ever, till the year 1559 that we first hear of the missionaries at Goa studying, with the help of a converted Brahman,1 the theological and philosophical literature of the country, and challenging the Brahmans to public disputations.

The first certain instance of a European missionary having mastered the difficulties of the Sanskrit language, belongs to a still later period, to what may be called the period of Roberto de Nobili, as distinguished from the first period, which is under the presiding spirit of Francis Xavier. Roberto de Nobili I went to India in 1606. He was himself a man of high family, of a refined and cultivated mind, and he perceived the more quickly the difficulties which kept the higher castes, and particularly the Brahmans, from joining the Christian communities formed at Madura and other places. These communities consisted chiefly of men of low rank, of no education, and no refinement. He conceived the bold plan of presenting himself as a Brahman, and thus obtaining access to the high and noble, the wise and learned, in the land. He shut himself up for years, acquiring in secret a knowledge, not only of Tamil and Telugu, but of Sanskrit. When, after a patient study of the language and literature of the Brahmans, he felt himself strong enough to grapple with his antagonists, he showed himself in public, dressed in the proper garb of the Brahmans, wearing their cord and their frontal mark, observing their diet, and submitting even to the complicated rules of caste. He

1 Ibid. p. 80. These Brahmans, according to Robert de Nobili, were of a lower class, not initiated in the sacred literature. They were ignorant, he says, "of the books Smarta, Apostamba, and Sutra." — Müllbauer, p. 188. Robert himself quotes from the Âpastamba-Sûtra, in his defence, ibid. p. 192. He also quotes Scanda Purâna, p. 193; Kadambari, p. 193.

was successful, in spite of the persecutions both of the Brahmans, who were afraid of him, and of his own fellow-laborers, who could not understand his policy. His life in India, where he died as an old blind man, is full of interest to the missionary. I can only speak of him here as the first European Sanskrit scholar. A man who could quote from Manu, from the Purâņas, and even from works such as the Apastamba-sûtras, which are known even at present to only those few Sanskrit scholars who can read Sanskrit MSS., must have been far advanced in a knowledge of the sacred language and literature of the Brahmans; and the very idea that he came, as he said, to preach a new or a fourth Veda,1 which had been lost, shows how well he knew the strong and weak points of the theological system which he came to conquer. It is surprising that the reports which he sent to Rome, in order to defend himself against the charge of idolatry, and in which he drew a faithful picture of the religion, the customs, and literature of the Brahmans, should not have attracted the attention of scholars. The "Accommodation Question," as it was called, occupied cardinals and popes for many years; but not one of them seems to have perceived the extraordinary

1 The Ezour-Veda is not the work of Robert de Nobili. It was probably written by one of his converts. It is in Sanskrit verse, in the style of the Purâņas, and contains a wild mixture of Hindu and Christian doctrine. The French translation was sent to Voltaire and printed by him in 1778, "L'Ezour Vedam traduit du Sanscritam par un Brame." Voltaire expressed his belief that the original was four centuries older than Alexander, and that it was the most precious gift for which the West had been ever indebted to the East. Mr. Ellis discovered the Sanskrit original at Pondichery. (Asiatic Researches, vol. xiv.) There is no evidence for ascribing the work to Robert, and it is not mentioned in the list of his works. (Bertrand, la Mission du Maduré, Paris, 1847-50, t. iii. p. 116; Müllbauer, p. 205, note.)

interest attaching to the existence of an ancient civilization so perfect and so firmly rooted as to require accommodation even from the missionaries of Rome. At a time when the discovery of one Greek MS. would have been hailed by all the scholars of Europe, the discovery of a complete literature was allowed to pass unnoticed. The day of Sanskrit had not yet come.

The first missionaries who succeeded in rousing the attention of European scholars to the extraordinary discovery that had been made were the French Jesuit missionaries, whom Louis XIV. had sent out to India after the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697.1 Father Pons drew up a comprehensive account of the literary treasures of the Brahmans; and his report, dated Karikal (dans le Maduré), November 23, 1740, and addressed to Father Duhalde, was published in the "Lettres édifiantes."2 Father Pons gives in it a most interesting and, in general, a very accurate description of the various branches of Sanskrit literature, of the four Vedas, the grammatical treatises, the six systems of philosophy, and the astronomy of the Hindus. He anticipated, on several points, the researches of Sir William Jones.

But, although the letter of Father Pons excited a deep interest, that interest remained necessarily barren, as long as there were no grammars, dictionaries, and Sanskrit texts to enable scholars in Europe to study Sanskrit in the same spirit in which they studied Greek and Latin. The first who endeavored to supply this want was a Carmelite friar, a German of the name

1 In 1677 a Mr. Marshall is said to have been a proficient in Sanskrit. Elliot's Historians of India, p. 265.

2 See an excellent account of this letter in an article of M. Biot in the "Journal des Savants," 1861.

of Johann Philip Wesdin, better known as Paulinus a Santo Bartholomeo. He was in India from 1776 to 1789; and he published the first grammar of Sanskrit at Rome, in 1790. Although this grammar has been severely criticised, and is now hardly ever consulted, it is but fair to bear in mind that the first grammar of any language is a work of infinitely greater difficulty than any later grammar.1

We have thus seen how the existence of the Sanskrit language and literature was known ever since India had first been discovered by Alexander and his companions. But what was not known was, that this language, as it was spoken at the time of Alexander, and at the time of Solomon, and for centuries before his time, was intimately related to Greek and Latin, in fact, stood to them in the same relation as French to Italian and Spanish. The history of what may be called European Sanskrit philology dates from the foundation of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, in 1784.2 It was through the labors of Sir William Jones, Carey, Wilkins, Forster, Colebrooke, and other members of that illustrious Society, that the language and literature of the Brahmans became first accessible to European

1 Sidharubam seu Grammatica Samserdamica, cui accedit dissertatio historico-critica in linguam Samserdamicam, vulgo Samscret dictam, in qua hujus linguæ existentia, origo, præstantia, antiquitas, extensio, maternitas ostenditur, libri aliqui in ea exarati critice recensentur, et simul aliquæ antiquissimæ gentilium orationes liturgicæ paucis attinguntur et explicantur autore Paulino a S. Bartholomæo. Romæ, 1790.

2 The earliest publications were the "Bhagavadgita," translated by Wilkins, 1785; the "Ilitopadeśa," translated by Wilkins, 1787; and the " Sakuntala," translated by W. Jones, 1789. Original grammars, without mentioning mere compilations, were published by Colebrooke, 1805; by Carey, 1806; by Wilkins, 1808; by Forster, 1810; by Yates, 1820; by Wilson, 1841. In Germany, Bopp published his grammars in 1827, 1832, 1834; Benfey, in 1852 and 1855.

scholars; and it would be difficult to say which of the two, the language or the literature, excited the deepest and most lasting interest. It was impossible to look, even in the most cursory manner, at the declensions and conjugations, without being struck by the extraordinary similarity, or, in some cases, by the absolute identity of the grammatical forms in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. As early as 1778, Halhed remarked, in the preface to his Grammar of Bengalí,1 "I have been astonished to find this similitude of Sanskrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek; and these not in technical and metaphorical terms, which the mutuation of refined arts. and improved manners might have occasionally introduced; but in the main groundwork of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of such things as could be first discriminated on the immediate dawn of civilization." Sir William Jones (died 1794), after the first glance at Sanskrit, declared that whatever its antiquity, it was a language of most wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a strong affinity. "No philologer," he writes, "could examine the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic had the same origin with the Sanskrit. The old Persian may be added to the same family."

1 Halhed had published in 1776 the "Code of Gentoo Laws," a digest of the most important Sanskrit law-books made by eleven Brahmans, by the order of Warren Hastings.