Essays on History, Literature and Religions of Ancient India

“The first great Sanskrit scholar in Europe”
The volumes now laid before the readers comprise a selection of the articles originally published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, and in the Asiatic Researches. Sore articles are from the works originally edited or translated by the author which are reproduced here for their scholarly value and original research. This work remains the only “Collected Works of H. T. Colebrooke.

Henry Thomas Colebrooke FRS FRSE was an English orientalist and mathematician. He has been described as “”the first great Sanskrit scholar in Europe”.

He was made a judge of the new court of appeal in Calcutta, of which he became president of the bench in 1805. In 1805 Lord Wellesley appointed him honorary professor of Hindu law and Sanskrit at the college of Fort William. In 1807 he became a member of council, serving for five years, and was elected President of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. He returned to England in 1815.

In 1816 he was elected to the fellowship of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1820 he was a founder of the Royal Astronomical Society. He often chaired the society’s meetings in the absence of the first president, William Herschel, and was elected as its second president on Herschel’s death, serving 1823–1825. In 1823 he was also a founder of the Royal Asiatic Society, chairing its first meeting although he declined to become its president

After eleven years’ residence in India, Colebrooke began the study of the Sanskrit language; and to him was entrusted the translation of the major Digest of Hindu Laws, a monumental study of Hindu law which had been left unfinished by Sir William Jones. He translated the two treatises, the Mitacshara of Vijnaneshwara and the Dayabhaga of Jimutavahana, under the title Law of Inheritance. During his residence at Calcutta he wrote his Sanskrit Grammar (1805), some papers on the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and his Essay on the Vedas (1805), for a long time the standard work in English on the subject.