The verse could be read
sarvadraṣṭā
sarvaśrōtā
sarvakartā ca rakṣakaḥ/
sarvajñaḥ sarvarūpī ca
sarvam ca sarvataḥ pātā//
The concepts of the verse suit the Vedānta philosophy but it does not seem have been a scriptural one. Possibly it was created by the missionary himself. The final part of the fourth quarter is not iambic. That is unusual for the last quarter. The monotony of the word sarva also was avoidable.
Best
DB
Dear all
I'd be grateful for any assistance in identifying the source of this verse, transliterated from some sort of devanagari
sarva dṛṣta sarva śrōta
sarva kretā ca rakṣakaḥ
sarva jñaḥ sarva rūpī ca
sarvam ca sarvataḥ pitā
The character given here as ca is unrecognisable to me, but from the Roman and Telugu transliteration, I'm fairly sure that is what's intended.
This is taken from a letter of an early eighteenth-century Jesuit missionary to a Telugu-speaking region who (like me) confessed that he'd forgotten all the Sanskrit he'd learned, so the errors here may be his or mine.
Best wishes
Will
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