hands of the natives. Thus the need was felt to understand native laws from the first hand perspective . In order to do that significant efforts needed to be given in learning Sanskrit , Persian and the cultural values and ethos of the people.
"The ambitious goal he had set himself was to translate into English the Laws of Manu and create a Digest of Indian and Arabian Laws. He believed that Indians under British rule ought to “enjoy their own customs unmolested”, but neither colonial judges nor ordinary Indians had access to the sacred languages of Hindus and Muslims. They depended on the interpretations of pandits and maulvis, most of whom appeared eager to please the highest bidder."
Jones was determined to achieve this bypassing the Pundits and Maulvis. This must have been a very difficult proposition but it it firmly established British rule in India. It was also a strategy of Warren Hastings to accumulate more knowledge on the right of conquest. He stated , “every accumulation of knowledge, and especially such as is obtained by social communication with people over whom we exercise a dominion founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state”
"Jones’s codification of religious laws made the process of delivering justice far more transparent, but also removed the need for any input by Indians. After absorbing the knowledge provided by native scholars, he had made their ilk redundant. All power now rested in the hands of Britons. " Girish Shahane
William Jones's work in studying and translating Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts was driven by a genuine academic passion for learning and respect for Indian culture, helping preserve and promote India's rich intellectual heritage. His contributions to comparative linguistics and the foundation of the Asiatic Society fostered greater appreciation and understanding of Indian culture, distinguishing his scholarly pursuits from the political motives of colonialism.
Sacontala
Jones's translation of Kalidasa's Shakuntala was phenomenally successful in Europe.
His preface mentioned that Kalidasa lived “at a time when the Britons were as unlettered and unpolished as the army of Hanuman”, and described the play as “a most pleasing and authentic picture of old Hindu manners, and one of the greatest curiosities that the literature of Asia has yet brought to light”. He even compared Kalidasa to Shakespeare. The central theme of revivalism in the play seemed to go perfectly well with then contemporary European mindset of Enlightment and Idealism.
European philosophers were overwhelmed with the great treasure that Jones has unearthed from the soils of India. "Sacontala" caused a sensation in Europe when it was published and opened the floodgates of translations from Sanskrit. All of a sudden people found interest in learning Sanskrit and all about the ancient Indian civilization
The romantic movement, then in its infancy in Europe, found a kindred spirit in Kalidasa, and even the classically inclined Goethe was moved to write:
"If you want the bloom of youth and fruit of later years,
If you want what enchants, fulfills, and nourishes,
If you want heaven and earth contained in one name,
I mention Shakuntala and everything is said."
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that, “Sanskrit literature will be no less influential for our time than Greek literature was in the fifteenth century for the Renaissance.”
Arthur Schopenhauer referred to one of Sir William Jones's publications in his famous work, " The World as Will and Representation" (1819).
"... how early this basic truth was recognized by the sages of India since it appears as the fundamental tenet of the Vedânta philosophy ascribed to Vyasa, is proved by Sir William Jones in the last of his essays: "On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (Asiatic Researches, vol. IV, p. 164): "The fundamental tenet of the Vedânta school consisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms."
Interpretation of Philosophy
"While translating this essay on the Gayutree, I deemed it proper to refer to the meaning of the text as given by Sir William Jones ; whose talents, acquisitions, virtuous life, and impartial research, have rendered his memory an object of love and veneration to all. I feel so much delighted by the excellence of the translation, or rather the paraphrase given by that illustrious character, that with a view to connect his name and his explanation of the passage with this humble treatise"
The subtility of Sir William Jones's understanding of complex Hindu ideas points to the fact that his interest in Sanskrit and Indian culture was not motivated only by colonial ideas but a larger love and understanding of the principles of Indian civilization.
Misinterpretation
"The prolific 19th French writer Arthur de Gobineau popularised the idea of a master race of Aryans, superior in form and intellect to all other ethnic groups. He claimed that all great civilisations had been formed by Aryans, but that these noble invaders had sullied themselves in nations like Iran and India by mixing with other races. The closest thing to living inheritors of the pure Aryan strain were, in Gobineau’s view, modern Germans. Unsurprisingly, his ideas were well received in Germany, notably within the influential circle of the composer Richard Wagner. Members of the Wagner circle adopted the theory of a Germanic master race and gave it a specifically anti-semitic emphasis." Girish Shahane
Contribution to Historical studies
He made a crucial contribution to the study of Indian history by providing the first accurate dating for the reign of an Indian sovereign who ruled before the common era. Greek chronicles mentioned that Seleucus Nicator, Alexander the Great’s successor, sent his ambassador Megasthenes to the court of Emperor Sandrocottus at Palibothra. Historians speculated that Palibothra was Pataliputra, now Patna, but this theory had a flaw. Megasthenes described Sandrocottus's capital as being at the confluence of the Ganges and Erranaboas, but only the Ganges flowed through Patna. Jones discovered that Patna was once at the confluence of the Ganga and the Son, which was also called Hiranyabahu, matching the Erranaboas in Megasthenes’ account. He found a play mentioning Chandragupta, a usurper king at Pataliputra who welcomed foreign ambassadors. Jones concluded that Chandragupta was Sandrocottus, dating his reign between 325 BCE and 312 BCE. This led to the piecing together of the Maurya dynasty's history, especially that of Chandragupta’s grandson, Ashoka, later detailed by James Prinsep.
The Ring
References:
https://scroll.in/magazine/1005729/knowledge-is-power-the-unintended-outcomes-of-orientalist-william-jones-study-of-sanskrit-texts
https://youtu.be/XeH0havcic0?si=Q3PKDjK9iSdX4Qol
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