The Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Aryans: the Philological, Archaeological and Historical Context Karel Werner
As is well known the discovery of the Indo-European (IE) connection of the majority of the Indian population for scholarship was a by-product of European colonial expansion. The Christian missionaries were first on the scene and soon discovered the existence of ancient Indian religious scriptures written in Sanskrit. Some of them learned the language and the first Sanskrit dictionaries and grammars were written by them.{1} But the real impetus which started Sanskrit studies on a bigger scale came from political and administrative quarters. The English came to India first as merchants, but even when in 1613 the East India Company was granted permission by Shah Jahangir to establish its first trading factory in Surat, it had to look after the safety of its goods and employees, both English and native, and that involved, besides armed protection, also some administrative duties which increased with the founding of further factories in different parts of India. These duties became fully official when in 1698 the Sultan of Bengal granted the Company the status of a zamindar or landlord in his province. Since there were three villages within the Company’s estate, it had now to administer justice in them as well.{2} Having thus become a part of the established order of the land the Company, with its military forces, played an ever increasing role in the internal political affairs of the Mughal Empire. This role reached its peak when, in a treaty with the Emperor Alam II in 1765, the Company received the office of Diwani over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa with full ruling powers over those provinces. The Company, which was brought under British Parliamentary control in 1773, then assumed ruling powers in all other territories in which it had a foothold and kept increasing them, using both diplomacy and military force, until the Indian Mutiny in 1857. After its suppression the last Mughal Emperor was pensioned off and India was turned into a Crown Colony. The ease with which the British could assume power over large parts of India and the readiness with which the population accepted their supremacy is partly due to the sensitivity and skill with which their officials administered justice in the day to day running of British ruled territories. One of the factors in that process was their respect for the customs and traditions of the population, including their legal procedures. Soon after the Company’s elevation to the Diwani status, Warren Hastings, its Governor in Bengal since 1772 and Governor-General from 1774 to 1785, had a compendium of Indian law compiled by a special team of pandits. It was, of course, written in Sanskrit.{3} In this respect Hastings acted in the same way as the only enlightened Mughal emperor Akbar and, later, the unfortunate crown prince Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Shah Jahan, who proved his abilities as viceroy in Gandhara, but was later deprived of his right to the throne and his life by his bigoted younger brother Aurangzeb who had no similar regards for the Hindu population.{4} On completion of the Compendium it was found that there was no one available to the administration who could translate it into English and so it had to be rendered first into Persian and then into English. At the instigation of Warren Hastings Sir Charles Wilkins, in the service of the Company, learned Sanskrit under the instruction of pandits in Benares. He then published, in 1785, the first English translation of the Bhagavad Gîtâ, with other works to follow. His 1