Abstract
The article explores the accounts of European travellers of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of images and representations of India. During these two centuries, about hundred travellers came to India from Europe and wrote accounts of their experiences. As travel writing had developed into a very popular genre in the early modern Europe, some of these accounts were published many times, translated into important European languages and read extensively. Some of them were also included in the popular anthologies and collections of travel writings. These travel accounts, therefore, became the first means to represent the ‘reality’ of India. This study is, therefore, directly concerned with these early European representations and narrative constructions and problematizes them in relation to the ‘reality’ of India.