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The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company/Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher

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The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company/Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher The Making of Western Indology For thirty years in India at the cusp of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Henry Thomas Colebrooke was an administrator and scholar with the East India Company. The Making of Western Indology explains and evaluates Colebrooke’s role as the founder of modern Indology. The book discusses how Colebrooke embodies the significant passage from the speculative yearnings attendant on eighteenth-century colonial expansion to the professional, transnational ethos of nineteenth-century intellectual life and schol- arly enquiry. It covers his career with the East India Company, from a young writer to member of the supreme council and theorist of the Bengal government. Highlighting how his unprecedented familiarity with a broad range of literature established him as the leading scholar of Sanskrit and president of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, it shows how Colebrooke went on to found the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and set standards for western Indology. Writ- ten by renowned academics in the field of Indology and drawing on new sources, this biography is a useful contribution to the reassessment of Oriental studies that is currently taking place. Rosane Rocher is Professor Emerita of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Her research interests include the history of Indology and of linguistics, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ludo Rocher is Emeritus W. Norman Brown Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. His research interests include the cultural history of India through the ages, with particular focus on the development of Hindu law and its adaptation in the Anglo-Indian courts. Royal Asiatic Society Books Editorial Board: Professor Francis Robinson, Royal Holloway, University of London Dr Gordon Johnson, University of Cambridge Dr Sarah Ansari, Royal Holloway, University of London Professor Tim Barrett, SOAS, University of London Dr Evrim Binbas, Royal Holloway, University of London Dr Crispin Branfoot, SOAS, University of London Mr Peter Collin Dr Anna Contadini, SOAS, University of London Dr Rachel Harrison, SOAS, University of London Professor Carole Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh Professor David Morgan, University of Wisconsin–Madison Mr Diccon Pullen Professor Anthony Stockwell, Royal Holloway, University of London The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in 1823 ‘for the investigation of subjects connected with, and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to, Asia’. Informed by these goals, the policy of the Society’s Editorial Board is to make available in appropriate formats the results of original research in the humanities and social sciences having to do with Asia, defined in the broadest geographical and cultural sense and up to the present day. The Man in the Panther’s Skin The Zen Arts Shota Rustaveli Rupert Cox Translated from the Georgian by Studies in Turkic and Mongolic M. S. Wardrop New Foreword by Linguistics Donald Rayfield Gerard Clauson New Introduction by Women, Religion and Culture C. Edmund Bosworth in Iran Edited by Sarah Ansari and The History of The Mohammedan Vanessa Martin Dynasties in Spain Ahmed ibn Mohammed al-Makkari Society, Politics and Economics in Translated from the Arabic by Mazandaran, Iran 1848–1914 Pascual de Gayangos New Introduction Mohammad Ali Kazembeyki by Michael Brett The Courts of Pre-Colonial South The Politics of Self-Expression India The Urdu Middleclass Milieu in Jennifer Howes Mid-Twentieth Century India and Pakistan Persian Literature: a Markus Daechsel Bio-Bibliographical Survey The Theory of Citrasutras in Volume V: Poetry of the Indian Painting Pre-Mongol Period A Critical Re-Evaluation of their François de Blois Uses and Interpretations Muslims in India Since Isabella Nardi 1947 Tribal Politics in Iran Islamic Perspectives on Rural Conflict and the New Inter-Faith Relations State, 1921–1941 Yoginder Sikand Stephanie Cronin The Origins of Himalayan Muslim Women, Reform and Studies Princely Patronage Brian Houghton Hodgson in NawabSultanJahanBegam Nepal and Darjeeling 1820–1858 of Bhopal Edited by David M. Waterhouse Siobhan Lambert-Hurley Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre Grievance Administration Thumri Lyrics (¸Sikayet) in an Ottoman Province Lalita Du Perron The Kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints’ of 1781–1783 The Development of Modern Michael Ursinus Medicine in Non-Western Countries The Cheitharol Kumpapa: The Historical Perspectives Court Chronicle of the Kings of Edited by Hormoz Ebrahimnejad Manipur State Violence and Punishment Original Text, Translation and Notes in India Vol. 1. 33–1763 CE Taylor C. Sherman Saroj Nalini Arambam Parratt The Making of Western Indology Anglo-Iranian Relations Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the Since 1800 East India Company Edited by Vanessa Martin Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher The British Occupation of An Ottoman Protocol Register Indonesia 1945–1946 Hakan T. Karateke Britain, the Netherlands and the Muhammad Juki’s Shahnamah of Indonesian Revolution Firdausi Richard McMillan Barbara Brend This page intentionally left blank The Making of Western Indology Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher First published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada byRoutledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 First issued in paperback 2014 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa company c 2012 Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher The right of Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rocher, Rosane. The making of western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company/Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher. p. cm. – (Royal Asiatic Society books) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Colebrooke, H. T. (Henry Thomas), 1765–1837. 2. Indologists–Great Britain–Biography. 3. Sanskrit philologists–Great Britain–Biography. 4. India–Study and teaching–History–18th century. 5. India–Study and teaching–History–19th century. 6. East India Company–History. 7. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland–History. I. Rocher, Ludo. II. Title. DS435.7.C65R64 2011 954.0072’02–dc23 [B] 2011023490 ISBN 13: 978-0-415-33601-7 (hbk) ISBN 13 : 978-1-138-78417-8 (pbk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Torquay, UK Contents List of Plates ix Preface and acknowledgements x Conventions xiii Abbreviations xiv 1 From heir to the Crown to turnspit: London, 1765–1782 1 A family of financiers 1 East India Company chairman 4 Bankruptcy and exile 8 2 Against the grain: Rural Bengal, 1783–1795 13 Antechamber to a career 13 The mofussil 16 First publications 24 3 Law and Sanskrit: Mirzapur, 1795–1801 33 Digest of Hindu law 33 Golden years 39 Resident at the court of Berar 49 4 A matter of duty: Calcutta, 1802–1807 61 The superior court 61 Fort William College 64 The Asiatic Society 75 Current concerns 82 Negotiating the shoals of patronage 86 5 Theorist of the Bengal government: Calcutta, 1807–1814 89 Voice of the supreme council 90 President of the Asiatic Society 100 Schools of Hindu law 112 viii Contents Kin and foe 116 Retired from the supreme council 125 6 Promoting India: London, 1815–1827 131 Settling into scholarly retirement 131 Providing for further Indological research 138 Scientific societies 148 Landowning at the Cape 156 Single father 159 The Royal Asiatic Society 163 A rare polemic 176 7 Sunset: London, 1827–1837 179 Woes and withdrawal 179 Rise of continental Indology 185 Closure 191 8 Legacy 197 Administrator–scholar 198 Paragon of exactitude 201 Bibliography 205 Index 229 List of Plates 1 Page of a manuscript of the Vyavah¯aratattva with interlinear translation and notes in Colebrooke’s hand 36 2 Oil portrait of Colebrooke by Robert Home, 1809 117 3 Sketch of Colebrooke by Francis Chantrey before commencing his bust, 1819 141 4 Marble bust by Francis Chantrey, commissioned by the East India Company to mark the gift of Colebrooke’s manuscript collection, 1820 142 5 Minutes of the initial meeting Colebrooke convened to found the Royal Asiatic Society, 9 January 1823 164 Preface and acknowledgements For as long as we can remember, we had been eager to learn more about Henry Thomas Colebrooke, founder of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ire- land, donor of the richest collection of Indian manuscripts to a European library and, in the opinion of historians of Indology, founder of western Sanskrit philol- ogy. The memorial his only surviving son penned after his death in 1837 and expanded in 1873 into a full volume prefixed to an enlarged edition of his Mis- cellaneous Essays, fails entirely to satisfy the interest of modern readers. Sir T. Edward Colebrooke had advantages no new biographers can claim: memories of conversations with his father and personal acquaintance with members of his cir- cle, in addition to access to his papers. Yet, his was an often reticent, Victorian biography, written by a man who, however familiar with India and well acquainted with scholars of India he might have been in his leadership role in the RAS, was not a practitioner of a newly professionalizing discipline.
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