by Jyoti Mohan
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An overview of pre-nineteenth century French writings reveals that there were specific professions or occupations that presented India. Broadly, one can speak of ‘missionary views’,1 and ‘secular views’.2 . A substantial body of research already exists on the works of secular travellers.3 The work of missionaries is only now being examined. This essay is about the letters of Jesuit missionaries about their missions in South India, compiled into the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. The Lettres édifiantes represent the last attempt of men of the cloth to describe India, before the full-scale advent of Imperialism. More than offering a genuine description of south India per se, the Lettres were extensively quoted by other Europeans writing about India and therefore offered a uni-dimensional image of India to the west.4
Examining the Lettres fulfils several important aims. Firstly, it fills a gap in the scholarship on pre-colonial India.5 Secondly, the work of missionaries becomes especially important for this intellectual history, because the aim of French missionaries in India by the late seventeenth-century was as much to record information as amateur scientists as it was to effect conversions to Christianity. The mission writings are representative of the earliest educated western descriptions of India. These early representations were considered so valuable that nineteenth-century works on India relied greatly on missionary accounts of the previous centuries. Citing Pierre Filliozat, William Halbfass in his essay on India and Europe noted:
The birth of Indology as a real science is the result of a collaboration between Indian traditional scholars and French missionaries. The first work that can be recognized as an achievement is a grammar of Sanskrit written in Latin, in about 1733. It is probably the work of J.F Pons, a Jesuit, who resided in India, especially at Chandranagore, Karaikal and Pondicherry, in the first decades of the eighteenth century.6
By the seventeenth century, new geographical and scientific discoveries and incipient long distance trade between Europe and the East led to increased vigour in seeking information about new lands.7 As R. K. Kochhar points out, traders only explored the coastline of India. Geographical exploration was left to the Jesuits, who had the training, time, and opportunity to criss-cross the country. They also had the necessary discipline to make careful observations, record them faithfully, and transmit them regularly.8 In 1687 Louis XIV sent a mission of fourteen Jesuits to Siam. Designated ‘Mathematicians of the King’ they were to collect whatever information they could about the country and its culture in order to understand the peoples of India, Siam, China, and Japan.9 Expelled from Siam in 1688, only three Jesuits made it to the coast of India alive, including Pères Bouchet and Richaud. The observations of these missionaries along with others who were travelling in India at the time were recorded in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses.10 As Kate Teltscher points out, between the years 1700 and 1750, Europe viewed India primarily through the medium of the letters of the French Jesuits.11
It is necessary to point out here that the Lettres exhibit several common characteristics. This indicates that an institutional ‘Jesuit view’ of India was already in place by this time. The first feature of ‘missionary views’ in the Lettres was their anti-Muslim stance. For instance, Father Bouchet12, writing in the first decade of the eighteenth century about his travels and efforts at conversion in the southern kingdom of Carnata (Karnataka) in India noted:
The Preachers of the Gospel are frequently imprisoned, and otherwise abused, in their Mission; which is owing to the Avidity of the Mohammedans, who are but too apt, of themselves, to persecute ’em, from the natural Aversion they bear to the Christian Name…The Indians (under the Muslims) are quite miserable, and reap very little Benefit from their Labours.13
Bouchet does not criticize non-Muslim Indian rulers of similarly exploiting their subjects, emphasizing the cruelty and oppression of ‘Mohammedans’ as the central theme. Further evidence of Muslim animosity to Christian missionaries is found in the letter of Father De La Lane to Father Morgues in 1709 that:
The Country is very populous, and abounds with a vast Number of Towns and Villages; but ‘twould be much fuller of Inhabitants, if the Moors or Mohammedans, subject to the Great Mogul, who subdued it, did not impoverish their People by their perpetual Exactions…The Oppression in which the Heathens live under the Government above mentioned, would be no obstacle to propagating our Religion, were not the Moors, at the same Time, the implacable Enemies of the Christian Name.14
Once again, there is no mention of the numerous Hindu feudatories of the ‘Great Mogul’ in exploiting the people although historians have pointed to uniform economic conditions between Hindu and Muslim feudatories of the Mughals during the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries.15
Father Mauduit, missionary in charge of the mission at Pondicherry who had established the Jesuit mission there some years previously, had already described Muslims as having ‘infested all the Country…The Face of the Country is beautiful, and seeming very populous; but it was more so before the Moors had usurped it.’16 Mauduit’s primary mission was to explore Carnata and the opportunities for conversion there. In his extensive travels through the area he describes his encounter with a friendly Muslim Doctor as, ‘a Person of Learning and Capacity…a worthy Man…yet this Doctor was a Mohammedan, that is, a Person still more remote from the Kingdom of Heaven than the Heathens themselves.’17 If any clearer example of Mauduit’s animosity to Islam can be found, it is in his conclusion. ‘The Advantage I have gained by these Journies is, I now know the several Places wherein Missionaries may be sent. The Season seems to be come, for us to labour with Success at the Conversion of the Idolaters of those Countries, which have so long been overspread with Darkness. All imaginable Dispatch should be used, lest the Mohammedans, who get Possession of all these Countries by insensible Degrees, should force the Inhabitants of them to embrace their abominable Religion.’18 In the particular case of the French, this aspect of animosity towards Islam was a long-standing tradition and one that manifests even today, in various legal debates on the condition of former colonial settlers from North Africa in the metropolis.
Another unanimous point lay in proclaiming the antiquity of Indian religion, and the essential unity of a religious power despite polytheism. By the time the Jesuits were writing their letters, the origin of Indian religion was a matter of great interest. Many of the Jesuits who travelled to India were intellectuals and men of science. Several of them were members of the Academia des Sciences19 and the tone of the Lettres they sent back grew increasingly more scientific as the eighteenth century progressed. The Lettres reflect this trend towards recording information about a country and its people not only for the purpose of conversion but also to further knowledge.20 For instance, Father Bouchet provided extensive comparisons between Hinduism and Judaism in a long letter.21 ‘In this present Letter I shall set before you, and I compare some Conjectures, which, I believe, will be thought important. The Design of them is to prove, that the Indians borrowed their Religion from the Books of Moses and the Prophets.’22 Bouchet then proceeded to compare and analyze incidents and figures in Hindu religion and mythology to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and incidents in the Old Testament:23 ‘Among these Customs, which the Indians must necessarily have borrowed from the Jews, and still practice in this Country, I include their frequent Bathings, their Purifications, their extreme Aversion to dead Bodies, the bare touching of which, they imagine to be Pollution. Add to these, the different Order and distinction of Castes; and the inviolable Law, by which all Persons are commanded not to marry out of their own Caste or Tribe.’24 He concludes:
I will here end the long Letter which I have taken the Liberty to address to your Lordship. I therein have given you an Account of such Particulars as were told to me by the Indian Nations, who, in all Probability, were antiently [sic for ‘anciently’] Christians, but fell back, many Ages since, into the Errors of Idolatry…You may perceive, that, at the same Time we win over these abandon’d Nations to Christ, we endeavour to be of some Service to the Literati in Europe, by our Discoveries in Countries with which they are not enough acquainted.25
These comparisons between Hinduism and the Old Testament clearly set out the reasons why Europeans tended to look upon Hinduism more favourably. According to Berliner, the ‘Christianization of Hinduism’ where individual elements of Hindu mythology were compared to Christian mythology may have accounted for the long-standing admiration that many Frenchmen held for India.26 After all as Father De La Lane put it, ‘I shall now give you a Sketch of the Religion of these Indians. They doubtless are truly Idolaters, since they worship strange Gods. Nevertheless, it appears plainly to me, from some of their Books, that they had antiently [sic for ‘anciently’] a pretty distinct knowledge of the true God.’27 The comparisons between Christianity and Hinduism as possessing the same fundamental beginnings began in the thirteenth century work of Jordanus28 and continued in the work of the Theosophists down to the colonial period.29 In their anti-Muslim stance and their opinion that Hinduism held a long-lost belief in the ‘True God’, missionaries were united through the centuries. Apart from rhetorical denunciation of the ‘false prophet’ Muhammad and the ‘false God’ Allah, none of the missionaries writing about India actually clarified what they found so objectionable about Islam or Muslims. In sweeping statements they presented Muslim rulers as harsh tyrants—cruel despots who laid the land to waste and oppressed their non-Muslim subjects. In reality, historians of modern India have demonstrated that individual rulers had their own policies—some were tyrants, others benevolent.30 Religion had little to do with these regimes. There were Hindu and Muslim tyrants, just as there were enlightened rulers of both religions. The fact that missionaries chose to single out Muslim rulers for criticism highlights the antipathy they had for Islam, which, according to Masuzawa stemmed from a long-standing anti-Semitic feeling in Europe.31
No European account of India could be complete without the requisite description of the practice of sati. The Lettres similarly pandered to their audience in their description of sati as an outlandish custom meant to crush women under male tyranny in contrast to the freedom which women enjoyed in Europe. Fr. Mauduit wrote about sati in 1701:
It was with Tears I beheld the Sad Remains of a diabolical Ceremony which the Moors have endeavoured to abolish, since their being Masters of the greatest part of this Country. Not many Days before, a Woman, either out of the Love she bore her deceased husband, or from a Desire of spreading her Name, had thrown herself on the funeral Pile, whilst her Husband was burning on it, and in this manner had been consum’d to Ashes. There were still seen the Necklaces, Bracelets, and other Ornaments of that unhappy Victim of Satan, hanging on the Boughs of the Trees, which stood round the Place where this Sad Ceremony was performed…32
The above quote stands out in its condemnation of the custom of sati as a ‘diabolical’ and ‘sad’ ceremony that had consumed a ‘victim of Satan’. While Mauduit described the motives for sati—love or a desire for glory— as well as the voluntary nature of the act, he described the performer as ‘that unhappy victim of Satan’. Ironically he also acceded to the attempt by Muslim rulers to abolish the custom, once again underlining the flimsiness of the ideological arguments about the relative quality of Islam and Hinduism by the Jesuits. Additionally, by the time the Lettres were being written, European economic interest in India was well advanced, and trading depots, factories and a flourishing trade in cotton, tobacco, tea, spices and other luxury goods. This was at the time when European traders were scrambling to secure their footing in India by establishing their own colonies. The Lettres were translated into English solely because they provided valuable information—geographical, social, political and religious—which helped English merchants in their dealings with the locals in the south of India. For their part, Jesuit missionaries could not have been unaware or even uninfluenced by the emerging theory that the European, or Christian culture to be more precise was a superior civilization that owed other, lesser civilizations the opportunity to develop through the mission civilisatrice. What is interesting to note in this transition is that the voice of the native was never heard. The Jesuits presented their own understanding of these customs and dismissed native explanations for their performance as proof of their irrationality and backwardness. While Jesuit understanding of native customs could very likely be coloured by Enlightenment discourses about individual rights, their refusal to accept anything other than a European moral compass was a new development of the colonial era. While Indian religion may have held a kernel of truth in origin, the Jesuits described contemporary Hindus as ‘idolaters’ who displayed their ignorance and backwardness in their stubborn adherence to superstitions and ritualistic beliefs. For example, according to Father Martin,
All the Indians (to speak in general) worship some Deity; but alas! How ignorant are they of the true God! Blinded by their Passions still more than by the evil Spirit, they form monstrous Ideals of the Supreme Being; and you wou’d scarce believe me, shou’d I name the vile and infamous Creatures to which they pay divine Honours. ‘Tis my Opinion, that no Idolatry among the Antients (sic) was ever more gross, or more horrid, than that of these Indians.33
Every letter of the Jesuits contained references to the idolatrous and superstitious practice of Hindus followed by a description of Jesuit efforts to convert them to Christianity. The priests also made an extra effort to describe extremes of ritual practice in order to sensationalize the backwardness of Hindus for readers and potentially to urge the Church to invest more heavily in the missions. For instance, Father Tachard described the polyandrous Nair community of southern India in 1702 as:
In this Country, called Malleami, there are Castes as in the rest of India. Most of them observe the same Customs; and in particular they all entertain the like Contempt for the Religion and Manner of the Europeans. But a Circumstance, that perhaps is not found elsewhere, and which I myself could scarce believe, is that, among these Barbarians and especially the noble Castes, a Woman is allowed, by the Laws, to have several Husbands…This Custom, which is somewhat monstrous, as well as many other…are founded on the Religion.34
An interesting aspect of the Jesuit letters was their status in society. According to Tachard, ‘The Missionaries who were settled in Caroovepondi, had resolv’d, at their Entrance into that Mission, to assume the Habit, and lead the Life of the Sanias Bramins, or religious Penitents.’35 In fact this circumstance was so strongly felt that it was not a matter of choice. By the seventeenth century, Europeans had made themselves heartily disliked in India by their complete indifference to the customs of the area. As Father Martin explained,
The people of Madura have no Communication with the Europeans, who, by their riotous Excesses, have corrupted all the Christians in India…The Missionaries lead an extremely mortified Life…They are not known to be Europeans; for were the Natives to have the least Notion of this, the Fathers would be obliged to quit the Country…Several Motives prompt the Indians to have the Europeans in so much Horror. Great Cruelties have been committed in their Countries; they have been EyeWitnesses to the most shocking examples of Vices of every Kind…36
On one occasion, Father Bouchet, in order to protect the lives of other missionaries, had to admit his own European roots. This was considered to be an extreme step and only the fact that Bouchet was already well respected in the area made it possible for him to continue working.37 Among the habits, which the Jesuits had to adopt, was strict vegetarianism, since eating flesh of any kind would have prohibited social intercourse with higher castes. They also had to prove their own high caste status by employing Brahmin cooks.38 Mauduit explained the need to live with such austerities. ‘I must observe that it is absolutely necessary the Missionaries should lead a Life of the greatest Mortification, in order to win over the Heathens, who would shew (sic) no Regard to the Law of the true God, nor to the Preachers of it, were these to live with less Austerity than their Bramins and Sanias.’39 Since earlier missionaries made no mention of any special changes in habit or demeanour, one can assume that they made it a point to respect the customs of each country through which they had travelled, or that their oddities did not offend the local population. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, the Europeans had become so confident of their superiority that they flouted the laws of the nations they traded with—eating meat, disobeying the rules of social interaction and etiquette- and consequently became social pariahs. When the Jesuits came to south India, their first task was to make themselves acceptable members of society, which they could only accomplish by posing as Brahmin ascetics from the north.40 In fact, Bouchet even took on the name of Periya Sanjivinatha, meaning ‘Revered master of spiritual healing’.41Since north Indians were fairskinned, the Jesuits could pass for a north Indian Brahmin in order to gain an audience with the people of south India. As Dhruv Raina42 and Ines Županov43 point out the custom of accomodatio was common among Jesuits who thought they could not effect conversions otherwise.
In their attempt to fit in with the local population, the Jesuits also made it a habit to court the brahmins. Interestingly enough, their letters indicate the great contempt which they held for the brahmins as the chief perpetrators of superstition and idolatry, but simultaneously speak of the necessity to court and convert them since the brahmins were the religious leaders and one brahmin convert would surely serve as an example to many other lower castes. Tachard, in his description of the state of the various missions in the South summed up the successes of the missions in terms of the number of brahmin converts in each mission. ‘Father de la Fontaine was extremely fortunate in the very Opening of his Mission…That Father has already baptized a great many Bramins.’44 So as De La Lane wrote to Father Morgues, ‘No Sort of People in the World can possibly be prouder then the Bramins, stronger Opponents of Truth, or more puffed up with the Ideas of their superstitions and Nobility.’45 Yet the Jesuits tried their hardest to convert the brahmins. In his efforts to establish a mission at Carnata, Father Mauduit describes his persuasive words to a group of brahmins that Indians ‘may be in an Error, in imagining that Bruma (Brahma), Wistnou (Vishnu), and Routrem (Shiva), are Gods worthy of Adoration; since that these pretended Deities were only so many vicious, corrupt Men, who were ranked among the Gods, merely by the Flattery of their Fellow-creatures.’ Having made this speech on their misconception, Mauduit then recorded their response. The Bramins liste’ned to me very calmly, and without seeming to regard the Contradictions they necessarily fell into, nor the ridiculous Consequences which they were obliged to own resulted from what they said. At last, finding the Attack grow still warmer, their only Refuge was to withdraw without saying a Word. This gives a tolerable Idea of the People of this Country, and shews that the Conversion of a Bramin is not so easy a Matter as might be imagined. Few Converts have been made here this Year.46
On another occasion, Mauduit recorded his stay at the house of a Brahmin. ‘I lay, at Alcatil, in the House of a Bramin, who daily worshipped the Devil, under the Name and Figure of Poolear. 47 Seeing this Idol standing in the Room where I was to lie, I thought proper to throw it upon the Ground.’48 In a testament to the peaceful nature of the Indians as well as their tolerance of the missionaries, Mauduit recounted that the Brahmin, seeing his idol desecrated the next morning, and a makeshift Altar in its place, left to allow Mauduit to complete his prayers in peace. ‘This drew several Persons to the house, which gave me an opportunity of speaking to them concerning God; and of observing, how unhappy they were, in not being acquainted with the Supreme Being, sole Author of all Good. They listened attentively to me, but were not affected, not one of them then discovering the least Desire to turn Christian.’49
Given the rough and ready methods of the Jesuits, it is not surprising that they failed to convert many Brahmins. However they persisted in their efforts, deeming this so important that they made many concessions, even allowing new converts to maintain their caste purity. In 1702 Mauduit wrote,
‘I am to observe that Catechists of a lower Caste, cannot be employed in instructing such Indians as are of a higher caste. The Bramins and Shootres, who are the principal and most extensive Castes, have as much Aversion to the Parias, who are under them, than any Prince in Europe could entertain for the Dregs of the People. These Bramins and Shootres would be dishonoured in their native Place, and lose all the Privileges of their Caste, should they listen to the Instructions of a Person whom their Countrymen consider as an abominable Wretch. We therefore are obliged, to appoint Parias Catechists for the Parias, and Bramin-Catechists for the Bramins; a Circumstance which gives us no little Trouble, it not being easy to procure such, especially of the latter. Nothing is more difficult than to convert the Bramins; for these being naturally haughty, and puffed up with Notions of their exalted Birth, and their Superiority over the rest of the Castes, they thence are found less tractable and more strongly attached to the Superstitions of their Country.’50
It seems that caste barriers were a huge problem in effecting conversions, even among other castes. According to Father De La Lane,
The Indians are extremely sober, they never committing any Excess, either in eating or drinking. They are born with a natural Aversion to all Liquors which intoxicate; are very reserv’d with regard to Women…are vastly charitable to the Poor…are of a very mild Disposition; whence nothing shocks them so much as a hasty Temper and Anger. Such being their Frame of Mind, ‘tis certain many would then turn Christians, were they not afraid of being expelled from their Castes.51
Considering that society, particularly in south India, functioned around the institution of caste, which dictated each person’s social, economic and political status, fear of losing one’s caste can be understood. A person who ‘lost caste’ effectively lost his whole support system, his social network, extended family and even his economic community. ‘A Person who is expell’d from his Caste is lost to all Refuge or Asylum. His Relations must not hold the least Correspondence with, not even give him so much as a little Fire; and if he had any Children, he never finds an Opportunity to marry them; and thus is forced to either starve, or to enter into the Caste of the Parias, which, among the Indians, is an Act of the blackest Infamy.’52
The efforts of the Jesuits to accommodate Indian customs in their efforts at proselytization reached a dead-end in the infamous Rites Malabars.53 Jealous of the success the Jesuits claimed to have in converting peoples in the East, based on the conversion of the people of the Malabar region of south India where the Jesuits had effected many conversions by maintaining caste purity, other Catholic orders petitioned the Vatican. They challenged the Jesuit method of conversion by claiming that a convert who still held on to his previous beliefs and rituals was not a true, believing Christian. Under pressure from these groups, particularly the Dominicans and Franciscans, and despite the pleas of missionaries in India that allowances made to Indian Christian converts was only meant to be an initial effort to demonstrate the superior religion, the Church ruled in 1744 that such converts were not ‘true’ converts and that no convert could profess the Catholic faith while retaining loyalty to customs dictated by Hindu life.54 From then on, the number of converts to Christianity in India dropped drastically, until the Anglicans began proselytization in a big way in the nineteenth century.55
In spite of these struggles, the Lettres enjoyed a wide readership. According to Sylvia Murr, the Lettres Édifiantes were published when the Jesuits were struggling to maintain legitimacy in face of decreasing funds from the Church and competition from other orders. They were also meant to boost confidence in readers’ faith at a time when the Church was under attack from non-believers and the philosophers.56 As Kate Teltscher notes, the Lettres enjoyed wide circulation in part because they were written to persuade individuals to contribute to the cause of proselytization in India and elsewhere.57
According to the historian of science R. K. Kochhar, although the spread of Christian faith was the most important plan of the Jesuits, their activities had a scientific dimension about them, being the first European men of learning in India.58 Kochhar notes that Bouchet was the first person who, having travelled extensively in the southern part of India, was able to produce a reliable map of the peninsula, which the celebrated geographer D’Anville later used as blueprint for his maps of south India. The Jesuit mission sent by Louis XIV made the first attempt to study Indian languages. These men applied themselves with vigour to the study of the local languages in the south, particularly Tamil and Telegu that were spoken by the majority in the areas they served. Bouchet was fluent in Tamil and was considered a scholar by his fellow missionaries.59 They also applied themselves to the study of Sanskrit believing that this would give them a greater understanding of the foundation of Indian religion and cultural traditions. As Tachard described in his survey of the missions:
Father Mauduit applies himself to the Grandan, which is the learned Language of the Country. A Jesuit, to make his Ministry still more useful to the Indians, must understand their Books writ in that Language; and appear learned in the Sciences professed by their Doctors. The Bramins, who set themselves up as the only learned Men in this Country, won’t permit such Authors as treat of them to be translated; and are prodigiously jealous of them, from a Persuasion that Learning is the true Characteristic of Nobility.60
In studying these languages and writing detailed accounts of their impressions of Indians they encountered, as well as producing rudimentary grammars, dictionaries and linguistic guides for other missionaries to use, the Jesuits provided an invaluable service to later generations of Indologists who used these works as their base to learn about India. For example, a signal service to the study of local languages was performed by Ariel, missionary in Pondicherry, who had compiled a Tamil grammar and collected a wealth of Tamil manuscripts and sent them to Paris where Charles d’Ochoa organized them. Père Coeurdoux was another missionary in Pondicherry who was in touch with Voltaire, Anquetil-Duperron, and other academics, providing them information about Indian culture, history, science, etc.61 In fact it is no coincidence that until the notion of the academic as a rational man of science became dominant in the Enlightenment, many scholars of India were deeply religious and began their studies on India as part of an effort to understand a ‘heathen’ religion or to trace the roots of pagan religion.62
Conclusion
There is no clear image of India that emerges from the fragmentary writings of this period, but there are certain aspects of writings that stood out. The first aspect was the relatively moderate tone that 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 travellers 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 could 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. This was in stark contrast to the writings of the Lutherans and Anglican missionaries who came to India in the eighteenth century.63 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.64
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 firsthand accounts of interior regions in India to be available in Europe. One must remember, however, that the Jesuits were not only steeped in their own religious fervour, but were also subject to the aggressive economic mission that Europe had launched in Asia, particularly in India and China. 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 compiled information in order to better effect conversions in India, America and China. Yet the availability of their accounts to the literate public meant that secular writers (such as the philosophes, who cited the Lettres widely) as well as traders and colonialists used them as manuals of information. Many of the missionaries were directly connected to the colonial enterprise, since the French ships usually carried at least one missionary onboard when they voyaged 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.
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Notes:
1. 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.
2. I use the term ‘secular views’ to represent the views of men who travelled 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 travelling to India was not to effect conversion, so they have been grouped into ‘secular views’.
3. Most of the current research on India in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries has used the works of travellers 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, RéneMadec, 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 16001700, 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: Écolefrançaised’Extrême-Orient, 1992.
4.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 CenturyIndia, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 44
5. 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.
6. Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe. An essay in understanding, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1988, p.44. Cited from P S Filliozat, ‘The French Institute of Indology in Pondicherry’, Weiner Zeitschriftfür die KundeSüdasiens 28, 1983, p. 133.
7. 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 sixteenthcentury. Jarric studied the writing of all previous Jesuit missions in India and compiled a Histoire des choses plus mémorables advenestant 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: Routledge Curzon, 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.
8. R K Kochhar, ‘Secondary Tools of Empire: Jesuit Men of Science in India’, in Discoveries, Missionary Expansion and Asian Cultures, edited Teotonio R de. Souza, New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994, p. 175.
9. Ibid.
10. 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 Lettresédifiantes & 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 ,October, 1983, p. 399– 404.
11. Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European Writing and British Writing on India, Oxford and Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 1995, p. 5.
12. 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. Pondicherry, Feb. 1703. Ibid, p. 481. For information about Bouchet, see Francis Clooney, Fr. Bouchet’s India: An 18th Century Jesuits’ Encounter with Hinduism, Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005.
13. Father Bouchet to Bishop Huet, formerly Bishop of Avranches. Ibid, Vol 2: 374.
14. Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondicherry, January 1709. Ibid: 373.
15. 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.
16. Father Mauduit to Father le Gobien, Carnata. January 1702. Ibid, Vol 1: 430.
17. Ibid, p. 432.
18. Ibid, p. 440.
19. 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,December 1981, p. 555.
20. 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, p. 7.
21. 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, p. 44.
22. 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, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 241. For a good discussion of this topic, see David Clines, ‘In Search of the Indian Job’, Vestus Testamentum, Vol. 33. 4, October, 1983, p. 398–418. Also see, Francis X. Clooney, Fr. Bouchet’s India: An 18th Century Jesuits’ Encounter with Hinduism, Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005.
23. 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, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 241– 63.
24. Ibid, p.264.
25. Ibid, p. 277.
26. Brett Berliner, Department of History and Geography, Morgan State University. Personal communication, December 2006.
27. Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondicherry, January 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 Lettresé difiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. vol 2, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 377.
28. Friar Jordanus, Mirabilia Descripta. The Wonders of the East. Trans. Col. Sir Henry Yule. London: Hakluyt Society Publication no. 31, first series, 1863.
29. 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 dansl’Inde, 1869 and Christna et le Christ,1874. Jacolliot’s ideas were extensively quoted by the famous Theosophist Madame Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled, 1877.
30. See Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib, Dharma Kumar and Meghnad Desai ed., The Cambridge Economic History of India: c.1200-c.1750, Cambridge: CUP, 1982.
31.Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, Chapter 6. Masuzawa correctly terms this sentiment ‘anti-Semitic’ in referring to the common racial origin of the Sephardic Jews and the Arabs, and applies it both to anti-Jewish and anti-Mulism feeling in Europe.
32. 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, Second edition, 1762., p. 425.
33. Father Martin to Father De Villette. Marava in the Mission of Madura, November 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 Lettresé difiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. vol 2, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 416.
34. Father Tachard, Superior- General of the French Mission of Jesuits in the East Indies, to Father De La Chaize. Pondicherry, 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 Lettresé difiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. vol 1, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762., p. 168–69.
35. Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondicherry, February 1703. Ibid, p. 481.
36. Father Martin to Father de Villette. Ibid, p. 5.
37. Father Martin to Father le Gobien. Aoor Madura, December 1700. Ibid, p. 459–463.
38. Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondicherry, February1703. Ibid, p. 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.
39. Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, September 1700. Ibid, p. 9.
40. Dedication to vol. 2 by J B Du Halde, Ibid, p. 364.
41. Francis X. Clooney, Fr. Bouchet’s India: An eighteenth Century Jesuits’ Encounter with Hinduism, Chennai: Satyam Nilyam Publications, 2005, p. 3.
42. 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, September 2006).
43. Ines G Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth Century India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 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.
44. Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondicherry, Februaty 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, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 487.
45. Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondicherry, Jan. 1709. Ibid, Vol 2, p. 387.
46. Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, Carnata, January 1702. Ibid, Vol 1, p. 423.
47. The Elephant headed deity Ganesha, who is worshipped in the South under the name of Pillayar.
48. Father Mauduit to Father Le Gobien, Carnata, January 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 Lettresé difiantes & curieuses. To which is now prefixed, an account of the Spanish settlements in America, with a general index to the whole work. vol 1, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 425.
49. Ibid, p. 426.
50. Father Mauduit to Father le Gobien, Carnata. January 1702. Ibid, pp. 420–21.
51. Father De La Lane to Father Morgues, Pondicherry, January 1709. Ibid, Vol 2, p. 376.
52. Ibid, p. 377.
53. The Rites malabares or Malabar rites were certain native institutions like caste and specific forms of worship which Jesuits in South India allowed new converts to Catholicism to continue practicing. For many Jesuits working in South India, it seemed impossible to effect conversions without making some accommodation to the centuries’ old traditions, beliefs and practices of Indians. Since the aim was conversion to Christianity, the indulgence to new Indian converts continuing to believe for instance, in magic and the prevalence of spirits, seemed harmless. The accommodation was not actively encouraged by the Popes, but for a while Rome turned a blind eye to them. Eventually, the practice was forbidden by a Papal Brief of 24 August 1734, due primarily to the resentment of other Catholic missions like the Capuchins.
54. For more information about the Rites see E. Amann, ‘Malabares (Rites)’DTC, 9, p. 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.
55. 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.
56. Sylvia Murr, 'Les conditions d'émergence du discourssurl'Inde au siècle des Lumières, Inde et Littératures', Purusartha, 7, 1983, p. 239.
57. Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British writing on India, 1600–1800, Delhi: OUP, 1995, p. 80.
58. 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, p. 175. Kochhar describes the scientific and geographical studies of various men of the Jesuit Mission in India including Bouchet, Richaud, and Boudier.
59. David Clines, ‘In Search of the Indian Job’, in Vestus Testamentum, Vol. 33. 4, October, 1983, p. 404. Father Martin was an expert in Bengali.
60. Father Tachard, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in India, to Count De Crecy. Pondicherry, Februaty 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, Second edition, London: T. Piety, 1762, p. 487.
61. See Louis Renou, The Influence of Indian Thought on French Literature, Adyar, 1948, pp. 2–3.
62. The most famous example of this kind being Anquetil-Duperron whose life’s work on India was dictated by his quest for Judaic origins.
63. Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European Writing and British Writing on India, Oxford and Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 1995, pp. 8, 74–75.
64. Sylvia Murr has commented on the connections between the Jesuits and Enlightenment savants in 'Les conditions d'émergence du discourssurl'Inde au siècle des Lumières, Inde et Littératures', Purusartha 7, 1983, pp. 233–284