Sanskrit for civil servants 1806-1818.

• Author: Rocher, Rosane
• Position: Sanskrit instruction in Great Britain

THE EARLY HISTORY OF SANSKRIT STUDIES in Great Britain contrasts sharply with that on the continent of Europe. The first chair of Sanskrit at a European university was not founded in Britain, as might have been expected of the country that had the greatest engagement with India, but in Paris, at the College de France in 1814, followed by the University of Bonn in 1818. France's leadership in initiating the teaching of Sanskrit language and literature stemmed in large measure from Napoleon's patronage of Oriental savants, but it was built on a foundation that went back to the times of the monarchy. As early as 1718, the abbe Bignon had, upon assuming the directorship of the Royal Library, engaged in a program of acquisition of Sanskrit and other Oriental manuscripts according to lists of desiderata that were sent to French missionaries in Asia. (1) As a result, the French National/Royal/Imperial Library was the richest repository of Sanskrit manuscripts in the West until private collections gifted by Orientalists returned from India began to build the holdings of the library established by the British East India Company in London in 1801 under the direction of the Sanskritist Charles (later Sir Charles) Wilkins.

In early nineteenth-century Britain neither the royal family nor the aristocracy acted as patrons of Oriental learning. The cultivation of Sanskrit and other Indian languages was the private avocation of a few retired servants of the East India Company. It was not thought of as a pursuit that might parallel the study of Western classics in institutions of higher learning. Nor was it considered a skill that Company servants might acquire prior to their assignments in the East, until the East India Company was jolted into action when the Governor General of Bengal, Lord Wellesley, unilaterally proclaimed in 1800 the foundation of the College of Fort William in Calcutta. After a long tussle with the home administration of the Company, which threatened to close a college the creation of which it had not authorized, a compromise was crafted, by which Wellesley's ambitious "Oxford of the East" was scaled down to a school for Indian languages. (2) All young men appointed to the civil service would first undergo three years of instruction at a college instituted at home. The course of study at East India College, which opened its doors in Hertford Castle in 1806 and moved in 1809 to permanent quarters in Haileybury, was to focus primarily on Western subjects, yet included the rudiments of Indian languages. (3)

The original plan for East India College called only for the teaching of Arabic and Persian. (4) Yet, when the first appointed Oriental Professor, Jonathan Scott, a scholar of Arabic and Persian, resigned even before the College opened its doors and was succeeded pro tempore by John B. Gilchrist, a scholar and ardent proponent of Hindustani (Urdu), an occasion offered itself to revisit the scheme of instruction in Indian languages. (5) There were four candidates. Major Herbert Lloyd, a member of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, and Henry G. Keene, an alumnus of Fort William College, proffered credentials in Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. (6) Captain Charles Stewart, then on his way home, was recommended as having taught Persian at Fort William. (7) Most prominent was a testimonial on behalf of Alexander Hamilton by Sanskritist Charles Wilkins, a founding member of the Asiatic Society who had been named Oriental Visitor for the College in addition to his duties as Librarian to the East India Company:

I have lately received a letter from Mr. C. W. Hamilton (8) (who is one of the unfortunate Gentlemen detained in France) expressing a wish to become a Candidate for the Oriental Professorship in the Honorable Company's College at Hertford, and I have been in daily expectation of receiving a letter from him, addressed to the Court, setting forth his pretensions; but having been disappointed, probably owing to the irregularity and uncertainty of the intercourse between the two Countries, I beg leave to trouble you in his behalf.

Mr. Hamilton served several years in the Honble Company's Military Service in Bengal, where he was distinguished for his great knowledge in the Persian, Arabic and even the Sanskrit Languages as is well known to several good judges who are now in London, particularly Mr. Richard Johnson and Col. Kirkpatrick, (9) to whose testimony I beg leave to add my own. Indeed his classical learning, and intimate acquaintance with the oriental languages has gained him in France the singular privilege of remaining in Paris, where he has been employed in examining and making catalogues of the vast collection of Manuscripts found in the public Libraries of that City. (10) If the Committee should feel disposed to favour his views, I can with confidence state it as my humble opinion, that there is not a man to he found who would answer the purposes of the Institution at Hertford better than the friend I have the pleasure to recommend. (11)

Hamilton was also acquainted with Charles Grant, the rising power in the Court of Directors and the architect of the plan for East India College. They had been fellow members of the Asiatic Society while in Calcutta. (12) Hamilton was the source of a report on the cultivation of Oriental learning in France, which Grant had marshaled as part of the evidence for the necessity to institute an East India College in England:

The French who, whatever their principles or Aims may be, certainly shew policy in the pursuit of them, set a high Value on Institutions of this kind. Their present Government affords distinguished encouragement to the study of Oriental Literature, it is pursued with Ardour, and Paris so much abounds in Proficients in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and even Shanscrit, that a Gentleman detained there, an Eastern scholar of our own, and from that Character admitted into free society with their Scavans, has written that he conversed among them more frequently in Persian than in French, and that he daily witnessed among them conversations in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. One consequence of this is, that the French have always a supply of Persons who add to the other qualifications for deplomatic [sic] Employments a knowledge of Eastern Languages which enables them to carry on the most important Negociations at Asiatic Courts without the intervention of an Interpreter whilst we are so destitute of knowledge of this kin d that our Metropolis though the greatest in Europe is said not to contain one Englishman capable of carrying on a Conversation much less a Correspondence in Arabic or Turkish. . . . Setting aside however considerations directly political . . . , it seems inexpedient that whilst France flourishes in Oriental learning, Britain should possess little productive stock of that kind within itself, and tho' rich in it abroad, where its riches are more exposed, continue still poor at home. (13)

At a meeting of August 6, 1806, the College Committee of the East India Company's Court of Directors recorded their opinion that "two Professors in the Oriental Department, are necessary at the East India College, one to teach the Sanscrit and other Hindoo Languages, and the other to instruct the students in the Persian, Hindostanny etc.," and recommended the appointment of Hamilton and Stewart, respectively, for these positions. (14) The Court of Directors approved this recommendation unanimously. (15) Hamilton was being released from France at that time. On August 12, East India College Principal Samuel Henley was pleased to report to the College Committee, "Mr. Hamilton, I am happy to find is arrived. The attestations to his merits as a Gentleman and Scholar, which I have received from M. de Sacy, who has been anxious that we should have his services, and, consequently, for his release, are in highest degree honourable." (16) Hamilton reported for classes on the following October 27, fully conscious of the groundbreaking nature of his assignment:

I do myself the honor to inform you that I have been hitherto prevented by ill health, a want of the requisite implements, & the necessity of much preparation, from commencing my professional duties as Professor of Hindu literature & lecturer on Asiatic history, at the college under your superintendence. That some preparation was requisite at the commencement of a course, involving a great variety of objects, which never before constituted a part of academic instruction, & will probably long continue peculiar to this institution, can surprise none. I now beg leave to report my arrival at this place, & that I shall be ready to open my class on the 1st November, from which period only it is my intention to claim a salary. (17)

The minutes of the Committee of College are silent about the reasons that prompted the addition of Sanskrit and other "Hindu languages," and of Hindustani, to the roster of languages to be taught, and to reduce Arabic to the catchall category of "etc." The Committee was clearly drawing a distinction between "Hindu" and "Muslim" languages along the nomenclature used at Fort William, where "Hindu languages" referred principally to Bengali. Yet the languages in which primary instruction was to be given at the home institution did not match those emphasized at Fort William, where Persian and Hindustani were paramount, Arabic was initially strong and Bengali weak, and Sanskrit was not a compulsory subject. (18) The prominence given to Sanskrit at East India College appears to have been due to a considerable extent to the influence of Wilkins as Oriental Visitor, and to the high regard in which Grant and others held Hamilton.

The Professor of Hindu Literature and the Oriental Visitor worked together to provide textbooks in support of Sanskrit instruction at the College. This collaboration...