'The World Rests on the Back of a Tortoise': Science and mythology in Indian history
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 50, Heft 3, S. 808-840
ISSN: 1469-8099
AbstractThis article traces the consilience of science and mythology in the history of fossil research in India: this is a narrative in which Indian fossil research met the Orientalist discovery of the Indian past. It demonstrates that in exploring the geological evolution of Indian fossils, British researchers such as Hugh Falconer invoked animals from thePuranas, picking up on a tradition of mythological hermeneutics first developed in India by the likes of William Jones. In exploring the nuances of this intellectual approach, the article thus identifies a hitherto obscured historical trajectory regarding the making of geology in colonial India.