Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 13

PREFATORY NOTE
By the Right Hon.
It
is difficult
F.
to believe that the
of Mozurs, Institutions
et
Max Muller
Abbe Dubois,
the author
Ceremonies des Pewples de VInde,
By his position as a scholar and as
a student of Indian subjects, he really belongs to a period
died only in 1848.
previous to the revival of Sanskrit studies in India, as
inaugurated by Wilkins, Sir William Jones, and Cole-
brooke. I had no idea, when in 1846 I was attending
Eugene Burnouf at the College de
Abbe was still living and in full activity
in Paris the lectures of
France, that the old
and I doubt whether
even Burnouf himself was aware of his existence in Paris.
The Abbe belongs really to the eighteenth century, but as
there is much to be learnt even from such men as Roberto
de' Nobili, who went to India in 1606, from H. Roth,
who was much consulted by Kircher in his China Illustrata
(1667), and others, so again the eighteenth century was
by no means devoid of eminent students of Sanskrit, of
Indian religion, and Indian subjects in general. It is true
as Directeur des Missions Etrangeres,
that in our days their observations and researches possess
chiefly a historical interest, but they are by no means to
be neglected. They make us see how the acquaintance of
European scholars with India began, and under what
first steps were taken by these pioneers,
chiefly missionaries, towards acquiring a knowledge of the
ancient language of India, Sanskrit, and through it, towards
gaining an acquaintance with one of the most interesting
peoples and one of the richest and most original literatures
The reports sent from India by the Pere
of the world.
Cceurdoux (1767), and published by Barthelemy in the
Memoirs of the French Academy, the letters of the Pere
circumstances the