Abstract
The early eighteenth century has been considered the formative period for the emergence of the discourse on the Orient while the latter half acquires significance for the formation of the discourse on colonialism. During the eighteenth century European writing on India comprised a network of “intersecting and contending discourses”, and was preoccupied with a wide range of questions about authority. The representations of India in this writing are naturally very “diverse, shifting, historically contingent, complex and competitive” and were shaped by “national and religious rivalries, domestic concerns”, and the cognitive or intellectual cultures of the respective interlocutors. It has been argued that until the eighteenth century it was possible to speak of a European tradition of writing about India that differentiated into several national traditions by the middle of the eighteenth century. The one we look at here is specifically the French Jesuit discourse on India.
Other religious figures have combined these two features: at the same time that they seek to convert the Indians to the Christian religion, they also describe the Indians’ history, their customs, their religion, and thereby contribute to a knowledge of them…They form one of the two main groups of authors to whom we owe what knowledge we now have concerning ancient Mexico; among them were representatives of various religious orders, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits.
(Tzvetan Todorov 1984).
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Notes
- 1.
This essay is based on a lecture delivered at a Workshop on the History of Science organized at the Indian National Science Academy in March 2005. The text was subsequently modified and presented at the Workshop Bibliothèques, encyclopédies, musées, archives : la constitution des collections qui ont fourni ses sources à l’histoire des sciences, Paris, 4–5 Avril, 2005. I thank Jean-Marie Lafont for his timely help with Omont’s catalogue, Hélène Chollet for correcting my reading of Duchamp’s manuscript, Florence Bretelle-Establet, Karine Chemla, Agathe Keller and Christine Proust for their comments on earlier drafts, Ines Županov whose work has deeply influenced this essay. The usual disclaimer applies.
- 2.
(Županov 2005, 2).
- 3.
(Teltscher 1995, 2).
- 4.
- 5.
(Kejariwal 1988, 14)
- 6.
Ibid, 15
- 7.
- 8.
(Teltscher 1995, 29)
- 9.
(Duarte 1932, 195)
- 10.
(Pouchepadass 1991, 54)
- 11.
(Edney1997, 5)
- 12.
(Filliozat 1951, 1–3)
- 13.
(Raina 1999)
- 14.
(Filliozat 1954)
- 15.
(Filliozat 1957)
- 16.
(Kejariwal 1988, 17)
- 17.
(Raina 2003).
- 18.
(Sharma 1982).
- 19.
(Murr 1983, 242).
- 20.
Three chapters of the second volume of the text entitled Description du royaume de Siam par M. de la Loubère (Description 1714] deal with astronomy. Pages 113–149 deal with Siamese astronomical rules for calculating the motion of the sun and moon; decoded by Cassini, who suggests that these rules clearly suggested an Indian influence. The second chapter, a long one – pp. 1150–234 -, is a reflection on the Indian computation rules; and is based on material obtained on Père Tachard´s voyage to Siam. Siam in the 1680s was at the intersection of two astronomical traditions, Chinese and Indian, and the Jesuits picked up both at that location.
- 21.
(Observations 1692).
- 22.
(Observations 1692, 17–20).
- 23.
“Messieurs de l’Academie Royale des sciences, ayant agrée les premiers observations faites aux Indes par les Jesuites François, que j’eus l’honneur de leur presenter de la part de ces Peres en 1688… Depuis ce temps – là mesmes Jesuites François ont continué à observer sur les instructions de l’Academie,” (Observations 1692].
- 24.
(Observations 1692).
- 25.
(Hsia 1999).
- 26.
(Schaffer 2009, 245).
- 27.
(Launay 1898).
- 28.
(Lafont 2000, 23).
- 29.
(Lafont 2000, 24).
- 30.
(Teltscher 1995, 74).
- 31.
(Murr 1983, 236).
- 32.
(Teltscher 1995, 74–5).
- 33.
(Shapin and Schaffer 1985).
- 34.
I use the term narratology squarely in the sense of the theory of narrative and narrative structures as defined by Todorov (Todorov 1969, 9).
- 35.
(Teltscher 1995, 4).
- 36.
(Županov 2005, 2).
- 37.
(Županov 2005, 1).
- 38.
( Teltscher 1995, 14–15).
- 39.
- 40.
(Murr 1983, 239).
- 41.
(Županov 1999, 6).
- 42.
- 43.
(Teltscher 1995, 75).
- 44.
(Županov 1999, 7).
- 45.
(Županov 1999, 9–10).
- 46.
(Murr 1987).
- 47.
(Županov 1999, 22).
- 48.
(Todorov 1984, 185).
- 49.
(Županov 1999, 24).
- 50.
(Županov 1999, 103).
- 51.
(Clooney 2005, 3).
- 52.
(Clooney 2005, 9–11).
- 53.
(Ansari 1985, 372).
- 54.
(Ansari 1985, 372).
- 55.
(Rinckenbach 1998).
- 56.
(Bailly 1787).
- 57.
(Sen 1985, 50).
- 58.
(Sen 1985).
- 59.
(Sharma 1982, 348).
- 60.
(Duchamp 1734). In an earlier paper I had assumed that the two manuscripts were the same as the Xavier manuscript (Raina 2003). This is evidently not so, though much of the astronomical material contained in (Duchamp 1734) is not too radically different from that in (Duchamp 1750), Yet the astronomical practices are documented in more detail (Duchamp 1734) even though (Duchamp 1750) is a larger manuscript.
- 61.
(Duchamp 1734).
- 62.
(Duchamp 1734, folio 000002).
- 63.
It would be anachronistic to refer to this phase of the encounter as ethnography, and I shall mean proto-ethnographic when I write ethnographic. Because even when the encounter was “proto-etic”, the reconstruction of the “other” knowledge systems still bore the signature of either Christianity, or modern astronomy.
- 64.
While quoting from (Duchamp 1750), I shall be adhering to the French spelling and accents as encountered in the original manuscript.
- 65.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 66.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 67.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 68.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 69.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 70.
(Duchamp 1750, 1).
- 71.
(Duchamp 1734).
- 72.
(Duchamp 1750, 2).
- 73.
(Duchamp 1750, 2).
- 74.
(Raina 1999).
- 75.
(Duchamp 1750, 4).
- 76.
(Davis 1790).
- 77.
(Guerin 1847).
- 78.
(Bouchet quoted in Clooney 2005, 54).
- 79.
(Bamboat 1933, 95).
- 80.
(Lettres 1810, 15: 269–291).
- 81.
(Lettres 1810, 15: 269).
- 82.
(Lafont 2000, 34).
- 83.
(Lafont 2000, 33–35).
- 84.
(Lafont 2000, 35).
- 85.
In Indian philosophy, e.g. the Nyaya or school of logic or Vedanta are considered as the different darsanas or schools of philosophy.
- 86.
(Lafont 2000, 36).
- 87.
(Lafont 2000, 92).
- 88.
(Lafont 2000, 93).
- 89.
(Lafont 2000, 36).
- 90.
(Omont 1902, 1179–92)
- 91.
90 This is a treatise on elementary astronomy authored by Mathurānātha Vidyālankāra published around 1609 A.D (Sen 1966, 143).
- 92.
91 The Siddhāntas were texts on computational astronomy, the karaņas were simple manuals containing rules for carrying out computations. The Bhāsvatī was such a karaņa authored by Śatananda, and its date is ascribed to be 1099 A.D. (Sen 1966, 193).
- 93.
92 All we know about this text is that the Jyotipradīpa is an astronomical work authored by Rāma Sarman (Sen 1966, 183).
- 94.
(Raina 2003).
- 95.
(Raina 1999).
- 96.
(Playfair 1790).
- 97.
(Le Gentil 1785).
- 98.
(Bailly 1787).
- 99.
(Playfair 1792, 152–5).
- 100.
(Vidal 1997, 25).
- 101.
(Colebroke 1817, 121).
- 102.
(Raina 2003). Bouchet’s correspondence with Pierre-Daniel Huet the author of Demonstratio Evangelica (driven by the certainty of putting religion on geometrical lines) seeks to aid the latter with confirmatory evidence from a fresh venue – India. In this letter he traces sources of India’s wisdom to the Bible, thereby validating Huet’s thesis “that all the religions of the world could be derived from the truths, revealed to the people of Israel in the Bible” Thus Bouchet’s scholarship is driven in support of a settled hypotheses (Clooney 2005, 46–7). He writes: “…I have given to you an account of the detailed information I have gathered among the people of India, who were apparently in other times Christian and then for a long time plunged back into the shadows of idolatry” (Bouchet, quoted in translation by Clooney 2005, 52).
- 103.
(Murr 1983, 243).
- 104.
(Županov 2005, 2).
- 105.
See the essays appearing in the volume edited by Amaladas entitled Jesuit Presence in Indian History (Amaladas 1988).
- 106.
In the preface to a recently published work we read: “Certains Occidentaux, pourtant s’intéressaient aux langues et aux cultures de l’Inde, pour des raisons évidentes: les missionaires, dont beaucoup furent d’excellents linguistes. On peut dire qu’ils ont été les premiers “orientalistes”. Mais c’est un fonctionnaire anglais, juge à Calcutta, William Jones, qui donna aux études orientales la qualité scientifique nécessaire” (Renouard 2000, 234) (emphasis added).
- 107.
(Raina 2000).
- 108.
(Clooney 2005).
- 109.
(Clooney 2005, 65).
- 110.
(Clooney 2005, 65).
- 111.
(Clooney 2005, 66).
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Raina, D. (2010). The French Jesuit Manuscripts on Indian Astronomy: The Narratology and Mystery Surrounding a Late Seventeenth – Early Eighteenth Century Project. In: Bretelle-Establet, F. (eds) Looking at it from Asia: the Processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 265. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3676-6_4
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