Sir William Jones, 1997 - Stamp and First Day Cover

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

-- William Jones on Sanskrit Language

Sir William Jones (1746-1794) is often credited with establishing the Indo-European family of languages and founding comparative linguistics. 

The Asiatic Society was founded by Jones on 15.01.1784.

Sacontala or the Fatal Ring: an Indian Drama (1789) is a translation of Sākuntala of Kālidāsa by William Jones.