Lecture 'How the Queen of European Sciences ascended the Seats of Traditional Learning in South Asian Colonies'

Although Jesuit missionaries introduced a moveable type printing press in Goa as early as 1556, it was not until the mid-19th century that print effectively became the dominant mode of textual production and academic scholarship in South Asia. The widespread availability of affordable lithographic and moveable type technologies in the mid-19th century paved the way for a new generation of Indian scholars from diverse cultural, caste and class backgrounds to reflect upon the methods and goals of philology, alongside the materiality of book objects. Their writings elucidate the complex relationship philology—as a discipline—forged between Eurocentric knowledge production, anti-colonial movement, reformist ideology, nationalist historiography, regional identity and ethical scholarship.

My presentation will discuss how the first-generation of Indian philologists grappled with and renegotiated the differences between the European history of philology and their homegrown traditions.