La porte ouverte, pour parvenir à la connoissance du paganisme caché. Ou la vraye representation de la vie, des moeurs, de la religion, & du service divin des Bramines, qui demeurent sur les costes de Chormandel, & aux pays circonvoisins. Traduite en François par Thomas la Grue.

La porte ouverte, pour parvenir à la connoissance du paganisme caché. Ou la vraye representation de la vie, des moeurs, de la religion, & du service divin des Bramines, qui demeurent sur les costes de Chormandel, & aux pays circonvoisins. Traduite en François par Thomas la Grue.

Roger, Abraham

Editore: Amsterdam, 1670

Small 4to, pp.[xii], 371, [iv], engraved tltle, 4 engraved plates, 1 folding, 2 text illustrations. Abraham Roger, a Dutch missionary, spent ten years, 1630-40, at Pulicut on the Coromandel Coast, where he met Padmanava, a Brahman fugitive from Goa, who taught him the substance of Hinduism. They collaborated through their mutual language, Portuguese, to produce the first adaptation of a Sanskrit work into a western language, the seventh century verse of Bhatrhari, first published in Dutch in 1651. Roger also describes the beliefs and practices of Hinduism, and the life and customs of the Brahmins. "the most important contribution to Western knowledge of Hinduism until the arrival of Sir William Jones on the scene" - Mitter in Much Maligned Monsters. Schwab (1984) pp.138-140 A very good copy