William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones FRS FRAS FRSE (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, orientalist and 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 existence of a relationship among European and Indo-Aryan languages, which later came to be known as the Indo-European languages.
Sir William Jones
28 September 1746
Westminster, London, England
27 April 1794 (aged 47)
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency
South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata, India
- William Jones (father)
Legal studies and politics in England[edit]
In 1770, Jones joined the Middle Temple and studied law for three years, a preliminary to his life-work in India. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 April 1772.[8] In 1773, he was elected a member of The Club, of which he became president in 1780.[9] He spent some time as a circuit judge in Wales, and then became involved in politics: he made a fruitless attempt to resolve the American Revolution in concert with Benjamin Franklin in Paris,[10] and ran for the post of Member of Parliament from Oxford in the general election of 1780, but was unsuccessful.[11]
Jones was a radical political thinker, a friend of American independence. His work, The principles of government; in a dialogue between a scholar and a peasant (1783), was the subject of a trial for seditious libel (known as the Case of the Dean of St Asaph)[12] after it was reprinted by his brother-in-law William Davies Shipley.[13]
Indian tenure[edit]
He was appointed puisne judge to the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Calcutta, Bengal, on 4 March 1783, and on 20 March he was knighted. In April 1783 he married Anna Maria Shipley, the eldest daughter of Dr. Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of Llandaff and Bishop of St Asaph. Anna Maria used her artistic skills to help Jones document life in India. On 25 September 1783 he arrived in Calcutta.
In the Subcontinent he was entranced by Indian culture, an as-yet untouched field in European scholarship, and on 15 January 1784 he founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta.[14] He studied the Vedas with Rāmalocana, a pandit teaching at the Nadiya Hindu university, becoming a proficient Sanskritist.[14] Jones kept up a ten-year correspondence on the topic of jyotisa or Hindu astronomy with fellow orientalist Samuel Davis.[15] He learnt the ancient concept of Hindu Laws from Pandit Jagannath Tarka Panchanan.[16]
Over the next ten years, he would produce a flood of works on India, launching the modern study of the subcontinent in virtually every social science. He also wrote on the local laws, music, literature, botany, and geography, and made the first English translations of several important works of Indian literature.
Sir William Jones sometimes also went by the nom de plume Youns Uksfardi (یونس اوکسفردی, "Jones of Oxford"). This pen name can be seen on the inner front cover of his Persian Grammar published in 1771 (and in subsequent editions).
He died in Calcutta on 27 April 1794 at the age of 47 and is buried in South Park Street Cemetery.[17]
Legal contributions[edit]
After reaching Calcutta, Jones was unhappy with the appointed pandits of the court, who were tasked with interpreting the laws of Hinduism and contributing to judgements. After a number of cases in which different pandits came up with different rulings, Jones determined to thoroughly learn Sanskrit so that he could independently interpret the original sources.[31]
Jones's final judicial project was suggesting and leading the compilation of a Sanskrit "digest of Hindu Law," with the original plan of translating the work himself.[32] After his death, the translation was completed by Henry Thomas Colebrooke.
View on the historical timeline of the Biblical events[edit]
Jones said that "either the first eleven chapters of Genesis ... are true, or the whole fabrick [sic] of our national religion is false, a conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn." (1788, 225)[33]
He also said that "I... am obliged of course to believe the sanctity of the venerable books [of Genesis]." (1788, 225)[33]
Jones "traced the foundation of the Indian empire above three thousand eight hundred years from now" (Jones, 1790). Jones thought it was important that this date would be between Archbishop Ussher's Creation date of 4004 BC and the Great Flood that Jones considered to have been in 2350 BC.[33]
Encounter with Anquetil-Duperron[edit]
In Europe a discussion as to the authenticity of the first translation of the Avesta scriptures arose. It was the first evidence of an Indo-European language as old as Sanskrit to be translated into a modern European language. It was suggested that the so-called Zend-Avesta was not the genuine work of the prophet Zoroaster, but was a recent forgery. Foremost among the detractors, it is to be regretted, was the distinguished (though young) orientalist William Jones. He claimed, in a letter published in French (1771), that the translator Anquetil-Duperron had been duped, that the Parsis of Surat had palmed off upon him a conglomeration of worthless fabrications and absurdities. In England, Jones was supported by Richardson and Sir John Chardin; in Germany, by Meiners. Anquetil-Duperron was labelled an impostor who had invented his own script to support his claim.[34] This debate was not settled for almost a century.
Chess poem[edit]
In 1763, at the age of 17, Jones wrote the poem Caissa in English, based on a 658-line poem called "Scacchia, Ludus" published in 1527 by Marco Girolamo Vida, giving a mythical origin of chess that has become well known in the chess world.
In the poem, the nymph Caissa initially repels the advances of Mars, the god of war. Spurned, Mars seeks the aid of the god of sport, who creates the game of chess as a gift for Mars to win Caissa's favour. Mars wins her over with the game.
Caissa has since been characterised as the "goddess" of chess, her name being used in several contexts in modern chess playing.
An Elegiac Poem[edit]
Thomas Maurice (1754–1824) published An Elegiac Poem[35] in 1795; full title: An Elegiac and Historical Poem: Sacred to the Memory and Virtues of the Honourable Sir William Jones. Containing a Retrospective Survey of the Progress of Science, and the Mohammedan Conquests in Asia.
Memorial[edit]
There is a statue of Jones, by the sculptor John Bacon in St Paul's Cathedral, London, erected in 1799.[37]
Listing in most cases only editions and reprints that came out during Jones's own lifetime, books by, or prominently including work by, William Jones, are:
