68 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [February, 1914. 



and all, to the catalogues of other libraries. We should judge 

 differently if a complete copy of the Lives of the Apostles con- 

 tained a clear, authenticated statement to the effeot that it was 

 dedicated to Akbar. 



Again, we are told that the copy of the Bodleian and that 

 of the National Library were translated from the Latin. On 

 what is this based ? Has not the word Feringhi been misunder- 

 stood to mean Latin 2 . In the preface to his Life of Christ, as 

 published by Louis ds> Dieu, J. Xavier says in one place (cf. 

 Proc. A. S. B., 1870, pp. 141-142, or Louis de Dieu, Historia 

 Christi, p. 9) that on comparing the Persian translation cum 

 scriptis Latinis, with the Latin (Latin), he was repeatedly dis- 

 satisfied with Jus work, and kept polishing the translation until he 

 judged it worthy of Akbar's acceptance. The phrase " cum scrip- 

 tis Latinis would not nec?ssarilv mean that 'Abdu-s-Sattar, J. 

 Xavier's co-translator, who by Akbar' 8 order had learned Portu- 

 guese under the Fathers, but had, apparently, no knowledge of 

 Latin, was not given a Portuguese text to work from ; else, how 

 could he conveniently have assisted J. Xavier ? Among the 

 scriptaLaiina with which Xavier collated the Persian translation 

 there must have been the Vulgate. A copy of the Life of Christ 

 in the Harleian (Sommervogel, viii col. 1340, No. 8) is described 

 as translated "from the Portuguese," ] but, the point has per- 

 haps no other authority than a lucky (?) piece of guessing on the 

 part of La Croze (Hist, du Christian, des Indes, 1758, II, 77-78), 

 who sought to rob Xavier of the honour of knowing Persian. 

 The fact is that the Lives of the Apostles was not the only book 

 the original draft of which Xavier wrote in Portuguese. In a 

 letter to the General, Lahore, Augr. 1 ? 1598, he announces his 

 return from Kashmir to Lahore : " We return to the study of the 

 Persian language, and speak it still poorly (rnediocremente). I 

 take up again my work of translating into Persian a treatise 

 I had made in Portuguese • I mean that I make it again, for 

 the one I had made was stolen in Caximir, when they plun- 

 dered our house." (MS. letter unpublished). The work in 

 question must have been the Aina-i-Haqq Numa. 



Fr. Jerome Xavier. during 20 years the mainstay of the 

 Mogor Mission, died at Goa (Rachol?) on June 17, 1617. His 

 compositions, worthy monuments of his learning, continued 

 to be sought after in the Mogor Mission and the Christians 

 copied them or ha 1 them copied by the best calligraphers of 

 the bazars.* 



Pietro delta Valle, that scholarly tourist, who visited Persia 



i Cf. de la Figaniere. Catalogo do§ MSS. Portugueses existente* 



tio Museu BritannicOn 1853, p. 39. 



4 A copy of the Speculum Vtritatis or Aina-i-Haqq Numa, dated 1678, 

 was found in an obscure cjrner of thn Kunawar Mts. , and s^nfc to Csoma 

 de Koros. Cf. Vh. Duka. Life and Works of A. C*om* de Koro*, London, 

 Triibner, 1885, p 96. Another copy of the same dated 1740 was trans- 

 cribed for Khwajah 'Abdu-1-Masih of Hamadan by Ramg'hosan of 



