“Valentia in Varanasi”, The Dharma Dispatch, December 01, 2025

“Summary

George Viscount Valentia’s 1809 book Voyages and Travels (1802–1806) is a richly detailed, highly valued primary source on early-19th-century India. Valentia asserts British racial superiority and sees Hindus as superstitious yet benefited by British rule.

Pious Hindoos think it a work of great merit to form gauts, or build temples, on its banks…It is a pity that any thing should prevent this noble city from being brought to that perfection of which it is capable. I felt myself sufficiently a Hindoo when viewing the lofty minars, to wish that hereafter Government may restore the spot to its original owners, and remove this cruel eye-sore from the holy city. 

ON JUNE 5, 1802, George Viscount Valentia climbed aboard the Minerva at the Downs off the east Kent coast, embarking on a four-year-long voyage that first took him to India, then Sri Lanka, the Red Sea, Ethiopia and Egypt…..”

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