Scholars or antiquarians

“As Charles Allen shows in his book, under Sir William Jones, the Asiatic Society of Bengal became the scholarly nerve centre that brought together all the different amateur enthusiasts busily working at uncovering the deepest roots of India's lost pre-Islamic history. In the society's Calcutta premises were collated reports sent in from a huge range of eccentric figures working away at translating Buddhist scrolls or ancient rock inscriptions, Gandharan coins or Tibetan mythologies, far separated from each other in remote outposts between the highest peaks of the Himalayas in Tibet and Nepal, through the arid plains of the Deccan to the thickest jungles of 18th-century Burma and Ceylon.” The Buddha and the Sahibs by Charles Allen 2002 reviewed by William Dalrymple, author of the White Mughals, in the Guardian, and in the Spectator available from Amazon.co.uk. This link from the Royal Historical Society lists out some of the people covered in the book