Historicity of Jesus - 2

[acharya]

NathanielB rassey Halhed was a son of a Director ofB ank of England and had received training at Harrow and Christchurch. He arrived in India in 1771 as a writer in East India CompanysB engal Service. He left India with Warren Hestings in 1785.Halhed was a linguist with interest in development of languages. He had learned enough Persian. He was the first European to see a connection betweenB engali and Sanskrit. His knowledge of Sanskrit was probably limited. He wrote a Gentoo codein 1776.



Gentoo code was commissioned by Warren Hestings by appointing eleven Pandits for the job.T hey were instructed to draw on the best authorities in Sanskrit.T his group of Pandits produced a code in Sanskrit language , which was translated into Persian and from Persian it was rendered into English by Halhed.T he work of translation was complete by Halhed in 1775. The Code was published in England in 1776. The Code was a failureand could never gain the confidence of the people and thus was never accepted as final authority.



Halheds preface to the Codein English is source ofinformation about Hindus and their religion.T he code was translated in French and German languages in 1778. Halhed also wrote a Gramm ar of Bengal Languagein 1778. In the preface of this book Halhed for the time pointed astonishing similarities of Sanskrit words with those of Persian, Arabic and evenL atin and Greek. He developed these ideas further and in a manusript written in 1779 he says



every part of speech, and every distinction , which is to be found in either Greek orL atin, and that in some particulars it is more copious than either.. I do not attempt to ascertain as a fact, either Greek orL atin are derived from this language; but I give a few reasons wherein such a conjecture might be founded: and I am sure that it is a better claim to the honour of a parent than, Phoenician or Hebrew