Sir
''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...
Monier Monier-Williams (;
né Williams; 12 November 1819 – 11 April 1899) was a British scholar who was the second
Boden Professor of Sanskrit at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
, England. He studied, documented and taught
Asian languages, especially
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Hindustani.
Early life
Monier Williams was born in
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...
, the son of Colonel Monier Williams,
surveyor-general in the
Bombay presidency. His surname was "Williams" until 1887, when he added his given name to his surname to create the hyphenated "Monier-Williams". In 1822, he was sent to England to be educated at private schools at Hove, Chelsea and Finchley. He was educated at
King's College School
King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London an ...
,
Balliol College, Oxford (1838–40), the
East India Company College (1840–41) and
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...
(1841–44). He took a fourth-class honours degree in
Literae Humaniores in 1844.
He married Julia Grantham in 1848. They had six sons and one daughter. He died, aged 79, in
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
.
In 1874 he bought and lived in Enfield House,
Ventnor, on the
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
where he and his family lived until at least 1881. (The 1881 census records the occupant was 61-year-old Professor Monier Monier-Williams; his wife, Julia; and two children, Montague (20) and Ella (22).)
Career
Monier Williams taught Asian languages at the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
College from 1844 until 1858 when
company rule in India
Company rule in India (sometimes, Company ''Raj'', from hi, rāj, lit=rule) refers to the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when ...
ended after the
1857 rebellion
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against Company rule in India, the rule of the East India Company, British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the The Crown, British ...
. He came to national prominence during the
1860 election campaign for the
Boden Chair of Sanskrit at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
, in which he stood against
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...
.
The vacancy followed the death of
Horace Hayman Wilson in 1860. Wilson had started the university's collection of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
manuscripts upon taking the chair in 1831, and had indicated his preference that Williams should be his successor. The campaign was notoriously acrimonious. Müller was known for his liberal religious views and his philosophical speculations based on his reading of Vedic literature. Monier Williams was seen as a less brilliant scholar, but had a detailed practical knowledge of India itself, and of actual religious practices in modern Hinduism. Müller, in contrast, had never visited India.
[ Nirad C. Chaudhuri, ''Scholar Extraordinary, The Life of Professor the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller'', P.C., Chatto and Windus, 1974, pp. 221–231.]
Both candidates had to emphasise their support for Christian evangelisation in India, since that was the basis on which the professorship had been funded by its founder. Monier Williams' dedication to Christianisation was not doubted, unlike Müller's.
Monier Williams also stated that his aims were practical rather than speculative. "Englishmen are too practical to study a language very philosophically", he wrote.
After his appointment to the professorship Williams declared from the outset that the conversion of India to the Christian religion should be one of the aims of
orientalist scholarship.
[Terence Thomas, ''The British: their religious beliefs and practices, 1800–1986'', Routledge, 1988, pp. 85–88.] In his book ''Hinduism'', published by
SPCK in 1877, he predicted the demise of the Hindu religion and called for Christian evangelism to ward off the spread of Islam.
According to Saurabh Dube this work is "widely credited to have introduced the term Hinduism into general English usage"
while David N. Lorenzen cites the book along with ''India, and India Missions: Including Sketches of the Gigantic System of Hinduism, Both in Theory and Practice : Also Notices of Some of the Principal Agencies Employed in Conducting the Process of Indian Evangelization''
Writings and foundations
When Monier Williams founded the University's
Indian Institute
The Indian Institute was an institute within the University of Oxford. It was started by Sir Monier Monier-Williams in 1883 to provide training for the Indian Civil Service of the British Raj. The institute's building is located in central Oxf ...
in 1883, it provided both an academic focus and also a training ground for the
Indian Civil Service
The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.
Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...
. Since the early 1870s Monier Williams planned this institution. His vision was the better acquaintance of England and India. On this account he supported academic research into
Indian culture
Indian culture is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India. The term al ...
. Monier Williams travelled to India in 1875, 1876 and 1883 to finance his project by fundraising. He gained the support of
Indian native princes. In 1883 the
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
laid the foundation stone; the building was inaugurated in 1896 by
Lord George Hamilton
Lord George Francis Hamilton (17 December 1845 – 22 September 1927) was a British Conservative Party politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who served as First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for India.
Backgroun ...
. The Institute closed on
Indian independence in 1947.
In his writings on Hinduism Monier Williams argued that the
Advaita Vedanta
''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term ''Advaita'' ( ...
system best represented the Vedic ideal and was the "highest way to salvation" in Hinduism. He considered the more popular traditions of
karma
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
and
bhakti to be of lesser spiritual value. However, he argued that Hinduism is a complex "huge polygon or irregular multilateral figure" that was unified by
Sanskrit literature. He stated that "no description of Hinduism can be exhaustive which does not touch on almost every religious and philosophical idea that the world has ever known."
Monier-Williams compiled a
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
–English dictionary, based on the earlier ''
Petersburg Sanskrit Dictionary'', which was published in 1872. A later revised edition was published in 1899 with collaboration by
Ernst Leumann
Ernst Leumann (11 April 1859 – 24 April 1931) was a Swiss jainologist, pioneer of the research of Jainism and Turkestan languages whose work is in consideration even today.
Career
His studies on linguistics in Zürich and Geneva and of Sanskr ...
and Carl Cappeller (
sv).
Honours
He was
knighted in 1876, and was made
KCIE in 1887, when he adopted his given name of Monier as an additional surname. He was elected as a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1886.
He also received the following academic honours: Honorary DCL, Oxford, 1875; LLD,
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
, 1876; Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, 1880; Honorary PhD, Göttingen, 1880s; Vice-President,
Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
, 1890; Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford, 1892.
Published works
Translations
Monier-Williams's translations include that of
Kālidāsa's plays ''
Vikramorvasi'' (1849) and ''
Śākuntala'' (1853; 2nd ed. 1876).
* Translation of ''
Shakuntala'
(1853)* ''Hindu Literature: comprising the Book of Good Counsels, Nala and Damayanti, the Rámáyana and Śakoontalá''
Original works
*
''Original papers illustrating the history of the application of the Roman alphabet to the languages of India: Edited by Monier Williams'' (1859)Modern Reprint
*
*
*
* ''Translation of Shikshapatri
The Shikshapatri ( gu, શિક્ષાપત્રી, Devanagari: (शिक्षापत्री) is a religious text consisting of two hundred and twelve verses, written in Sanskrit by Swaminarayan. The Shikhapatri is believed to have ...
'' – The manuscript of the principal scripture Sir John Malcolm
Major-General Sir John Malcolm GCB, KLS (2 May 1769 – 30 May 1833) was a Scottish soldier, diplomat, East India Company administrator, statesman, and historian.
Early life
Sir John Malcolm was born in 1769, one of seventeen children of Geor ...
received from Swaminarayan on 26 February 1830 when he was serving as the Governor of Bombay Presidency
Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians tr ...
, Imperial India. Currently preserved at Bodleian Library.
* ''Brahmanism and Hinduism'' (1883)
* ''Buddhism, in its connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in its contrast with Christianity'' (1889)
* ''Sanskrit-English Dictionary'', .
''A Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European languages''
Monier Monier-Williams, revised by E. Leumann, C. Cappeller, et al. 1899, Clarendon Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, Oxford
* ''A Practical Grammar of the Sanskrit Language, Arranged with Reference to the Classical Languages of Europe, for the Use of English Students'', Oxford: Clarendon, 1857, enlarged and improved Fourth Edition 1887
Notes
References
*
;Attribution
*
External links
SpokenSankrit Online Free Dictionary
(Searchable)
Biography of Sir Monier Monier-Williams Dr. Gillian Evison, Digital Shikshapatri
Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary Searchable
Monier-Williams Shikshapatri manuscript Digital Shikshapatri
The Oxford Centre for Hindu StudiesMonier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary: DICT and HTML versions*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monier-Williams, Monier
1819 births
1899 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of University College, Oxford
English Indologists
Knights Bachelor
Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire
People educated at King's College School, London
Translators of Kalidasa
English translators
Linguists from England
Boden Professors of Sanskrit
Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford
19th-century British translators
Members of the American Philosophical Society