Who was the founder of the 'Asiatic Society of Bengal' ?

The correct answer is B) Sir William Jones. He founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta on 15 January 1784. Jones was a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta and a serious scholar of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, and the Society was set up to study the languages, laws, history and science of Asia. Its early work, including translations and the journal Asiatick Researches, made Orientalism a formal field of study.

• A) Jonathan Duncan is wrong. He was a British administrator at Varanasi who founded the Sanskrit College there in 1791, which is a different institution.
• C) Warren Hastings is wrong. He was Governor-General when the Society was founded and supported it as a patron, but he did not found it. Aspirants often confuse the patron with the founder.
• D) William Bentinck is wrong. He was Governor-General from 1828 to 1835, known for abolishing sati in 1829 and for the English education decision of 1835 after Macaulay's Minute.

The core concept is the Orientalist versus Anglicist debate in colonial education and scholarship. It links to Mains GS-1 on colonial impact on Indian culture and to the history of modern Indian education.

Trap: Candidates pick Hastings because he was the Governor-General of the time and the Society is linked to Bengal's early colonial administration. The founder is Jones.