Abstract
The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries largely contributed to (re)building connections and to “de-compartmenting the worlds,” as French historian Pierre Chaunu insightfully put it. In European undertakings in India, there was exchange not only of merchandise, but also of information and knowledge. This chapter underlines the accelerating flow of knowledge between Europe and India from the fifteenth century onwards, the active role played by Gujarat’s bazaars in this process, and its consequences from the perspective of the “Oriental Renaissance” in the nineteenth century. Three case studies of scholars will stand as illustrative examples for Indian knowledge acquired in Gujarat and shared in Europe: Garcia da Orta, Georges Roques and Anquetil-Dupperon. Their work highlights the role played by Gujarat as a bazaar for scholars.
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Notes
- 1.
Kripal also adds: “The gnostic does not believe tenets or discover truths, like an orthodox religionist, on the one hand, or like a rationalist, on the other hand. The gnostic knows, and among the things he or she knows is that the knowledge he or she possesses cannot be reconciled with the claims of any past, present, or future religion . To borrow an expression from Elaine Pagels, gnostic epistemology is ‘beyond belief ’” (Kripal 2004, p. 515).
- 2.
Of course, the Church had previously had plenty of access to Indic and other religious scriptures for centuries, but mostly chose not to divulge or dwell on the fact. There is even talk of suppression of information on its part, though the matter has seemingly never been studied in depth (Jan Houben, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, personal communication , Nantes, February 2016).
- 3.
See the Iranica entry for further details http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anquetil-duperron-abraham (consulted on November 22, 2016).
- 4.
Starr suggests a Central Eurasian Renaissance for a somewhat earlier period, but one nonetheless that overlaps with the history presented here through the figure of Babur, who was a Central Eurasian Turkic ruler from the Ferghana Valley and founder of the Mughal Empire (Starr 2013).
- 5.
Markham, p. viii. All quotes from Orta’s work here are from Markham’s translation: Ficalho and Markham (1913). See also the original from 1563, http://purl.pt/22937 (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal , link “Biblioteca Digital”).
- 6.
- 7.
See discussion of Orta in Rosa (2015, pp. 146 ff).
- 8.
For instance, see the discussion of Sebastião Dalgado in Rosa (2015, chapter 5).
- 9.
“I did not propose, Dear Friends and Colleagues, to write about the life and customs of all these types of people; it would be too long to describe because there are more than two hundred” (Part I, Bérinstain 24).
- 10.
“ce filou de Banian” (f. 12–13, Bérinstain 32).
- 11.
“bien des fripons” (f. 38, Bérinstain 43).
- 12.
The report is “dedicated to my Dear Friends and Colleagues, the Persons engaged in the Royal Company of France” (Suppt fr. 3191, Bérinstain 25).
- 13.
The words “man” (Hindi), “sers” (Hindi) and “marc/q” (Frankish) designate weights; “tassou” is a length.
- 14.
The book needs to be translated in its entirety for that.
- 15.
Parsees were close to the personnel of the European companies, which often employed them as brokers or writers.
- 16.
Anquetil asked the dastur Darab to help him translate the Vendidad into Persian: “He (Darab) argued that he would surely die if other dastoors would come to know what he was doing at my place” (Anquetil 2005, p. 351).
- 17.
The foundation of the “Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient” (EFEO) with local establishments in the Far East certainly owes a lot to his model of the “Académie ambulante” though it eventually lost the spirit of Anquetil Duperron’s dream.
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Keller, S., Rosa, F. (2019). Scholars in Gujarat’s Bazaars: Revisiting L’académie ambulante (“The Roving Academy”). In: Keller, S. (eds) Knowledge and the Indian Ocean. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96839-1_6
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