Williams, SIR MONIER MONIER, Sanskrit scholar, was born at Bombay, 12th November 1819, and educated at King's College, London, and Balliol and University Colleges, Oxford, taking the Boden scholarship in 1843, and graduating B.A. in 1844. He was professor of Sanskrit at Haileybury (1844-58), and a master at Cheltenham (1858-60), when he was appointed Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford. Knighted in 1886, at the opening of the Indian Institute established mainly through his energy, he died 11th April 1899.
His books include, besides his last work on Haileybury College (1894), Sanskrit grammars (1846, 1860) and dictionaries (1851, 1872), the Sākuntalā (1853) and other Sanskrit texts, Rudiments of Hindustani (1858), Indian Epic Poetry (1863), Indian Wisdom (1875), Hinduism (1877), Modern India and the Indians (1878), Religious Thought and Life in India (1883), The Holy Bible and the Sacred Books of the East (1887), and Buddhism in its connection with Brahminism and Hinduism, and in its Contrast with Christianity—the Duff Lectures (1889).