Contextualizing Playfair and Colebrooke 237
Th e fi rst idea that he rejected was that this astronomical tradition was dis-
fi gured over the years by idolatry and that the gems of Indian astronomy
had been irretrievably lost over the centuries, in the absence of a textual
tradition. Th e second idea was that the Brahmins had shrouded their
astronomy in mystery such that it was impossible to arrive at a cogent
account of it. Further, they loathed sharing their ideas with others. Davis
set out to show that:
... numerous treatises in Sanskrit on astronomy are procurable, and that the
Brahmins are willing to explain them... I can farther venture to declare, from the
experience I have had, that Sanskrit books in this science are more easily translated
than almost any others, when once the technical terms are understood: the subject
of them admitting neither of metaphysical reasoning nor of metaphor , but being
delivered in plain terms and generally illustrated with examples in practice ,... 43
Th e British Indologists were departing from the reading of Académiciens
grounded in Jesuit proto-ethnography, by textually locating their work.
Th is textual grounding would revise the portrait of the French savants.
A hundred years later in a review of the history of the history of Indian
astronomy Burgess was to write: ‘Mr. Davis’ paper, however, was the fi rst
analysis of an original Hindu astronomical treatise, and was a model of
what such an essay ought to be.’ 44 It appears then, as has been argued else-
where, that the French savants in India were unable to establish trust with
their Indian interlocutors, in total contrast to the fi rst generation of British
Indologists such as William Jones,^45 and if one takes Davis’ account liter-
ally then Davis himself. Two papers of William Jones followed closely on
the heels of Davis’ papers and a cursory glance at them reveals that they
mutually respected and supported each other’s enterprise. 46 And yet they
both were in agreement with Bailly’s thesis of the independent origins of the
Indian zodiac, diff ering very strongly with Montucla on this count:
that on inquiry, I believe the Hindu science of astronomy will be found as well known
now as it ever was among them, although perhaps, not so generally, by reason of the little
encouragement men of science at present meet with... (Davis 1789: 177).
Evidently, Sonnerat unlike Davis could not enter the world of the Hindu astronomers on
account of his inability to abandon a hermeneutic of suspicion. Pierre Sonnerat was a French
naval offi cial who travelled to India towards the last decades of the eighteenth century and
published a book Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine in 1782 which discussed the
history, religion, languages, manners, arts and science of the regions he visited.
43 Davis 1790 : 175 (emphasis added).
44 Burgess 1893 : 730–1.
45 Raj 2001.
46 An eighteenth-century Indian scholar who worked closely both with Jones and along with his
associates with Colebrooke was Radhakanta Tarkavagisa (Rocher 1989 ).