Louis Jacolliot (31 October 1837 – 30 October 1890) was a French barrister, colonial judge, author and lecturer.

Biography

Born in

Charolles Charolles (; Burgundian: ''Tsarolles'') is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Since 2004 is Charolles part of the Charolais-Brionnais Country. Geography Charolles is located ...

, Saône-et-Loire, he lived several years in

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

during the period 1865-1869. Jacolliot's ''Occult science in India'' was written during the 1860s and published 1875 (English translation 1884). Jacolliot was searching for the "Indian roots of western occultism" and makes reference to an otherwise unknown Sanskrit text he calls ''Agrouchada-Parikchai'', which is apparently Jacolliot's personal invention, a "pastiche" of elements taken from

Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...

, Dharmashastras and "a bit of

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

". Jacolliot also expounds his belief in a lost Pacific continent, and was quoted on this by

Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 187 ...

in ''

Isis Unveiled ''Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology'', published in 1877, is a book of esoteric philosophy and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's first major work and a key text in her Theosophical movement. The ...

'' in support of her own Lemuria. In Jacolliot's book ''La Bible dans l'Inde, Vie de Iezeus Christna'' (1869)L. Jacolliot (1869)
La Bible dans l'Inde
', Librairie Internationale, Paris (digitized by Google Books) (''The Bible in India, or the Life of Iezeus Christna''),Louis Jacolliot (1870)
The Bible in India
', Carleton, New York (digitized by Google Books) he compares the accounts of the life of Bhagavan Krishna with that of Jesus Christ in the Gospels and concludes that it could not have been a coincidence, so similar are the stories in so many details in his opinion. He concludes that the account in the Gospels is a myth based on the mythology of ancient India. Jacolliot does not claim that Jesus was in India as some have claimed. "Christna" is his way of spelling "Krishna" and he wrote that Krishna's disciples gave him the name "Iezeus" which means "pure essence" in Sanskrit. However, Sanskrit philologist

Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...

confirmed that it is not a Sanskrit term at all and "it was simply invented" by Jacolliot. Jacolliot was successfully sued for defamation by Father

Honoré Laval Honoré Laval, SS.CC., (born ''Louis-Jacques Laval''; 5/6 February 1808 – 1 November 1880) was a French Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Fathers), a religious institute of the ...

ss.cc, and ordered by the Supreme Court of the State of the Protectorate of the Society Islands to pay 15,000 francs in damages. It ordered the suppression of those portions of the pamphlet "La verité sur Tahiti" deemed defamatory, and further ordered that the judgement be printed in the official journal of the Protectorate in French, English, and Tahitian, as well as in three newspapers of the French colonies, three journals of Paris, and four gazettes of provinces of Laval's choosing."Father Honore Laval and His Fellow-Laborers in the Pacific", ''Wellington Independent'', Volume XXVII, Issue 3692, 31 December 1872, p. 3
/ref> He has been described as a prolific writer for his time. During his time in India he collected

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

myths Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

, which he popularized later starting in his ''Histoire des Vierges. Les Peuples et les continents disparus'' (1874). Among other things, he claimed that

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

writings (or unspecified "Sanskrit tablets") would tell the story of a sunken land called "Rutas" in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. However, he relocated this lost continent to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

and linked it to the

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and '' Critias'', wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that b ...

-myth. Furthermore, his "discovery" of Rutas is somehow similar to the origin of the Mu-Story. Among his works is a translation of the ''

Manu Smriti The ''Manusmṛiti'' ( sa, मनुस्मृति), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitution among the many ' of Hinduism. In ancient India, the sages often wrote thei ...

''. This work influenced

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

: see ''

Tschandala Tschandala (old German transcription of ''chandala'') is a term Friedrich Nietzsche borrowed from the Indian caste system The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of classification of castes. It has its origins in ...

''. Between 1867 and 1876, he also translated select verses of the

Tirukkural The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' ( ta, திருக்குறள், lit=sacred verses), or shortly the ''Kural'' ( ta, குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The tex ...

, an ancient

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

classic on ethics and morality. He died in Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes,

Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne () is a department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. Named after the rivers Seine and Marne, it is the region's largest department with an area of 5,915 square kilometres (2,284 square miles); it roughly covers its ...

Works

*
La Devadassi
' (1868) *
La Bible dans l'Inde, ou la Vie de Iezeus Christna
' (The Bible in India or The life of Iezeus Christna) (1869) *
Les Fils de Dieu
' (God's Sons) (1873) *
Christna et le Christ
' (Christna and Christ) (1874) *
Histoire des Vierges. Les Peuples et les continents disparus
' (History of the Virgins. Vanished People and Continents) (1874) *
La Genèse de l'Humanité. Fétichisme, polythéisme, monothéisme
' (Genesis of Mankind. Fetichism, polytheism, monotheism) (1875) *
Le Spiritisme dans le monde, L'initiation et les sciences occultes dans l'Inde et chez tous les peuples de l'antiquité
', Paris: Lacroix, 1875, 1879, reprint Geneve, Paris: Slatkine 1981. **translated into English as

', New York: Lovell/ London 1884, reprinted 1901, 1919; New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books 1971. *
Les Traditions Indo-européennes et Africaines
' (Indo-European and African Traditions) (1876) *
Pariah dans l'Humanité
' (The Outcasts in the History of Mankind) (1876) *
Les Législateurs religieux : Manou, Moïse, Mahomet
' (Religious Lawmakers : Manu, Moses, Muhammad) (1876) *''La Femme dans l'Inde'' (Women in India) (1877) *
Rois, prêtres et castes
' (Kings, Clergy and Castes) (1877) *
L'Olympe brahmanique. La mythologie de Manou
' (The Brahmanic Pantheon. Manu's Mythology) (1881) *''Fakirs et bayadères'' (Fakirs and Devadasi) (1904) *
Voyage au pays des Bayadères
' (Journey to the Land of the Devadasi) (1873) *
Voyage au pays des perles
' (Journey to the Land of the Pearls) I (1874) *
Voyage au pays des éléphants
' (Journey to the Land of the Elephants)II (1876) *''Second voyage au pays des éléphants'' III (Second Journey to the Land of the Elephants) (1877) *
Voyage aux ruines de Golconde et à la cité des morts - Indoustan
' I (Journey to the ruins of Golkonda and the City of the Dead) (1875) *
Voyage au pays des brahmes
' II (Journey to the Land of Brahmans) (1878) *''Voyage au pays du Hatschisch'' III (Journey to the Land of Hachisch) (1883) *
Voyage au pays de la Liberté : la vie communale aux Etats-Unis
' (Journey to the Land of Freedom: Community Life in the United-States of America) (1876) *''Voyage aux rives du Niger, au Bénin et dans le Borgou'' I (Journey to the Banks of the Niger River, Benin and Borgu) (1879) *
Voyage aux pays mystérieux. Du Bénin au pays des Yébous ; chez les Yébous - Tchadé
' II (1880) *
Voyage au pays des singes
' III (1883) *
Voyage au pays des fakirs charmeurs
' (1881) *''Voyage au pays des palmiers'' (1884) *''Voyage humoristique au pays des kangourous'' I (1884) *''Voyage dans le buisson australien'' II (1884) *''Voyage au pays des Jungles. Les Femmes dans l'Inde'' (1889) *''Trois mois sur le Gange et le Brahmapoutre''. Ecrit par Madame Louis Jacolliot née Marguerite Faye (1875) *''Taïti, le crime de Pitcairn, souvenirs de voyages en Océanie'' (1878) *''La Côte d'Ebène. Le dernier des négriers'' I (1876) *''La Côte d'Ivoire. L'homme des déserts'' II (1877) *''La Cité des sables. El Temin'' III (1877) *''Les Pêcheurs de nacre'' IV (1883) *''L'Afrique mystérieuse'' I, II, III (1877) ; I, II, III, IV (1884) *''Les Mangeurs de feu'' (The Fire Eaters) (1887) *''Vengeance de forçats'' (The Convict's Revenge) (1888) *''Les Chasseurs d'esclaves'' (Slave Hunter) (1888) *''Le Coureur des jungles'' (1888) *''Les Ravageurs de la mer'' (1890) *''Perdus sur l'océan'' (Lost upon the Ocean) (1893) *''Les Mouches du coche'' (1880) *''Le Crime du moulin d'Usor'' (1888) *''L'Affaire de la rue de la Banque. Un mystérieux assassin'' (1890) *''Scènes de la vie de mer. Le capitaine de vaisseau'' (1890) *''Un Policier de génie. Le mariage de Galuchon'' (1890) *''Scènes de la vie de mer. Mémoires d'un lieutenant de vaisseau'' (1891) *''L'Affaire de la rue de la Banque. Le Père Lafouine'' (1892) *''La vérité sur Taïti. Affaire de la Roncière'' (1869) *''Ceylan et les Cinghalais'' (1883) *''La Genèse de la terre et de l'humanité'' I (1884) *''Le Monde primitif, les lois naturelles, les lois sociales'' II (1884) *''Les Animaux sauvages'' (1884)

References

External links

*
French site on JacolliotJacolliot's genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacolliot, Louis 1837 births 1890 deaths People from Charolles French Indologists 19th-century French writers French male non-fiction writers 19th-century French male writers Tamil–French translators Translators of the Tirukkural into French 19th-century translators

Biography

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links