Later Mughals v1.c4.s3: His Edition of Manucci's Travels
Later Mughals v1.c4.s3
- Language
- English
Contents
- v1.c4.s3.t1 History of Manucci's Mss. — 14 parts
His Edition of Manucci's Travels
v1.c4.s3.1
Of all Mr. Irvine's works the *Travels of Manucci* (*Storia do Mogor*) is most appreciated by the European public, and with them, strangely enough, it is his chief title to fame as a scholar. This attitude is well reflected by the *Pioneer* (18th November, 1911), which thus notices his death:—
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"At Home Mr. Irvine's name outside a small circle of students must have been as nearly as possible unknown when the first two volumes of his Manucci appeared in 1907 and were at once recognized as the most valuable and important work of the kind that had seen the light since the publication of Col. Yule's Marco Polo......His reputation as a scholar had been already established, and it stands on an enduring basis... ...It is not likely that any other English edition of Manucci's work will ever be forthcoming to supersede that of Mr. Irvine."
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The editor's work is a marvel of industry and accurate scholarship. It seems incredible that one man could have done it all, and a reviewer has well remarked, "The notes appear to have been written by a syndicate of scholars instead of by one man only." Mr. Irvine's notes and appendices are often of more value than Manucci's text, as they contain the fullest and most accurate information available in any European tongue, about the details of the reigns of Shah Jahan, Aurangzib and Shah Alam, with exact dates and references to authorities.
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Every person who crossed the orbit of Manucci or Manucci's acquaintances even for a moment, has his life unfolded here with a wealth of accurate detail. Indeed, it may be rightly said of William Irvine that he left no part of Indian history from 1650 to 1750 untouched, and touched nothing that he did not illumine. Writers on Indian history who are ignorant of Persian would do well to study the notes in the Storia and the Later Mughals and carefully correct their own statements in the light of the information there collected.
History of Manucci's Mss.
v1.c4.s3.t1.1
Before Mr. Irvine rediscovered Manucci's MSS. at Berlin and Venice, that Italian traveller had been known to the world only through the pirated and incorrect French version made by Catrou, and scholars had been sighing for the recovery of the original text as a thing hardly to be hoped for.
v1.c4.s3.t1.2
The history of Manucci's book reads like a romance. Niccolao Manucci had left Venice in November, 1653 at the age of fourteen as a stowaway. Reaching India in January 1656, he took service under Prince Dara Shukoh and latterly under Shah Alam. At intervals he set up practice as a doctor without any medical training, travelled all over India, went through various adventures and changes of fortune, and passed his old age at Madras and Pondicherry, dying in 1717. Thus his life in India covered more than sixty years.
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At different times he wrote his history of the Mughals (Storia do Mogor) in Portuguese, French and Italian,—about one-third of the whole work having been drawn up originally in his mother tongue Italian, and nearly the whole being rewritten in Portuguese mixed with French. It consists of five parts, dealing with
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(i) the author's journey from Venice to Delhi and a short chronicle of the Mughal Emperors down to the accession of Aurangzib,
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(ii) the reign of Aurangzib, with the author's personal history,
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(iii) the Mughal Court, its system of government and revenue, much mixed up with digressions on European companies, the Hindu religion, Indian animals, the Catholics in India, &c.
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(iv) current events in the Mughal camp in the Deccan from 1701, with long accounts of the doings of the Jesuits and other Catholics,
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(v) events in 1705 and in 1706, with many stories of earlier years interspersed.
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The first three parts he sent to Paris in 1701 by the hand of M. Boureau Deslandes, an officer of the French East India Company, "evidently in the hope that the *Storia* would be published at the expense of Louis XIV." Deslandes lent the MS. to Father Francis Catrou, a Jesuit, who in 1705 published an incomplete, garbled and grossly incorrect French version of it, with interpolations from other sources. This work ends with 1658 and has been translated into English, two reprints of the English version having been issued in Calcutta since 1900. In 1715 Catrou published a continuation, which is almost entirely taken from Part II. of Manucci's MS. and wholly covers the reign of Aurangzib. It had not been translated into English before.
v1.c4.s3.t1.10
This Manucci MS.,—*i.e.*, the version of the *Storia* which was first sent to Europe,—lay in the library of the Jesuits in Paris till 1763 when it was sold with other works of that collection and passed through successive hands into the Royal Library of Berlin (1887). It is described as the *Berlin Codex Phillipps* 1945, consisting of three volumes written in Portuguese with three gaps subsequently filled up in French, and this is the text translated by Mr. Irvine.
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When Manucci in India learnt of the audacious plagiarism of Catrou, he sent (1706) the original Italian draft of his *Storia*, Parts I. II. and III. (which he had always kept by himself), as well as the only extant MS. of Parts IV (French) and V (French and Portuguese), to the Senate of Venice, begging that august body "to order the publication of this little work which is likely to be of the greatest use to travellers, missionaries, and merchants, etc." This MS. is styled *Venice Codex XLIV* of Zanetti's catalogue. The original text of Part V is now in the San Marco Library, Venice. (Italian MS., class VI No. 135.)
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An Italian version of Part V in manuscript was made by Count Cardeira out of Portuguese in 1712, (Venice Codex XLV).
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For a long time it was believed that the MS. which Manucci had presented to the Venetian Senate was mislaid during Napoleon's invasion of the Republic. But what Napoleon I. took away in 1797 was only a volume of 56 contemporary portraits of the Princes and other celebrities of the Mughal Empire drawn at Manucci's instance by Mir Muhammad, an artist in the household of Shah Alam, before 1686, and presented by Manucci to the Senate. (It is now O. D. No. 45 of the National Library, Paris). These portraits are of surpassing value and have been reproduced in Mr. Irvine's edition. Another volume of 66 drawings of Hindu gods, religious ceremonies, etc., sent by Manucci to Venice at the same time, is still there.
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While scholars were for nearly a century mourning the disappearance of Manucci's original MSS., they had been quietly reposing in the Library of Saint Mark, Venice, their original destination! In 1899 Mr. Irvine rediscovered them there, and three years afterwards had them copied for his use. The Government of India lent him generous aid, and his translation was published in four sumptuous volumes in the "Indian Texts Series" in 1907 and 1908. Manucci in his original and undistorted form has at last been placed within the reach of readers, and the confusion, error, and obscurity which hung over his work for more than two centuries have at last been dispelled. This is Irvine's achievement.