1

INTRODUCTION
Te historical literature on science in colonial India is a rich and expanding feld.
However, while astronomy in earlier periods of Indian history has interested
Indologists and Nehruvian scholars for some time, astronomy in the colonial
period has attracted relatively modest attention, and indeed fostered little con-
sensus. Te existing literature on astronomy in colonial India includes works that
see astronomical endeavour as part of the imperatives of the English East India
Company, the principal agency of British rule in India until 1858. However,
the historical literature also includes works that identify an interaction of tra-
ditional (Indian) and modern (Western) astronomical knowledge, again within
the context of colonialism. In general, earlier authors seeking to chart the advent
of modern astronomy in India described the spread of Western science. How-
ever, later authors stressed that astronomy in the colonial period could be about
a coalescence of Indian and Western scientifc ideas, and as such, representative
of a dialogue within the colonial encounter. So, from a reading of this historical
literature on astronomy in colonial India, it becomes clear that there are some
fundamental, and as yet unresolved, questions. Tese relate to how Europeans
and Indians engaged with astronomy in colonial India, and how this changed
over the period, and whether modern astronomy was just representative of dif-
fusive Western science, or whether there was greater scope within its practice for
a cognitive interface between Europeans and Indians.
Astronomy in Indian History
Te most substantive corpus of literature on astronomy in India in fact relates
to pre-colonial history, and one notable approach has been that of Indology.
Sanskrit scholars such as David E. Pingree have delved into the details of the
Jyotisavedanga (c. 500 bc) (the oldest extant astronomical text in India) and the
Siddhantas (later astronomical treatises on reckoning time, computing celestial
positions and other phenomena).
1
Furthermore, the study of ancient manu-
scripts, many of which were copied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
has led to an emphasis on the transcultural nature of astronomy. Tere have been
refections on the interaction between Indian, Babylonian, Greco-Babylonian,
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2 Astronomy in India, 17841876
Greek and Islamic methods, with elucidation of the receptivity of Indian astron-
omy to non-Sanskritic knowledge and even the infuence of Indian astronomy
on early modern Europe.
2
Te developments within these earlier periods of his-
tory occurred within somewhat slower-moving geographical and social time;
this, and the rigorous methods of ancient-language scholarship, has enabled the
transmission of ideas to be explored in such a manner.
Tere have been several more general expositions of pre-colonial Indian
astronomy, with scholars ofen making use of S. B. Dikshits Bharatiya Jyotish
Sastra (1896) and its information regarding notable Indian astronomers Ary-
abhata (476550), Varahamihira (50587) and numerous others and their
texts. Tese histories have explored methods of reckoning time and computing
celestial positions perhaps the central concerns of traditional Indian astronomy
since Vedic and Siddhantic times as well as the development of astronomi-
cal instruments in India.
3
Tere has also been elucidation of the importance
of compendia other than the Siddhantas in Indian tradition. Indeed, there has
been consideration of the Karanas (expositions containing mean longitudes for
celestial bodies) and Kosthakas (tables for determining planetary position).
4
Te
Sanskrit jyotihsastra in fact has connotations of both astronomy and astrology,
as the terms have come to be understood, encompassing ganita (mathematical
astronomy) as well as samhita (omens) and hora (horoscopy).
5
Indeed, Christo-
pher A. Bayly notes that even purist astronomical schools in India, associated
with the observational astronomy of the Siddhantas, established a modus viv-
endi with astrology.
6
Scholars have hence remained aware of the need to talk
about both astronomy and astrology, when studying the history of astronomy
in India. Indeed, astrologers continued to have a salient presence in interior
parts of India through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Another means of investigating astronomy in Indian history has been rooted
in Nehruvian approaches to science. While much of this scholarship took place
afer Jawaharlal Nehrus death, its principles refected his beliefs about Indias
past, present and future. Nehru submitted that so long as he thought in terms
of facts and dates, disassociated from his lifes course, history had little signif-
cance for me. Indeed, he claimed that Science and the problems of to-day and
of our present life attracted me far more. However, Nehrus urge to experience
life through action encouraged him to understand the present more deeply. For
him, that meant looking to the roots of the present in the past. Nehrus self-
styled discovery of India revealed the eclectic nature of its history and culture,
with India forever changing and progressing all the time. Indeed, there were
contacts with several cultures, and India infuenced them and was infuenced
by them. Nehru also submitted that Europe, which had long been backward in
many matters, took the lead in technical progress and that Behind this tech-
nical progress was the spirit of science. Yet even if Science has dominated the
Copyright
Introduction 3
western world, the west is still far from having developed the real temper of sci-
ence.
7
Tough more recent Indology has stressed pluralism in Indias scientifc
history, Nehru in his time was also emphasizing the importance of pluralism to
Indias present and future scientifc development. India had to catch up with the
West, but also bring its legacy of genuine scientifc temper to the service of mod-
ern science. While observational astronomy was known to be one of Nehrus
passions, there was signifcant patronage for astrophysics and space technolo-
gies in the newly independent India. At the same time, understanding the place
of astronomy in Indian history, including the relative infuences of India and
Europe, was a means of looking to the future.
As part of the efort to elucidate the place of astronomy in Indian history,
followers of Nehrus secular approach sought to consider how European Orien-
talists conceived of Indian astronomy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Orientalist scholarship was complex in its methods and motivations,
but broadly speaking its proponents were interested in philological studies of
Indian history and culture (encompassing what we would recognize as scien-
tifc themes); Nehruvian histories of science in fact sought to fll the gaps lef
in the narrative they produced, demonstrating Indias age-old scientifc pedi-
gree and thereby serving a nationalist cause. Dhruv Raina explains that in 1959,
the National Institute of Sciences of India (NISI), now the Indian National
Science Academy (INSA), established a board to think about the task of writ-
ing a history of sciences in India. In 1964, the Ministry for Scientifc Research
and Cultural Afairs arranged a meeting of scholars, deciding that NISI would
work towards setting up a National Commission for the Compilation of His-
tory of Sciences. Tere was at length no single, grand history of Indian science.
However, an important product of this period was the foundation of the Indian
Journal of History of Science in 1966. Raina draws attention to the dominant
presence in the journal of historians writing about mathematics and astronomy.
Yet the focus was on Indian antiquity, and the impression was that the history of
science in India was about antiquarian studies.
8
Te sixth volume of O. P. Jaggis
monumental History of Science, Technology and Medicine in India (196984),
another example of the Nehruvian approach, traced Indian astronomy from its
ancient origins to the colonial period. Tere was exposition of the Vedic roots
of astronomy in India, and mention of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ori-
entalist assessments of Indian scientifc tradition.
9
So, in spite of the ostensible
emphasis on plurality in Nehruvian histories, the sense of transcultural engage-
ment was more refected in the surveys of earlier periods of Indian history, in
keeping with Nehrus own thoughts about Indias recent decline. Te Nehruvian
project encapsulated the sense that modern science in India including astron-
omy was the fruit of European learning, and there was an implicit sense that
Indians in the colonial period were simply passive inheritors of Western science.
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4 Astronomy in India, 17841876
Te Colonial Problematic
With respect to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a handful of narrative
histories most of which are associable with the organs of Nehruvian scholar-
ship have considered the manner in which modern Western astronomy was
instituted in India in the form of observatories. Yet, there has been little sense of
transcultural engagement or Indian agency. Tese studies have sought to exploit
extensive source material in relation to the establishment of these observatories,
but they have tended to be most concerned with identifying notable European
astronomers and describing the instruments that they used. S. M. R. Ansari, for
example, discussed the foundation of observatories at Madras under colonial
of cialdom and at Lucknow and Trivandrum under Indian princes, also touch-
ing on colonial eforts to establish observatories at Calcutta and Poona.
10
More
works in this vein followed, most notably from Rajesh Kochhar and Jayant V.
Narlikar. Tere was further discussion of the context in which modern astron-
omy came to India, with reference to the demands of colonial navigation and
surveying.
11
Some consideration of modern astronomy in colonial India is also
to be found in earlier contributions on surveying. As part of an extensive pro-
ject spanning decades, R. H. Phillimore produced the epic Historical Records of
the Survey of India (194554), largely a collection of biographical information
and extracts from source materials.
12
In the nineteenth century itself, there was a
similar focus on modern astronomy in the context of its service to surveying in
Clements R. Markhams A Memoir on the Indian Surveys (1871); this has been
an important point of reference for subsequent histories.
13

A signifcant theme in this strand of literature has indeed been the association
of modern Western astronomy in colonial India with Eurocentric difusionist
models of science; some depictions have even suggested that Western science
was unilaterally imposed in India. Matthew H. Edney considered trigonometri-
cal surveying, in the service of which astronomy was invoked, as being rooted
in non-Indian mathematics. He asserted that cartography was quintessentially at
once a scientifc and a British activity, representing the dominance of Enlighten-
ment rationalism.
14
Ian J. Barrow argued that maps were generated for European
audiences and addressed expressly colonial needs in a distinct ideological set-
ting. Hence cartography reconfgured Indian history, as well as Indian land, into
British history and British territory.
15
Eurocentric difusionist perspectives char-
acterize modern science as either being forced on a tabula rasa or supplanting local
knowledge. Moreover, as with the shortcomings of the Nehruvian project, Indi-
ans are rendered little more than junior partners in modern science. As I seek to
emphasize here, an exploration into astronomy in colonial India reveals a diferent
picture; it is possible to conceive of greater agency for Indians in modern science.
Copyright
Introduction 5
It seems evident that there needs to be greater exploration of how Indians
responded to modern Western astronomy in India in the colonial period. Tere
have been some eforts to approach science in colonial India from this perspective,
though the concomitant engagement between Europeans and Indians has been
understood more as a process of philosophical rationalization reconciling old
and new forms of knowledge.
16
In spite of its endurance, the Orientalist triptych
recognizing the achievements of Hindus, stagnation under Muslims and pro-
gress of the West has come under increasing pressure. As David Arnold notes,
most scholars are now reluctant to see Western science impacting on a stagnant
India.
17
In the context of astronomy, more recent historiographical interventions
have stressed cross-cultural negotiation within Indian responses to Western sci-
ence, both in the pre-colonial and colonial period. Christopher Z. Minkowski, for
example, has elucidated the eforts of pandits (elites learned in Sanskrit) to modify
cosmologies from the Puranas (post-Vedic narratives) and Siddhantas in the light
of the Copernican model of Western astronomy.
18
Tere has indeed been increas-
ing stress on the role of pandits in producing knowledge regarding astronomy,
with other scholars continuing to consider the cosmological accommodations of
the nineteenth century and drawing further attention to the developing culture of
the Sanskrit literati in older intellectual centres such as Benares.
19

Some notable but brief characterizations of negotiation regarding astronomy
in colonial India have demonstrated that Indian elites in fact used the encounter
of modern Western astronomy and traditional Siddhantic astronomy to express
early national consciousness. Te focus here has been on developments under
the Indian princes, with particular attention to Lucknow and Sehore, and largely
centred on the issue of cosmologies that has emerged out of Sanskrit scholarship.
Bayly noted that out of the eclectic engagement between Europeans and Indi-
ans, there could be a reassertion of pride in Indian traditions.
20
Gyan Prakash
argued that there could be a renegotiation of power associated with Western ideas
through pointing to their anticipation in indigenous traditions.
21
It is clear, then,
that the most challenging possibilities for interpreting the history of astronomy in
the colonial period lie with the characterizations emphasizing dialogue. However,
it is noticeable that the emphasis has tended to be on a philosophical engagement,
with Indians seeking to rationalize the encounter between traditional and mod-
ern science. Tese characterizations do capture an important phenomenon, and
there is scope to build on them in the light of further exploration of the source
materials. Yet I also seek to demonstrate the extent to which Europeans and Indi-
ans engaged with modern Western astronomy on a more practical level, in and
around the institutions conventionally associated with difusive Western science.
Among the ways in which the engagement whether philosophical or
practical in and around the institutions of modern astronomy might be
characterized, possibilities include the sorts of arguments regarding hybridity
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6 Astronomy in India, 17841876
presented by Prakash. So, modern astronomy might be seen as being reconfg-
ured to suit local needs. In postcolonial studies, this hybridity has been explained
by scholars such as Homi K. Bhabha as a problematic of colonial representation
and individuation that reverses the efects of the colonialist disavowal, so that
other denied knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the
basis of its authority. It is also associated with Te menace of mimicry, which in
disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority.
22
As
for somewhat less subversive theoretical models, John Lourdusamy, for example,
has elucidated the careers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengali scien-
tists who showed how new knowledge correlated with old knowledge as a means
of preparing for modern science with self-confdence. Among these scientists,
there was a process of double-identifcation with the West and India.
23
Pratik
Chakrabarti has also explored the efort to redefne and integrate colonial sci-
ence in India. Amid conficts and negotiations, Indians sought to locate modern
science in the cultural, social and political fabric of nationalist India.
24

Further possibilities for characterizing the encounter in and around the
institutions of modern astronomy include seeing disengagement, rather than
engagement, and most controversially perhaps, seeing Europeans appropriating
Indian knowledge. Te concept of disengagement relates to characterizations
of recalcitrance among Indian elites in the face of Western science, with Asish
Nandy notably claiming that, amid the dif culties of legitimately reconciling
Indian culture with modern science, Indian scientists sought (but failed) to ofer
an alternative.
25
On the other hand, there has been the suggestion that Indians
tended to avoid felds of intellectual exploration that the British dominated
because those areas never represented a universal domain of free discourse. Par-
tha Chatterjee argues that a space was carved out for pure tradition, which could
be reorganized as modern.
26
Such scholars have therefore searched for authenti-
cally Indian elements to the science of Indian elites in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, their eforts resonating with postcolonial histories
that seek to reclaim the undistorted self .
27
Similar approaches to science and
technology in colonial India have argued for the hegemonic imposition of a
colonial episteme and eclipsing of pre-colonial achievements. Te emphasis has
been on repressive large-scale technologies or on the cultural discourses asso-
ciated with science.
28
As for appropriation, some scholars have gone as far as
indicating that science in colonial India was about Europeans depicting Indian
knowledge as their own. Sujit Sivasundaram implies that Indians could reclaim
scientifc knowledge which was in fact built on their eforts.
29
Te idea of Euro-
pean dependence on local knowledge has been explored further. Kapil Raj, for
example, seems to locate modern science he avoids any reference to Western
science in a syncretism of Western and non-Western paradigms.
30

Copyright
Introduction 7
In existing histories of science in colonial India, including those that have con-
sidered astronomy, there has been a critical shif away from simply seeing Western
science as being difused from Europe to India. Instead, there is interest in explor-
ing the manner in which Indians responded to the challenge of Western science.
However, there arises the question as to whether the eforts of Indians in rela-
tion to modern astronomy can only be understood as a process of philosophical
rationalization focusing on the relationship between ostensibly traditional and
modern knowledge. Furthermore, there is the issue of whether modern astron-
omy can only be redeemed if there is an identifable syncretism of Western and
non-Western paradigms within its practice (paradigms being defned by Tomas
S. Kuhn as accepted exemplars of scientifc practice ofering models for scientifc
communities).
31
So, there is clearly a struggle to square notions of multidirectional
and crosscutting scientifc ideas with the recognizable pressures of a colonial situ-
ation. Taking stock of the insights explored in the foregoing discussion, I aim to
explore further the possibilities for characterizing the engagement between Euro-
peans and Indians in relation to astronomy in colonial India.
New Departures
In the light of the historical literature on science in colonial India to date, the aim
of this study is to make a contribution to debates about the nature of the cognitive
interface between Europeans and Indians in science. Tough astronomy has been
considered to some extent in the literature, there is scope for further investiga-
tion, especially with regards to the institutions of modern astronomy established
in and around the coastal metropolises. Te periodization and geographical scope
must of course be demarcated, in order to bring precise enough evidence to bear
on those debates. Furthermore, there are a number of vistas and a range of sources
which need to be interrogated. In so far as the history of science is concerned,
the basis for any investigation must be source-critical empiricism. However, more
recent departures in the history of science in general have adverted to the impor-
tance of sociological approaches, which have stressed a more constructivist view
of science. It emerges that a more self-consciously interdisciplinary approach is of
signifcant potential. Using such an approach, at least in part, promises to ofer a
more textured and contextualized account of astronomy in colonial India, refect-
ing the nuances of engagement between Europeans and Indians in astronomy
while elucidating the impact of colonial politics on that interface.
With regards to periodization, the nineteenth century has attracted relatively
modest attention in histories of astronomy in India. While the more narrative
histories have considered the establishment of observatories during that period,
mentioning astronomers and listing instruments, more interpretive accounts of
the context in which Western astronomy came to India are possible. Te period
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8 Astronomy in India, 17841876
of Orientalist scholarship in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
and the approach of Orientalists to Indian astronomy, has come under focus since
the time of Nehruvian histories. However, there has been a disconnection between
histories considering the signifcance of that scholarly engagement with Indian
astronomy and histories involving more descriptive studies of the institutionaliza-
tion of modern Western astronomy in colonial India. Hence this work will revisit
the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Orientalist engagement with
Indian astronomy, in order to consider the relationship between that scholarship
and the establishment of observatories under colonial of cialdom in India. So, I
take as our nominal starting point the foundation of the Asiatick Society in Cal-
cutta in 1784. As for the later nineteenth century, the nature of modern Western
astronomy itself began to change with the rising prevalence of spectroscopic and
photographic techniques. Te end date of 1876 refects this shif, as well as bear-
ing signifcance in the history of science in India for marking the establishment of
the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS).
As for location, it is of great surprise that Bombay and Calcutta, two of the
three most important cities to the East India Company, have received scant
attention in existing histories of astronomy in colonial India. Tis is in fact a
signifcant lacuna, the redressing of which promises to elucidate the nature of
colonial science and also the engagement between Europeans and Indians in
around the institutions of modern astronomy in India. Te existing narrative
histories have ofered signifcant details regarding the East India Companys
foundation of an observatory at Madras in 1786, as well as exploring the obser-
vatories established at Lucknow and Trivandrum in the 1830s under Indian
princes. Furthermore, there has been some mention of observatories at Calcutta
and Poona. Yet there is more to be said about Calcutta, and the absence of Bom-
bay altogether is an important omission. While Bombay is understood as the
site of a magnetic and meteorological observatory from the 1840s, the historical
experiences associated with the astronomical observatory prior to that demand
exploration. Bombay (the presidency also encompassing Poona afer 1817) and
Bengal (the presidency also encompassing Benares up to 1833, when Bengal
was split into the presidency of Bengal and the province of Agra, with the latter
being renamed the North-Western Provinces in 1836) hence represent the main
focus throughout this work. However, no study into astronomy in nineteenth-
century India can ignore the signifcance of Madras, or the princely states of
Awadh and Travancore with their observatories at Lucknow and Trivandrum,
and occasional concentration on these areas will serve to put matters in Bom-
bay and Bengal into comparative perspective. Furthermore, there is important
evidence to be considered from other parts of the subcontinent in elucidating
astronomy in nineteenth-century India, and so, the geographical scope of the
enquiry ought not to be overly circumscribed.
Copyright
Introduction 9
In relation to the vistas which must be explored, it is important to transcend
the confnes of existing histories of astronomy in colonial India. To understand
the engagement between Europeans and Indians, there needs to be consid-
eration of a number of themes. Tough the philosophical type of engagement
focusing on the encounter between traditional and modern astronomy has been
discussed to some extent in existing histories, it is important to revisit some of
those themes, with more nuances to explore. However, there is an even greater
need to devote attention to the knowledge interface between Europeans and
Indians regarding the practice of modern astronomy in and around the institu-
tions established for it in the coastal metropolises. While scholars have touched
on the relationship between European astronomers and Indian princes, Cal-
cutta and Bombay (as well as Madras) have been neglected as sites of meaningful
interaction. Tere is a need to question whether Indian assistants in observato-
ries were just menial labourers, or whether there was something more signifcant
involved in their endeavours. Tis also leads to a more extensive view of the role
of astronomy in education in colonial India. Tough scholars have discussed the
nineteenth-century pedagogic ventures making use of Siddhantic and Western
paradigms, the focus has tended to be on the older centres of Sanskrit scholar-
ship, rather than the colleges of the coastal metropolises.
Te exploration of these various themes associated with astronomy in
colonial India demands a wide-ranging use of historical sources, and there are
diferent types of of cial and personal material which might be brought to bear.
Te journals of the learned societies of Bengal and Bombay contained numer-
ous contributions on astronomy (and astrology). In addition, there is a need
to explore the (multiple) meanings of physical objects associated with Indian
and Western traditions, variously created and preserved by diferent historical
actors, and there was also a plethora of calendars and almanacs produced in this
period. With regards to the institutionalization of modern Western astronomy,
the existing narrative histories have sought to draw on East India Company
records, with regards to Madras in particular. Yet while compendia of obser-
vations have attracted attention, there has been less focus on the fne grain of
of cial correspondence and reports, and their discursive practices. Tere is more
to be understood about the reasons for which observatories in Bombay and Cal-
cutta were founded, stafed and equipped. In addition, there is more to be said
about the practical engagement between Europeans and Indians in and around
these observatories. Te existing literature has tended to ignore the experien-
tial texture of astronomy. However, personalized accounts can be gleaned from
this of cial material, as well as from contemporary articles and publications. Te
focus on education brings a logical extension of the use of this sort of source.
Te spotlight falls on material elucidating the establishment of colleges in which
astronomy was taught, as well as on signifcant texts used in them.
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10 Astronomy in India, 17841876
Being anchored in the discipline of history, this present work naturally seeks
to put astronomy in colonial India into its appropriate context through explo-
ration of the identifed themes; the history of science is, of course, all about
understanding the setting in which scientifc knowledge is generated. However,
as a discipline, sociology, with its focus on the collective aspects of human con-
duct, has tended to interrogate scientifc contexts with even greater intricacy.
Tis has been refected in the more recent thrust of science and technology stud-
ies (STS). In traditional sociology of knowledge, there was interest in how far
social factors impacted upon the processes by which scientifc knowledge was
produced, and such concerns have been evident in histories of science for some
time. But the sociology of scientifc knowledge (SSK) has gone even further,
looking to show that scientifc knowledge itself was social in its constitution.
32

In emphasizing the social and cultural factors associated with scientifc
practice, the Strong Programme of the Edinburgh School usefully considered
the structure of scientifc communities and the interests of the people within
those communities (Kuhns internalism discounted the signifcance of social
contexts). Te stress on structure and interest refected the importance of mac-
rosocial factors in the making of scientifc knowledge.
33
More recently, ideas of
co-production have continued to refect the sense that the production of sci-
entifc knowledge is inextricably linked with social phenomena; in other words,
science is made by societal forces and in turn is the making of forms of social
life.
34
In treating evidence associated with observatories and colleges, it is impor-
tant to bear in mind such insights. Tere has to be elucidation of the societal
forces and macro-social factors associated with those institutions.
Yet, some scholars identifable with the broad spectrum of SSK approaches
have focused even more closely on the actual content of science. Tey have
indeed sought to interrogate the cognitive forces and micro social factors
involved in the construction of knowledge.
35
Te various conclusions of the
sociologist Bruno Latour, focusing on experimental practice in laboratories
and in the feld, have been controversial, but it is his sort of methods that are
most illuminating.
36
Indeed, Latour is widely known for demonstrating the
ethnomethodologists focus on the range of small face-to-face interactions
in grassroots scientifc practice.
37
Te constructivist view of science promises
to reshape the manner in which engagement between Europeans and Indians
in relation to modern astronomy in the colonial period can be conceived. Te
stress on knowledge as something forever being made as a human product, rather
than just existing, is something that histories of science in colonial India have in
large part neglected. Kapil Raj has usefully drawn attention to the importance
of SSK and made claims to using its approaches.
38
However, it is arguable that
his implication of Europeans appropriating Indian scientifc knowledge does
not quite adhere to its principles. Tere have also been eforts to approach the
history of science with the support of distinctly anthropological methods. For
example, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang has sought to explore Victorian solar eclipse
Copyright
Introduction 11
expeditions with reference to the emotional texture of science, refecting its
postconstructivist element.
39
In such histories, the efort to ofer thick descrip-
tions overrides the importance of complex epistemological issues. However,
while acknowledging the value of placing emphasis on the human experiences
behind science, there is still more to be meaningfully understood about the con-
structivist element.
Tese interdisciplinary perspectives, notwithstanding some conceptual
problems, promise to help in characterizing the engagement between Europeans
and Indians in astronomy in this period, in particular with regards to the practi-
cal engagement in and around the institutions of modern Western astronomy.
When considering the evidence associated with the observatories and colleges,
it is important, in the manner of ethnomethodologists, to try and capture the
small and mundane details of scientifc practice whenever possible. In histories
of science in colonial India, there is now some consensus behind the notion that
there was no simple, one-directional process of scientifc and technological
transfer, but rather a series of cross-cultural exchanges and interactions.
40
Tere
are an increasing number of interpretive works seeking to trace the transition
between the pre-colonial and colonial periods, and authors stress the problem
with seeing an alien science displacing an indigenous one.
41
However, the means
of characterizing the manner in which Europeans and Indians engaged in rela-
tion to modern Western astronomy remains a challenge. Te various models of
hybridity or appropriation in existing histories of science in colonial India might
be deemed insuf cient in themselves, and sociological departures might help to
address any shortcomings, in particular with regards to the more practical rather
than philosophical types of engagement.
At the same time, there needs to be awareness of the signifcance of colonial-
ism, both with respect to the overall development of astronomy in colonial India
and the construction of scientifc knowledge. Tere is the issue of hierarchies
and hegemonies with regards to colonial and scientifc modernity.
42
Moreover,
the picture of connectedness in the making of scientifc knowledge has its lim-
its; there needs to be an understanding, alongside situated universality, of how
politics intrudes into the process of knowledge production.
43
Ultimately, then,
it is crucial to situate the subtleties of the engagement in astronomy in India
within the context of colonialisms power inequalities.
So, the aim of this book is to explore the changing forms of engagement
between Europeans and Indians in relation to astronomy in India between 1784
and 1876. In the light of debates about colonial scientifc knowledge, I seek to
trace the evolving contexts in which knowledge of astronomy was developed
in India and to provide a nuanced characterization of the resultant cognitive
interface between Europeans and Indians in the colonial period. Te defning fea-
tures of this period from the foundation of the Asiatick Society in 1784 to the
establishment of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 1876
saw Europeans exploring the history of Indian astronomy to assess its value to
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12 Astronomy in India, 17841876
modern science, before establishing observatories and colleges to foster modern
(Western) astronomy, while Indians turned to rethink how the history of Indian
astronomy (and astrology) ftted with modern science. Yet my main contention
is that while recent historiographical interventions have drawn attention to the
more philosophical forms of engagement (through which Europeans and Indians
sought to assess the position of modern science vis--vis Indian culture), such a
concentration has elided a much more practical engagement between Europeans
and Indians in relation to modern astronomy in India (with actors from various
backgrounds proving their competencies in a more pragmatic working culture).
Tis latter form of engagement was not about a constant process of Indians
rationalizing participation in modern science, or looking backwards while mov-
ing forwards. In addition, it was premised more on collaborative and experiential
constructions of knowledge, without express awareness of fxed Western or
Indian paradigms in astronomy. Tere was evidence of such engagement in the
observatory and in the feld, as well as in certain college settings, and in some
parts of India more than others. However, racialized colonial institutions and
attenuated educational schemas could at length hinder such possibilities, leaving
the spotlight on the more philosophical forms of engagement.
Te chapters elucidate these key themes, while progressing in a broadly chron-
ological fashion. Firstly, Chapter 1 demonstrates how Orientalist scholars began
interacting with traditional Indian astronomy (and astrology) in the late eight-
eenth century, setting in motion a philosophical engagement between European
and Indian scientifc knowledge and raising the possibility of a practical engage-
ment with the skills of Indian astronomers. Chapter 2 then considers how, even
as scholarship based largely on astronomical texts defned the limits of engage-
ment with Indians, Europeans began to concern themselves with the practical
researches of modern Western astronomy in and around their new observatories
in the coastal metropolises. Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the development of
knowledge regarding astronomy, in the observatory and in the feld. Here it is
shown, with particular reference to Bengal and Bombay, that European astrono-
mers had to engage practically with Indian assistants in order to progress the work
at hand, even though the prospects of institutionally developing such collabo-
rative endeavour appeared to diminish. Chapter 4 returns to a slightly broader
focus, examining how educational schemes encouraged diferent types of engage-
ment some more philosophical, some more practical between Europeans
and Indians in astronomy. Lastly, Chapter 5 refects on how Indians in the later
nineteenth century returned to some of the themes and conceptualizations of the
Orientalist encounter with astronomy. Tis renewed emphasis on discursively
characterizing the relationship between Indian and Western knowledge systems
ostensibly marked a retreat from a more practical engagement; however, ongoing
Indian participation in contemporary researches suggested otherwise.
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