His Rigvedae specimen, excerpts from the Rigveda based on manuscripts brought back from India by Colebrooke, were enthusiastically received by European academia as the first authentic evidence of the archaic Vedic Sanskrit language. His most important work was an edition of the entire Rigveda, left incomplete at his premature death shortly after his 32nd birthday. His translation of the first book of the Rigveda appeared posthumously in 1838. The remaining books remained unedited for another five decades, until the editio princeps of Max Müller in 1890-92.
Rosen also produced the first English translation of the Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala of al-Khwārizmī, in 1831.