Abstract
Florence D'Souza : In search of Indian texts. Serious Orientalist study was only established in the early 18th Century. By 1738 the French Jesuits in India had sent 287 Indian texts to the Royal Library in response to abbé Bignon's appeal for Oriental documents. In the 1750s three travellers (J.-B. Gentil, Anquetil-Duperron and A. de Polier) collected documents and compilations of Indian texts. Foucher d'Obsonville and J. Maissin also deposited documents in the Royal Library. Rival British scholars assembled and translated legal and literary texts for the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, founded in 1784, thus ensuring a solid collection of Indian documents in Britain's major libraries. This politically-motivated British Orientalist research was replaced by colonialist concerns by 1850. The selections made by these early European Orientalists greatly influenced the way India has since been perceived ; for exam¬ ple, the oversimplified bipolarisation of Indian society into Hindus and Muslims, an exaggerated admiration for ancient Indian civilisation, as well as the rigidifica-tion of traditional power structures, can be seen as the result of certain trends in Orientalist discourse.
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