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Sir William Jones and the British Attitudes towards India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
James Mill in his efforts to belittle the achievements of the Hindus took Jones as his chief antagonist; he tried to show how the Orientalist suffered from illusions about the Hindus and tended to magnify their importance without having any idea of what the term civilization meant. He said that Jones's description of the life of the Arabs and Hindus far surpassed the “rhapsodies of Rousseau on the happiness and virtue of savage life”. To Mill, Jones was a misguided man who failed to grasp the problems of India; his reason gave way to the romantic fascination of the East and so in his judgment on India he was uncritical. Ever since the first publication of Mill's work in 1817 the history of the British policy in India had been presented as if it were a struggle between Jones and Mill, the romantic versus the rationalist. This theme was developed in a recent conference on Indian historiography. Elsewhere Jones is described as a medievalist. In fact most of these writers presented Jones as James Mill had depicted him, even though their sympathies may have been with him.
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References
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page 38 note 6 A first indication of a new trend in Jones's historical ideas is to be found in the memorandum which he wrote during his journey to India. Here for the first time he showed his interest in such problems as the confirmation of the tradition of the Deluge and the early history of India. Perhaps the study of Halhed's Gentoo Laws, which starts with the Hindu idea of creation, stimulated his interest in comparing the Hindu mythology with the Biblical tradition. See Shore, J., Memoirs of the life, writings and correspondence of Sir W. Jones, p. 228 (London, 1804)Google Scholar. Cf. “On the origin and families of nations.” Asiatick Researches (As.R.) Vol. III, pp. 479–480.
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The story that Jones sent to George John was a garbled version of the drama. According to Jones's version, Śakuntalā was living with the king in his palace when Durvāsā visited Duṣyanta, the King, and caused the long separation of the couple.
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