The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s1.2

c4.s1.2

A. Maconochie advocated, on the other hand (first in 1783²⁸ and then again in 1788), the taking of such measures by ‘our monarch, the sovereign of the banks of the Ganges...as may be necessary for discovering, collecting and translating whatever is extent of the ancient works of the Hindoos.’ He thought that if the British ‘procured these works to Europe, astronomy and antiquities, and the sciences connected with them would be advanced in a still great proportion.’ He observed further that ‘the antiquities of the religion and Government of the Hindoos are not less interesting than those of their sciences’; and felt that ‘the history, the poems, the traditions, the very fables of the Hindoos might therefore throw light upon the history of the ancient world and in particular upon the institutions of that celebrated people from whom Moses received his learning and Greece her religion and her arts.’ Prof. Maconochie also stated that the centre of most of this learning was Benares, where ‘all the sciences are still taught’ and where ‘very ancient works in astronomy are still extant.’²⁹