IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
ANTONIO DE MONSERRATE.
20
has been proved that everything Wilford says of Monserrate was perfectly correct, and that nobody, except myself, had made a mistake, in supposing that Wilford should have confounded Monserrate and Tieffenthaler. I am very glad now to be able in this historical account to give Monserrate the high place and credit which
is due to him.
Rev. H. Hosten gives, in his Introduction, all details regarding the discovery, in 1906 in Calcutta, of the valuable MS. of Antonio de Monserrate.1 A note contains the principal dates of his curriculum vitae and references to C. SOMMERVOGEL and E. DE GUILHERMY for other details. In FR. ANT. FRANCO'S Imagent da Virtude em
o Noviciado de Lisboa, Coimbra, M. DCC. XVII, pp. 278-301 are recommended
for a full account of his life.2
Monserrate's own preface is dated Sanaa, Arabia, Jan. 7th 1591. Hasten concludes that the MS. is not a copy, but Monserrate's own original, written in his prison at Sanaa.
There are 140 folios, numbered on the recto. The Calcutta MS., as is evident from the preface and an inspection of the contents, constitutes only a small portion of Monserrate's writings.
Hosten shows that the »Bk. I», as he calls the volume first discovered and now published, was accompanied by a Bk. II, containing geographical and antiquarian matter, which »remains to be discovered». Much of the contents of the intended,
I Rev. H. Hosten, S. J., Jesuit Letters and Allied Papers on Mogor, Tibet, Bengal and Burma.
Part I Mongolicae legationis commentarius or the first Jesuit Mission to Akbar by Fr. Anthony Mon-serrate, S. J. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. III, No. 9, pp. 513-704, Calcutta 1914.
2 VINCENT A. SMITH is perfectly right in his high opinion of the Jesuit Fathers. In his admirable book on Emperor Akbar, published a few years ago, he says: »The Fathers were highly educated men, trained for accurate observation and scholarly writing.... The long-lost and recently recovered work by Father Monserrate, entitled Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius (1582), is an authority of the highest credit and importance, practically new.»
Of Monserrate's life Smith gives us the following particulars : Father Antonio Monserrate was a Catalan Spaniard. Together with Ridolfo Aquaviva he landed at Goa and came to Akbar's court. In 1582 he returned to Goa where he stayed till 1588 when he was ordered to Abyssinia. But on his way he was taken prisoner by the Arabs and kept for 61/2 years. »When deputed to Akbar's court he had been appointed by the Provincial of Goa as historian of the Mission. He carried out conscientiously the duty imposed upon him, and wrote up his notes each night. After his return to Goa he arranged his materials, and while confined by the Arabs was permitted to complete his literary labours. He was ransomed in 1596.... Monserrate's principal work, entitled Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius, which had been long lost, and was not recovered until 1906, is of special importance as being, 'the earliest account of Northern India by a European since the days of Vasco da Gama', and also as including the fullest description existant of Akbar's successful campaign against his brother of Kabul in 1581. The author, who was then tutor to Prince Murad accompanied Akbar as far as Jalalabad on the road to Kabul.... Monserrate's writings dealing with the geography, natural history, manners, and customs of India have not yet been found, but may be hidden in some European library. The map of Northern India which he prepared on the basis of astronomical observations is attached to the Commentarius, and is of much interest as the earliest European map of India since the time of Ptolemy and Eratosthenes.» — Vincent A. Smith: Akbar the Great Mogul 1542-1605. Oxford
1917, p. 7, 1 7 I et seq.
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