Other Orientalisms India Between Florence And Bombay 1860-1900

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ON 13 DECEMBER 1885, the prestigious Italian weekly newspaper L'Illustrazione Italiana dedicated half a page to a sketch based on a photograph received from Bombay (Figure 1.1). According to the caption, the image was of 'professor Angelo de Gubernatis with the Brahmans of Bombay. The three Brahmans- Gerson da Cunha, Shyamaji Krishnavarma and Bhagwanlal Indraji-were identified, despite the orthography of the two Indian names not having survived the trip to Europe. Although their names were understandable, they were both misspelled. There was a short text that explained the meaning of an image that, on its own, would have been difficult for the majority of the newspaper's readers to understand. The renowned linguist and Indologist Angelo de Gubernatis, professor of Sanskrit and Indian literature in Florence-who was at that moment travelling through India studying the customs, languages, myths and religious traditions of that 'mysterious and interesting people-had been made a Brahman (Figure 1.2).

The photograph, which had been taken at the studio of a Bombay Parsi on 10 October 1885-two months before its publication in the newspaper-was the coda to a religious ceremony in which the Sanskrit-speaking pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji (1839-88) initiated his European colleague as a Brahman in recognition of his profound knowledge of the Hindu religion. As one cannot convert to Hinduism, and can only be a Brahman if one is born into the caste, the ceremony was one of purification. Although Gubernatis does not mention a specific name to designate the ritual, it might have been a ceremony of upanayana (initiation), because its central gesture was the investiture of the sacred thread. The initiation rituals carried out by the Brahman pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji meant that Gubernatis could be in contact with the sacred-the main objective of his voyage to India-with more legitimacy. The rituals worked mainly as a symbolic transformation process. The idea of being photographed with Bhagwanlal Indraji and Gerson da Cunha while dressed as a Brahman came after they had witnessed a Hindu cremation and visited a Jain temple in Bombay. According to Gubernatis, it was Bhagwanlal who offered to transform what had been the simple act of dressing as a Hindu Brahman into an actual religious initiation ceremony in which Gubernatis was presented with the sacred thread of the Brahman.'

A few days after the photograph was taken, Gubernatis was honoured by and elected to the membership of one of the most important learned institutes in British India-the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain-where there were only three European specialists on India. However, this was not enough for Gubernatis. It was in Italy that he wanted to affirm his scientific authority and his status as a cosmopolitan intellectual who was able to move as an intermediary between the new Italian nation he helped unite, and the rest of the world.

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