530 
INTRODUCTION TO 
for 1648 as: Anthony Botelho (Senior), Visitor and Rector [of Agra]. His name 
appears again in 1649, but no longer in the next extant catalogue of Mogor for 1653. 
A note by the late Fr. J. B. Van Meurs, S.J., tells me that he wrote his De Moribus 
et natura religionis Mogorensis during his Provincialate, in 1670. 1 
How Marsden got possession of the 10 volumes of MS. Annual Fetters and docu- 
ments regarding Japan and China, Goa, Cochin and their Missions is more than we 
know. Was the Calcutta MS. part of the Goa spoils which Marsden secured appa- 
rently during his sojourn in Sumatra? But then, why was it not presented by him 
with his other books either to the British Museum or to King’s College ? 2 * * * * * 
My conclusion, then, is that Monserrate’s Bk. I has never been made use of. The 
Calcutta MS. is a unique copy, nor will the epithet “excellent,” which Graf von Noer 
applied to a much inferior composition by Monserrate, be found exaggerated. In 
presenting it to the learned world, I anticipate that his Mongolicce Legationis Com- 
mentarins, the earliest known account of Northern India by a European since the 
da5^s of Vasco da Gama, will take rank as a first-rate authority. 
My reason for publishing the Fatin text in the first place is to preserve the 
original from further mishaps. I do not contemplate undertaking a translation. 
The work of the translator and annotator will be one of no ordinary difficulty. 
Several passages almost defy translation, for the simple reason that we are too little 
acquainted with the condition of many things in Monserrate’s time. As a case in 
point, I refer to his descriptions of temples, palaces, and ruins. I believe that a 
translation will do justice to the text only when a host of scholars will have focussed 
on the original the light of research. 8 Besides, so many unpublished materials on the 
Jesuit Missions in Mogor, Tibet and Bengal, of which not a few will further elucidate 
the present work, have now accumulated under my hands that even a long lifetime 
will scarcely suffice to dispose of them all. I cherish, therefore, the hope that the 
task of translating and annotating this work will commend itself to someone better 
qualified and circumstanced than myself. 
1 Cf J. A. S. B., 1910, The Marsden MSS. in the British Museum, pp. 448, 453, sqq., and a Jesuit Father's 
Account of India in the time of Shah Jahan, by Mr. H. Beveridge, in The Indian Magazine and Review , London , A. Con- 
stable, pp. 264-266. 
2 Father C. Beccari states— on what authority? — that Marsden acquired “at Goa ” Fr. d’ Almeida’s Historia de 
Ethiopia a aha, an original autograph, and presented it to the British Museum in 1837. ^ r - Botelho’s Summa memoran- 
darum rerum forms part of the same Marsden Collection, and the fact is that nearly all the letters in Add. MSS. Vols. 
9854 and 9855, Brit. Mus., are letters from the Jesuit Missionaries in Mogor addressed to the Provincial of Goa. — I may 
mention that the Calcutta MS. contains a detached leaf with notes by some theologian, a sort of promptuarium, 
references to an Italian work. The writing is almost illegible. I have pasted it on, at the end of the MS. 
I have translated and commented on Monserrate’s description of Delhi in J.A.S.B., 1911, pp. 99-108. Mr. J. P. 
Thompson has since pointed ouqto me that the Asoka pillar mentioned by Monserrate is not the “ golden-pillar ” of 
the Kotila, but the pillar of the Jahannuma. Cf. ibid., p. 100 n. 3. Blochmann’s Persian text of the Ain gives 5 kos 
as the length of Firoz Shah’s “third’’ tunnel to Old Delhi. Cf. ibid., p. 104. I have returned to Monserrate’s 
measurements (40 stadia) of Firoz .Shah’s “ tunnel ” in J.A.S.B., 1912, Firoz Sit ah' s Tunnels, pp. 279-81. The passages 
,11 I.ahore and Ramchandra's obelisks have been translated by Dr. J. P. Vogel, the archaeologist; I have added 
a translation of fol. 83 and 84a on the Bedaulat caves. Both are intended for The Journal of the Panjab Historical 
Society, Lahore. 
Dually, some passages were communicated to Mr. E. D. Maclagan, in illustration of Fray Manrique's Travels in 
th* Panjab. Cf. ibid., Nos. 1, 2. 
