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Resources » Articles/Knowledge Sharing » Education »
The Orientalists and Utilitarians
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The Orientalists and Utilitarians:
As we know how modern history writing began with the British in India. The British were convinced that Indians had no history, that they were a-historical – and therefore spoke of themselves as discovering or rediscovering India’s past. It is important to understand the colonial understanding of India’s past because these ideas have influenced later interpretations of Indian history.
The two main strands in the European understanding of India’s past .
The Orientalists:
Orientalism grew out of the studies made by British officials working for the East India Company who had to administer a new country. They found that they had to know about the customs, practices and religion of the people of India and learn its languages. The officers of the East India Company started studying Sanskrit, Persian, Bengali, Tamil and other languages and started translating Indian texts in order to understand them. Much of the this early activity was fostered by the belief that knowledge would enable greater control of their Indian subjects.
• Such activities encouraged what were called “Orientalist Studies” associated with names like William Jones, Henry Colebrook and Nathaniel Halhed. An Asiatic Society was established in Bengal to advance the study of the Orient: to study Indian languages, religion and custom. The study of Sanskrit in particular was fuelled by the curiosity that there were similaries between Sanskrit and some European languages.
• Orientalists were sympathetic to Indian culture, but they viewed it with a European understanding of the world. Although they worked with a small number of Indian scholars, they would use them for their knowledge of languages rather than their understanding of their world-views. The Dharmasastras for instance were understood as legal codes rather than norms relating to social obligations and ritual requirements.
• The main informants for the Orientalists were brahmins. The main texts that they called at were religious texts or texts related to ritual observances. The vision of the world that they provided was therefore determinedly upper caste in character.
• Again, they were very confused by Hinduism which was not monotheistic, had no central texts or ecclesiastical authorities. Many scholars have suggested that Hinduism as we understand it today comes from 19th century Orientalism.
• The Orientalist emphasis on Sanskrit meant that the myth was propagated that India was a mystic, spiritual civilization. This was a very useful fiction for later nationalists. for whom India values were seen as spiritual and European ones as materialistic.
• The study of India by non-Indians through methods developed in Europe is called Indology.
Did the study of India take place in other ways in the nineteenth century?
• The nineteenth century was to see the study of India in other, non-textual ways. The growth of ethnographers, people like James Tod in Rajasthan and Colin Mackenzie in South India. Curiously however, textualists seldom used ethnographic evidence to corroborate their findings.
• Other important developments include the decipherment of the Brahmi script by James Princep; extremely important for understanding the past from epigraphic and non religious and literary texts (although their use for understanding socio-economic history and the study of religious sects was only to come later) The decipherment of Brahmi also meant the growth in the study of numismatics – Indo Greek coins in India at the turn of the century had the name of the king in both Greek and brahmi.
• Other kinds of travelers accounts – in Greek, Latin, Chinese and Arabic writings began to be used. Textual analysis began to include the Pali texts associated with Buddhism and the later, the Prakrit texts of the Jaina tradition. Understanding of Buddhism was greatly enhanced because of the availability of chronicles from Sri Lanka; as did translations into Chinese and various Central Asian languages.
Notions of Race and their influence upon Indology:
• Social Darwinism in Europe: notions about survival of the fittest and race.
• Racial ideas began to inflect Indology in many ways: the most important name in this connection was Max Mueller. His work was based on that of William Jones who saw various similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin – this was understood to be Indo European – all those who spoke Indo European languages were considered Aryans. MM suggested that one strand went to Europe and the other to India, 2nd century BC – led to the division of society into castes, arya vs dasa.
• When Mohenjadaro and Harappa were found, it appealed to those working on Dravidian languages who then claimed that that were was a Dravidian race prior to the coming of the Aryans – like Tamil.
• The notion of Aryans versus Dravidians was wide-ranging used by lower castes and upper caste Hindu nationalists ( who would deny the invasion theory); or equate the Indus valley civilization with the Vedic period to provide a long unbroken past to the Aryans.
• Racial theory is a fallacy – evolved through small scale migrations and settlements; language not race was the basis of who was Aryan and who was not; language groups can incorporate a variety of people.
British administrators inspired by Europe and the Roman Empire wrote dynastic histories – Oriental despots
• Early twentieth century Indian historians ( R Mitra, RG Bhandarkar, RC Dutt, RC Majumdar etc) – glorified Indian rulers, art, literature, premium on Sanskrit sources as opposed to Pali
• Resisted comparison with Greece.
• Periodization based on religion: identities based on caste, occupation, language, sect, region and location.
• Regional histories succumbed to the same kind of logic
Utiliarians
• Important names were James Mill, Thomas Maucaulay
• India seen as the other of Europe, lack of rational thought, logic, undemocratic --- Indian institutions needed to be swept away.
• Oriental depotism –isolated, self governing village communities --- no private ownership of land, no use of surplus for commercialization etc. reflected similar issues in Europe.
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