Indian Antiquary Vol 31

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 14

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(JANUARY, 1902.
• súta' storing up legends which, to say the least, did not hold the shaven followers of the Tathdgata' in high esteem. But this tendency came to . sudden standstill, when Pusyami tra in 180 B. O. killed the last of the Maurya kings and, to strengthen his usurped power, favoured as much As he could the Brabmans, the natural enemies of the Buddhist monks. Those in their turn collected all legends of vişnuitic and sivaitic stamp, which showed the true national creed' of India, and perhaps chose the Sanskrit form in opposition to the popular preaching of the Sakya prince.
Be that as it may, the first thing to be done in this field of Indian literature seems to me to be a new critical edition of the Vulgata' together with all available commentaries. During more than 2,000 years the Mahabharata was shaped and sung in this form all over India, and, I surmise, we can do no better than to make it the standard and touchstone of all further researches.
LETTERS FROM PORTUGUESE CAPTIVES IN CANTON,
WRITTEN IN 1584 AND 1536.
BY DONALD FERGUSON.
(Continued from Vol. xxx. p. 491.) [t. 104) D Copy of a letter that came from China; which letter was written by !
Christovão Vieyra and Vasco Calvo, captives there, who wore of the company of the ambassadors that Fernão Peres took in the year 1520.26
In the year 1520, on the 23rd of January, we set out for the king of China, 37 In May we were with the king in Nanquim: thence hecommanded us to go forward to the city of Piquim, in order to give us dispatch there. On the 2nd of August letters were sent to Cantão, regarding what had passed with the king so far: the letters reached Jorge Botelho and Diogo Calvo, who were in the island where trade is carried on. However, I do not again write of that, because the time requires brevity and little verbiage. In February the king entered Piqnim and was ill three months; he died, 20 and the day following [they said] that we must go to Cantão with the present, that the new king would come, that they should go to him to the other city, that he would send us the reply to Cantão. We left Pequim on the 22nd of May, and arrived on the 22nd of September at Cantão; because the guide came leisurely according to his own will. The cause of the present's not being accepted is this.
When Fernão Peres arrived at the port of China, be ordered the interpreters to write letters to the effect that there had come a captain-major and had brought an ambassador to the king of China, The interpreters [f. 104v) wrote these according to the custom of the country, thas: "A captainmajor and an ambassador have come to the land of China by command of the king of the Firingig30 with tribute. They have come to beg, according to custom, for a seals1 from the lord of the world,
# This heading (by whom I know not) contains several errons. In the first place, there are two distinot lettera and not ope. In the next place, Vasco Calvo was not one of the ambassador's company, but came with his brother Die lyo in 1691. In the third place, Fernko Pores de Andrade took only one ambasador, Thomé Piros. And. Intly, it wwe in 1517, and not 1520, that Fernko Pores arrived in China.
. For previous events, so Introduction. This letter begin nabraptly, that it is evident that the writer maat, in previous communication, or in portion of this one that has been lost, have described the doings of the embassy dowa to January 1580.
The Tha da Voniaga or Tamko. (See Introduction.)
In the original, after the word fallegue, the copyist has made nonaand of what follows by loaving out some worde. I have made the best sense I could of the jamble.
# Frank. (See Hobson-Jobron, . .'Firinghee."
51 Barros mys (Deo. III., VI. 1.) :-"This seal, which that emperor given to all the king and prinons that make themselves his rusale, is of his device, and with it they don themselves in all letters and writing, in demonstra tion of their being his subject. (Cf. t. 110.)