• Henry T. Colebrooke to August Wilhelm von Schlegel

  • Place of Dispatch: London GND · Place of Destination: Bonn GND · Date: 15.10.1824
Edition Status: Newly transcribed and labelled; double collated
    Metadata Concerning Header
  • Sender: Henry T. Colebrooke
  • Recipient: August Wilhelm von Schlegel
  • Place of Dispatch: London GND
  • Place of Destination: Bonn GND
  • Date: 15.10.1824
    Printed Text
  • Bibliography: Rocher, Rosane und Ludo Rocher: Founders of Western Indology. August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Henry Thomas Colebrooke in correspondence 1820–1837. Wiesbaden 2013, S. 119–122.
  • Incipit: „[1] Argyll Street
    15th Oct 1824
    My dear Sir
    I have much to apologize to you for the length of time which has elapsed [...]“
    Manuscript
  • Provider: Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
  • OAI Id: DE-1a-33441
  • Classification Number: Mscr.Dresd.e.90,XIX,Bd.5,Nr.56
  • Number of Pages: 3S. auf Doppelbl., hs. m. U. u. Adresse
  • Format: 24,9 x 20,2 cm
    Language
  • English
    Editors
  • Müller, Bianca
  • Varwig, Olivia
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[1] Argyll Street
15th Oct 1824
My dear Sir
I have much to apologize to you for the length of time which has elapsed since I last had the pleasure of writing to you. I should hardly know how to excuse myself, if I had not Mr Lassen’s testimony to appeal to, that I have been busy in your cause, for I know you consider the advancement of Sanscrit literature in that light. Every moment I have been able to snatch from pressing avocations & Business have been devoted to the Mímánsá. I have sacrificed the usual summer excursions to it, and have been nearly all the summer in town; and I have still many months hard work in prospect before I can arrange the plan on which I shall give to the public a summary or indeed any account of that branch of Hindu philosophy.
[2] What may be deemed philosophical in the Mímánsá, in the Mimansa is so mixed up with disquisitions on religious ceremonies, that it is necessary to go completely through both, before any account can be given of either: & the disquisitions on ceremonies as necessarily lead to reading through half the Védas, and this draws attention to all the obsolete words and technical religious terms which abound in them. To turn my labor to the best account, I am seriously considering of taking up two or three great undertakings at the same time: a series of dissertations on religious ceremonies of the Hindus, completing what I began in the Calcutta Asiatic Researches; my dissertation on the Mímánsá, of course; a glossary of obsolete and technical terms; and, were I a younger man, I should be disposed to resume my original plan of dictionary and grammar; vizt an etymological dictionary, and a grammar found[ed] on the rules of Pánini. The recent death of Capt Fell, from whom I hoped the completion of the latter task, has put it into my thoughts. I hesitate, because I hardly could expect to finish the task; & this consideration may probably deter me from setting seriously about it. Meantime I go on provisionally though very far from thinking I shall persevere – I have troubled you with all this detail, to show, that, if I have been lately deficient as a correspondent, it is not because I have been idle.
[3] I have had the pleasure to receive Your letter of 10th Decb last which was Yesterday left at my door by Baron Schilling de Canstadt. I was unluckily out. I will endeavour to see him today or tomorrow
We shall have our first fasciculus of transactions of the R. Asiatic Society early in next month & an early opportunity will be taken of forwarding a copy of it to you I think you will find some articles in it interesting I hope Mr Wilson’s paper on Cashmirian history has appeared to you to be so. We are just going to print a good analytical account of the Pancha tantra by the same author. It will be the fir[st ar]ticle of our second fasciculus.
I must not conclude without thanki[ng you] which [I] do again and again, for your care of my s[on.] I am inclined to hope he is making good progress. I shall be glad to be told, as early as an opinion can be made up on the point, whether he manifests a turn for mathematical studies.
Yours very Sincly
HColebrooke
[4] A Monsieur
Monsieur AW De Schlegel
à Bonn
Sur
Rhin
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Notice (8): Undefined offset: 0 [APP/View/Letters/view.ctp, line 442]/version-04-20/letters/view/4124" data-language="">
[1] Argyll Street
15th Oct 1824
My dear Sir
I have much to apologize to you for the length of time which has elapsed since I last had the pleasure of writing to you. I should hardly know how to excuse myself, if I had not Mr Lassen’s testimony to appeal to, that I have been busy in your cause, for I know you consider the advancement of Sanscrit literature in that light. Every moment I have been able to snatch from pressing avocations & Business have been devoted to the Mímánsá. I have sacrificed the usual summer excursions to it, and have been nearly all the summer in town; and I have still many months hard work in prospect before I can arrange the plan on which I shall give to the public a summary or indeed any account of that branch of Hindu philosophy.
[2] What may be deemed philosophical in the Mímánsá, in the Mimansa is so mixed up with disquisitions on religious ceremonies, that it is necessary to go completely through both, before any account can be given of either: & the disquisitions on ceremonies as necessarily lead to reading through half the Védas, and this draws attention to all the obsolete words and technical religious terms which abound in them. To turn my labor to the best account, I am seriously considering of taking up two or three great undertakings at the same time: a series of dissertations on religious ceremonies of the Hindus, completing what I began in the Calcutta Asiatic Researches; my dissertation on the Mímánsá, of course; a glossary of obsolete and technical terms; and, were I a younger man, I should be disposed to resume my original plan of dictionary and grammar; vizt an etymological dictionary, and a grammar found[ed] on the rules of Pánini. The recent death of Capt Fell, from whom I hoped the completion of the latter task, has put it into my thoughts. I hesitate, because I hardly could expect to finish the task; & this consideration may probably deter me from setting seriously about it. Meantime I go on provisionally though very far from thinking I shall persevere – I have troubled you with all this detail, to show, that, if I have been lately deficient as a correspondent, it is not because I have been idle.
[3] I have had the pleasure to receive Your letter of 10th Decb last which was Yesterday left at my door by Baron Schilling de Canstadt. I was unluckily out. I will endeavour to see him today or tomorrow
We shall have our first fasciculus of transactions of the R. Asiatic Society early in next month & an early opportunity will be taken of forwarding a copy of it to you I think you will find some articles in it interesting I hope Mr Wilson’s paper on Cashmirian history has appeared to you to be so. We are just going to print a good analytical account of the Pancha tantra by the same author. It will be the fir[st ar]ticle of our second fasciculus.
I must not conclude without thanki[ng you] which [I] do again and again, for your care of my s[on.] I am inclined to hope he is making good progress. I shall be glad to be told, as early as an opinion can be made up on the point, whether he manifests a turn for mathematical studies.
Yours very Sincly
HColebrooke
[4] A Monsieur
Monsieur AW De Schlegel
à Bonn
Sur
Rhin
×