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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2009
The Oeconomy of Human Life purports to be an English translation of an ancient Indian text found by a Chinese scholar in Lhasa. Almost certainly written by Robert Dodsley (1704–1764), the book became an eighteenth-century bestseller. This article discusses its place in the varied lineage of western images of Asia, beginning with Alexander the Great's encounter with a group of ‘naked philosophers’ in India. It argues that the key features of the Oeconomy are representative of the Enlightenment period, with at best tenuous links to Tibet, India and China. However, it also belongs to a much broader literary tradition with deep roots and unexpected contemporary resonances.
1 ‘Oeconomy’ is a now-obsolete alternative spelling for ‘economy’. One of the definitions offered by the Oxford English Dictionary is “a ‘dispensation’, a method or system of the divine government suited to the needs of a particular nation or period of time.”
2 The full bibliographic details for the first edition are: [Robert Dodsley], The Oeconomy of Human Life. Translated from an Indian Manuscript written by an ancient Bramin. To which is prefixed an Account of the Manner in which the said Manuscript was discover'd in a Letter from an English Gentleman, now residing in China, to the Earl of **** (London: Printed for M. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-Noster-Row, 1751). It was dated 1751 even though it came out at the end of the previous year.
3 See: Eddy, Donald D., “Dodsley's Oeconomy of Human Life 1750–51”. Modern Philology LXXXV (1988), 4, pp. 460–479CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the British Library online catalogue <http://catalogue.bl.uk>.
4 See in particular: Bishop, Peter, The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel-Writing and the Western Creation of Sacred Landscape (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Dodin, Thierry, and Räther, Heinz (eds.), Mythos Tibet, (Cologne, 1997)Google Scholar; Lopez, Donald, Prisoners of Shangri-la. Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brauen, Martin, Koller, Renate and Vock, Markus, Traumwelt Tibet: westliche Trugbilder (Berne, 2000)Google Scholar; Dodin, Thierry, and Räther, Heinz (eds.), Imagining Tibet. Perceptions, Projections and Fantasies (Boston, 2001)Google Scholar.
5 See: Wessels, C., Early Jesuit Travellers in Central Asia. 1603–1721 (The Hague, 1924)Google Scholar; Didier, Hugues, “António de Andrade à l'origine de la tibétophilie européene”. Aufsätze zur Portugiesischen Kulturgeschichte XX, ed. Kriesemeister, Dietrich, Flasche, Hans and Körner, Karl-Hermann (Münster, 1988–1992)Google Scholar; Didier, Hugues, Les portugais au Tibet. Les premières relations jésuites 1624–1635. 2nd ed., (Paris, 2002)Google Scholar.
6 Turner, Samuel, An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet (London, 1800)Google Scholar. On Bogle and Hamilton see in particular: Lamb, Alastair (ed.), Bhutan and Tibet. The Travels of George Bogle & Alexander Hamilton 1774–1777 (Hertingfordbury, 2002)Google Scholar.
7 The name Shangri-La of course comes from: Hilton, James, Lost Horizon (London, 1933)Google Scholar.
8 See, for example, Honour, Hugh, Chinoiserie. The Vision of Cathay, 2nd ed. (London, 1973), p. 131Google Scholar. Honour dismisses the Oeconomy as a “remarkably platitudinous treatise composed in stilted metaphoric language by one of Robert Dodsley's grub-street hacks, if not by the publisher himself”. For an excellent study of the wider eighteenth-century cultural context see: Porter, Roy, Enlightenment. Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. (London, 2001)Google Scholar.
9 As far as I know, Géza Bethlenfalvy is the only Tibet specialist to draw attention to the book, and he does so in a discussion of Indian influences on Hungarian literature rather than in a Tibetan context. See: Bethlenfalvy, Géza, India in Hungarian Learning and Literature (Delhi, 1980), p. 5Google Scholar.
10 Page references are to the ninth edition (1758) in the author's possession.
11 Several seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European authors cite ‘Barantola’ as an alternative name for Tibet. It appears to be a Mongolian word although its precise etymology is uncertain. See: Luciano Petech, I Missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, Vol.1, p. 204; Vol. 3, p. 47; Vol. 6, p. 313 (Rome, 1952–1956). I am grateful to Isrun Engelhardt for these references.
12 At first sight it is surprising that Dodsley refers in general terms to the ‘language of the Gymnosophists’, without referring to Sanskrit or any other Indian language. However, at this time the pioneering researches of scholars such as William Jones (1746–1794) and his colleagues in the Asiatic Society of Bengal still lay in the future. The significance of Sanskrit was scarcely appreciated even in English scholarly circles in the 1750s, still less to the popular audience for which the Oeconomy was intended. On the Asiatic Society of Bengal and its contribution to Sanskrit scholarship see: Kejriwal, O.P., The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past (New Delhi, 1988)Google Scholar.
13 Here the author approaches – but falls just short of – the Eurocentrism of James's Hilton's Lost Horizon where the Grand Lama, and overall fount of wisdom in Shangri-La, turns out to be an aged European.
14 On English Deism and the Enlightenment, see: Porter, Enlightenment, pp. 96–129.
15 See for example: Ezekiel 27:21; Ezra 1:1.
16 For discussions on the fashion for Asian themes in eighteenth-century European literature and in particular the fashion for ‘chinoiserie’ see: Hugh Honour, Chinoiserie; Dawson, Raymond, The Chinese Chameleon. An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilisation (London, 1967)Google Scholar; Ching, Julia and Oxtoby, William G. (eds), Discovering China. European Interpretations in the Enlightenment (Rochester, NY, 1992)Google Scholar; and Ballaster, Ros, Fabulous Orients. Fictions of the East in England 1662–1785 (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar.
17 For a summary of Chesterfield's life and a guide to further sources, see: John Cannon, ‘Stanhope, Philip Dormer’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, 2004).
18 For details of Dodsley's life see: Tedder, Richard Henry, ‘Robert Dodsley’. Dictionary of National Biography, Vol.15, Ed. Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney (London, 1885–1900), pp. 170–174Google Scholar; Ralph Straus, Robert Dodsley. Poet, Publisher and Playwright (London, 1910); Eddy, “Dodsley's Oeconomy”; Tierney, James E., The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley. 1733–1764, (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar; Solomon, Harry M., The Rise of Robert Dodsley. Creating the New Age of Print (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1996)Google Scholar; Tierney, James E., ‘Robert Dodsley.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 16, ed. Matthew, H.C.G. and Harrison, Brian. (Oxford, 2004), pp. 433–437Google Scholar.
19 Cited in Eddy “Dodsley's Oeconomy”, p. 61. For a discussion of the rival claims see also: Straus, Robert Dodsley, pp. 169–181; Tierney, The correspondence of Robert Dodsley, p. 143; and Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley, pp. 139–144.
20 The advertisement is reproduced in Eddy, “Dodsley's Economy of Human Life”, p. 473.
21 Straus, ‘Robert Dodsley’, p. 179.
22 Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley, p. 81. Mary Cooper took over the business after her husband's death.
23 Tierney, The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley, p. 42.
24 Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley, p. 144.
25 For a summary of the historical accounts of Alexander's invasion of India, references to further sources, and an analysis with translations of subsequent evolution of the Alexander legends, see: Stoneman, Richard (ed. & trans.), Legends of Alexander the Great (London, 1994)Google Scholar. See also: Stoneman, Richard, “Who are the Brahmans? Indian Lore and Cynic Doctrine in Palladius’ De Bragmanibus and its Models”, Classical Quarterly 44 (1994), 2, pp. 500–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stoneman, Richard, “Naked Philosophers: the Brahmans in the Alexander Historians and the Alexander Romance”. Journal of Hellenic Studies 115 (1995), pp. 99–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richard Stoneman, Alexander the Great: a Life in Legend (Yale, 2008).
26 Stoneman, “Naked Philosophers”, p. 103; Stoneman, Legends of Alexander, p. xi.
27 Stoneman, “Naked Philosophers”, p. 103.
28 Ibid., p. 103
29 Stoneman, Legends of Alexander, p. xxvi.
30 See the introduction to Stoneman, Legends of Alexander; Stoneman, “Who are the Brahmans?”; Stoneman, “Naked Philosophers”, p. 103.
31 Stoneman, Legends of Alexander, p. xvii, pp. 76–77.
32 Ibid., p. xxi; pp. 34–56; Stoneman, “Who are the Brahmans?”
33 Stoneman, Legends of Alexander, p. xi; p. xxii; pp, 57–66.
34 Ibid., pp. 93–101.
35 Ibid., p. 94.
36 Mungello, D.E., The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800, 2nd ed. (Lanham, 2005), p. 91Google Scholar. For a now-classic review of the western reception of Chinese culture see: Lach, Donald F., Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol.2 (Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar. See also: Clarke, J.J., Oriental Enlightenment (London, 1997), pp. 37–53Google Scholar. For the standard reference work on the history of Christianity in China, see: Standaert, Nicolas, Handbook of Christianity in China. Vol. 1 835–1800 (Leiden, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 See fn. 16 above.
38 For the first Jesuits in Tibet, see in particular: Wessels, Early Jesuit Travellers, pp. 42–118; António Andrade, Didier; Didier, Les portugais au Tibet.
39 ‘China Illustrata’ is the shortened version of the title. The full version is: China Monumentis, quà Sacris, quà Profanis, nec non variis Naturae et Artis Spectacularis aliarumque rerum memorabilium Argumentis illustrata (Amsterdam, 1667). For an English translation see: Athanasius Kircher, China Illustrata. Trans. Dr Charles D. Van Tuyl from the 1667 original Latin edition (Oklahoma, 1986). For a detailed account of Grueber and D'Orville's travels, see Wessels, Earlier Jesuit Travellers, pp. 164–202.
40 Desideri was forced to leave Lhasa because the Vatican had assigned missionary work in Tibet to the Capuchins rather than the Jesuits. On his return to Rome he compiled a detailed account of his stay in Tibet, hoping to use it as evidence in support of his appeal for permission to return to Tibet. However, his appeal failed, and his manuscript Relazioni de’ viaggi all Indie e al Thibet [Account of Journeys to the Indies and Tibet] lay untouched in the Vatican archives until the late nineteenth century. On Desideri, see in particular: Wessels, Early Jesuit Travellers, pp. 205–272; Ippolito Desideri, An Account of Tibet. The Travels of Ippolito of Pistoia SJ. 1712–1727. Trans. Filippo de Filippi (London, 1937); Petech, I Missionari Italiani, Vols V-VII (Rome, 1952–1956); Enzo Gualtiero Bargiacchi, A Bridge Across Two Cultures. Ippolito Desideri S. J. (1684–1733). A Brief Biography (Florence, 2008). Bargiacchi now hosts a website with further bibliographic references to Desideri: <www.ippolito-desideri.net>.
41 These consisted of selected letters reproduced in the Jesuit periodical Lettres Édifiantes. For example, Desideri's account of his journey through Ladakh in 1715 was published as “Lettre du Père Hipolite Desideri Missionaire de la Compagnie de Jesus. Au Père Ildebrand Grassi Missionaire de la mesme Compagnie dans le Royaume de Mayssur. Traduite de l'Italien. A Lassa le 10 Avril 1716.” Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses Écrites des Missions Etrangères, par quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jesus XV (Paris, 1722), pp. 183–203.
42 An authoritative study of the Jesuits’ map-making activities is: Walter Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit: seine Entstehungsgeschichte nebst Namensindices fur die Karten der Mandjurei, Mongolei, Ostturkestan und Tibet, mit Wiedergabe der Jesuiten-Karten in Originalgrosse, Monumenta Serica Monograph 4 (Peking, 1943).
43 For Sino-Tibetan relations in this period see: Ahmad, Zahiruddin, Sino-Tibetan Relations in the 17th Century (Rome, 1970)Google Scholar; Petech, Luciano, China and Tibet in the Early 18th Century. T'oung Pao Monograph 1 (Leiden, 1972)Google Scholar. Pamela Kyle Crossley gives a valuable overview of the evolution of the Qing Empire, including its relationship with Tibet in The Manchus (Oxford, 1997). Two useful general histories, both written from the Tibetan perspective, are: Shakabpa, Tsepon W.D., Tibet: a Political History (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; and Richardson, Hugh E., Tibet and its History, 2nd ed. (Boston and London, 1984)Google Scholar. Gary Tuttle gives an overview of Sino-Tibetan relations between the 18th and early 20th centuries in: Tibetan Buddhists and the Making of Modern China (New York, 2004), pp. 15–33. He emphasises the extent to which pre-20th century Tibetan religious and political relations with Peking were with the Qing court rather than the wider Chinese populace. On these links see: Wang, ‘Xiangyun, “The Qing Court's Tibet Connection: Lcang skya Rol pa'i rdo rje and the Qianlong Emperor”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, LX (2000), No. 1, pp. 125–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 Petech, China and Tibet, p. 14.
45 I have not been able to identify a source for the name ‘Ca-tsou’. It is possible that it derives solely from Dodsley's imagination.
46 Petech, China and Tibet, p. 19
47 Ibid., p. 19; Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas, pp. 14–18.
48 Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas, p. 12. The full reference is Daqing yi Tongzhi, Cap. 413, 2b-3a. ‘Culcim’ is almost certainly the Tibetan name ‘Tshul khrims’. ‘Dsangbu Ramjamba’ may be ‘bZang po rab ‘byams pa’. Probably, the monk's personal name was bZang po and he had the monastic degree ‘Rab ‘byams pa’. An alternative reading of the first part of his name could be gTsang bu, literally ‘son of gTsang’ in central Tibet. However, this seems unlikely. I am grateful to Tsering D. Gonkatsang for these comments. Fuchs cites a second source on the two lamas. This is Zhunka'er Fanglüe, which has been translated in part in: Hänisch, Erich, ‘Bruchstücke aus der Geschichte Chinas’, T'oung Pao 12 (1912), p. 218Google Scholar.
49 Halde, Jean-Baptiste Du, Description géographique, historique, chronologique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise. Enrichies des cartes generales et particulieres de ces pays, (Paris, 1735), vol. 4, p. 460Google Scholar. Du Halde does not cite the name of the Emperor's third son, but Fuchs (Der Jesuiten-Atlas, p. 67) gives it as Yun Zhi.
50 Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas, p. 13. For a detailed analysis of the Dsungar invasion and subsequent developments in Tibet, see Petech, China and Tibet. The lamas’ premature departure led to inaccuracies in the depiction of western Tibet and neighbouring regions. In particular, the map shows the river Ganges – rather than the Indus – as flowing through Ladakh.
51 See fn. 49 above for the full bibliographic reference.
52 Halde, Jean-Baptiste Du. The General History of China, Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese Tartary, Corea and Thibet, 4. vols (London, 1736)Google Scholar.
53 Ibid., pp. 441–464.
54 [John Green], A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels consisting of the most esteemed Relations, which have hitherto been published in any Language: Comprehending every Thing remarkable in its Kind in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, Vol. 4. (London: Printed for Thomas Astley in Pater-Noster-Row, 1747).
55 Crone, G.R, “John Green. Notes on a Neglected Eighteenth Century Geographer and Cartographer”, Imago Mundi (1949) VI, pp. 85–91Google Scholar.
56 Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 74. The picture of the Potala in China Illustrata is europeanised – it has a castellated roof – but is broadly recognisable from its commanding position on a hill above the city of Lhasa.
57 Ibid., p. 72. The full quotation is: “Sedet is in obscure Palatii sui conclavi, . . . auro argentoque organo, nec non multiplici ardentium lampadum apparatu illustrato, in eminenti loco supra culcitram, cui pretiosi tapetes substernantur;. . .”
58 Green (1747), Vol. 4, p. 462; Du Halde, The General History of China, pp. 444–445. There are slight differences in the wording of the two versions: Du Halde in the 1736 English translation has “is plac'd upon a sort of Altar, sitting with his Legs across upon a large and magnificent cushion”.
59 Kircher, China Illustrata. pp. 72–73. The full quotation is: “. . . ad quem advenae capitibus humi prostratis advoluti, non secus ac Summo Pontifici pedes incredibili veneratione osculantur; ut vel inde Daemonis fraudulentia luculenter appareat, qua venerationem soli Vicario Christi in terris Romano Pontifici debitam, ad superstitiosum barbarum gentium cultum”. Van Tuyl (China Illustrata, p. 66) translates this as: “Before him the visitors fall prostrate and place their heads on the ground. They kiss his feet with incredible veneration, as if he were the Pope. Thus, even by this the deceitfulness of the evil spirit is marvellously shown, for veneration due only the vicar of Christ on earth, the Pope of Rome, is transferred to the heathen worship of savage nations. . .”
60 [John Green], A New General Collection, p. 462. Du Halde, The General History of China, Vol. 4, p. 445.
61 Mungello, The Great Encounter, p.83.
62 Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley, pp. 151–152.
63 Tierney, ‘Dodsley, Robert’, p.21.
64 [Robert Dodsley], Bölts ember; vagy-is az erköltses böltseségre vezerlőrövid oktatások. Irta Faludi Ferentz. Második kiadás, Hungarian trans. Ferncz Faludi. (Po'sonyban, 1787).
65 Eddy, “Dodsley's Oeconomy”.
66 “To Robert Skip with a List of Books, Monticello, Aug.3 1771”. The Letters of Thomas Jefferson. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. <www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jefflett/let4.htm>. Accessed on 28 May 2008.
67 Jefferson, Thomas, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Washington, 1904)Google Scholar.
68 On the Theosophists’ place in the wider history of East-West intellectual encounters see: Clarke, J. J.. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (London and New York, 1997), pp. 89–93Google Scholar; Poul Pedersen, “Tibet, Theosophy and the Psychologization of Buddhism”. In Dodin & Räther, Imagining Tibet, pp. 151–166.
69 See Johnson, K. Paul, The Masters Revealed. Madam Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge (Albany, NY, 1994)Google Scholar; Johnson argues that Blavatsky's Mahatmas were real people, or at least based on real people, even if they did not have psychic powers.
70 Elliott Coues (ed.), Kuthumi: the True and Complete Oeconomy of Human Life, Based on the System of Theosophical Ethics, A new edition, rewritten and prefaced by Elliott Coues (Boston, 1886), p. 1.
71 Ibid., pp. 5–6.
72 Ibid., p. 6.
73 Ibid., p. 13.
74 See: Cutright, Paul Russell and Brodhead, Michael J., Elliott Coues: Naturalist and Frontier Historian, (Urbana, 1981)Google Scholar.
75 Godwin, Joscelyn, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany, NY, 1994), p. xiGoogle Scholar. Cited in Pedersen, ‘Tibet, Theosophy’, p. 151.
76 This episode is discussed at some length in Chapters 13 and 14 of The Theosophical Movement, first published in the Theosophy journal and now available on <www.blavatsky.net>. Accessed on 28 May 2008.
77 [Robert Dodsley], Economy of Human Life. Being an Indian reprint . . . (Bombay, 1889). In British Library.
78 [Robert Dodsley], Economy of Human Life. (Benares: Benares Hindu University, 1922). In Library of Congress.
79 [Robert Dodsley], 19??. Jiwaṇa jugatı, arathata, Loka praloka wicamāna pāuṇa dā rasatā/racita [anuwādaka] Carana Siṇgha Shahida. (Ammritasara: Gurū Khālasā Praisa, 19??). Microfilm in Library of Congress.
80 Sastri, Veturi Prabhakara, Neeti Nidhi, 2nd edition (1st editon 1926), (Hyderabad, 1982)Google Scholar.
81 Veturi Anjaneyulu, ‘“Neeti Nidhi’. A Unique Exercise in Translation”, in Neeti Nidhi, pp. 33–45.
82 The Economy of Human Life (Chennai: Samata Books, 1999), p. 58. Anjaneyulu's English re-translation of Sastri's Telegu runs: “Even if it (soul) exists after you die, do not think that it existed before your birth. It was created along with your body. It has grown with your intestines”.
83 Anjaneyulu, “A Unique Exercise”, p. 38.
84 On the Asiatic Society's contribution see: O.P. Kejriwal, The Asiatic Society of Bengal.
85 [Robert Dodsley], Economy of Human Life. Complete in Two Parts. With a preface by Douglas M.Gane, Reprint of 1902 edition (Chennai, 1999).
86 See the company's website: <www.samatabooks.com>. Accessed on 15 February 2008.
87 Ballaster, Fabulous Orients, p. 203.
88 Ibid., p. 203.