The premature death of James Prinsep (1799-1840) was a massive loss to the British Orientalist community. In his twenty years in India his work was united by a common theme: coins. His role as Assay Master saw him perfect ways of measuring both high temperatures and precise weights, and his Indological hobby saw the translation of the ancient Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts using numismatic inscriptions. Prinsep’s singular career is an extreme example of the Orientalist polymath, with his varied interests enabled by the Indian colonial environment in which, as a result of the lack of pre-existing British knowledge structures, scholars often spread themselves thinly across a wide range of subjects under the umbrella of Orientalism.
This paper argues that it was Prinsep’s linguistic work, taken up as a side occupation but pursued with the same if not more zeal than his assaying tasks, that began to encourage individuals to define more strongly their field of study and lose in part the polymath image. This is especially evident in the evolution of archaeology into a more defined discipline in the work of Prinsep’s successor, Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893). More broadly, this paper also questions whether Orientalism can be seen itself as a discipline, one which would benefit from complimentary historiographical approaches from both the history of sciences and the history of humanities.
