Truths. Prodosh Aich
express cultural prejudices of the writers of their culture rather than the chronicler reports of a Megasthenes. However, for the “scholars” like “Thomas R. Trautmanns” any printed word in the Edinburgh Review or anywhere else is a “reliable” source. And it is a rather cheap trick when he just refers to quotations in brackets like: (Hamilton 1808:93). In this case, it is a no-named article in the Edinburgh Review. What do these “Thomas R. Trautmanns” and “Arthur Llewellyn Bashams” do when they do not find the needed printed words for their “scholarly” deliberations? We leave this question unanswered, but keep it in memory.
Thomas R. Trautmann continues (p. 149)
“Jones, in his eighth discourse, had spoken of the Indian mountaineers as ‘many races of wild people with more or less of that pristine ferocity, which induced their ancestors to secede from the civilised inhabitants of the plains and valleys.’ He thought they sprang from the old Indian stem, although some of them soon intermixed ‘with the first ramblers from Tartary, whose language seems to have been the basis of that now spoken by the Moguls’ (Jones 1807, 3:172–173). Hamiltons proposal of the unitary language and aboriginal character of all the ‘mountaineers’ goes considerably further than this. But taken all together, the testimony of Jones, Colebrooke and Hamilton is that British belief in the ethnological and linguistic unity of India was never complete.”
How did Sir William Jones come to know all these? Sources? Is there any need ask for sources? Is there any need of sources? Are not ‘Jones, Colebrooke and Hamilton’ enough? We are dumbfounded, indeed.
Thomas R. Trautmann has decorated his book Aryans and British India with a dedication: “In memory of A. L. Basham, British Sanskritist, historian of India, guru, friend”. We remember the blessings Arthur Llewellyn Basham brought us at the beginning of this chapter:
“In 1795 the government of the French Republic founded the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and there Alexander Hamilton (1762- 1824), one of the founding members of Asiatic Society of Bengal, held prisoner on parole in France at the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, became the first person to teach Sanskrit in Europe.”
*****
The whole scenario of these celebrated scholars seems to be a dirty morass of darkness, dishonesty and deception. Recent “scholars” attribute Alexander Hamilton the lofty height of powerful language like that of Francis Jefferey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham. However, there is not a single essay bearing his name. We recall his application dated March 4, 1790. Our imaginative capacity fails absolutely to grasp how and where he could have improved the quality of his writing. Was he not battling for physical survival, compelled to desert his wife and son?
It just doesn’t enter into our head why Alexander Hamilton didn’t write a single “scholarly discourse” after he ascended as an expert on oriental questions to the editorial team of the Edinburgh Review? Not even after having become a “Professor of Sanskrit” (Sorry. There is no document in the archives on his being a “Professor of Sanskrit”.). He published merely his Terms of Sanskrit Grammar in 1814. Charles Wilkins published in 1815 The Radicals of the Sanskrita Language. Scholarly pieces? Both of them were rather copying intermediaries. In the style of beginners.
Alexander Hamilton’s involuntary Parisian intermezzo tells also many stories like his application of March 4, 1790. It is remarkable that some stories went round in Paris, which was unknown in Edinburgh. Lord Cockburn only knew that: "Mr. Hamilton was a Scot, was in India, an easy to get along with person of small stature, excellent in the conversation and great expert of oriental literature.” Or that in the inner circle he was also called“Sanskrit Hamilton” or “Pandit”.
In Paris remarkable stories went round. Alexander Hamilton had lived long years in India and was the master of oriental languages including Sanskrit. He belonged to the excellent scholar group of Sir William Jones. He had lived long in Bengal with Brahmins. As a Sanskrit scholar, he ranked equally with Charles Wilkins and William Jones and so forth. Who did have have these stories to do the rounds in Paris? Obviously, Alexander Hamilton had lost his innocence of March 4, 1790. In Paris, he seized the opportunity and placed himself in the centre of Orientalists who knew not much more beyond Egypt but did hear a lot about Sanskrit literature from India.
For his “career” in Paris Louis Mathieu Langlès was the key figure. We remember. Louis Mathieu Langlès is in charge of the oriental manuscripts in the royal library. He published a lot, yet is not regarded as a scholar. His original contributions are restricted to footnotes. Mainly he translates English texts into French. How he came to know Alexander Hamilton is not known. But the fact remains that he marketed Alexander Hamilton quite effectively in Paris and thereby himself as well. It is said that he always discussed his translations of oriental manuscripts from English to French with Alexander Hamilton. But the strange thing is that Alexander Hamilton does not speak any French. Louis Mathieu Langlès never forgets to immortalise his footnotes by reference to his discussions with the great scholar Alexander Hamilton. He is keen to get those “Bengali” and“Sanskrit” manuscripts (We do not know how the great Orient fan could discriminate these two languages) from India under his administration into a “systematic” catalogue organised by Alexander Hamilton.
This does happen. Alexander Hamilton sorts out the manuscripts, provides explanatory notes in English and Louis Mathieu Langlès makes the French version. He writes in the catalogue:
“I translated it into French and added to a large number of essays more or less extensive remarks. Some of these remarks were provided by Alexander Hamilton himself, the others resulted from ‘Recherches Asiatiques’, from my own footnotes to the French translation of the first two volumes of this erudite collection, (i.e.) the works of Mr Jones, the English translation of Indian laws by Mr Colebrooke, from the works of padre Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomeo and from other oriental manuscripts of the Imperial Library.” (Translated from original French.)
Well, once again, the crux of the matter is that Louis Mathieu Langlès was unable to judge the quality of Alexander Hamilton’s work. In fact, no one in Europe could. And Alexander Hamilton could not read French. Louis Mathieu Langlès was not interested in learning Indian languages, but he propagated Alexander Hamilton in Parisian parlours. He made it possible for Alexander Hamilton to teach “Sanskrit” in Paris. As life would have it, Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel lived there for a short while, because Friedrich von Schlegel, 32 years old, wanted to learn oriental languages. Why in Paris? “... because the richest collections of literature in oriental languages are stored there.”
How this collection was connected with the learning of oriental languages? We have raised this question. We are enormously surprised. It goes like this:
Take a translated version and the original book. It doesn’t matter whether this translated version is also a translation from a translated version. It can be a repeatedly translated version. The main thing is that one has some vague ideas about the contents of the original book. Now the guessing acrobatics begin. To put it mildly: This was the time of literate acrobats and salespeople.
“The Schlegels” had rented a large floor at a reasonable price. They didn’t have enough money. They had planned to sublet furnished rooms. On January 15, 1803, Friedrich writes to his elder brother August Wilhelm (We remember him. He taught Hermann Brockhaus Sanskrit in Bonn, so it is said.): “The grammar of the ordinary Indian languages (Which ones? How should he know them?) I have acquired already (how?); but the Sanskrit