I 9 
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 
Those interested will, from this reference and with this guiding 
estimate, be able to follow up this line of thought for themselves. 
What specially interests us is the beginning of this interest in 
Sanskrit, which was from the first scientific rather than literary. 
Colebrooke’s love of mathematics and astronomy made him 
anxious to find out what the Brahmans had achieved in this branch 
of knowledge, and Max Müller draws attention to the surprising 
correctness of his first letter to his father on the four modes of 
reckoning time adopted by Hindu astronomers. “ In stating the 
rule for finding the planets which preside over the day called 
Hora, he was the first to point out the palpable coincidence be 
tween that expression and our name for the twenty-fourth part of 
the day.” * But that his literary enthusiasm was at this time not 
very great is clear from his reference to other scholars, and his 
opinion that all to be expected from Sanskrit was that a tew ary 
facts might possibly reward the literary drudge. He himself took 
up the study and left it again in despair several times, and in 1793 
wrote that “ no historical light can be expected from Sanskrit 
literature ; but it may, nevertheless, be curious, if not useful, to 
publish such of their legends as seem to resemble others known to 
European mythology,” at which Max Müller exclaims : “ The first 
glimmering of comparative mythology in 1793 ! ” Even then his 
studies were guided by a practical rather than by a literary motive. 
He was keenly interested, for instance, in the agriculture of the 
Hindus, and possibly not only the Astronomical Society and the 
Asiatic Society might reckon him as a pioneer, but also those who 
study the history of agriculture. The Asiatic Society he founded 
in 1822, though he refused to become the first President. We may 
regard it therefore as specially significant that he occupied our 
own Chair at about the same date. He had spent thirty-three 
years in India, having arrived there in 1783 when only seventeen 
years of age, and left it in 1815 at the age of fifty. His essays were 
collected by his son, who added a brief life of his father, and it 
was the appearance of a new edition of these two volumes that 
gave occasion for Max Müller’s essay. The portrait of him which 
hangs in our meeting-room is from a painting in the possession of 
the family, and was kindly presented to us. 
One point of detail may be mentioned. On 1821 June 8 the 
Council, who had to settle the type for the Memoirs, resolved to 
adopt the same as that of Colebrooke’s Indian Algebra. 
* In Colebrooke’s Miscellaneous Essays, vol. ii., there are two lengthy 
papers (reprinted from the Asiatic Researches), “On the Indian and Arabian 
Divisions of the Zodiac ” and “ On the Notion of the Hindu Astronomers 
concerning the Precession of the Equinoxes and Motions of the Planets.” 
Also an essay “On the Algebra of the Hindus,” reprinted from Colebrooke’s 
translation of Brahmegupta’s Algebra.