¹ See Dirks, Nicholas, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Frykenberg, Robert Eric, “Constructions of Hinduism at the Nexus of History and Religion,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, 3 (1993): 523–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; King, Richard, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’ (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Breckenridge, Carol A. and van der Veer, Peter, eds., Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (Philadelphia, 1993)Google Scholar; Sugirtharajah, Sharada, Constructions of Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective (London, 2003)Google Scholar; Thapar, Romila, “Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity,” Modern Asian Studies 23, 2 (1989): 209–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² See Lorenzen, David N., “Who Invented Hinduism?” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, 4 (1999): 630–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sweetman, Will, “Unity and Plurality: Hinduism and the Religions of India in Early European Scholarship,” Religion 31, 3 (2001): 209–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Indispensable sources on European perceptions of India prior to the mid-eighteenth century are: Dharampal-Frick, Gita, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen der Frühen Neuzeit (1500–1750) (Tübingen, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lach, Donald Frederick, Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1965–1993)Google Scholar; Rubiés, Joan-Pau, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes, 1250–1625 (Cambridge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rubiés, Joan-Pau, Travellers and Cosmographers: Studies in the History of Early Modern Travel and Ethnology (Aldershot, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁴ By “discourse” and “genealogy” I am not referencing a particular Foucauldian analysis. The former implies a systematic way of talking about and representing India; the latter, in this instance, refers to the historical and cultural processes through which it came about.

⁵ Holwell, John Zephaniah, Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan… (London, 1765–1767), vol. 1, 5–10Google Scholar; vol. 2, 13–17. Also see Dow, Alexander, The History of Hindostan from the Death of Akbar, to the Complete Settlement of the Empire under Aurungzebe (London, 1768), vol. 1, xxi–lxxviGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Dubois, Jean Antoine, Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India (London, 1817)Google Scholar.

⁷ Jones, William, “The Third Anniversary Discourse: On the Hindus,” Asiatic Researches 1 (1786): 343–55Google Scholar. Also see Colebrooke, Henry T., “On the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus, and of the Bra'hmens Especially,” Asiatic Researches 5 (1801): 345–68Google Scholar, and 7 (1801): 232–87; and Wilson, Horace Hayman, “A Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus,” Asiatic Researches 16 (1828): 1–136Google Scholar, and 17 (1828): 169–313.

⁸ For colonial historiography, see, for example, Elphinstone, Mountstuart, The History of India (London, 1841), 86Google Scholar, 99; and Wilson, John, India Three Thousand Years Ago (Bombay, 1858)Google Scholar. For later-nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship, see, for example, Müller, Max, ed., The Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1879), xvGoogle Scholar, 1; and Müller, Max, India: What Can It Teach Us? (London, 1883), 13Google Scholar.

⁹ The genealogy of colonial discourse outlined in this essay is but one strand in a complex representational history, one focused on the European reception of certain key texts. For the role of Hindu scholars in the development of colonial representations of India, see especially Pennington, Brian, Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (New York, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ For a detailed analysis of Boemus' work, see Hodgen, Margaret T., Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 4.

¹¹ Boemus, Johannes, The Fardle of Facions: Conteining the Aunciente Maners, Customes, and Lawes, of the Peoples Enhabiting the Two Partes of the Earth Called Affrike and Asia, Waterman, W., trans. (London, 1555), A.ii–vGoogle Scholar.

¹² Ibid., A.vi.

¹³ Ibid., A.i.

¹⁴ Ibid., L.iii–v.

¹⁵ Ibid., L.viii–lx. More precisely, as Boemus clarified, “Thei have one kinde of plains eloquence commune to them all: tongue & harte agreinge in truthe. Thei have neither moote halles, ne universities, whose disagreable doctrine more leaning to apisshe arte, then natural reason and experience, never bringeth anye staye, or certeintie of thinges.… Thei thincke it no honour to God, to slea for him an innoce[n]te beast: yea thei say he accepteth not the sacrifice of men polluted with bloode, but rather loveth a worship voide of all bloodsheade. That is to saye the humble entreatie of woorde, because that property only (to be entreated with woordes) is commune to God and to manne. With this therefore saye they he is pleased, because we somewhat resemble him self therin.”

¹⁶ Ibid., lx. This comparison between Brahman and European morality is present neither in the original Latin, nor in the French translation, which Waterman rendered into English, and therefore must have been an interpolation by the hand of the English translator himself. See Boemus, Johannes, Omnivm Gentivm Mores Leges et Ritvs ex mvltis clarissimis rervm scriptoribus, a loanne Boemo Aubano sacerdote Teutonicæ militiæ deuoto nuper collectos: & in libros tris diftinctos Aphricam, Asiam, Europam. Optime lector lege (Augsburg, 1520)Google Scholar, fols. xxv–vi; and his, Recueil de diverses histoires touchant les situations de toutes regio[n]s et pays contenuz es trois parties du monde, auec les particulieres moeurs, loix, & caeremonies de toutes natio[n]s & peuples y habitans... (Antwerp, 1540), 72.

¹⁷ Martyr, Justin, “The First Apology of Justin,” in Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to a.d. 325 (Ann Arbor, 1979), vol. 1: 178Google Scholar. For other variations, see, for example, Augustine, , The City of God against the Pagans, Dyson, R., ed. (Cambridge, 1998), 8.11Google Scholar.

¹⁸ See Balagangadhara, S. N., “The Heathen in His Blindness…” Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion (Leiden, 1994)Google Scholar, ch. 2; Chadwick, H., Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar; Pelikan, Jaroslav, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, 1985)Google Scholar, ch. 3.

¹⁹ See, for example, Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” 289; and Origen, , “Origen against Celsus,” in Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to a.d. 325 (Ann Arbor, 1979)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Dykema, Peter and Oberman, Heiko, eds., Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 1993)Google Scholar. For the exemplum, see Kibler, William, ed., Medieval France: An Encyclopedia (New York, 1995), 329–30Google Scholar.

²¹ The medieval understanding of the Brahmans has been outlined in Cary's work on the educators and moralists in the Middle Ages, and in a more recent article by Hahn. See Cary, George, The Medieval Alexander, Ross, D.J.A., ed. (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar; and Hahn, Thomas, “The Indian Tradition in Western Medieval Intellectual History,” Viator 9 (1978): 213–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Ross, David, Alexander Historiatus: A Guide to Medieval Illustrated Alexander Literature (London, 1963)Google Scholar.

²² de Vitry, Jacques, Histoire Des Croisades, Guizot, M., ed. (Paris, 1825), 281–88Google Scholar.

²³ Ibid., 208.

²⁴ Ibid., 208–15. An additional point of importance is that Jacques de Vitry's most significant contribution to the history of the church, the Sermones Vulgares (early thirteenth century), provides a wealth of exemplars intended to serve as models for preachers.

²⁵ John of Salisbury, The Statesman's Book of John of Salisbury: Being the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth books, and Elections from the Seventh and Eighth Books of the Policraticus, Dickinson, John, trans. and introduction (New York, 1927)Google Scholar, book 4, 50.

²⁶ As late as 1584, the German Catholic convert Johannes Pistorius the Younger (1546–1608) edited a Latin collection of historical works in which Godfrey's Pantheon was included. See von Viterbo, Godfrey, “Pantheon Gotfridi Viterbiensis…,” in Illustrium Veterum Scriptorum, Qui Rerum a Germanis Per Multas Ætates Gestarum Historias Vel Annales Posteris Reliquerunt…, Pistorius, J., ed. (Francofurti, 1584), vol. 1, 230–31Google Scholar.

²⁷ de Beauvais, Vincent, Le Premier Volume de Vincent Miroir Hystorial, de Vignay, J., trans. (Paris, 1531), fols. lxxiii–iiiiGoogle Scholar. For a thirteenth-century translation in Middle Dutch verse (1285–88), see van Maerlant, Jacob, Spiegel Historiael of Rijmkronijk. Met de fragmenten der later toegevoegde gedeelten, bewerkt door Philip Utenbroeke en Lodewije van Velthem… (Leyden, 1863), vol. 1, 57–62Google Scholar. Vincent's sections on the Brahmans are reproduced verbatim in Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon (ca. 1350), arguably the most popular work on history then available in England. See Higden, Ranulph, Cronica Ranulphi Cistrensis Monachi, Trevisa, J., trans. (Westminster, 1482), fols. xx–xxiGoogle Scholar. Other English editions were issued in 1495 and 1527. For a comprehensive overview of the extraordinary popularity of Higden's work among scholarly and lay audiences, see Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England: C. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), 53–57Google Scholar.

²⁸ Mandeville, John, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville: The Version of the Cotton Manuscript in Modern Spelling, Pollard, A., ed. (London, 1900), 192Google Scholar.

²⁹ Ibid., 192.

³⁰ Ibid., 193.

³¹ Bennett, Josephine Waters, The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville (New York, 1954)Google Scholar; Tzanaki, Rosemary, Mandeville's Medieval Audiences: A Study on the Reception of the Book of Sir John Mandeville (1371–1550) (Aldershot, 2003)Google Scholar.

³² Both copies can be found at the British Library in London. See [Begin., fol. 1:] Incipit liber Alexandri magni regis macedonie de prelijs (Köln, 1472), n.p.; and Historia Alexandri Magni regis macedonie de preliis (1490), fols. H–Hv.

³³ Hodgen, Early Anthropology, chs. 1–2.

³⁴ The legendary image of the Brahman ascetic even carried over to the descriptions of the New World. See Hahn, Thomas, “Indians East and West: Primitivism and Savagery in English Discovery Narratives of the Sixteenth Century,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 8, 1 (1978): 77–114Google Scholar. Also the ideal state that Thomas More had in mind (Utopia, 1516) can be traced back to the pre-Renaissance formulations about the Brahmans and Gymnosophists. See Lach, Donald F., Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. II: A Century of Wonder (Chicago, 1970–77), 364–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³⁶ Ibid., fols. 387–88.

³⁷ Ibid., fol. 389.

³⁸ Ibid., fols. 396–97.

³⁹ See, for example, Apianus, Petrus, Cosmographie, ou description des Quatre Parties du Monde…, Bellere, J., trans. (Antwerp, 1581), 130Google Scholar; and Saur, Abraham, Parvum Theatrum Urbium, Das Ist: Erster Anblick, und Summarischer Außzug, von Erbawung unnd Ankunfft Namhaffter Stätt, Schlösser und Klöster… (Franckfurt am Mayn, 1593), 216Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ On Protestant antiquarian polemics, see Sheehan, Jonathan, “Sacred and Profane: Idolatry, Antiquarianism and the Polemics of Distinction in the Seventeenth Century,” Past and Present 192, 1 (2006): 35–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stroumsa, Guy G., “John Spencer and the Roots of Idolatry,” History of Religions 41, 1 (2001): 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁴² de Varthema, Lodovico, Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese… (Roma, 1510), fol. lxiiGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ de Varthema, Lodovico, Die Ritterlich vn[d] lobwirdig rayss des … Ludowico Vartomans… , Herr, M., trans. (Augsburg, 1515), fol. liiiiGoogle Scholar. Illustrations of the deumo played an important part in the distribution of this imagery. The woodcuts in the German edition were by the hand of Jörg Breu the Elder (ca. 1475–1537), a German painter who mainly worked at Augsburg. His social critique of the Church of Rome became a central motif in his artistic work. The artist followed Varthema's description of the idol and produced an image that clearly anticipated Lutheran woodcuts of the devil, in this instance wearing the papal crown or miter of Rome and devouring human souls, an allusion to the puranic asura, clawed by Narasimha in the indigenous iconography. For an analysis of the impact of the Reformation upon the work of Breu, see Morrall, Andrew, Jörg Breu the Elder: Art, Culture and Belief in Reformation Augsburg (Aldershot, 2001), 136–217Google Scholar. A lesser-known but similar illustration of the deumo is in the second German translation of the Itinerario, by Hieronymus Megiser (1553–1618). See de Varthema, Lodovico, Hodeporicon Indiae Orientalis…, Megiserius, H., trans. (Leipzig, 1610), 192–93Google Scholar. Mitter, Partha, Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar, provides leads of the visual representation of Indian images in the Christian devil tradition.

⁴⁴ Herr, Michael, in Huttichius, Johannes and Münster, Sebastian, eds., Die New Welt, der Landschaften vnnd Insulen…, Herr, M., trans. (Strassburg, 1534), fol. iiiGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Ibid., fol. iiii: “Und wie wol solchs ein schwerlich un[d] greülich ding ist, noch so haft der irtumb so hart, das auch der mechtig könig nit anders gedencken darff, und geschicht im eben, wie uns lang geschehen ist, dan[n] etlich habe[n] uns auch vil von speis und tranck gebotten, das sie selbs nit gehalten haben, wie die pfaffen des königs zü Calechut, die verbietten im alles was gelebt hatt, unnd speisen in mit reyss unnd brodt, sambt etlichen kreütern unnd erdgewechssen, sie aber essen was sie gelust, noch ist inen ein solcher könig gehorsam, wie wol er weyss, das er allein dem teuffel doran dient, un[d] nach disem leben nichts weis zu verhoffen.”

⁴⁶ Writing from Strasbourg, Herr was most likely acquainted with the Zwinglian disputation about the lack of biblical foundation for the traditional Lenten fast (Zürich, 1522). His analysis of Indian vegetarianism was thus compliant with the Zwinglian taste of Grynaeus at Basel. For Zwingli and “the affair of the sausages,” see Estep, William R., Renaissance and Reformation (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986), 170–72Google Scholar. Herr's invective was reproduced verbatim in the Dutch translation of the Novus orbis issued at Antwerp. See Huttichius, Johannes and Münster, Sebastian, eds., Die Nieuwe Weerelt der Landtschappen ende Eylanden…, Ablijn, C., trans. (Thantwerpen, 1563), ii–iiiGoogle Scholar. More than a century later, in his antiquarian polemics, the French Huguenot minister, Pierre Mussard (1627–1687), still associated Indian vegetarianism with priestly frauds. See his The Conformity between Modern and Ancient Ceremonies: Wherein Is Proved, by Incontestable Authorities, that the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome Are Entirely Derived from the Heathen (London, 1745; 1st French ed. 1667), 52.

⁴⁷ van St. Aldegonde, Philippe Marnix, Le Tableau Des Differens De La Religion… (Leyden, 1603 [1599]), fol. 124Google Scholar: “Aux mesmes enseignes, qu'elle seule est paree d'une triple couro[n]ne, n'en desplaise au Deumon de Calicut le grand sot, qui vouloit aussi se mesler de porter tyare tripliquee, faute de sens, & de n'avoir bien entendu, qu'en l'Olimpe au royaume des Dieux n'y a qu'un seul Iupin à triple foudre, en la mer au siege der tritons un seul Neptunus à triple fourche, en enfer au destroict de Pluton un seul Cerberus à triple teste: & en terre au regne des fols un seul Pape à triple couronne.” On the Reformation in Antwerp and Ghent, and the Low Countries generally, see Crew, Phyllis Mack, Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm in the Netherlands, 1544–1569 (Cambridge, 1978)Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ van Vaernewyck, Marcus, Van die beroerlicke tijden in die Nederlanden en voornamelick in Ghendt 1566–1568 (Gent, 1872), vol. 2, 158Google Scholar. On Reformation iconoclasm, see Eire, Carlos M. N., The War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ Viret, Pierre, De la Source & de la Difference & Convenance de la vieille & nouvelle Idolatrie… (Geneva, 1547), 74Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ To avoid ambiguities, the letterpress spelled this message out. The same metaphor was also reproduced in an accompanying book, published under a pseudonym. See Eschorche-Messes, M. F., Histoire De La Mappe-Monde Papistiqve, Avqvel est declaire tovt ce qui est Contenu et Pourtraict en la grande Table, ou Carte de la Mappe-Monde… (Geneva, 1566), fols. iGoogle Scholar, ii, iii. For the significance of visual propaganda in the history of the Reformation, see Scribner, Robert, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Barlow, Roger, A Brief Summe of Geographie, Taylor, Eva G. R., trans. and ed. (London, 1932), 139–48Google Scholar. On Barlow, see Taylor, Eva, “Roger Barlow: A New Chapter in Early Tudor Geography,” The Geographical Journal 74, 2 (1929): 157–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. By the turn of the seventeenth century, the passages on the deumo and its priesthood had taken on a life of their own in English learning, free of references to their original author. See, for example, Thorie, John, The Theatre of the Earth (London, 1599)Google Scholar, n.p.

⁵² Coverdale, Miles, trans., The Original & Sprynge of all Sectes & Orders by Whome, Wha[n] or Were They Beganne (London, 1537), fol. 9Google Scholar.

⁵³ For Eden, see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); and Gwyn, David, “Richard Eden, Cosmographer and Alchemist,” Sixteenth Century Journal 15, 1 (1984): 13–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ Eden, Richard, in Sebastian Münster, A Treatyse of the Newe India, Eden, R., trans. (London, 1553), fol. cvGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Richard Eden, in Varthema, “Navigation and Voyages,” fol. 387.

⁵⁶ Ibid., fol. 388.

⁵⁷ Ibid., fol. 397.

⁵⁸ Ibid., fol. 407. About fifty years later, collector of voyages and Church of England clergyman Samuel Purchas (ca. 1577–1626) similarly added an interpolation in the report of Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India (1497–1499), showing the similarities between Indian heathenism and Catholicism. See Purchas, Samuel, ed., Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625), vol. 1, 29Google Scholar. To show the similitude on the basis of various reports was one of the objectives of his work on “world religions.” See Purchas, Samuel, Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Obserued in al Ages and Places Discouered… (London, 1626 [1613])Google Scholar, dedication, and esp. p. 629.

⁵⁹ Bossewell, John, Workes of Armorie, Devyded into Three Bookes, Entituled, the Concordes of Armorie, the Armorie of Honor, and of Coates and Creastes, Collected and Gathered by Iohn Bossewell Gentleman (London, 1572), fol. 133Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Ibid., fol. 134.

⁶¹ Ibid. The satanic imagery associated with this city on the Malabar Coast also seized the imagination of the Stuart king, before the Tudor period had come to a close. See James I, King of England, Daemonologie in Forme of a Dialogue, Diuided into Three Bookes (Edinburgh, 1597), 37.

⁶² Bridges, John, A Sermon, Preached at Paules Crosse on the Monday in Whitson Weeke Anno Domini, 1571 (London, 1571), 152Google Scholar.

⁶³ Ibid., 154.

⁶⁴ Hall, Joseph, An Holy Panegyrick. A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse upon the Anniversarie Solemnitie of the Happie Inauguration of Our Dread Soveraigne Lord King James March 24, 1613 (London, 1613), 31–33.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For another homiletic treatment of the Calicut motif, see Adams, Thomas, The Sacrifice of Thankefulnesse. A Sermon Preached at Pauls Crosse, the Third of December, Being the First Adventuall Sunday, Anno 1615 (London, 1616), 6Google Scholar. For a comparison between the Catholic pope and Satan's agents at Calicut, also see Jackson, Thomas, The Third Booke of Commentaries upon The Apostles Creede, Contayning the Blasphemous Positions of Iesuites and other Later Romanists… (London, 1614), 292–93Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ See Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. II, 324–52.

⁶⁷ See, for example, Franck, Sebastian, Das Gott das ainig ain, und höchstes Güt … in aller Menschen Hertz sey… (Augsburg, 1534)Google Scholar. For Franck, also see McLaughlin, R. Emmet, “Sebastian Franck and Caspar Schwenckfeld: Two Spiritualist Viae,” in Müller, J. D., ed., Sebastian Franck (1499–1542) (Wiesbaden, 1993), 71–86.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Franck, Sebastian, Weltbuch, Spiegel und Bildtnisz des Gantzen Erdtbodens… (Tübingen, 1534), fol. iiiiGoogle Scholar. The Weltbuch also appeared as a supplement to the second edition of Franck's Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel (Ulm, 1536), and was reissued at Frankfurt in 1542 and 1567. The Dutch translation by Johan Gaillaert was possibly issued at Amsterdam circa 1560, followed by further Dutch editions in 1595 and 1649.

⁶⁹ Ibid., fols. cxij–cxcv.

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ Ibid., fol. cciij.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Egenolf, Christian, Chronica, Beschreibung vnd gemeyne Anzeyge, vonn aller Wellt… (Franckenffort am Meyn, 1535), fols. xxx–xxxiGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁴ Hodgen, Margaret T., “Sebastian Muenster (1489–1552): A Sixteenth-Century Ethnographer,” Osiris 11 (1954): 504–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁵ Münster, Sebastian, Cosmographia. Beschreibüg aller Lender… (Basel, 1544), dcxxixGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁶ Ibid., dcxxxij. Probably based on the woodcuts by Jörg Breu, Münster includes another illustration of the deumo as Europeans imagined the devil would look.

⁷⁷ Boaistuau, Pierre, Histoires Prodigieuses les plus Memorables qui ayent esté Observées… (Paris, 1560), fols. 1–5Google Scholar. English navigator Edward Fenton (d. 1603) produced a translation of the work, titled Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature (London, 1569).

⁷⁸ The first eyewitness account that explicitly and in detail describes the Brahman customs in terms of the clerical corruptions of Christianity is arguably the missive by a Jesuit missionary in India, Francis Xavier (1505–1552), dated Cochin, 15 January 1544. Religion was priestcraft, or the craft of the priest: when the laity went astray, the priests were accountable for the decline of true religion. Catholic scholars and travelers did not differ on the fundamentals behind this, only in its scope of application. Whereas Xavier was far from anti-Rome, as such, his background nevertheless allowed him to structure his ethnography by the anticlerical formulations the Protestants had come to use against papal Rome. See Xavier, Francis, Copie dunne lettre missive envoiee des Indes… (Paris, 1545)Google Scholar, fols. D-Dij. Both modes of representations also feature in Jesuit-related scholarship. See Postel, Guillaume, Des Merveilles du Monde, et Principaleme[n]t des Admirables Choses des Indes, & du Nouveau Monde (n.p.; ca. 1553), fols. 18–19Google Scholar, 29, 32. The theological division between the ascetic and monotheistic ideal on one hand, and the early-modern Indian reality on the other, continued to guide Jesuit discourses. For the seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), see Županov, Ines G., Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century India (New Delhi, 1999)Google Scholar, esp. 3, 24–30. For eighteenth-century Jesuit sources that continued to combine both modes of representation into a historical outline, see the missionary letters by Bouchet, Jean Venant (1655–1732), in Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, Écrites des Missions Étrangères, par quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jesus (Paris, 1722)Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ de Belleforest, François, L'Histoire Universelle du Monde (Paris, 1570), fol. 50Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Ibid., fol. 50: “Religion pure des Brachmanes, si la cognaissance de Iesuschrist les eust abreuvez comme elle a depuis.”

⁸¹ Ibid., fol. 49: “Encor à present en tout le pays Indien les Prestres sont apellez Bramines.”

⁸² Ibid., fol. 54: “Les sacrificateurs qui retiennent le nom de Bramins de ces ancie[n]s Bracmanes plus sains & religieux que ces souïllez & maudits idolatres.” See also fol. 58.

⁸³ de Belleforest, François in Münster, La Cosmographie Universelle de tout le Monde…, de Belleforest, F., trans. (Paris, 1575), 1630Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 1567: “Bramins ont esté Chrestiens quelquefois.”

⁸⁵ Ibid., 1713: “Car en cet endroit touts sont semblables en croyance.” Another French cosmography that combines both modes of representation into a unified historical outline was authored by André Thèvet (1502–1590), the chaplain of the Catholic queen consort, Catherine de Medici. See Thèvet, André, La Cosmographie Universelle d'André Thevet… (Paris, 1575), fols. 381–83Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ See Hodgen, Early Anthropology; and Pagden, Anthony, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar Boemus can be regarded as a late exponent of the classical tradition. For a detailed analysis of Boemus' dismissive attitude towards contemporary sources, see Vogel, Klaus A., “Cultural Variety in a Renaissance Perspective: Johannes Boemus on ‘The Manners, Laws and Customs of all People’ (1520),” in Bugge, H. and Rubiés, Joan-Pau, eds., Shifting Cultures: Interaction and Discourse in the Expansion of Europe (Münster, 1995): 3–34Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ For Dutch religious scholarship, see, for example, Hazart, Cornelius, Kerckelycke Historie van de gheheele Wereldt Naemelyck vande voorgaende ende teghenwoordighe Eeuwe… (Antwerp, 1682), 279–81Google Scholar. For English scholarship, see, for example, Heylyn, Peter, Cosmographie in Foure Bookes. Contayning the Chorographie & Historie of the Whole World… (London, 1652), 214–15Google Scholar; and for French scholarship, the political cosmography by d'Avity, Pierre, Les Empires, Royavmes, Estats, Seignevries, Dvchez, et Principavtez dv Monde (Paris, 1614), 730–37Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ A similar point on the continuity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century studies of the Americas is made in MacCormack, Sabine, “Limits of Understanding: Perceptions of Greco-Roman and Amerindian Paganism in Early Modern Europe,” in Kupperman, K. O., ed., America in European Consciousness, 1493–1750 (Chapel Hill, 1995), 79–129Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ For Dutch travel writing, see, for example, van Linschoten, Jan Huyghen, Semper Eadem. Iohn Hvighen van Linschoten His Discours of Voyages…, William, P., trans. (London, 1598; 1st Dutch ed. 1596), 64–65Google Scholar, 68–69, and esp. 71; for French travel writing, Le Blanc, Vincent, Les Voyages Famevx dv Sievr Vincent Le Blanc Marseillois… (Paris, 1648), 66–68Google Scholar, 86–88; for German travel writing, von Mandelslo, Johann Albrecht, Het schrijven van den Wel Ed: Getrouwen en Vesten Johan Albrecht van Mandelslow… (Utrecht, 1651; 1st German ed. 1645), 13–18Google Scholar, 29. A similar point is made in Joan-Pau Rubiés' thought-provoking analysis of the reciprocal relationship between the genre of travel writing and humanist culture: see “Travel Writing and Humanistic Culture: A Blunted Impact,” Journal of Early Modern History 10, 1 (2006): 131–68.

⁹⁰ In Restoration Britain, Varthema's narrative continued to be the source for comparisons between Brahman schemes and the worldly ambitions of Catholic priests. See, for example, More, Henry, Divine Dialogues, Containing Sundry Disquisitions & Instructions Concerning the Attributes and Providence of God… (London, 1668), 381Google Scholar. For German sources, based on a variety of travel reports, see Francisci, Erasmus, Neu-polirter Geschicht-Kunst- und Sitten-Spiegel ausländischer Völcker… (Nürnberg, 1670), esp. 961–1004Google Scholar. For nineteenth-century polemics, replete with similar cross-references between Greco-Roman antiquity, contemporary India, and the Catholic universe, see, for example, Poynder, John, Popery in Alliance with Heathenism… (London, 1835)Google Scholar. Interestingly enough, Poynder (1779–1849), an evangelical activist, relied heavily on the influential work by the East India Company official Grant, Charles: Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects to Great Britain… (London, 1797)Google Scholar.

⁹¹ For English sources, see, for example, Keith, George, The Universall Free Grace of the Gospell Asserted (London, 1671), 125Google Scholar; and Bockett, John, Gentile Divinity and Morality Demonstrated… (London, 1712), 174–75Google Scholar. For Dutch sources that similarly recapitulate the image of the noble Brahman, see, for example, Montanus, Arnoldus, De Wonderen van't Oosten (Rotterdam, 1654), 25–26Google Scholar, and esp. 26–27.

⁹² For two examples of the many works that combine both modes of representation into a historical outline, see Moréri, Louis, ed., Le Grand Dictionaire Historique… (Lyon, 1683), vol. 1, 668–69Google Scholar; and Bayle, Pierre, ed., Dictionaire Historique et Critique… (Rotterdam, 1697), vol. 1, 652–55Google Scholar. Both were widely distributed and were still issued in English translations in the eighteenth century. For Dutch encyclopedic sources, see van Hoogstraten, David and Schuer, Jan Lodewijk, eds., Groot Algemeen Historisch, Geographisch, Genealogische en Oordeelkundig Woordenboek… (Amsterdam, 1733), vol. 2, 359Google Scholar. For the continuity in European intellectual culture between the Reformation and Enlightenment periods, also see Barnett, S. J., The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity (New York, 2003)Google Scholar.

⁹³ Scrafton, Luke, Reflections on the Government, &c. of Indostan; and a Short Sketch of the History of Bengal… (Edinburgh, 1761), 4Google Scholar, 5–6, and esp. 9, 14, 15. For the continued influence of both biblical and Protestant thought on late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship, see especially Trautmann, Thomas R.'s Aryans and British India (Berkeley, 1997), ch. 2, and 104–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 124.

⁹⁴ Oddie, Geoffrey A., Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism (London, 2006), 68–72Google Scholar. The emphasis on the word “Hinduism” remains central in many discussions of the so-called colonial construction of Hinduism. See also Frykenberg, Robert Eric, “The Emergence of Modern ‘Hinduism’ as a Concept and as an Institution: A Reappraisal with Special Reference to South India,” in Sontheimer, Günther-Dietz and Kulke, Hermann, eds., Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi, 1989), 30Google Scholar. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis, 1991 [1964]), 144Google Scholar, can be understood as a precursor of this thesis.