Forbes, James, 1749-1819, James Forbes letter, Zinore, 1780 October 27, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, Zinore, 1780 October 27
- Date:
- copied between 1794 and 1800
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Series:
- Series I: A voyage from England to Bombay with descriptions in Asia, Africa, and South America
- Part of Collection:
- volume 11, page 85-90
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Conditions Governing Access:
- The materials are open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
- Scope and Content:
- Forbes now moves to a larger territory also under his control. He describes the town as having ten thousand inhabitants, many of them weavers, involved in industries similar to those found at Dhuboy (Dabhoi). Forbes is quite taken with the scenery, insisting that it possesses “all the beauties of landscape.” He goes on at length as to the beauty of the country, comparing to Candahar (Kandahar), and describing it with a lengthy extract from 2 Esdras. Some portions of the country abound with mango trees, others are “wild and romantic.” “Hindoos in Guzerat” Forbes then proceeds to describe the inhabitants of the region. He explains that, “I have frequent opportunities of seeing human nature almost in its primitive simplicity; but at the same time far removed from a savage state, as found among the Indians in America, or the natives of the south-sea islands.” Forbes repeats many of the arguments found in Orientalist texts of this period and later, suggesting that India has remained unchanged since the time of the biblical patriarchs, that Indian culture represents a far simpler form of life than European civilization, and that “in many instances reason seems to have extended but a short distance from the intuition instinct of the animal creation.” Forbes gives brief descriptions of various peoples and occupations, writing that the brahmins spend their days lost in reverie, and that the remainder of the population refuse to accept any new ideas. He notes that many of the regions he visits have never before encountered Europeans, and that he therefore has “an opportunity of observing the oriental manners and customs, in the primitive simplicity of the patriarchal ages.” He gives an account of one visit, in which his hosts treated with a hospitality he compares to that offered in the Old Testament. He supports this assertion with a quotation from the work of British historian and East India Company officer Robert Orme (1728-1801). Among his final observations, Forbes notes that many children in the area attend open air schools, where they learn the basics of religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. “Sanscrit Language” Forbes’s final comment on this region concerns Sanskrit. He mentions that he has found in the area a few brahmins very knowledge of the language, “that inexhaustible mine of Hindoo literature, arts, and sciences.” He then quotes a lengthy passage from the work of Orientalist William Jones (1746-1794), in which Jones praises Sanskrit grammar and suggests that, from the similarity between Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, one can hypothesize the existence of a single predecessor language. Jones is often considered one of, if not the most influential early proponent of this theory, which has led to the theorization of a “proto-Indo-European” language. Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 2, chapter 27.
- Physical Description:
- 6 pages
- Genre:
- Correspondence , Botanical illustrations, Ornithological illustrations, Travel sketches, Maps, Watercolors (paintings), Drawings (visual works), Engravings (prints), and Portraits
- Subject Terms:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819. Descriptive letters and drawingsForbes, James, 1749-1819. Oriental memoirs
- Associated Places:
- EnglandItalyScotlandWales
- Associated People/Groups:
- East India CompanyForbes, James, 1749-1819
- Finding Aid Title:
- James Forbes archive
- Collection PDF:
- https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/11734.pdf
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199950
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199950?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1