Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.14

c6.14

The later eighteenth century European ethnocentric preoccupations had other dimensions also. Some of these are expressed in Chapters III and V, whereby everything existing elsewhere is visualised to have had its origin in India. A different dimension was expressed in propositions like: The Hindu religion had its origin in the British Isles,⁸ (which was held to be the *Sweta Dwipa* of the Hindu classics). Though perhaps not so intended, all of these conflicting speculations and formulations ultimately led to the subversion of the non-European world. Many directly confirmed the growing European view of the barbarism and ignorance of the non-Europeans; the others served the same purpose by becoming easy targets for European ridicule and contempt.