Wilting Florists: The Turbulent Early Decades of the Societe Asiatique, 1822-1860

Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra in Translation: A Century of Interpretation of a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Text

“…Despite this, French scholars continued to worry about what was acceptable to the French public; in his account of the early years of the Societé Asiatique, McGetchin attributed the decline of interest in oriental studies in France to lack of public support. 85 Finot wrote the history of the Societé Asiatique for its centenary, so he was aware of the controversy. 86 This may have influenced his decision to translate in a literary manner that would be acceptable to the public rather than in the "scientific" manner that La Vallée Poussin had adopted.…”

The mesmerists inquire about “Oriental mind powers”: West meets East in the search for the universal trance

“…Whereas the Transcendentalists and European Romantics incorporated high-minded features of Indian philosophy in their writings or used Orientalia as a springboard for their literary fantasies, the mesmerists attended to similarities of practice and "internal states" with the Indians. While American and European Oriental scholars and philologists analyzed languages or wrote translations and commentaries on Asian texts (McGetchin, 2003;Schwab, 1984), the mesmerists searched for evidence among fakirs and Oriental physicians for commonalities in bodily states, medical practices, trance induction procedures, and ecstatic states of being. The existing histories which explore the West-East encounter make no mention of mesmerism's engagement with Oriental mind powers, 29 with the exception of one small body of work examining Chinese medicine 30 and a second describing the limits of Esdaile's colonial medical practice.…”