Arthur Anthony Macdonell

“ At Kotagiri he tranquilly engaged in the study and translation of the Vedas. He died (7 Nov. 1906) and was buried there. An enthusiastic lover of flowers and of poetry, he was sensitive and reserved, but genial in sympathetic society. His pupils and admirers at Benares perpetuated his memory on his retirement in scholarships and prizes at the Sanskrit college. In the college library hangs a photograph of his portrait painted by F. M. Wood.
Griffith was attracted by the literary rather than by the linguistic side of Sanskrit. ”

“ He encouraged sport, and showed thorough sympathy with Indian students. In the following year he was entrusted, in addition to his other duties, with the charge of the Anglo-Sanskrit department; and in 1866 he was appointed inspector of schools in the Benares circle. During his first eight years in India (1853-61) Griffith devoted himself not only to the study of Sanskrit but to that of Hindi, the most widely spoken vernacular of northern India, under Pandit Ram Jason, the head Sanskrit teacher of the college, to whom he was much attached. ”

“ Having paid some attention to the study of Persian, he published in 1882 a version of ‘Yuzuf and Zuleika,’ which was his only excursion in translation outside Sanskrit.
After his retirement to the Nīlgiri Hills, Griffith turned from classical Sanskrit to the sacred scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas. The ‘Rigveda’ or Veda of hymns, which represent the higher religion of the ancient Indo-Aryans, appeared in a verse translation entitled ‘Hymns of the Rigveda, with a Popular Commentary,’ in four volumes (Benares, 1889–92; 2nd edit. 2 vols. 1896–7) . ”