Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).

Assertion (A): The Asiatic Society of Bengal was established in the period of Warren Hastings and he modestly declined the offer of Presidentship of that learned body in favour of Sir William Jones.

Reason (R): Warren Hastings was himself a great scholar and an ardent orientalist who used to encourage the study of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic.

Select the correct answer from the codes given below:
Codes:

A) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)

B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)

C) (A) is true, but (R) is false

D) (A) is false, but (R) is true

This MCQ is part of the UP PSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs) series, focusing on UPPSC Prelims 2019 (GS Paper I)