II
This great accumulation of material, from about the mid-18th
century, led to serious scholarly attention and debate on India,
and areas of South East Asia, particularly with regard to their
politics, laws, philosophies and sciences, especially Indian
astronomy. This contemporary European interest, (especially
amongst men like Voltaire, Abbe Raynal and Jean Sylvain Bailly)
aroused a similar interest in Britain. This was more so amongst
those connected with the University of Edinburgh, like Adam
Ferguson, William Robertson, John Playfair^26 and A. Maco-
nochie. In 1775, Adam Ferguson recommended to his former
student, John Macpherson (temporarily to be Governor General
of Bengal during 1784-85) ‘to collect the fullest details you can of
every circumstance relating to the state and operation of policy
in India...That you may the better apprehend what I mean by the
detail...select some town and its district. Procure if possible an
account of its extent and number of people. The different classes
of that people, the occupations, the resources, the way of life of
each. How they are related and their mutual dependencies. What
contributions Government, or subordinate masters draw from
the labourer of any denomination and how it is drawn. But I beg
pardon for saying so much of an object which you must know so
much better than I do. The man who can bring light from India
(i.e. of its material resources, etc.) into this country and who has
address to make his light be followed may in a few years hence
make himself of great consequence and here I shall conclude my
letter...’^27
A. Maconochie advocated, on the other hand (first in 1783^28
and then again in 1788), the taking of such measures by ‘our
monarch, the sovereign of the banks of the Ganges...as may be
necessary for discovering, collecting and translating whatever is
extent of the ancient works of the Hindoos.’ He thought that if
the British ‘procured these works to Europe, astronomy and