1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 19 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 Muller 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 Hord, 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 few dry 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 Muller 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 Miiller'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.
