Thanks, all, for your comments. 

Christophe — I think Fenicio mentions the term Veda only in relation to a Vedic mantra recited while consuming panchagavya (I think - I have only my notes on Charpentier's edition (does anyone have a pdf?), which in any case according to Paolo Aranha omits a large part of the original ms). But Ludo Rocher argues (Puranas, 1986: 11) that Fenicio's primary sources were puranic, and that this is even made explicit in the title of a Latin translation of Fenicio: Collectio omnium dogmatum & arcanorum ex Puranis seu libris Canonicis paganorum Indianorum... 

Part of my argument in the article I'm preparing is that despite many references to the Vedas as the most authoritative Indian sacred texts, other texts were almost invariably the actual source. Azevedo, for instance, having mentioned the Vedas as the original texts then goes on to cite exclusively Tamil sources (Tirumantiram, Tiruvācakam, Tivākaram, Tirukkuṟaḷ and another Tamil text on caste). 

Thanks also for the references to the texts acquired by the Jesuits (stolen on their behalf by a convert, it appears) in the 1550s. On the basis of fragments of translations of these done by the convert (a Brahmin baptised as Manuel Olivera) which were sent to Europe and are extant in Portugal and Goa, Ines Zupanov and Angela Barreto Xavier have identified these as Jñāneśvara’s Marathi version of Bhagavad-Gītā, a purana by Nāmdev, and parts of the Mahābhārata.  Also in Portugal are three manuscripts containing parts of the Mahābhārata and Rāmayāṇa in Konkani prose and Marathi verse, transliterated into Roman script by Jesuits around the same period. I think there is likely some connection here, but I'm not aware of anyone who's explored it. 

Best wishes

Will
  

On 12 August 2015 at 20:25, Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle@uclouvain.be> wrote:
Thank you for this reference (with Geredão rendering grantha).

So (I have not here the book at hand), nothing on the Vedas in J. Fenicio's work (1609? He arrived in India in 1584) ? (cf. The Livro da Seita dos Indios Orientais (Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 1820) of Father Jacobo Fenicio , s.j., edited with and introduction and notes by Jarl Charpentier, Uppsala : Almqvist & Wiksells, 1933, Arbeten utgivna med undestöd av Vilhelm Ekmans Universitetsfond 40). 

Note that the (Bhagavad-)Gîtâ (with the Avadhûta-Gîtâ) is already presented and discussed as the most sacred book of the brahmins in a Jesuit letter of 1560. 
pp. 376 sq. ("Guitaa & Detatriaa") (cf. Charpentier p. xliv)

Best wishes,

Christophe Vielle

Le 11 août 2015 à 02:03, Will Sweetman <will.sweetman@GMAIL.COM> a écrit :

Dear all

I'm working on some early European accounts of the Vedas including what I think is the very first reference to the Vedas in a European text. This was published in Couto's Da Asia, but is in fact taken from another work written by an Augustinian friar Agostinho de Azevedo in 1603. Azevedo (in my translation) says that the Brahmins:

"have many books in their Latin, which they call Geredão which contain everything they are to believe, and all the ceremonies they are to perform. These books are divided into bodies [corpos], limbs [membros] and joints [articulos], whose originals are those they call Veados, which are divided into four parts, and these further into fifty-two parts in the following manner: six which they call Xastra, which are the bodies, eighteen which they call Purana, which are the limbs, twenty-eight called Agamon which are the joints."

This formulation, with variations, is repeated in many subsequent European sources. The terms for the divisions (corpos,membros, articulos), which are not so often repeated, have usually been translated more literally as bodies, members and articles (or articulations). 

I'm curious as to whether anyone is aware of an Indian source which uses these metaphors. I'm aware, of course of the Vedāṇgas, but I think the six here are clearly meant to be the śāstras/darśanas. This may indicate some muddling—or sheer invention—on Azevedo's part, but in other instances I've found it best to look first for an Indian source or idea an early European writer may be following rather than immediately assuming error or invention, so I'd welcome any leads and/or comments on translating membros as limbs and articulos as joints. "Articles" for the latter seems to me to be a particularly unilluminating translation.

Best

Will


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