Jean Antoine Dubois

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Thomas Hickey : Jean Antoine Dubois in the costume of an Indian sannyasin , Madras around 1820

Jean Antoine Dubois , 'Abbé Dubois', (baptized January 10, 1766 in Saint-Remèze , Ardèche , † February 17, 1848 in Paris ) was a French missionary and Indologist .

Life

Dubois went to South India as a priest in the turmoil of the French Revolution in 1792 , where he looked after the Christian who had been converted by this forced convert in 1794 on behalf of the new British masters after the defeat of the Tippoo Sultan . Dodged to Mysore because of the persecution of priests in Pondichéry, France , he successfully vaccinated against smallpox in 1803/04 , was involved in the construction of numerous churches and set up an experimental agricultural colony in Sathally .

The good contact with the British - Dubois was one of the few who spoke the English language - enabled him to sell his book manuscript on "The Lives and Rites of the Indians" for a significant amount of money, and freed from his most pressing needs, Dubois devoted himself to community work , especially in Karnataka . His Indian believers, however, disapproved of the contact with the feringhis (English), who were regarded as impure and with whom he had mutual respect and recognition until his return to France.

As a farewell, the English colony in Chennai (Madras) collects for a picture made by Thomas Hickey , which shows Dubois in his typical costume as a Christian sannyasin ; it is the last work of the over eighty-year-old British painter.

In 1823 he was ordered back to the Missions Étrangères in Paris , where he wrote a mission-skeptical pamphlet that provoked several responses from Catholic and Protestant sides and is considered a classic of mission criticism.

Dubois was regarded by his superiors as "not steadfast" because of his missionary skepticism and pessimistic worldview.

In 1825 the Abbé published further religious studies and in 1826 a translation of the Panchatantra in the South Indian version. In the last years of his life, Dubois was superior (leader) of the Missions Étrangères (1836–1839); he died in Paris in 1848. He bequeathed his fortune to the mission and his French home parish of Saint-Remèze for school purposes. - A museum and several churches built by him are a reminder of this pioneer of early Indology in India to this day.

rating

In his main work, Hindu life and manners , Dubois described , unlike earlier authors ( Baldaeus , Rogerius ), the caste, religious and living conditions in South India not only under religious, but also under ethnological-sociological aspects. The main work, permeated by many anecdotes and sentences, the core of which goes back to a manuscript by the Jesuit father Gaston-Laurent Cœurdoux (1691–1779), despite the many weaknesses of the presentation and interpretation, allowed for the first time a vivid insight into the customs and everyday life of the previously largely unknown subcontinent .

Due to its comprehensive and detailed overview, Dubois' work is still standard reading for Indologists today.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mildred Archer: India and British Portraiture, 1770-1825 . London u. a. : Sotheby. OUP 1979.

Works

  • Description of the character, manners, and customs often the people of India, and of their institutions, religious and civil. 1817. - German under the title: Life and Rites of the Indians . Bielefeld 2002. - English edition: Hindu manners, customs and ceremonies . London, several editions 1897–1969, with numerous. further Indian reprints.
  • Hindu manners, customs and ceremonies. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1906, 3rd edition. Translated from the author's later French ms. and edited with notes, corrections and biography by Henry K. Beauchamp. Digitized
    • Life and rites of the Indians: caste system and Hindu belief in South India around 1800 (after a Ms. by Gaston-Laurent Coerdoux). Based on the French and engl. Ed. From 1825 and 1906 transl. and ed. by Thomas Kohl. With notes, corrections and the biography of Henry K. Beauchamp as well as the preface by Friedrich Max Müller from the third engl. Edition of 1906. With ct., Fig., A reg. And an index of the most important Sanskrit terms as well as an essay "Dubois, Coerdoux and the Jesuits in South India". Bielefeld: Reise-Know-How-Verl. Rump 2002 content
  • Letters on the State of Christianity in India, in which the Conversion of the Hindoos is considered as impracticable . 1823 - There are numerous Indian reprints, most recently 1995.
  • Exposé de quelques-uns des principaux articles de la théogonie des Brahmes . 1825.
  • Moeurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l'Inde. Paris 1824. - Frz. Back translation of the original English edition from 1817, but by the author himself.
  • Le Pantcha Tantra, ou les cinq ruses. Paris 1826. - Collection of South Indian Fables.

literature

  • A. Mazon: Un missionnaire vivarois aux Indes (l'Abbé Dubois, de Saint-Remèze). Privas 1899
  • Adrien Launay: Histoire des Mission de l'Inde. Pondicherry, Maissour, Coimbatour. Archives des Missions Étrangères. 5 vols. Paris 1898 (ND 2000).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dubois, Jean Antoine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French missionary and Indologist
DATE OF BIRTH baptized January 10, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Remèze , Ardèche department, France
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1848
Place of death Paris