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Preliminary Report on The “Livro Da Seita Dos Indios Orientais’ (Brit. Mus. Ms. Sloane, 1820)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The learned Father Paulinus a S. Bartholomœo (1749–1806), a discalceate Carmelitė and a missionary of Malabar, in his Examen Historico-criticum Codicum Indicorum Bibliothecœ Sacrœ Congregationis de Propaganda fide (Rome, 1792), p. 72, seq., records in the following way the work of one of his fellow-brethren of the Order of Carmelites, Father Ildephonsus a Prcesentatione (d. 1789): “Num. XXXI. Collectio omnium dogmatum & arcanorum ex Puránis seu libris Canonicis paganorum Indianorum, seu tractatus de falsa secta paganorum Asice maioris seu Indice Orientalis, & prœsertim de superstitionibus Gentilium Malabarium.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1923

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References

page 731 note 1 The Grammatica Samscrdamica, better known as the Siddharúbam, appeared in Rome in 1790, the Systema Brachmanicum lithurgicum mythologicum civile, etc., in 1791. I have collected all the quite frequent quotations from Ildephonsus from these and all the other works of Paulinus; obviously they cannot be given here.

page 732 note 1 Cf. Dr. Do Jong's edition of Baldœus, Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen 1917), p. lxxi.

page 732 note 2 Musei Borgiani Velitris Codices Manuscripti (1793), p. 97, seq.

page 733 note 1 Cf. Systema Brachmanicum, p. 165.

page 733 note 2 It should be expressly understood that any use of the work of Faria y Sousa on the part of Baldseus is wholly excluded. The second tome of the Asia Portugueza, the manuscript of which was finished about 1640, did not appear until 1674, two years after the work of Baldseus. B., who did not return to Europe until 1666 (he died in 1671), collected the materials for his book in India. For further details I refer the reader to the valuable introduction of Dr. De Jong to his edition of B. (this must be read together with the highly important review of the book by Professor Zaehariae in Goett. gel. Anzeigen, 1919, pp. 50–67).

page 734 note 1 The main parallels from Ildephonsus have been given by Dr. De Jong in his notes on Baldseus.

page 734 note 2 Cf. De Jong, loe. cit., p. lxviii seq.

page 734 note 3 All these facts will be dealt with in some detail below.

page 734 note 4 Cf. e.g. p. 57, n. 2.

page 735 note 1 This expression probably points to some words in the introduction of the original.

page 735 note 2 Printed in Beccari Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales Inediti, vol. iv. A letter of Barradas is translated in Sewell, Vijayanagar, A Forgotten Empire, p. 222, seq. On his life and works of. Barbosa Machado Bibliotheca Lusitana, iii (1752), 192, seq.; De Backer-Sommervogel Bibliothèqtie, s.v.

page 735 note 3 Cf. Beccari, loc. cit. iv, p. xxv, seq.

page 735 note 4 This will be made clear later on.

page 735 note 5 Cf. Beccari, loc. cit. iv, p. xxi.

page 736 note 1 Cf. Bibliotheca Lusitana, iii, p. 193.

page 736 note 2 Cf. Goetl. gel. Anzeigen, 1919, p. 67Google Scholar (cf. ibid. 1916, p. 563).

page 737 note 1 There is no general title of the manuscript; the first book has the superscription; Livro primeiro da seita dos Indios Orientals, a principalmente dos Malavares; the second one: Livro segundo da Ley dos Indios Orientals, etc.; Books III—VII are simply called: Livro 3° (etc.) da Ley dos Indios; while the last one is called: Do culto dos falsos deozes dos Indios Orientals, Livro

page 738 note 1 This is the continuous pagination of the manuscript in which no regard is paid to the blank spoken of above.

page 738 note 2 Here always called Siri Rama (=Śrī-Rāma).

page 738 note 3 The fish is here said to have been a shark (Port, tubarāo).

page 738 note 4 The introductory words of iv, chap, i, point to the immense popularity of the tales of Rāma, said to form the book Ramana (=Rāmāyaṇa). There can be no doubt that the author has drawn largely upon some South Indian version of the Rāmāyaṇa (probably the Bodhāyana), but no detāils can be given here.

page 738 note 5 If found at all in the common versions of the Rāmāyaṇa they may be looked for in the first (and last) book.

page 739 note 1 The last sort of ordeal is said to be especially in use in Canara.

page 739 note 2 Cf. Iyer, The Cochin Tribes and Castes, i, 72 seq., 82. According to what is said there, tradition seems inclined to look upon him as belonging to a very remote age.

page 740 note 1 De Open-deure tot het verborgen Heydendom (new ed. by Professor Caland in 1915); German translation in 1663, French in 1670.

page 740 note 2 Lord's work can neither be compared with the book of Roger, nor with this manuscript for importance; still, it has not received from its countrymen the interest which it may well deserve.

page 741 note 1 The corresponding year of the Ka⋖iyuga (4713) would point to 1611, but there is either a slight miscalculation or a slip in the expression of the writer.

page 741 note 2 Corrections et additions ȧ la Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, Fasc. iii (Toulouse, 1913), p. 453.

page 741 note 3 The exact form of his name cannot now be ascertained; the authors of the Society generally call him Fenicio, but the letters in his hand, preserved in the British Museum Add. MSS. 9853, give Jacome Finicio. As, however, Fenicio has become the usual form, it will forthwith be used here.

page 742 note 1 He probably stayed there until his death, as Müilbauer, Geschichte der Katholischen Missionen in Ostindien (1851), p. 288, tells us that at his death in 1632 he had worked forty-two years in the kingdom of Muterte.

page 742 note 2 Abstract in Guerreiro's Relaçam Annual, 1602–3 (Lisboa, 1605), fol. 84v.Google Scholar

page 743 note 1 A Latin abstract of this report was published (from the Annuse Litterae S.J. 1603) by Father L. Besse in Anthropos, ii (1907), p. 972, seq. As was pointed out in that same periodical (iii, p. 294,.seq.), a complete English translation of the original letter (from the Add. MSS. 9853) had been published already in 1906 in the wellknown work of Rivers on the Todas (p. 720, seq.). I have compared that translation with the original and found it excellent. For further information on this question cf. Father Hosten, in J.A.S.B., 1910, p. 446, seq.

page 743 note 2 Viz. Fenicio.

page 743 note 3 The Portuguese letrado, as it is used here, would correspond exactly to Sanskrit paṇḍitarmmanya.

page 744 note 1 Thus, in Book I, chap. 9 (and cf. Paulinus Systema Brachimanicum, p. 196, seq.).

page 744 note 2 Like the Zamorin himself, he was a member of the Erāḍi, or cow-herd caste (cf. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, ii, 210; Iyer, Cochin Castes, ii, 146, seq.).

page 744 note 3 Cf. Rivers, The Todas, p. 721; Anthropos, ii, 972.

page 744 note 4 Dated 8th August, 1603.

page 744 note 5 As is usual with old authors, “winter” probably stands for the rainy season.

page 745 note 1 This conclusion seems perfectly admissible as Fenicio clearly points to some version of the Rāmāyaṇa as one of his sources, and, moreover, because in Books IV–VI there does not occur one single quotation from the Malabar poet Pākkanar that was apparently, from the origin, one of his main sources. But he knew the main features of the myths of Kṛṣṇa already in 1603, as will be seen presently.

page 746 note 1 The same story of Gaeśa is told at length in the MS. Sloane 1820, p. 73, seq. (Book II, chap. 15).

page 746 note 2 Fenicio says that they took this from a book, the title of which is badly corrupted in the MS.; but one can read something like pramãcha, and it undoubtedly means the above-mentioned work Prapañcasṛṣṭi, as he translates it “universi creatio”.

page 746 note 3 Viz. the death of Jesus on the cross.

page 746 note 4 Fenicio gives the name as Vistnu, but Hindu words will forthwith be given in the modern transcription as far as possible.

page 747 note 1 Apparently the nephew of the Zamorin (cf. above, p. 744).

page 747 note 2 These myths are told in full in the MS. Sloane 1820, Book I, chap. 3–4.

page 748 note 1 Purchas may have read them in Guerreiro's annual relations; of course, Du Jarric was also amongst his sources.

page 749 note 1 The first edition of Pinelo was issued in 1629; in it there is nothing about Fenicio.

page 749 note 2 This edition does not seem to exist in the British Museum.

page 750 note 1 Cf. Beccari Scriptures rerum Ethiopicarum, iv, p. xxv, seq.

page 750 note 2 Cf. above, p. 735.

page 751 note 1 Quoted above (p. 735) from Beccari, loc. cit. iv, p. xxi.

page 751 note 2 Cf. Dr. De Jong's edition of Baldaeus, p. li.

page 751 note 3 Cf. Danvers, The Portuguese in India, ii, 328.

page 752 note 1 There is an insertion of greater length from another source in the story of Paraśurāma and minor additions in some other passages.

page 752 note 2 The Portuguese text has pescadores de buzios “shell-fishers”.

page 752 note 3 Ildephonsus (in Paulinus Systema Brachmanicum, p. 173) correctly translates it with “capillitio … terram percutit”.