Europe's Representations of India: Texts, Images, and Encounters - ESIND

Translation of an article that provides the Czech scholar of religion Otakar Pertold’s response to the increasing popularity of Buddhism in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. This popularity led many Europeans to leave their countries and take refuge in the Three Gems in Buddhist monasteries across Asia, most commonly in contemporary Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Pertold bases his radical “no” to the question in the title on two grounds explained in the translated text.

Jest buddhismus náboženství vhodné pro Evropana? (Is Buddhism a religion convenient for Europeans?) · ESIND · Digital Platform In the last thirty years of the past century, when the study of Indian languages was spreading in Europe, broad audiences were interested in Indian religions, most notably in Buddhism [fn. 1], which was previously known in Europe in its Chinese and Japanese forms, and which appeared in Indian litera...

ESIND workshop in IAHR Kraków

ESIND scholars @ IAHR World Congress in Kraków!

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This text is a translation of excerpts from a work by the Czech scholar and writer Milada Ganguli, where she relates her experiences of the Bengal famine of 1943, during which she worked as a volunteer. Née Milada Sýkorová, the author left Czechoslovakia for India in 1939, accompanied by her Bengali husband, and passed away in Calcutta in 2000.

Obrázky z Bengálska (Pictures from Bengal) · ESIND · Digital Platform “India went through many famines. It suffered from famines twenty three times during 170 years of British rule, if we do not count numerous cases of ‘serious problems’. Bengal experienced seven famines in the years 1770, 1783, 1866, 1873-74, 1892, 1897 and 1943. However, the catastrophe of the...

https://platform.esind.eu/s/esind/item/33

A translation of an excerpt from a Dutch 18th-century travel account by the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) clerk and merchant Jacob Haafner, an early critic of colonialism and celebrated travel writer in the early 19th century. The text contains his observations on the famine of 1782 that shook the Madras Presidency and, in Haafner’s eyes, illustrated the inhumanity and barbarism of the British in India.

Reizen in eenen Palaquin (Travels in a Palanquin) · ESIND · Digital Platform “Madras had become a horror to me. Wherever I looked, I found cause for sadness and vexation. Even on the faces of the natives I thought I could see a kind of inner bitterness and profound dejection; it appeared to me that they blamed every Englishman walking past for the death of a father, a moth...

https://platform.esind.eu/s/esind/item/21

“De Indiaanen” in Weekblad voor kinderen ("The Indians" in Weekly for Children) · ESIND · Digital Platform I “Esteemed pupils, now that we have traced the spread of the Mongoloid principal tribe of the human race through the greatest part of Asia, we could follow the same to America, for it is more than probable, even sufficiently certain, that the original inhabitants of America also originate from th...

https://platform.esind.eu/s/esind/item/29

De Indische krisis uit het standpunt van christelijke beschaving beschouwd (The Indian crisis, as seen from the viewpoint of Christian civilization) · ESIND · Digital Platform In England, where, a short time ago, there was only little concern with the Indies, but where the rule of that country was regarded as a settled issue, and therefore all care was left to the East India Company, the government and the missionary societies, the terrible revolt of the native army, and....

https://esind.eu/activities/training-schools/1st-esind-training-school-welcomes-33-trainees-and-8-trainers-from-16-countries/

1st ESIND Training School welcomes 33 Trainees and 8 Trainers from 16 countries – ESIND – COST Action CA23144 From July 7th to July 9th, the 1st ESIND Training School “Comparative Research of European Representations of India” welcomes a group of younger and more experi

https://esind.eu/news/esind-members-spotlight/

ESIND Members Spotlight – ESIND – COST Action CA23144 India through the eyes of Lithuanians An interview with Professor Šarūnas Paunksnis and Associate Professor Runa Chakraborty Paunksnis of the Kaunas University

https://esind.eu/blog/esind-digital-platform-milan-jovanovic-morski-india-as-the-land-of-colossuses/

ESIND Digital Platform: Milan Jovanović Morski – India as the Land of Colossuses – ESIND – COST Action CA23144 Milan Jovanović Morski: India as the Land of Colossuses By Danijela Lekić At the time when his native country was finding her bearings after having been relativ

https://esind.eu/blog/esind-digital-platform-translations-of-thuggee/

ESIND Digital Platform: Translations of Thuggee – ESIND – COST Action CA23144 Translations of Thuggee By Jaro Demetter The ‘thugs’ were members of a legendary criminal collective in nineteenth-century India, who famously strangled and rob