PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER, A JESUIT AT THE MOGUL COURT ArNuLF Camps * was 46 years of age and the Persian language was completely un- known to him. Having been received by the Emperor Akbar, he was advised to learn Persian. Evidently Jerome Xavier took this advice to heart, for, relating this event to his Jesuit Superior in Rome, he wrote : “Now our entire occupation is to learn the Persian language and, morcover, we trust in God’s mercy that within the space of one year we shall speak it; only then we shall be able to say that we arein Lahore, for upto now we are statues”, For a manof his age one year appeared to be insufficient time. But there was another reason why / Jerome Xavier spent long years in learn- ing Persian, for — as he wrote in another letter — in matters ofreligion a distinguished tongue was necessary?.It wasonly after five years that the nobles at the court listened to him with pleasure. In one of his main works Xavier summarizes his effortsin studying Persian: “It has cost us much labour to compile so many facts and arguments taken from various laws and to put them into style and order for better understanding, and much more to write them in the Persian language, which is so strange’ to us and which I began to learn from the ABC's as it were in. my old age in order to render Your Highness this service””®, ws the Spanish nobleman, Jerome Xavier entered Lahore in 1595, he It was after 1600 that Jerome Xavier, having mastered Persian, started publishing his most important works in ‘that language. But not until bis return to Goa did he continue to revise his works, as according to his own words, that language was only easy when no attention was paid to the style that must be employed in books. He made use of the help of local scholars, but their role consisted mainly in effecting improvements; we know that Abdu’s 1, Autographed letter, Lahore, August 20, 1959, Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu (ARS1), Goa 14, fol. 288v. Autographed letter, Lahore, August 1, 1598, ARSI, Goa 46 I, fol. 37. Gfr. A. Camps, OFM, Jerome Xavier S. 7. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire, Supple- menta VI of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft, Schoneck-Beckenried (Switzerland), 1957, 183, His Highness is Emperor Akbar. > ep * Dr, Arnulf Camps, Ph.D. (Holland), formerly Officer Franciscan Friary Mission, St. Patricks’ Cathedral, Karachi, :1961 PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER 167 Sattar ibn Qasim Lahuri was Xavier’s collaborator in writing the Life of the Lord Jesus’, Our main intention in writing this article is to give a description of Xavier’s literary activity, but before doing so we would like to introduce this interesting personality to the reader. I. LIFE AND PERSONALITY OF FATHER JEROME XAVIER, S. J. The proper name of Xavier was Jeronimo de Ezpeletay Goni. He was a grand-nephew of Saint Francis Xavier, whose name he adopted after having joined the Jesuit Fathers. He was born in 1549 in the Spanish Province of ‘Navarra and all we know about his youth is that he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Alcala and that he entered the Society of the Jesuit Fathers in 1568. In five years he completed his philoso- phical and theological studies and was ordained a priest in 1573. He taught elementary subjects for some years and was then sent to the Indies. Soon after his arrival in Goa in 1581 he fell ill. In 1584 he was Rector. of the College at Bassein, and from 1586 till 1592 Rector of the college at Cochin. From 1592 till 1594 he was Superior of the Jesuit Fathers at the Professed House of Goa. When the Emperor. Akbar for the third time asked the Jesuit Fathers to send a mission to bis court, Xavier was elected as leader of the mission. He was to spend twenty years of his life far away fromthe Portuguese centres with one of the great personages of India, the Emperor Akbar, and with his successor, Jahangir. Leaving Goa on December 3, 1594, Jerome Xavier and his two compan- ions travelled via Cambay, Ahmadabad’ and Patan and reached Lahore on May 5, 1595. Except for a short visit to Kashmir in 1597, Xavier remained with the Emperor at Lahore till 1598. His main occupations were the study of Persian, the preparation of his main work, the Truth-showing Mirror and attendance at the disputes on religion which took place in the presence of the Emperor. From 1598 to 1601 Xavier followed the army of the Emperor during the campaign in the Deccan. After this Akbar took up bis residence at Agra and Xavier remained with him till his death in October, 1605. This period of four years was utilized by Xavier in pursuit of his chief ambition : to create a Christian religious literature written in the Persian tongue. After the death of Akbar, his son Jahangir moved the court temporarily to Lahore, from where he returned to Agra in 1608. Jerome Xavier accom- panied him all this time, Till 1614 Xavier was living at Agra writing and rewrit- ing his Persian works. His stay in the Mogul Empire endedin 1614 when he was sent to Goa to restore peace between the Moguls and the Portuguese, Back in Goa in 1615, he was appointed Rector of St. Paul’s College where he died on June 27, 1617. In the same year he was elected Coadjutor-Arch- bishop of Cranganore, but this news never reached him.* 4. Ibid., 181-183 and 191-192. 5. For the biography of Jerome Xavier, see Ibid., 2-13.168 ISLAMIC CULTURE july Such was the life of one of the most outstanding Jesuits who stayed in the Mogul Empire. He was a man witha strong character and a keen in- sight. That he endeavoured to become a scholar in Persian after having reached the age of 46 certainly proves his calibre, whereas the subjects he treated in his works as also the irenic attitude he showed in them indicate that he had understood the minds of the Emperors he served, Akbarand Jahangir A survey of his Persian works may illustrate these observations well. I. THE PERSIAN WORKS OF FATHER JEROME XAVIER, S. J. We restrict ourselves to the Persian works of Xavier and leave out those written’ in other languages. We may distinguish three categories of his works: those that have come down to us, the writings that seem to be lost, and the the works possibly written by Xavier. A, PERSIAN WORKS WHICH HAVE COME DOWN TO US 1, MiPatu*l-quds ya'ni dastan-i hazrat-i ‘isa (The Mirror of Holiness Viz., the Life of the Lord Jesus) This book is dated Agra, 1602, and was presented to Akbar, who had it read to himself, and afterwards it was presented to Jahangir, who receiv- ed it with reverence?. It is a combination of texts taken from the Holy Gospels, but there area few popular legends in it. Ithas four parts: The Nativity and Infancy of Jesus Christ, His Miracles and Teaching, His Death and Suffering, and His Resurrection and Ascension. Maclagan has given the following list of the still extant manuscripts : “There is one in the musuem at Lahore dated 1602 which is incomplete and in bad condition, but bears Akbar’s seal and is interleaved with eleven pic- tures. In the Oriental Public Library at Patna there is a good and complete copy dating from 1627, besides an incomplete copy which is probably of much later date. The Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta has two copies, one of which dates from 1604 and bears the seal of Akbar. There is one in the School of Oriental Studies in London, on the first page of which is written in Xavier’s own handwriting Espelho sto e puro emq se trata da vida e maravilhosa docta de Fesu x° n° st. In the British Museum there are two copies, one dat- ing from 1618 and one apparently from the eighteenth century : of which the former seems to have been brought from Aleppo before 1686 and the latter to have belonged to Claude Martin of Lucknow. The Bodleian Libr- ary at Oxford has a copy which bears an illuminated cross on the first page 6. Letter of Jerome Xavier, Lahore, September 25, 1606, a copy of which is kept in the British Museum (Br. Mus.), Add. MSS. 9854, fol. 40, F. Guerreiro, 8. J., Relacam Anual Das Cousas Que Fezeram Os Padras da Companhia de Jesus Nas Partes da India Oriental, et no Brazil, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guine, nos anos de seiscentos et doi, et seiscentos et tres, Lisboa 1605, Livro II, 52, records the presentation to Akbar in 1602. 7. Annua de 603 da Provincia de Goa en Partes do Norte, written by Father Gasparo Fernandes at Goa on December 2, 1603, ARSI, Goa 33 I, fol. 126,1961 PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER 169 and is alleged to be the original copy presented to Akbar, Another copy is in the Lindsey Collection in the John Rylands Library at Manchester and another, which belonged to Richard Johnson, the banker of Warren Hastings, is in the India Office. The Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris has another, the Casanatense Library at Rome another, and there is one in the Gotha Library which is enriched with autograph notes written by Xavier himself”. Three more copies of the work may be added to this list: the first is in the Biblioteca Vaticana, of which the introduction and some of the pages following are missing,9 the second is to be found in the Sultani Museum at Bahawalpur and has 195 folios and 28 illuminations'®, and the third belongs to the private collection of the Nizam at Hyderabad-Deccan". These seventeen still extant manuscripts prove that the work was quite popular among the nobles of the Mogul Court. In the West it became well known through the edition of the Persian text and a Latin translation pub- lished by a Dutch Protestant, Ludovicus de Dieu, in 1639". 2, A’ina-yi hagg-numa (The Truth-showing Mirror) This is the chief work of Father Xavier and it took him twelve years to complete it. A Spanish text exists in the archives of the Jesuit Generalate in Rome, but here we are only concerned with the Persian text. It appears from some copies that the work was issued in 1609". Again Maclagan supplies us with information about the still extant copies : “There is a copy in the British Museum once owned by the poet Alexander Pope which dates from the year 1610, another copy in the Aca- demy at Leningrad, another in the Casanatense Library at Rome, another in the Library of Queen’s College, Cambridge, and another in the Edinburgh University Library”'4, We may add: a copy in the Biblioteca Vaticana which dates from the year 16095. Altogether six copies have been preserved. The work is a voluminous one ; the copy in the British Museum, for example, has 525 folios. The work is written in the form of a dialogue between three interlocutors : a Father, a sceptic Philosopher and a Mullah. The Father represents Xavier, the Philosopher Emperor Akbar and the Mullah the Muslim theologians at the court. “The work may, therefore, also be called a comparative study of Christianity, Islam and Scepticism and, incidentally, also of Hinduism. As far as Islam is concerned, an exact knowledge of the Qur’an and the Hadith 8. E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London 1932, 203-204 and 217, notes 110° 9. E, Rossi, Elenco dei Manoscritti Persian della Boblioteca Vaticana, Citta del Vaticano 1948, 75-76. 10, Sultani Museum, Bahawalpur, no. 256. 11. F. zu Lewenstein, S. J., Christliche Bilder in altindischer Malerei, Munster, i.w. 1958, 11. 12. Historia Christi persice conscribta, Lugduni Batavorum 1639, Gfr. Camps, op. cit., 16. 13, Ibid., 16-17. 14. Op. cit., 206 and 218, notes 24-28. 15, Rossi, op. ett. 74.170 ISLAMIC CULTURE Fuly is noteworthy. Though it is true that there are some quite strong statements to be found in those passages where the Father treats of Islamic topics, all the same we notice a fundamentally irenic attitude. Repeatedly, Xavier observed that only zeal for the truth incites him to speak and not hatred or malevolence. We should not forget that the work was written at the end of the sixteenth century and in the beginning of the seventeenth and not in the twentieth which would have a different atmosphere. It should also be taken into account that the arguments brought forward both by the Mullah and the Father reflect discussions actually held at the Mogul Court and it is well known that Emperor Akbar, especially, possessed a liberty of thought and that he liked frank-exchanges of views. This is the main reason why the statements both of the Mullah and the Father sound too strong for our ears. The Truth-showing Mirror is divided into five books. In the first book the author wants to prove that mankind needs a revealed religion and ulso that the religion revealed by God to mankind can be only one. Here Xavier takes a stand against the rationalistic and syncretistic attitude of Emperor Akbar. It is then agreed between the Father and the Philosopher that only human reason will be used as a means of discovering the true religion. Three principles are set up which have to guide human reason in its discovery of the rue religion : it has to teach mankind to know God in the best possible manner it has to instruct mankind how to serve God and to accomplish His Will in a spiritual manner ; and finally, it should provide mankind with the aids necessary to weak human nature in order to fulfil God’s Will. These three principles contain the outlines of the rest of the work. It may be observed that the fourth and the fifth book mainly deal with Islam and Christianity or-in other words-that these two books contain a discussion be- tween the Father and the Mullah whereas the Philosopher now disappears into the background®, ‘The work became well-known through an abridgement which will be dealt with next. 3. The Abridgement of the A’ina-yi hagg-numa Ina letter written by Xavier in 1609 he informs us that he made a sum- mary of the Truth-showing Mirror, as much of the Emperor’s time was taken up by the cares of government'?. Maclagan knows about two copies, one in the British Museum and the other in the State Library at Leningrad"®, We may again add two more copies: the first in the Biblioteca Vaticana9 and the second in the National Library at Paris, The title of the work is not uniform as it is sometimes called Muntakhab, or Khulasa. 16, For a detailed study of this chief work of Xavier, cfr. Camps, op. cit., 92-175. 17." Letter written from Agra on October 20, 1609, a copy of whichis kept in the Archivum Provinciae Toletanae Societatis Jesu (APTSI), Madrid, leg. 896. 18. Op. rit., 208, and 209, note 35. 19. Rossi, op. cit., 75. 20. E. Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans de la Bibliotheque Nationale, IV, Paris 1934, ML 7 .1961 PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER 71 The work is not written in the form of a dialogue and it has only four chapters: the knowledge and the nature of God, the true God Jesus our Lord, the Commandments of the Gospel, and the divine aids. Ti? copy in the British Museum contains an addition consisting of the Our Father and the Apostles’ Creed. The work is rather small; the copy in the British Museum has 55 folios. The subsequent history of the work is very interesting. It found its way into Persia where Ahmed ibn Zain al-‘Abidin wrote a defence entitled: Misyal-isafa dar tajlaya wa tasfiya-yi a? ina-yi hagq-numa dar radd-i maz*:b-i nasira or The Clean Polisher for the Brightening and Polishing of the Tr-th-showing Mirror in Refutation of the Doctrine of the Christians. The book w2s written during the years 1622-1623. Some Carmelite Fathers staying in Persia sent the work of Ahmad ibn Zain to Rome where two rejoinders were written. The first, by Bonaventura Malvasia, was composed both in Arabic and Latin : Jala’ al-mirut radd ‘ala Zain al ‘Abidin; Dilucidatio Speculi verum monstrantis, in qua instruitur in fide Christiana Hamid filius Zin Elabici= in regno Persarum Princeps, et refellitur liber a doctoribus Persis editus sub tetulo s:zeuli verum monstrantis, per Bonaventuram Matvasiam, Bononiensem, Franciscanum C:-ventualem, Romae, 1628. Another rejoinder was writen by Father Filippo Gtadagnoli; this Latin work is entitled Apologia pro Christiana religione qua a Philicpo Guada- gnolo, Malleanensi Clericorum Regul. Minorum ‘respondetur ad obiectionss Ahmed jilii Zin Alabedin, Persae Asphanensis, contentae in Libro inscripto Polizir Speculi, Romae, 1631. An Arabic edition of the work was produced by tse Father himself in Rome (1037 and 1649). Two more rejoinders were composed outside Rome. Chefauc.a French missionary, wrote a Persian defence in the first half of the seventeenth cen- tury, but the work has not come down to us. Then there is the 4.ayisha’i hi ba’d an aluda shud a’ina-yi hagg-numa az musaigilash-i anonimus or The Stain-bes- pattered Truth-showing Mirror by an anonymous Jesuit. The work was written in India during the years 1655-1656 and copies can still be found ia the State Library at Leningrad and in the National Library of Paris.2* 4. Dastan-i ahwal-i hawariyan-i hazrat-i ‘isa wa zikr-i managib-i shan (History of the Vicissitudes of the Apostles of the Lord Jesus and Commemoration of their virtues.) It seems that Akbar was presented with an incomplete copy ci the work before his death in 1605, as the one in the Goethals Library of §:. Xavier's College, Calcutta, contains only four lives and bears the seal of Asbar. In December, 1607, the work was ready and was presented to Jahang:, who en- joyed reading it.22 21, For the subsequent history of the abridgement of the Truth-Showing Mirror, see Camps, opecit., 175-177. 22. Authenticated letter of Xavier, Agra, September 14, 1608, Br, Muss:-Add-MSS 9854, fol. 64,172 ISLAMIC CULTURE july Maclagan informs us about the whereabouts of still extant copies: “There are two copies of this work in the Library of-the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta;...one in the Serampur College Library. The Bodleian Library has a copy, and so have the Leyden Library and the School of Orient- al Studies in London, and there are two copies in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris3, Two copies must be added to this list: one in the Biblioteca Vaticana, 4 and the other, though incomplete, in the Goethals Library of St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta.25 The work is rather voluminous; the copy belonging to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London has 196 folios. The Parisian copies have a different title: Waga’i-i hawariyan-i duwazdagana or Acts of the twelve Apostles, The complete work is mainly based on the acts of the Apostles, a work belonging to the New Testament, but Xavier incorporated a few legends in it, The intention of the author is to show how peacefully Christ- ianity was spread by the Apostles and their followers. One of the lives, the life of St. Peter, was edited in Persian and trans- lated into Latin by Ludovious de Dieu, a Dutch Protestant, in 1639,26 and the complete work was translated into Urdu at Sardhana under the auspices of the Capuchin Fathers and printed there in 1894 with the title of Nuska-i Kitab bara Apostel.27 5. Adabu’s-saltanat (The Duties of Kingship) This work was presented to Emperor Jabangir at his court at Agra in 160g. In one of his letters Xavier callsit Directorio de Reyes or Guide of the Kings.8 There are two copies of this work which have come down to us: one is in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the other is in the Casanatense Library at Rome; both copies were known to Maclagan.29 The copy in the School of Oriental and African Studies is very beautifully written in red and black characters and it has 286 folios. Both copies bear an inscription and dedication in Xavier’s own handwriting, stating that the work was composed at Agra in 1609. The book could be called a moral code for kings; it treats, in four chapters, of the reverence and obedience due to - the king, the practice of all the virtues a king should possess, the doctrine 209, and 219, notes 48-54. 24, Rossi, op. cif., 99-100. 23, The Clergy Monthly Supplement, 21 (Ranchi 1957) 344. This copy was brought to Louvain (Mission Library of the Jesuit Theologate) before the last war, but was sent back to India when peace returned ; Maclagan, op. cit., 209, and Camps, of. cit., 22 state that it is still in Belgium. 26. Historia S. Petri persice conscripta, Lugduni Batavorum 1639. 27. Maclagan, op. cit., 210, 28. Letter written from Agra on October 20, 1608, a copy of which is kept in APTIS, leg. 29. Op. cit, 215, and 221, note 89.1961 PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER 173 and direction to be given by the king to his grandees, and the love, protec tion and providence of his people. 6. Zabur (The Psalms of David) In the School of Oriental and African Studies in London a Persian text of the Psalter is preserved which bears the following inscription : Psalter of David according to the Vulgate, translated by Father Jerome Zavier of the Society of Jesus, in the city of Agra, court of the Great Mogul Jahangir” 3° This inscription is an autograph and proves that Xavier himself made a translation of the Psalter based upon the Latin text of the Vulgate. This work was presented by Xavier to the Florentine traveller Giambattista Vecchietti, who stayed at Agra from 1603 to 1604 together with Xavier. As the work was composed during the reign of Jahangir, it must have been Presented to the Florentine after his departure from India.st It is a beauti- ually written manuscript in black and red characters. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has another Persian text of the Psalter bearing the following inscription: “‘Psalms of David translated from the Latin by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus who are much experienced in the Persian language.” As this translation is also based upon the Latin Vulgate, it is most probably from Xavier and his colleagues.3? 7. Baya-i Iman-i‘Isawiyan , (Explanation of the Faith of the Chtistians) In the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus a Persian manuscript of 59 folios, of which the beginning is missing, is to be found, At theend of the work we find the colophon : ruz-i du-shanbih rajabu°l murajjab..sanat alf u sabe or “Monday of the month Rajab, the venerated, 18, of the year 1007”, This corresponds to the beginning of 1549 A.D. From the contents it appears to be a commentary on the twelve articles of the Christian Faith. As the first pages of the work are missing, we cannot ascertain its title from the work itself. But the Persian text is only a part of a. manuscript in the Roman Archives; the other part is a Portuguese autograph of Xavier and also contains a detailed explanation of the twelve articles under the title: Comprehensive Explanation of the Creed.33. That this must also have been the title of the Persian work appears from a note of Father Morandi who mentions a Bayan-i iman-i ‘isawiyan as a work of Xavier.% 30, Psalterio de David conforme a edicao Vulgata, traudcido polo padre Jeronimo Xavier ea companhia de Jesum na cidade de Agra corte do grao Mogol Ray’Jahanguir. ‘This inscription is found on the first folio of MS. 12144. 31. Gfr. W. J. Fischel, The Bible in Persian Translation, The Hareard Theological Review 45 (Cambridge, Mass., 1952) 17-21. : 32, Maclagan, op. cit., 212 and 220, note 71; Camps, op. cit., 24. 33. ARSI, Opp. NN.'347; ofr. Camps, op. cil., 25-26. 34. Gfr. note 39 of the present article.174 ISLAMIC CULTURE July 8. The Gospels Jerome Xavier sent several Persian copies of she Gospels to Europ two of them are still extant, one in the Casanatense Library and the other in the Gregorian University Library at Rome. These, however, were not translations made by Xavier but copies of already existing ancient translations. There is no historical evidence for a fresh translation made by Xavier and we are only sure of an emendation of an already existing Persian version. Asa matter of fact, Jerome Xavier presented Jahangir with an emended version in 1607.35 B. WRITINGS THAT SEEM TO BE LOST Our information concerning the works belonging to this category is derived from several sources. First of all, Xavier mentions in some of his letters some of his works which up till today have not yet come to light. He gave them the following titles :. Books on the histories of some Saints ; Some Histories Translated into Persian; and a Book in Persian Containing Sayings of Some of Our Philosophers and Curious Things. The second work was presented to Emperor Akbar in 1596 and it did not contain religious subjects, as Xavier had not yet mastered Persian. The third work was written for Akbar in 160+ at his own request, and it seems that he and his courtiers read it with pleasure.36 Information is also gathered from-a letter of the Father General of the Society of Jesus, Claudius Aquaviva. It appears that the Father General was of the opinion that Xavier should not devote so much time to Persian translations and that ic was certainly not Xavier’s task to translate Cicero's De offciis, The letter was written in 1608 and we do not know whether Jerome Xavier ever completed the work or had already completed it.37 In the beginning of the eighteenth century Father Ippolito Desideri, S.J., spent sometime in the Mogul Empire and he made a list of the Persian works of Xavier ; this list is all the more useful because Desideri only des- cribes those works which he himself had personally seen, Apart from works mentioned above, Desideri records the titles of the following writings not mentioned by other authorities: The Life of the Blessed Virgin; Some Books of Prayer and Pious Exercises ; and The Big and Small Catechism.3® "It may be that the Small Catechism is identical with the Bayan-i iman-i‘isawiyan referred to above. 35. Camps, of. cil., 26-32. 36. Gfr. Xavier’s letters of October 20, 1609, written from Agra, a copy of which is kept in APTSI, leg. 896; of September 8, 1596, written from Lahore, a copy of which is kept in ARSI, Goa 46 I, fol. 32; and the autographed letter of September 6, 1604, written from Agra and kept in Br. Mus., Add. MSS 9854, fol. 12, 37. J. Wicki, S. J., “Auszuge aus den Briefen der Jesuitengenerale and die Obern in Indien (1549-1613)”, Archieum Historicum Societatis Jesu 22 (Rome 1953) 166. 38. T, Petech J MissonariIaliant ne Tibet e nel Nepal, Ippolito Desideri$, J, Parte V, Rome1961 PERSIAN WORKS OF JEROME XAVIER 175 Another list of the Persian works of Xavier was drawn up by Father Francesco Morandi, S. J., and is to be found at the back of a copy of the Adabu ‘s-saltanat kept in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Fr. Morandi copied and collected the works of Xavier at Agra about 164939. There is one work in this list which is not mentioned by any other author : Intikhab-i ‘aga’id-i din-i ‘isawiyan or Extract of the Fundamental Articles of the Faith of the Christians, This work too has not come down to us and, there- fore, we are not in a position to find out whether it is identical with one of the Catechisms mentioned by Desideri. C. PERSIAN WORKS POSSIBLY WRITTEN BY JEROME XAVIER In the list drawn up by Fr. Morandi there is a series of titles regarding which Morandi states that he does not know which Fath living in the Mogul Empire was the author. They are the following: Maczlst-i Plutarku (Say- ings from Plutarch); Sharh-i bina-yi ruma wa zikr-i padshahz-i u (The History of the Foundation of Rome and an account of Her Kings); Sia'if-i mugaddamat-i Falasifa (Books on the Premises of the Philosophers); Jntithab-i din-i ‘isawiyan (Summary of the Faith of the Christians); Tarjuma-yi Plstorku (Translations from Plutarch); Kitabat-i Plutarku dar bab-i taskin-i. marg-i pisar (The Book of Plutarch on Consolation on the Occasion of the Death of a Son ‘ kiaz dushman tawan ba-dast award (Plutarch on the Advantage to be obtained from Enemies); Ba‘zi mugaddamati-i Marku Tuliu (Some Works of Marcus Tullius).s° One has to be cautious in this matter and should not ascribe these works without good reasons to Jerome Xavier, forin a letter written from Agra in 1686 Fr. [gnatio Gomez stated that, besides Xavier, other Fathers also, who were residing in the Mogul Empire, had written books in Persian 4". All the same, reading these titles, one gets the impression of being very close to a literary inheritance of Xavier: ‘Some Works of Marcus Tullius reminds one of the admonition ofthe General that it was not the Father’s task to translate Cicero’s De Oficiis, and the Books of the Premises of the Philosophers recalls A Book in Persian Containing Sayings of Some of our Philosophers and Curious Things, whilst The History of the Foundation of Rome and an Account of Her Kings may have some relation to Some Histories Translated into Persian. It is striking, moreover, that the Vatican and other libraries have copies of a book entitled Intikhab-i ‘aga’id wa amaliyat-i din ‘isawiyan (Summary ofthe Fundamental Articles of the Faith and Practice of the Religion of the Christians). This work is a Persian translation of a Catechism of Cardinal Bellarminus and was made by the Fathers at Lahore before the year 1619. Nearly the same title appearsin the list of Morandi, but it also suggests the big or the small Catech- ism mentioned by Desideri or the Extract of the Fundamental Articles of the Christians’’#*, These reminiscences are striking, but lack of further informat- ion prevents us from identifying the author of these works. 39. MS 7030 of the School of Oriental and African Studies ; cfr. Camps, op. cit., 13 note 4. 40. Gyr. the preceding note. ) 5 Letter written on September 7, 1686, and kept in Br. Mus., Add. MSS 9854, fol. 151. Camps op. cit. 37-38.176 ISLAMIC CULTURE ub The same isthe case with some other books. A Persian grammar, called Rudimenta Linguae Persicae, is kept in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and it is interesting to note that the Jesuit Bibliographer Alcazar included a similar work among the writings of Jerome Xavier 43, The same School possesses a Portuguese-Hindustani-Persian Dictionary +4 and it is known that the collection which was in the possession of Marsden contained a Siraju *l-munir or The Brilliant Lamp, a treatise on morals in twenty sections, and two more dictionaries, a Persian and a Portuguese-Hundastani 45, It is quite probable that these works were written by one of the Fathers of Agra and Lahore as these writings met their needs, but the present information available does not permit us to come to a definite conclusion. This survey of the literary activity of Fr. Jerome Xavier may prove that he was endowed with a strong character; it is quite exceptional that a man starts studying a foreign language at the age of 46 and that he, moreover, produces a respectable number of books. It also proves his keen insight into the mentality of the Emperors Akbar and Jahangir, who were very interested in the doctrines of various religions. By writing his religious and philosophi- cal works Jerome Xavier tried to supply them with reliableinformation about Christianity and Western Philosophy. 43, MS 12198 of the School of Oriental and African Studies ; crf: Camps, op. cit., 39. 44, MS 11952. 45. The whereabouts of these three manuscripts remain unknown; crf. Camps, op. cil., 27, 4, and 39, note 2.