How Western Scholars Opened the Religious Texts of Asia, in Order of Founding

Founded with the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, this is the study of the Indian subcontinent's languages, literatures and religions. Its datable textual chronology sits behind what is known of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh scripture and doctrine.

Dated from 1786, when William Jones argued in his Third Anniversary Discourse that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin shared a common ancestor. The discipline reads Sanskrit texts through comparative grammar and manuscript collation to find their most plausible original meaning.

Europe's first dedicated chair, held by Jean Pierre Abel Remusat at the College de France in 1814, marks the start. Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist sources are read directly in classical Chinese rather than through missionary paraphrase.

Opened by Eugene Burnouf's 1833 analysis of the Yasna. It separates the archaic Gathas attributed to Zoroaster from the linguistically later Younger Avestan material around them.

Founded on Alexander Csoma de Koros's 1834 grammar and dictionary, built from monastic sources. It lets the Tibetan Buddhist canon be read in classical Tibetan instead of through Mongol or Chinese translation.

Founded on Eugene Burnouf's 1844 study of manuscripts sent from Nepal. It reads Buddhist canonical texts across Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese and checks them against archaeology and art history.

Rudolf von Roth argued from 1846 that Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan share an ancestor, and Niels Ludvig Westergaard's Avesta editions made the comparison practical. It shows what Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism inherited in common before they diverged.

Rests on Max Muller's critical edition of the Rigveda, published between 1849 and 1873. Its internal linguistic chronology shows the Rigveda, the Vedic prose and the Upanishads were composed centuries apart rather than as one text.

Georg Buhler used dated inscriptions from Mathura in 1887 to show Jainism was an ancient tradition in its own right, distinct from Buddhism. The field studies Jain scripture and community history through epigraphic and manuscript evidence.

William George Aston's 1905 Shinto, the Way of the Gods gave the subject its first sustained English language scholarly treatment. The field separates older ritual and shrine practice from the Meiji era state reorganisation.