Arthur Coke Burnell 11 July 1840 – 12 October 1882 was an English civil servant who served in a Madras Presidency who was also the scholar in Sanskrit and Dravidian languages. He catalogued the Sanskrit manuscripts in southern India, especially those in the collections of the Tanjore court collections. He was, with Henry Yule, a co-compiler of Hobson-Jobson, a compendium of Anglo-Indian terms.
In 1874, Burnell published a Handbook of South Indian Palaeography, characterized by Max Müller as "an avenue through one of the thickest & darkest jungles of Indian archaeology, and is so full of documentary evidence, that it will long go forward indispensable to every student of Indian literature". He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Strasbourg. In 1880 he compiled, with the encouragement of Lord Napier, the Classified Index to the Sanskrit MSS in the Palace at Tanjore. The Tanjore collection was estimated by Burnell as being the do of almost 300 years begun by Tanjore rajas and continued by Mahratta rulers. He was also the author of a large number of translations from, and commentaries on, various other Sanskrit manuscripts, being especially successful in ordering and elucidating the necessary principles of Hindu law. These sent Madhava's Commentary on the Parâśarasmriti 1868, The law of partition and succession, from the manuscript Sanskrit text of Vaṛadarâja's Vyavahâranirṇaya, Specimens of South Indian Dialects, Clavis humaniorum litterarum sublimioris Tamulici idiomatis 1876, and The Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians 1875. He published many papers in the Indian Antiquary. He also published on the history of the Portuguese in India.
In addition to his exhaustive acquaintance with Sanskrit, and the southern India languages, he had some cognition of Tibetan, Arabic, Kawi, Javanese and Coptic. Burnell originated with Sir Henry Yule the dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and phrases, Hobson-Jobson.
A list of his publications intended his own books as alive as notes and translations in the works of other collaborators: