BRINGING HOME THE EXOTIC:
Francois Bernier
Histoire de la Derniere
(1670)
From humble beginnings, François Bernier attended the famous school later
renamed Lycée Louis-le-Grand and used the resulting connections to join the circle of the philosopher
Pierre Gassendi, which included Cyrano de Bergerac and Molière. Gassendi’s thought revived classical
Skepticism through the lens of Counter-Reformation Catholicism; he could be considered the intellectual
heir of Michel de Montaigne. Bernier worked for several years as Gassendi’s secretary and closest aide,
even holding him in his arms when the philosopher died in 1655.
Now on his own, Bernier took a three-month speed course in medicine, which qualified him as a doctor
on the condition that he would not practice on French national territory. New degree in hand, he
embarked on a tour of the Near East, ending up at the port of Surat in India in early 1659. He arrived at a
dramatic time.
The Mughal dynasty had then ruled India for a century and was just entering its decline. Past generations
had seen the tolerance of Akbar the Great and the grandeur of Shah Jahan, but now a war for the
succession was pitting the unworldly mystic Dara Shikoh against his ruthless younger brother Aurangzeb.
Falling in with Dara’s tattered army as a surgeon, Bernier observed his messy betrayal and defeat,
recounted in the Histoire.
Aurangzeb would ultimately consolidate his power by executing his rival and
directly or indirectly causing the deaths of their father and two other brothers. Although compassionate
toward Dara - "I felt surprise that the government should have the hardihood to commit all these
indignities upon a Prince," he would write - Bernier lost no time in ingratiating himself with the new
emperor and his secretary of state for foreign affairs, known as Danishmand Khan. Ultimately Bernier
would spend twelve years as Aurangzeb’s personal physician, gaining unprecedented access to the Mughal
court and the Indian people.
The Histoire is part of a larger work,
Travels in the Mughal Empire, in which Bernier collects everything
from statistics on the exploitation of poor Hindu peasants to gossip about the illicit affairs of royal family
members. Not among the culturally sensitive, he retains his French skepticism throughout. His view of
an influential poet: "I was for a long time disgusted with a celebrated Fakir...who paraded the streets of
Delhi as naked as when he came into the world;" and a princess’ entourage: "If I had not regarded this
display of magnificence with a sort of philosophical indifference, I should have been apt to be carried away
by such flights of imagination as inspire most of the Indian poets, when they represent the elephants as
conveying so many goddesses concealed from the vulgar gaze."
Aurangzeb would rule for fifty years and expand the empire to its greatest size while keeping it constantly
at war and supporting massive political corruption. Bernier joins other historians in judging the emperor
pious and learned, yet cold and intolerant. When as a young man Aurangzeb visited his mother’s tomb,
the recently completed Taj Mahal, he wrote home, "The dome leaked in two places."
In the home of Danishmand Khan, Bernier matched minds with Hindu and Muslim thinkers and
shared what he knew of William Harvey’s science and of French philosophy. He also provided crucial
information to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, founder of the French East India Company, and became one of the
first Europeans to offer a systematic racial classification of world populations.
In 1669, Bernier returned to Paris to publish his memories of India and write voluminously on a variety
of subjects, among other things arousing controversy with a defense of Descartes. His Travels made waves
throughout society and gained him friendships with Pierre Bayle, Ninon de Lenclos, and other literary
lights. In 1675, John Dryden had a hit with the play Aurang-Zebe, based on the English translation.
Further Reading:
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