Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.3

c6.3

Practically all European scientific and technological accounts relating to the sciences and technologies of non-European countries (including the ones reproduced here) are an outcome of the seventeenth and eighteenth century European quest for useful knowledge in these fields. The nature of the quest itself got wider and more complex with the passing of practically each decade. Few things, except finished consumer goods or gold and diamonds, etc., were noticed in the non-European world by the earlier European travellers, servants of European states, and the scientists and technologists, etc. This was partly due to the short durations which most of them spent in any particular area. But the preponderant cause was the lack of requisite comprehension amongst the learned of Europe of the prevailing non-European practices and technologies. Such lack of understanding was even more evident amongst the learned of Britain who, till about 1800, seem to have lagged behind some of the other parts of Europe in many scientific and technological fields by about fifty years.