Bis Diese Inhalt ist unter einer Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert. Faksimile und Volltext der 6. Administrator, ethnologist and naturalist, Brian Houghton Hodgson was born on February 1, at Lower Beech, Prestbury, Chesire, to a family of English country gentlemen, Brian Houghton Hodgson joined the British East India Company in having been accepted at Haileybury College from where he passed out with merit, a medalist in the Classics, a prize in Bengali, a prize in Political Economy, and head of his term in He went out to India in where he began his career in the Kumaon districts as an Assistant Commissioner.
Two years later in , he was reassigned to Nepal as the assistant to the Resident. In , although he obtained an under-secretaryship in the foreign department at Calcutta that would allow the possibility of a better advancement in his career, the heat and humidity of the plains did not suit his frail health so by he was back in Nepal. There onwards, the better part of his life was spent the pursuit of Himalayan studies, career-wise and otherwise. He was particularly devoted to the collection of Sanskrit manuscripts relating to Buddhism but at the same time was also a passionate naturalist.
This other interest led to the study and collection of the natural history specimen. His investigations of the ethnology of the aboriginal tribes were especially important and the research prompted him to acquire valuable antiquities of the region. By , he had contributed eighty-nine papers to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In he became Resident in Nepal, and passed many stormy years in conflict with the court of the Rana maharajas to which he was accredited.
Nevertheless, he succeeded in concluding a satisfactory treaty in ; but in his policy, which involved an imperious attitude towards the native government, was upset by the interference of Lord Ellenborough, anxious to avoid trouble in Nepal during the conflict in Afghanistan. Hodgson took upon himself to disobey his instructions, a breach of discipline justified to his own mind by his superior knowledge of the situation, but which the governor general could hardly be expected to overlook.
He was in due time recalled, and resigned the service in In he returned to India and settled at Darjeeling, where he devoted himself entirely to his favourite pursuits, becoming among the greatest authorities on the Buddhist religion and the flora of the Himalayas. It was he who early suggested the recruiting of Gurkhas for the Indian army, and who influenced Maharaja Jung Bahadur Rana to lend his assistance to the British during the mutiny in In he returned to England, and lived successively in Cheshire and Gloucestershire, occupied with his studies to the last.
