150 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [April, 1913. 
C. Gomez Rodeles limits his inquiry to the work done by Jesuit 
writers for the Indian vernaculars: Konkani, Kanarese, Mara- 
thi, Malayalam, and Tamil. Some works were also printed in 
Ethiopic, and a large number of translations into Syriac was 
prepared for the use of the St. Thomas Christians. 
To-day, when most of the Indian vernaculars have been 
thoroughly studied and classified, it is not easy for us to 
realize the hesitations felt by our predecessors in discriminat- 
ing and denominating some of our allied dialects. Our early 
missionaries applied the term ‘‘ Malabar’’ to both Malayalam 
and Tamil; Kanarese was long a misnomer for Konkani; the 
‘*Bracmana’’ tongue did not necessarily mean Samskrt; at 
Goa it meant rather Konkani or Marathi; Badaga was Telugu, 
while Hindostani applied even to Marathi. These points, if not 
unknown to Fr. C. Gomez Rodeles, have not been touched upon. 
Though the Catholic Missionaries of the West Coast must 
5 Ale S.J. (Oriente conquistado, Lisboa, 1710, vol. I, conq. 
Manoel, whom the University of Salamanca had honoured 
with the title of Doctor utriusque juris, robbed a Brahman 
Pandit of his MSS., of 18 volumes of the ‘‘Gita Veaco’’ and 
other authors ancient and modern.'! He brought them to Goa 
and translated the substance of them into Portuguese. Fathers 
(Mogor) , Beschi (Madura), Calmette, Coourdoux, Pons (Carnatic), 
Mosac (Chandernagor), Bischopinck, Hanxleden, Pimentel, Hau- 
segger (Malabar), Tieffentaller (Mogor). It is chiefly through 
the letters of some of these that the attention of European 
i e 
not appear to have busied themselves with the study of 
Samskrt. The term ‘‘Bracmana” as used by them is to be 
__1 The story is given at full length bi ie A. de Quadros, S.J. (Dec. 
1559) in ‘oe Indice. De Stvpendis Rebvs .. in India.. 
, Lovanii, 
1566, pp. (292-2 9. “* Veacus ’’ is there supposed be some ancient 
author In libris nescio cuius i, que qua principem 
- ~ . . 7 t . 
coriphet estimant ; uiq; 18. Cémentariori volumina in patrias leges, 
aliasq ; cdstitutiones variorti doctorti suo tépore reliquit.’” sha appe 
under the form ‘‘ Risinus,’’ p. 298. In another letter from Goa (1560) 
Guita’’ is taken for a person (p 376). 
* Cf. the chapter on Sarnskrt in Fr. J. Dan~tMANN, 8.J., Die Sprach- 
kunde und die Missionen, Freiburg, 1891. 
