How did Surat become the setting for an 18th-century French story?

In a coffee-house in 18th-century Surat, a group of men from various faiths and ethnicities are arguing about God. Each claims the superiority of his faith over the others – until finally, a “Chinaman” relates a tale that shows how God is universal, if varyingly perceived based on each man’s faith and place in the world.

This is, briefly, the story of Le Café de Surate (The Coffee-House of Surat), an 18th-century tale by French writer Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) evoking religious tolerance, pluralism and the nature of theosophical truth.

But what is fascinating is how “Surat”, an important mercantile hub and port city in the 18th century, became the setting for this story and also a literary trope of religious and cultural confluence in the colonial imagination.

Le Café de Surate (1790) is an important glimpse into Surat’s history as a cosmopolitan trade hub. It also shows how the literary trope of a vivid Surat served as a backdrop for the cultural movement of Romanticism, humanism and religious plurality, although mediated through colonial stereotypes.

The story

The men in Le Café de Surate include a Persian theologian with a “Kefir” (a slave), a Brahmin, a Jewish broker, an Italian missionary, a Protestant minister of the Danish Mission at Tranquebar, a Turkish customs officer,...

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