Alexander Hamilton

Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton FRS (1762 – 30 December 1824) was a Bombay Marine officer and linguist who was one of the first Europeans to study the Sanskrit language. He taught the language to most of the earliest European scholars of Indo-European linguistics. He became the first professor of Sanskrit in Europe.

In India Hamilton seems to have been born in India, but Scotland is not impossible. He was a first cousin of his namesake, American statesman Alexander Hamilton. He became a lieutenant in the Bombay Marine and arrived in 1783. While stationed in India he joined the Asiatic Society of Bengal founded by Sir William Jones and Sir Charles Wilkins. He also married a Bengali woman.

In France After the death of Jones in India, Wilkins and Hamilton were the only Europeans who had studied Sanskrit. Both returned to Europe around 1797.

In 1806 he was appointed at Hertford College, becoming the first Sanskrit professor in Europe. He assisted Wilkins with his revisions to his translation of the Hitopadesha.

In 1813, Hamilton completed his catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale manuscripts. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars many German scholars came to study with him, notably Franz Bopp and August Wilhelm Schlegel.

Death Hamilton died at Liscard on 30 December 1824, aged 62.

Works Hamilton published:

The Hitopadesa in the Sanscrit Language, London, 1811; Terms of Sanscrit Grammar, London, 1815; and A Key to the Chronology of the Hindus, 1820.

He also wrote magazine articles on ancient Indian geography. The catalogue was translated, annotated, and published by Louis-Mathieu Langlès in the Magasin Encyclopédique, 1807.