Kitabı oku: «Truths», sayfa 9
“Royal high commissioner's office! During a four-year stay in Paris I have dedicated myself to the study of oriental languages and literature, particularly the Sanskrit, to the best of my ability, with uninterrupted eagerness. The first two years I covered my maintenance at the expense of my father, a Servant of the Bavarian king, who did not shun the greatest sacrifices to support me, to my best, in order to make me useful for the state and the science regardless of his limited means and humble circumstances. For the last two years His Royal Majesty had gracefully been pleased to grant me highly magnanimously a benefit payment of 600 guilders annually. Though this sum did not suffice to cover the complete costs of my stay in Paris, I considered this most gracious help as the highest luck, because it had enabled me to approach my scientific goals aided by a small support from my father and my consequent austerity and renunciation.
In a book published recently in Frankfurt I sought to show how much my arduous attempts might have been successful. This publication will show the aspect from which I set out to my studies of languages in general and at the same time perhaps also an evidence of the importance of the Sanskrit language and convince of the truth about the great benefit the philologist could draw from the exact knowledge of the same for the scientific understanding of the inner architecture and organism of the languages of the classical antiquity as well as of the still living ones. Which additional benefits might otherwise originate through the knowledge of the treasure of Indian Literature is generally known. Through the knowledge I have been able to acquire painstakingly I feel fit to contribute towards publishing these so far unused sources, if I had the privilege of availing myself furthermore of the big collections of this kind in Paris or even better in London.
A stay of several years in London would be necessary to complete my already started and partly published comparison of languages and to carry out at all my plan to show all languages about which some information is obtainable in regard to their possible kinship with or dissimilarity from each other, to show their inner spirit and essential character and thus to set up a scientifically based system of the general linguistics: an endeavour linked with most important results for the scholars of language and history.”
Instead of 2000 guilders annually for the first two years 1000 guilders were granted on September 30, 1817. For the academic year 1819/1820 Crown Prince Ludwig personally added an allowance of another 1000 guilders. The scholarship was extended for another year.
The stay in London is only a step and was supposed to be a transitional station. He is already dreaming of a stay in India. Of course receiving a grant of Crown Prince Ludwig. Accordingly he writes on August 24, 1815 to Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann:
“In view of the enormous range of the Indian literary works it is difficult to come to some epitome of Indian literature. The poems are like the Egyptian obelisks. The first part of Mahabharata does not reach up to the actual beginning of the poem, it contains as a whole little noteworthy. The year that I shall still stay here I will now completely dedicate to Indian literature, and read so much as possible, in order to know in advance about which issues I shall have to ask Brahmins for advice when I go to India, and I shall be able to do a lot there in a short time.”
His dream is not fulfilled. We do not know whether that Prof. Othmar Frank played a role, who is by now well integrated in the Munich-clique. Franz Bopp, however, was to become a “Pope of Sanskrit” even without ever being in India and before he ever had an opportunity to hearing the sound of the Sanskrit language. In the annals we find him also as the founder of “vergleichende Sprachwissenschaften” (comparative language-sciences). Again, we must confess, we are too simple to understand the difference between comparative language-sciences and Linguistics.
Antoine Léonard de Chézy became in 1816 the first professor for Sanskrit in continental Europe at the age of 33. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, as already mentioned becomes a professor for European Literature in 1818 in Bonn at the age of 53, later claiming to be a professor for Sanskrit as well. The first one in Germany. In 1825, Franz Bopp becomes professor for Sanskrit in Berlin at the age of 34. He was to spread Sanskrit in Europe. He is the same Franz Bopp who saw no future for himself as an academician in 1810.
After becoming professor for Sanskrit in Berlin, he has enriched the wonder that is this culture further as the founder of so-called linguistic science. How does he do it? No questions, no answers. He even publishes six volumes under the title: Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslawischen, Gotischen und Deutschen (Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend (Avestan), Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Gothic and German).
As simple-minded straightforward persons we do not comprehend the benefit for human knowledge comparing languages and their grammars. On top of it Franz Bopp did not know quite a few of these languages. Did he not evolve to a first class swindler? Should we withdraw our question? Do we have to withdraw our question? Whatsoever. We add a remark: Linguistics is going strong since Franz Franz Bopp’s invention.
*****
For the present, however, we must continue our search finding out how the Sanskrit language arrived in Europe. Franz Bopp has claimed to have learnt the Sanskrit language all by himself. No one knows how. The question has not been raised yet. We raise this issue along with a polemic question. Was the knowledge of Sanskrit “revealed” to him while he practised spelling mentally (he had no chance hearing any sound from written letters or words in Sanskrit how it was pronounced) the many robbed Sanskrit manuscripts again and again in the Royal Library in Paris? Whatsoever. We go on with our evaluation of the available documents.
Franz Bopp invents his own grammar and translates Sanskrit texts. At that time in Paris there was only a single person, as reported, who claimed to have known Sanskrit: Antoine Léonard de Chézy. He also claimed to have taught himself. How? How can we know? His Sanskrit was, however, not up to the mark, as reported by Franz Bopp. This was the reason why Franz Bopp had to invent his own learning method. But we have detected two other references: Friedrich von Schlegel and Alexander Hamilton. They were engaged with Sanskrit in Paris even before Antoine Léonard de Chézy.
Getting into these two references we come across documents telling incredible stories. Antoine Léonard de Chézy works in the Egyptian department of the Royal Museum in Paris. The administrators of the artefacts from colonial booty were entitled to “study tours” to Egypt. When in 1803 such a trip is due Antoine Léonard de Chézy falls ill. As luck would have it, however, Louis Mathieu Langlès was there, that “news pool” for “Orient enthusiasts” in Paris. We remember him. So, Antoine Léonard de Chézy learns from the young German Helmine von Hastfer (we remember her too), a friend of Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel, who were living temporarily in Paris, that Friedrich von Schlegel takes lessons in Sanskrit from an interned Englishman called Alexander Hamilton.
Friedrich von Schlegel puts it on record that he has learnt Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton. We shall deal with the quality of the lessons a little later. There is also evidence that Alexander Hamilton and Antoine Léonard de Chézy meet each other in Paris rather frequently. Antoine Léonard de Chézy himself maintains repeatedly that he was not interested in Sanskrit at all and knew nothing about Sanskrit before he met Alexander Hamilton. He was an Egyptologist only.
Hereafter there are two different versions of this small (hi)story within history. One version has it that the great misfortune of missing the study tour to Egypt due to sudden illness was more than compensated by the opportunity to learn Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton. The other version says the meetings with Alexander Hamilton made him curious about Sanskrit. He learnt the language, however, “secretly” and “by teaching himself” and definitely after Alexander Hamilton had left France.
We remember Franz Bopp’s report to Professor Windischmann according to which Antoine Léonard de Chézy has been engaged with Sanskrit since 1808. But does it really matter? Swindles remain swindles, isn’t it? Even with the best of our efforts, we are unable to understand how a Frenchman in Paris could have learnt a perfectly developed language like the Sanskrit without a teacher, without a grammar and without any help whatsoever. But why complain! “Modern historians” and Indologists have not had and do not have any difficulty so far, in putting up with these incredible stories. They just believe in them. One must develop in this culture the ability to believe and forget the necessity of knowing. Why knowing?
*****
We are now compelled to extend our search. Who is this Alexander Hamilton who brought Franz Bopp, at least indirectly, to Sanskrit and thus contributed to the spread of Sanskrit in Europe? Our search leads us ultimately to the original document and there we read the following lines: “In 1795 (wasn’t it in 1794?) the government of the French Republic founded the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and there Alexander Hamilton (1762–1824), one of the founding members of Asiatic Society of Bengal, held prisoner on parole in France at the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, became the first person to teach Sanskrit in Europe.”
Arthur Llewellyn Basham (1914–1986) handed down these lines to the posterity in his best-known book The Wonder that was India, London 1954, p. 6. He wasn’t just an anybody. He wrote quite a few books on the “British colonial period” in India. He was a professor for oriental studies at the university in London, a Mecca for many Indians studying “history” abroad. His senior students occupy almost all leading positions at Indian universities and research institutions for the study of ancient history of Bharatavarsa at present. In return, these disciples have ensured that the “scientific spirit” of Arthur Llewellyn Basham is adhered to in the Republic of India even today.
Arthur Llewellyn Basham does not tell us whether he checked scrupulously the source of his information about Alexander Hamilton. After all, he was writing about a man who lived almost 200 years ago. Obviously he did not check meticulously enough. This is not necessary whenever the information, gathered indiscriminately, serves a useful purpose. Why should he waste time in a meticulous check of sources? Is it not enough, especially after he has made an outstanding career as a “scientist” in the in the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture?
We will rather be busy with Arthur Llewellyn Basham. Nevertheless, there are many others who are out to make career in this “scientific” field. They are prompted by their alpha wolves to detect flaws in the writings of great “scholars” of the past. This is part of a game, called “research in modern science” in this wonder that is this culture.
We came across a publication of the “American Oriental Society”, volume 51 titled “Hamilton Alexander (1762–1824). A Chapter in the early History of Sanskrit Philology, New Haven, Connecticut 1968”. Fourteen years after Arthur Llewellyn Basham published his book: The Wonder that was India, London 1954. A Belgian lady called Rosane Rocher proves that the version about Alexander Hamilton circulated worldwide by Arthur Llewellyn Basham is wrong in some facets. She has written in the “Introduction” of her book:
“It is true that various biographical dictionaries do contain notices about Hamilton, but they often offer erroneous information, as will be seen on more than one occasion below. The reference works about the history of Oriental Studies again and again reproduce the same errors; moreover, they are mainly interested in Hamilton as far as his stay in Paris is concerned; apart from his catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts of the Imperial Library, they essentially refer to him in connection with an apparently more important Orientalist, namely the one who became Hamilton’s most famous student in Paris – Friedrich Schlegel.”
We shall deal with the “wrong facets” in a while. Rosane Rocher starts properly her investigations to trace the origin of Arthur Llewellyn Basham’s error and reports that Theodor Benfey (1809–1881) in his “opus” Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und orientalischen Philologie in Deutschland seit dem Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts mit einem Rückblick auf die Früheren Zeiten (History of linguistics and oriental philology in Germany since the beginning of the 19th century with a retrospect into earlier periods), Munich 1869, pp. 357–361, was responsible for this red herring.
All “scholars” thereafter had just copied Theodor Benfey. After Rosane Rocher made this discovery, she runs out of breath. Or, even worse, she is not interested in finding out how and why Theodor Benfey did write it. She could have asked – we think it is necessary – if it was an “accidental” error. But a scientific discipline and its ethics in this culture did not motivate her enough to look further, to find out how frequent such errors were, whether they were intentional (“malice of intent”) or caused by pressure of work – the rush to publish in a hurry. Therefore, we are still in the dark as to why the German Indologist Theodor Benfey did spread wrong information about Alexander Hamilton. Let us wait and see. We are on look out.
Hadn’t it been so far removed from our search, we would have pursued the matter. Besides, it is not our purpose presently to examine the reliability of sources of current “historical research”, but to describe this wonder-some culture and the way in which celebrated “modern scientists” deal with handed-down sources, secondary sources. Therefore, we must leave this issue unresolved here but also have to admit that we could not suppress a smile seeing this common copy-and-paste practice in all “scientific” books. We apologise for smiling.
We have to deal in depth with Alexander Hamilton because there is no reference that anybody else gave Sanskrit lessons anywhere in Europe before 1803. He was apparently the pioneer in this field. Who is he? How does he acquire his knowledge of the Sanskrit language? How good could have been his lessons actually? Here too, we stick to our simple experience of life: it is more important to know the ‘who’ of the person vis–a–vis is, what he does, by whom he is kept, than to get involved with what he is telling or what others are saying about him.
We are astonished that such an apparently important personality is almost a blank page in books or documents. It is not even on record as to where he died on December 30, 1824, not to talk about the place of his birth. This date of his death is found as an obituary notice in “Gentleman’s Magazine” in England.
As a rule, the importance and the extent of fame of contemporary personalities can be derived from documented references. Does anybody depart from life the way Alexander Hamilton did if he had been such an important personality as late-born “historians” and “Indologists” want to make us believe? Why do they do it? We just cannot accept that Alexander Hamilton was an important personality of his time. In all probability, he is made to be an important personality. But why? What was the necessity? We have to investigate.
As narrated by Helmine de Chézy and Friedrich and Dorothea von SchlegeI Alexander Hamilton was born in a Scottish village. Name unknown. Nothing else is known about his childhood, or anything about his education. They had often been together in Paris, they were friends, in fact, and they had shared a flat and lived as a “commune” for some time. They must have known much more about Alexander Hamilton than they have handed-down to posterity in writing.
Why didn’t they tell us more about him? The most probable explanation is that there was nothing worthwhile narrating about his parents, his childhood, his school days, his upbringing, and his education. He apparently didn’t have a college degree. He doesn’t appear on any Graduate list of the colleges in Great Britain.
The earliest record about him is found in the alphabetical list of all members of the Indian army of 1783. Accordingly, he is recruited as a cadet for the “Bengal Army” in England. The date of his birth is missing, which was not usual. This could be an indication that either his parents died early or that he did not know the exact date of his birth. It is also not known when he comes to Kolkata. This was uncustomary too.
At that time, only a few ships sailed to Kolkata. Usually passenger lists were prepared and filed. Nevertheless, there were passengers and lesser passengers presumably also at that time. He however appears on a list in Kolkata in February 1785 as an ensign of the infantry, the lowest rank of a would be officer in the infantry, and not as a naval officer, as Franz Bopp, Salomon Lefmann, Ernst Windisch (1844–1918) and others have handed-down. Who would like to know how they came to “Naval Officer” and which wishful wrong information they had copied. It was definitely not accidental to vendor wrong information. Naturally, this wrong information is diligently created and spread. Doesn’t “Naval Officer” sound more dignified than an “infantry ensign”? Well!”
This list of February 1785 indicates that Alexander Hamilton arrived in Kolkata not before the 4th quarter of 1784. According to the “Bengal Calendar” on February 22, 1785 and according to the “Calcutta Monthly Register” on March 13, 1785 he joins the infantry. From 1785–1790 he remains a “supernumerary” in the infantry, i.e. the lowest grade in the career to an officer. On February 15, 1790, he becomes permanent: “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps.”
He couldn’t have been a big shot at that time. His financial means were modest up to February 15, 1790. The “Asiatick Society” was founded on January 15, 1784. It publishes in the first volume of Asiatick Researches a list of all members of the “Asiatick Society” for the first time on January 15, 1789. We shall deal with this Society and all that goes with in later in a separate chapter. On this list he is listed as a lieutenant. How could he be “Lieut. Alexander Hamilton” on January 15, 1789 if he was “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps?” Is it because an ensign supernumerary was too low in standard for the high honourable society of “colonial scholars” and he was therefore just upgraded?
This list might have tempted Theodor Benfey to promote Alexander Hamilton to a founder member of the “Asiatick Society”. “Founder-members” carry more weight, don’t they? The fact is that he couldn’t be a founder member because he landed in Kolkata approximately a year after the “Asiatick Society” was founded. “Modern historians” and “Indologists” are obviously just carried away to palatability when they narrate and thus becoming swindlers. Who is going to check once it was printed? We know already that celebrities like Arthur Llewellyn Basham didn’t care more about checking before copying former printed products and did not hesitate to tamper documents to transport great visions.
Since 1785, its founder, Sir William Jones, celebrates the “Asiatick Society” at the beginning of every year. He invites all non-Asians in and around Kolkata and those posted elsewhere to his annual “discourses”. He encourages and puts pressure on every “Tom, Dick and Harry” to write field reports. Only non-Asiatic “Tom, Dick and Harry”, of course. He edits and publishes them as learned investigation reports.
Since 1789 the Asiatick Researches comes out annually and are circulated in Great Britain. And from there to the whole of Europe. In none of these volumes is there a mention of Alexander Hamilton. Not to speak about an “enthusiastic Sanskritist” or “Orientalist” Alexander Hamilton. And there is absolutely no indication in later publications that anybody in Kolkata had ever taken notice of Alexander Hamilton. Quite remarkable, isn’t it?
We have taken notice of Alexander Hamilton whilst we rummaged through available documents. On March 4, 1790, Alexander Hamilton submitted an application to the governor general Lord Cornwallis. This application was detected later among Lord Cornwallis’ personal correspondence. We take a note that the application was in the file of personal correspondence. This is the first specimen of the writing quality of Alexander Hamilton. We quote this application here in full:
“My lord.
I beg leave to submit in the most respectful manner to your Lordship’s consideration, a request which I flatter myself will not be deemed unreasonable, when the motives upon which it is founded are considered. A sense of the utility which might be derived from a knowledge of the Sungscrit language, its importance to the political interests of England in this country, and the conviction of that importance discovered by the Court of Directors in their approbation of the ample salary granted to Mr. Wilkins during the crisis of last war to enable him to prosecute that study, as well as in the letter from their Chairman, congratulating that Gentleman on so extraordinary an attainment, encouraged me to engage in a pursuit, where my own inclination was stimulated by so flattering a precedent. The liberal and enlightened policy of the Honble Court could not fail to suggest to them the difficulty of governing a nation, without an intimate acquaintance with its language, religion, laws, manners and customs: and that with respect to the Hindus who constitute the great body of the people, and who from their superiority in mental endowments as well as in industry and number, merit the first consideration, that knowledge is chiefly to be expected from the development of the science contained in their Sacred Language. Whether these, or motives more cogent influenced the Court of Directors I shall not presume to determine; it is sufficient for my purpose to shew by a respectful reference to that document, that it was their wish to encourage the study, and that such a resolution was founded on the wisest principles of policy. A due regard for your Lordship's time will not permit me to encroach on it so far as would be requisite to prove how essentially the knowledge, to which those researches ultimately tend, is connected with the happiness of the subject and the security of property. The importance of the Sungscrit in a political view requires no elucidation, it being the only language universally diffused over every part of Hindustan, by means of which the Bramins of Bengal, Mysore, Guzerat or the Punjab possess a common medium of communication and intercourse, and from which the vernacular dialects of the Provinces do not materially differ. If those observations which I have purposely compressed convince your Lordship of the superior utility of my present pursuits, I may flatter myself I shall experience no difficulty in obtaining a dispensation from military duty at least whilst I continue supernumerary to the Army Establishment. The routine of Garrison duty being altogether incompatible with similar pursuits I may urge my request on different grounds, as the convenience it affords me of indulging my inclination in the research, is my chief if not my sole motive for continuing in a Service, where I have no prospect of attaining beyond the situation of a Subaltern. Should the exemption I most humbly solicit still appear objectionable, I may yet hope your Lordship will not class this application with those which motives of interest or pecuniary convenience may have produced from others. – I have the honour to be. My Lord. Your Lordships most obedt and very humble Servt
A. Hamilton
Calcutta 4th March 1790
P.S. It appears totally superfluous to add that my request does not extend to an exemption from real service, but to the ordinary routine of Garrison duty exclusively.
To
Earl Cornwallis. K. G.”
There is no indication that his application had ever been officially dealt with. From “The Bengal Calendar” and “The Calcutta Monthly Register” of October 1790 we know that:
“Ensign Alexander Hamilton, having received permission to resign the service, at his own request, his name is struck off the list of the army.”
At the end of 1790, the 2nd volume of Asiatick Researches came out. Therein, also the 2nd membership list of the “Asiatic Society”. Instead of “Lieut. Alexander Hamilton” we read now “Alexander Hamilton. Esq.”. Once again, we take the note that he couldn’t have become a Lieutenant if he was permitted to resign the service later as “Ensign Alexander Hamilton”. But these are in fact trifles and still venial sins of “modern history” as a science, as we shall see. “The Bengal Calendar and Almanac” of 1792 did not include, quite logically, the name Alexander Hamilton any more on the list of the military. On the list of the British “civilians”, there is no Alexander Hamilton. What can be concluded from these facts? Anything else than that he had left Bengal? The modern history as a science is however more imaginative.
The language in the application reveals that Alexander Hamilton is shaky, grammatically insufficient and weak in expressions. Where and when could Alexander Hamilton have learned good writing? In the beginning of the 1780s, he is about 20 years old. Probably he has only a simple school education. He does not have any profession yet. Young people with good professional training didn’t generally join the colonial army. It was then sufficiently known that soldiers died early in subtropical India, if they did not die on the voyage itself. They generally didn’t return rich, if they did return at all.
In all probability, Alexander Hamilton does not have much of a choice in Kolkata. Being an ensign, he learns the craft of a soldier who is generally more used to getting orders than to express himself in talking, not to mention in writing. At the end of 1784 he lands in Bengal, doesn’t earn full pay for five long years and remains an ensign.
The life of a soldier doesn’t suit him. He doesn’t see a future in the army. As an ensign, he has to deal with locally recruited mercenaries. He is a mediator between non-English speaking ordinary soldiers and the British officers. Five years in this position might have enabled him to acquire the language of the local soldiers a little more than officers needed it.
Doing this job, he might have discovered his affinity to the local language more than to his duty of an ensign. By 1790, he becomes aware that even with full pay he would continue to be just a ‘Subaltern’ in the infantry. In view of this despairing perspective, he looks out for a “more civilian” work. “Historians” and biographers should have taken note of the real situation. How could an ensign – who was not even on his full salary – afford an Indian “Pandit” (learned persons) to learn the Sanskrit language? Besides, doesn’t the shaky simple English with grammatical and syntactic errors in his application speak for itself?
We have read his application repeatedly in order to be fair to Alexander Hamilton. He doesn’t show off, he is not a cheat, he is not a swindler. In his simplicity, he just becomes a victim of “gossips” on and about Charles Wilkins, that he made a remarkable career only because he had learned the Sanskrit language. And on ‘ample Salary', of course. Europeans in India were money obsessed. So, all those on top there would draw ‚ample Salary’.
We shall deal also with Charles Wilkins in due course. Alexander Hamilton couldn’t possibly have known Charles Wilkins personally in Kolkata. Otherwise he wouldn’t have referred to him wrongly, nor repeatedly referred to ‘court of Directors’, ‘ample Salary’, ‘crisis of last war’, ‘enable him to prosecute that study’, ‘letter from their Chairman’ ,‘congratulating that gentleman’ in connection with Charles Wilkins. These were rather rumours in the air after Charles Wilkins had left Kolkata in 1786.
It is indeed remarkable that Alexander Hamilton did not apply for “funds” for his study of “Sanskrit” – learning the Sanskrit language without private teachers (Pandits) was not feasible – and, applied only to be freed from ordinary routine service. He wanted to take the burden of the private teacher himself. Or he didn’t know yet that he needed a private teacher to learn the Sanskrit language. Does that mean something? What does it mean?
In October 1790, he leaves the army. We are unable to judge whether his decision to leave the army was desperate or courageous or triggered by some realistic desire for a “more civilian” life. The resignation meant also no regular earnings. What does he do? What could he do?
It is certain that he does not get a job as a “writer”, nor works for a business subsidiary in Bengal. In such a case, his name would have been listed in one of the various “registers” in Kolkata. It is beyond doubt that he had not been a regular resident of Kolkata since 1792. If he stayed in India, he would have appeared in one of the “registers” for sure. This is not the case. The other issue is that there is no evidence showing that he returned to England. Does that mean something? What does it mean?
