Sir William Jones (1748-1794): The "Good" Orientalist?, Part II

While this assessment of Jones' legacy is generally shared by other pro-Orientalist scholars such as S.N. Mukherjee, the notion that Jones was completely devoid of prejudice is not. Rather Mukherjee sees Jones as a scholar who -- although exceptional in his expansive scholarly work -- was nevertheless a product of his time, who brought into his scholarship many of the biases pervasive in Orientalist circles as well as late eighteenth century Britain.

One of those biases was Jones' belief in British superiority. While there is no debate that Jones greatly admired and respected Indian culture and languages, he first and foremost believed in British and Western superiority. One of the fundaments of this superiority, Jones believed, was the British constitution, something that India lacked. [7] No matter how great India's languages or cultural traditions were their fundamental inferiority ot British institutions lay, Jones believed, in this failure "... to produce a satisfactory system of government." [8]

So fixated was Jones on this "weakness," that one of his more significant epic poems, Britain Discovered, deals directly with the theme. In the poem, several Indian gods and heroes come "...to pay homage to the nuptials of Britain (Royalty) and Albion (Liberty)." As this perfect union of Royalty and Liberty "... could only be found in the British constitution which made Britain far superior to any other nation in the world," and not in India, its absence represented proof to Jones that India was inferior to Britain.

Furthermore, Jones believed that India was inferior to Europe because of its mysteriousness and exoticism. To Jones, "... Asia flourished in the sphere of imagination only whereas 'reason and taste are the grand prerogatives of European minds.' " [9] What was truly special about India was its far distant glorious past, not its mundane present. Even if Sanskrit was "... more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either..." [10] and Hindu gods the rough equivalent of Greek and Roman ones, Indian civilization had not progressed beyond this whereas European civilization did. Until Indian civlization reversed this trend, Jones argued, it would never become the equivalent of the European.

And yet, despite this blatantly racist and hegemonic discourse, Mukherjee shies away from a completely damning critique of Jones. Unlike Edward Said, who criticizes Jones for his large role in creating cultural hegemony, [11] Mukherjee praises him for enabling an Indian renaissance to occur. As this

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