ABSTRACT
The birth of a scholarly Orientalist milieu at the beginning of the 19th century can be attributed to three factors. Firstly, the creation of new institutions for the production of Orientalist knowledge just after the French Revolution, which contributed to the restructuring of this space by offering specialist career opportunities; then, the emergence of a group of producers of Orientalist goods, who possessed specific resources; lastly, circulation and legitimisation of the knowledge produced by the same agents. Within this newly emerging scholarly space there was, however, a struggle regarding the definition of the criteria of excellence and the methodological principles that should now underpin the work of Orientalist erudition. In this respect, the magisterial authority exercised by Eugène Burnouf during 1830–1850 marked the privileged moment when decisive intellectual ruptures occurred within the domain of scholarship on India.
