He Translated it From Persian!
Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751 – 1830) was the person, who at the suggestion of Warren Hastings, manufactured an English version of Manusmriti. This translation from Persian was published in 1776 as A Code of Gentoo Laws. In 1778 he published A Grammar of the Bengal Language, and to print it, he set up the first Bengali press in India. (1)
Halhed was born in Westminster, in a merchant family to banker William Halhed, and was educated at Harrow School, where he began a close friendship with R B Sheridan, the Irish playwright who wrote The Rivals and School for Scandal. While at Oxford he undertook oriental studies under the influence of later Indologist William Jones. Jones had preceded him from Harrow to Oxford and they shared an intellectual relationship. Accepting a writership in the service of the East India Company, he reached India and became a crony of the Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings. Hastings had been the first Governor General from 1772–1785.
Halhed's mother Frances was the daughter of John Caswall, a Member of Parliament. Halhed entered Christ Church, Oxford at the age of 17. He learnt some Persian. He remained there for three years but did not take a degree. Halhed's father was disappointed and decided to send him to India to work for the East India Company. His application for a writership was granted by Harry Verelst, who had been Governor of Bengal during 1767-1769. |
| Halhed |
After wooing several accomplished women, Halhed married (Helena) Louisa Ribaut, stepdaughter of Johannes Matthias Ross, the head of the Dutch factory at Kasimbazar.
Halhed soon became one of Hastings's favourites. On 5 July 1774, the Governor asked for an assistant for Persian documents, in addition to the munshis, and Halhed was appointed. But when Hastings nominated him as Commissary General in October 1776, there was serious resistance, and Halhed found his position untenable. (4)
Just before Halhed was appointed as a writer, the East India Company's court of directors notified the President and council at Fort William College of their decision to take over the local administration of civil justice: the implementation was left with the newly appointed Governor, Warren Hastings. Hastings assumed the governorship in April 1772 and by August submitted what was to become the Judicial Plan. It provided among other things that "all suits regarding the inheritance, marriage, caste and other religious usages, or institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to Mohametans and those of the Shaster with respect to Gentoos shall be invariably adhered to." No British personnel could read Sanskrit, however. (5) Gentoo was the term used before coining the word Hindu, either derived from the Portuguese Gentio meaning gentile heathen or native where the Portuguese used it to differentiate between the native Indians from Muslim Moors.
Hastings and his infamous Bengal Squad came forward with a proposal of setting up the Company's firm administration in India. The Bengal squad consisted of Halhed, David Anderson, Major William Sands, Colonel Sweeney Toone, Dr Clement Francis, Captain Jonathan Scott, John Shore, Lieutenant Colonel William Popham, and Sir John D Oyly, They were active members of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and later became MPs.
The colonizers were desperate to get access to the inner domain, the spiritual fulcrum of India because they knew the less strenuous way to force the rule on the outer society was to make sure that the other isn't even aware of being ruled. The inner domain consists of the language and its compositions, the societal compositions of men and women. As Bernard Cohn pointed out in his Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: In British India, Hastings knew the importance of knowing the knowledge.
Thus, the Hastings squad decided to govern the natives with their own personal laws, that could be derived from native compositions. To rule the Gentoos, a committee of 11 Brahmin pandits was formed, who were given the task of compiling the Hindu personal law. The pandits began to assimilate a text from multiple sources which they named Vivadarnavasetu (A Bridge on the Sea of Litigations). As mentioned in Theodor Aufrecht’s Catalogus Catalogorum, an alphabetical register of Sanskrit works and authors, it is a digest compiled by the order of Hastings, by Bāṇeśvara and others. Since Halhed was not proficient in Sanskrit and knew little Persian, the Sanskrit text prepared by the pandits was translated into Persian by Zaid ud -Din Ali Rasai. Then Halhed translated it from Persian to English, working with Hastings.
The completed translation was available on 27 March 1775, which Halhed named, A Code of Gentoo Laws or Ordinations of Pandits. This is the first translation of Manusmriti into English, and this is the background of the reincarnation of Manusmriti in India. The East India Company had it printed in London in 1776. This was an internal edition, distributed by the East India Company. A pirate edition was printed by Donaldson the following year, followed by a second edition in 1781; translations in French and German appeared by 1778, using the Company's Translation Fund.
The book begins with a letter from Hastings to the Company directors: " I have now the satisfaction of to transmit to you a complete and corrected copy of a translation of the Gentoo Code, executed with great ability diligence and fidelity by Mr Halhed, from a Persian version of the original Shanscrit which was undertaken under the immediate inspection of the pundits or compilers of this work...the pundits when desired to revise them, could not be prevailed upon to make any alterations, as they declared, they had the sanction of their Shaster, and were therefore incapable of amendment."
It contains a letter of thanks from Halhed to Hastings which speaks of a plan: "Indeed, if all the lights, which at different periods have been thrown upon this subject, by your happy suggestions, had been withheld, there would have remained for my share of the performance nothing but a mass of obscurity and confusion; for that in your own right, the whole result of the execution is yours, as well as the entire merit of the original plan".
In the preface to the book, Halhed says that for the commerce of India and the territorial establishment in Bengal, "a well-timed" toleration in matters of religion is necessary and to achieve it, the adoption of original Institutes of the country, which do not clash with the interests of the conquerors is essential. "To a steady pursuance of this maxim", he continues, "much of the success of the Romans may be attributed, who not only allowed to their foreign subjects the free exercise of their own religion, and the administration of their own jurisdiction, but sometimes by a policy still more flattering, even naturalized such parts of the mythology of the conquered, as were in any respect compatible with their own system."
The plan of the conquerors is clear: invent a personal law which has its roots in religion.
Further, Halhed says: "With a view to the same political advantages, and in observance of so striking an example, the compilation was set on foot; which must be considered as the only work of the kin, wherein the genuine principles of the Gentoo Jurisprudence are made public, with the sanction of their most respectable pundits (or lawyers) and which offers a complete confutation of a belief too common in Europe, that the Hindoos have no written laws whatever, but such as relate to the ceremonious peculiarities of their superstition."
Since there was no written personal law for Hindus like the Sharia of Muslims, Halhed invented one.
How was it compiled? Halhed describes the process: "The professors of the ordinances here collected still speak the original language in which they were composed, and which is entirely unknown to the bulk of the people, who have settled upon those professors several great endowments and benefactions in all parts of Hindostan, and pay them besides a degree of personal respect little short of idolatry, in return for the advantages, supposed to be derived from their studies. A set of the most experienced of these lawyers was selected from every part of Bengal for the purpose of compiling the present work, which they picked out sentence by sentence from various originals in the Shanscrit language, neither adding to nor diminishing any part of the ancient text. The articles thus collected were next translated literally into Persian, under the inspection of one of their own body; and from that translation were rendered into English with equal attention to the closeness and fidelity of the version."
So, a single text of the Hindu personal law was not available; a new text was compiled from various originals!
The book made Halhed's reputation, but was controversial, given that the English translation was remote from its original. It failed to become the authoritative text of the Anglo-Indian judicial system. Its impact had more to do with Halhed's preface and the introduction to Sanskrit than the laws themselves. The Critical Review of London recorded in September 1777: (6)
"This is a most sublime performance ... we are persuaded that even this enlightened quarter of the globe cannot boast anything which soars so completely above the narrow, vulgar sphere of prejudice and priestcraft. The most amiable part of modern philosophy is hardly upon a level with the extensive charity, the comprehensive benevolence, of a few rude untutored Hindoo Bramins ... Mr Halhed has rendered more real service to this country, to the world in general, by this performance, than ever flowed from all the wealth of all the nabobs by whom the country of these poor people has been plundered ... Wealth is not the only, nor the most valuable commodity, which Britain might import from India."
But the output completely violated the spirit of actual practice. The result was a magnification of the problem of caste hierarchy in India, which helped the British to divide and rule.
Halhed stated in the preface that he had been "astonished to find the similitude of Shanscrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek: and these not in technical and metaphorical terms, which the mutation of refined arts and improved manner might have occasionally introduced; but in the main ground-work of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of such things as would be first discriminated as the immediate dawn of civilisation." This observation was heralded as a major step towards the "discovery" of the Indo-European language family.
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| Hastings |
Leaving Bengal, Halhed went to Holland, and on to London. The financial crunch forced him to consider a return to India, but he tried to do so without overt support from Hastings. On 18 November 1783, he asked the Company's directors to appoint him to the Committee of Revenue in Calcutta. He was successful, but when he reached Calcutta, Hastings was in Lucknow. (7)
Halhed presented his credentials to Edward Wheler, the acting governor-general, but there was no vacancy in the committee and no other appointments could be made without Hastings. Summoned by Hastings to Lucknow, Halhed made a futile journey, since Hastings had by then decided to leave for England and was bound for Calcutta. (8) Hastings was planning to bring supporters to England and wanted to have Halhed there as an agent of the Nawab Wazir of Oudh. At this point, Halhed threw in his lot with Hastings. (9)
The East India Company lacked employees with good Bengali. Halhed proposed a Bengali translatorship to the Board of Trade and set out a grammar of Bengali, the salaries of the pandits and the scribe who assisted him being paid by Hastings. The difficulty arose with a Bengali font. Charles Wilkins undertook it, the first Bengali press was set up at Hugli, and the work of creating the typeface was done by Panchanan Karmakar, under the supervision of Wilkins. (10)
Wilkins informed the Council on 13 November 1778 that the printing of Halhed's Bengali Grammar has been completed, by which time Halhed had left Bengal. Halhed's Grammar was widely believed at the time to be the first grammar of Bengali, because the Portuguese work of Manuel da Assumpção, published in Lisbon in 1743, was largely forgotten.
In creative writing, Halhed's early collaboration with leading playwright Sheridan was not a success, though they laboured on works including Crazy Tales and the farce Ixiom, later referred to as Jupiter, which was not performed. One work, The Love Epistles of Aristaenetus, translated from Greek into English metre, written by Halhed, revised by Sheridan and published anonymously, did make a brief stir. The friendship with Sheridan came to an end, Elizabeth Linley chose Sheridan over Halhed, and later they were political enemies.
The opening of the Calcutta Theatre in November 1773 gave Halhed the occasion to write prologues. A production of King Lear also spurred him to write more pieces. He produced a humorous verse: A Lady's Farewell to Calcutta was a lament for those who regretted staying in the mofussil.
Halhed returned to England, on 18 June 1785, identified as a close supporter of Hastings, and as a member of the Bengal Squad of 1780–1784, in Britain that supported Hastings. (11) There the "Bengal Squad" was a group of Members of Parliament, who looked after the interests of East India Company officials who had returned to Great Britain, from India. From that position, they became defenders of the Company. (12)
Halhed wrote an anonymous tract in 1779 in defence of Hastings's policies with respect to the Maratha War. He began to write poetry, also, expressing his admiration for the governor, such as a Horatian Ode of 1782. Under the pseudonym of "Detector," he wrote a series of open letters that appeared in newspapers, as separate pamphlets and in collections. These letters span over a year, from October 1782 to November 1783.
When Edmund Burke, philosopher and MP, brought 22 charges against Hastings in April 1786, Halhed was in the middle of the defence. For the Benares charge, Halhed drafted a reply for Scott, not in accord with Hastings's chosen line. He also cast doubt on some of Hastings's accounts when he was called on to testify. As a result, Halhed became unpopular with the defence team. (13)
The impeachment of Hastings was attempted between 1787 and 1795 in Parliament. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta, particularly relating to mismanagement and personal corruption. The impeachment prosecution was led by Edmund Burke and became a wider debate about the role of the East India Company and the expanding empire in India. The impeachment trial became the site of a debate between two radically opposed visions of empire—one represented by Hastings, based on ideas of absolute power and conquest in pursuit of the exclusive national interests of the colonizer, versus one represented by Burke, of sovereignty, based on a recognition of the rights of the colonized.
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| Halhed's book |
The trial did not sit continuously and the case dragged on for seven years. When the eventual verdict was given Hastings was acquitted. It has been described as "probably the British Isles' most famous, certainly the longest, political trial."
Halhed failed as a Tory candidate for Parliament, at Leicester in 1790, and it cost him a great deal. He succeeded in acquiring a seat in May 1791 at the borough of Lymington, in Hampshire. (14) His life was changed in 1795 by Richard Brothers and his prophecies. A revealed knowledge of the Prophecies and Times appealed to Halhed and resonated with the style of antique Hindu texts. (15) He argued for Brothers in parliament, but he was arrested for criminal lunacy, severely damaging his reputation. (16)
Thereafter, Halhed became a recluse for 12 years. He wrote on orientalist topics but published nothing. From 1804 he was a follower of Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), a self-described religious prophetess from Devon, England. In poverty, he applied for one of the newly opened civil secretary posts at the East India Company and was appointed in 1809. (17) With access to the Company library, Halhed spent time in 1810 translating a collection of Tipu Sultan's dreams written in the prince's own hand. He also made translations of the Mahabharata as a personal study, to "understand the grand scheme of the universe". (18)
Hastings died in 1818. In the spring of 1819, Halhed resigned from the Company, and he was allowed a £500 pension and recovered some of his early investments. [22] Halhed lived on for another decade, without publishing anything further, and quietly died in 1830. At his death, his assets were estimated to be around £18,000. Louisa Halhed lived for a year longer. (19)
Halhed's major works are those he produced in Bengal, in the period 1772 to 1778. British Museum bought Halhed's collection of Oriental manuscripts, and his unfinished translation of the Mahabharata went to the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (20)
Among his works, The Upanisad (1787) was based on Dara Shikoh's Persian translation. He wrote and distributed a Testimony of the Authenticity of the Prophecies of the Richard Brothers, and of his Mission to recall the Jews. Scandalously, he identified London with Babylon and Sodom and was judged eccentric or mad. He was also mad when he manufactured the Hindu personal law.
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1. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press
2. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 38.
3. ibid, pp. 40–1
4. ibid, pp. 92–6
5. ibid,. pp. 48 and 51
6. Dalrymple, William (2004). White Mughals: love and betrayal in eighteenth-century India. Penguin, p 40
7. Rocher, pp. 119–121
8. ibid, pp. 121–2
9. ibid
10. Dalrymple, p 40
11. C. H. Philips, The East India Company "Interest" and the English Government, 1783–4: (The Alexander Prize Essay), Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 20 (1937), pp. 83–101, at p. 90; Cambridge University Press
12. Rocher, p. 131
13. ibid, pp. 132–4.
14. ibid, pp.141–2
15. ibid, p. 157
16. ibid, pp. 168–9
17. Rocher, Rosane. "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.
18. Rocher, p. 214
19. ibid, p. 228
20. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.)
Cambridge University Press.
© Ramachandran
