132 H. HOSTEN ON 



which had become inadequate. One of the first acts of the English authorities of 

 Bombay was to confiscate the estates of the Agra College. 



Pol. 6 7 ir. "OF THE ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGIUM IN- 

 CHOATUM IN THE CITY OF AGRA, MADE BY MIRZA ZUL- 

 CARNE, AND ACCEPTED BY OUR REVD. FATHER MUTIO VITEL- 

 LESQI IN THE YEAR 1621." 1 



" When King Acbar [Akbar] was reigning in Mogol, there came to this Court an 

 honourable man, an Armenian, called Mirza Scander [Mirza. Sikandar =the L,ord 

 Alexander] a native of Halepo [Aleppo], whom the King esteemed highly, as he 

 was a young gentleman and possessed of good parts, among others a knowledge of 

 various languages, in particular Portuguese, because he had been living some years 

 as a merchant in the cities of India. 2 Hence, the King not only admitted him as a 

 cavalier (criado de cavalo), but married him with a damsel called Juliana, the daughter 

 of another honourable Armenian, Koja Abdellahi (whom I also knew). 3 Owing to 

 this connection, M. Bscander was much more esteemed at Court. M. Scander's first- 

 born son by the said Juliana was our Founder Mirza Zulcarnen, a name given him 

 as a favour by King Acbar himself, this being the name of Alexander the Great, 

 whom they call Scander Zulcarnen/ A year later, Bibi Juliana 6 gave birth to 

 Foi. 671V. another son, named M. Scanderus,' 1 who died lately. 1 The King, of his || special affec- 

 tion for Bibi Juliana, gave both the boys to one of the Queens, who was childless, to 

 be adopted and educated as her own children. She did so, and brought them up in 

 the royal palace until they were twelve years old, when, the laws of the women's 

 quarters not allowing them to continue there any longer, they left and went to their 

 father's house. King Acbar tried to marry M. Scander with a sister of Bibi Juliana 

 now dead 8 ; but, as Fr. Jeronimo Xavier and the rest of the Fathers objected, the 

 good King, understanding that it could not be done without a dispensation from the 

 Holy Father, resolved to ask this favour from His Holiness through Our Father 



I Ex MSS. Soc. Jesu, Goana Hist., 1600-1624 (Goa, 33), foil. 6y\r-6y?>v. — Portuguese. Fr. Corsi's autograph. 



Begins: Da origetn da Funda(ao do Collcgio incoata na Cidade de Agra feita por Mirza Zulcarne', e aceitada polo 

 N. R. P. Gcral Mulio Vitcllcsqi anno 1621. 



5 Portuguese India. — M. Sikandar, senior, is called an Armenian from Aleppo ; but we shall hear Father Botelho 

 tell us by and by that he was not an Armenian. Zu-1-Qarnain's uncle, Janibeg, is called a Chaldean by Father de Castro 

 (Janibeg's chaplain ? ) in a letter from Sambhar, July 20, 1645. In a discussion with Akbar in 1581, Monserrate refutes 

 " the common error which calls all the Asiatic Christians Armenians, whereas many are Greeks, Chaldeans, Syrians, and a 

 few Nestorians, just as it calls Franks the Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians and Germans." Cf. Memoirs A.S.B., 

 III, 609. 



3 Khwaja 'Abdu-1-Hayy. He died therefore after 1600. 



+ Sikandar Zu-1-Qarnain= Alexander, the two-horned. The marriage must have taken place about 1590. Zu-1- 

 Oarnain was born in 1592, considering that he was 14 years old in 1606, and 20 in 1613 (cf. p 133). 



6 Bibi=lady, queen. The name Juliana is not Armenian. Perhaps she had been baptised by Fr. Julian Pereira, 

 who first came to Fatehpur Sikri (1578-80). 



t> Mirza Iskandariis. Both the father and his two sons had names representing Alexander. The Relation of 1606 

 makes M. Iskandariis three years younger than his brother M. Zu-1-Qarnain. He was born in 1595, therefore. 



1 Pouco depois se morreo might mean : he died shortly after. We translate as above in view of certain remarks 

 which follow. 



3 Bibi Juliana must have died before 1598, since it was in 1598 at the latest that Mirza Sikandar, senior, married 

 Juliana's sister. 



