antiquities, and the sciences connected with them would be
advanced in a still great proportion.’ He observed further that
‘the antiquities of the religion and Government of the Hindoos
are not less interesting than those of their sciences’; and felt that
‘the history, the poems, the traditions, the very fables of the
Hindoos might therefore throw light upon the history of the
ancient world and in particular upon the institutions of that
celebrated people from whom Moses received his learning and
Greece her religion and her arts.’ Prof. Maconochie also stated
that the centre of most of this learning was Benares, where ‘all
the sciences are still taught’ and where ‘very ancient works in
astronomy are still extant.’^29
Around the same time, a similar vein of thought and some
corresponding action had started amongst those who had been
entrusted with the exercise of political power and the carrying
out of the policies and instructions from London, within India.
The more practical and immediate purposes of governance
(following Adam Ferguson) led to the writing of works on Hindu
and Muslim law, investigations into the rights of property and
the revenues of various areas, and to assist all this, to a
cultivation of Sanskrit and Persian amongst some of the British
themselves. Acquaintance with these languages was felt
necessary so as to enable the British to discover better, or to
discard, choose, or select what suited their purpose most. In the
process some of them also developed a personal interest in
Sanskrit and other Indian literature for its own sake, or for the
sort of reasons which Prof. Maconochie had in view. Charles
Wilkins, William Jones, F.W. Ellis in Madras, and Lt Wilford (the
latter got engaged in some very exotic research at Varanasi) were
amongst the more well known men of this category.
Three approaches (seemingly different but in reality
complementary to one another) began to operate in the British
held areas of India regarding Indian knowledge, scholarship and
centres of learning from about the 1770s. The first resulted from
growing British power and administrative requirements which (in
addition to such undertakings that men like Adam Ferguson had
recommended) also needed to provide a garb of legitimacy and a
background of previous indigenous precedents (however