Urdu, Persian and Sanskrit were taught and used alongside other languages in colonial Lahore through an educational project associated with the Anjuman-i-Punjab and the institution that became Oriental College. Beginning in the 1860s, the project joined language study with modern subjects and publishing, making regional languages vehicles for new learning as well as subjects in their own right.
How the project began
The Anjuman-i-Punjab was formed in Lahore in 1865 to promote education in regional languages. Its work developed amid the expansion of colonial educational institutions after the 1857 revolt, when English-medium education was gaining prominence. G. W. Leitner, a Hungarian-born British linguist and Oriental College’s first principal, advocated learning through regional languages. Through the Anjuman, journals and a madrasa, the initiative sought to connect European-style learning with the educational needs of local-language readers.
The Anjuman’s early plans included grammar books in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, literature for schools across Punjab, and examinations in those languages. A history of the city describes a madrasa that added Arabic and Persian to an existing Hindi and Sanskrit curriculum, and identifies it as a predecessor of Oriental College. See *Colonial Lahore: A History of the City and Beyond*.
More than three languages—and more than language classes
Urdu, Persian and Sanskrit were part of a wider program that also involved Arabic, Punjabi and Hindi. Languages could be studied as subjects, but they were also used to engage with other fields. The curriculum described for the institution included classical literature, modern science, ethics, comparative theology and political economy in multiple languages.
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This mattered because the aim was not simply to preserve literary traditions. The model made regional languages settings in which students could encounter modern and European questions. It offered an alternative to the growing preference for English-medium instruction without amounting to a rejection of English.
Publishing gave the languages a shared intellectual space
Teaching was reinforced by print. The institution produced journals, textbooks, lecture notes, dictionaries, grammar books, translations and annotated editions. Essays and translations moved among English, Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit, linking language learning to the circulation of ideas and classroom materials.
By the late 1870s, the college had become a publisher of textbooks, lecture notes, dictionaries and annotated editions. These works helped make multilingual education practical: students and teachers could work with knowledge across languages rather than relying on classroom instruction alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the multilingual model narrowed
The college’s multilingual practice did not continue unchanged after Partition. Although materials in Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu and Persian reportedly remained, the institution’s teaching and publishing became narrower: Sanskrit was no longer taught, Hindi publications stopped, and editorial committees became mostly Urdu-only. The 1948 All-Pakistan Urdu Conference is described as a closing moment for the college’s multilingual legacy.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe change highlights a distinction between preserving books and sustaining a multilingual institution. A collection may retain texts in several languages even as teaching, publication and editorial decisions concentrate on fewer of them.
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