civilization – Jones, Prinsep and Cunningham. Of the three, Cunningham alone really knew India. Sir William Jones was the founding genius and figure-head, Mr Secretary Prinsep the organizer and scientist, andAlexander Cunningham the explorer and field-worker. During more than fifty years in India he travelled from the steaming jungles of Burma to the arid hills bordering Afghanistan, and from the remotest tracts of Central India to the Tibetan lands beyond the Great Himalaya. He probably marched more miles on Indian soil than any of his contemporaries. Not only was he ‘the father of Indian archaeology’but, for a quarter of a century, he was Indian archaeology. And all this at a time when the British seemed to have turned their backs on Indian civilization.
Cunningham had arrived, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, in 1833. His father, the Scots poet Allan Cunningham, had enlisted the help of his old friend Sir Walter Scott in procuring commissions in India for both his boys. For a manwho wrote ‘It’s hame, and it’s hame, hame fain wad I be’, India was an odd choice for his sons. But the Cunninghams were not wealthy, and a career in India, if no longer a short cut to fortune and fame, offered many possibilities and had now become highly respectable.
After three years in Benares, and the excavation at Sarnath, Cunningham was called to Calcutta to serve as an ADC to Lord Auckland.In the Governor-General’s party he made the annual pilgrimage up to Simla and paid his first visit to Ranjit Singh’s Punjab. Emily Eden, Auckland’s caustic sister, found the young ‘AC’ attentive and agreeable. With an eye for the picturesque, she sketched such antiquities as fell along their route; the studious ADC, meanwhile, ferreted about for coins and inscriptions and offered quaint explanationsof their history.
To Emily Eden this was just a mild eccentricity, although to others such behaviour now appeared distinctly unsound. A cold wind of intolerance and distaste for India and its civilization was sweeping through the British ranks. That deep sense of wonder experienced by Jones, shared by the men like Fell who first discovered India’s monuments, and still cherished by the likes ofPrinsep and Cunningham, was no longer in fashion. All that remained was the passing fancy for the picturesque shown by Emily Eden; and this was too insubstantial to conceal deeper feelings of outrage and disgust. The Orientalists, who not long before had been hailed as equals of the Renaissance humanists, were in disgrace. Warren Hastings’s ideal of a partially Indianized civil service had beenrejected and the Indian raj was slowly making way for the British Empire.
Three new influences were at work. On the one hand there were the Evangelicals, horrified by the idea that Christians could take the idolatry and improprieties of a pagan culture seriously, seeing in India an unlimited field for missionary activity, and insisting that it was part of a Christian government’s duty to promotethis. Then there were the Utilitarians, pouncing on India as prime territory for putting into effect their cherished reforms aimed at ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. This was what civilization was all about and, since progress and utility did not appear to feature in India’s so-called civilizations, they were hardly worthy of serious attention. James Mill, father of John Stuart, hadpublished his history of India in 1818. Though Mill spoke no Indian languages, indeed had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian society and religion had become the standard work – required reading for all who would serve in India.
Finally, unifying these two opposing themes, there was the rising crescendo of national superiority. No longer did the British feel any sneaking senseof surprise at their success in India. Clearly it was ordained, either by the Almighty as the Evangelicals would have it, or by history as the Utilitarians
Cunningham had arrived, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, in 1833. His father, the Scots poet Allan Cunningham, had enlisted the help of his old friend Sir Walter Scott in procuring commissions in India for both his boys. For a manwho wrote ‘It’s hame, and it’s hame, hame fain wad I be’, India was an odd choice for his sons. But the Cunninghams were not wealthy, and a career in India, if no longer a short cut to fortune and fame, offered many possibilities and had now become highly respectable.
After three years in Benares, and the excavation at Sarnath, Cunningham was called to Calcutta to serve as an ADC to Lord Auckland.In the Governor-General’s party he made the annual pilgrimage up to Simla and paid his first visit to Ranjit Singh’s Punjab. Emily Eden, Auckland’s caustic sister, found the young ‘AC’ attentive and agreeable. With an eye for the picturesque, she sketched such antiquities as fell along their route; the studious ADC, meanwhile, ferreted about for coins and inscriptions and offered quaint explanationsof their history.
To Emily Eden this was just a mild eccentricity, although to others such behaviour now appeared distinctly unsound. A cold wind of intolerance and distaste for India and its civilization was sweeping through the British ranks. That deep sense of wonder experienced by Jones, shared by the men like Fell who first discovered India’s monuments, and still cherished by the likes ofPrinsep and Cunningham, was no longer in fashion. All that remained was the passing fancy for the picturesque shown by Emily Eden; and this was too insubstantial to conceal deeper feelings of outrage and disgust. The Orientalists, who not long before had been hailed as equals of the Renaissance humanists, were in disgrace. Warren Hastings’s ideal of a partially Indianized civil service had beenrejected and the Indian raj was slowly making way for the British Empire.
Three new influences were at work. On the one hand there were the Evangelicals, horrified by the idea that Christians could take the idolatry and improprieties of a pagan culture seriously, seeing in India an unlimited field for missionary activity, and insisting that it was part of a Christian government’s duty to promotethis. Then there were the Utilitarians, pouncing on India as prime territory for putting into effect their cherished reforms aimed at ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. This was what civilization was all about and, since progress and utility did not appear to feature in India’s so-called civilizations, they were hardly worthy of serious attention. James Mill, father of John Stuart, hadpublished his history of India in 1818. Though Mill spoke no Indian languages, indeed had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian society and religion had become the standard work – required reading for all who would serve in India.
Finally, unifying these two opposing themes, there was the rising crescendo of national superiority. No longer did the British feel any sneaking senseof surprise at their success in India. Clearly it was ordained, either by the Almighty as the Evangelicals would have it, or by history as the Utilitarians
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