Part 2 of 2
ConclusionThere is no clear image of India which emerges from the fragmentary writings of the early modern period, but there are certain aspects of writings which stood out. The first aspect was the relatively moderate tone which was used to describe Indian religion as compared to the anti-Islamic invective. The second was the intense interest that the brahmins of India generated. Established as the chief interpreters of religion, they were naturally the first to be consulted on any aspect of religion that travelers were curious about, and equally they formed the first group to be targeted for conversion. In fact this focus on the brahmins and on caste in India may well be the first 'French‘ aspect of writing about India. As Kate Teltscher points out, by the mid-eighteenth century, one can talk of specific national images of India in Europe. The Jesuit dedication to 'going native‘, courting the brahmins, learning Sanskrit and engaging brahmins in long theological debates came to be identified as typically French in stark contrast to the writings of the Lutherans and Anglican missionaries who came to India in the eighteenth century.198 The latter tended to work in North India, completely eschewed the Jesuit practice of accomodatio and focused on effecting mass conversions among the lower castes. While this was more an accident of history rather than any conscious 'French‘ action, the readership for these French Jesuits‘ accounts of India remained primarily French—therefore these accounts informed the French public, particularly the savants, about India.199
An examination of the writings of French missionaries who visited India points to the efforts of these men to create an image of India for their Western readers. Since they comprised the majority of Europeans who ventured into the country (as opposed to traders who limited themselves to the ports) their writings were virtually the only first hand accounts of interior regions in India to be available in Europe. When Jordanus was writing in the thirteenth century, notwithstanding the hyperbole to which he was partial in describing fruits which could feed six men and trees of immense proportions,200 the rare written description of India in the early modern period tended to focus on its difference from Europe. Much of this difference was described in terms of religion, but there were also accounts of the geographical marvels, like the monsoons, which Europeans traveling to the East would have first encountered in India, as well as the different flora and fauna of the area. Jordanus and Pascal also pointed to the fact of idolaters existing in India, but were far more moderate about the religions of the East than may be found in the more extreme rhetoric of the later Jesuits. These issues were relevant to the political context of their writing and it is a fact that after the crusades, an anti-Muslim rhetoric was almost de rigueur in all works describing the East. As opposed to Jordanus, later Jesuits were not only steeped in their own religious fervor, but were also subject to the aggressive economic mission that Europe had launched in Asia, particularly India and China. The Jesuit missions to Asia were corollaries to the steady commercial traffic to the East by the late seventeenth-century and the Lettres reflect the need to document the different aspects of the country in order to provide information about the land and people. As outlined in the introduction to each volume of the Lettres, the Jesuits needed compilation of information in order to better effect conversions- in India, America and China. Yet the availability of their accounts to the reading public meant that these descriptions could be used by secular writers (such as the philosophes, who cited the Lettres widely as discussed in the next chapter) as well as manuals of information to traders and colonialists to these countries. Many of the missionaries were directly connected to the colonial enterprise, since the French ships usually carried at least one missionary onboard when they made voyages to India. These men were to provide to the spiritual needs of the French, but once they had established their missions, they also actively converted the native population.
This chapter serves two purposes for the larger dissertation. Firstly, it traces some of the long held notions of India in France back to the early modern era. Secondly, it establishes the concept of a 'French‘ image of India which was distinct from other countries‘ writings about India. The next chapter follows the foundation which the Jesuits provided in the writings of Enlightenment philosophes.
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Notes:103 I use the term 'Hinduism‘ to denote a broad range of religious beliefs which were thought to be 'Indian‘, in opposition to Muslim, Jewish, and Christian beliefs among Indians.
104 According to Županov, accounts of the Jesuits provided much of the philosophes‘ information about India. Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999): 44
105 I use the term 'missionary views‘ to broadly indicate the views of men whose primary aim in writing about India was for the purpose of spreading Christianity.
106 I use the term 'secular views‘ to represent the views of men who traveled to India as merchants, mercenaries and even tourists as opposed to missionaries who were sent to India in pursuit of their evangelical duties. While many of these men were deeply religious and expressed their opinion of Indian religion, their fundamental purpose in traveling to India was not to effect conversion, so they have been grouped into 'secular views‘.
107 Most of the current research on India in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries has used the works of travelers and observers like Jean Baptiste Tavernier and Le Gentil, physicians like François Bernier and Charles Dellon, engineers like Legoux De Flaix, architects like Claude Martin, and most of all mercenaries like Allard, Ventura, Réne Madec, Law de Lauriston, Dubois de Jancigny, Gentil, Claude Martin and Benoit De Boigne. For travelers see Edward Farley Oaten, European travellers in India during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 1909. (New York: AMS Press, 1971 reprint); and Distant lands and Diverse Cultures: the French Experience in Asia 1600- 1700, edited by Glenn J Ames and Ronald Love (Westport Ct and London: Praeger, 2003). For the work of mercenaries see Jean Marie Lafont, Indika. Essays in Indo- French relations 1630- 1976 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000) as well as La présence française dans le royaume sikh du Penjab: 1822-1849 (Paris: École française d‘Extrême-Orient, 1992).
108 The scholarship on 'secular‘ writers like Tavernier, Bernier, Charles Dellon and Le Gentil is fairly extensive. Apart from numerous translations of their accounts and monographs dedicated to these individuals, it is very common for their works to be used as sources for the modern period in Indian history. For instance, Binita Mehta, Widows, Pariahs and Bayadères. India as spectacle (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, and London: Associated University Presses, 2002) ; and Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British writing on India, 1600- 1800 (Delhi: OUP, 1995) are among the more recent works which examine the impact of these writers on the image of India in France.
109 Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe. An essay in understanding. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1988):44. Cited from P S Filliozat, ―The French Institute of Indology in Pondicherry,' Weiner Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 28 (1983): 133. I have discussed this issue on pages 74-76.
110 Jean Filliozat, ―La naissance et l‘essor de L‘Indianisme', Bulletin de la Société des études indo-chinoises de Saigon, Vol 29, issue 4, (1954): 268.
111 Ibid.
112 The two letters of Jordanus to missionaries wishing to work in the East are in the BNF, dated to Oct 1321 and Jan 1324. They total about 29 pages. Friar Jordanus, Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): preface, iv- vi. The Mirabilia was previously published in Receuil des Voyages et de Mémoires publié par la Société de Géographie, vol. 4 as Description des merveilles d'une partie de l'Asie: imprimé d'après un manuscrit du XIVe siècle par le P. Jordan ou Jourdain Catalani, ed. Eugène Coquebert de Montbret. The Mirabilia was also partially reproduced in Henri Cordier, Mirabilia Descripta-Les Merveilles de l'Asie, par le Père Jourdain Catalani de Séverac (Paris : P. Geuthner, 1925).
113 Published as Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, 1863. Also published as Receuil des Voyages et de Mémoires publié par la Société de Géographie, Vol. 4.
114 John of Montecorvino was possibly the first to visit India on his way to China in 1291-92. See James Ryan, ―European travelers before Columbus: The fourteenth century's discovery of India', Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 79 Issue 4 (October 1993).
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? ... ehost-live. Accessed on 12/31/07.
115 As pointed out in Ibid.
116 In the preceding years there had been several Jesuit missions which had attempted to effect conversions in North India. A notable work was that of Father Pierre Du Jarric, who came to the Mughal court during the late sixteenth-century. Jarric studied the writing of all previous Jesuit missions in India and compiled a Histoire des choses plus mémorables advenes tant en Indes orientales…which essentially detailed the Jesuit missions thus far in India. His work was translated and published in English in 1926 as Akbar and the Jesuits: An Account of the Jesuit Missions to the Court of Akbar (Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005 reprint). A valuable account of Jesuit Missions, Du Jarric did not concern himself too much with a description of the country and people; hence I have left it out of this study.
117 R K Kochhar, 'Secondary Tools of Empire: Jesuit Men of Science in India‘, in Discoveries, Missionary Expansion and Asian Cultures, edited by Teotonio R de. Souza (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994): 175.
118 Ibid.
119 The Lettres which deal with India are records by Pères Tachard, Papin, Bouchet, Pons, Calmette and Mauduit and Coeurdoux. They contain detailed descriptions of the people and customs, which allow a better analysis of their image and representation of India for this study. The Lettres seem to have gone through several versions and translations. According to Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), a total of 34 volumes were published between 1703- 1776, edited by LeGobien (vols 1-7), the China expert du Halde (9-26), 27,28,31,33,34 by Patouillet and possibly René Maréchal or J B Geoffrey for vols. 29, 30, 32. In addition a number of translated, abridged, and altered versions were published well into the nineteenth century: 12- 13. In this study I refer to the earliest English translation of the Lettres, which was published even before the French originals were compiled. This edition was compiled by John Lockman under the title of 'Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. (London: T. Piety, 1762, 2nd Ed). The first edition was published in 2 volumes in 1743, London, by John Noon. The French originals were published periodically by the Paris Jesuit Mission in 34 volumes dating from 1702 to 1776 as Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, Écrites de Missions Etrangères, par quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jésus (Paris: Nicolas Le Clerc). For a description of the various versions of the Lettres, see David Clines, ―In Search of the Indian Job', Vestus Testamentum, Vol. 33. 4 (Oct., 1983): 399- 404.
120 There is an emerging corpus of scholarly work which examines the work of the Jesuits in relation to science, astronomy and their interaction with the native people. Although these aspects are not central to this work, they are valuable additions to the history of South Asia. See for example, S.M.Razaullah Ansari, ―Introduction of Modern Western Astronomy in India during 18-19 Centuries', History of Indian Astronomy, edited by S.N. Sen and K.S. Shukla, (New Delhi: INSA, 1985): 363-402; Jacques Pouchepadass, ―L‘Inde au miroir de l´histoire et des sciences du temps présent', Passeurs d´Orient. Encounters between India and France, edited by F.Gros (Paris: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1991): 52-57; Dhruv Raina, Nationalism, Institutional Science and the Politics of Knowledge: Ancient Indian Astronomy and Mathematics in the Landscape of French Enlightenment Historiography, (Institutionen för vetenskapsteori, Göteborgs Universitet, 1999) Rapport Nr. 201, Dhruv Raina, ―Jean-Baptiste Biot on the History of Indian Astronomy (1830-1860): The Nation in the Post-Enlightenment Historiography of Science', Indian Journal of History of Science 35.4 (2000): 319-346; Dhruv Raina, ―Betwixt Jesuit and Enlightenment Historiography: The Context of Jean-Sylvain Bailly‘s History of Indian Astronomy', Revue d‟Histoire de Mathématiques 9 (2003): 101-153; Virendra Nath Sharma, ―The Impact of Eighteenth Century Jesuit Astronomers on the Astronomy of India and China', Indian Journal of History of Science 17.2 (1982): 345-352; Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999); Ines G Županov, Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India (16th-17th Centuries) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).
121 Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European Writing and British Writing on India, (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 1995): 5.
122 I use the term 'Indian religion‘ because this is the term used both by Jordanus and the Jesuits, in preference to 'Hindu religion‘. Presumably they used the term in recognition of the fact that there were many sects and groups within Hinduism to the extent that the only common features of Hinduism were likely to be geographically determined (i.e. people followed the same customs within a particular region) rather than united by religion.
123 Rana Kabbani also argues that the anti-Muslim view of Europe was a post-crusade development. Rana Kabbani, Europe's Myths of the Orient (London: Macmillan, 1986): 4
124 James D. Ryan, ―Missionary Saints of the High Middle Ages: Martyrdom, Popular Veneration, and Canonization', The Catholic Historical Review 90.1 (2004): 7. Ryan notes that Islam, like Christianity, being a proselytizing religion, came into conflict with the European missionaries, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans who regularly challenged the Muslims with their open denunciations of Allah and the Prophet.
125 Arthur C. Moule, "Brother Jordan of Séverac," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1928): 373. Cited in Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 17.
126 Ibid. In several passages Jordanus dismisses sects of Christianity which he found as heretics. The people of Ethiopia, for instance, ―are all Christians but heretics.': 46. In India, Jordanus speaks of, ―a scattered people, one here, another there, who call themselves Christians, but are not so, nor have they baptism, nor do they know anything else about the faith…' : 23. Furthermore, ―Of the Caspian Hills I say that there they sacrifice sheep upon a cross, and they call themselves Christians, though they are not so, and know nothing of the faith': 51. In terms of the history of the period, Jordanus displays a fairly typical view of 'heretics‘ since the Catholic Church was actively engaged in defining the limits of Catholicism and heresy during this period. See Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation. (Maldren, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).
127 Ibid: 9-10.
128 Norbert Elias, The Civilising Process, (Oxford, 1978- 1982), Vol 1: 99- 113. Also Roy Wood, The Sociology of the Meal (Edinburgh, 1995). The custom of washing one‘s hands before and after meals seems to have come into existence in the homes of the rich only by the late fifteenth-century. See Paul Lacroix, Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period. Project Gutenberg E-Book.
129 The common description in medieval and early modern times of the 'filthy Saracen‘ grew into a conviction which continues to be popular in the West- that of Muslim uncleanliness. See Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other. Edited by David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto, (New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1999).
130 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Translated by Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 45.
131 Ibid: 58.
132 Ibid, 56. Also see James D. Ryan, ―Missionary Saints of the High Middle Ages: Martyrdom, Popular Veneration, and Canonization', The Catholic Historical Review 90.1 (2004): 1-28 for details of the suffering of Jordanus at the hands of the Muslims.
133 Father Martin to Father de Villette, Balasore Bengal. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1. (London: T. Piety, 1762, 2nd Ed): 2.
134 Bouchet arrived in India in about 1688 and was appointed to establish a new mission at Madura in 1702. He was then appointed Superior of the Mission in Carnata. Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondichéry, Feb. 1703. Ibid: 481. For information about Bouchet, see Francis Clooney, Fr. Bouchet‟s India: An 18th Century Jesuits‟ Encounter with Hinduism, (Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005).
135 Father Bouchet to Bishop Huet, formerly Bishop of Avranches. Ibid, Vol 2: 374.
136 Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondichéry, Jan. 1709. Ibid: 373.
137 There has long been a debate between economic historians of India regarding the state of decline [notably Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556-1707 (Delhi: OUP, 1999)] or of economic growth [notably Shireen Moosvi, People, Taxation, and Trade in Mughal India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008)]during the Mughal period of Indian history. The state of the economy and of the oppression of the people stemmed from the demands of the cities and of the landowning class (zamindars) regardless of their religion. Moosvi emphasizes the religious compositeness in the ruling class under Mughal rule.
138 Father Mauduit to Father le Gobien, Carnata. Jan 1702. Ibid, Vol 1: 430.
139 Ibid: 432.
140 Ibid: 440.
141 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Translated by Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 23.
142 Ibid: 24.
143 Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, philosopher and spiritual writer, was born in 1623 at Clermont- Ferrard and died in 1662 in Paris. His most known work is a collection of essays titled „Les Pensées‟ which although unfinished, is essentially an apology for the Christian Religion 'which the increasing number of libertines rendered so necessary at that time.‘ See Blaise Pascal, Pensées, no. 817. Trans. W F Trotter. (1660). Cited in Jean Filliozat, ―La naissance et l‘essor de L‘Indianisme', Bulletin de la Société des études indo-chinoises de Saigon, Vol 29, issue 4, (1954): 268.
144 Blaise Pascal, Pensées, no. 818. Trans. W F Trotter. (1660). Also, Jean Filliozat, ―La naissance et l‘essor de L‘Indianisme', Bulletin de la Société des études indo-chinoises de Saigon, Vol 29, issue 4, (1954): 268.
145 According to Georges Naidenoff among the Jesuits who were also members of the Académie des Sciences were Fontenay, Tachard, Gerbillon, Lecomte, Bouver, and Visdelov. See Georges Naidenoff, ―Endeavours of the Missionaries', in The French in India: from Diamond Traders to Sanskrit Scholars, edited by Rose Vincent (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1990). Also see the decline of Jesuit membership in the Académie during the eighteenth-century in James E. McClellan III, ―The Académie Royale des Sciences, 1699-1793: A Statistical Portrait”, Isis, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Dec., 1981): 555.
146 As Županov points out, the Jesuits used the epistolatory form of writing. The goals of the order as stipulated by Ignatius Loyola were two fold. The first was service and the glory of god; the second the service of the Jesuit order to enable the realization of these goals. The founder had prescribed subjects for Jesuit writing, especially for those stationed outside Europe. There were to be four components of Jesuit written composition and correspondence cast in a specified narrative form. The first were accounts of kings and nobles, and these were to be recorded as dramatic, theatrical vignettes. The second was to deal with the life, habits, and customs of the common people, and these virtually took the form of ethnographic descriptions. Naturally there were disputes within the order and it was prescribed that these disputes be couched in dialogical or polemical terms. And finally, their own individual ambitions were sublimated in the rhetoric of sainthood and utopianism. See Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999): 7.
147 Wilhelm Halbfass also notes Bouchet‘s comparison of Indian beliefs with Hebrew beliefs. See India and Europe. An essay in understanding. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1988): 44.
148 Father Bouchet to Bishop Huet, formerly Bishop of Avranches. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 2 (London: T. Piety, 1762, 2nd Ed): 241. For a good discussion of this topic, see David Clines, 'In Search of the Indian Job‘, Vestus Testamentum, Vol. 33. 4 (Oct., 1983): 398-418. Also see, Francis X. Clooney, Fr. Bouchet‟s India: An 18th Century Jesuits‟ Encounter with Hinduism, (Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005).
149 Father Bouchet to Bishop Huet, formerly Bishop of Avranches. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 2 (London: T. Piety, 1762, 2nd Ed): 241- 63.
150 Ibid: 264.
151 Ibid: 277.
152 Brett Berliner, Department of History and Geography, Morgan State University. Personal communication, December 2006.
153 Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondichéry, Jan. 1709. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 2 (London: T. Piety, 1762, 2nd Ed): 377.
154 Louis Jacolliot was a prolific writer, colonial official and fervent believer that Christianity was derived from Hinduism. His works on the subject include La bible dans l‟Inde (1869) and Christna et le Christ (1874). Jacolliot‘s ideas were extensively quoted by the famous Theosophist Madame Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled (1877).
155 See The Cambridge Economic History of India: c.1200-c.1750 (Cambridge: CUP, 1982). Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib, Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai.
156 Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005): Chapter 6.
157 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 20-21.
158 Father Mauduit. Written from Carnata, 1701. From John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 425.
159 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Translated by Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 12.
160 Father Bouchet to Bishop Huet, formerly Bishop of Avranches. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 2, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed).
161 Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, 'Can the Subaltern Speak?‘ in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988)
162 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Translated by Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 1, first series, (1863): 12
163 Ibid: 22.
164 Ibid: 25.
165 Ibid: 32-33.
166 Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005): 48.
167 Ibid: 58- 64.
168 Father Martin to Father De Villette. Marava in the Mission of Madura, Nov. 1709, John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 2, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 416.
169 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, (1863): 32.
170 Father Tachard, Superior- General of the French Mission of Jesuits in the East Indies, to Father De La Chaize. Pondichéry, Feb. 1702, John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 168-69.
171 Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondichéry, Feb. 1703. Ibid: 481.
172 Father Martin to Father de Villette. Ibid: 5.
173 Father Martin to Father le Gobien. Aoor Madura, Dec 1700. Ibid: 459- 463.
174 Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondichéry, Feb. 1703. Ibid: 481. I use the spelling 'brahmin‘ throughout the thesis to indicate a particular caste among the Hindus, as distinguished from 'brahman‘ which is often used interchangeably to denote the Upanishadic Universal Soul or Godhead. While the difference in reality lies in pronunciation, I have used a different spelling in order to avoid confusions between the two terms.
175 Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, Sept. 1700. Ibid: 9.
176 Dedication to vol. 2 by J B Du Halde, Ibid: 364.
177 Francis X. Clooney, Fr. Bouchet‟s India: An 18th Century Jesuits‟ Encounter with Hinduism, (Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005): 3.
178 Dhruv Raina, ―The Mystery of French Jesuit Manuscripts on Indian Astronomy: The Narratology and Impact of a Late Seventeenth Early Eighteenth Century Project', (paper presented at a workshop on 'Looking at it from Asia: the processes that shaped the sources of history of science.’ Recherches Epistémologiques et Historiques sur les Sciences, Paris, Sept 2006).
179 Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999):5. She notes that following Nobili‘s introduction of the practice of accommodatio in India, almost every Jesuit in India chose one or the other side, writing 'opinions‘ or condemnations, providing arguments for and against this practice. Her work also details the manner in which the practice of accommodatio was accomplished in India.
180 Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondichéry, Feb. 1703. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 487.
181 Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondichéry, Jan. 1709. Ibid, Vol 2: 387.
182 Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, Carnata, Jan. 1702. Ibid, Vol 1: 423.
183 The Elephant headed deity Ganesha, who is worshipped in the South under the name of Pillayar.
184 Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, Carnata, Jan. 1702. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 425
185 Ibid: 426.
186 Father Mauduit to Father le Gobien, Carnata. Jan 1702. Ibid: 420-21.
187 Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondichéry, Jan. 1709. Ibid, Vol 2: 376.
188 Ibid: 377.
189 For more information about the Rites see E. Amann, ―Malabares (Rites)' DTC, 9: 1704-1746. Also see J. Bertrand, Mémoires historiques sur les missions des ordres religieux et spécialement sur les questions du clergé indigène et des rites malabares d'après des documents inédits. 2. ed, (Paris: P. Brunet,1862).
190 Anglican missionaries targeted lower castes for conversion, offering them an egalitarian society and the possibility of employment in the households of colonial administrators. The history of Christians in modern India reflects the efforts of different groups of missionaries- Southern Indian Christians are pre-dominantly Catholics who were converted by the Jesuits or even earlier. They cling to a caste hierarchy based on their caste in Hinduism prior to conversion and the caste rules, especially relating to marriage are strictly followed. The Church of North India is Protestant, dominated by Anglican congregations, who willingly gave up their caste status upon conversion since most of them were lower castes anyway.
191 Sylvia Murr, 'Les conditions d'émergence du discours sur l'Inde au siècle des Lumières, Inde et Littératures', Purusartha, 7, (1983): 239
192 Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British writing on India, 1600- 1800 (Delhi: OUP, 1995): 80.
193 R K Kochhar, 'Secondary Tools of Empire: Jesuit Men of Science in India‘, in Discoveries, Missionary Expansion and Asian Cultures, edited by Teotonio R de. Souza (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994): 175. Kochhar describes the scientific and geographical studies of various men of the Jesuit Mission in India including Bouchet, Richaud, and Boudier.
194 David Clines, 'In Search of the Indian Job‘, in Vestus Testamentum, Vol. 33. 4 (Oct., 1983): 404. Father Martin was an expert in Bengali.
195 Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondichéry, Feb. 1703. John Lockman, Travels of the Jesuits, into various parts of the world: particularly China and the East-Indies. Intermix‟d with an account of the manners, government, civil and religious ceremonies, natural history, and curiosities, of the several nations visited by those fathers. Translated from the celebrated Lettres édifiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. Vol 1, (London: T. Piety, 1762. 2nd Ed): 487.
196 See Louis Renou, The Influence of Indian Thought on French Literature (Adyar, 1948): 2-3.
197 The most famous example of this kind being Anquetil- Duperron whose life‘s work on India was dictated by his quest for Judaic origins.
198 Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European Writing and British Writing on India (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 1995): 8, 74-75.
199 Sylvia Murr has commented on the connections between the Jesuits and Enlightenment savants in 'Les conditions d'émergence du discours sur l'Inde au siècle des Lumières, Inde et Littératures', Purusartha 7 (1983): 233-284
200 Friar Jordanus. Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East Translated by Col. Sir Henry Yule. Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series (1863): 12- 20.