Once the Portugese arrived in India in about 1500 a number of them wrote detailed accounts regarding Indian societal customs and religious practices. A few of them wrote like Jesuit Roberto Nobili even translated Indian text into European languages .
Among the best known traveller and writer in protuguese was Duarte Barbosa who wrote detailed accounts of trade and society in South India .
Francois Bernier a Frenchman was a doctor , political philosopher and historian . Like many others he came to Mughal Empire in search of opportunities . He was in India for twelve years , from 1656 to 1668 and was closely associated with the Mughal court as a physician in Prince Dara shukoh the eldest son of emperor Shah Jahan and later as a intellectual and scientist with Danish mand Khan an Armenian noble at the Mughal court .
As bernier was a traveller he travelled different places in his life time and used to write accounts on what he saw and what he felt , he always compared the between India and Europe .
He dedicated his major writing to Louise XIV , the king of France and many of his other works were written in letters to influential officials and ministers .
In virtually every instance Bernier described what he saw in India as a bleak situation in comparison to developments in Europe . As we see this assessment was not always accurate . However when his works were published , Bernier writing became extremely popular .
Bernier works were published in France in 1670 -71 and translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within the next five years . Between 1670 and 1725 his account was reprinted eight times in French , and by 1684 it had been reprinted three times in English .
This was in marked contrast to the accounts in Arabic and Persian which circulated as manuscripts and were generally not published before 1800.
The writings of European Travellers helped produce an image of India for Europeans through the printing and circulation of their books . Later after 1750 , when indians like Shaikh Nizamuddin and Mirza Abu Talib visited Europe and confronted this image that Europeans had of their society they tried to influence it by producing their own version of matters .
Francois Bernier was particularly fascinated with the trading conditions of India and compared India to Iran and the Ottoman Empire .
Some of these travellers like the Italian doctor Manucci never returned to europe and settled down in India .
