03-23-2007, 10:54 AM
<b>3. Kaushal wrote:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>10. Jean Sylvain Bailly(September 15, 1736âNovember 12, 1793)</b>
Jean-Sylvain Bailly was a French astronomer and orator, one of the leaders of the early part of the French Revolution. He was ultimately guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
<i><b>Jean Sylvain Bailly. Biography</b></i>
Born at Paris, he was originally intended for the profession of a painter, but preferred writing tragedies, until attracted to science by the influence of Nicolas de Lacaille. He calculated an orbit for Halley's Comet when it appeared in 1759, reduced Lacaille's observations of 515 zodiacal stars, and was, in 1763, elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
His Essai sur la theorie des satellites de Jupiter (Essay on the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, 1766), an expansion of a memoir presented to the Academy in 1763, showed much original power; and it was followed up in 1771 by a noteworthy dissertation Sur les inegalites de la lumiere des satellites de Jupiter (On the inequalities of light of the satellites of Jupiter). Meantime, he had gained a high literary reputation by his Ãloges of King Charles V of France, Lacaille, Molière, Pierre Corneille and Gottfried Leibniz, which were issued in collected form in 1770 and 1790; he was admitted to the Académie française on February 26, 1784, and to the Académie des Inscriptions in 1785, when Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's simultaneous membership of all three Academies was renewed in him.
From then on, he devoted himself to the history of science, publishing successively: Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (A history of ancient astronomy, 1775); Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (A history of modern astronomy, 3 vols., 1779-1782); Lettres sur l'origine des sciences (Letters on the origin of the sciences, 1777); Lettres sur l' Atlantide de Platon (Letters on Plato's Atlantide , 1779); and Traite de l'astronomie indienne et orientale (A treatise on Indian and Oriental astronomy, 1787).
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica remarks that "Their erudition was⦠marred by speculative extravagances." The French Revolution interrupted his studies. Elected deputy from Paris to the Estates-General, he was elected president of the Third Estate (May 5, 1789), led the famous proceedings in the Tennis Court(June 20), and - immediately after the storming of the Bastille - became the first mayor of Paris under the newly adopted system of the Commune (July 15, 1789 to November 16, 1791). The dispersal by the National Guard, under his orders, of the riotous assembly in the Champ de Mars (July 17, 1791) made him unpopular, and he retired to Nantes, where he composed his Mémoires d'un témoin (published in 3 vols. by MM. Berville and Barrière, 1821-1822), an incomplete narrative of the extraordinary events of his public life.
Late in 1793, Bailly left Nantes to join his friend Pierre Simon Laplace at Melun, but was there recognized, arrested and brought (November 10) before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris. On November 12 he was guillotined amid the insults of a howling mob. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "He met his death with patient dignity; having, indeed, disastrously shared the enthusiasms of his age, but taken no share in its crimes."The lunar crater Bailly was named in his honour. Ed. Note â his friendship with Laplace explains the great admiration Laplace had for Indic contributions to Mathematics.
<b>11. Sir William Jones (1746-1794)</b> the founder of Indology, largely responsible for postulating a Proto Indo European language for which no speakers have been found and for misdating the chronology of ancient India
<b>12. John Playfair, FRSE (March 10, 1748 â July 20, 1819)</b>
<i><b>John Playfair</b></i>
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Professor
John Playfair was a Scottish scientist. Playfair was professor of mathematics and later professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which was a summary of the work of James Hutton. It was through this that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience.
<i><b>John Playfair.</b></i>
In 1795 Playfair created an alternative formulation of Euclid's parallel postulate called Playfair's axiom. Early life Born at Benvie, Angus, Scotland, where his father was parish minister, he was educated at home until the age of fourteen, when he entered the University of St Andrews. In 1766, when only eighteen, he was candidate for the chair of mathematics in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and, although he was unsuccessful, his claims were admitted to be high. Six years later he made application for the chair of natural philosophy in his own university, but again without success, and in 1773 he was offered and accepted the benefice of the united parishes of Liff and Benvie, vacant by the death of his father.
He continued, however, to carry on his mathematical and physical studies, and in 1782 he resigned his charge in order to become the tutor of Ferguson of Raith. By this arrangement he was able to be frequently in Edinburgh and to cultivate the literary and scientific society for which it was at that time specially distinguished. In particular, he attended the natural history course of John Walker. Through Nevil Maskelyne, whose acquaintance he had first made in the course of the celebrated Schiehallion experiments in 1774, he also gained access to the scientific circles of London.
In 1785 when Dugald Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the Edinburgh chair of moral philosophy, Playfair succeeded the former in that of mathematics. [edit] Mature work In 1802, he published his celebrated volume entitled Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. The influence exerted by James Hutton on the development of geology is thought to be largely due to its publication. In 1805 he exchanged the chair of mathematics for that of natural philosophy in succession to John Robison, whom also he succeeded as general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He took a prominent part, on the liberal side, in the ecclesiastical controversy that arose in connexion with Sir John Leslie's appointment to the post he had vacated, and published a satirical Letter (1806).
Playfair was an opponent of Gottfried Leibniz's vis viva principle, an early version of the conservation of energy. In 1808, he launched an attack[1] on John Smeaton and William Hyde Wollaston's work championing the theory. He died in Edinburgh.
<i><b>Family</b></i>
John's brothers were the celebrated architect James Playfair who died in 1794 and the engineer William Playfair [2].
<i><b>Honours</b></i> ⢠Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ⢠Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1807 ⢠Craters on Mars and the Moon were named in his honor.
<i><b>Notes</b></i>
1. ^ Edinburgh Review, 12, 1808, 120â130
2. ^ Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1856), reproduced in Significant Scots Critical bibliography
A collected edition of Playfair's works, with a memoir by James G. Playfair, appeared at Edinburgh in 4 vols. 8vo. His writings include a number of essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review from 1804 onwards, various papers in the Phil. Trans. (including his earliest publication, " On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," 1779, and an " Account of the Lithological Survey of Schehallion," 1811) and in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (" On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," &c.), also the articles "Aepinus" and "Physical Astronomy," and a "Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science since the Revival of Learning in Europe," in the Encyclopædia Britannica (Supplement to fourth, fifth and sixth editions). His Elements of Geometry first appeared in 1795 and have passed through many editions; his Outlines of Natural Philosophy (2 vols., 1812-1816) consist of the propositions and formulae which were the basis of his class lectures.
Playfair's contributions to pure mathematics were not considerable, his paper "On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," that " On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," and his Elements of Geometry, all already referred to, being the most important. His lives of Matthew Stewart, Hutton, Robison, many of his reviews, and above all his "Dissertation" are of the utmost value.
<i><b>External links</b></i> ⢠Dictionary of Scientific Biography ⢠O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "John Playfair". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. ⢠Significant Scots: John Playfair ⢠National Portrait Gallery References ⢠This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Playfair"
In 1790, the mathematician John Playfair demonstrated that the starting-date of the astronomical observations recorded in the tables still in use among Hindu astrologers (of which three copies had reached Europe between 1687 and 1787) had to be 4300 BC. Please refer to- Playfair's argumentation, "Remarks on the astronomy of the Brahmins", Edinburg 1790.
Playfair's mathematical estimate was objected to by John Bentley in 1825, not by a mathematical or astronomical argument, but as following in "John Bentley: Hindu Astronomy, republished by Shri Publ., Delhi 1990, p.xxvii;" "By his [Playfair's] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity. Nay, his aim goes still deeper, for by the same means he endeavours to overturn the Mosaic account, and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction." So this is the argument that prevailed. Hindu astronomy could not be believed not because it was flawed, but that it would overturn the orthodoxy of the Christian church. So much for the scientific temper of western scholarship and their much vaunted blathering about the importance that they attached to the scientific approach and the love of proof they inherited from the Greeks.
<b>13. Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836)</b> Translated the Bhagavad Gita in 1785
<b>14. Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1753-1821)</b> Collector of Indian Manuscripts
<b>15. William Carey (1761-1834)</b> Missionary
William Carey (1761-1834) was the pioneer of the modern missionary enterprise in India, and of western (missionary) scholarship in oriental studies. Carey was an English oriental scholar and the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society. From 1801 onward, as Professor of Oriental Languages, he composed numerous philosophical works, consisting of 'grammars and dictionaries in the Marathi, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Telugu, Bengali and Bhatanta dialects.
From the Serampor press, there issued in his life time, over 200,000 Bibles and portions in nearly 40 different languages and dialects, Carey himself undertaking most of the literary work. 3
Carey and his colleagues experimented with what came to be known as Church Sanskrit. He wanted to train a group of 'Christian Pandits' who would probe "these mysterious sacred nothings" and expose them as worthless. He was distressed that this "golden casket (of Sanskrit) exquisitely wrought" had remained "filled with nothing but pebbles and trash." He was determined to fill it with "riches - beyond all price," that is, the doctrine of Christianity. 4
In fact, Carey smuggled himself into India and caused so much trouble that the British government labeled him as a political danger. After confiscating a batch of Bengali pamphlets printed by Carey, the Governor-general Lord Minto described them as â "Scurrilous invectiveâ¦Without arguments of any kind, they were filled with hell fire and still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men merely for believing the religion they were taught by their fathers." Unfortunately Carey and other preachers of his ilk finally gained permission to continue their campaigns without government approval.
Other Preachers
<b>16. Henry Thomas Colebrook (1765-1837)</b> Studied Sanskrit from the Pundits and wrote on the Vedas
<b>17. Abbe Dubois, Jean Antoine (1765-18)</b> went to India to convert the heathen returned discouraged that it was very difficult too accomplish
<b>18. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845)</b> one of two Schlegel brothers Lecturer in Sanskrit , Bonn University
<b>19. James Mill (1773-1836).</b> (father of the philosopher John Stuart Mill)
Completed The History of British India in 1817.. Had an extremely jaundiced view of Indic traditions.
The eminent British historian James Mill who had published his voluminous History of British India in 1818 heavily criticized Jones. Although Mill spoke no Indian languages, had never studied Sanskrit, and had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian culture and religion had become a standard work for all Britishers who would serve in India.
Mill vehemently believed that India had never had a glorious past and treated this as an historical fantasy. To him, Indian religion meant, âThe worship of the emblems of generative organsâ and ascribing to God, ââ¦an immense train of obscene acts.â Suffice to say that he disagreed violently with Jones for his âHypothesis of a high state of civilization.â Millâs History of British India was greatly influenced by the famous French missionary Abbe Duboisâs book Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. This work, which still enjoys a considerable amount of popularity to this day, contains one chapter on Hindu temples, wherein the Abbe writes: "Hindu imagination is such that it cannot be excited except by what is monstrous and extravagant."
<b>20. Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860)</b>
First Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford U.wrote on the Puranas. H.H. Wilson Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) has been described as âthe greatest Sanskrit scholar of his timeâ. He received his education in London and traveled to India in the East India Companies medical service. He became the secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal from 1811 to 1833 and published a Sanskrit to English dictionary. He became Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1833 and the director of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1837.
He translated the Visnu Purana, Rg Veda and wrote books such as Lectures on the Religious and Philosophical Systems of the Hindus. He edited a number of translations of eastern texts and helped Mill compile his History of India, although later Wilson criticized Millâs historiography, stating â âMillâs view of Hindu religion is full of very serious defects, arising from inveterate prejudices and imperfect knowledge. Every text, every circumstance, that makes against the Hindu character, is most assiduously cited, and everything in its favor as carefully kept out of sight, whilst a total neglect is displayed of the history of Hindu belief.â7
Wilson seemed somewhat of an enigma; on one hand he proposed that Britain should restrain herself from forcing Christianity upon the Indians and forcing them to reject their old traditions. Yet in the same breath he exclaimed: âFrom the survey which has been submitted to you, you will perceive that the practical religion of the Hindus is by no means a concentrated and compact system, but a heterogeneous compound made up of various and not infrequently incompatible ingredients, and that to a few ancient fragments it has made large and unauthorized additions, most of which are of an exceedingly mischievous and disgraceful nature. It is, however, of little avail yet to attempt to undeceive the multitude; their superstition is based upon ignorance, and until the foundation is taken away, the superstructure, however crazy and rotten, will hold together.â
Wilsonâs view was that Christianity should replace the Vedic culture, and he believed that full knowledge of Indian traditions would help effect that conversion. Aware that the Indians would be reluctant to give up their culture and religion, Wilson made the following remark: âThe whole tendency of brahminical education is to enforce dependence upon authority â in the first instance upon the guru, the next upon the books. A learned brahmana trusts solely to his learning; he never ventures upon independent thought; he appeals to memory; he quotes texts without measure and in unquestioning trust. It will be difficult to persuade him that the Vedas are human and very ordinary writings, that the puranas are modern and unauthentic, or even that the tantras are not entitled to respect. As long as he opposes authority to reason, and stifles the workings of conviction by the dicta of a reputed sage, little impression can be made upon his understanding. Certain it is, therefore, that he will have recourse to his authorities, and it is therefore important to show that his authorities are worthless.â
Wilson felt hopeful that by inspired, diligent effort the âspeciousâ system of Vedic thought would be âshown to be fallacious and false by the Ithuriel spear of Christian truth. He also was ready to award a prize of two hundred pounds ââ¦for the best refutation of the Hindu religious system.â Wilson also wrote a detailed method for exploiting the native Vedic psychology by use of a bogus guru-disciple relationship.
Recently Wilson has been accused of invalid scholarship. Natalie P.R. Sirkin has presented documented evidence, which shows that Wilson was a plagiarist. Most of his most important works were collected manuscripts of deceased an author that he published under his own names, as well as works done without research.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>10. Jean Sylvain Bailly(September 15, 1736âNovember 12, 1793)</b>
Jean-Sylvain Bailly was a French astronomer and orator, one of the leaders of the early part of the French Revolution. He was ultimately guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
<i><b>Jean Sylvain Bailly. Biography</b></i>
Born at Paris, he was originally intended for the profession of a painter, but preferred writing tragedies, until attracted to science by the influence of Nicolas de Lacaille. He calculated an orbit for Halley's Comet when it appeared in 1759, reduced Lacaille's observations of 515 zodiacal stars, and was, in 1763, elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
His Essai sur la theorie des satellites de Jupiter (Essay on the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, 1766), an expansion of a memoir presented to the Academy in 1763, showed much original power; and it was followed up in 1771 by a noteworthy dissertation Sur les inegalites de la lumiere des satellites de Jupiter (On the inequalities of light of the satellites of Jupiter). Meantime, he had gained a high literary reputation by his Ãloges of King Charles V of France, Lacaille, Molière, Pierre Corneille and Gottfried Leibniz, which were issued in collected form in 1770 and 1790; he was admitted to the Académie française on February 26, 1784, and to the Académie des Inscriptions in 1785, when Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's simultaneous membership of all three Academies was renewed in him.
From then on, he devoted himself to the history of science, publishing successively: Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (A history of ancient astronomy, 1775); Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (A history of modern astronomy, 3 vols., 1779-1782); Lettres sur l'origine des sciences (Letters on the origin of the sciences, 1777); Lettres sur l' Atlantide de Platon (Letters on Plato's Atlantide , 1779); and Traite de l'astronomie indienne et orientale (A treatise on Indian and Oriental astronomy, 1787).
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica remarks that "Their erudition was⦠marred by speculative extravagances." The French Revolution interrupted his studies. Elected deputy from Paris to the Estates-General, he was elected president of the Third Estate (May 5, 1789), led the famous proceedings in the Tennis Court(June 20), and - immediately after the storming of the Bastille - became the first mayor of Paris under the newly adopted system of the Commune (July 15, 1789 to November 16, 1791). The dispersal by the National Guard, under his orders, of the riotous assembly in the Champ de Mars (July 17, 1791) made him unpopular, and he retired to Nantes, where he composed his Mémoires d'un témoin (published in 3 vols. by MM. Berville and Barrière, 1821-1822), an incomplete narrative of the extraordinary events of his public life.
Late in 1793, Bailly left Nantes to join his friend Pierre Simon Laplace at Melun, but was there recognized, arrested and brought (November 10) before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris. On November 12 he was guillotined amid the insults of a howling mob. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "He met his death with patient dignity; having, indeed, disastrously shared the enthusiasms of his age, but taken no share in its crimes."The lunar crater Bailly was named in his honour. Ed. Note â his friendship with Laplace explains the great admiration Laplace had for Indic contributions to Mathematics.
<b>11. Sir William Jones (1746-1794)</b> the founder of Indology, largely responsible for postulating a Proto Indo European language for which no speakers have been found and for misdating the chronology of ancient India
<b>12. John Playfair, FRSE (March 10, 1748 â July 20, 1819)</b>
<i><b>John Playfair</b></i>
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Professor
John Playfair was a Scottish scientist. Playfair was professor of mathematics and later professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which was a summary of the work of James Hutton. It was through this that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience.
<i><b>John Playfair.</b></i>
In 1795 Playfair created an alternative formulation of Euclid's parallel postulate called Playfair's axiom. Early life Born at Benvie, Angus, Scotland, where his father was parish minister, he was educated at home until the age of fourteen, when he entered the University of St Andrews. In 1766, when only eighteen, he was candidate for the chair of mathematics in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and, although he was unsuccessful, his claims were admitted to be high. Six years later he made application for the chair of natural philosophy in his own university, but again without success, and in 1773 he was offered and accepted the benefice of the united parishes of Liff and Benvie, vacant by the death of his father.
He continued, however, to carry on his mathematical and physical studies, and in 1782 he resigned his charge in order to become the tutor of Ferguson of Raith. By this arrangement he was able to be frequently in Edinburgh and to cultivate the literary and scientific society for which it was at that time specially distinguished. In particular, he attended the natural history course of John Walker. Through Nevil Maskelyne, whose acquaintance he had first made in the course of the celebrated Schiehallion experiments in 1774, he also gained access to the scientific circles of London.
In 1785 when Dugald Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the Edinburgh chair of moral philosophy, Playfair succeeded the former in that of mathematics. [edit] Mature work In 1802, he published his celebrated volume entitled Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. The influence exerted by James Hutton on the development of geology is thought to be largely due to its publication. In 1805 he exchanged the chair of mathematics for that of natural philosophy in succession to John Robison, whom also he succeeded as general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He took a prominent part, on the liberal side, in the ecclesiastical controversy that arose in connexion with Sir John Leslie's appointment to the post he had vacated, and published a satirical Letter (1806).
Playfair was an opponent of Gottfried Leibniz's vis viva principle, an early version of the conservation of energy. In 1808, he launched an attack[1] on John Smeaton and William Hyde Wollaston's work championing the theory. He died in Edinburgh.
<i><b>Family</b></i>
John's brothers were the celebrated architect James Playfair who died in 1794 and the engineer William Playfair [2].
<i><b>Honours</b></i> ⢠Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ⢠Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1807 ⢠Craters on Mars and the Moon were named in his honor.
<i><b>Notes</b></i>
1. ^ Edinburgh Review, 12, 1808, 120â130
2. ^ Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1856), reproduced in Significant Scots Critical bibliography
A collected edition of Playfair's works, with a memoir by James G. Playfair, appeared at Edinburgh in 4 vols. 8vo. His writings include a number of essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review from 1804 onwards, various papers in the Phil. Trans. (including his earliest publication, " On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," 1779, and an " Account of the Lithological Survey of Schehallion," 1811) and in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (" On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," &c.), also the articles "Aepinus" and "Physical Astronomy," and a "Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science since the Revival of Learning in Europe," in the Encyclopædia Britannica (Supplement to fourth, fifth and sixth editions). His Elements of Geometry first appeared in 1795 and have passed through many editions; his Outlines of Natural Philosophy (2 vols., 1812-1816) consist of the propositions and formulae which were the basis of his class lectures.
Playfair's contributions to pure mathematics were not considerable, his paper "On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," that " On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," and his Elements of Geometry, all already referred to, being the most important. His lives of Matthew Stewart, Hutton, Robison, many of his reviews, and above all his "Dissertation" are of the utmost value.
<i><b>External links</b></i> ⢠Dictionary of Scientific Biography ⢠O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "John Playfair". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. ⢠Significant Scots: John Playfair ⢠National Portrait Gallery References ⢠This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Playfair"
In 1790, the mathematician John Playfair demonstrated that the starting-date of the astronomical observations recorded in the tables still in use among Hindu astrologers (of which three copies had reached Europe between 1687 and 1787) had to be 4300 BC. Please refer to- Playfair's argumentation, "Remarks on the astronomy of the Brahmins", Edinburg 1790.
Playfair's mathematical estimate was objected to by John Bentley in 1825, not by a mathematical or astronomical argument, but as following in "John Bentley: Hindu Astronomy, republished by Shri Publ., Delhi 1990, p.xxvii;" "By his [Playfair's] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity. Nay, his aim goes still deeper, for by the same means he endeavours to overturn the Mosaic account, and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction." So this is the argument that prevailed. Hindu astronomy could not be believed not because it was flawed, but that it would overturn the orthodoxy of the Christian church. So much for the scientific temper of western scholarship and their much vaunted blathering about the importance that they attached to the scientific approach and the love of proof they inherited from the Greeks.
<b>13. Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836)</b> Translated the Bhagavad Gita in 1785
<b>14. Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1753-1821)</b> Collector of Indian Manuscripts
<b>15. William Carey (1761-1834)</b> Missionary
William Carey (1761-1834) was the pioneer of the modern missionary enterprise in India, and of western (missionary) scholarship in oriental studies. Carey was an English oriental scholar and the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society. From 1801 onward, as Professor of Oriental Languages, he composed numerous philosophical works, consisting of 'grammars and dictionaries in the Marathi, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Telugu, Bengali and Bhatanta dialects.
From the Serampor press, there issued in his life time, over 200,000 Bibles and portions in nearly 40 different languages and dialects, Carey himself undertaking most of the literary work. 3
Carey and his colleagues experimented with what came to be known as Church Sanskrit. He wanted to train a group of 'Christian Pandits' who would probe "these mysterious sacred nothings" and expose them as worthless. He was distressed that this "golden casket (of Sanskrit) exquisitely wrought" had remained "filled with nothing but pebbles and trash." He was determined to fill it with "riches - beyond all price," that is, the doctrine of Christianity. 4
In fact, Carey smuggled himself into India and caused so much trouble that the British government labeled him as a political danger. After confiscating a batch of Bengali pamphlets printed by Carey, the Governor-general Lord Minto described them as â "Scurrilous invectiveâ¦Without arguments of any kind, they were filled with hell fire and still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men merely for believing the religion they were taught by their fathers." Unfortunately Carey and other preachers of his ilk finally gained permission to continue their campaigns without government approval.
Other Preachers
<b>16. Henry Thomas Colebrook (1765-1837)</b> Studied Sanskrit from the Pundits and wrote on the Vedas
<b>17. Abbe Dubois, Jean Antoine (1765-18)</b> went to India to convert the heathen returned discouraged that it was very difficult too accomplish
<b>18. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845)</b> one of two Schlegel brothers Lecturer in Sanskrit , Bonn University
<b>19. James Mill (1773-1836).</b> (father of the philosopher John Stuart Mill)
Completed The History of British India in 1817.. Had an extremely jaundiced view of Indic traditions.
The eminent British historian James Mill who had published his voluminous History of British India in 1818 heavily criticized Jones. Although Mill spoke no Indian languages, had never studied Sanskrit, and had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian culture and religion had become a standard work for all Britishers who would serve in India.
Mill vehemently believed that India had never had a glorious past and treated this as an historical fantasy. To him, Indian religion meant, âThe worship of the emblems of generative organsâ and ascribing to God, ââ¦an immense train of obscene acts.â Suffice to say that he disagreed violently with Jones for his âHypothesis of a high state of civilization.â Millâs History of British India was greatly influenced by the famous French missionary Abbe Duboisâs book Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. This work, which still enjoys a considerable amount of popularity to this day, contains one chapter on Hindu temples, wherein the Abbe writes: "Hindu imagination is such that it cannot be excited except by what is monstrous and extravagant."
<b>20. Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860)</b>
First Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford U.wrote on the Puranas. H.H. Wilson Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) has been described as âthe greatest Sanskrit scholar of his timeâ. He received his education in London and traveled to India in the East India Companies medical service. He became the secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal from 1811 to 1833 and published a Sanskrit to English dictionary. He became Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1833 and the director of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1837.
He translated the Visnu Purana, Rg Veda and wrote books such as Lectures on the Religious and Philosophical Systems of the Hindus. He edited a number of translations of eastern texts and helped Mill compile his History of India, although later Wilson criticized Millâs historiography, stating â âMillâs view of Hindu religion is full of very serious defects, arising from inveterate prejudices and imperfect knowledge. Every text, every circumstance, that makes against the Hindu character, is most assiduously cited, and everything in its favor as carefully kept out of sight, whilst a total neglect is displayed of the history of Hindu belief.â7
Wilson seemed somewhat of an enigma; on one hand he proposed that Britain should restrain herself from forcing Christianity upon the Indians and forcing them to reject their old traditions. Yet in the same breath he exclaimed: âFrom the survey which has been submitted to you, you will perceive that the practical religion of the Hindus is by no means a concentrated and compact system, but a heterogeneous compound made up of various and not infrequently incompatible ingredients, and that to a few ancient fragments it has made large and unauthorized additions, most of which are of an exceedingly mischievous and disgraceful nature. It is, however, of little avail yet to attempt to undeceive the multitude; their superstition is based upon ignorance, and until the foundation is taken away, the superstructure, however crazy and rotten, will hold together.â
Wilsonâs view was that Christianity should replace the Vedic culture, and he believed that full knowledge of Indian traditions would help effect that conversion. Aware that the Indians would be reluctant to give up their culture and religion, Wilson made the following remark: âThe whole tendency of brahminical education is to enforce dependence upon authority â in the first instance upon the guru, the next upon the books. A learned brahmana trusts solely to his learning; he never ventures upon independent thought; he appeals to memory; he quotes texts without measure and in unquestioning trust. It will be difficult to persuade him that the Vedas are human and very ordinary writings, that the puranas are modern and unauthentic, or even that the tantras are not entitled to respect. As long as he opposes authority to reason, and stifles the workings of conviction by the dicta of a reputed sage, little impression can be made upon his understanding. Certain it is, therefore, that he will have recourse to his authorities, and it is therefore important to show that his authorities are worthless.â
Wilson felt hopeful that by inspired, diligent effort the âspeciousâ system of Vedic thought would be âshown to be fallacious and false by the Ithuriel spear of Christian truth. He also was ready to award a prize of two hundred pounds ââ¦for the best refutation of the Hindu religious system.â Wilson also wrote a detailed method for exploiting the native Vedic psychology by use of a bogus guru-disciple relationship.
Recently Wilson has been accused of invalid scholarship. Natalie P.R. Sirkin has presented documented evidence, which shows that Wilson was a plagiarist. Most of his most important works were collected manuscripts of deceased an author that he published under his own names, as well as works done without research.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->