द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

II This great accumulation of material, from about the mid-18th century, led to serious scholarly attention and debate on India, and areas of South East Asia, particularly with regard to their politics, laws, philosophies and sciences, especially Indian astronomy. This contemporary European interest, (especially amongst men like Voltaire, Abbe Raynal and Jean Sylvain Bailly) aroused a similar interest in Britain. This was more so amongst those connected with the University of Edinburgh, like Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, John Playfair²⁶ and A. Maco- nochie. In 1775, Adam Ferguson recommended to his former student, John Macpherson (temporarily to be Governor General of Bengal during 1784-85) ‘to collect the fullest details you can of every circumstance relating to the state and operation of policy in India...That you may the better apprehend what I mean by the detail...select some town and its district. Procure if possible an account of its extent and number of people. The different classes of that people, the occupations, the resources, the way of life of each. How they are related and their mutual dependencies. What contributions Government, or subordinate masters draw from the labourer of any denomination and how it is drawn. But I beg pardon for saying so much of an object which you must know so much better than I do. The man who can bring light from India (i.e. of its material resources, etc.) into this country and who has address to make his light be followed may in a few years hence make himself of great consequence and here I shall conclude my letter...’²⁷ A. Maconochie advocated, on the other hand (first in 1783²⁸ and then again in 1788), the taking of such measures by ‘our monarch, the sovereign of the banks of the Ganges...as may be necessary for discovering, collecting and translating whatever is extent of the ancient works of the Hindoos.’ He thought that if the British ‘procured these works to Europe, astronomy and 14