Teaching
mathematical sciences by Christian missionaries in India during
the 16th and 17th centuries
Albert
Presas i Puig
The
investigation of European accounts, diaries, reports, and letters
of Christian missionaries, ambassadors, merchants, gentlemen
travellers, and scholars, of Arabic and Persian scientific
manuscripts, and of documents preserved in the archives of the
Jesuites, the Carmelites, the Capuchins, and other Christian
orders in Rome as well as in archives of the foreign missions in
France produced ample evidence that scientific contacts between
members of the European republic of letters and different Muslim
societies influenced in several significant ways research
programs in both types of culture during the period of
investigation. Astronomical and geographical observations were
carried out by travellers and within different networks situated
both in Europe and in Asia. Astronomical and geographical data
were also procured from Arabic and Persian sources either bought
by European visitors in the Ottoman and Safavid empires or
presented to them as gifts by Muslim scholars. Italian, Dutch,
English, or French kings, members of the nobility, merchants,
missionaries, and scholars organized private or public
expeditions into Muslim societies to acquire manuscripts on a
wide range of topics, including the mathematical sciences, drugs,
medical herbs, fossils, animals, coins, inscriptions, and other
samples of importance for courtly and scholarly circles in
Europe. In several instances, such expeditions cooperated in the
host countries with various Muslim, Christian, or Hindu partners
to fulfill their aims.
Cooperation took also place in
Europe where former members of Safavid embassies, converted to
Christian faith, settled down in England, Germany, and the
Netherlands, or Muslim travellers of the Ottoman empire spent
some time in Southern France. This cooperation included the
composition of bi- or multi-lingual dictionaries, the translation
of manuscripts, and the interpretation of poetry, instruments, or
customs.
Similarly, Christian missionaries
in Muslim societies cooperated with members of such societies
disregarding their religion in composing dictionaries,
translating texts, interpreting cures, inscriptions, rituals, and
writing grammars, political reports, or geographical and cultural
surveys. Missionaries played an important role in exporting
European scientific books to Asia, creating various sorts of
schools, and establishing printing presses. While the two latter
activities are more or less well explored with respect to their
religious, cultural, or humanistic impact, their role for the
spread of European approaches to the mathematical sciences has
been barely studied. The only information found in modern
literature concerns the self-presentation of the missionaries (as
well as of merchants) as carriers and teachers of mathematical
knowledge (geometry and astronomy in Persia, arithmetic in Goa)
which is said to have given them access to the local political,
religious, and scholarly communities. The missionaries' export of
scientific books to Asia seems to have been widely neglected in
contemporary research.
Two manuscripts on astronomy and
geometry in Arabic and Persian (one preserved in the Aligarh
Muslim University, Aligarh, the other in the Vatican Library,
Rome) written in India in 1624 and in 1664 illustrate that Jesuit
mathematical teaching at Goa, the import of Jesuit mathematical
textbooks, and the teaching of Latin obviously constituted
important channels for the transfer of European knowledge in the
mathematical sciences to Muslim scholars in India and Persia.
The specific research aims at
establishing a survey of the mathematical activities of the
Jesuits and, if possible, of other orders in India on the basis
of the Portuguese, Latin, and Spanish archival material available
in Goa and Bombay. This survey shall include a list of the
professors who taught the mathematical sciences at the St. Paul's
College and other schools, a list of the textbooks they ordered,
information about the contents of such teaching and about
scientific contacts with missionaries, Muslim, Hindu, and other
scholars in continental India. Equally of interest is any
information about scientific exchange between these groups and
European travellers to Goa and the Indian mainland. Finally, the
question whether the Jesuits or any other Christian order
imported astronomical, geographical, and other mathematical
instruments to India before the 1 8th century and if so, what use
did they make of them, shall also be explored on the basis of the
documents and specimens available in Goa and Bombay.
The material to be studied
comprises first of all lists of the colleges informing about
teachers, students, courses, libraries, acquisitions of books,
instruments, etc., reports of the high officials about the state
of affairs in the Jesuit Society's Goan province, letters between
missionaries at Goa and other Indian stations as well as with
their superiors or colleagues in Rome, Coimbra, and other
European Jesuit centers. Furthermore, material of relevance are
lists about the sale of Jesuit properties after the dissolution
of the Society in the 18th century and reports about the fate of
their libraries or collections.
The literature already studied is
summarized in the following bibliography. Standard collections
such as Sommervogel or Wicki are not specifically mentioned.
Bibliography
Borges, Ch. J. 1988: Jesuit
Education in Goa (16th-18th centuries). in: Goa: Cultural Trends.
(ed.) Shirodkar, Panjim, pp. 154- 164
Borges, Ch. J. 1994: The
economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542-1759. New Delhi
A Cultural History of India.
(ed.) Basham, A. L., Delhi
Camps, A. 1957: Jerome Xavier
S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire. Nouvelle Revue de
Science Missionnaire
Cronin, V. 1955: The Wise Man
from the West. London
Discoveries, Missionary Expansion
and Asian Cultures. (ed.) T. R. de Souza, New Delhi, 1993
Jesuit Education in India. (ed.)
Naik, G., Anand, 1987
Jesuit Geometers. (ed.)
MacDonnell, J., Vatican City
John Fryer's East India and
Persia. (ed.) Crooke, W., London, 1915
Souza, T. R. de 1994: Goa
Medieval. A Cidade e o Interior no Seculo XVII.
Tavernier, J. B.: Travels in
India by ...; (transl.) Ball, V., (ed.) Crooke, W., Oxford, 1925
The Travels of the Abbe Carre in
India and the Near east 1672 to 1674. (eds.) Fawcett, Ch., R.
Burn, London, 1947
Della Valle, P.: The Travels of
... in India. (ed.) Grey, E. London, 1892
The Voyage of John Huyghen van
Linschoten to the East Indies. (eds.) A. C. Burnell, P. A. Tiele,
New Delhi, 1988
