Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s3.21

c6.s3.21

It is in such a context that a man like Voltaire considered India ‘famous for its laws and sciences’, and deplored the mounting European preoccupation (both individual and national) of those in India with the amassing of ‘immense fortunes’. This quest for riches intensified the struggles, plunder, etc., during his own time, and made him remark: ‘If the Indians had remained unknown to the Tartars and to us, they would have been the happiest people in the world.’⁵⁵ Looking back at what has happened since he wrote these lines, Voltaire seems to have been very perceptive in his judgment. But the whole world, if such contacts had not occurred, would have been very different not only in politics and society but also in science and technology. Speculations about what it may have been, though fascinating, are far beyond the scope of this volume.