India in Early Modern English Travel Writings

Rita Banerjee, PhD (1997, Northern Illinois University) is research scholar at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She has published articles, book chapters, and a monograph on early modern literature, and recently edited the collection Cultural Histories of India (Routledge, 2020).

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations



Introduction

 1 Evolution of the Genre through Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

 2 Present Volume: Aims, Content, and Methodology

 3 Prior Texts in the Area



1 The Travel Writers: Audience, Ideology, and Class



2 The Mughal Court over the Years: Riches, Festivities, Law, and Governance

 1 Hawkins and Jahangir’s Court

 2 Thomas Roe’s Construction of the Mughal Court

 3 Mughal Festivities and Show of Riches: Roe and Bernier

 4 European Witnesses to the Weighing Ceremonies of the Emperors: Roe, Coryat, Terry, and Thévenot

 5 Barbarity and the Mughal Court



3 India: A Seventeenth-Century Trading Destination

 1 Profitability of Indian Trade

 2 Impediments to EIC Trade and Complaints of Corruption

 3 Growth of EIC Trade over the Years: Removal of Impediments

 4 Trade, Colonization, and Use of Force

 5 EIC: Monopoly, Interloping, and Private Trade



4 Reason and Religion during the Enlightenment in England: Scientific Enquiry, Deism, and Toleration

 1 Empiricism, Mathematical Inquiry, and Natural Philosophy: Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, and the Royal Society

 2 John Locke, the Rejection of Innate and Universal Ideas, and Diversity of Customs

 3 Faith, Reason, and Toleration

 4 Toleration and Protestant Colonization

 5 Rise of Deism or Natural Religion and Toleration

 6 Jesuit “Accommodation,” Universal Religion, and Toleration



5 Religion, Society, and Customs in India

 1 Islam and Falsehood: Mughal Court and Christian Doctrine

 2 Terry, Gentile Religion, and Grace

 3 From Courtly Religion to the Practice of the Masses: Hindu Temples, Gods and Goddesses

 4 Gentile Religion and Monotheism: Jesuits and Other European Travelers

 5 Caste, Pollution, and Ethnography



6 Women in India: The “Sati” and the Harem

 1 “Sati”

 2 The Harem



7 European Historiography and Mughal Reign

 1 Roe and Jahangir’s Reign

 2 Succession War during Shah Jahan’s Reign

 3 French Representations of the War of Succession: Bernier and Tavernier

 4 Comparing Manucci and Bernier

 5 John Ogilby’s Version of the Fratricidal War

 6 English Valor and Indian Barbarity



8 Conclusion: Constructing Selves and Others

 1 Barbarity, Racism, and Alienness


References

Index