poetry is known to botanists as Jonesia asoka, and was so named by Dr. William Roxburgh (1759–1815) [q. v.] in honour of Sir William Jones. But the study of language and literature remained his favourite pursuit.
Jones was the first English scholar to master Sanskrit, and the immense development of comparative philology which was to arise from the knowledge of it was foreshadowed by him in a sentence in a private letter dated 27 Sept. 1787: ‘You would be astonished at the resemblance between that language [Sanskrit] and both Greek and Latin’ (Lord Teignmouth, Memoirs of Sir William Jones, ed. 1807, ii. 128). He felt it to be his life's mission to communicate some of his knowledge of and enthusiasm for oriental literature to the Western world by means of translations of the Asiatic classics. During his residence at Calcutta he tried to solve one of the chief difficulties of the undertaking in his ‘Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words in Roman Letters.’ His translations included versions of the ‘Hitopadesa’ of Pilpay, of the ‘Sakúntala, or Fatal Ring,’ the celebrated drama by Kalidása (completed in 1789, but not published till 1799), of various Hindustani hymns, and of some extracts from the ‘Vedas.’ Colebrooke, who appreciated his work very highly, owed much of his eminent success as a Sanskrit scholar to the circumstance that he followed instead of preceding Jones (Professor Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, iv. 415).
As a great jurist Jones understood that the power of England in India must rest on good administration, and that the first requisite was to obtain a thorough mastery of the existing systems of law in India, and to have them codified and explained. In short, in his own words, ‘he purposed to be the Justinian of India’ (Teignmouth, ii. 88). With this idea in his mind, he decided to prepare a complete digest of Hindu and Muhammadan law, as observed in India; and to assist him in the colossal labour he collected round him learned native pundits and Muhammadan lawyers. He did not live long enough to complete this task, but he was enabled to publish the first stages in his masterly rendering of the ‘Institutes of Hindu Law, or the Ordinances of Menu (Mánu),’ 1794, 8vo, 2nd edit. 1797, 8vo (cf. Professor Max Müller, iv. 339–40), in his ‘Mahomedan Law of Succession to Property of Intestates,’ and in his ‘Al-Sirájiyyah, or Mohammedan Law of Inheritance.’ The authorities gave him all the assistance in their power. He was on terms of intimate friendship with the successive governors-general of India, Warren Hastings, Sir John Macpherson, Lord Cornwallis, and Sir John Shore (afterwards Lord Teignmouth), and the directors of the East India Company, and Dundas, president of the board of control, recognised the value of his labours. But his exertions overtaxed his strength. His wife's health was failing, and in December 1793 he was greatly depressed by her departure for Europe. On 27 April 1794 he died at Calcutta in the forty-eighth year of his age, and was buried there. He was universally regretted, and the directors of the East India Company showed their sense of his services by the erection of a monument to him in St. Paul's Cathedral. His wife also placed a monument to his memory, executed by Flaxman, in the ante-chapel of University College, Oxford.
The reputation of Sir William Jones during his lifetime was immense. The extraordinary range of his knowledge caused him to be regarded as a prodigy of learning. He is said to have known thirteen languages thoroughly and twenty-eight fairly well. But by posterity he is chiefly remembered as the pioneer of Sanskrit learning. His personal character stood very high, and his amiability made him widely beloved. Courtenay, in his ‘Moral and Literary Character of Dr. Johnson,’ calls him ‘Harmonious Jones,’ and Dr. Barnard, in his verses assigning a function to each prominent member of the club, bids ‘Jones teach me modesty and Greek’ (Boswell, Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), i. 223, iv. 443). His sympathy with orientals and their manner of thought is especially noteworthy. He felt none of the contempt which his English contemporaries showed to the natives of India. On these points the words of Lord Teignmouth, his intimate friend in India and his biographer, deserve quotation. ‘I could dwell with rapture,’ says Lord Teignmouth, ‘on the affability of his conversation and manners, on his modest, unassuming deportment; nor can I refrain from remarking that he was totally free from pedantry, as well as from that arrogance and self-sufficiency which sometimes accompany and disgrace the greatest abilities; his presence was the delight of every society, which his conversation exhilarated and improved. His intercourse with the Indian natives of character and abilities was extensive: he liberally rewarded those by whom he was served and assisted, and his dependents were treated by him as friends. … Nor can I resist the impulse which I feel to repeat an anecdote of what occurred after his demise; the pundits who were in the habit of attending him, when I saw them at a public durbar a few days after that melancholy event, could neither restrain their tears for his loss, nor
