The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company

For thirty years in India at the cusp of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Henry Thomas Colebrooke was an administrator and scholar with the East India Company. This book explains and evaluates Colebrooke'¬"s position as the founder of modern Indology. The book discusses how Colebrooke embodies the significant passage from the speculative yearnings attendant on eighteenth century colonial expansion, to the professional, transnational ethos of nineteenth century intellectual life and scholarly enquiry. It covers his early career at the East India Company, and his role in the supreme council and as theorist of the Bengal government. The book highlights how his unprecedented familiarity with a broad range of literature established him as a leading scholar of Sanskrit and president of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta. Colebrooke went on to found the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and has set the standards for the study of western Indology. Written by renowned academics in the field of Indology, and drawing on new sources, this biography is a useful contribution to the reassessment of Oriental studies that is currently taking place.

Introduction: Why a biography of Henry Thomas Colebrooke 1. Sir George Colebrooke, Banker, East India Company Chairman, Bankrupt: Henry Thomas Colebrooke's family background and early years, 1765-1782 2. A Free Trader in the Service of a Monopoly: Henry Thomas Colebrooke as a civil servant of the East India Company in the Bengal hinterland, 1783-1795 3. Unlikely Heir to Sir Williams Jones' Mantle: Henry Thomas Colebrooke's rise to stardom in Indian scholarship, 1795-1801 4. Shaper of Anglo-Indian Law: The acme of Henry Thomas Colebrooke's Indian career, Calcutta, 1801-1814 5. Single Father: Henry Thomas Colebrooke's personal and social life in London, 1815-1835 6. Host to Scholars; Founder of Institutions: Henry Thomas Colebrooke as a magnet for European scholars and as a founder of learned societies, 1815-1835 7. Paragon of Exactitude; Father of Modern Indology: Assessment of Henry Thomas Colebrooke's oeuvre, its immediate reception, and its lasting influence Epilogue. The Management of a Legacy: Henry Thomas Colebrooke's final years (1835-1837) and his posthumous works