The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.s1.20

v1.c15.s1.20

The inauguration of the study of India's past history came at a fortunate moment; for it is precisely to the last quarter of the eighteenth century that we may trace the growth of the modern scientific spirit of investigation, which may be defined as the recognition of the fact that no object and no idea stands alone by itself as an isolated phenomenon. All objects and all ideas form links in a series; and therefore it follows that nowhere, whether in the realm of nature or in the sphere of human activity, can the present be understood without reference to the past. The first manifestation of this new spirit of enquiry, which was soon to transform all learning, was seen in the study of language. The first Western students of the ancient languages of India were statesmen and scholars who had been educated in the classical literatures of ancient Greece and Rome. They were impressed by the fact, which must indeed be apparent to everyone who opens a Sanskrit grammar, that Sanskrit, both in its vocabulary and in its inflexions, presents a striking similarity to Greek and Latin. This observation immediately raised the question: How is this similarity to be explained? The true answer was suggested by Sir William Jones, whom that sagacious observer, Dr Johnson, recognised as 'one of the most enlightened of the sons of men'¹. In 1786, Sir William Jones wrote: