Michael Dodson

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Re-Presented for the Pandits: James Ballantyne, ‘Useful Knowledge,’ and

Sanskrit Scholarship in Benares College during the Mid-Nineteenth
Century
Michael S. Dodson
Modern Asian Studies / Volume 36 / Issue 02 / May 2002, pp 257 - 298

DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X02002019, Published online: 25 April 2002
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0026749X02002019
How to cite this article:

Michael S. Dodson (2002). Re-Presented for the Pandits: James Ballantyne, ‘Useful Knowledge,’ and Sanskrit Scholarship
in Benares College during the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Modern Asian Studies, 36, pp 257-298 doi:10.1017/
S0026749X02002019
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Modern Asian Studies 36, 2 (2002), pp. 257–298.  2002 Cambridge University Press
DOI:10.1017/S0026749X02002019 Printed in the United Kingdom
Re-Presented for the Pandits: James

Ballantyne, ‘Useful Knowledge,’ and Sanskrit
Scholarship in Benares College during the
Mid-Nineteenth Century
M I C H A E L S. D O D S O N
University of Cambridge
In January of 1853, the Lt Governor of the North-Western Provinces,

James Thomason, inaugurated a new building in Banaras, situated
perhaps halfway between the European cantonment and the ghats
which line the sacred river Ganga. Designed in a high Gothic style
by Major Kittoe, this was to be the new home of the Benares College,
which incorporated one of the largest, and most symbolically import-
ant, Sanskrit departments of any British educational institution in
north India. The building itself, which is now incorporated into Sam-
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented to the Commonwealth and
Overseas History Seminar, University of Cambridge, as well as to the South Asia
History Seminar, University of Cambridge. Many thanks to all those who provided
comments and criticism. I would also like to express my gratefulness to Prof. Chris
Bayly, Dr Eivind Kahrs, Dr Richard Young, and Dr Vasudha Dalmia, all of whom
have been very supportive of this work and generous with their comments and sug-
gestions. In Varanasi, I am grateful to Shri Chandradhar Prasad Narayan Singh, Dr
Avadesh Kumar Chaube, Prof. Anand Krishna, Dr Dhirendranath Singh, Mahant
Vir Bhadra Mishra, and Shri Deomani Yagik of Vishvanatha Pustakalaya for their
individual help and support. Thanks are also due to the Government of West Bengal
for granting me access to the records of Benares College, the staff of the West
Bengal State Archives in Calcutta for the assistance they provided, as well as to the
very helpful staff of the Oriental and India Office Collection reading room in the
British Library, London. This research has been supported, both in the UK and in
India, by the kind financial assistance of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, the
Overseas Research Students Scheme, the Smuts Memorial Fund, the Rapson Fund,
the Holland Rose Fund, and the Worts Travelling Scholars Fund.
Abbreviations
BL British Library, London
GCPI General Committee of Public Instruction
LCPI Local Committee of Public Instruction
NWP North-Western Provinces (of the Bengal Presidency)
OIOC Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, London
WBSA West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta
0026–749X/02/$7.50+$0.10
257
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258 MICHAEL S. DODSON
purnanand Sanskrit University, somewhat resembles a Christian

church, for it is a long structure with high vaulted ceilings and a
large stained glass window in the wall opposite the main entrance
doors. Inscribed into the walls are verses in English and Hindi; one
counsels that ‘the lips of truth shall be established forever, a lying
tongue is but for a moment.’ Under this roof, it was intended that
the knowledges of East and West would, in some sense, be united,
for the College’s Superintendent during the mid-nineteenth century,
James Ballantyne, was pursuing a pedagogy which was intended to
demonstrate to the learned Hindu elite that the truths of European
philosophy and science, while constituting a significant advancement
upon Hindu learning, might also be reached by way of the latter’s
sound, yet undeveloped, premises. As such, Thomason spoke to the
audience present that day of the Benares College as a beacon in the
midst of a waning brahmanical system, from which enlightenment
would spread forth: ‘one instrument in the mighty change.’1
Historical studies of the colonial encounter in India have largely
shifted from a focus upon economic and political conflict and co-
operation, to analyses of the pragmatics of knowledge formation,
whether as intellectual history or the history of science. In addition,
the history of Christian missionary work in India has begun to
embrace contexts outside that traditionally addressed in a ‘history
of the missions.’ In the following pages I present an analysis of an
interesting, and largely unknown, example of the colonial encounter
in nineteenth-century India, which embraces both these fields of
enquiry, through the development of a history of the Benares San-
skrit College, from its establishment in 1791 to the radical changes
enforced upon its Sanskrit curriculum during the 1840s and 1850s.
As such, I attempt to serve several distinct objectives, the first of
which is to provide an account of the pedagogical project of James
Ballantyne, the College Superintendent from 1846 to 1861, who
attempted to employ Sanskrit-based education in Western ‘useful
knowledge’ as a tool for the propagation of Christianity among the
Hindu learned elite. An examination of Ballantyne’s pedagogy is an
important element of the intellectual history of mid-nineteenth-
century European ‘orientialists’ working in India, because it high-
lights the importance which Sanskrit and Sanskrit-based learning
1
‘Speech of the Hon’ble James Thomason, Lt Gov., NWP, at the Opening of the
Benares New College on the 11th January, 1853,’ BL, OIOC, V/23/128, Art. III,
‘Papers Regarding the Benares College.’

SANSKRIT SCHOLARSHIP IN BENARES COLLEGE 259
continued to play in dialogues over the nature of truthful know-
ledge in mid-nineteenth-century north India, as well as the intel-
lectual genealogies which men such as Ballantyne brought to bear
upon their interlocutors. In addition, this paper provides a descrip-
tion of the functioning of the College during the earlier years of
the nineteenth century, at a time in which the curriculum largely
mirrored that pursued in ‘traditional’ seminaries outside the scope
of governmental control. This will enable the more effective place-
ment of the introduction of Western ‘useful knowledge’ to the
College’s pandits into its supporting context. While Ballantyne has
been largely overlooked by historians of nineteenth-century India,
this is now beginning to change with the increased interest in
historicizing the colonial encounter within Sanskrit scholarship; a
trend which is particularly evident in the attention paid to the
exchanges between Lancelot Wilkinson and the pandits of Sehore
on the subject of astronomy.2 Although an analysis of Ballantyne’s
work stands on its own, to some extent, it is necessarily incomplete
without at least a tentative acknowledgement of the agency of
those to whom the pedagogy was directed.3 As such, the final
objective of this paper is to utilise the analysis of Ballantyne’s
educational project as a basis upon which to begin to develop a
parallel, though perhaps not complimentary, history of the pandits
of Benares College during this period. In particular, I am interes-
ted in the last section of this paper to provide suggestive instances
which demonstrate their agency in facilitating the curriculum
changes brought about at the College, and simultaneously aspects
of their engagement with, and uses of, the naya vidya (‘new
knowledge’) within the emerging public sphere of mid-nineteenth
century Banaras.
2
I am thinking here of the recent work of C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information:
Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996); G. Prakash, ‘Science Between the Lines,’ in s. Amin
and D. Chakrabarty (eds), Subaltern Studies IX, Writings on South Asian History and
Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); R. F. Young, ‘Receding from
Antiquity: Responses to Science and Christianity on the Margins of Empire, 1800–
1850,’ forthcoming in a series entitled ‘Studies in the History of Christian Mission’
and published by Curzon/Eerdmans; and C. Z. Minkowski, ‘The Pandit as Public
Intellectual: the Controversy of Virodha or Inconsistency in the Astronomical
Sciences,’ forthcoming in A. Michaels (ed.), The Pandit: Traditional Sanskrit Scholarship
in India (Festschrift P. Aithal) (Heidelberg: South Asia Institute, New Delhi: Manohar
Publications).
3
Compare the approach of G. Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest (London: Faber &
Faber, 1990), see esp. pp. 11–12.

Banaras has long been a symbolically important city within India:

situated on the western bank of the river Ganga, it is a prominent
place of pilgrimage and ritual, as well as a major centre of Sanskrit
scholarship.4 During the eighteenth century, as centralized Mughal
political power abated, Banaras also became an important commer-
cial centre due to the decline of Murshidabad and the Jagat Seths
in Bengal, the agricultural performance of surrounding districts, in
addition to its location on the growing trade route between the Mar-
athas in the west and Bengal.5 As such, Banaras attracted cultural
patronage and investment from politically and socially emergent
groups, wishing both to establish symbols of legitimation and incur
religious merit. Indeed, it has been noted that Banaras as it appears
today is largely a creation of the Marathas, who constructed numer-
ous ghats and temples, including the rebuilding of the Vishvanath
mandir.6 In addition, with the passing of the zamindar of Banaras to
Mansaram in 1734, the effective political control of the region
shifted from the Nawab of Awadh to members of the Bhumihar
brahman clan, who were eager to construct the symbols of traditional
Hindu kingship.7 In this context of patronage and economic growth,
Banaras flourished as a centre for Sanskrit education, compounding
its already established reputation in vyakarana (grammar), nyaya
(logic), dharmashastra (law, codes of conduct), and jyotish (astronomy,
astrology, mathematics).8 When Francois Bernier visited Banaras in
4
For more on Banaras, see, for example, D. Eck, Banaras: City of Light (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); S. B. Freitag (ed.), Culture and Power in Banaras:
Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800–1980 (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1989); D. Moticandra, Kashi ka Itihas (Bombay: Hindi Grantha-
Ratnakar, 1962); and V. Dalmia, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu
Harischandra and Nineteenth-century Banaras (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
For an examination of the economic and political changes taking place in north
India generally, and their effects on Banaras in particular, during the late eight-
eenth century and beyond, see C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian
Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1992 reprint edition).
5
Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p. 104.
6
A. S. Altekar, Benares and Sarnath: Past and Present (Varanasi: Banaras Hindu
University, 1947), p. 24, quoted in Eck, Banaras: City of Light, p. 90.
7
Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p. 18; Dalmia, The Nationalization of Hindu
Traditions, pp. 67–9. See also P. Lutgendorf, ‘Ram’s Story in Shiva’s City: Public
Arenas and Private Patronage’ in Freitag (ed.), Culture and Power in Banaras.
8
Several well known scholars associated with vyakarana made their homes in Ban-
aras, most prominent among them Nagesha Bhatta, author of a celebrated late

the mid-seventeenth century, he described the city as the ‘Athens of
India,’ and noted the presence of numerous teachers, installed in the
gardens of the city’s rich merchants, who each taught between four
and fifteen students.9 During the eighteenth century, there existed
a network of small pathshalas (or ‘seminaries’), the extent of which
can be roughly estimated by William Ward’s 1817 account of the
city. In A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos,
Ward provides a detailed list of the teachers in Banaras, their loca-
tion, and the number of students each taught, which ranged from
about ten up to thirty in some cases. The list includes some 80
teachers, the majority of which were devoted entirely to teaching the
vedas, with a total of nearly 1400 students.10 The subjects of tuition
in these pathshalas corresponded to the ‘traditional’ division of
knowledge into the fourteen vidyas, and included the four vedas, vyaka-
rana, jyotish, dharma, purana (history and mythology) and the philo-
sophical systems of nyaya, vedanta, mimamsa, and samkhya. Students
began their ten-to-twelve-year course of instruction with the study
of vyakarana, progressing to philosophy, literature, the dharmashastra
or jyotish once they had attained a suitable command of Paninian
grammar.
As control of Banaras passed to the British in the late eighteenth
century, the British Resident, Jonathan Duncan, recognized the
importance of Sanskrit patronage for constructing the symbols of
legitimacy and authority of rule for his incipient government in Ban-
aras, and thereby established the Benares Sanskrit College in 1791.11
seventeenth or early eighteenth-century commentary upon Kaiyata’s pradipa of Pat-

anjali’s Mahabhashya. Jyotish scholarship also figured prominently in Banaras, as it
was a centre of ritual. For a list of topics and scholars associated with Banaras
in the pre-colonial period, see B. Upadhyay, Kashi ki Panditya Parampara (Varanasi:
Visvavidyalaya Prakashan, 1994 [revised edition]), pp. 24–76.
9
F. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656–1668, A. Constable(trans.)
(Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1968), p. 334.
10
W. Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos: including a
minute description of their manners and customs, and translations from their principal works. In
three volumes (London: Kingsbury, Parbury & Allen: 1822 [1818 orig.]), vol. 2, pp.
490–3. See also R. Gabriel, ‘Learned Communities and British Educational Experi-
ments in North India: 1780–1830,’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Virginia,
1979, pp. 32–9. This number almost certainly represents an underestimation, how-
ever, as in 1850 Thornton was able to enumerate 193 Sanskrit ‘schools’ with 1,939
scholars. See R. Thornton, Memoir on the Statistics of Indigenous Education within the
North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1850),
p. 92.
11
For a detailed study of Duncan’s administration of Banaras during the late
eighteenth century, especially as the East India Company’s ruling power developed

In a letter to the Governor-General in Council, Duncan described

the advantages to be gained from the establishment of the College
to be two-fold: the endearment of the East India Company’s govern-
ment to the ‘native Hindoos,’ through the attention paid to their
indigenous systems of learning; and second, the preservation and
dissemination of ‘Hindoo law,’ such that the College would, in time,
become a ‘nursery of future doctors and expounders thereof, to assist
the European judges in the due, regular, and uniform administration
of its genuine letter and spirit to the body of the people.’12 Yet the
Sanskrit College was also intended to at least partially displace the
politically-charged relationship of patronage which the Raja had cul-
tivated with the city’s Sanskrit scholars. Additionally, as Banaras
loomed large in the British imagination as the fountainhead of Hind-
uism, the establishment of the Sanskrit College may be interpreted
as an attempt to bring under British control the city’s pandits, who
were thought to be the authoritative guardians and interpreters of
the shastra: the texts which contained the cultural, religious, and
legal information necessary for an effective administration of the
territory under Hastings’ policy of ruling India’s native populations
according to their own laws.13
following the overthrow of Raja Chait Singh in 1781 by Warren Hastings, see V. A.
Narain, Jonathan Duncan and Varanasi (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1959).
12
J. Duncan, Benares Resident, to Earl Cornwallis, Governor-General in Council,
1st January, 1792, reprinted in Bengal Past and Present, vol. 8, no. 14, Jan.–March
1914, pp. 130–3).
13
‘The Plan for the Administration of Justice’ in the 15th August, 1772 proceed-
ings of the Committee of Circuit, in ‘The Seventh Report from the Committee of
Secrecy appointed to enquire into the State of the East India Company,’ dated 6th
May, 1773, in Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, 1715–1801, vol. IV. See
also B. S. Cohn, ‘Law and the Colonial State in India,’ in History and Power in the
Study of Law: New Directions in Legal Anthropology, J. Starr and J. F. Collier (eds)
(Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1989).
Vasudha Dalmia, in her study of Benares Sanskrit College, which incorporates
large sections of George Nicholls’ 1848 institutional biography, also draws attention
to British motivations based upon the ‘salvaging motif;’ that is, the British anxiety
to preserve ancient cultural information in its colonial territories before its loss
under the inadequate care of the ‘degraded’ native intelligentsia. See V. Dalmia,
‘Sanskrit Scholars and Pandits of the Old School: The Benares Sanskrit College and
the Constitution of Authority in the Late Nineteenth Century,’ in Journal of Indian
Philosophy, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 321–37, as well as the relevant sections in her sustained
work on Banaras, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions. See also G. Nicholls, Sketch of
the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patschalla or Sanskrit College, Now Forming the Sanskrit
Department of the Sanskrit College (Allahabad: Government Press, United Provinces,
1907 [original printing 1848]).

From the outset, the content of the ‘traditional’ curriculum taught
at Benares Sanskrit College, as well as its method of transmission,
continued to be wholly determined by the pandits who instructed
there, at least until the early 1840s.14 Each pandit taught one par-
ticular topic, depending upon his expertise, and was free to read in
that class the relevant Sanskrit texts of his choosing. In significant
ways, then, the pedagogy pursued at the Sanskrit College mirrored
that which was pursued in the local pathshalas both before and
during British rule in the nineteenth century. Yet during the first
years of its operation, the administration of Benares Sanskrit College
was fraught with difficulty, resulting, in the first instance, from the
basic incommensurability of two culturally divergent sets of expecta-
tions regarding the system of tuition pursued there. On the one
hand, British administrative requirements demanded that the curric-
ulum of the College be implemented with consistency; that the pro-
gress and achievements of its students be measurable and demon-
strable with certainty; and that the management of the College itself
be regular, transparent and predictable. On the other hand, the pan-
dits and their students, unfamiliar with the structural changes con-
tained within a move from ‘traditional’ methods of tuition in small,
local pathshalas, to a centralized institution, integrated novelties
such as compulsory attendance, attendance records, students’ sti-
pends, and examinations into their own ways of understanding San-
skrit pedagogy, often to the frustration of British objectives.15 Yet it
is worth making explicit here that the attempted institutionalization
of Sanskrit learning in Banaras seemingly did not result in the mar-
ginalization of the numerous small private seminaries in the city, as
these continued to flourish, at least into the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury.16 Indeed, many of the pandits who taught in the Government’s
14
Butler, ‘Report on the System of Instruction followed in the Sanscrit College
at Benares,’ March 8th, 1841, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and
Seminary (1 Jan. 1840–8 Sept. 1842), SL/No. 59, vol. 11, part 4, ff. 547–54. The
author, who was officiating secretary to the Banaras LCPI, notes that the pandits
pursued ‘their own plans of instruction,’ and that ‘nothing approaching to a system-
atic study of Sanscrit philology or literature or of Hindu philosophy [had] ever been
attempted.’
15
The most obvious example of this sort of misunderstanding is that of Kashina-
tha Shastri, the first Principal of the College, who thought that students’ stipends
constituted part of his salary. He was dismissed from his post on this basis. See
Nicholls, Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patschalla, p. 6, also Dalmia,
‘Sanskrit Scholars and Pandits of the Old School,’ p. 324.
16
See above, Thornton, Memoir on the Statistics of Indigenous Education, p. 92.

Sanskrit College returned home in the evenings to teach students

privately.17 Nor did the College’s presence in the city elide the rela-
tionship of patronage which the Raja of Banaras cultivated with San-
skrit scholars, for he continued to maintain his own court of pandits
at Ramnagar,18 as well as providing financial support to those stu-
dents who wished to study at the government institution.19
An examination of the institutional history of Benares Sanskrit
College throughout most of the first half of the nineteenth century
will show it to be a history of review committees, all of which were
seemingly dedicated to discovering the source of the institution’s
perceived shortcomings and defects, as official views on the use-
fulness and desirability of retaining Sanskrit tuition developed.20 For
example, on 17 March 1820, the Committee for the Superintend-
ence of Benares College, consisting of W. A. Brooke, F. Hamilton,
W. W. Bird, H. H. Wilson, and Captain E. Fell,21 submitted to the
British Government of India a report on the ‘utility and credit’ of
the College, stating that while its presence in Banaras undoubtedly
endeared the city’s residents to the government, it had, nonetheless,
failed to live up to its second stated objective: the production of
native interlocutors for the regular implementation of Hindu law in
the Company’s courts.22 Having produced only two such ‘expounders
17
See G. Nicholls to LCPI, Benares, August 1839, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence,
Benares College and Seminary (2 Jan. 1838–28 Dec. 1839), SL/No. 58, vol. 10, part
3, ff. 1001–16.
18
See, for example, Upadhyay, Kashi ki Panditya Parampara, pp. 113–33.
19
The Raja not only donated the land and money for the initial establish-
ment of the Sanskrit College in 1791, but also contributed financially to the
annual prizes awarded to students. The College’s Sanskrit name was the
kashistharajakiyasamskritapathashala.
20
The bulk of Nicholls’s 1848 Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patschalla
is constituted by extracts from the reports generated by these review committees.
See also their select quotation in Dalmia’s ‘Sanskrit Scholars and Pandits of the Old
School,’ pp. 324–7.
21
From the early nineteenth century, Benares Sanskrit College was administered
by a Committee of Superintendence, among whose members included a Secretary
to be based in Banaras. Following the creation of the General Committee of Public
Instruction July 3rd 1823, the College was administered locally by a Local Commit-
tee of Public Instruction and a Secretary to Benares College, both of whom answered
to the General Committee of Public Instruction in Calcutta.
22
H. H. Wilson and Capt. E. Fell, to W. A. Brooke, F. Hamilton, W. W. Bird, and
H. H. Wilson, Committee of the Hindu College of Benares, March 3rd, 1820; and
W. A. Brooke, F. Hamilton, W. W. Bird, and H. H. Wilson, Committee of the Hindu
College of Benares, to H. Mackenzie, Secretary to Government in the Territorial
Department, March 17th, 1820, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence relating to Hindu
College, Benares (3 March 1820–16 Dec. 1828), SL/No. 55/2, vol. 7, ff. 9–20 and

of Hindu law’ in thirty years, the report was pessimistic regarding
the College’s future prospects, given the current students’ ‘want of
acquirement’ under the present administrative arrangement. The
report therefore recommended the introduction of a ‘regularity of
method, and incitement or enforcement of attention, [so that] the
College may conduce very powerfully to preserve and diffuse the
knowledge of Hindu literature, language, and law amongst the class
of men whose duty and business it is particularly to possess it.’ The
measures suggested included the introduction of yearly examinations
and public disputations, certificates of education and proficiency, and
the appointment of a Sanskrit-speaking European Superintendent.23
These steps sought to provide a visibility and an accountability to the
workings of the Sanskrit College, rendering the process of knowledge
transmission transparent to the colonial eye, while bringing it fur-
ther under the latter’s determining control.
Concerns over the content of the curriculum at Benares Sanskrit
College also began to be expressed, as early as 1823, by members of
government affiliated with the newly-founded General Committee of
Public Instruction. The drive for the incorporation of ‘useful know-
ledge, including the sciences and arts of Europe’24 into the curric-
ulum was met with resistance from many associated with the Col-
lege, including its secretary, Captain Fell, who once remarked to
H. H. Wilson that he feared ‘it will subvert the basis on which the
College was originally formed,’ adding, ‘and I do without any preju-
dice think that at Benares the Sanskrita College should remain invi-
olate—let them try it in the metropolis.’25 But even those generally
sympathetic to the Sanskrit College’s aim of ‘preserving, cultivating,
and improving Hindu literature,’ including Fell’s successor Captain
Thoresby, expressed various misgivings over the subjects of study at
the College, including the ‘defective method’ of Paninian grammar,26
21–45 respectively. See also Nicholls, Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares
Patschalla.
23
A European Superintendent was not forthcoming until 1844, however, in the
form of John Muir. In the meantime, Benares Sanskrit College continued to be run
day-to-day by a European Secretary, who answered to a committee.
24
A. Stirling, Persian Secretary to Government, to General Committee of Public
Instruction, July 31st 1823, quoted in Nicholls, Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the
Benares Patschalla, pp. 50–1.
25
E. Fell to H. H. Wilson, June 18th 1823, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss. E301/1, Wilson
Papers, ff. 122–4.
26
H. H. Wilson and Captain E. Fell, to W. A. Brooke, F. Hamilton, W. W. Bird,
and H. H. Wilson, Committee of the Hindu College of Benares, March 3rd, 1820,

the superstitious content of much of the jyotish class (i.e. the practice
of astrology),27 and the uncritical memorization and repetition of
verses in the Veda class.28
By the end of the 1820s, and through most of the 1830s, an Angli-
cist agenda for a programme of native education in ‘useful know-
ledge,’ through an English-language medium, came to dominate the
General Committee of Public Instruction in Calcutta. This agenda,
often enforced through sympathetic members of the Local Commit-
tee in Banaras, had far-reaching practical effects upon government-
sponsored Sanskrit-based education there.29 Anglicists within the
British Government of India, foremost among them Macaulay and
Trevelyan, deemed to determine the nature of truth and valid know-
ledge in the colonized sphere, and enforce its study so as to promote
the creation of an assimilated intermediary class, which would, in
turn, create the conditions for an improvement in India’s moral and
civilizational state. Western knowledge was prioritized as valid and
useful, the mark of an ascendant civilization. Correspondingly,
‘native learning’ was devalued, determined to be of less worth than
‘a single shelf of a good European library.’30 In 1829, Captain Tho-
resby wrote to the General Committee outlining a comprehensive
plan to extend government-sponsored education in Banaras with the
establishment of a madrassa for instruction in Persian and Arabic, as
well as the establishment of an English seminary for the impartation
of ‘the English language and of European literature . . . sound, prac-
tical knowledge.’ The General Committee rejected his proposal for
WBSA, GCPI Correspondence relating to Hindu College, Benares (3 March 1820–

16 Dec. 1828), SL/No. 55/2, vol. 7, ff. 9–20.
27
W. A. Brooke, F. Hamilton, W. W. Bird, and H. H. Wilson, Committee of the
Hindu College of Benares, to H. Mackenzie, Secretary to Government in the Territ-
orial Department, March 17th, 1820, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence relating to
Hindu College, Benares (3 March 1820–16 Dec. 1828), SL/No. 55/2, vol. 7, ff. 21–
45.
28
See also Captain C. Thoresby to Committee of Superintendence for the Hindu
College, Benares, February 20th 1827, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence relating to
Hindu College, Benares (3 March 1820–16 Dec. 1828), SL/No. 55/2, vol. 7 (Book
2), ff. 583–96.
29
Key primary sources on the orientalist/Anglicist education debate include: J.
Macaulay, ‘Minute,’ February 2nd 1835, in Selections from Educational Records, Part 1,
1781–1839, H. Sharp (ed.) (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920),
pp. 107–17; C. E. Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India (London: Longman,
Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1838); B. H. Hodgson, Preeminence of the Verna-
culars; or the Anglicists Answered. Being two letters on the education of the people of India
(Serampore: Serampore Press, 1837).
30
Macaulay, ‘Minute,’ p. 109.

the madrassa, yet approved that portion of his plan relating to the
establishment of the English seminary.31 Henceforth, the ‘progress’
and ‘utility’ of the Sanskrit College, and therefore the ‘utility’ of
‘native learning’ itself in Banaras, could be measured by government
in comparison with the achievements and curriculum of its sister
institution, the English seminary. Then on 7 March 1835, Bentinck’s
Resolution, which was based largely upon the general principles set
out by Macaulay in his ‘Minute’ on education, determined in no
uncertain terms the new financial reality for Benares Sanskrit Col-
lege by abolishing all stipends for new students. Bentinck’s fear,
apparently, was that a stipendiary system would ‘give artificial
encouragement to branches of learning which, in the natural course
of things, would be superseded by more useful studies.’ Further,
vacancies in professorships were subject to renewal only upon
approval of the government, and the printing of oriental works was
to be curtailed.32 The reduction in the number of stipends affected
the College most drastically, resulting in a dramatic fall in attend-
ance by the late 1830s.33 In addition, the appointment of a new Sec-
retary to the College, following Captain Thoresby’s resignation in
March of 1835,34 was delayed until the General Committee could
determine whether the service was ‘indispensably necessary,’ or
whether it might be otherwise rendered ‘at a small expense.’35 As a
result of these factors, Benares Sanskrit College languished under
31
Captain C. Thoresby, Secretary, Benares College, to H. H. Wilson, Secretary,
GCPI, March 25th 1829, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and Sem-
inary (8 Jan. 1829–19 Dec. 1833), SL/No. 56, vol. 8, part 1, ff. 99–108.
The English Seminary began operations in Benares in 1830 with 30 students,
under the short-lived name ‘Benares Anglo-Indian Seminary.’ The curriculum was
at first wholly devoted to teaching the students English language skills, before
gradually introducing elements of arithmetic, world geography, and the history of
Greece, Rome, and England. See ‘A List of Books and Articles required for the
Anglo-Indian Seminary, Benares,’ dated 1832, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence,
Benares College and Seminary (8 Jan. 1829–19 Dec. 1833), SL/No. 56, vol. 8, part
1, ff. 737–8.
32
Bentinck’s Resolution of March 7th 1835, in Selections from Educational Records,
Part 1, pp. 130–1.
33
See G. Nicholls, Secretary, Benares College, to Local Committee of Public
Instruction, Benares, February 15th 1838 and August 1839, WBSA, GCPI Corres-
pondence, Benares College and Seminary (2 Jan. 1838–28 Dec. 1839), SL/No. 58,
vol. 10, part 3, ff. 229–32 and 1001–16 respectively.
34
Captain Thoresby, Secretary, Benares College, to J. C. C. Sutherland, Secret-
ary, GCPI, March 28th 1835, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and
Seminary (11 Jan. 1834–23 Dec. 1837), SL/No. 57, vol. 9, part 2, ff. 33–6.
35
‘Propositions adopted by the General Committee of Public Instruction, April
11th 1835,’ in Selections from Educational Records, Part 1, p. 142.

considerable financial constraints, the ad-hoc management of the

English Seminary’s head master, George Nicholls, as well as the frac-
tured administration of the Local Committee of Public Instruction36
until the early 1840s, when the government’s attention again turned
to the College, this time in contemplation of altering its curriculum.
II
In late 1839, Lord Auckland, the new Governor-General in Council,

reformulated aspects of the government’s position on ‘native educa-
tion,’ with reference to the experience of Lancelot Wilkinson, the
political agent at Sehore.37 Wilkinson had found considerable notori-
ety in educational circles in India during the 1830s for his apparently
successful introduction of Western astronomy to pandits raised on
the ‘puerile’ cosmography of the Puranas. By utilizing the more
‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ Sanskrit treatises known as the Siddhantas,
which were thought to correspond very roughly in content to Ptole-
maic doctrine, it was widely thought that Wilkinson was able to con-
struct the basis upon which Copernican ‘truths’ were then imparted
to the pandits, resulting in their abandonment of all previous indi-
genous theories.38 In Wilkinson’s scheme, the ‘scientific’ texts of the
Hindus were thought to correspond to an intellectual and civiliza-
36
The Local Committee of Public Instruction at Benares at this time included
several members who were not sympathetic to the aims of the Sanskrit College.
H. H. Thomas, for example, was vociferous in his condemnation of both the ‘native
character’ and the ‘utility’ of Sanskrit. In his Minute of February 20th 1839, he
states: ‘The chilling apathy which is inherent in the native character, and is the
result of deeply rooted superstition and gross ignorance, renders parents and guard-
ians reckless of all suggestions for enlightening the rising generation.’ Also, in his
Minute of March 1st 1839, he adds: ‘To me the great utility of the Sanscrit never
was apparent and its extensive cultivation under a British Government somewhat
savours of absurdity. Better surely to promote the resuscitation of Persian and
Arabic than to waste our time and money in preserving the mummy of this very
dead language.’ See ‘Minutes of the Local Committee of Public Instruction, Benares,
upon the Annual Examination of the English Seminary,’ December 1838, WBSA,
GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and Seminary (2 Jan. 1838–28 Dec. 1839),
SL/No. 58, vol. 10, part 3, ff. 863–78.
37
‘Minute’ by the Right Honourable Lord Auckland, the Governor-General,
dated November 24th 1839, in Selections from Educational Records, Part I, pp. 147–70.
38
L. Wilkinson, ‘On the use of the Siddhantas in the Work of Native Education,’
in The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 3, Jan.–Dec. 1834, pp. 504–19. See
also for extended discussion of Wilkinson: Young, ‘Receding from Antiquity,’ also
Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 247–64.

tional stage equivalent with that in Europe just before the scientific
revolution associated with Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.39 The
educational challenge for Wilkinson, then, was to utilize these texts to
demonstrate how Western knowledge had developed onward from that
stage. The pursuit of knowledge, and science in particular, is here
rendered a universalized process, distinguished by a steady progress
through time towards fact and truth. A developmental hierarchy of
civilization is thereby also constructed, in which ‘truth’ is possessed by
those at the top: the possession of this ‘truth,’ gathered through the
methodology of science, is the mark of modernity, and for those civil-
izations which lack it, the mark of subordination. This conception—
shared by both the Anglicists of the 1830s and the orientalists of the
1840s and 1850s alike—differs fundamentally from that which had
informed an earlier generation, distinguished by the orientalist schol-
arship of William Jones, Francis Wilford, and H. T. Colebrooke. Know-
ledge was no longer to be considered providential, unfragmented at
the dawn of humankind, and therefore something to be re-discovered;
as such, Sanskrit-based learning ceased to hold fundamental value for
the insight it held into ancient civil and natural histories.40
The enlightenment project, or the civilizing mission of colonialism,
is based upon an implicit judgement of the superior claim to truth
of Western knowledge. With Lord Auckland’s 1839 Minute, the ‘Ori-
ental seminaries’ of government passed from concerns with preserva-
tion and endearment, to the careful impartation of that truth. The
first official suggestion of integrating Western ‘useful knowledge’
into the Benares Sanskrit College curriculum came in 1841, as Cap-
tain Marshall, Secretary and Examiner to the College at Fort Wil-
liam, conducted ‘an investigation into the system of study pursued’
there. Marshall found, for the most part, that the pandits teaching
at the College were ‘well qualified,’ but wondered whether it
wouldn’t be ‘desirable that the knowledge and science of Europe . . .
be brought within the reach of the students of this institution.’ As
such, he recommended instituting a Professorship of Arithmetic and
39
See ‘Note’ by J. R. Colin, Private Secretary to the Governor-General, in Selec-
tions from Educational Records, Part 1, p. 174.
40
C. A. Bayly, ‘Orientalists, Informants, and Critics in Banaras, 1790–1860,’ J.
Malik (ed.), Perspectives of Mutual Encounters in South Asian History, 1760–1860
(Leiden: Brill, 2000). Also, see T. R. Trautmann, Aryans and British India (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997). Bayly’s paper usefully contrasts the intellec-
tual genealogy of earlier orientalists, such as Francis Wilford, with the later genera-
tion epitomized by James Ballantyne.

41
Natural Philosophy. This recommendation was accepted by the
General Committee, and in 1842 one of the first products of Wilkin-
son’s educational experiment in Sehore, a young pandit from Nagpur
by the name of Bapu Deva, arrived in Banaras to take up the appoint-
ment.42 During the course of this process, Bapu Deva was held up to
the General Committee as a celebrated example of what could be
accomplished in the cause of ‘native education’ through Wilkinson’s
methodology, and it was argued that his appointment at Banaras,
the so-called ‘seat of brahmanical learning,’ would ‘serve to impress
the rising generation . . . at Benares with very proper notions of the
vast superiority of European over Native science.’43
On 20 March 1844, responsibility for education in the North
Western Provinces shifted from the General Committee of Public
Instruction in Calcutta, to the provincial government, seated at
Agra.44 This is significant because the Lieutenant Governor of the
province between 1843 and 1853, James Thomason, was an Evangel-
ical Christian affiliated with the Clapham sect of the Church of Eng-
land. As such, he was committed to bringing the Gospel to Indians
by way of a programme of social and intellectual enlightenment,
executed through a network of likeminded individuals within the
civil service of the province, most of whom had been educated at
Haileybury.45 Thomason would bring this developmental scheme to
41
Captain Marshall to Dr T. A. Wise, Secretary, GCPI, May 3rd 1841, WBSA,
GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and Seminary (1 Jan. 1840–8 Sept. 1842),
SL/No. 59, vol. 11, part 4, ff. 679–722.
In 1838 Nicholls had also attempted to informally introduce a selection of ‘useful
knowledge’ into the College, in the form of a Sanskrit translation of Euclid’s geo-
metry. This work, intended to divert the jyotish pandits’ attention from the pursuit
of astrology, proved unpopular, however, and so, as Nicholls had no authoritative
control over the content of the Sanskrit curriculum, it remained ‘neglected [upon
the shelf] except by the orthodox dust floating in the college atmosphere.’
Recounted in Nicholls, Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patschalla, p. 79. See
also Butler’s ‘Report on the System of Instruction followed in the Sanscrit College
at Benares,’ March 8th 1841.
42
See J. Muir, ‘Memorandum on the State of the Sanscrit College at Benares,
and the means of its improvement,’ dated 2nd April 1844, in General Report on Public
Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency for 1843–1844 (Agra:
Agra Ukhbar Press, n.d.), Appendix ‘Q.’
43
L. Wilkinson to T. A. Wise, Secretary, GCPI, August 1841, WBSA, GCPI Cor-
respondence, Benares College and Seminary (1 Jan. 1840–8 Sept. 1842), SL/No.
59, vol. 11, part 4, ff. 927–30.
44
General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presid-
ency for 1843–1844, p. 1.
45
See R. F. Young, Resistant Hinduism, Sanskrit Sources on Anti-Christian Apologetics
in Early Nineteenth Century India (Vienna: De Nobili Research Library, 1981), pp. 50–

bear upon the Sanskrit College at Banaras through a series of meas-
ures taken during his ten-year administration. The first of these was
the appointment of John Muir to oversee a programme of reform
at the College, based on extending the tentative measures already
undertaken by the General Committee. Muir was perhaps a risky
choice for the job, for although he also was a committed Christian
with Evangelical leanings, he had five years earlier authored a polem-
ical tract which sought to overthrow the tenets of Hinduism, entitled
Matapariksha.46 As such, Thomason was also careful to point out that
Muir should act in a conciliatory manner towards the pandits of the
Sanskrit College, and attempt to actively involve them in proposed
reforms.47
Muir, like his contemporary and successor as Superintendent of
Benares College, James Ballantyne, was a Scotsman whose formal
education was received in the latest stages of the Scottish Enlighten-
ment. Muir was born in Glasgow in 1810 and educated at Glasgow
University before moving on to Haileybury College.48 As such, both
he and Ballantyne, who received his education at Edinburgh, would
have been deeply influenced by thinkers of the Scottish School of
Common Sense, including Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart; social
theorists Adam Smith, John Millar, Adam Ferguson and William
Robertson, who espoused a theory of civilizational progress from
savagery to commercial refinement; as well as by the natural theo-
logy of Paley and Butler, which sought to establish the rational basis
of Christianity in the evidences of Creation. In effect, both Muir and
Ballantyne subscribed to a developmental hierarchy of civilization,
in which Britain stood at the top, distinguished by its commercial
prosperity, the operation of justice, and a religion supported by, and
based in, science and rationality, rather than superstition.
Muir brought his prejudices to the forefront in his preliminary
report on the Sanskrit College of Banaras, which reads largely like
2. Thomason’s biography is W. Muir, The Honourable James Thomason, Lieutenant-
Governor, N.-W. P., India, 1843–1853 A.D. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1897).
46
See Young, Resistant Hinduism, pp. 49–80. Young’s important work also
recounts the Indian responses to Muir’s tract. See also J. Muir, Matapariksha, a Sketch
of the Argument for Christianity and against Hinduism (Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press,
1839); Matapariksha, a Sketch of the Argument for Christianity and against Hinduism, 2nd
edition (Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press, 1840).
47
J. Thornton, Secretary to Government, N. W. P., to J. Muir, April 13th 1844,
in General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency
for 1843–1844, Appendix ‘Q.’
48
See F. Boase, Modern English Biography, Vol. II (London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd,
1965), p. 1018.

a wholesale condemnation of Hinduism and its attendant philosoph-

ical and scientific literature. The fundamental problem with the Col-
lege, he states, is that, with the exception of the appointment of
Bapu Deva, it is otherwise wholly devoted to imparting knowledge
based in ancient Sanskrit literature, which is known to be riddled
with error:
. . . the religious, ritual, and social institutions, the Mythological legends,
and the Astrological superstitions as well as the philosophical and scientific
systems of the Hindoos with all their errors, form a considerable part of the
subjects of the College course. The Metaphysical systems are notoriously
characterized by grave errors, the Vedanta being decidedly pantheistic, the
Nyaya maintaining the eternity of matter, and the Samkhya in one of its
branches being of an atheistic tendency; and even the Astronomy which the
scientific books of the Hindoos teach, is the exploded Ptolemaic. It may
therefore not unnaturally be asked by a person not acquainted with the
history of the various educational schemes which have been current in
India, how such a system as this, (which would appear to have a directly
opposite tendency to that of the English and Vernacular schools established
by Government for the enlightenment of the people, and the removal of
their ancient errors), how such a system as this ever came to receive the
patronage of the state.49
In Muir’s rhetoric, the ‘ancient error’ imparted at Benares Sanskrit
College is inherently contrasted with the ‘enlightened’ truth pos-
sessed and imparted by the modern nation. But Muir simultaneously
recognized that direct confrontation would achieve little in the con-
text of Banaras, the ‘chief seat and centre of [Hindu] intellectual
and spiritual power,’ and that the pandits must not be alienated, for
they ‘form a class whom, from their high estimation and influence
among the whole Hindu community, it is in the highest degree
important to enlighten and improve.’50 As such, Muir suggested only
several tentative reforms which fell far short of the sweeping curric-
ulum changes which might have been expected.51 Foremost among
them was the introduction into the standard curriculum of several
books that he had written in Sanskrit, including a description of
England, ‘which would tend to open their minds;’ a history of India,
‘with references to that of the Greeks and Romans;’ as well as Rev’d
49
Muir, ‘Memorandum on the State of the Sanscrit College at Benares, and the
means of its improvement.’
50
J. Muir, ‘The Benares Sanskrit College,’ in Benares Magazine, vol. 5, no. 15, Feb.
1851, p. 96.
51
Muir was well aware that wholesale curriculum changes would cause a drastic
loss in students, though he felt that a ‘rational course’ would, in time, attract them
again.

William Yates’ Padartha Vidya Sara, a work in Sanskrit on natural
philosophy and history.52 During his tenure as Superintendent, Muir
also delivered a series of lectures, in Sanskrit, to the students of the
Sanskrit Department on Western moral and intellectual philosophy,
which was later published for use at the College.53 In addition, Muir
further recommended in his initial report the compilation of other
books of ‘useful knowledge,’ translated into Sanskrit for general ped-
agogical use within the College.
In order to ensure that students would recognize the superior
claim to truth of Western systems of knowledge, Muir suggested in
his report that steps be taken to ‘strengthen [their] reasoning
powers.’ The divergent philosophical systems of vedanta, samkhya, and
nyaya were therefore to be retained in the Sanskrit College’s curric-
ulum, but the students were to be examined in such a way as to be
made to compare one with the other, and bring them ‘to the test of
reason.’ Reason was perceived by Muir to be inseparable from the
foundations of Western knowledge and Christianity, and hence he
was confident that any such ‘pursuit of truth’ based on reason, would
lead native students, as well as their teachers, to abandon their erro-
neous beliefs, and reap the benefits of the resultant ‘moral improve-
ment.’ Indeed, in Muir’s parting address to the students of Benares
College, he refers to Panini and Gautama as examples of ‘enquirers
after truth, rather than as men who had actually found it,’ and again,
holds up Bapu Deva as a man to be emulated, for he was seen to
be a ‘real lover of truth . . . an enlightened young pandit . . . [who]
52
See J. Muir, Nutnodantodotsah: the fountain of the water of fresh intelligence. A descrip-
tion of England (Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press, 1839); J. Muir, Itihasadipika: A
Sketch of the History of India, in Sanskrit Verse: of which the earlier part is chiefly founded on
H. H. Wilson’s ‘Manual of History and Chronology’ (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press,
1840); W. Yates, Padartha Vidya Sara (Elements of Natural Philosophy and Natural
History) (Calcutta: School Book Society’s Press, 1828). Quotations from Muir, ‘Mem-
orandum on the State of the Sanscrit College at Benares, and the means of its
improvement.’ In 1838 Muir had offered a 50 Rp. prize for the best essay composed
in Sanskrit verse by a member of the Sanskrit College, on the subject of the ‘evid-
ences of design, and of the power, wisdom and goodness of God, displayed in the
Creation.’ The essay, Muir stipulated, was to be based on Yates’ Padartha Vidya Sara,
and further, was expected to be ‘free from any reference to the peculiar dogmas of
Hinduism.’ As such, Muir had sent ten copies of the book to the College for the
perusal of the pandits. See J. Muir to G. Nicholls, 8th February 1838, and 5th March
1838, WBSA, GCPI Correspondence, Benares College and Seminary (2 Jan. 1838–
28 Dec. 1839), SL/No. 58, vol. 10, part 3, ff. 351 and 352 respectively.
53
J. Muir, Vyavaharalokah: brief lectures on mental philosophy and other subjects delivered
in Sanskrit to the students of the Benares Sanskrit College (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission
Press, 1845).

is in no instance content to receive any truth on the authority of

the ancients, but invariably requires demonstration.’54 Muir’s final
recommendation to government was that the Sanskrit and English
seminaries be amalgamated under one roof, thereafter to be referred
to simply as Benares College. It was hoped that the physical proxim-
ity of students versed in Sanskrit-based learning, and those pursuing
‘useful knowledge’ based in English would enable a further, and unof-
ficial, critical comparison.55
While John Muir’s tenure as Superintendent of the newly amal-
gamated Benares College would last for only one year, from 1844 to
1845, it is significant because it represents a moment of departure
in Banaras, in which a concern for the preservation of Sanskrit learn-
ing in government-sponsored education was officially abandoned in
favour of the enlightenment project. Such a project necessitated not
only the resituating of Sanskrit learned traditions within a Western,
Christian developmental framework, but also the ‘reinvigoration’ of
the Sanskrit language itself, such that it could be made to work
in the interests of ‘civilization,’ through the translation of ‘useful
knowledge.’ Muir’s successor as Superintendent of Benares College
was James Robert Ballantyne, who took the basic methodology
developed by Wilkinson and applied it to a pedagogical project of
an unprecedented complexity and scale. A detailed consideration of
several of Ballantyne’s works renders transparent many of the philo-
sophical underpinnings of the enlightenment project, as it was
undertaken in Banaras.
James Ballantyne began his fifteen-year tenure as the Superin-
tended of Benares College in January of 1846, at the age of
thirty-two.56 Before this appointment, he had taught ‘oriental lan-
guages’ in the Scottish Naval and Military Academy in Edinburgh,
as well as having published several works for use in that institu-
tion, including Hindustani, Persian, and Marathi grammars, Prin-
54
J. Muir, ‘An Address to the Students of the Benares College,’ dated February
10th 1845, in General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the
Bengal Presidency, for 1844–1845 (Agra: Secundra Orphan Press, 1846).
55
Muir, ‘Memorandum on the State of the Sanscrit college at Benares, and the
means of its improvement.’
56
Between February 1845 and January 1846 the Principal of Benares College
was the Rev’d A. W. Wallis. Apparently he had been hired for the job without the
knowledge of Company officials in London, and so when Ballantyne arrived in Ban-
aras, as the official choice for the post, there was some confusion and ill-will, at
least on the part of Wallis. See J. R. Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson, March 11th 1846,
BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss. E301/10, ff. 25–6.

57
ciples of Persian Caligraphy, and The Practical Oriental Interpreter. Born
in December of 1813 in Kelso, in the Borders region of Scotland,
he was educated in classics, logic, geology, natural history and
moral philosophy at the Edinburgh Academy, as well as the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh.58 Ballantyne had also attended the East India
College in Haileybury to study oriental languages, and upon gradu-
ation was able to boast of a certificate of competency to instruct
in Persian, Arabic, Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, and ‘the ele-
ments of Sanskrit.’59 After failing to secure a cadetship with the
East India Company, however, Ballantyne took charge of the Ori-
ental Department of the Scottish Military and Naval Academy in
1832. He soon became dissatisfied with the meagre income associ-
ated with his position, however, and so nearly six years after first
lobbying for the support of H. H. Wilson in 1839, then Boden
Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, he received a recommendation to
the post in Banaras early in 1845.60 Ballantyne, however, might
at first glance have seemed an unusual choice for the Super-
intendent of a government college which boasted the most prestigi-
ous and important Sanskrit department in the Company’s holdings
in India. His publications were confined to Persian, Hindu-
stani, and Marathi, and he possessed no official qualifications in
Sanskrit, save that which he received from Haileybury. He was,
however, something of a polymath, whose accomplishments in
Indian languages and general linguistic aptitude were well
57
J. R. Ballantyne, A Grammar of the Hindustani Language; followed by a series of gram-
matical exercises, etc. (London: Cox & Co., Edinburgh: Ballantyne & Co., 1838); Ele-
ments of Hindi and Braj Bhukta Grammar (London: J. Madden & Co., 1839); A Grammar
of the Mahratta Language (Edinburgh: I. Hall, 1839); Principles of Persian Caligraphy
(London: Madden & Co., Edinburgh: The Military Academy, 1839); The Practical
Oriental Interpreter; or, Hints on the Art of Translating Readily from English into Hindustani
and Persian, etc. (London: Madden & Co., Edinburgh: C. Smith, 1843); Catechism of
Persian Grammar (London: Madden & Co., Edinburgh: C. Smith, 1843).
58
J. R. Ballantyne to Mrs H. Siddons, 5th September, 1839, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss.
E301/4, ff. 81–2; J. R. Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson, 24th January 1845, BL, OIOC,
Eur. Mss. E301/9, ff. 7–8. Also, Ballantyne’s obituary in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, vol. 1 (new series), 1865, pp. v–vii; and F. Boase, Modern English Bio-
graphy, vol. 1 (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1965), p. 147. See also the entry for
J. R. Ballantyne in The Edinburgh Academy Register, a record of all those who have entered
the school since its foundation in 1824 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Academical Club, 1914).
59
J. R. Ballantyne to Mrs H. Siddons, 5th September, 1839, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss.
E301/4, ff. 81–2.
60
See J. R. Ballantyne’s 24th January, 19th February, and 20th March 1845
letters to H. H. Wilson, BL, OIOC Eur. Mss. E301/9, ff. 7–8, 19–20, 46–67. See
also Ballantyne’s obituary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

61
proven, and who, furthermore, was able to demonstrate a breadth
and depth of knowledge in Western science, philosophy, religion,
and literature.
Ballantyne was also a committed Christian, whose stated purpose
in the educational service of India was the conversion of educated
Hindus to Christianity.62 Seemingly everything he did while Superin-
tendent of Benares College was with this preconceived aim in mind.
From nearly the outset of his superintendency, Ballantyne’s ped-
agogy was based fundamentally upon his belief that the knowledge
conveyed by the Christian Revelation could be imparted to the Hindu
learned elite only by first providing them with a rational and scient-
ific basis for its acceptance. Christianity, he supposed, ‘bases its
claims on historical evidence,’ and as such, ‘presupposes not merely
an acquaintance with historical assertions, but a cultivation of the
critical faculty, so as that the force of the historical evidence may be
intelligently felt.’63 In order for a Hindu to embrace Christianity ‘on
principle and conviction,’ Ballantyne felt that it was necessary for
him to both present the evidence, and to ensure that the Hindu
‘critical faculty’ was sufficient to perceive it in its ‘proper’ light.
While such an approach would have been at least partly a practical
consideration, for direct proselytization of the Gospel within Com-
pany-sponsored educational establishments was disallowed, it also
reflected Ballantyne’s background in the philosophy of the Scottish
Enlightenment. Near the end of his educational career, Ballantyne
fondly quoted the views of Rev’d John Penrose, whose 1808 Bampton
Lectures were inspired by William Paley’s Natural Theology, and as
such, sought to establish evidence for Christianity outside the realm
of miracles, in the arena of rationality. Ballantyne’s educational
61
Richard Fox Young is of the opinion that Ballantyne likely would have con-
tinued to pursue his Sanskrit studies after his graduation from Haileybury, and
further, that he was largely self-taught in many of the Indian languages of which
he had knowledge. He would not, however, have been an accomplished Sanskrit
scholar upon arrival in India. Unfortunately, there are few known sources on Ballan-
tyne’s life before he came to India to definitely prove the case. Personal communica-
tion, dated August 17, 2000.
62
See J. R. Ballantyne, A Discourse on Translation, with reference to the educational
despatch of the Hon. Court of Directors, of the 19th July 1854 (Mirzapore: Orphan School
Press, 1855), p. 7. While this reference dates to the latter half of his tenure as
Superintendent, it is his clearest statement on the ‘proposed end’ of his pedagogy.
The sentiment is also echoed in earlier publications, see for instance Anon. [J. R.
Ballantyne] ‘The Prospects of India—Religious and Intellectual,’ in Benares Magazine,
vol. 1, March 1849.
63
Ballantyne, A Discourse on Translation, p. 7.

labours were undoubtedly inspired by the same sentiment which
motivated Penrose to downplay the efficacy of missionary activity in
Britain’s colonies for the propagation of Christianity: the mission-
ary’s want of ‘an enlarged and comprehensive intellect’ was thought
to have rendered them unfit for the task of enabling ‘those persons
to whom our religion is offered . . . to determine for themselves, con-
cerning its records and evidences . . . [so as] to admit its truth on
rational principles.’64 Ballantyne considered all knowledge, empirical
and transempirical, to be a self-supporting unity, and so he referred
to his own approach to the propagation of Christianity in India,
which emphasized the former, as an appeal to the head, rather than
the heart. It was an approach which he felt to be in accordance with
what he considered God’s greatest gift to humanity: the faculty of
reason.65
The intended targets of Ballantyne’s educational scheme were the
pandits and brahman students of the College, who, perceived as the
intellectual and religious leadership of the Hindu ‘masses,’66 were
seen to be the key to the moral and intellectual development of
India. Ballantyne simultaneously realized, however, that the pandits
were not an easy audience to convince, for their ‘prejudices’ were
deep-seated, and furthermore, they were apparently convinced of
their own ‘inherent sanctity,’ as well as considering themselves to
possess an ‘infinite superiority to us in philosophical speculation.’67
What the pandits lacked in Ballantyne’s view, however, was an
understanding of History, and the methods by which to judge the
veridicality of historical evidence:
64
Quoted in the introduction to J. R. Ballantyne, Christianity Contrasted with Hindu
Philosophy: an essay, in five books, Sanskrit and English: with practical suggestions tendered to
the missionary among the Hindus (London: James Madden, 1859), pp. vii–x. See also J.
Penrose, An Attempt to Prove the Truth of Christianity from the Wisdom Displayed in its
Original Establishment, and from the History of False and Corrupted Systems of Religion: in a
series of discourses preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1808, at the lecture
founded by the late Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury (Oxford: University Press,
1808).
65
J. R. Ballantyne, The Bible for Pandits, the First Three Chapters of Genesis, Diffusely
and Unreservedly Commented, in Sanskrit and English (London: James Madden; Benares:
Medical Hall Press, 1860), p. xxi.
66
A belief perhaps culled from B. H. Hodgson’s Pre-eminence of the Vernaculars, or
the Anglicists Answered. Ballantyne and Hodgson became friends while in India, and
the former persistently wrote of his admiration and agreement with the latter’s
views of Indian education. See, for example, J. R. Ballantyne to B. H. Hodgson, 1st
September 1856, Royal Asiatic Society, London, ‘Hodgson Papers;’ also, Ballantyne,
‘The Prospects of India—Religious and Intellectual,’ p. 344.
67
Ballantyne, ‘The Prospects of India—Religious and Intellectual,’ p. 347.

To put the case upon even the lowest ground, we think that the conversion
of the learned Hindus (whose conversion would involve the conversion of
India) would, humanly speaking, be greatly facilitated, if the assent of their
understandings were gained to the historical proofs which we can give them
of the truth of what we allege. But, as we have said, amid the learning of
India, history holds no place. A proof drawn from history has no weight with
a Hindu; nor can it ever have much until he shall have learned well to
estimate the force of historical evidence.68
The educational project was aimed, therefore, at providing the neces-
sary basis for the rational acceptance of that historical evidence upon
which Christianity based its claims.69 In order for such an educa-
tional project to be effective, Ballantyne thought that it would have
to be comprehensive and systematic, for while he considered all
knowledge to be a unity, the sciences in particular were seen to be
mutually supportive and reinforcing. That is, ‘the immediate pre-
paration for a critically intelligent study of history is the study of
physical geography,’ for without a proper understanding of physical
geography, history is liable to descend into that expressed in the
Puranas, with its stories of ‘oceans of treacle, cane-juice, and butter-
milk.’ Further, the study of physical geography was thought to be
dependent upon zoology, botany, and geology, and these in turn
depended upon chemistry, physics, and also logic.70 Ballantyne also
realized that any attempt to impart Western knowledge to the pand-
its would have to present that knowledge as a systematic whole, in
accordance with their own conception of the shastra as a singular
and consistent body of knowledge. In essence, Ballantyne would
attempt to construct for the pandits a ‘complete sastra of [his] own,’
which he could then ‘oppose to the Naiyayiks.’71 Ballantyne’s proof
that any course of Western knowledge presented to the Hindu elite
should necessarily encompass such a totality, was evident in what he
considered to be the failure of similar previous educational efforts.
Wilkinson’s attempt to overthrow ‘Hindu prejudice’ by way of West-
ern astronomy was, he thought, admirable, though it fell short of
what was required because it lacked the comprehensiveness required
to place the historical basis of Christianity in its supportive context.
This was amply demonstrated to Ballantyne by an episode which
68
Ibid., pp. 347–8.
69
See also Ballantyne, A Discourse on Translation, p. 7.
70
Ibid.
71
J. R. Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson, 11th August 1848, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss.
E301/11, ff. 55–7.

occurred in 1847, in which several pandits who had calculated an
eclipse with a high degree of accuracy on the basis of Western
methods, reportedly utilized their new-found expertise to ‘enable
them to ascertain with greater precision the moment beyond which
they must not delay plunging into the Ganges.’72
Ballantyne’s first attempt to outline the various branches of West-
ern knowledge was published between 1848 and 1849, in both San-
skrit and English, and entitled Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Know-
ledge. It was intended to be a preliminary outline, which would ‘pave
the way for the easier preparation of a systematic set of works.’73
Knowledge was presented as divisible into two general categories:
knowledge of spirit, and knowledge of matter. These were then fur-
ther broken down and summarized. Knowledge of spirit was divided
into knowledge obtained by an inquiry into man’s mental nature:
metaphysics, morals, grammar, logic, and rhetoric, as well as know-
ledge of spirit obtained through an inquiry into man’s history: polit-
ical, religious, philosophical, and scientific history, as well as the crit-
ical analysis of history’s claims. Ballantyne next divided knowledge
of matter into that obtained through observation, and that obtained
through reflection. The former branch included astronomy, geo-
graphy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology and chemistry, while
the latter branch included arithmetic, algebra, calculus, geometry,
and the physical sciences.74 Presented in its Sanskrit version, this
outline of knowledge was termed the ‘vidyachakra,’ or ‘circle of the
sciences.’ All branches of knowledge rested upon and simultaneously
confirmed the other branches, though at the epicentre of the circle
lay the Revelation, evidenced by a History which began with the
sentence ‘the world was created by God.’75
Shortly after undertaking Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge,
Ballantyne came to realize that his attempt to impart Western
‘useful knowledge’ to the pandits could be further facilitated by pre-
72
Ballantyne, ‘The Prospects of India—Religious and Intellectual,’ p. 347.
73
J. R. Ballantyne, Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge, and their Mutual Rela-
tions. Delivered in the Benares Sanskrit College. Printed in four parts. Part 1 (Mirzapore:
Orphan School Press, 1848); Part 2 (Mirzapore: Orphan School Press, 1849); Part
3 (Calcutta: Encyclopaedia Press, 1849); Part 4 (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission
Press, 1849). Quote from ‘Preface’ to part 1, n.p.
74
See also J. R. Ballantyne, ‘Scheme of a set of Sanskrit and Vernacular Treatises
for the use of the Colleges and Schools in India,’ dated November 1848, BL, OIOC,
NWP General Proceedings P/215/43 (20 April–31 May 1855), no. 404.
75
Ballantyne, Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge, part 4, p. 21.

senting it as the development of the ‘old truth’ contained in the

Hindu shastra.76 This realization is noted in his 9 December 1847
report on the College:
During the past year the Sanscrit Department of the College has engrossing-
ly occupied my thoughts, and I have become more and more convinced that,
for the sake of India and its living languages, the study of Sanscrit ought
to be encouraged: that the study if conducted merely according to the old
routine, will do less good than it might be made to do: and that we shall
find ourselves struggling against a needlessly created current of prejudice
whenever we attempt to direct the attention of the pundits or pupils to
entirely new subjects of enquiry, without taking care to conciliate both their
judgement and their taste, by moulding what we present to them as nearly
as possible into accordance with what is sound in their own systems, and
thus claiming for it their attention, less as a contradiction of what is false
in those systems, than as the legitimate development of what is true.77
The nyaya philosophical system would provide the basis upon which
a knowledge of the divisions of Western science could be imparted
to the pandits. In his article ‘On the Nyaya System of Philosophy, and
the Correspondence of its Divisions with those of Modern Science,’
published in Benares Magazine, Ballantyne set out to demonstrate the
‘scientific character’ of the nyaya, and to show that it contained the
‘starting points’ for the learned of India to enter into a programme
of learning the sciences of Western society.78 By so doing, he con-
ceived that he was showing the pandits a shared frame of reference—
shared truths—and simultaneously that the knowledge which they
possessed ‘halted at a stage short of that which [the British had]
76
See ‘Report of the Annual Examinations of the Benares College,’ J. R. Ballan-
tyne to LCPI, Benares, 5th January 1855, BL, OIOC, NWP General Proceedings,
P/215/43 (20 April–31 May 1855), no. 403, para. 45.
77
‘Extract from a report by Dr Ballantyne, Principal of the Benares College,
dated December 9th 1847’, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss. E301/10, ff. 204–5.
John Muir once wrote to Ballantyne of a sentiment they both admired, expressed
by Pascal thus: ‘When one wishes profitably to stop another, and show him that he
deceives himself, it is necessary to observe from what side it is that he views things,
for from that side it is ordinarily true, and to avow to him this truth, but to discover
to him the side from which it is false. He is pleased thereby for he sees that he was
not altogether deceived, and that he only failed to see all the sides. Now one does
not distress one self about not seeing all, but one does not like to have been alto-
gether deceived.’ See para. 35, ‘Report of the Annual Examinations of the Benares
College,’ J. R. Ballantyne to LCPI, Benares, 5th January 1855.
78
J. R. Ballantyne, ‘On the Nyaya System of Philosophy, and the Correspondence
of its Divisions with those of Modern Science’ in Benares Magazine, February, 1848,
pp. 276–93. See also, J. R. Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement’ in A Synopsis of Science, in
Sanskrit and English, Reconciled with the Truths to be Found in the Nyaya Philosophy, 2nd
edition (Mirzapore: Orphan Press, 1856), pp. ix–x.

reached.’ The ‘superior’ knowledge of the West was thereby pre-
sented as ‘the legitimate development of what is true in their [the
pandits’] views, and not in the shape of a contradiction to anything
that is erroneous.’79
During these first several years of his superintendency, Ballantyne
also turned his attention to the students of the English seminary.
The Sub-Divisions of Knowledge was intended primarily for the pandits
and students of the Sanskrit department. As such, Ballantyne
thought that by enabling ‘the students of the English department to
meet halfway the Sanskrit students who had begun the study of
English,’ he would facilitate a further critical comparison between
Western and Hindu knowledge.80 This approach entailed the pre-
paration of an explanatory version of the Laghu Kaumudi, an element-
ary Sanskrit grammatical treatise, in Sanskrit and English, as well
as a series of lectures on the principal tenets of the brahmanical
philosophical systems.81
Shortly after its initial publication in 1848 and 1849, Ballantyne
carefully reworked the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge into a text entitled
A Synopsis of Science, and published in two editions between 1852 and
1856.82 In the Synopsis of Science, Ballantyne took care to facilitate a
comparison of views on the constituents of knowledge as well as the
methodology for obtaining it, by initially following the outline of the
Nyayasutra of Gautama, a foundational philosophical text on logical
argumentation as a means to liberation through the removal of
ignorance and erroneous knowledge. The Synopsis of Science also devi-
ated from Ballantyne’s previous attempt at a systematic treatise in
the physical manner of its presentation, for while the Sub-Divisions of
Knowledge was presented in English and Sanskrit prose, the Synopsis
of Science adopted an ‘oriental guise’ to facilitate its acceptance by
the pandits, as it is framed into aphorisms and commentary, in
79
Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. xii.
80
See ibid., p. iii. Also, Ballantyne, ‘The Prospects of India—Religious and Intel-
lectual,’ p. 368.
81
J. R. Ballantyne, The Laghu Kaumudi, A Sanskrit Grammar by Varadaraja, with an
English version, commentary, and references (Mirzapore: Orphan School Press, 1849); Lec-
tures on the Nyaya Philosophy, Embracing the Text of the Tarka Samgraha (Benares: 1848);
A Lecture on the Sankhya Philosophy, Embracing the Text of the Tattwa Samasa (Mirzapore:
Orphan School Press, 1850); A Lecture on the Vedanta, Embracing the Text of the Vedanta-
Sara (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1851).
82
J. R. Ballantyne, A Synopsis of Science from the Standpoint of the Nyaya Philosophy.
Sanskrit and English (Mirzapore: Orphan Press, 1852–1855); A Synopsis of Science, in
Sanskrit and English, Reconciled with the Truths to be Found in the Nyaya Philosophy, 2nd
edition (Mirzapore: Orphan Press, 1856).

accordance with the general style of shastric literature.83 The text

itself begins with a benedictory verse, and then moves on to assert a
commonality in purpose between the learned of India and those of
Europe:
It is agreed alike by the learned of India and by the learned of other coun-
tries that the Chief End of Man, (parama-purushartha), is not to be attained
without a knowledge of the truth in regard to our souls and other things
which it is desirable should be rightly known. Therefore those who desire
to attain the Chief End of Man ought certainly to strive to obtain a know-
ledge of the truth in regard to the soul, and in regard to things other than
the soul.84
The pursuit of ‘correct knowledge’ is agreed to be conducive to
the ‘chief end of man,’ though Ballantyne declared that Indians and
Europeans disagree as to the exact nature of that ‘chief end.’ Gaut-
ama, on the one hand, defined it as the annihilation of pain (i.e.
liberation from rebirth), while Ballantyne, on the other, asserted it
to be that which ‘is to be attained through the grace of God,’ adding
his view that any pursuit of simple liberation was ultimately
‘empty.’85 Nevertheless, the Synopsis of Science is an attempt to enu-
merate the points of agreement, and disagreement, as to the instru-
ments and methodology for attaining correct knowledge, as well as
the objects of such an inquiry, i.e. the things ‘which it is desirable
should be rightly known.’ In essence, the Synopsis of Science is a com-
parative text on scientific method and its results. For example, Bal-
lantyne lists the instruments for obtaining knowledge, or the variet-
ies of evidence (pramana) upon which the determination of right
knowledge is dependent, to be the senses and inference (a ‘know-
83
Ballantyne comments that the English prose of the Synopsis of Science might
seem ‘stiff and ungainly,’ but that he had ‘intentionally imitated the established
style of exposition.’ He continued: ‘My object was, not to introduce a new style, but
to convey truth in the style which, as being the established style, was the least likely
to provoke cavil.’ See Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed.,
p. xii.
84
Ballantyne, Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. 1. This commonality in purpose is
echoed by James Thomason in the Hindi version of a speech given at the opening
of the new Benares College building in 1853: ‘Observe that, though languages
differ, truth and knowledge can nowise differ. Hence it is most desirable that all
the persons in the Government College, who are in the pursuit of a knowledge of
truth—though their languages differ—should assemble to carry on their operations
in the same place, and should compare their respective methods of seeking for a
knowledge of truth, and should profit each by the other.’ See ‘Speech of the Hon’ble
James Thomason, Lt. Gov., NWP, at the Opening of the Benares New College on
the 11th January 1853.’
85
Ballantyne, Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. 7.

ledge of signs’). These, he argued, corresponded with two of the four
listed by Gautama, adding that the latter’s additions of ‘knowledge
of likeness’ and ‘testimony’ might be subsumed under the category
of ‘inference,’ and as such, could not be considered as independent.86
Indeed, a substantial portion of the Synopsis of Science is dedicated
to an examination of the topic of inference, and includes detailed
considerations of induction, deduction, rhetoric, logic, etc. The
remainder of the text details what Ballantyne considered the objects
of correct knowledge. These include the constituents of the Sub-
Divisions of Knowledge, re-presented, however, in an order that catered
to the Naiyayika: the ‘independent’ sciences of mathematics, formal
astronomy, and mechanics were presented at the outset, so as to
provide a frame of reference to the subjects of chemistry, mineral-
ogy, botany, physiology, geology, geography, history, ethics, law, and
natural theology.87 The Synopsis of Science ends by considering the
argument from design, taken in this instance from the version found
in the Siddhanta Mukhtavali: ‘Such productions as a water-jar are pro-
duced by a maker, and so also are the earth and the trees; and to
make these is not possible for such as we are; hence the existence of
the Deity, as the Maker of these, is established.’88 Ballantyne
asserted that if one accepts that the evidence of design in the natural
world proves the existence of a designer, then the natural con-
sequence is to ask after the intentions of that designer. Ballantyne
asks ‘has the God of nature anywhere, except in nature, revealed
himself to man?’89 The answer, he believed, was in the scriptures of
Christianity, and so he therefore directed the enquirer to continue
his pursuit of the ‘Chief End of Man’ through an examination of
those scriptures, the Christian Revelation, in which God’s will is set
forth.90
86
Ibid., pp. 2–3.
87
Ibid., p. 62.
88
Ibid., p. 150.
89
90
As a Scottish Presbyterian, Ballantyne would have differentiated between the
general Revelation and the special Revelation. The general Revelation relates to
the evidence for the existence of God in creation, and it was this knowledge which
Ballantyne’s ‘scientific’ publications were largely trying to impart. Yet Ballantyne
also would have thought salvation to be attainable only through acceptance of the
special Revelation, constituted by the Christian scriptures and the evidence of God
in Jesus Christ. As such, his earlier publications were deemed preparatory to his
later, more explicit considerations of the evidences of Christianity. Ballantyne’s final
two major publications before returning to England in 1861 are: J. R. Ballantyne,
Christianity Contrasted with the Hindu Philosophy: an essay, in five books, Sanskrit and

The Synopsis of Science was Ballantyne’s attempt to construct a

shastra of his own: Western knowledge of logic, science, history, and
natural theology, presented in a manner which was thought to suit
the tastes of the Sanskrit pandit, and which took the nyaya, a philo-
sophical system accepted as authoritative, as its starting point of
reference. This ‘digest’ of knowledge, which was little more than an
outline of principal tenets, was supplemented between 1850 and
1855 by a series of reprints—the ‘Reprints for the Pandits’—which
presented voluminous extracts from the works of major Western
thinkers on the topics of physical science, logic, metaphysics, rhet-
oric, political economy, and physical geography.91 These texts were
English: with practical suggestions tendered to the missionary among the Hindus (London:
James Madden; Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1859), and The Bible for Pandits: The
First Three Chapters of Genesis, Diffusely and Unreservedly Commented, in Sanskrit and
English (London: James Madden; Benares: E. J. Lazarus & Co., Medical Hall Press,
1860).
The first of these, Christianity Contrasted with the Hindu Philosophy, which Ballantyne
considered the ‘sequel’ to the Synopsis of Science, presents the evidence, historical
and internal, for the validity and truth of the Christian scriptures. Ballantyne
argued, for example, that ‘miracles attested by such evidence as exists in the
attestation of the Christian miracles, are to be believed,’ due to the fact that it is
improbable that the witnesses of Christ’s miracles would have fabricated the evid-
ence, given the suffering and persecution they were subject to as a result (pp. 22–
8). Also, he argued that Christianity was established by the evidence of prophecy,
for there is an account of the Messiah in the scriptures of the Jews, who ‘are up to
this day the enemies of Christ’ (pp. 54–8). In each case, Ballantyne presents counter
arguments against similar claims that might be made on behalf of the Hindu scrip-
tures. As such, the suffering of Indian ascetics was held to be insufficient to provide
evidence for their claims, for their suffering was deemed self-inflicted, and with
various selfish goals in mind (pp. 23–4). Further, the prophecies recorded in the
Puranas are dismissed as retrospective interpolation (p. 54). Finally, Christianity Con-
trasted with the Hindu Philosophy also elaborates on the argument from design in some
detail (pp. 60–71).
Ballantyne’s final book, The Bible for Pandits, he thought to be the ‘crowning work
of [his] Benares series’ (p. 1). This text contains a long introduction in which he
defends his methodology for imparting knowledge of the Christian Revelation
against his detractors, primarily missionaries and Evangelicists, both in India and
in Great Britain. The text itself contains a commented translation of the first three
chapters of Genesis, and deals at length with the reconciliation of the Biblical
account of Creation with recent discoveries in geological science.
91
The ‘Reprints for the Pandits’ series, all edited by J. R. Ballantyne, includes:
Physical Science (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1851); The Method of Induction
(Mirzapore: Orphan Press, 1852); Metaphysics and Mental Philosophy, vol. 1
(Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1852); An Exploratory Version of Bacon’s Novum
Organum (Mirzapore: Orphan School Press, 1852); Elements of Logic, extracted from the
work of Richard Whately, D. D., Archbishop of Dublin (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission
Press, 1853); Elements of Rhetoric, extracted from the work of Richard Whately, D. D., Arch-
bishop of Dublin (Mirzapore: NWP Govt. at Orphan School Press, 1854); Chapters on

all printed in the original English, and so were intended to be read
primarily by the few senior pandits who spoke that language, such
as Bapu Deva Shastri and Vitthala Shastri,92 as well as to constitute
the textbooks for Ballantyne’s special seminar—the ‘pandit class’—
composed, at least initially, of the senior Sanskrit students whom
Ballantyne had allowed to continue their studies, on the condition
that they learn English.93
The foundational text of the ‘reprint’ series was an explanatory
version of Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum.94 Although considered
‘out of date in Europe as the actual guide in scientific investigation,’95
the Novum Organum represented to Ballantyne and his contemporar-
ies a seminal text in Western philosophy, as its focus on a rational
scientific methodology directed philosophical inquiry away from the
‘unfruitful’ speculation of ancient Aristotelians to the discovery of
‘new’ and ‘useful’ truth which would materially improve the condi-
tion of mankind.96 Baconian induction was deemed conducive to
Political Economy, Vol. 1 (Allahabad: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1854); Physical Geo-
graphy (Mirzapore: Orphan School Press, 1855).
92
Vitthala Shastri was Assistant Professor of Nyaya from 1853, a position he
held jointly with Venkata Rama Shastri, and Professor of Samkhya from 1856 until
his death in 1867. See Govind Deva Shastri, ‘Notice of Pandit Vitthala Shastri,’ in
The Pandit, vol. I, no. 12, May 1st, 1867, pp. 177–8 (in Sanskrit). Prior to 1853
Vitthala Shastri was a celebrated student in Ballantyne’s ‘pandit class.’
93
For reference to this class, see for example, J. R. Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson,
11th August 1848, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss. E301/11, ff. 55–7; Ballantyne, ‘Advertise-
ment,’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. ii.
94
Ballantyne (ed.), An Explanatory Version of Bacon’s Novum Organum (Reprint for
the Pandits No. 5).
95
Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement,’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. vii.
96
T. B. Macaulay’s anonymous The Life and Writings of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor
of England (Edinburgh: 1837), reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, while constitut-
ing a wholesale condemnation of Bacon’s character, expresses this sentiment clearly.
Bacon’s Novum Organum was held to be significant not because of the methodology
it advocated (induction), but because it turned philosophy to a new object: the ‘accu-
mulation of truth’ for the purpose of ‘increasing the power and ameliorating the
condition of man.’ See, for example, p. 69.
John Muir also recognized the importance of Bacon’s text to the education of
India in 1838, when he published his essay ‘The Baconian Philosophy Applicable to
the Mental Regeneration of India,’ in Calcutta Christian Observer, vol. 7, no. 70, March
1838, pp. 123–6. Inspired by the above article by Macaulay, Muir writes: ‘The truth
and common sense of Bacon’s philosophy has commended it to the learned of
Europe; and with what splendid results everyone knows. The command of nature,
and the material benefits resulting to men, are there sought after with adequate
zeal and energy. The application to India is obvious. The followers of Plato . . . and
of Seneca, are paralleled or out-heroded in Hindustan, by the disciples of Vyasa,
Kupila, Patanjali, and Gotama, the adherents of the Vedanta, the Mimamsa, the
Samkhya, and the Nyaya schools of philosophy. . . . Their spirit coincides with that

ascertaining scientific truth, whereas Aristotelian syllogizing neg-

lected the truth status of its premises, and so the Novum Organum
was thereby inaugurated the text which represented Europe’s trans-
ition into modernity through the presentation of an enabling scient-
ific methodology. Moreover, the Novum Organum’s detailed treatment
of induction correlated closely with that of invariable concomitance
(vyapti) found in the nyaya, and as such represented a measure of
intellectual ‘common ground.’
It was Ballantyne’s belief, however, that the ‘Hindu mind’ cur-
rently resided in what Whewell termed the ‘commentorial stage,’ in
which ‘originality is forbidden and shunned,’ in contrast to their
‘ancient past.’ Further, he considered that the established practice
of reconciling with the shastra three inconsistent philosophical sys-
tems (the nyaya, samkhya, and vedanta), such that ‘the same asser-
tion [is viewed] as true at one moment and false the next’ had led
to ‘the existing remarkable indifference as to what is truth in itself.’
Truth, he believed, had become ‘a matter of taste’ for the pandit.97
By equating the ‘fruitless’ speculation and disputation of the Hindus
with the ‘fruitless’ speculation of pre-Baconian, i.e. Aristotelian syllo-
gistic philosophy, Ballantyne thereby also equated contemporary
Hindu civilization with Europe before the Enlightenment, and obvi-
ously intended the Novum Organum to bring about an evolution in
Hindu philosophy similar to that which had occurred in Europe sev-
eral centuries previous. As such, the ‘reprint’ series also included a
more advanced work on the methodology of induction to supplement
the Novum Organum, which included voluminous extracts from J. S.
Mill’s System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, as well as portions of
Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, and took care to include
comparisons with vyaptigrahopaya, the ‘strategy for the recognition
of invariable concomitance,’ elaborated by Gangeshopadhyaya in his
Tattva-Cintamani.98 The detailed consideration of the processes of
Western scientific method was then supplemented in the ‘reprint’
series with several works on physical science, chemistry, and physical
geography. Considered together, Ballantyne intended that the series
would display to the pandits what he considered the ‘deficiencies or
of the Grecian and Roman philosophy, or is even more exclusively speculative. . . .

Those systems whose aim and boast it is to train up ascetic gymnosophists, are
obviously most eminently adverse to the scientific cultivation of the arts which civil-
ize and adorn human life.’ See p. 124.
97
Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement,’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. v.
98
Ballantyne (ed.), The Method of Induction (Reprints for the Pandits No. 3).

errors which in their systems branch away, fruitlessly, opposite the
richly fructiferous scientific branches, which European culture has
elicited from truths that have here remained barren or run wild.’99
That is, he intended to contrast the results of a Western scientific
method which shared its foundations with that found in Hindu philo-
sophy. The object of philosophical inquiry in India was thereby to be
turned away from ‘speculation’ to the pursuit of ‘useful truth,’ and
the consequence was intended to be the material, social, intellectual,
and of course, moral ‘progress’ of India.100
Integral to Ballantyne’s pedagogical project was the creation of a
Sanskrit vocabulary thought adequate to reproduce the terminology
of Western scientific and philosophical knowledge. Lectures on the Sub-
Divisions of Knowledge, Synopsis of Science, and the ‘reprint’ series all
took as their additional object the creation of appropriate Sanskrit
terminology, either by reference to existent word usage in the nyaya
or the devising of altogether new terms.101 Ballantyne did not intend
for that terminology to remain ‘locked up’ in the Sanskrit, however,
for he conceived of Sanskrit as the ‘fountain-language’ of Indian ver-
naculars—as Latin and Greek were the fountainheads of English—
and foresaw that only the vernaculars would facilitate the spread of
‘useful knowledge’ to the ‘masses.’ In this regard, Ballantyne argued
against conceiving of Sanskrit as a ‘dead language,’ and warned that
in order for new terminology to become ‘naturalized’ in the vernacu-
lars, it must first pass through the ‘learned and well-informed pand-
its.’102 Ballantyne’s principal fear seems to have been that without
99
J. R. Ballantyne to J. Thomason, Lt. Gov., NWP, 20th October 1852, BL,
OIOC, NWP General Proceedings, P/215/43 (20 April–31 May 1855), no. 404,
para. 11.
100
The other foundational text of the ‘reprint’ series was undoubtedly Metaphysics
and Mental Philosophy. Published in two volumes, these texts presented the essence
of European metaphysical philosophy as it developed from Locke, to Berkeley, then
quickly passing over David Hume’s sceptical conclusions, to an extended considera-
tion of Dugald Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Stewart was an
important figure in the Scottish School of Common Sense, who attempted a
Baconian reformation of the philosophy of mind, by turning it away from meta-
physical speculation toward a scientifically-based inquiry (i.e. based on the principles
of induction) into the phenomena of consciousness. The metaphysical aspect of Bal-
lantyne’s pedagogy was utilized especially in his later works dealing directly with
Christianity.
101
Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement,’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. ix; also, Ballan-
tyne, Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge, part 1, Preface, n.p.
102
See Ballantyne, A Discourse on Translation, p. 5; ‘On the Prospects on India—
Religious and Intellectual,’ pp. 363–6. Many of Ballantyne’s Sanskrit works were
translated into Hindi and/or Urdu, and published by the NWP Government. The

the preparation of an adequate scientific Sanskrit vocabulary, the

scientific vocabularies of the vernacular languages ‘fed’ by Sanskrit,
including Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali, would ‘degenerate rapidly
into a gibberish;’ that is, English words would enter vernacular
scientific discourse, be adopted and then be transmuted beyond
recognition, such as had already happened in the case of ‘the digari
of our law courts, for a ‘‘decree,’’ the tarpin-ka-tel of our laboratories,
for ‘‘turpentine,’’ or the mamlet of our kitchens, for an ‘‘omelette’’.’103
Such a transmutation, or simply the use of English words in vernacu-
lar scientific discourse, was thought to render Western ‘useful know-
ledge’ less accessible to all concerned, and hence stem the tide of
‘progress.’
While Sanskrit was considered especially well adapted for ren-
dering Western scientific terminology, as it possessed an ability to
express a wide range and a depth of meaning, given its abundance
of roots, its system of prefixes and suffixes, as well as its capacity
for compounding, it was also evident that Sanskrit terminology
came pre-loaded with layers upon layers of meaning, by virtue of
the use of specific terms within varying pre-existent, self-
referential Hindu philosophical systems. Ballantyne was aware of
the pitfalls of hastily composed Sanskrit terminology, as he warned
against repeating the mistake of the first Bible translation into
Sanskrit, that of the Serampore Baptist missionaries working
under the guidance of William Carey, in which, among other
transgressions, ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ were rendered ‘akasha’ and
‘prithivi.’104 Ballantyne therefore took care to follow the example
of Carey’s successor, William Hodge Mill, whose Proposed Version of
Synopsis of Science, for example, appeared in Hindi under the title Nyayakaumudi.
Ballantyne recognized the importance of the Hindu learned elite to his project for
the intellectual leadership they provided in society, but perhaps more importantly,
he recognized them as the guardians of Sanskrit, a language which he deemed
crucial to widely imparting Western knowledge through the vernaculars.
103
104
Ballantyne, Christianity Contrasted with Hindu Philosophy, pp. v–vi. While akasha
and prithivi do essentially mean ‘heaven’ and ‘earth,’ in the nyaya they are regarded
as simply two of the five elements recognized by the senses (the other three are
apas/jala, ‘water;’ tejas, ‘fire;’ and vayu, ‘air’). As such, the first verse of Genesis notes
the creation of heaven and earth, but when reference is made to water in the second
verse of Genesis, the Naiyayika is compelled to ask whether it is uncreated. In
Ballantyne’s translation of Genesis, he therefore uses diva and bhumi for heaven and
earth, respectively. See Bible for Pandits, p. 3. For further information on the Seram-
pore Baptist missionaries, see Young, Resistant Hinduism.

Theological Terms, which was carried out with the assistance of
H. H. Wilson, explicitly considered the established nuances of
meaning for all Sanskrit terms proposed to render Christian con-
cepts.105 For example, keeping with the importance Ballantyne
placed on the terminology of scientific method, he took care to
render the concept of induction by reference to the nyaya term
vyapti-graha, or ‘the recognition of invariable concomitance,’ as
already mentioned.106 In rendering Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning
the Principles of Human Knowledge, Ballantyne reverted to the ter-
minology of advaita vedanta wherever possible. For example, in
contrasting the absolute, independently real existence of spirit
with the dependent existence of material objects, the former was
translated as paramarthika (‘relating to the one supreme truth of
existence’).107 Yet Ballantyne was also amenable to the creation
of altogether new Sanskrit vocabulary, in cases where no parallels
could be found in established usage. One field in which such
creation was evidently required was chemistry, in which the Latin
and Greek nomenclature was altogether abandoned in favour of
descriptive Sanskrit labels. Nitrogen was rendered jivantaka, ‘that
which puts an end to life;’ oxygen became pranaprada, ‘one which
gives breath;’ and asbestos was translated as adahyapatamula,
‘unburnable cloth.’ Further, through the use of the ja suffix, indic-
ative of the use of the root jan ‘to be born’ in an upapada tatpurusha
compound, forms such as pranapradaja were coined, meaning an
oxide, or ‘born from oxygen.’108 Ballantyne resolved, however, to
maintain the old Sanskrit name for what amounted essentially to
alchemy in his view, the rasayanashastra, and apply it to the ‘new
knowledge’ of Western chemistry, so as to ‘show, under that famil-
iar title, what the true science is.’109
105
W. H. Mill, Proposed Version of Theological Terms, with a view to uniformity in Trans-
lations of The Holy Scriptures etc. into the various languages of India, with remarks upon the
rendering proposed by Dr. Mill, by Horace Hayman Esq., Secretary of the Asiatic Society
(Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press, n.d. [1828]).
106
See Ballantyne, Synopsis of Science; also A Discourse on Translation, p. 11.
107
Ballantyne (ed.), Metaphysics and Mental Philosophy, Vol. 1.
108
See Ballantyne, Synopsis of Science; also, A Discourse on Translation, pp. 16–17.
109
Ballantyne, A Discourse on Translation, p. 15. Note, however, that the creation
of a Sanskrit nomenclature for Western Chemistry in Benares College was mirrored
in Sehore by Somanath Vyas, a pandit at Lancelot Wilkinson’s pathshala. Somanath
Vyas’s Kalandikaprakasha, composed in 1848–49, included in its section on rasayana
such terms as pranaprada and jivantaka, but likely lifted the terminology from Ballan-

III
While Lt Governor James Thomason supported Ballantyne in his

educational efforts, both privately and publicly,110 Ballantyne often
felt that his methodology and ultimate aim were misunderstood.
Indeed, criticism was forthcoming from within established circles of
native educationalists, particularly those based in Calcutta, as well
as from British missionaries and their supporters. For example, the
Rev’d K. M. Banerjea, a bhadralok convert to Christianity associated
with Bishop’s College in Calcutta, disapproved of Ballantyne’s insist-
ence upon imparting ‘useful knowledge’ through Sanskrit rather
than English or the vernaculars.111 More substantially, Ishvarachan-
dra Vidyasagar, Principal of the Calcutta Sanskrit College, reacted
angrily in 1853 to changes suggested by Ballantyne to the Calcutta
College’s curriculum, intended to bring it into accordance with the
pedagogy pursued in Banaras. In particular, he objected to Ballan-
tyne’s comparative approach, and what he considered the confirma-
tion of ‘false systems’ of the vedanta and samkhya by presenting
them with reference to Western philosophical thinkers such as
Berkeley. Instead, he insisted upon being able to ‘counteract [the]
influence’ of necessarily having to teach Hindu philosophy in the
Calcutta Sanskrit College with the simultaneous presentation of
‘sound philosophy in the English class.’112 Ballantyne’s appeal to the
‘head’ rather than the ‘heart’ through the philosophical rationaliza-
tion of Christianity, his outspoken views on the perceived incompet-
ence of missionaries in India, as well as his apparent admiration for
the metaphysics of the Hindu darshanas, also brought him sustained
criticism from the likes of the readers of the London Record and the
English and Foreign Evangelical Review.113
tyne’s Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge which was published around the same
time. Many thanks to Richard Young for bringing this point to my attention.
110
See the extracts from an April 5th 1853 letter from J. Thomason to J. R.
Ballantyne, quoted in ‘Report of the Annual Examinations of the Benares College,’
January 5th 1855, para. 27. Also, see ‘Speech of the Hon’ble James Thomason, Lt.
Gov., NWP, at the Opening of the Benares New College on the 11th January 1853.’
111
See J. R. Ballantyne to J. Thomason, Lt. Gov., NWP, 20th October 1852, BL,
OIOC, NWP General Proceedings, P/215/43 (20 April–31 May 1855), no. 404.
112
Eshwar Chunder Sharman, Principal of Sanskrit College, Calcutta, to F. I.
Mouat, Secretary to the Council of Education, dated September 1853, WBSA, Coun-
cil of Education, Copies of Correspondence between the Council of Education and
the Principal of the Sanskrit College, Benares, relating to Sanskrit Education, 1853,
SL/No. 166, no. II.
113
See Ballantyne’s introduction to the Bible for Pandits, where he attempts to
answer some of these criticisms.

Yet what were the responses of those men to whom Ballantyne’s
educational scheme was primarily directed? What uses did the pand-
its and students of Benares College make of this new knowledge,
how did they understand it, and integrate it within their existent
epistemic structures? Just as importantly, how did these individuals
facilitate the introduction of ‘useful knowledge’ into a Sanskrit-based
curriculum, and what was their rationale for doing so? Further, what
was the nature of the relationships between the pandits working at
the College and wider Banarasi literate society, and how might we
describe the influence of these pandits in constructing the varied
understandings of the Indian cultural past, whether orientalist or
proto-nationalist? While not all of these questions can be adequately
addressed in these pages, it is important that they at least be raised,
lest a cultural hegemony of Saidian proportions be assumed for Bal-
lantyne’s educational project.114 Moreover, the examination of Bal-
lantyne’s pedagogy presents us with an opportunity for shedding
some light on several important theoretical issues relating to the
formation and use of knowledge as part of the nineteenth-century
colonial encounter.
Two of Ballantyne’s key interlocutors at Benares College were
Bapu Deva Shastri and Vitthala Shastri. Both men were brahmans
from Maharashtra who had been exposed to European thought
during their childhood education, and had been, on different occa-
sions, presented to European audiences as emblematic of the ‘suc-
cesses’ to be achieved through the introduction of ‘useful knowledge’
to the ‘native’ intelligentsia. Bapu Deva was educated at the Sehore
pathshala by Lancelot Wilkinson and Subaji Bapu, author of the
Siddhantashiromaniprakasha, a text which combined elements of
Copernican heliocentrism with Bhaskara’s astronomical text
Siddhantashiromani.115 Following his appointment as Professor of Nat-
ural Philosophy at Benares College in 1842, where he taught
Siddhantic and Western astronomy, as well as arithmetic, calculus
and physics, Bapu Deva became indispensable to Ballantyne for the
assistance he provided in translating English works into Sanskrit,
Hindi and Marathi. Bapu Deva began to learn English shortly after
his arrival in Banaras, and by 1848 had progressed so far as to be
114
On this point, see Sumit Sarkar’s critique of Gauri Viswanathan’s Masks of
Conquest, in S. Sarkar, ‘Orientalism Revisited: Saidian Frameworks in the Writing
of Modern Indian History,’ in Oxford Literary Review, vol. 16, no. 1–2, 1994, pp. 217–
18.
115
See Young, ‘Receding from Antiquity.’

able to render Ballantyne’s Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge

into Sanskrit from the English version, which was also apparently
accompanied by Ballantyne’s rough draft in Sanskrit.116 Indeed, Bal-
lantyne notes that Bapu Deva was largely responsible for rendering
many of the English scientific terms into their Sanskrit versions for
use in the College’s publications, and that Bapu Deva’s mathemat-
ical terminology, in particular, was ‘either adopted from established
and long accepted Sanskrit treatises, or else (where such terms were
not available) has been constructed with the advantage of a complete
knowledge of, and with symmetrical reference to, established and
accepted terms.’117 In addition, Bapu Deva contributed vernacular
versions of Ballantyne’s texts and his own educational text books in
both Hindi and Sanskrit to the growing stockpile of treatises in
‘useful knowledge’ initiated under Ballantyne’s superintendence, as
well as Sanskrit editions of Siddhantic literature.118 While Bapu Deva
was esteemed early in his career by Wilkinson and Muir as both a
mathematical prodigy and a ‘real lover of truth,’119 respectively, he
became in later years something of a cause celebre in Europe for his
116
See Ballantyne, ‘Preface,’ in Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge (Part 1);
and Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson, 11th August 1848, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss. E301/11,
ff. 55–7.
117
Ballantyne, ‘Advertisement’ in Synopsis of Science, 2nd ed., p. ix. Quotation
from ‘Report of the Annual Examination of the Benares College,’ dated 5th January
1855, para. 18.
118
Bapu Deva was apparently responsible for rendering the Hindi version of the
Synopsis of Science, entitled Nyayakaumudi, and was also involved in the translation
into Sanskrit of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. See also,
for example, Bapu Deva Shastri, Elements of Plane Trigonometry (in Sanskrit) (Agra:
Secundra Orphan Press, 1855), and Bapu Deva Shastri and J. R. Ballantyne, Hindi
Geography (Mirzapore: Orphan School Press, 1855). Ballantyne remarks in A Dis-
course on Translation that he has complete confidence in Bapu Deva to prepare the
entire course of mathematics in the vernacular, and moreover, that he has ‘not the
presumption to fancy that [he] could offer any needful suggestion’ to Bapu Deva on
the topic of mathematical nomenclature. See pp. 12–13.
In addition, see Bapu Deva’s editions of Suryasiddhanta and the Siddhantashiromani
of Bhaskaracharya, including: Bapu Deva Shastri (trans.), Translation of the Surya
Siddhanta by Pundit Bapu Deva Sastri, and of the Siddhanta Siromani by the late Lancelot
Wilkinson, revised by Pundit Bapu Deva Sastri, from the Sanskrit (under the superintendence
of J. H. Pratt) (Biblioteca Indica, vol. 32, parts 1 & 2) (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press,
1861); and Bapu Deva Shastri (ed.), The Siddhanta Siromani (Ganitadhyaya and
Goladhyaya), a treatise on astronomy, by Bhaskaracharya. With his own exposition, the Vasana-
bhashya (Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1866).
119
See L. Wilkinson to T. A. Wise, Secretary GCPI, August 1841, WBSA, GCPI
Correspondence, Benares College and Seminary (1 Jan. 1840–8 Sept. 1842), SL/
No. 59, vol. 11, part 4, ff. 927–30; Muir, ‘An Address to the Students of the Benares
College.’

apparent overcoming of Hindu superstition and adoption of Western
scientific rationality. Major Samuel Owen, who had formerly been
stationed in Banaras, recounted to the Anthropological Society of
London in the mid-1860s that Bapu Deva represented a new class
of Hindu scholars, whose exposure to the ‘truths’ of Western science
had forced them to reconsider their scriptures in its light, resulting
in the ‘first steps’ of a civilizational advancement.120 Moreover, Bapu
Deva’s several publications in English-language European journals,
including the Proceedings and the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
brought him a measure of notoriety among European observers. In
1878, Bapu Deva Shastri was made a Companion of the Order of
the Indian Empire, in recognition of his scholarship.121
Like Bapu Deva, Vitthala Shastri was also a Maharashtrian
brahman, but appears to have settled in Banaras early in his child-
hood.122 After studying the vedas, kavya (poetic literature), and nyaya
in the city’s pathshalas, he entered Ballantyne’s ‘pandit class’ some-
time before 1850. Here, Ballantyne tells us, Vitthala Shastri made
steady progress in learning English, began the study of European
literature through the ‘Reprints for the Pandits’ series, and under-
took the translation of such works into Sanskrit as early as 1852,
beginning with James Harris’ A Dialogue Concerning Art.123 Most
importantly, he rendered Bacon’s Novum Organum into Sanskrit, along
with a ‘traditional’ commentary, which was then published by the
College along with an English version.124 Vitthala Shastri was
rewarded for his labours in 1853 with the appointment to the Assist-
ant Professorship of Nyaya, which he held jointly with another of
120
S. R. I. Owen, ‘On Hindu Neology,’ in Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological
Society of London, Vol. 2, 1865–1866, pp. 202–5. Appended to this article, as a
demonstrative exhibit, was Bapu Deva’s ‘The Sidereal and Tropical Systems,’ a
paper first presented to the Benares Debating Club in 1862, which argues that
many of the errors in the jyotihshastra can be corrected by reference to Western
astronomy. More will be said about this paper, as well as the society it was presented
to, below.
121
See Young, ‘Receding from Antiquity.’
122
Govind Deva Shastri, ‘Notice of Pandit Vitthala Shastri.’
123
See General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal
Presidency for 1849–1850 (Agra: Secundra Orphan Press, 1850), p. 52; and General
Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency for 1851–
1852 (Agra: Secundra Orphan Press, 1853), p. 50. Note that A Dialogue Concerning
Art was the first in the ‘Reprints for the Pandits’ series.
124
Vitthala Shastri and J. R. Ballantyne, An Explanatory Version of Bacon’s ‘Novum
Organum’ in Sanskrit and English (Benares: Recorder Press, 1852). (Section 1 of Book
1 only).

Ballantyne’s ‘promising’ young students, Venkata Rama Shastri.125

In an 1855 report, Ballantyne described the functioning of their
class, noting that of the 40 students taught by Vitthala Shastri and
Venkata Rama Shastri under his guidance, 17 were engaged in the
study of English, and 22 were ‘imbued [in some degree] with Euro-
pean doctrines’ through the study of the Sanskrit versions of the
Synopsis of Science and the Novum Organum.126 The students’ text books
included the ‘Reprints for the Pandits’ series, most notably the
Novum Organum, as well as Mill’s Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive.127
Then in 1856, Vitthala Shastri was promoted to Professor of
Samkhya, a position which he held until his death in 1867. During
the course of the 1850s, Vitthala Shastri also provided Ballantyne
with invaluable assistance in his endeavours, translating the
samkhya aphorisms of Kapila and the ‘very hard’ nyaya aphorisms
into English, which were then used in Ballantyne’s publications.128 In
addition, he was heavily involved in constructing the Sanskrit chem-
ical nomenclature used in the Synopsis of Science,129 and authored a
Sanskrit and English text on chemistry for use at the College, which
purported to overturn the Hindu conception of the five elements in
favour of a division of matter into simple and compound sub-
stances.130 Vitthala Shastri also wrote Sanskrit text-books on the
125
Ballantyne had conceived of the nyaya chair as the ‘nucleus and centre of the
whole Sanskrit department,’ given the special position which that darshana enjoyed
in his pedagogy. See General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of
the Bengal Presidency for 1851–1852, pp. 47–50; and General Report on Public Instruction
in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency for 1852–1853 (Agra: Secundra
Orphan Press, 1853), p. 60.
126
‘Report of the Annual Examination of the Benares College,’ dated 5th January
1855, para. 37.
127
See also General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the
Bengal Presidency for 1853–1854, pp. 63–4.
128
J. R. Ballantyne to H. H. Wilson, 25th October 1856, BL, OIOC, Eur. Mss.
E301/13, ff. 171–2. Vitthala Shastri likely wasn’t responsible for imparting a know-
ledge of the nyaya to Ballantyne, whose expertise in the darshanas upon his arrival
in Banaras was extremely limited. The job of teaching Ballantyne the basis of the
nyaya seems to have fallen to then-Professor of Nyaya, Kali Prasada Bhattacharya.
129
General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presid-
ency for 1853–1854 (Agra: Secundra Orphan Press, 1854), p. 63.
130
Vitthala Shastri and J. R. Ballantyne, Lectures on the Chemistry of the Five Hindu
Elements, [or] Panchabhutavadartha (Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1859). The five ele-
ments of the nyaya are earth (prithivi), water (jala), fire (tejas), air (vayu) and ether
(akasha), which correspond to each of the five senses. The authors argue that this
division of material substances has served only for ‘debate and wrangling,’ while the
adoption of a Western division of material substances into simple (amishra) and
mixed (mishra) is conducive to ‘eliciting hitherto unknown results.’ See p. 5.

telegraph, hydrostatics, the mechanical properties of air, and ‘a con-
troversy for the establishment of the weight of the atmosphere by
experiments.’131 In later years, he proved invaluable for the expertise
and indigenous authority which he provided to support Ballantyne’s
attempted utilization of the vedanta doctrine of the deity as nirguna
(‘without attributes’) as a framework to express the ‘common
ground’ between Hindu theism and Bishop Berkeley’s conception of
the Supreme Being.132 Similarly to Bapu Deva, Vitthala Shastri was
heralded by Europeans as representative of the ‘progress’ which the
Hindu elite might achieve through an education in ‘useful know-
ledge.’ In testimony to the House of Lords on educational policy in
India, Boden Professor of Sanskrit H. H. Wilson held a copy of Vit-
thala Shastri’s Sanskrit commentary and translation of Bacon’s
Novum Organum, and declared that as a piece of scholarship, its worth
‘will bear scrutiny.’133
These accounts should make clear that Ballantyne’s textual output
was largely facilitated by the knowledge and expertise of the pandits
of Benares College. The scientific nomenclature in Sanskrit seems
to have been, in a large measure, their creation, as were the Sanskrit
translations of Ballantyne’s English texts. In addition, Ballantyne’s
knowledge of the difficult shastric literature of the nyaya, samkhya
and vedanta, which allowed his pedagogy to proceed upon a compar-
ative basis, seems to have been imparted primarily through the pand-
its of the College. How are we, then, to understand this facilitation?
And how are we to theorize Ballantyne’s reports that the pandits of
Benares College were so taken with the naya vidya, that they con-
tinued to teach his publications in the city, to their own private stu-
dents? Or that the creation of a ‘self-interpreting, native nomenclat-
ure’ for Western science had reportedly stimulated interest in these
matters among the city’s more ‘traditional’ pandits who had formerly
dismissed it?134 Nita Kumar suggests that the pandits of Banaras
131
See ‘Report of Pandit Vitthala Shastri’ in ‘Report of the Annual Examination
of the Benares College,’ dated 5th January 1855, para. 48.
132
See the introduction to Ballantyne, Bible for Pandits, esp. pp. xxxiii–xlii, where
Ballantyne argues against a criticism levelled against his Christianity Contrasted with
the Hindu Philosophy by a writer to the English and Foreign Evangelical Review, by estab-
lishing the correctness of his own interpretation of the concept of nirguna with refer-
ence to the authoritative pronouncement of Vitthala Shastri.
133
See General Report on Public Instruction in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal
Presidency for 1853–1854, p. 63.
134
‘Report of the Annual Examination of the Benares College,’ dated 5th January
1855, para. 37.

during this period can be roughly divided into two categories: those
who co-operated with the British, and those who resisted, by turning
their back on government-sponsored education.135 Such a formula is,
however, both simplistic and misguided, for it equates a retreat into
‘tradition’ with ‘resistance,’ and by default, the engagement with
naya vidya both within a government institution and outside it with
‘co-operation.’ There can be little doubt that the introduction of
‘useful knowledge’ in Sanskrit presented a challenge to the pandits
of Banaras, that it stimulated thoughtful discussion on the status of
‘traditional’ knowledges within a rapidly changing intellectual land-
scape, and likely caused many to retreat into already existent ways
of understanding the world. But were those men who confronted and
made use of the new knowledge of the West simply representatives
of the coming enlightenment, who advocated the superior status of
the naya vidya? A closer examination of some of the activities of the
College pandits outside that institution suggests that while the pand-
its were able to understand the knowledge of the colonizer, by virtue
of their facilitation of it into a Sanskrit-based curriculum, they integ-
rated this knowledge into their own ways of conceptualizing the
world in a somewhat more creative and subversive manner than Bal-
lantyne might have expected.
A formalized public arena for the wider ‘native’ engagement with
Western ‘useful knowledge’ was established in Banaras in 1861, with
the formation of the Benares Debating Club, later known as the
Benares Institute.136 This organization represented part of an emer-
ging public sphere in the city, in which the College pandits, by virtue
of their specialized knowledge in both the shastra and Western
science and metaphysics, played an important role. While Vitthala
Shastri served as Secretary to the Institute’s section on philosophy
135
N. Kumar, ‘Sanskrit Pandits and the Modernisation of Sanskrit Education in
the Nineteenth to Twentieth Centuries,’ in W. Radice (ed.), Swami Vivekananda and
the Modernization of Hinduism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).
136
The Benares Debating Club was formed in 1861 around a small core group
of English-speaking ‘native gentlemen,’ for the stated purpose of furthering the
knowledge each member had gained in their formal education. In 1862 the Club
was expanded, as the Maharaja of Benares joined, along with the ‘gentry and the
respectable men’ of Benares. Then in 1864, Europeans were permitted member-
ship, and the organization changed its name to the Benares Institute. In order to
facilitate the large number of members, the Institute was divided into several sec-
tions, with the members of each discussing matters relating to education, social
progress, philosophy and literature, and science and art. All information on the
Benares Debating Club and the Benares Institute is taken from The Transactions of
the Benares Institute, for the session 1864–1865 (Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1865).

and literature, Bapu Deva presented at least three papers on the
topic of astronomy. His first, delivered in 1862, advocated the correc-
tion of Hindu astronomy by reference to Western methodologies.
While he argued that the more correct astronomical knowledge of
Europeans had enabled them to travel the world, bringing enlighten-
ment to the ‘savages of distant islands’ and simultaneously improving
their own material wealth, he denied that the enabling rationality of
astronomy was solely the province of Europe. Noting that the concep-
tion of the solar system and measurements of the planetary bodies
contained in the ancient texts of the jyotihshastra differed in many
respects from that of modern Western astronomy, Bapu Deva argued
that ancient Hindu astronomers did in fact conceive that the earth
was a movable body, but that the incorporation of such a conception
was unnecessary for the purposes which the jyotihshastra had been
written. Moreover, he acknowledged that correcting the errors con-
tained in the jyotihshastra for the measurement of planetary motion
by reference to a more precise Western astronomical methodology
was a concept which the ancient sages would have found perfectly
reasonable, and quotes as evidence several shastric authorities.137 To
fully understand the points Bapu Deva is making in this article, it is
necessary to also refer back several years, to a letter which Bapu
Deva had published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In
this letter, Bapu Deva purported to show that, despite the general
(European) belief that ancient Hindu mathematicians were ignorant
of the principles of differential calculus, Bhaskara, the twelfth cen-
tury mathematician and astronomer, and author of the Siddhantashir-
omani, had indeed possessed a thorough knowledge of it centuries
before it was known in Europe.138 We can see from these two publica-
tions, that rather than accepting European knowledge within the
accompanying cultural superstructure in which it was presented to
him, Bapu Deva appears to have utilized elements of the naya vidya
to undermine Europe’s claim to authoritatively administer science
to the colonized. Ancient Hindu science, contained within the Siddh-
137
Bapu Deva Shastri, ‘The Sidereal and Tropical Systems.’ Note that this paper
is published both in Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London, as well as
The Transactions of the Benares Institute, for the session 1864–1865. The sentiment
expressed here by Bapu Deva is mirrored in the ‘rational’ process of shastrartha, or
debate, which was a common tool used to generate a measure of understanding
between the conflicting tenets of the several darshanas.
138
Bapu Deva Shastri, ‘Bhaskara’s Knowledge of the Differential Calculus,’ in
The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 27, no. 3 (1858), pp. 213–16.

antas, was valorized by Bapu Deva at the expense of Western ‘useful

knowledge,’ albeit within a framework which mirrored enlighten-
ment ideals. Reason and rationality, science and indeed, useful, prac-
tical knowledge were seen by him to constitute part of the Hindu
intellectual heritage, and were thereby divorced from a supporting
context tainted by European cultural histories and Christianity. It is
at least clear from these tentative examples, then, that while Ballan-
tyne’s pedagogy proceeded upon the inherent assumption that the
gradual working towards truth, which represented the scientific
endeavour, was tied solely to a specific intellectual genealogy, Bapu
Deva seems to have understood the knowledge presented to him
rather as a reflection of that which could already be accounted for
in the shastra.
Future research into the construction of both colonial and Indian
knowledges of the Hindu cultural and textual past, within the colon-
ized sphere of nineteenth-century India, needs to take further
account of the encounter between the so-called ‘orientalists’ of the
era, and the class of pandits who constituted both their informants
and interrogators. Such an enquiry should consider both the influ-
ence of European and Indian intellectual heritages upon generating
varying levels of mutual understanding and cognition, as well as the
day-to-day engagements which shaped knowledges of the other. I
have tried to highlight in this last section the agency of the Benares
College pandits in both facilitating the complex project of rendering
Western knowledge into Sanskrit, and more importantly, their util-
ization of it towards goals which diverge from those intended by
British educationalists. As such, I believe that through the further
analysis of the ‘traditional’ learned elite’s scholarship as a utilization
of all the epistemic resources available to them, their agency in the
mediation of conceptions of the Hindu cultural and textual past
within the public sphere will be highlighted, and will thereby enrich
our understanding of the processes by which Hindu identities were
reshaped within an emergent nineteenth-century nationalism.

Michael Dodson

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Re-Presented for the Pandits: James Ballantyne, ‘Useful Knowledge,’ and

Modern Asian Studies / Volume 36 / Issue 02 / May 2002, pp 257 - 298

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Re-Presented for the Pandits: James

In January of 1853, the Lt Governor of the North-Western Provinces,

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purnanand Sanskrit University, somewhat resembles a Christian

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Banaras has long been a symbolically important city within India:

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seventeenth or early eighteenth-century commentary upon Kaiyata’s pradipa of Pat-

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In a letter to the Governor-General in Council, Duncan described

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Sanskrit College returned home in the evenings to teach students

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WBSA, GCPI Correspondence relating to Hindu College, Benares (3 March 1820–

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considerable ﬁnancial constraints, the ad-hoc management of the

In late 1839, Lord Auckland, the new Governor-General in Council,

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a wholesale condemnation of Hinduism and its attendant philosoph-

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is in no instance content to receive any truth on the authority of

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senting it as the development of the ‘old truth’ contained in the

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accordance with the general style of shastric literature.83 The text

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The Synopsis of Science was Ballantyne’s attempt to construct a

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ascertaining scientiﬁc truth, whereas Aristotelian syllogizing neg-

of the Grecian and Roman philosophy, or is even more exclusively speculative. . . .

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the preparation of an adequate scientiﬁc Sanskrit vocabulary, the

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While Lt Governor James Thomason supported Ballantyne in his

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able to render Ballantyne’s Lectures on the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge