258 DR J. MUIR'S account OF THE 



before the public as an Orientalist in his translation of the Meghaduta, a poem of 

 Kalidasa, in 1813. He subsequently compiled an extensive and most valuable 

 Sanskrit-English Dictionary, of which the first edition appeared in 1819, and the 

 second, greatly enlarged and improved, in 1832. This is the only complete San- 

 skrit Lexicon which we yet possess ; and though it by no means comes up to the 

 modern standard of lexicography, gives but a very imperfect explanation of philo- 

 sophical terms, and includes few, if any, of the numerous obsolete words which 

 are peculiar to the Vedas, it is yet a work without which Sanskrit studies could 

 never have attained their present flourishing condition. In 1 840, Professor Wilson 

 published his translation of the Vishnu Purana, a system of ancient Hindu mytho- 

 logy and tradition. His last great work was his translation of the Rigveda, of 

 which three volumes appeared from 1850 to 1857, while the remainder is still 

 unpublished. He also contributed to different journals a large number of mis- 

 cellaneous dissertations on various branches of Indian literature, a collected 

 edition of which is now in course of publication.* Among the later English 

 cultivators of Sanskrit I may mention Dr Ballantyne, Professor Fitzedward 

 Hall (who, though an American, was in the Educational service of the British 

 Government in India), Professor Monier Williams, and Mr C. B. Co well. 



Meanwhile, the new language and literature which had been brought to light in 

 the East, had from an early period in this century attracted the attention of Con- 

 tinental scholars, who found in it a most congenial object of study, and an ample 

 field for the exercise of their industry and acuteness. Of these the most eminent 

 names are those of Chezy, Burnouf, and Regnier in France ; the Schlegels, 

 Bopp, Lassen, Rosen, Stenzler, Bohtlingk, Roth, Benfey, Pott, Max Muller, 

 GoLDSTUCKER, Weber, Aufrecht, Haug, and others in or of Germany; and 

 Westergaard in Denmark. I must also add to these foreign names that of 

 professor Whitney in America. 



I think I am doing no injustice to our own countrymen when I say that by 

 far the greatest and most important advances which have of late been made in 

 our knowledge of Indian antiquity are due to Continental scholars. It is to Bopp 

 that we owe the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European tongues, in which 

 the relations of Sanskrit to the languages of the West are exhibited, and the 

 principles of comparative philology are expounded. It was Burnouf of Paris 

 who led the way to an accurate knowledge of the Zend language and literature, 

 and who, by a laborious study of the voluminous MSS. sent to Europe by 

 Mr B. H. Hodgson, first threw a clear light on the rise of Buddhism, and on the 

 history and doctrines of its founder.f It was the young German scholar Rosen 



* For an account of Professor Wilson's career, see the Annual Report of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society for 1860, pp. ii. ff. in the Journal of the Society, vol. xviii. part i. 



•f For a sketch of Burnouf's labours, see the Annual Report of the Royal Asiatic Society for 

 1853, in vol. xv part i. of the Society's Journal. 



