Investigating the growth of Indology (the study of East Indian texts, literature, and culture) and the diffusion of this knowledge about ancient India within nineteenth-century Germany, this work contextualizes approaches to contact by historically grounding them in a contemporary history of German culture, education, and science. It answers the historical anomaly of why Germany had more nineteenth-century experts in the academic discipline of Indology than all other European powers combined. German interest in ancient India developed because it was useful for widely varying German projects,...

This volume provides new insights into gendered interactions over the past two centuries between Germany and Asia, including India, China, Japan, and previously overlooked Asian countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Korea.