Taking stock of the Franks

This article reflects on a diverse set of materials that constitute a part of South Asian xenology in the early modern period. Partly derived from South India, and partly from the northern Indian core of the Mughal empire, these materials deal with the problem of the ‘Franks’, namely the Europeans—whether seen in the context of Asia or of Europe. Initially the Europeans appear as strange, wondrous and also largely untrustworthy interlocutors in the Indian Ocean. Then, with the passage of time, an image of Europe itself emerges, which is finally sealed in the later eighteenth century with the first travel accounts by Indians to Europe. However, these images are part and parcel of a more general xenological and geographical understanding of the areas that neighbour South Asia, and should hence be analysed as such.