Orientalism, Empire and National Culture: India, 1770–1880. By MICHAEL S. DODSON (original) (raw)

2009, The Journal of Asian Studies

AI-generated Abstract

Dodson's work explores the intricate relationship between colonial education and indigenous knowledge in 19th century India, specifically through the prism of the pandits in Benares and their interactions with British Orientalists. The text argues against simplistic binaries of collaboration versus resistance, instead emphasizing the complex roles of pandits in the colonial knowledge production and nationalist movements. The findings highlight the nuanced contributions of Indian scholars that transcended Orientalist and Anglicist frameworks, offering fresh insights into the interplay of culture, education, and nationalist thought during this transformative period.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact

Sympathy and Prejudice: Late Eighteenth-century British “Orientalists” and their Ambiguous Attitudes towards India

2013

In this paper, I will focus on the discourse on India proposed by certain famous “Orientalists” in the late eighteenth century and examine the ambiguous attitudes of these pro-Indian British towards India. It was during this period that Indology as a systematized modern discipline was established due to the demands that arose from British rule over India. The “Orientalists” were the dominant faction in the Indology of this time. The term “Orientalist” as used here requires some explanation. In the history of the British Raj, there were two major schools of thought concerning the system of rule over India. One was the “Anglicist” camp and the other was the “Orientalist” camp. The former believed in the supremacy of the English language and English culture. Hence, they tried to establish a system of rule fashioned on that of Britain itself, particularly through the introduction of English-language education. In contrast, the Orientalists placed major importance on Indian culture and s...

Sanskrit and the British Empire: Project proposal text sanctioned by Indian Council of Historical Research

Ancient India was as much a discovery for India as it was for the Europeans. Now the scriptures were liberated from the custody of their traditional keepers, freed from the constraints of the original language, and transformed into library books in the service of a contemporary agenda. The Hindus irrespective of their caste could read them now with assistance from William Jones, H. T. Colebrooke, H.H. Wilson, Max Muller and others. The race theory made the British colonial rule in India acceptable to the leading Hindu castes, made them revivalist and archivalist and increased their distance from the Muslims. Indo-Europeanism not only provided the British with the legitimacy for their rule, it also gave the Indians mild courage to look the Empire in the eye. Orientalism would be confrontational in the ‘Middle East’, but in India, where it took the form of Indo-Europeanism, it was seductive, persuasive and interactive. In passing it may be pointed out that Indo-Europeanism has outlasted colonialism and even fashioned contemporary India’s approach towards the West.

Genealogy of Colonial Discourse: Hindu Traditions and the Limits of European Representation

In the aftermath of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), European representations of Eastern cultures have returned to preoccupy the Western academy. Much of this work reiterates the point that nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship was a corpus of knowledge that was implicated in and reinforced colonial state formation in India. 1 The pivotal role of native informants in the production of colonial discourse and its subsequent use in servicing the material adjuncts of the colonial state notwithstanding, there has been some recognition in South Asian scholarship of the moot point that the colonial constructs themselves built upon an existing, precolonial European discourse on India and its indigenous culture. 2 However, there is as yet little scholarly consensus or indeed literature on the core issues of how and when these edifices

Orientalism, Translation, and Recognition: With reference to Sir William Jones, H.T Colebrooke, and H.H Wilson

RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary, 2023

This paper aims to examine the process of knowledge produced by the Orientalists during the initial colonial period and the Eurocentrism it imbibes. By translating the Indian texts into European languages, the Europeans could "entrap" India, its culture, and its intellectual tradition. This paper will argue that reading, translating, and interpreting Indian texts in different languages, especially English, was an essential element in European colonization and the imposition of the European way of life, which is the only superior culture to the Indian people. Through an analysis of the establishment of the Asiatic Society and subsequent acquisition, production, and reproduction of the ancient Indian texts, this paper seeks to address the issue of this flawed process by shedding light on the construction of an idealized Indian society, very different from the actual one. By providing a detailed account of the Europeanization of Indian literature, it will be able to address t...

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.