À dos d’éléphant, du Cachemire aux mines de Golconde : récits de voyageurs européens au XVIIe siècle

Abstract

Among materials available to the historians of the East, we can include the narratives of the European travellers who went in Asia, in particular from the 13th century. Belonging to a literary genre with floating boundaries, these narratives, undoubtedly subjective, testify to a current situation of the countries visited in a particular time and in various fields, as well as of the evolution of the relations between East and West and the history of mentalities in front of the Other one. Our comment focus on the presentation of some examples of data, particular or agreed, extracted from narratives of two great French travellers of 17th century in India: Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Francois Bernier.