ABSTRACT
Colebrooke would likely have continued as collector at Rajshahi, had not the sudden death of Sir William Jones opened a breach for his meteoric rise. A digest of Hindu law, which the government of Bengal had underwritten and wished to make a foundation for uniform decisions in the courts, lay unfinished. Picking up the project where Jones had left it, Colebrooke developed into the leading expert on Hindu law and in Sanskrit studies, concerns that were intertwined in colonial practice.
