Dr. Leitner's labors in Dardistan should here be mentioned. They date from the year 1866. Considering the shortness of the time allotted to him for exploring that country, he has been most successful in collecting his linguistic materials. We owe him a vocabulary of two Shin dialects (the Ghilghiti and Astori), and of the Arnyia, the Khayuna, and the Kalsha-Mnder. These vocabularies are so arranged as to give us a fair idea of the systems of conjugation and declension. Other vocabularies, arranged according to subjects, allow us an insight into the intellectual life of the Shinas, and we also receive most interesting information on the customs, legends, superstitions, and religion of the Dardus. Some of the important results, obtained by the same enterprising scholar in his excavations on the Takht-i-bahai hills will be laid before the Archological Section of this Congress. It is impossible to look at the Buddhist sculptures which he has brought home without perceiving that there is in them a foreign element. They are Buddhist sculptures, but they differ both in treatment and expression from what was hitherto known of Buddhist art in various parts of the world. Dr. Leitner thinks that the foreign element came from Greece, from Greek or Macedonian workmen, the descendants of Alexander's companions; others think that local and individual influences are sufficient to account for apparent deviations from the common Buddhist type. On this point I feel totally incompetent to express an opinion, but whatever the judgment of our archological colleagues may be, neither they nor we ourselves can have any doubt that Dr. Leitner deserves our sincere gratitude as an indefatigable explorer and successful discoverer.

Many of the most valuable treasures of every kind and sort, collected during these official surveys, and by private enterprise, are now deposited in the Indian Museum in London, areal mine of literary and archological wealth, opened with the greatest liberality to all who are willing to work in it.

It is unfortunate, no doubt, that this meeting of Oriental scholars should have taken place at a time when the treasures of the Indian Museum are still in their temporary exile; yet, if they share in the regret felt by every friend of India, at the delay in the building of a new museum, worthy both of England and of India, they will also carry away the conviction, that such delay is simply due to a desire to do the best that can be done, in order to carry out in the end something little short of that magnificent scheme of an Indian Institute, drawn by the experienced hand of Mr. Forbes Watson.

And now, in conclusion, I have to express my own gratitude for the liberality both of the Directors of the old East India Company and of the present Secretary of State for India in Council, for having enabled me to publish that work the last sheet of which I am able to present to this Meeting to-day, the "Rig-Veda, with the Commentary of Sya{n}crya." It is the oldest book of the Aryan world, but it is also one of the largest, and its publication would have been simply impossible without the enlightened liberality of the Indian Government. For twenty-five years I find, that taking the large and small editions of the Rig-Veda together, Ihave printed every year what would make a volume of about six hundred pages octavo. Such a publication would have ruined any bookseller, for it must be confessed, that there is little that is attractive in the Veda, nothing that could excite general interest. From an sthetic point of view, no one would care for the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and I can well understand how, in the beginning of our century, even so discriminating a scholar as Colebrooke could express his opinion that, "The Vedas are too voluminous for a complete translation, and what they contain would hardly reward the labor of the reader, much less that of the translator. The ancient dialect in which they are composed, and specially that of the three first Vedas, is extremely difficult and obscure; and, though curious, as the parent of a more polished and refined language, its difficulties must long continue to prevent such an examination of the whole Vedas, as would be requisite for extracting all that is remarkable and important in those voluminous works. But they well deserve to be occasionally consulted by the Oriental scholar." Nothing shows the change from the purely sthetic to the purely scientific interest in the language and literature of India more clearly than the fact that for the last twenty-five years the work of nearly all Sanskrit scholars has been concentrated on the Veda. When some thirty years ago I received my first lessons in Sanskrit from Professor Brockhaus, whom I am happy and proud to see to-day among us, there were but few students who ventured to dive into the depths of Vedic literature. To-day among the Sanskrit scholars whom Germany has sent to us—Professors Stenzler, Spiegel, Weber, Hang, Pertsch, Windisch—there is not one who has not won his laurels on the field of Vedic scholarship. In France also a new school of Sanskrit students has sprung up who have done most excellent work for the interpretation of the Veda, and who bid fair to rival the glorious school of French Orientalists at the beginning of this century, both by their persevering industry and by that "sweetness and light" which seems to be the birthright of their nation. But, Isay again, there is little that is beautiful, in our sense of the word, to be found in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and what little there is, has been so often dwelt on, that quite an erroneous impression as to the real nature of Vedic poetry has been produced in the mind of the public. My old friend, the Dean of St. Paul's, for instance, in some thoughtful lectures which he delivered this year on the "Sacred Poetry of Early Religions," has instituted a comparison between the Psalms and the hymns of the Veda, and he arrives at the conclusion that the Psalms are superior to the Vedic hymns. No doubt they are, from the point of view which he has chosen, but the chief value of these hymns lies in the fact that they are so different from the Psalms, or, if you like, that they are so inferior to the Psalms. They are Aryan, the Psalms Semitic; they belong to a primitive and rude state of society, the Psalms, at least most of them, are contemporaneous with or even later than the heydays of the Jewish monarchy. This strange misconception of the true character of the Vedic hymns seemed to me to become so general, that when some years ago I had to publish the first volume of my translation, Iintentionally selected a class of hymns which should in no way encourage such erroneous opinions. It was interesting to watch the disappointment. What, it was said, are these strange, savage, grotesque invocations of the Storm-gods, the inspired strains of the ancient sages of India? Is this the wisdom of the East? Is this the primeval revelation? Even scholars of high reputation joined in the outcry, and my friends hinted to me that they would not have wasted their life on such a book.

Now, suppose a geologist had brought to light the bones of a fossil animal, dating from a period anterior to any in which traces of animal life had been discovered before, would any young lady venture to say by way of criticism, "Yes, these bones are very curious, but they are not pretty!" Or suppose a new Egyptian statue had been discovered, belonging to a dynasty hitherto unrepresented by any statues, would even a school-boy dare to say, "Yes, it is very nice, but the Venus of Milo is nicer?" Or suppose an old MS. is brought to Europe, do we find fault with it, because it is not neatly printed? If a chemist discovers a new element, is he pitied because it is not gold? If a botanist writes on germs, has he to defend himself, because he does not write on flowers? Why, it is simply because the Veda is so different from what it was expected to be, because it is not like the Psalms, not like Pindar, not like the Bhagavadgt, it is because it stands alone by itself, and reveals to us the earliest germs of religious thought, such as they really were; it is because it places before us a language, more primitive than any we knew before; it is because its poetry is what you may call savage, uncouth, rude, horrible, it is for that very reason that it was worth while to dig and dig till the old buried city was recovered, showing us what man was, what we were, before we had reached the level of David, the level of Homer, the level of Zoroaster, showing us the very cradle of our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. I am not disappointed with the Veda, and I shall conclude my address with the last verses of the last hymn, which you have now in your hands,—verses which thousands of years ago may have been addressed to a similar meeting of Aryan fellow-men, and which are not inappropriate to our own:—

Sm gacchadhvam sm vadadhvam sm va{h} mn{m}si jnatm, Devh bhgm yth prve[7] sa{m}jnn{h} upsate, Samnh mntra{h} smiti{h} samn samnm mna{h} sah cittm eshm, Samnm mntram abh mantraye va{h} samnna va{h} havsh juhomi. Samn va{h} kti{h} samn h{ri}dayni va{h}, Samnm astu va{h} mna{h} yth va{h} ssaha sati.

"Come together! Speak together! Let your minds be concordant—the gods by being concordant receive their share, one after the other. Their word is the same, their counsel is the same, their mind is the same, their thoughts are at one; Iaddress to you the same word, Iworship you with the same sacrifice. Let your endeavor be the same! Let your hearts be the same! Let your mind be the same, that it may go well with you."



NOTES.

NOTE A.

In the "Indian Mirror," published at Calcutta, 20 September, 1874, anative writer gave utterance almost at the same time to the same feelings:—

"When the dominion passed from the Mogul to the hands of Englishmen, the latter regarded the natives as little better than niggers, having a civilization perhaps a shade better than that of the barbarians.... The gulf was wide between the conquerors and the conquered.... There was no affection to lessen the distance between the two races.... The discovery of Sanskrit entirely revolutionized the course of thought and speculations. It served as the 'open sesame' to many hidden treasures. It was then that the position of India in the scale of civilization was distinctly apprehended. It was then that our relations with the advanced nations of the world were fully realized. We were niggers at one time. We now become brethren.... The advent of the English found us a nation low sunk in the mire of superstitions, ignorance, and political servitude. The advent of scholars like Sir William Jones found us fully established in a rank above that of every nation as that from which modern civilization could be distinctly traced. It would be interesting to contemplate what would have been our position if the science of philology had not been discovered.... It was only when the labor of scholars brought to light the treasures of our antiquity that they perceived how near we were to their races in almost all things that they held dear in their life. It was then that our claims on their affection and regard were first established. As Hindus we ought never to forget the labor of scholars. We owe them our life as a nation, our freedom as a recognized society, and our position in the scale of races. It is the fashion with many to decry the labors of those men as dry, unprofitable, and dreamy. We should know that it is to the study of the roots and inflections of the Sanskrit language that we owe our national salvation.... Within a very few years after the discovery of Sanskrit, arevolution took place in the history of comparative science. Never were so many discoveries made at once, and from the speculations of learned scholars like ——, the dawnings of many truths are even now visible to the world.... Comparative mythology and comparative religion are new terms altogether in the world.... We say again that India has no reason to forget the services of scholars."

NOTE B.

The following letter addressed by me to the "Academy," October 17, 1874, p.433, gives the reasons for this statement:—

"I was aware of the mission of the four young Brahmans sent to Benares in 1845, to copy out and study the four Vedas respectively. Ihad read of it last in the 'Historical Sketch of the Brahmo Samaj,' which Miss Collet had the kindness to send me. But what I said in my address before the Oriental Congress referred to earlier times. That mission in 1845 was, in fact, the last result of much previous discussion, which gradually weakened and destroyed in the mind of Ram Mohun Roy and his followers their traditional faith in the Divine origin of the Vedas. At first Ram Mohun Roy met the arguments of his English friends by simply saying, 'If you claim a Divine origin for your sacred books, so do we;' and when he was pressed by the argument derived from internal evidence, he appealed to a few hymns, such as the Gyatr, and to the Upanishads, as by no means inferior to passages in the Bible, and not unworthy of a divine author. The Veda with him was chiefly in the Upanishads, and he had hardly any knowledge of the hymns of the Rig-Veda. Istate this on the authority of a conversation that passed between him and young Rosen, who was then working at the MSS. of the Rig-Veda-Sanhit in the British Museum, and to whom Ram Mohun Roy expressed his regret at not being able to read his own sacred books.

"There were other channels, too, through which, after Ram Mohun Roy's death in 1833, aknowledge of the studies of European scholars may have reached the still hesitating reformers of the Brahma Sabh. Dvarka Nth Tagore paid a visit to Europe in the year 1845. Iwrite from memory. Though not a man of deep religious feelings, he was an enlightened and shrewd observer of all that passed before his eyes. He was not a Sanskrit scholar; and I well recollect, when we paid a visit together to Eugne Burnouf, Dvarka Nth Tagore putting his dark delicate hand on one side of Burnouf's edition of the 'Bhagavat Pur{n}a,' containing the French translation, and saying he could understand that, but not the Sanskrit original on the opposite page. Isaw him frequently at Paris, where I was then engaged in collecting materials for a complete edition of the Vedas and the commentary of Sya{n}crya. Many a morning did I pass in his rooms, smoking, accompanying him on the pianoforte, and discussing questions in which we took a common interest. Iremember one morning, after he had been singing some Italian, French, and German music, Iasked him to sing an Indian song. He declined at first, saying that he knew I should not like it; but at last he yielded, and sang, not one of the modern Persian songs, which commonly go by the name of Indian, but a genuine native piece of music. Ilistened quietly, but when it was over, Itold him that it seemed strange to me, how one who could appreciate Italian and German music could find any pleasure in what sounded to me like mere noise, without melody, rhythm, or harmony. 'Oh,' he said, 'that is exactly like you Europeans! When I first heard your Italian and German music I disliked it; it was no music to me at all. But I persevered, Ibecame accustomed to it, Ifound out what was good in it, and now I am able to enjoy it. But you despise whatever is strange to you, whether in music, or philosophy, or religion; you will not listen and learn, and we shall understand you much sooner than you will understand us.'

"In our conversations on the Vedas he never, as far as I recollect, defended the divine origin of his own sacred writings in the abstract, but he displayed great casuistic cleverness in maintaining that every argument that had ever been adduced in support of a supernatural origin of the Bible could be used with equal force in favor of a divine authorship of the Veda. His own ideas of the Veda were chiefly derived from the Upanishads, and he frequently assured me that there was much more of Vedic literature in India than we imagined. This Dvarka Nth Tagore was the father of Debendra Nth Tagore, the true founder of the Brahmo Samj, who, in 1845, sent the four young Brahmans to Benares to copy out and study the four Vedas. Though Dvarka Nth Tagore was so far orthodox that he maintained a number of Brahmans, yet it was he also who continued the grant for the support of the Church, founded at Calcutta by Ram Mohun Roy. One letter written by Dvarka Nth Tagore from Paris to Calcutta in 1845, would supply the missing link between what was passing at that time in a room of a hotel on the Place Vendme, and the resolution taken at Calcutta to find out, once for all, what the Vedas really are.

"In India itself the idea of a critical and historical study of the Veda originated certainly with English scholars. Dr. Mill once showed me the first attempt at printing the sacred Gyatr in Calcutta; and, if I am not mistaken, he added that unfortunately the gentleman who had printed it died soon after, thus confirming the prophecies of the Brahmans that such a sacrilege would not remain unavenged by the gods. Dr. Mill, Stevenson, Wilson, and others were the first to show to the educated natives in India that the Upanishads belonged to a later age than the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and likewise the first to exhibit to Ram Mohun Roy and his friends the real character of these ancient hymns. On a mind like Ram Mohun Roy's the effect was probably much more immediate than on his followers, so that it took several years before they decided on sending their commissioners to Benares to report on the Veda and its real character. Yet that mission was, Ibelieve, the result of a slow process of attrition produced by the contact between native and European minds, and as such I wished to present it in my address at the Oriental Congress."

[Footnote 1: These lists of common Aryan words were published in the Academy, October 10, 1874, and are reprinted at the end of the next article "On the Life of Colebrooke."]

[Footnote 2: Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und Orientalischen Philologie in Deutschland, von Theodor Benfey. Mnchen, 1869.]

[Footnote 3: Aristoteles' Metaphysik, eine Tochter der Snkhya-Lehre des Kapila, von Dr. C.B. Schlter. 1874.]

[Footnote 4: See Note A, p. 355.]

[Footnote 5: See Note B, p. 356.]

[Footnote 6: Academy, August 1, 1874.]

[Footnote 7: I read yathprve as one word.]



VIII.

LIFE OF COLEBROOKE.[1]

The name and fame of Henry Thomas Colebrooke are better known in India, France, Germany, Italy—nay, even in Russia—than in his own country. He was born in London on the 15th of June, 1765; he died in London on the 10th of March, 1837; and if now, after waiting for thirty-six years, his only surviving son, Sir Edward Colebrooke, has at last given us a more complete account of his father's life, the impulse has come chiefly from Colebrooke's admirers abroad, who wished to know what the man had been whose works they know so well. If Colebrooke had simply been a distinguished, even a highly distinguished, servant of the East India Company, we could well understand that, where the historian has so many eminent services to record, those of Henry Thomas Colebrooke should have been allowed to pass almost unnoticed. The history of British India has still to be written, and it will be no easy task to write it. Macaulay's "Lives" of Clive and Warren Hastings are but two specimens to show how it ought to be, and yet how it cannot be, written. There is in the annals of the conquest and administrative tenure of India so much of the bold generalship of raw recruits, the statesmanship of common clerks, and the heroic devotion of mere adventurers, that even the largest canvas of the historian must dwarf the stature of heroes; and characters which, in the history of Greece or England, would stand out in bold relief, must vanish unnoticed in the crowd. The substance of the present memoir appeared in the "Journal" of the Royal Asiatic Society soon after Mr. Colebrooke's death. It consisted originally of a brief notice of his public and literary career, interspersed with extracts from his letters to his family during the first twenty years of residence in India. Being asked a few years since to allow this notice to appear in a new edition of his "Miscellaneous Essays," which Mr. Fitz-Edward Hall desired to republish, Sir Edward thought it incumbent on him to render it more worthy of his father's reputation. The letters in the present volume are, for the most part, given in full; and some additional correspondence is included in it, besides a few papers of literary interest, and a journal kept by him during his residence at Nagpur, which was left incomplete. Two addresses delivered to the Royal Asiatic and Astronomical Societies, and the narrative of a journey to and from the capital of Berar, are given in an appendix and complete the volume, which is now on the eve of publication.

Although, as we shall see, the career of Mr. Colebrooke, as a servant of the East India Company, was highly distinguished, and in its vicissitudes, as here told by his son, both interesting and instructive, yet his most lasting fame will not be that of the able administrator, the learned lawyer, the thoughtful financier and politician, but that of the founder and father of true Sanskrit scholarship in Europe. In that character Colebrooke has secured his place in the history of the world, aplace which neither envy nor ignorance can ever take from him. Had he lived in Germany, we should long ago have seen his statue in his native place, his name written in letters of gold on the walls of academies; we should have heard of Colebrooke jubilees and Colebrooke scholarships. In England, if any notice is taken of the discovery of Sanskrit—a discovery in many respects equally important, in some even more important, than the revival of Greek scholarship in the fifteenth century—we may possibly hear the popular name of Sir William Jones and his classical translation of Sakuntala; but of the infinitely more important achievements of Colebrooke, not one word. The fact is, the time has not yet come when the full importance of the Sanskrit philology can be appreciated by the public at large. It was the same with Greek philology. When Greek began to be studied by some of the leading spirits in Europe, the subject seemed at first one of purely literary curiosity. When its claims were pressed on the public, they were met by opposition, and even ridicule; and those who knew least of Greek were most eloquent in their denunciations. Even when its study had become more general, and been introduced at universities and schools, it remained in the eyes of many a mere accomplishment—its true value for higher than scholastic purposes being scarcely suspected. At present we know that the revival of Greek scholarship affected the deepest interests of humanity, that it was in reality a revival of that consciousness which links large portions of mankind together, connects the living with the dead, and thus secures to each generation the full intellectual inheritance of our race. Without that historical consciousness the life of man would be ephemeral and vain. The more we can see backward, and place ourselves in real sympathy with the past, the more truly do we make the life of former generations our own, and are able to fulfill our own appointed duty in carrying on the work which was begun centuries ago in Athens and at Rome. But while the unbroken traditions of the Roman world, and the revival of Greek culture among us, restored to us the intellectual patrimony of Greece and Rome only, and made the Teutonic race in a certain sense Greek and Roman, the discovery of Sanskrit will have a much larger influence. Like a new intellectual spring, it is meant to revive the broken fibres that once united the Southeastern with the Northwestern branches of the Aryan family; and thus to restablish the spiritual brotherhood, not only of the Teutonic, Greek, and Roman, but likewise of the Slavonic, Celtic, Indian, and Persian branches. It is to make the mind of man wider, his heart larger, his sympathies world-embracing; it is to make us truly humaniores, richer and prouder in the full perception of what humanity has been, and what it is meant to be. This is the real object of the more comprehensive studies of the nineteenth century, and though the full appreciation of this their true import may be reserved to the future, no one who follows the intellectual progress of mankind attentively can fail to see that, even now, the comparative study of languages, mythologies, and religions has widened our horizon; that much which was lost has been regained; and that a new world, if it has not yet been occupied, is certainly in sight. It is curious to observe that those to whom we chiefly owe the discovery of Sanskrit were as little conscious of the real importance of their discovery as Columbus was when he landed at St. Salvador. What Mr. Colebrooke did, was done from a sense of duty, rather than from literary curiosity; but there was also a tinge of enthusiasm in his character, like that which carries a traveller to the wastes of Africa or the icebound regions of the Pole. Whenever there was work ready for him, he was ready for the work. But he had no theories to substantiate, no preconceived objects to attain. Sobriety and thoroughness are the distinguishing features of all his works. There is in them no trace of haste or carelessness; but neither is there evidence of any extraordinary effort, or minute professional scholarship. In the same business-like spirit in which he collected the revenue of his province he collected his knowledge of Sanskrit literature; with the same judicial impartiality with which he delivered his judgments he delivered the results at which he had arrived after his extensive and careful reading; and with the same sense of confidence with which he quietly waited for the effects of his political and financial measures, in spite of the apathy or the opposition with which they met at first, he left his written works to the judgment of posterity, never wasting his time in the repeated assertion of his opinions, or in useless controversy, though he was by no means insensible to his own literary reputation. The biography of such a man deserves a careful study; and we think that Sir Edward Colebrooke has fulfilled more than a purely filial duty in giving to the world a full account of the private, public, and literary life of his great father.

Colebrooke was the son of a wealthy London banker, Sir George Colebrooke, aMember of Parliament, and a man in his time of some political importance. Having proved himself a successful advocate of the old privileges of the East India Company, he was invited to join the Court of Directors, and became in 1769 chairman of the Company. His chairmanship was distinguished in history by the appointment of Warren Hastings to the highest office in India, and there are in existence letters from that illustrious man to Sir George, written in the crisis of his Indian Administration, which show the intimate and confidential relations subsisting between them. But when, in later years, Sir George Colebrooke became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and Indian appointments were successively obtained for his two sons, James Edward and Henry Thomas, it does not appear that Warren Hastings took any active steps to advance them, beyond appointing the elder brother to an office of some importance on his secretariat. Henry, the younger brother, had been educated at home, and at the age of fifteen he had laid a solid foundation in Latin, Greek, French, and particularly in mathematics. As he never seems to have been urged on, he learned what he learned quietly and thoroughly, trying from the first to satisfy himself rather than others. Thus a love of knowledge for its own sake remained firmly engrained in his mind through life, and explains much of what would otherwise remain inexplicable in his literary career.

At the age of eighteen he started for India, and arrived at Madras in 1783, having narrowly escaped capture by French cruisers. The times were anxious times for India, and full of interest to an observer of political events. In his very first letter from India Colebrooke thus sketches the political situation:—

"The state of affairs in India seems to bear a far more favorable aspect than for a long time past. The peace with the Mahrattas and the death of Hyder Ally, the intended invasion of Tippoo's country by the Mahrattas, sufficiently removed all alarm from the country powers; but there are likewise accounts arrived, and which seem to be credited, of the defeat of Tippoo by Colonel Matthews, who commands on the other coast."

From Madras Colebrooke proceeded, in 1783, to Calcutta, where he met his elder brother, already established in the service. His own start in official life was delayed, and took place under circumstances by no means auspicious. The tone, both in political and private life, was at that time at its lowest ebb in India. Drinking, gambling, and extravagance of all kinds were tolerated even in the best society, and Colebrooke could not entirely escape the evil effects of the moral atmosphere in which he had to live. It is all the more remarkable that his taste for work never deserted him, and "that he would retire to his midnight Sanskrit studies unaffected by the excitement of the gambling-table." It was not till 1786—a year after Warren Hastings had left India—that he received his first official appointment, as Assistant Collector of Revenue in Tirhut. His father seems to have advised him from the first to be assiduous in acquiring the vernacular languages, and we find him at an early period of his Indian career thus writing on this subject: "The one, and that the most necessary, Moors (now called Hindustani), by not being written, bars all close application; the other, Persian, is too dry to entice, and is so seldom of any use, that I seek its acquisition very leisurely." He asked his father in turn to send him the Greek and Latin classics, evidently intending to carry on his old favorite studies, rather than begin a new career as an Oriental scholar. For a time he seemed, indeed, deeply disappointed with his life in India, and his prospects were anything but encouraging. But although he seriously thought of throwing up his position and returning to England, he was busy nevertheless in elaborating a scheme for the better regulation of the Indian service. His chief idea was, that the three functions of the civil service—the commercial, the revenue, and the diplomatic—should be separated; that each branch should be presided over by an independent board, and that those who had qualified themselves for one branch should not be transferred to another. Curiously enough, he lived to prove by his own example the applicability of the old system, being himself transferred from the revenue department to a judgeship, then employed on an important diplomatic mission, and lastly raised to a seat in Council, and acquitting himself well in each of these different employments. After a time his discontent seems to have vanished. He quietly settled down to his work in collecting the revenue of Tirhut; and his official duties soon became so absorbing, that he found little time for projecting reforms of the Indian Civil Service.

Soon also his Oriental studies gave him a new interest in the country and the people. The first allusions to Oriental literature occur in a letter dated Patna, December 10, 1786. It is addressed to his father, who had desired some information concerning the religion of the Hindus. Colebrooke's own interest in Sanskrit literature was from the first scientific rather than literary. His love of mathematics and astronomy made him anxious to find out what the Brahmans had achieved in these branches of knowledge. It is surprising to see how correct is the first communication which he sends to his father on the four modes of reckoning time adopted by Hindu astronomers, and which he seems chiefly to have drawn from Persian sources. The passage (pp.23-26) is too long to be given here, but we recommend it to the careful attention of Sanskrit scholars, who will find it more accurate than what has but lately been written on the same subject. Colebrooke treated, again, of the different measures of time in his essay "On Indian Weights and Measures," published in the "Asiatic Researches," 1798; and in stating the rule for finding the planets which preside over the day, called Hor, he was the first to point out the coincidence between that expression and our name for the twenty-fourth part of the day. In one of the notes to his Dissertation on the Algebra of the Hindus he showed that this and other astrological terms were evidently borrowed by the Hindus from the Greeks, or other external sources; and in a manuscript note published for the first time by Sir E.Colebrooke, we find him following up the same subject, and calling attention to the fact that the word Hor occurs in the Sanskrit vocabulary—the Medin-Kosha, and bears there, among other significations, that of the rising of a sign of the zodiac, or half a sign. This, as he remarks, is in diurnal motion one hour, thus confirming the connection between the Indian and European significations of the word.

While he thus felt attracted towards the study of Oriental literature by his own scientific interests, it seems that Sanskrit literature and poetry by themselves had no charms for him. On the contrary, he declares himself repelled by the false taste of Oriental writers; and he speaks very slightingly of "the amateurs who do not seek the acquisition of useful knowledge, but would only wish to attract notice, without the labor of deserving it, which is readily accomplished by an ode from the Persian, an apologue from the Sanskrit, or a song from some unheard-of dialect of Hinduee, of which amateur favors the public with a free translation, without understanding the original, as you will immediately be convinced, if you peruse that repository of nonsense, the 'Asiatic Miscellany.'" He makes one exception, however, in favor of Wilkins. "Ihave never yet seen any book," he writes, "which can be depended on for information concerning the real opinions of the Hindus, except Wilkins's 'Bhagvat Geeta.' That gentleman was Sanskrit mad, and has more materials and more general knowledge respecting the Hindus than any other foreigner ever acquired since the days of Pythagoras." Arabic, too, did not then find much more favor in his eyes than Sanskrit. "Thus much," he writes, "Iam induced to believe, that the Arabic language is of more difficult acquisition than Latin, or even than Greek; and, although it may be concise and nervous, it will not reward the labor of the student, since, in the works of science, he can find nothing new, and, in those of literature, he could not avoid feeling his judgment offended by the false taste in which they are written, and his imagination being heated by the glow of their imagery. Afew dry facts might, however, reward the literary drudge....."

It may be doubted, indeed, whether Colebrooke would ever have overcome these prejudices, had it not been for his father's exhortations. In 1789, Colebrooke was transferred from Tirhut to Purneah; and such was his interest in his new and more responsible office, that, according to his own expression, he felt for it all the solicitude of a young author. Engrossed in his work, aten years' settlement of some of the districts of his new collectorship, he writes to his father in July, 1790:—

"The religion, manners, natural history, traditions, and arts of this country may, certainly, furnish subjects on which my communications might, perhaps, be not uninteresting; but to offer anything deserving of attention would require a season of leisure to collect and digest information. Engaged in public and busy scenes, my mind is wholly engrossed by the cares and duties of my station; in vain I seek, for relaxation's sake, to direct my thoughts to other subjects; matters of business constantly recur. It is for this cause that I have occasionally apologized for a dearth of subjects, having no occurrences to relate, and the matters which occupy my attention being uninteresting as a subject of correspondence."

When, after a time, the hope of distinguishing himself impelled Colebrooke to new exertions, and he determined to become an author, the subject which he chose was not antiquarian or philosophical, but purely practical.

"Translations," he writes, in 1790, "are for those who rather need to fill their purses than gratify their ambition. For original compositions on Oriental history and sciences is required more reading in the literature of the East than I possess, or am likely to attain. My subject should be connected with those matters to which my attention is professionally led. One subject is, Ibelieve, yet untouched—the agriculture of Bengal. On this I have been curious of information; and, having obtained some, Iam now pursuing inquiries with some degree of regularity. Iwish for your opinion, whether it would be worth while to reduce into form the information which may be obtained on a subject necessarily dry, and which (curious, perhaps) is, certainly, useless to English readers."

Among the subjects of which he wishes to treat in this work we find some of antiquarian interest, e.g., what castes of Hindus are altogether forbid cultivating, and what castes have religious prejudices against the culture of particular articles. Others are purely technical; for instance, the question of the succession and mixture of crops. He states that the Hindus have some traditional maxims on the succession of crops to which they rigidly adhere; and with regard to mixture, he observes that two, three, or even four different articles are sown in the same field, and gathered successively, as they ripen; that they are sometimes all sown on the same day, sometimes at different periods, etc.

His letters now became more and more interesting, and they generally contain some fragments which show us how the sphere of his inquiries became more and more extended. We find (p.39) observations on the Psylli of Egypt and the snake-charmers of India, on the Sikhs (p.45), on human sacrifices in India (p.46). The spirit of inquiry which had been kindled by Sir W. Jones, more particularly since the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, had evidently reached Colebrooke. It is difficult to fix the exact date when he began the study of Sanskrit. He seems to have taken it up and left it again in despair several times. In 1793 he was removed from Purneah to Nattore. From that place he sent to his father the first volumes of the "Asiatic Researches," published by the members of the Asiatic Society. He drew his father's attention to some articles in them, which would seem to prove that the ancient Hindus possessed a knowledge of Egypt and of the Jews, but he adds: "No historical light can be expected from Sanskrit literature; but it may, nevertheless, be curious, if not useful, to publish such of their legends as seem to resemble others known to European mythology." The first glimmering of comparative mythology in 1793!

Again he writes in 1793, "In my Sanskrit studies, I do not confine myself now to particular subjects, but skim the surface of all their sciences. Iwill subjoin, for your amusement, some remarks on subjects treated in the 'Researches.'"

What the results of that skimming were, and how far more philosophical his appreciation of Hindu literature had then become, may be seen from the end of the same letter, written from Rajshahi, December, 6, 1793:—

"Upon the whole, whatever may be the true antiquity of this nation, whether their mythology be a corruption of the pure deism we find in their books, or their deism a refinement from gross idolatry; whether their religious and moral precepts have been engrafted on the elegant philosophy of the Nyya and Mimns, or this philosophy been refined on the plainer text of the Veda; the Hindu is the most ancient nation of which we have valuable remains, and has been surpassed by none in refinement and civilization; though the utmost pitch of refinement to which it ever arrived preceded, in time, the dawn of civilization in any other nation of which we have even the name in history. The further our literary inquiries are extended here, the more vast and stupendous is the scene which opens to us; at the same time, that the true and false, the sublime and the puerile, wisdom and absurdity, are so intermixed, that, at every step, we have to smile at folly, while we admire and acknowledge the philosophical truth, though couched in obscure allegory and puerile fable."

In 1794, Colebrooke presented to the Asiatic Society his first paper, "On the Duties of a Faithful Hindu Widow," and he told his father at the same time, that he meant to pursue his Sanskrit inquiries diligently, and in a spirit which seems to have guided all his work through life: "The only caution," he says, "which occurs to me is, not to hazard in publication anything crude or imperfect, which would injure my reputation as a man of letters; to avoid this, the precaution may be taken of submitting my manuscripts to private perusal."

Colebrooke might indeed from that time have become altogether devoted to the study of Sanskrit, had not his political feelings been strongly roused by the new Charter of the East India Company, which, instead of sanctioning reforms long demanded by political economists, confirmed nearly all the old privileges of their trade. Colebrooke was a free-trader by conviction, and because he had at heart the interests both of India and of England. It is quite gratifying to find a man, generally so cold and prudent as Colebrooke, warm with indignation at the folly and injustice of the policy carried out by England with regard to her Indian subjects. He knew very well that it was personally dangerous for a covenanted servant to discuss and attack the privileges of the Company, but he felt that he ought to think and act, not merely as the servant of a commercial company, but as the servant of the British Government. He wished, even at that early time, that India should become an integral portion of the British Empire, and cease to be, as soon as possible, amere appendage, yielding a large commercial revenue. He was encouraged in these views by Mr. Anthony Lambert, and the two friends at last decided to embody their views in a work, which they privately printed, under the title of "Remarks on the Present State of the Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal." Colebrooke, as we know, had paid considerable attention to the subject of husbandry, and he now contributed much of the material which he had collected for a purely didactic work, to this controversial and political treatise. He is likewise responsible, and he never tried to shirk that responsibility, for most of the advanced financial theories which it contains. The volume was sent to England, and submitted to the Prime Minister of the day and several other persons of influence. It seems to have produced an impression in the quarters most concerned, but it was considered prudent to stop its further circulation on account of the dangerous free-trade principles, which it supported with powerful arguments. Colebrooke had left the discretion of publishing the work in England to his friends, and he cheerfully submitted to their decision. He himself, however, never ceased to advocate the most liberal financial opinions, and being considered by those in power in Leadenhall Street as a dangerous young man, his advancement in India became slower than it would otherwise have been.

A man of Colebrooke's power, however, was too useful to the Indian Government to be passed over altogether, and though his career was neither rapid nor brilliant, it was nevertheless most successful. Just at the time when Sir W. Jones had died suddenly, Colebrooke was removed from the revenue to the judicial branch of the Indian service, and there was no man in India, except Colebrooke, who could carry on the work which Sir W. Jones had left unfinished, viz.: "The Digest of Hindu and Mohammedan Laws." At the instance of Warren Hastings, aclause had been inserted in the Act of 1772, providing that "Maulavies and Pundits should attend the Courts, to expound the law and assist in passing the decrees." In all suits regarding inheritance, marriage, caste, and religious usages and institutions, the ancient laws of the Hindus were to be followed, and for that purpose a body of laws from their own books had to be compiled. Under the direction of Warren Hastings, nine Brahmans had been commissioned to draw up a code, which appeared in 1776, under the title of "Code of Gentoo Laws."[2] It had been originally compiled in Sanskrit, then translated into Persian, and from that into English. As that code, however, was very imperfect, Sir W. Jones had urged on the Government the necessity of a more complete and authentic compilation. Texts were to be collected, after the model of Justinian's Pandects, from law-books of approved authority, and to be digested according to a scientific analysis, with references to original authors. The task of arranging the text-books and compiling the new code fell chiefly to a learned Pandit, Jaganntha, and the task of translating it was now, after the death of Sir W. Jones, undertaken by Colebrooke. This task was no easy one, and could hardly be carried out without the help of really learned pandits. Fortunately Colebrooke was removed at the time when he undertook this work, to Mirzapur, close to Benares, the seat of Brahmanical learning, in the north of India, and the seat of a Hindu College. Here Colebrooke found not only rich collections of Sanskrit MSS, but likewise a number of law pandits, who could solve many of the difficulties which he had to encounter in the translation of Jaganntha's Digest. After two years of incessant labor, we find Colebrooke on January 3, 1797, announcing the completion of his task, which at once established his position as the best Sanskrit scholar of the day. Oriental studies were at that time in the ascendant in India. Adictionary was being compiled, and several grammars were in preparation. Types also had been cut, and for the first time Sanskrit texts issued from the press in Devangar letters. Native scholars, too, began to feel a pride in the revival of their ancient literature. The Brahmans, as Colebrooke writes, were by no means averse to instruct strangers; they did not even conceal from him the most sacred texts of the Veda. Colebrooke's "Essays on the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus," which appeared in the fifth volume of the "Asiatic Researches" in the same year as his translation of the "Digest," show very clearly that he had found excellent instructors, and had been initiated in the most sacred literature of the Brahmans. An important paper on the Hindu schools of law seems to date from the same period, and shows a familiarity, not only with the legal authorities of India, but with the whole structure of the traditional and sacred literature of the Brahmans, which but few Sanskrit scholars could lay claim to even at the present day. In the fifth volume of the "Asiatic Researches" appeared also his essay "On Indian Weights and Measures," and his "Enumeration of Indian Classes." Ashort, but thoughtful memorandum on the origin of caste, written during that period, and printed for the first time in his "Life," will be read with interest by all who are acquainted with the different views of living scholars on this important subject.

Colebrooke's idea was that the institution of caste was not artificial or conventional, but that it began with the simple division of freemen and slaves, which we find among all ancient nations. This division, as he supposes, existed among the Hindus before they settled in India. It became positive law after their emigration from the northern mountains into India, and was there adapted to the new state of the Hindus, settled among the aborigines. The class of slaves or {S}dras consisted of those who came into India in that degraded state, and those of the aborigines who submitted and were spared. Menial offices and mechanical labor were deemed unworthy of freemen in other countries besides India, and it cannot therefore appear strange that the class of the {S}dras comprehended in India both servants and mechanics, both Hindus and emancipated aborigines. The class of freemen included originally the priest, the soldier, the merchant, and the husbandman. It was divided into three orders, the Brhma{n}as, Kshatriyas, and Vai{s}yas, the last comprehending merchants and husbandmen indiscriminately, being the yeomen of the country and the citizens of the town. According to Colebrooke's opinion, the Kshatriyas consisted originally of kings and their descendants. It was the order of princes, rather than of mere soldiers. The Brhma{n}as comprehended no more than the descendants of a few religious men who, by superior knowledge and the austerity of their lives, had gained an ascendency over the people. Neither of these orders was originally very numerous, and their prominence gave no offense to the far more powerful body of the citizens and yeomen.

When legislators began to give their sanction to this social system, their chief object seems to have been to guard against too great a confusion of the four orders—the two orders of nobility, the sacerdotal and the princely, and the two orders of the people, the citizens and the slaves, by either prohibiting intermarriage, or by degrading the offspring of alliances between members of different orders. If men of superior married women of inferior, but next adjoining, rank, the offspring of their marriage sank to the rank of their mothers, or obtained a position intermediate between the two. The children of such marriages were distinguished by separate titles. Thus, the son of a Brhma{n}a by a Kshatriya woman was called Mrdhbhishikta, which implies royalty. They formed a distinct tribe of princes or military nobility, and were by some reckoned superior to the Kshatriya. The son of a Brhma{n}a by a Vai{s}ya woman was a Vaidya or Ambash{t}ha; the offspring of a Kshatriya by a Vaisya was a Mahishya, forming two tribes of respectable citizens. But if a greater disproportion of rank existed between the parents—if, for instance, a+Brhma{n}a+ married a {S}dra, the offspring of their marriage, the Nishda, suffered greater social penalties; he became impure, notwithstanding the nobility of his father. Marriages, again, between women of superior with men of inferior rank were considered more objectionable than marriages of men of superior with women of inferior rank, asentiment which continues to the present day.

What is peculiar to the social system, as sanctioned by Hindu legislators, and gives it its artificial character, is their attempt to provide by minute regulations for the rank to be assigned to new tribes, and to point out professions suitable to that rank. The tribes had each an internal government, and professions naturally formed themselves into companies. From this source, while the corporations imitated the regulations of tribes, amultitude of new and arbitrary tribes sprang up, the origin of which, as assigned by Manu and other legislators, was probably, as Colebrooke admits, more or less fanciful.

In his "Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal," the subject of caste in its bearing on the social improvement of the Indian nation was likewise treated by Colebrooke. In reply to the erroneous views then prevalent as to the supposed barriers which caste placed against the free development of the Hindus, he writes:—

"An erroneous doctrine has been started, as if the great population of these provinces could not avail to effect improvements, notwithstanding opportunities afforded by an increased demand for particular manufactures or for raw produce: because, 'professions are hereditary among the Hindus; the offspring of men of one calling do not intrude into any other; professions are confined to hereditary descent; and the produce of any particular manufacture cannot be extended according to the increase of the demand, but must depend upon the population of the caste, or tribe, which works on that manufacture; or, in other words, if the demand for any article should exceed the ability of the number of workmen who produce it, the deficiency cannot be supplied by calling in assistance from other tribes.'

"In opposition to this unfounded opinion, it is necessary that we not only show, as has been already done, that the population is actually sufficient for great improvement, but we must also prove, that professions are not separated by an impassable line, and that the population affords a sufficient number whose religions prejudices permit, and whose inclination leads them to engage in, those occupations through which the desired improvement may be effected.

"The Muselmans, to whom the argument above quoted cannot in any manner be applied, bear no inconsiderable proportion to the whole population. Other descriptions of people, not governed by Hindu institutions, are found among the inhabitants of these provinces; in regard to these, also, the objection is irrelevant. The Hindus themselves, to whom the doctrine which we combat is meant to be applied, cannot exceed nine tenths of the population; probably, they do not bear so great a proportion to the other tribes. They are, as is well known, divided into four grand classes; but the three first of them are much less numerous than the {S}dra. The aggregate of Brhma{n}a, Kshatriya, and Vai{s}ya may amount, at the most, to a fifth of the population; and even these are not absolutely restricted to their own appointed occupations. Commerce and agriculture are universally permitted; and, under the designation of servants of the other three tribes, the {S}dras seem to be allowed to prosecute any manufacture.

"In this tribe are included not only the true {S}dras, but also the several castes whose origin is ascribed to the promiscuous intercourse of the four classes. To these, also, their several occupations were assigned; but neither are they restricted, by rigorous injunctions, to their own appointed occupations. For any person unable to procure a subsistence by the exercise of his own profession may earn a livelihood in the calling of a subordinate caste, within certain limits in the scale of relative precedence assigned to each; and no forfeiture is now incurred by his intruding into a superior profession. It was, indeed, the duty of the Hindu magistrate to restrain the encroachments of inferior tribes on the occupations of superior castes; but, under a foreign government, this restraint has no existence.

"In practice, little attention is paid to the limitations to which we have here alluded: daily observation shows even Brhmanas exercising the menial profession of a Sdra. We are aware that every caste forms itself into clubs, or lodges, consisting of the several individuals of that caste residing within a small distance; and that these clubs, or lodges, govern themselves by particular rules and customs, or by laws. But, though some restrictions and limitations, not founded on religious prejudices, are found among their by-laws, it may be received, as a general maxim, that the occupation appointed for each tribe is entitled merely to a preference. Every profession, with few exceptions, is open to every description of persons, and the discouragement arising from religious prejudices is not greater than what exists in Great Britain from the effects of municipal and corporation laws. In Bengal, the numbers of people actually willing to apply to any particular occupation are sufficient for the unlimited extension of any manufacture.

"If these facts and observations be not considered as a conclusive refutation of the unfounded assertion made on this subject, we must appeal to the experience of every gentleman who may have resided in the provinces of Bengal, whether a change of occupation and profession does not frequently and indefinitely occur? Whether Brhmanas are not employed in the most servile offices? And whether the Sdra is not seen elevated to situations of respectability and importance? In short, whether the assertion above quoted be not altogether destitute of foundation?"

It is much to be regretted that studies so auspiciously begun were suddenly interrupted by a diplomatic mission, which called Colebrooke away from Mirzapur, and retained him from 1798 to 1801 at Nagpur, the capital of Berar. Colebrooke himself had by this time discovered that, however distinguished his public career might be, his lasting fame must depend on his Sanskrit studies. We find him even at Nagpur continuing his literary work, particularly the compilation and translation of a Supplementary Digest. He also prepared, as far as this was possible in the midst of diplomatic avocations, some of his most important contributions to the "Asiatic Researches," one on Sanskrit prosody, which did not appear till 1808, and was then styled an essay on Sanskrit and Prakrit poetry; one on the Vedas, another on Indian Theogonies (not published), and a critical treatise on Indian plants. At last, in May, 1801, he left Nagpur to return to his post at Mirzapur. Shortly afterwards he was summoned to Calcutta, and appointed a member of the newly constituted Court of Appeal. He at the same time accepted the honorary post of Professor of Sanskrit at the college recently established at Fort William, without, however, taking an active part in the teaching of pupils. He seems to have been a director of studies rather than an actual professor, but he rendered valuable service as examiner in Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindustani, and Persian. In 1801 appeared his essay on the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages, which shows how well he had qualified himself to act as professor of Sanskrit, and how well, in addition to the legal and sacred literature of the Brahmans, he had mastered the belles lettres of India also, which at first, as we saw, had rather repelled him by their extravagance and want of taste.

And here we have to take note of a fact which has never been mentioned in the history of the science of language, viz., that Colebrooke at that early time devoted considerable attention to the study of Comparative Philology. To judge from his papers, which have never been published, but which are still in the possession of Sir E. Colebrooke, the range of his comparisons was very wide, and embraced not only Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, with their derivatives, but also the Germanic and Slavonic languages.[3]

The principal work, however, of this period of his life was his Sanskrit Grammar. Though it was never finished, it will always keep its place, like a classical torso, more admired in its unfinished state than other works which stand by its side; finished, yet less perfect. Sir E. Colebrooke has endeavored to convey to the general reader some idea of the difficulties which had to be overcome by those who, for the first time, approached the study of the native grammarians, particularly of P{n}ini. But this grammatical literature, the 3,996 grammatical stras or rules, which determine every possible form of the Sanskrit language in a manner unthought of by the grammarians of any other country, the glosses and commentaries, one piled upon the other, which are indispensable for a successful unraveling of P{n}ini's artful web, which start every objection, reasonable or unreasonable, that can be imagined, either against P{n}ini himself or against his interpreters, which establish general principles, register every exception, and defend all forms apparently anomalous of the ancient Vedic language; all this together is so completely sui generis, that those only who have themselves followed Colebrooke's footsteps can appreciate the boldness of the first adventurer, and the perseverance of the first explorer of that grammatical labyrinth. Colebrooke's own Grammar of the Sanskrit language, founded on works of native grammarians, has sometimes been accused of obscurity, nor can it be denied that for those who wish to acquire the elements of the language, it is almost useless. But those who know the materials which Colebrooke worked up in his grammar, will readily give him credit for what he has done in bringing the indigesta moles which he found before him into something like order. He made the first step, and a very considerable step it was, in translating the strange phraseology of Sanskrit grammarians into something at least intelligible to European scholars. How it could have been imagined that their extraordinary grammatical phraseology was borrowed by the Hindus from the Greeks, or that its formation was influenced by the grammatical schools established among the Greeks in Bactria, is difficult to understand, if one possesses but the slightest acquaintance with the character of either system, or with their respective historical developments. It would be far more accurate to say that the Indian and Greek systems of grammar represent two opposite poles, exhibiting the two starting-points from which alone the grammar of a language can be attacked, viz., the theoretical and the empirical. Greek grammar begins with philosophy, and forces language into the categories established by logic. Indian grammar begins with a mere collection of facts, systematizes them mechanically, and thus leads in the end to a system which, though marvelous for its completeness and perfection, is nevertheless, from a higher point of view, amere triumph of scholastic pedantry.

Colebrooke's grammar, even in its unfinished state, will always be the best introduction to a study of the native grammarians—a study indispensable to every sound Sanskrit scholar. In accuracy of statement it still holds the first place among European grammars, and it is only to be regretted that the references to Pnini and other grammatical authorities, which existed in Colebrooke's manuscript, should have been left out when it came to be printed. The modern school of Sanskrit students has entirely reverted to Colebrooke's views on the importance of a study of the native grammarians. It is no longer considered sufficient to know the correct forms of Sanskrit declension or conjugation: if challenged, we must be prepared to substantiate their correctness by giving chapter and verse from P{n}ini, the fountain-head of Indian grammar. If Sir E. Colebrooke says that "Bopp also drew deeply from the fountain-head of Indian grammar in his subsequent labors," he has been misinformed. Bopp may have changed his opinion that "the student might arrive at a critical knowledge of Sanskrit by an attentive study of Foster and Wilkins, without referring to native authorities;" but he himself never went beyond, nor is there any evidence in his published works that he himself tried to work his way through the intricacies of P{n}ini.

In addition to his grammatical studies, Colebrooke was engaged in several other subjects. He worked at the Supplement to the "Digest of Laws," which assumed very large proportions; he devoted some of his time to the deciphering of ancient inscriptions, in the hope of finding some fixed points in the history of India; he undertook to supply the Oriental synonymes for Roxburgh's "Flora Indica"—a most laborious task, requiring a knowledge of botany as well as an intimate acquaintance with Oriental languages. In 1804 and 1805, while preparing his classical essay on the Vedas for the press, we find him approaching the study of the religion of Buddha. In all these varied researches, it is most interesting to observe the difference between him and all the other contributors to the "Asiatic Researches" at that time. They were all carried away by theories or enthusiasm; they were all betrayed into assertions or conjectures which proved unfounded. Colebrooke alone, the most hard-working and most comprehensive student, never allows one word to escape his pen for which he has not his authority; and when he speaks of the treatises of Sir W. Jones, Wilford, and others, he readily admits that they contain curious matter, but as he expresses himself, "very little conviction." When speaking of his own work, as for instance, what he had written on the Vedas, he says: "Iimagine my treatise on the Vedas will be thought curious; but, like the rest of my publications, little interesting to the general reader."

In 1805, Colebrooke became President of the Court of Appeal—a high and, as it would seem, lucrative post, which made him unwilling to aspire to any other appointment. His leisure, though more limited than before, was devoted, as formerly, to his favorite studies; and in 1807 he accepted the presidency of the Asiatic Society—a post never before or after filled so worthily. He not only contributed himself several articles to the "Asiatic Researches," published by the Society, viz., "On the Sect of Jina," "On the Indian and Arabic Divisions of the Zodiack," and "On the Frankincense of the Ancients;" but he encouraged also many useful literary undertakings, and threw out, among other things, an idea which has but lately been carried out, viz., aCatalogue raisonn of all that is extant in Asiatic literature. His own studies became more and more concentrated on the most ancient literature of India, the Vedas, and the question of their real antiquity led him again to a more exhaustive examination of the astronomical literature of the Brahmans. In all these researches, which were necessarily of a somewhat conjectural character, Colebrooke was guided by his usual caution. Instead of attempting, for instance, afree and more or less divinatory translation of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, he began with the tedious but inevitable work of exploring the native commentaries. No one who has not seen his MSS., now preserved at the India Office, and the marginal notes with which the folios of Sya{n}a's commentary are covered, can form any idea of the conscientiousness with which he collected the materials for his essay. He was by no means a blind follower of Sya{n}a, or a believer in the infallibility of traditional interpretation. The question on which so much useless ingenuity has since been expended, whether in translating the Veda we should be guided by native authorities or by the rules of critical scholarship, must have seemed to him, as to every sensible person, answered as soon as it was asked. He answered it by setting to work patiently, in order to find out, first, all that could be learnt from native scholars, and afterwards to form his own opinion. His experience as a practical man, his judicial frame of mind, his freedom from literary vanity, kept him, here as elsewhere, from falling into the pits of learned pedantry. It will seem almost incredible to later generations that German and English scholars should have wasted so much of their time in trying to prove, either that we should take no notice whatever of the traditional interpretation of the Veda, or that, in following it, we should entirely surrender our right of private judgment. Yet that is the controversy which has occupied of late years some of our best Sanskrit scholars, which has filled our journals with articles as full of learning as of acrimony, and has actually divided the students of the history of ancient religion into two hostile camps. Colebrooke knew that he had more useful work before him than to discuss the infallibility of fallible interpreters—a question handled with greater ingenuity by the Maimnsaka philosophers than by any living casuists. He wished to leave substantial work behind him; and though he claimed no freedom from error for himself, yet he felt conscious of having done all his work carefully and honestly, and was willing to leave it, such as it was, to the judgment of his contemporaries and of posterity. Once only during the whole of his life did he allow himself to be drawn into a literary controversy; and here, too, he must have felt what most men feel in the end—that it would have been better if he had not engaged in it. The subject of the controversy was the antiquity and originality of Hindu astronomy. Much had been written for and against it by various writers, but by most of them without a full command of the necessary evidence. Colebrooke himself maintained a doubtful attitude. He began, as usual, with a careful study of the sources at that time available, with translations of Sanskrit treatises, with astronomical calculations and verifications; but, being unable to satisfy himself, he abstained from giving a definite opinion. Bentley, who had published a paper in which the antiquity and originality of Hindu astronomy were totally denied, was probably aware that Colebrooke was not convinced by his arguments. When, therefore, an adverse criticism of his views appeared in the first number of our Review, Bentley jumped at the conclusion that it was written or inspired by Colebrooke. Hence arose his animosity, which lasted for many years, and vented itself from time to time in virulent abuse of Colebrooke, whom Bentley accused not only of unintentional error, but of willful misrepresentation and unfair suppression of the truth. Colebrooke ought to have known that in the republic of letters scholars are sometimes brought into strange society. Being what he was, he need not—nay, he ought not—to have noticed such literary rowdyism. But as the point at issue was of deep interest to him, and as he himself had a much higher opinion of Bentley's real merits than his reviewer, he at last vouchsafed an answer in the "Asiatic Journal" of March, 1826. With regard to Bentley's personalities, he says: "Inever spoke nor wrote of Mr. Bentley with disrespect, and I gave no provocation for the tone of his attack on me." As to the question itself, he sums up his position with simplicity and dignity. "Ihave been no favorer," he writes, "no advocate of Indian astronomy. Ihave endeavored to lay before the public, in an intelligible form, the fruits of my researches concerning it. Ihave repeatedly noticed its imperfections, and have been ready to admit that it has been no scanty borrower as to theory."

Colebrooke's stay in India was a long one. He arrived there in 1782, when only seventeen years of age, and he left it in 1815, at the age of fifty. During all this time we see him uninterruptedly engaged in his official work, and devoting all his leisure to literary labor. The results which we have noticed so far, were already astonishing, and quite sufficient to form a solid basis of his literary fame. But we have by no means exhausted the roll of his works. We saw that a supplement to the "Digest of Laws" occupied him for several years. In it he proposed to recast the whole title of inheritance, so imperfectly treated in the "Digest" which he translated, and supplement it with a series of compilations on the several heads of Criminal Law, Pleading, and Evidence, as treated by Indian jurists. In a letter to Sir T. Strange he speaks of the Sanskrit text as complete, and of the translation as considerably advanced; but it was not till 1810 that he published, as a first installment, his translation of two important treatises on inheritance, representing the views of different schools on this subject. Much of the material which he collected with a view of improving the administration of law in India, and bringing it into harmony with the legal traditions of the country, remained unpublished, partly because his labors were anticipated by timely reforms, partly because his official duties became too onerous to allow him to finish his work in a manner satisfactory to himself.

But although the bent of Colebrooke's mind was originally scientific, and the philological researches which have conferred the greatest lustre on his name grew insensibly beneath his pen, the services he rendered to Indian jurisprudence would deserve the highest praise and gratitude if he had no other title to fame. Among his earlier studies he had applied himself to the Roman law with a zeal uncommon among Englishmen of his standing, and he has left behind him a treatise on the Roman Law of Contracts. When he directed the same powers of investigation to the sources of Indian law he found everything in confusion. The texts and glosses were various and confused. The local customs which abound in India had not been discriminated. Printing was of course unknown to these texts; and as no supreme judicial intelligence and authority existed to give unity to the whole system, nothing could be more perplexing than the state of the law. From this chaos Colebrooke brought forth order and light. The publication of the "Dhaya-bhga," as the cardinal exposition of the law of inheritance, which is the basis of Hindu society, laid the foundation of no less a work than the revival of Hindu jurisprudence, which had been overlaid by the Mohammedan conquest. On this foundation a superstructure has now been raised by the combined efforts of Indian and English lawyers: but the authority which is to this day most frequently invoked as one of conclusive weight and learning is that of Colebrooke. By the collection and revision of the ancient texts which would probably have been lost without his intervention, he became in some degree the legislator of India.

In 1807 he had been promoted to a seat in Council—the highest honor to which a civilian, at the end of his career, could aspire. The five years' tenure of his office coincided very nearly with Lord Minto's Governor-generalship of India. During these five years the scholar became more and more merged in the statesman. His marriage also took place at the same time, which was destined to be happy, but short. Two months after his wife's death he sailed for England, determined to devote the rest of his life to the studies which had become dear to him, and which, as he now felt himself, were to secure to him the honorable place of the father and founder of true Sanskrit scholarship in Europe. Though his earliest tastes still attracted him strongly towards physical science, and though, after his return to England, he devoted more time than in India to astronomical, botanical, chemical, and geological researches, yet, as an author, he remained true to his vocation as a Sanskrit scholar, and he added some of the most important works to the long list of his Oriental publications. How high an estimate he enjoyed among the students of physical science is best shown by his election as President of the Astronomical Society, after the death of Sir John Herschel in 1822. Some of his published contributions to the scientific journals, chiefly on geological subjects, are said to be highly speculative, which is certainly not the character of his Oriental works. Nay, judging from the tenor of the works which he devoted to scholarship, we should think that everything he wrote on other subjects would deserve the most careful and unprejudiced attention, before it was allowed to be forgotten; and we should be glad to see a complete edition of all his writings, which have a character at once so varied and so profound.

We have still to mention some of his more important Oriental publications, which he either began or finished after his return to England. The first is his "Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the Sanskrit of Brahmagupta and Bhskara, preceded by a Dissertation on the State of the Sciences as known to the Hindus," London, 1817. It is still the standard work on the subject, and likely to remain so, as an intimate knowledge of mathematics is but seldom combined with so complete a mastery of Sanskrit as Colebrooke possessed. He had been preceded by the labors of Burrow and E.Strachey; but it is entirely due to him that mathematicians are now enabled to form a clear idea of the progress which the Indians had made in this branch of knowledge, especially as regards indeterminate analysis. It became henceforth firmly established that the "Arabian Algebra had real points of resemblance to that of the Indians, and not to that of the Greeks; that the Diophantine analysis was only slightly cultivated by the Arabs; and that, finally, the Indian was more scientific and profound than either." Some of the links in his argument, which Colebrooke himself designated as weak, have since been subjected to renewed criticism; but it is interesting to observe how here, too, hardly anything really new has been added by subsequent scholars. The questions of the antiquity of Hindu mathematics—of its indigenous or foreign origin, as well as the dates to be assigned to the principal Sanskrit writers, such as Bhskara, Brahmagupta, Aryabha{t}{t}a, etc.,—are very much in the same state as he left them. And although some living scholars have tried to follow in his footsteps, as far as learning is concerned, they have never approached him in those qualities which are more essential to the discovery of truth than mere reading, viz., caution, fairness, and modesty.

Two events remain still to be noticed before we close the narrative of the quiet and useful years which Colebrooke spent in England. In 1818 he presented his extremely valuable collection of Sanskrit MSS. to the East India Company, and thus founded a treasury from which every student of Sanskrit has since drawn his best supplies. It may be truly said, that without the free access to this collection—granted to every scholar, English or foreign—few of the really important publications of Sanskrit texts, which have appeared during the last fifty years, would have been possible; so that in this sense also, Colebrooke deserves the title of the founder of Sanskrit scholarship in Europe.

The last service which he rendered to Oriental literature was the foundation of the Royal Asiatic Society. He had spent a year at the Cape of Good Hope, in order to superintend some landed property which he had acquired there; and after his return to London, in 1822, he succeeded in creating a society which should do in England the work which the Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded in 1784 at Calcutta, by Sir W. Jones, had done in India. Though he declined to become the first president, he became the director of the new society. His object was not only to stimulate Oriental scholars living in England to greater exertions, but likewise to excite in the English public a more general interest in Oriental studies. There was at that time far more interest shown in France and Germany for the literature of the East than in England, though England alone possessed an Eastern Empire. Thus we find Colebrooke writing in one of his letters to Professor Wilson:—

"Schlegel, in what he said of some of us (English Orientalists) and of our labors, did not purpose to be uncandid, nor to undervalue what has been done. In your summary of what he said you set it to the right account. Iam not personally acquainted with him, though in correspondence. Ido think, with him, that as much has not been done by the English as might have been expected from us. Excepting you and me, and two or three more, who is there that has done anything! In England nobody cares about Oriental literature, or is likely to give the least attention to it."

And again:—

"I rejoice to learn that your great work on the Indian drama may be soon expected by us. Ianticipate much gratification from a perusal. Careless and indifferent as our countrymen are, Ithink, nevertheless, you and I may derive some complacent feelings from the reflection that, following the footsteps of Sir W. Jones, we have, with so little aid of collaborators, and so little encouragement, opened nearly every avenue, and left it to foreigners, who are taking up the clue we have furnished, to complete the outline of what we have sketched. It is some gratification to national pride that the opportunity which the English have enjoyed has not been wholly unemployed."

Colebrooke's last contributions to Oriental learning, which appeared in the "Transactions" of the newly-founded Royal Asiatic Society, consist chiefly in his masterly treatises on Hindu philosophy. In 1823 he read his paper on the Snkhya system; in 1824 his paper on the Nyya and Vai{s}eshika systems; in 1826 his papers on the Mmns; and, in 1827, his two papers on Indian Sectaries and on the Vednta. These papers, too, still retain their value, unimpaired by later researches. They are dry, and to those not acquainted with the subject they may fail to give a living picture of the philosophical struggles of the Indian mind. But the statements which they contain can, with very few exceptions, still be quoted as authoritative, while those who have worked their way through the same materials which he used for the compilation of his essays, feel most struck by the conciseness with which he was able to give the results of his extensive reading in this, the most abstruse domain of Sanskrit literature. The publication of these papers on the schools of Indian metaphysics, which anticipated with entire fidelity the materialism and idealism of Greece and of modern thought, enabled Victor Cousin to introduce a brilliant survey of the philosophy of India into his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, first delivered, we think, in 1828. Cousin knew and thought of Colebrooke exclusively as a metaphysician. He probably cared nothing for his other labors. But as a metaphysician he placed him in the first rank, and never spoke of him without an expression of veneration, very unusual on the eloquent but somewhat imperious lips of the French philosopher.

The last years of Colebrooke's life were full of suffering, both bodily and mental. He died, after a lingering illness, on March 10, 1837.

To many even among those who follow the progress of Oriental scholarship with interest and attention, the estimate which we have given of Colebrooke's merits may seem too high; but we doubt whether from the inner circle of Sanskrit scholars, any dissentient voice will be raised against our awarding to him the first place among Sanskritists, both dead and living. The number of Sanskrit scholars has by this time become considerable, and there is hardly a country in Europe which may not be proud of some distinguished names. In India, too, anew and most useful school of Sanskrit students is rising, who are doing excellent work in bringing to light the forgotten treasures of their country's literature. But here we must, first of all, distinguish between two classes of scholars. There are those who have learnt enough of Sanskrit to be able to read texts that have been published and translated, who can discuss their merits and defects, correct some mistakes, and even produce new and more correct editions. There are others who venture on new ground, who devote themselves to the study of MSS., and who by editions of new texts, by translations of works hitherto untranslated, or by essays on branches of literature not yet explored, really add to the store of our knowledge. If we speak of Colebrooke as facile princeps among Sanskrit scholars, we are thinking of real scholars only, and we thus reduce the number of those who could compete with him to a much smaller compass.

Secondly, we must distinguish between those who came before Colebrooke and those who came after him, and who built on his foundations. That among the latter class there are some scholars who have carried on the work begun by Colebrooke beyond the point where he left it, is no more than natural. It would be disgraceful if it were otherwise, if we had not penetrated further into the intricacies of P{n}ini, if we had not a more complete knowledge of the Indian systems of philosophy, if we had not discovered in the literature of the Vedic period treasures of which Colebrooke had no idea, if we had not improved the standards of criticism which are to guide in the critical restoration of Sanskrit texts. But in all these branches of Sanskrit scholarship those who have done the best work are exactly those who speak most highly of Colebrooke's labors, They are proud to call themselves his disciples. They would decline to be considered his rivals.

There remains, therefore, in reality, only one who could be considered a rival of Colebrooke, and whose name is certainly more widely known than his, viz., Sir William Jones. It is by no means necessary to be unjust to him in order to be just to Colebrooke. First of all, he came before Colebrooke, and had to scale some of the most forbidding outworks of Sanskrit scholarship. Secondly, Sir William Jones died young, Colebrooke lived to a good old age. Were we speaking only of the two men, and their personal qualities, we should readily admit that in some respects Sir W. Jones stood higher than Colebrooke. He was evidently a man possessed of great originality, of a highly cultivated taste, and of an exceptional power of assimilating the exotic beauty of Eastern poetry. We may go even further, and frankly admit that, possibly, without the impulse given to Oriental scholarship through Sir William Jones's influence and example, we should never have counted Colebrooke's name among the professors of Sanskrit. But we are here speaking not of the men, but of the works which they left behind; and here the difference between the two is enormous. The fact is, that Colebrooke was gifted with the critical conscience of a scholar—Sir W. Jones was not. Sir W. Jones could not wish for higher testimony in his favor than that of Colebrooke himself. Immediately after his death, Colebrooke wrote to his father, June, 1794:—

"Since I wrote to you the world has sustained an irreparable loss in the death of Sir W. Jones. As a judge, as a constitutional lawyer, and for his amiable qualities in private life, he must have been lost with heartfelt regret. But his loss as a literary character will be felt in a wider circle. It was his intention shortly to have returned to Europe, where the most valuable works might have been expected from his pen. His premature death leaves the results of his researches unarranged, and must lose to the world much that was only committed to memory, and much of which the notes must be unintelligible to those into whose hands his papers fall. It must be long before he is replaced in the same career of literature, if he is ever so. None of those who are now engaged in Oriental researches are so fully informed in the classical languages of the East; and I fear that, in the progress of their inquiries, none will be found to have such comprehensive views."

And again:—

"You ask how we are to supply his place? Indeed, but ill. Our present and future presidents may preside with dignity and propriety; but who can supply his place in diligent and ingenious researches? Not even the combined efforts of the whole Society; and the field is large, and few the cultivators."

Still later in life, when a reaction had set in, and the indiscriminate admiration of Sir W. Jones had given way to an equally indiscriminate depreciation of his merits, Colebrooke, who was then the most competent judge, writes to his father:—

"As for the other point you mention, the use of a translation by Wilkins, without acknowledgment, Ican bear testimony that Sir W. Jones's own labors in Manu sufficed without the aid of a translation. He had carried an interlineary Latin version through all the difficult chapters; he had read the original three times through, and he had carefully studied the commentaries. This I know, because it appears clearly so from the copies of Manu and his commentators which Sir William used, and which I have seen. Imust think that he paid a sufficient compliment to Wilkins, when he said, that without his aid he should never have learned Sanskrit. Iobserve with regret a growing disposition, here and in England, to depreciate Sir W. Jones's merits. It has not hitherto shown itself beyond private circles and conversation. Should the same disposition be manifested in print, Ishall think myself bound to bear public testimony to his attainments in Sanskrit."

Such candid appreciation of the merits of Sir W. Jones, conveyed in a private letter, and coming from the pen of the only person then competent to judge both of the strong and the weak points in the scholarship of Sir William Jones, ought to caution us against any inconsiderate judgment. Yet we do not hesitate to declare that, as Sanskrit scholars, Sir William Jones and Colebrooke cannot be compared. Sir William had explored a few fields only, Colebrooke had surveyed almost the whole domain of Sanskrit literature. Sir William was able to read fragments of epic poetry, aplay, and the laws of Manu. But the really difficult works, the grammatical treatises and commentaries, the philosophical systems, and, before all, the immense literature of the Vedic period, were never seriously approached by him. Sir William Jones reminds us sometimes of the dashing and impatient general who tries to take every fortress by bombardment or by storm, while Colebrooke never trusts to anything but a regular siege. They will both retain places of honor in our literary Walhallas. But ask any librarian, and he will say that at the present day the collected works of Sir W. Jones are hardly ever consulted by Sanskrit scholars, while Colebrooke's essays are even now passing through a new edition, and we hope Sir Edward Colebrooke will one day give the world a complete edition of his father's works.



APPENDIX.

COMPARATIVE VIEW OF SANSKRIT AND OTHER LANGUAGES,

By T. H. Colebrooke.

Oxford, September, 1874.

I mentioned in my Address before the Aryan section of the Oriental Congress that I possessed some MS. notes of Colebrooke's on Comparative Philology. They were sent to me some time ago by his son, Sir E. Colebrooke, who gave me leave to publish them, if I thought them of sufficient importance. They were written down, as far as we know, about the years 1801 or 1802, and contain long lists of words expressive of some of the most important elements of early civilization, in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic. Like everything that Colebrooke wrote, these lists are prepared with great care. They exist in rough notes, in a first, and in a second copy. Igive them from the second copy, in which many words from less important languages are omitted, and several doubtful comparisons suppressed. Ihave purposely altered nothing, for the interest of these lists is chiefly historical, showing how, long before the days of Bopp and Grimm, Colebrooke had clearly perceived the relationship of all the principal branches of the Aryan family, and, what is more important, how he had anticipated the historical conclusions which a comparison of the principal words of the great dialects of the Aryan family enables us to draw with regard to the state of civilization anterior to the first separation of the Aryan race. No one acquainted with the progress which Comparative Philology has made during the last seventy years would think of quoting some of the comparisons here suggested by Colebrooke as authoritative. The restraints which phonetic laws have since imposed on the comparison of words were unknown in his days. But with all that, it is most surprising to see how careful Colebrooke was, even when he had to guess, and how well he succeeded in collecting those words which form the earliest common dictionary of our ancestors, and supply the only trustworthy materials for a history of the very beginnings of the Aryan race.

MAX MULLER.

[Transcriber's Note:

The transliteration system in this section is different from Mller's. Note in particular:

c, c'h, ch, j = k, kh, c, j (Mller's k, kh, {k}, {g}) rĭ = {ri} (Mller's {ri}) dots represent dieresis, not umlaut

The letters {t} and {n} were shown as t and n with acute; {d} does not occur. These forms have been regularized for consistency with the UTF-8 version.]

Father.

Sans. Pitrĭ (-t). Beng. Hind. Pit. Pers. Pider.

Sans. Janayitrĭ (-t). Gr. Geneter, Gennetor. Lat. Genitor.

Sans. Tta. Beng. Tt. Arm. Tat. Wal. Corn. Tad. Ang. Dad.

Sans. Vaptrĭ (-t). Beng. Bp. Hind. Bb, Bp. Germ. Vater. Belg. Vader. Isl. Bader. Gr. Lat. Pater.

Mother.

Sans. Janayitr, Janan. Gr. Gennteira. Lat. Genitrix.

Sans. Mtrĭ (-t). Beng. Mt. Lat. Mater. Gr. Meter. Sclav. Mati. Ir. Mat'hair. Germ. Mutter. Sax. Moder. Belg. Isl. Mooder.

N.B. The roots jan and jani (the past tense of which last is jajny, pronounced jagy in Bengal, Tirhut, etc.) are evidently analogous to the Latin gigno, and Greek gennao.

Son.

Sans. Putra. Hind. Putr, Pt. Tmil. Putren. Ori. P.

Sans. Snu. Hind. Sn, Sun. Goth. Sunus. Sax. Suna. Belg. Soen, Sone. Sue. Son. Dalm. Szun. Pol. Boh. Syn. Scl. Sin, Syn.

Grandson.

Sans. Naptrĭ (-t). Lat. Nepos. Hind. Nt. Mahr. Nt.

Granddaughter.

Sans. Naptr. Lat. Neptis. Hind. Natn. Beng. Ntn. Ori. Ntuni.

Daughter's Son.

Sans. Dauhitra. Beng. Dauhitro. Hind. Dht. Gr. Thugatridous.

Son's Son.

Sans. Pautra. Hind. Pt. Beng. Pautro.

Daughter.

Sans. Duhitrĭ (-t). Beng. Duhit. Hind. Dhit. Goth. Dauhter. Sax. Dohter. Pers. Dokhter. Belg. Dochtere. Germ. Tochter. Gr. Thygater. Sue. Dotter. Isl. Dooter. Dan. Daater.

Sans. Tc. Russ. Doke. Hind. Dhya, Dh. Or. Jh. Scl. Hzhi. Dalm. Hchii. Boh. Dey, Deera. Ir. Dear.

Brother.

Sans. Bhrtrĭ (-t). Hind. Bhrt, Bha, Bhay, Br, Bran. Pers. Birdar. Corn. Bredar. Wal. Braud. Ir. Brathair. Arm. Breur. Mona. Breyr. Scl. Brat. Russ. Brate. Dalm. Brath. Boh. Bradr. Germ. Bruder. Ang.-Sax. Brother. Sax. Brother. Lat. Frater. Gall. Frre.

Sister.

Sans. Bhagin. Hind. Bhagn, Bahin, Bhain. Beng. Bhogin, Bon. Mahr. Bahin. Or. Bhaun.

Sans. Swasrĭ (-s). Ir. Shiur. Gall. Soeur. Mona. Sywr. Sicil. Suora. Lat. Soror. Germ. Schwester. Sax. Sweoster. Goth. Swister. Holl. Zuster. Wal. C'huaer.

Father-in-law.

Sans. {S}wa{s}ura. Beng. Ssur. Mahr. Sasar. Hind. Susar, Ssr, Sasr. Lat. Scer, Socerus. Gr. Hecyros.

Mother-in-law.

Sans. {S}wa{s}r. Beng. Sosru, Ssuri. Hind. Ss. Mahr. Ss. Lat. Socrus. Gr. Hecyra.

Wife's Brother.

Sans. Syla. Beng. Syloc. Hind. Sl. Or. Sal.

Husband's Brother.

Sans. Dvrĭ (-v), Dvara. Hind. Dwar. Guj. Dyar. Mahr. Dr. Gr. Dar. Lat. Levir (olim Devir).

Son-in-law.

Sans. Jmtrĭ (-t). Hind. Jam, Jaw. Pers. Dmd.

Widow.

Sans. Vidhav. Lat. Vidua. Sax. Widwa. Holl. Weduwe.

Daughter-in-law.

Sans. Badh. Hind. Bah. Beng. B. Gall. Bru.

Sans. Snush. Cashm. Nus. Penj. Nuh. Gr. Nyos. Lat. Nurus.

Sun.

Sans. Heli (-lis). Gr. Helios. Arm. Heol. Wal. Hayl, Heyluen.

Sans. Mitra. Pehl. Mithra.

Sans. Mihara, Mahira. Pers. Mihr.

Sans. Sra, Srya. Hind. Srej. Mahr. Srj, Srya. Ori. Suruy.

Moon.

Sans. Chandra. Hind. Chnd, Chandr, Chandram.

Sans. Ms (mh). Pers. Mh. Boh. Mesyc. Pol. Miesyac. Dalm. Miszecz.

Star.

Sans. Tr. Hind. Tr. Pers. Sitareh. Gr. Aster. Belg. Sterre. Sax. Steorra. Germ. Stern. Corn. Arm. Steren.

Month.

Sans. Msa (-sas). Hind. Mahin, Ms. Pers. Mh. Scl. Messcz. Dalm. Miszecz. Wal. Misguaith. Gr. Mene. Lat. Mensis. Gall. Mois.

Day.

Sans. Diva. Mahr. Diwas. Lat. Dies. Sax. Dg.

Sans. Dina. Hind. Din. Boh. Den. Scl. Dan. Dalm. Daan. Pol. Dzien. Ang. (Ant.) Den.

Night.

Sans. Rtri. Hind. Rt. Penj. Rtter.

Sans. Ni{s}, Ni{s}. Wal. Arm. Nos.

Sans. Nact. Lat. Nox. Gr. Nyx. Goth. Nahts, Nauts. Sax. Niht. Isl. Natt. Boh. Noc. Gall. Nuit.

By Night.

Sans. (adv.) Nactam. Lat. Noctu. Gr. Nyctor.

Sky, Heaven.

Sans. Div, Diva. Beng. Dibi. Liv. Debbes.

Sans. Swar, Swarga. Hind. Swarag. Guz. Sarag. Cant. Cerua.

Sans. Nabhas. Beng. Nebho. Russ. Nebo. Scl. Nebu. Boh. Nebe. Pol. Niebo.

God.

Sans. Dva (-vas), Dvat. Hind. Dwat. Penj. D. Tamil. Taivam. Lat. Deus. Gr. Theos. Wal. Diju. Ir. Diu.

Sans. Bhagavn. Dalm. Bogh. Croat. Bog.

Fire.

Sans. Agni. Casm. Agin. Beng. gun. Hind. Ag. Scl. Ogein. Croat. Ogayn. Pol. Ogien. Dalm. Ogany. Lat. Ignis.

Sans. Vahni. Boh. Ohen.

Sans. Anala. Beng. Onol. Mona. Aul.

Sans. {S}ushman (m). Cant. Sua.

Sans. Tannapt. Wal. Tn. Ir. Teene.

Sans. Varhis. Sax. Vr. Belg. Vier.

Water.

Sans. p. Pers. b.

Sans. Pnya. Hind. Pn.

Sans. Udaca. Russ. Ouode. Scl. Voda. Boh. Woda.

Sans. Nra, Nra. Beng. Nr. Carn. Nra. Tel. Nllu. Vulg. Gr. Nero.

Sans. Jala. Hind. Jal. Ir. Gil.

Sans. Ar{n}a. Ir. An.

Sans. Vr, Vri. Beng. Br. Ir. Bir. Cant. Vra.

Cloud.

Sans. Abhra. Penj. Abhar. Casm. Abar. Pers. Abr. Gr. Ombros. Lat. Imber.

Man.

Sans. Nara. Pers. Nar. Gr. Aner.

Sans. Mnava, Mnusha. Guz. Mnas. Beng. Mnus. Dan. Mand. Sax. Man, Men.

Mind.