Louis Jacolliot (31 October, 1837 – 30 October, 1890) was a French barrister, colonial judge, author and lecturer.
Born in
CharollesCharolles is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.-Geography:Charolles is located at the confluence of the Semence and the Arconce rivers, 39 m. W.N.W. of Mâcon.-History:...
,
Saône-et-LoireSaône-et-Loire is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies.-History:...
, he lived several years in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The island had a population of 178,133 inhabitants according to the August 2007 census. This makes it the most populous island of French Polynesia,...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
(1865-1869) and other parts of Asia. He wrote extensively on Indian culture, including the legend of the
Nine Unknown MenThe Nine Unknown Men are a legendary two millennia-old secret society reputedly founded by the Indian Emperor Asoka c. 270 BC. According to the legend, upon his conversion to Buddhism after a massacre during one of his wars, the Emperor founded the society of the Nine to preserve and develop...
(an alleged two millennia-old secret society).
He has been described as a "prolific but unreliable" writer. During his time in India he collected
sanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
mythsMythology is the study of myths and or of a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story;...
, which he popularized later starting in his
Histoire des Vierges. Les Peuples et les continents disparus (1874). Among other things, he claimed that
hinduA Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
-writings (or unspecified "Sanskrit tablets") would tell the story of a sunken land called
Rutas in the
Indian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by South Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean...
. However, he relocated this
lost continentLost lands are continents, islands or other regions believed by some to have existed during prehistory, but to have since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena or slowly rising sea levels since the end of the last Ice Age...
to the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
and linked it to the
AtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC...
-myth. Furthermore his 'discovery' of
Rutas is somehow similar to the origin of the
MuMu is the name of a hypothetical continent that allegedly existed in one of Earth's oceans, but disappeared at the dawn of human history.The concept and the name were proposed by 19th century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of...
-Story.
His works were not only quoted in Helena Blavatsky's book
Isis UnveiledIsis Unveiled, published in 1877, is a book of esoteric philosophy, and was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's first major work.The book discusses or quotes, among others, Plato, Plotinus, the Chaldean Oracles, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bible, Pythagoras, Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Iamblichus,...
, he also influenced her speculations on
LemuriaLemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography -- however, the scientific concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern understanding...
.
Among his works is a translation of the
Manu Smriti' or Manusmriti , also known as Mānava-Dharmaśāstra , is the most important and earliest metrical work of the Dharmaśāstra textual tradition of Hinduism. Generally known in English as the Laws of Manu, it was first translated into English in 1794 by Sir William Jones, an English Orientalist and...
, which has since been deemed unreliable by numerous scholars including Ann-Marie Etter. This flawed work influenced
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th- century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using a distinctive German-language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and...
: see
TschandalaTschandala is a term Friedrich Nietzsche borrowed from the Indian caste system, where a Tschandala is a member of the lowest social class...
.
He died at in
Saint-Thibault-des-VignesSaint-Thibault-des-Vignes is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-References:*-External links:* * * *...
,
Seine-et-MarneSeine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.- History:Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789...
.
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)[or (1879)?]
- Le Spiritisme dans le monde (Spiritualism across the World) (1875)
- Les Traditions Indo-asiatiques (Indo-Asian Traditions) (1876)
- Les Traditions Indo-européennes et Africaines (Indo-European and African Traditions) (1876)
- Le 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)
External links