Jun 17, 2026
Astronomical Works in the Gentil Collection in Paris
- 13:30 to 15:00
- Colloquium
- Max Planck Research Group (ASTRA)
- Jérôme Petit
Abstract
Jean-Baptiste Gentil was a well-known enlightened military officer who worked for Shuja ud-Daula in Faizabad (Awadh) in the 1760s. There, he assembled a collection of Indian paintings and a collection of Persian and Sanskrit manuscripts, which he offered to King Louis XVI in exchange for privileges upon his return to France in 1777. The manuscript collection includes one hundred and twenty historical texts in Persian and forty manuscripts in Sanskrit. A study of the latter reveals an interesting corpus of texts compiled by Gentil and the Brahmins with whom he worked: popular works such as the Rāmāyaṇa, the Adhyātmarāmāyaṇa, the Pañcaratna of the Mahābhārata, alongside numerous devotional texts, some of which are illuminated, and works by great Sanskrit poets such as Kālidāsa and Bhāravi. It is interesting to note that some astronomical works are also present, which demonstrates the importance of the discipline in the Sanskrit sphere of Faizabad at that time. Horoscope scrolls for children born in the 1740s, pañcāṅga for the years 1760–1762 and a copy of the Jyotiṣaratnamālā, a treatise for astrologers, are some of the manuscripts I wish to discuss. Made for a child born in November 1739, one of the horoscopes (BnF Sanscrit 964) is of particular interest: a 37-meter-long scroll, it presents many illuminations showing the twelve rāśī signs, the Sun, and some other astral figures.
Biography
Jérôme Petit is curator of the South and Southeast Asian manuscript collections at the National Library of France (BnF, Paris) and professor for the study of manuscript cultures in the Indian world at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris). His last book is devoted to the history of the Indian manuscript collection of the BnF, with a particular focus on the scientific mission led by Charles d’Ochoa in the 1840s (La mission de Charles d’Ochoa, Paris, 2025).
Horoscope scroll (janmapattra) showing the tulā and vṛścika rāśī signs, BnF Sanscrit 964. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
Contact and Registration
We welcome both internal and external guests. Registration is only required for in-person attendance. For more information about the colloquium series, please contact Jean Arzoumanov.
Zoom link: https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/63767435011?pwd=oFXYIniUuTLZb3fQ3eDLbczRmIBqx5.1
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About This Series
Over the last decade, a wave of new research has revitalized the study of Islamicate scientific traditions, particularly in the field of the so-called "occult sciences". This work has challenged the long-standing dichotomy between doctrines historically dismissed as non-rational or superstitious and the canonized sciences retrospectively framed as precursors to Western modernity.
Similarly, contrary to the perception of a stagnant precolonial scientific landscape, South Asian societies were permeated with sophisticated scientific doctrines and long-established methods of healing and prognostication. Scientific practices —including those that might be categorized as "occult" within an Islamicate framework— flourished in both elite and popular contexts. Cosmopolitan Hindu pandits and Muslim scholars practiced these sciences in royal courts, while vernacular traditions ensured their diffusion amongst broader populations. Alongside the crucial work of manuscript-based research, the persistence and vitality of non-Western scientific practices in contemporary South Asia has enabled comparative approaches combining rigorous textual philology with ethnographic insight.
This colloquium series seeks to highlight some of the most recent contributions to the field and to open critical perspectives on the intellectual and practical life of science in the subcontinent. Invited speakers will explore the concrete practice of South Asian sciences across the early modern and modern periods, examining their position within the Arabo-Persian and Sanskritic knowledge systems.