Dubois, Jean Antoine

IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0059 Mss Eur K221-225
Held at: British Library, Asia Pacific and Africa Collections, India Office Private Papers
Domain: archival
Title: Dubois, Jean Antoine
Date(s) of contents: 1806-1823
Level of description: Fonds
Extent and medium: 7 volumes

CONTEXT

Name of creator(s): Dubois, Jean Antoine (1765-1848)

Administrative/Biographical history: Born in 1765, Abbe Jean Antoine Dubois was ordained in 1792 in the diocese of Viviers, and the same year left France for mission work under the Missions Etrangeres. He was at first attached to the Pondicherry mission, but after the capture in 1799 of Seringapatam, Mysore, by the British he was invited to visit the town to reconvert forced converts to Islam. Thereafter he lived chiefly in Mysore where he established at Sathalli an agricultural settlement of reconverted Christians. His 'Description of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, and of their Institutions, Religious and Civil' (London, 1817) was for many years an authoritative work on its subject. He returned to France in 1823 with a pension from the East India Company, having published 'Letters on the State of Christianity in India' (London, 1823) in which he argued that the conversion of the Hindus was impossible. He became a Director and, from 1836-1839, Superior of the Missions Etrangeres at Paris where he died in 1848.

Custodial history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE

Scope and content/abstract: The collection includes the following manuscripts all in French: 1. the original text on which the 1817 English translation of the 'Description of the Character … etc' was based (purchased by the Madras Government in 1806). 2. two further manuscripts of the same work containing corrections and revisions. 3. 'Arcana Brahmanica' which Dubois presented to the Company in 1823 and which has never been published in full. 4. 'Extrait du Vedanta-sara' translated by Dubois from the Telugu (also presented in 1823).

System of arrangement: By numbered volume.

ACCESS AND USE

Language: English

Conditions governing access: Access unrestricted.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Finding aids: 'India Office Library: Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages', vol ii, pt ii, 'Minor Collections and Miscellaneous Manuscripts', section 1 by G R Kaye, pp762-66

ALLIED MATERIALS

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Date(s) of descriptions: 18 July 2002

INDEX ENTRIES

Subjects

Hinduism

Missionaries

Religions

Personal names

Dubois | Jean Antoine | 1765-1848 | Catholic missionary

Corporate names

Places

Asia

India

South Asia