‘Asiatick Society’ was founded in 1784 which, among other projects, sponsored the first translation of the Bhagavad Gita, for which Hastings composed a rightly celebrated introduction: ‘It is not very long since the inhabitants of India were considered by many as creatures scarce elevated above the degree of savage life,’ he wrote, ‘nor, I fear, is that prejudice yet wholly eradicated, though surely abated. Every instance which brings their real character home will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our
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