Henry Thomas Colebrooke FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soc ...

(15 June 1765 – 10 March 1837) was an English orientalist and mathematician. He has been described as "the first great

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the la ...

scholar in Europe".

Biography

Henry Thomas Colebrooke was born on 15 June 1765. His parents were Sir George Colebrooke, 2nd Baronet, MP for Arundel and Chairman of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

from 1769, and Mary Gaynor, daughter and heir of Patrick Gaynor of

Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barb ...

. He was educated at home. In 1782 Colebrooke was appointed through his father's influence to a writership with the East India Company in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commerc ...

. In 1786 and three years later he was appointed assistant collector in the revenue department at

Tirhut Mithila (), also known as Tirhut, Tirabhukti and Mithilanchal is a geographical and cultural region of the Indian subcontinent bounded by the Mahananda River in the east, the Ganges in the south, the Gandaki River in the west and by the foothil ...

. He wrote ''Remarks on the Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal'', which was privately published in 1795, by which time he had transferred to

Purnia Purnia ()(also romanized as Purnea) is a city that serves as the administrative headquarters of both Purnia district and Purnia division in the Indian state of Bihar. Total geographical area of Purnia Urban Agglomeration is which is nex ...

. This opposed the East India Company's monopoly on Indian trade, advocating instead for free trade between Britain and India, which caused offence to the East India Company's governors. He was appointed to the magistracy of

Mirzapur Mirzapur () is a city in Uttar Pradesh, India, 827 km from Delhi and 733 km from Kolkata, almost 91 km from Prayagraj (formally known as Allahabad) and 61 km from Varanasi. It is known for its carpets and brassware industries, and the fol ...

in 1795 and was sent to

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nag ...

in 1799 to negotiate an allowance with the Raja of Berar. He was unsuccessful in this, due to events elsewhere, and returned in 1801. On his return was made a judge of the new court of appeal in Calcutta, of which he became president of the bench in 1805. Also in 1805,

Lord Wellesley Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, (20 June 1760 – 26 September 1842) was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator. He was styled as Viscount Wellesley until 1781, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of ...

appointed him honorary professor of

Hindu law Hindu law, as a historical term, refers to the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India. Hindu law, in modern scholarship, also refers to the legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophical reflections on the na ...

and Sanskrit at the

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

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. Colebrooke married Elizabeth Wilkinson in 1810. The marriage was short-lived and she died in 1814. He returned to England in 1815. In 1816 he was elected to the fellowship of both the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

In 1820 he was a founder of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

. He often chaired the society's meetings in the absence of the first president,

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline ...

, 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 The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

, chairing its first meeting although he declined to become its president.

Works

After eleven years' residence in India, Colebrooke began the study of the

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

; and to him was entrusted the translation of the major ''Digest of Hindu Laws'', a monumental study of

which had been left unfinished by

Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and a scholar of ancient India. He is particularly known for his proposition of the ...

. 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 upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

'' (1805), for a long time the standard work in English on the subject. A posthumous essay on his father's life was published by Sir T. E. Colebrooke in 1873 as part of a reprinting of ''Miscellaneous Essays''.

Indological

* * * (by Amara Singh; with an English interpretation and annotations by H.T. Colebrooke) * * * * * *

Botanical

* * * (with William Jack) *

Biography

Works

Indological

Botanical

References

Further reading