Judge H. T. Colebrooke's Supposed Translation of the Gospels into Hindi, 1806

Extract

In Darlowe and Mode's Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scriptures, 1903 (=DM.), the earliest Hindi translation of the Gospels is entered as follows: “1806. The Gospels translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837), president of the bench at Calcutta, and honorary professor in Fort William College, the first great Sanskrit scholar of Europe.” This is confirmed by Pearce Carey's book, William Carey (=PC.). In the third edition, p. 408, he writes “so far from vaunting how many versions he and his colleagues could add to their credit, they postponed the publication of their translated Hindi Gospels till Colebrooke's was printed in 1806”. In the eighth edition, 1934, p. 420, “they postponed till 1811 the publication of their translated Hindi Gospels leaving the field to Judge Cole brooke's version for five years.”