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Varieties of Asia? European Perspectives, c. 1600 – c. 1800
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
Extract
Perhaps, the story of Europe's views of Asia should begin with the question of when the term ‘Asia’, ‘Açu’, was introduced into what one must call the European perspective of the world. Meaning the 'sunrising’ in its original, Assyrian usage, it always seems to have denoted that part of the world which lay to the East. Once the Greek had adopted it to identify those lands which, precisely because they were threatening and near, they wanted to denote as ‘not theirs’, it became part of the dichotomy in which Europe was created as the geographical context for Greek civilisation, Hellas, while Asia -jealously viewed and, consequently, negatively judged - was the territory of the other, the enemy. From that time onwards, ‘Europe’ was part of the vocabulary the peoples of the Mediterranean used to structure the shores of their sea geographically.
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- Conference: ‘Images of Asia’
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- Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2001
References
Notes
1 For the many influences of ‘Asia’ on Greek civilisation see, e.g., Miller, M.C., Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Reciprocity (Cambridge 1997).Google Scholar
2 Cf. Rietbergen, Peter, Europe: A Cultural History (London 1998).Google Scholar
3 Mallory, J.P. and Adams, D.Q., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (London 1997)Google Scholar; Gamkrelidze, T. et al. , Indo-European and Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture I-II (Berlin 1995)Google Scholar. Cf. Gimbutas, M., The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe (San Francisco 1991).Google Scholar
4 Purchas, S., Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas' His Pilgrimes (New York 1965) 248 sqq.Google Scholar
5 Of course, the treasure trove created by Lach, D.F. and Van Kley, E., Asia in the Making of Europe I–III (Chicago 1963–1994)Google Scholar should be cited here, as well as the more recent work by: Osterhammel, J., Die Entzauberung Asiens: Europa un die asiatischen Reiche im 18. Jahrhundert (München 1998).Google Scholar
6 P.J.A.N. Rietbergen, Nihon door Nederlandse Ogen. De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie tussen Japan en Europa, ca 1600 - ca 1800, to be published shortly.
7 The manuscript title was: Verklaringh op verscheijden Vragen 't japance Rijk concemerende door den Edel heer Philips Luijcasz, Directeur-Generaal wegens den Nederlandschen Stand in India voorgestelt en door den Edele President François Caron beantwoort. The text was first printed in Amsterdam in 1645 as: Rechte Beschrijvingh van het machtigh Coninckrijck Iapan, gestelt door Francoys Caron, directeur des Compagnies negotie aldaer, ende met eenige aenteeckeningen vermeerdert door Hendrick Hagenaer. A second version, without Hagenaar's comments, was published in 1661.
8 The Dutch title is: E. Kaempfer, De Beschryving van Japan, behelsende een verhaal van den ouden en tegenwoordigen staat en regering van dat ryk, van deszelfs tempels, paleysen, kasteelen en andere gebouwen, van deszelfs metalen, mineralen, boomen, planten, dieren, vogelen en visschen. Van de tydrekening, en opvolging van de geestelyke en wereldlyke keyzers. Van de oorspronkelyke afstamming, godsdiensten, gewoonten en handwerkseUn der inboorlingen, en van hunnen koophandel met de Nederlanders en de Chineesen. Benevens eene beschryving van het koningkryk Siam. Uyt het oorspronkelyk Hoogduytsch handschrift, nooit te voren gedruckt, in het Engels overgezet, door j. G. Scheuchzer, lidl van de Koninklyke Maatschappy, en van die der Geneesheeren in Londen. Die daarby gevoegt heeft het Leven van den Schryver. Voorzien met kunstige kopere platen, onder het opzicht van den ridder Hans Sloane uytgegeven, en uyt het Engelsch in 't Nederduytsch vertaalt (Amsterdam/Den Haag 1729).
9 I have used: Pomeau, R. ed., Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations I–II (Paris 1963). For the quote: II, 806.Google Scholar
10 Voltaire, Essai, o.c, I, 197, 206.
11 Ibid., 313.
12 Voltaire, Essai, o.c, II, 316.
13 Ibid., 795–797.
14 Delia Valle recently has been dealt with in the last part of: Rubies, J.-P., Travel and Ethnicity in the Renaissance: South India Through European Eyes, 1250–1625 (Cambridge 2000) 353 sqq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 I have used: Havers, G. ed., The Travels of Pietro della Valle in India I–II (New York 1967), which is based on the English translation of 1664.Google Scholar
16 E.g. Travels, o.c, I, 71.
17 Travels, o.c, II, 310.
18 Travels, o.c, I, 42.
19 Cf. Valensi, L., Venise et la Sublime Porte. La Naissance du Despote (Paris 1987).Google Scholar
20 For a translation, see: Hoyland, J. transl., The Empire of the Great Mogol (Bombay 1928).Google Scholar
21 Travels, o.c, I, 45–46.
22 Ibid., 83.
23 Ibid., 79.
24 Ibid., 107.
25 Ibid., 80.
26 Cf. in that vein: King, R., Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘the Mystic East’ (London 1999).Google Scholar
27 Travels, o.c, I, 82.
28 Travels, o.c, II, 224.
29 Ibid., 244.
30 Ibid., 255.
31 Ibid., 228.
32 Ibid., 231.
33 Ibid., 311–312.
34 Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers I (Paris 1751), 755.
35 Encyclopédie, o.c, Supplément, I (Amsterdam 1776), 635.
36 Encyclopédie, o.c, I, 752–755.
37 Despite its lavish illustrations, the poorly argued work edited by: Doshi, S. ed., India and Egypt: Influences and Interactions (Bombay 1993), leaves room for new studies.Google Scholar
38 See: Gunderson, L.L., Alexander's Letter to Aristotle About India (Meissenheim 1980).Google Scholar
39 An introduction gives: Boehme, A., Die Lehre der Seelenwanderung in der antiken griechischen und indischen Philosophic (Jūchen 1989).Google Scholar
40 Travels, o.c, I, 74–79; II, 216; 236.
41 The Japanese ‘approach the sentiment proposed by the wise and widely known Pythagoras, who taught that the souls, through death, moved into all kinds of bodies, either of man or of beast, or of trees’ in: A. Montanus, Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maetschappy in 't Vereenigde Nederland aen de Kaisaren van Japan; vervaetende Wonderlijke voorvallen op de Togt der Nederlandsche Gesanten; Beschryving van de Dorpen, Sterkten, Steden, Landschappen, Tempels, Gods-diensten, Dragten, Gebouwen, Dieren, Gewaschen, Bergen, Fonteinen, vereeuwde en nieuwe Oorlogs-daeden derjapanders: Verdert met een groot getal Afieeldsels in Japan geteikent: Getrokken uit de Geschriften en Reis-aentekeningen derzelve Gesanten door Arnoldus Montanus (Amsterdam 1669) 76 sqq.
42 Yes, ‘even the Jewish Pharisees followed this misleading teaching, according to Flavius Josephus’. Montanus, o.c, 117.
43 For an introduction: Russek, R., Buddha zwischen Osl und West: Skulpturen aus Gandhara (Zürich 1987).Google Scholar
44 Bernal, M., Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (London 1987).Google Scholar
45 I deal with the implications of Europe's cultural ‘genealogy’ in: Rietbergen, P.J.A.N., ‘Orientalisme: een theorie van ficties - de fictie van de theorie? Een poging tot contextualisering en herinterpretatie’, Tijdschrifl voor Geschiedenis 111/4 (1998) 545–574.Google Scholar
46 Cf. Rietbergen, P.J.A.N., ‘Witsen's World. Nicolaas Witsen (1642–1717) between the Dutch East India Company and the Republic of Letters’, Itinerario 9/2 (1985) 121–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
47 For the background, of course: Jensen, L., Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization (Durham 1997).Google Scholar
48 For an introduction into this fascinating story: Parfitt, T., The Thirteenth Gate: Travels Among the Lost Tribes of Israel (London 1987).Google Scholar
49 At present, I am preparing an article on his Lettres.
50 E.g.: Lettres, o.c, 116 sqq; 230 sqq. Even before Bailly, myths had become a fruitful field of European scholarship as witnessed, for example, in the use Montanus made of them.
51 Lettres, o.c, 125.
52 Semler, J.S. ed., Uebersetzung der Allgemeinen Welthistorie, 25 (Halle 1763) 11; 13 sqq.Google Scholar
53 Lettres, o.c, 233 sqq.
54 Ibid., 89.
55 Ibid., 242 sqq.
56 van den Boogaert, E., Jan Huygen van Linschoten and the Moral Map of Asia. The Plates and Text of the ‘Itinerario’ and ‘Icones, Habitus Gestusque Indorum ac Lusitanorum per Indiam Viventium’ (London 1999)Google Scholar; see also his: Het verheven en verdorven Azië. Woord en beeld in het ‘Itinerario’ en de ‘Icones’ van fan Huygen van Linschoten (Amsterdam 2000).
57 I have used the Dutch version of 1710, which was reprinted in Amsterdam in 1979 by the firm of Van Hoeve with a short introduction by an anonymous editor.
58 The success can, I think, be proved from the fact that the Dutch version was based on the fifth English edition. The Dutch version of 1831, which I consulted, was itself a second edition; the first edition seems to have been lost.
59 The following quotes are from pages 39, 41, 45–63, 97–105, respectively.
60 The collection of articles in: Mackenzie, J. ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester 1986) has done much to advance our understanding, but it is restricted to Great Britain, only.Google Scholar
61 A survey-in-the-making is, of course: Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, o.c, but as it proceeds, problems of composition become more visible and, with it, the lack of interpretation.