The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.3

c4.3

Prior to 1770, (by which time they had become actual rulers of large areas), the British, on whose writings and reports this book is primarily based,¹ had rather a different set of interests. These interests, as in the subsequent period too, were largely mercantile, technological, or were concerned with comprehending, and evaluating Indian statecraft; and, thereby, extending their influence and dominion in India. Indian religions, philosophies, scholarship and the extent of education—notwithstanding what a few of them may have written on the Parsis, or the Banias of Surat—had scarcely interested them until then.