
François Bernier (25 September 162022 September 1688) was a French
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
and traveller. He was born in
Joué-Etiau in
Anjou. He stayed (14 October 165820 February 1670) for around 12 years in India.
His 1684 publication "Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races qui l'habitent" ("New Division of the Earth by the Different Species or Races of Man that Inhabit It") is considered the first published post-
Classical classification of humans into distinct
races. He also wrote ''Travels in the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...
'', which is mainly about the reigns of
Dara Shikoh and
Aurangzeb
Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...
. It is based on his own extensive journeys and observations, and on information from eminent Mughal courtiers who had witnessed the events firsthand.
Bernier abridged and translated the philosophical writings of his friend
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...
from Latin into French. Initial editions of Bernier's ''Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi'' were published in Paris in 1674 by the family Langlois and in 1675 by Estienne Michallet. A complete edition in eight volumes was published by Anisson and Posuel at
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
in 1678; Anisson and Posuel joined with Rigaud to publish a second edition in seven volumes in 1684. Bernier objectively and faithfully rendered Gassendi's ideas in his ''Abregé'', without editorial interjection or invention. However, Bernier remained uncomfortable with some of Gassendi's notions: in 1682, Estienne Michallet was again his publisher, putting forth his ''Doutes de Mr. Bernier sur quelques-uns des principaux Chapitres de son Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi''.
Life
Source: This description of the life of François Bernier is abstracted from a French introduction by France Bhattacharya to an edition of ''Voyage dans les Etats du Grand Mogol'' (Paris: Fayard, 1981).
A son of a farmer, François Bernier, was orphaned very young and was cared for by his uncle, the curé de Chanzeaux. At the age of 15, he moved to Paris to study at the Collège de Clermont (the future
Lycée Louis-le-Grand) where he was invited to stay at the home of his younger friend Chapelle, the natural son of Luillier who was a councillor at the
parlement
Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...
in Metz. There Bernier most probably met
Cyrano de Bergerac and
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...
, and certainly the philosopher
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...
(1592–1655), whose aide and secretary he became. He developed a taste for travel (1647) in the company of monsieur d'Arpajon, the French
ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...
to Poland and Germany.
In 1652, during a prolonged stay with Gassendi in the south of France, he managed to become a medical doctor on the strength of a speed-course at the famous Faculté de
Montpellier
Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...
: an intensive three-month course gave the medical degree providing one did not practice on French national territory.
Liberated from his ties to France by the death of Gassendi in 1655, he set out on his twelve-year journey to the East, at 36 years of age: Palestine, Egypt, one year in Cairo, Arabia, and an attempt to enter Ethiopia which was frustrated by civil war in the interior. In 1658 he debarked at
Surat
Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...
in India, in
Gujarat
Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...
state. Attached at first and for a short while to the retinue of
Dara Shikoh—the history of whose downfall he was to record. He worked as a personal doctor for Dara Shikoh. he was installed as a medical doctor at the court of
Aurangzeb
Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...
.

A tour of inspection by Aurangzeb (1664–65) gave Bernier the opportunity to describe
Kashmir
Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...
, the first and for a long time the only European to do so, in: "Voyages de F. Bernier (angevin) contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogol, de l'Indoustan, du royaume de Kachemire" (David-Paul Maret ed., Amsterdam, 1699). He subsequently visited the other extreme of the empire in Bengal. European medical training was highly esteemed amongst the Mughal and gave him access to all ranks of the court, even on medically required occasions to the Emperor's harem.
After his return from Kashmir, he traveled around on his own, meeting with
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in Bengal and—while preparing for a journey to Persia at Surat—with
Jean Chardin, that other great traveler in the Orient (1666).
He returned once more to
Surat
Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...
(1668) to write a memoir on Indian commerce for the use of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (who recently had founded La Compagnie des Indes Orientales). In 1669 Bernier returned to France.
In 1671 he almost was jailed for writing in defense of the ideas of
René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...
, against whom a judicial arrest had been issued—an exploit he followed with an "Abrégé de la Philosophie de Gassendi", also not a subject to arouse official approval (1674).
Meanwhile, he was a favored guest at some of the great literary salons, like those of
Marguerite de la Sablière, who introduced him to
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (, ; ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French Fable, fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''La Fontaine's Fables, Fables'', which provided a model for subs ...
, and
Ninon de Lenclos. His much-debated 1684 essay on "races", "A New Division of the Earth"
—of which the second half is dedicated to feminine beauty—may be read against this background.
In 1685 Bernier visited London where he met with some famous exiles from France:
Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, niece of
the redoubtable Cardinal;
Saint-Évremond; others. He returned to Paris via the Netherlands, where he probably visited his philosophical correspondent
Pierre Bayle.
Bernier died in 1688 in Paris, the year that saw the publication of his "Lettre sur le
quiétisme des Indes".
Foremost among his correspondents while he was in India had been
Jean Chapelain, who shipped him crates of books,
Melchisédech Thévenot, and
François de La Mothe Le Vayer. From Chapelain's correspondence we know of a link with the elder Pétis de la Croix, whose son
François Pétis de la Croix was sent on a language course to Persia two years after Bernier's return from India.
Essay on dividing humanity into "races"
In 1684 Bernier published a brief essay dividing humanity into what he called "races", distinguishing individuals, and particularly women, by skin color and a few other physical traits. The article was published anonymously in the ''
Journal des sçavans
The (later renamed and then , ), established by Denis de Sallo, is the earliest academic journal published in Europe. It is thought to be the earliest published scientific journal. It currently focuses on European history and premodern literatu ...
'', the earliest academic journal published in Europe, and titled "New Division of the Earth by the Different Species or 'Races' of Man that Inhabit It."
[François Bernier]
"A New Division of the Earth"
from '' Journal des Scavans'', April 24, 1684. Translated by T. Bendyshe in Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London, vol. 1, 1863-64, pp. 360–64. In the essay he distinguished four different races: 1) The first race included populations from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, south-east Asia, and the Americas. 2) The second race consisted of the sub-Saharan Africans, 3) the third race consisted of the east- and northeast Asians, and 4) the fourth race were Sámi people. The emphasis on different kinds of female beauty can be explained because the essay was the product of French Salon culture. Bernier emphasized that his novel classification was based on his personal experience as a traveler in different parts of the world. Bernier offered a distinction between essential genetic differences and accidental ones that depended on environmental factors. He also suggested that the latter criterion might be relevant to distinguish sub-types.
[Joan-Pau Rubiés, «Race, climate and civilization in the works of François Bernier», L’inde des Lumières. Discours, histoire, savoirs (XVIIe-XIXe siècle), ''Purushartha'' 31, París, Éditions de l’EHESSS, 2013, pp. 53–78.] His biological classification of racial types never sought to go beyond physical traits, and he also accepted the role of climate and diet in explaining degrees of human diversity. Bernier had been the first to extend the concept of "species of man" to classify racially the entirety of humanity, but he did not establish a cultural hierarchy between the so-called 'races' that he had conceived. On the other hand, he clearly placed Europeans as the norm from which other 'races' deviated.
[Stuurman, S. (2000), "François Bernier and the invention of racial classification", ''History Workshop Journal'', 50, pp. 1–21.] The qualities which he attributed to each race were not strictly Eurocentric, because he thought that peoples of temperate Europe, the Americas and India, culturally very different, belonged to roughly the same racial group, and he explained the differences between the civilizations of India (his main area of expertise) and Europe through climate and institutional history. By contrast he emphasized the biological difference between Europeans and Africans, and made very negative comments towards the Sami (Lapps) of the coldest climates of Northern Europe
and about Africans living at the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
. He wrote for example "The 'Lappons' compose the 4th race. They are a small and short race with thick legs, wide shoulders, a short neck, and a face that I don't know how to describe, except that it's long, truly awful and seems reminiscent of a bear's face. I've only ever seen them twice in Danzig, but according to the portraits I've seen and from what I've heard from a number of people they're ugly animals". The significance of Bernier for the emergence of what Joan-Pau Rubiés call the "modern racial discourse" has been debated, with Siep Stuurman calling it the beginning of modern racial thought,
while Joan-Pau Rubiés think it is less significant if Bernier's entire view of humanity is taken into account.
Contributions to scientific racism
By virtue of being the first to propose a system of racial classification that extended to all of humanity, Bernier’s racial categories contributed to the genesis of
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
. Inherently, his classifications were based on physical and biological differences in human appearance, and thus sought to suggest a scientific basis for human racial variation. As previously mentioned, Bernier makes a distinction between physical variation due to environmental factors and racial factors. For instance, he classifies Indians that he is exposed to during his stint in the Mughal courts as part of the 'white race'. He asserts that Indians, like Egyptians, have a skin color that is “accidental, resulting from their exposure to the sun”.
[Boulle, Pierre H. “Francois Bernier and the Origins of the Modern Concept of Race.” The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France, edited by Sue Peabody and Tyler Stovell, Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 11–19.] However, when it comes to categorizing Africans, he notes that “Blackness is an essential feature of theirs”.
Bernier evidences the fact that their color is not due to environmental factors by asserting that they will be Black even when living in colder climes. Bernier’s conception of biological or racial difference and variation due to climatic features is blurry, but contributed to the eventual development of theories of scientific racism. At the time that he published his work, it did not cause a splash: he founded no school of thought at the time. Scientific thinking, upon the time he wrote the text, had shifted from systems where evidence was based on analogies, like Bernier had used, to a system supported by fixed laws of nature. Thus, the context of scientific discourse at the time meant Bernier did not receive huge attention for his classification in the second half of the 17th century, and "he remained a man of the salons".
Textiles
One of the things the newly arriving physician François Bernier noticed in
Aurangzeb
Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...
's capital was the embroidered dressing of the
Mughal Emperor
The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
's subjects he writes in his ''Travels in the Moghal Empire'': "Large halls are seen in many places, called ''Karkanahs'', or workshops for the artisans. In one hall, embroiderers are busily employed, superintended by a master." He continued, "Manufactures of silk, fine brocade, and other fine
muslins, of which are made
turban
A turban (from Persian language, Persian دولبند, ''dolband''; via Middle French ''turbant'') is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear by people of various cultures. Commun ...
s,
girdles of gold flowers, and
drawers worn by Mughal females, so delicately fine as to wear out in one night" were one of the most expensive forms of clothing ins the world, "or even more when embroidered with fine needlework."
Danishmand Khan
In India, Bernier came under the protection of Daneshmand Khan (Mullah Shafi'a'i, a native of
Yazd), an important official at the court of Aurangzeb. Mullah Shafi'a'i was secretary of state for foreign affairs, grand master of the horse, later treasurer (
Mir Bakshi) and governor of Delhi (died 1670). Bernier and Daneshmand seem to have been on terms of mutual esteem, and Bernier always refers to him as "my Agha".
Two excerpts from "Travels in the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...
" illustrate the interchange that followed. The importance of the detail could only fully be appreciated in the last decades of the 20th century, following the contributions by
Henry Corbin and
Seyyed Hossein Nasr to the history of Islamic philosophy.
Commenting on the yogi manner of meditation:
A candidate for becoming Bernier's "pandit" probably would have come from the circle around Hindu scholars such as
Jagannatha Panditaraja, who still was at work under Shah Jahan, or Kavindracharya, who taught Dara Sikhoh Sanskrit.
Gode's argument that this pandit was none other than Kavīndrācārya Sarasvatī himself
has won general acceptance. His intellectual partner could be someone like Zu'lfaqar Ardistani (died 1670), author of the ''
Dabistan-i Mazahib'', an overview of religious diversity (Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim ...). He was educated perhaps by Mir Abul-Qasim Astrabadi Findiriski a link between the religious tolerance aspect of the great project of Persian translations, initiated by
Akbar and continued by his great-grandson
Dara Shikoh, and the School of
Isfahan
Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...
near the end of the
Safavid reign; or perhaps he was educated by Hakim Kamran Shirazi, to whom Mir Findiriski referred as "elder brother", who studied Christian theology and the
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
under Portuguese priests, traveled to India to study Sanskrit
Shastra
''Śāstra'' ( ) is a Sanskrit word that means "precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise" in a general sense.Monier Williams, Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Article on 'zAstra'' The word is ge ...
, lived with the
yogi Chatrupa at
Benares
Varanasi (, also Benares, Banaras ) or Kashi, is a city on the Ganges, Ganges river in North India, northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hinduism, Hindu world.*
*
*
* The city ...
, and died, chanting the liberation of the philosophers, at the age of 100. Those were scholars who had a knowledge of Greek
peripatetic philosophers (mashsha'un, falasifa—in the Arabic translations), as well as respect for
Ibn Sina and Shihabuddin Yahya
Suhrawardi Maqtul (Hikmat al Ishraq).
France Battacharya notes that she removed, in her critical edition based on the 1724 edition, the chapter "Lettre à Chapelle sur les atomes"—as being not so relevant to the context.
[The background to Bernier's philosophical interchange draws on "Shi'a Contributions to Philosophy, Science and Literature in India" by Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi in "A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna 'Ashari Shi'is in India" (1989).]
Works
*
* Gassendi, Pierre. ''Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi''. Translated by François Bernier. 8 vols. Lyon: Anisson & Posuel, 1678.
* Gassendi, Pierre. ''Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi''. Translated by François Bernier. 2nd ed. 7 vols. Lyon: Anisson, Posuel & Rigaud, 1684.
* Bernier, François. ''Doutes de Mr. Bernier sur quelques-uns des principaux Chapitres de son Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi''. Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1682.
*
See also
*
Pre-Adamites
The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic religion, Abrah ...
Notes
References
* Frédéric Tinguely (dir.), ''Un libertin dans l'Inde moghole – Les voyages de François Bernier (1656–1669)'', Edition intégrale, Chandeigne, Paris, 2008. .
* Francois Bernier, "Voyage dans les Etats du Grand Mogol", introduction de France Bhattacharya (Arthème Fayard ed. Paris, 1981).
* François Bernier,
A New Division of the Earth, in ''
Journal des sçavans
The (later renamed and then , ), established by Denis de Sallo, is the earliest academic journal published in Europe. It is thought to be the earliest published scientific journal. It currently focuses on European history and premodern literatu ...
'' (April 24, 1684). Translated by T. Bendyphe in "Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London" Vol 1, 1863–64, pp 360–64.
* Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, "A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna 'Ashari Shi'is in India Vol II" (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. ; Ma'rifat Publishing House : Canberra Australia, 1986).
* Tara Chand, "Indian Thought and the Sufis" (1961), in "The World of the Sufi, an anthology" (Octagon Press ed. London, 1979).
* Lens, "Les Correspondants de François Bernier pendant son voyage dans l'Inde — Lettres inédits de Chapelain", in ''Memoires de la Société nationale d'agriculture, sciences et arts d'Angers (ancienne Académie d'Angers)'' Tome XV, 1872.
* Nicholas Dew. ''Orientalism in Louis XIV's France'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). . pp. 131–167.
*Jain, Sandhya, & Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.
External links
*
Bernier on Sati* Siep Stuurman
François Bernier and the Invention of Racial Classification History Workshop Journal, Volume 2000 Issue 50, pp. 1–21.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernier, Francois
1620 births
1688 deaths
17th-century French physicians
17th-century French writers
17th-century French male writers
Explorers of South Asia
Explorers of Iran
French Indologists
French male non-fiction writers
French travel writers
Intellectual historians
Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni
People from Maine-et-Loire
Proponents of scientific racism
History of racism