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=                            John_Dowson                             =
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                            Introduction
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John Dowson M.R.A.S.(1820-1881) was a British indologist. A noted
scholar of Hinduism, he taught in India for much of his life. His book
'Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology' remains one of the most
comprehensive and authoritative works on the topic.


                                Life
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He was born at Uxbridge, and studied Eastern languages under his uncle
Edwin Norris, whom he assisted for some years at the Royal Asiatic
Society. He subsequently became a tutor at the East India Company
College. In 1855, he was made professor of Hindustani both at
University College, London, and at the Staff College, Sandhurst, a
post he held till 1877. He died 23 August 1881.


                               Works
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Dowson's duties as professor suggested his 'Grammar of the Urdu or
Hindustani Language' (1862), and he also translated one of the tracts
of the 'Ikhwānu-s-Safa', or Brotherhood of Purity. His major work was
'The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan
Period', which he edited from the papers of Henry Miers Elliot, in
eight volumes (1867-77). He compiled the
'[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.262178 Classical
Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, History and Literature]'
(1879), and contributed to the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' and the
'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'. His theory of the 'Invention
of the Indian Alphabet', claiming a Hindu origin, met with little
support.


                             References
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*Katherine Prior. "Dowson, John (1820-1881)",'Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography', Sept 2004
;Attribution


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