Rasmus Rask: A Dane in Bombay 200 Years Ago
Unlike most travellers, Rask had not come to India in search of riches. He was seeking wealth of a different kind: the overflowing riches of Asiatic languages which he hoped would help him understand the source and antiquity of European languages.
Rasmus Rask, Frontispiece to the Snorra-Edda (Stockholm, 1818).
On September 29, 1820, the Honorable Companyâs cruiser
Benares, which had been patrolling the Persian Gulf, docked at the English port of Bombay. It did not carry any passengers except for one, who had boarded the ship at Bushehr. Evidently a stranger to these parts, the passenger called on Mountstuart Elphinstone, the governor of Bombay, to present his credentials immediately after he alighted the vessel and passed through the Custom House.