Indian Antiquary Vol 52

SR No.: 032544
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 568
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 24 MB

Page 105

MAY, 1829)
SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA
93
is they have preserved reoords of value for all time. And if I may say so, their remarks present to their editors much the same kind of puzzles for solution.
Dames has brought out the special geographical and ethnographical value of Barbosa's work in a oareful introduction, in the course of which he draws attention to a point that is worth general notice. How did the Portuguese and their followers in the East manage to communicate so easily with the natives of India and of the East generally? The explanation is the presence about the Indian and Eastern coasts in their days of a large number of mamlaks, " captives from the races subdued or raided by the Muhammadans, some of them Europeans," who followed their original masters as slaves, when these found their way across the seas to India and the East as adventurers. Many of the mughrabts or Western captives spoke Spanish, and many Spaniards and Portuguese at that period could talk Arabic, and hence from the outset there was ease of communication between the first of the Portuguese travellers with the Indian peoples through such interpreters. Barbosa, who was for years on the west coast of Southern India, knew Malayalam well, and others learnt other vernaculars at least colloquially. By Mundy's time Portuguese and mestilosg (half-castes) ware the ordinary interpreters in practically all the languages the English came across. Mundy himself knew Spanish and soon learnt Portuguese too. He had an extraordinarily accurate ear, and made determined attempts, more or less successful, at every language he met with. One of his merchant companions to the Far East, Thomas Robinson, was an accomplished interpreter in Portuguese. It was in this way that the early wanderers managed to learn so much with considerable accuracy of the people they were thrown with, and to conduct their commercial affairs with the skill they so constantly exhibited.
It was this linguistic knowledge also, this ability to understand clearly what was said to him, that enabled a man like Barbosa to distinguish between races, to know the difference between Turks, Mamláks, Arabs, Persians, Khurâsânts, and Turkomâns; to distinguish between Arabic, Turkish, and Gujarati as spoken on the Indian western coast, and to recognize the existence of the Navayats, the Indo Arab mestigos or half-castes of the coast. His capacity to converse familiarly with the natives in the South enabled him to learn about the different kingdoms and rulers on the coast and inland, and to learn much about the Hindus and their customs, and to differentiate between sects of them in some instances. Perhaps the most interesting point in this respect is that the first Portuguese knowledge of the Delhi Sultanate of Barbosa's time was through the distorted reports of wandering Hindu jogts driven from the North to the South by the Muhammadan usurpers of the Northern kingdoms.
The geographical and historical notes given with lavish hand in this volume are valuable beyond measure and are too numerous to notioe except here and there. Among the very many places he mentions in them I venture to suggest that such variations of name as Benemetapa, Bonomotapa, Monomotapa, for the same place on the East African coast, may be due to the inflection of the root in the indigenous premutative languages taking place at the commencement of their words, and that accordingly it is in the last syllables thereof that the true sense of form is to be sought. The remarks on the Island of Sam Lourenco (St. Lawrence of the early English sailors) or Madagascar, are most interesting and go partly to account for the culture found among the modern Malagasy. For the benefit of further students of that island and its history, I would refer them to the volumes of the Antananarivo Annual, an excellent publication.