The Coming of Age of Imperialism (1772-1813), Part II

Cohn and literature critic Edward Said, among other scholars, who have seen it and Jones' actions as fundamentally hegemonic. Cohn wryly notes that Jones' main intention in studying Sanskrit law and other texts should not be seen as an intention to "rescue" an old, decaying civilization, but rather one to "...free the British judges in India from dependence on what he thought was the venality and corruption of the Indian interpreters of Hindu and Muslim law." [15] Jones, according to Cohn, betrayed this ulterior motive in February 1785 in a letter to then Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, writing that he was almost "...tempted to learn Sanskrit, that I may check on the pandits in the Court." [16] Said joins in this criticism by noting that Jones' desire, as he wrote to his close friend and financial backer the second Earl Spencer in August 1787, was "...to know India better than any other European ever knew it." [17]

Yet while Cohn and Said are, in my opinion, largely correct to attack Jones and others for having additional, mostly negative, motivations for their actions, I think it is unfair to suggest that Jones' only purpose in India was to help establish cultural hegemony. Jones' saw his purpose as much nobler: in a letter written four years later to Spencer, he wrote:

...I speak the language of the Gods, as the Brahmens [sic] call it, with great fluency, and am engaged in superintending a Digest of Indian Law for the benefit of the 24 millions of black Indian subjects in these provinces: the work is difficult & delicate in the highest degree & engages all my leisure every morning between my breakfast and the sitting of the court; the natives are charmed with my work, and the idea of making their slavery lighter by giving them their own laws, is more flattering to me than the thanks of the company and the approbation of the king, which have been transmitted to me [emphasis mine]...." [18]

As shown by this letter, Jones honestly believed that he was articulating a new, more humanitarian mission for the British. Whether in the final analysis Jones should be attacked for being a chief "imaginer" of India [19] or praised for being one of the greatest humanitarians that ever lived, [20] remains unclear. One thing, however, remains perfectly clear. When Jones died at the unfortunate early age of 47 in 1794, unable

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