ABSTRACT
Orientalism embodies a bewildering corpus of scholarly textual knowledge; empirical and scientific information and knowledge relating to the physical, economic, social, and cultural phenomenon; and scattered impressionistic and opinionated views and ideas in general. Orientalism of the modern period marched hand in hand with colonialism, an altogether a new phenomenon quite distinct from the corpus of Orientalism of the ancient, medieval and early modern world. Orientalism of the early phase of British colonialism in India is an integral part of the ‘New Orientalism’ of the modern world. The native pandits and people were active participants in the construction of Orientalism. British Orientalism was a product of the European Age of Enlightenment. Orientalism is a specialized body of knowledge which had been carefully and laboriously constructed by specialists on various aspects of Asian history and civilization. Orientalism is a storehouse of native traditions, customs and indigenous knowledge.
