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100			_aParasher, Gauri _955615
245			_aScholar, interpreter, arbitrator, citizen: The many lives of Maridas Pillai
260			_aThe Indian Economic and Social History Review
300			_a 62(2), Apr-Jun, 2025: p.149-187
520			_aThis article examines afresh the life and works of the eighteenth-century Indo-French intermediary Maridas Pillai from Pondicherry. He is known primarily for his French translation of the Bhagavatam, the earliest translation of the text in a European language. Yet many aspects of his life remain obscure. Drawing on new sources, the article shows that Maridas was much more than just a translator of the Bhagavatam. He was also a court translator and interpreter in Pondicherry, an arbitrator of individual and group disputes, and a man of letters who mediated knowledge about India for the benefit of French audiences. In studying these neglected dimensions of Maridas Pillai’s activities, the article argues that he was a different kind of intermediary than the well-known dubashes or commercial brokers. Carefully fashioning himself as a bridge between the French government and its Indian subjects, his work focused on mediating non-commercial, cultural, legal and societal knowledge. His life, therefore, reveals hitherto little-known dimensions of the Indo-French encounter.-Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00194646251330459
650			_aMaridas Pillia, go-between, Indo-French, Pondicherry/Puducherry, Citizen, Courts. _955616
773			_aThe Indian Economic and Social History Review
942			_cAR