16th century European contacts with Hinduism

[Valerie J Roebuck]

Dear List Members

>Someone has asked me: what language would Pico and his visitor have used to
>talk to one another?

Arabic now seems the most likely, perhaps with the aid of an interpreter.
Steve Farmer tells me that Pico had studied Arabic, among many other
languages.  The Indian must presumably have picked up Arabic on his long
journey via the Middle East.
>
>One theme that seems worthy of exploration is use of the word
>brahman/brahmin, and its various spellings, to represent brAhmaNa, and the
>ideas with which its associated.
>
>A scholar who contacted Steve Farmer through the Renaissance List has
>pointed out the following,

from Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, 1658, p. 7

>>    The Indian Brahmans seemed too great friends unto fire, who burnt
>> themselves alive, and thought it the noblest way to end their dayes in fire;
>> according to the expression of the Indian, burning himself at Athens, in his
>> last words upon the pyre unto the amazed spectators, Thus I make my selfe
>> Immortall.
>
It turns out that in the 1st edition, it's spelt Brachmans.  So there is
nothing here that could not be found in the Greeks, and indeed Browne puts
a note in the margin, after "Athens":  "And therefore the Inscription of
his Tombe was made accordingly Nic. Damasc. [Nicholas of Damascus]"

However the paragraph that follows includes a reference to India (though
not to Hinduism) that purports to be contemporary:

>But the Chaldeans the great Idolaters of fire, abhorred the burning of
>their carcasses, as a pollution of that Deity.  The Persian Magi declined
>it upon the like scruple, and being only sollicitous about their bones,
>exposed their flesh to the prey of Birds and Dogges.  And the Persees now
>in India, which expose their bodies unto Vultures, and endure not so much
>a feretra or Beers of Wood, the proper Fuell of fire, are led on with such
>niceties...

The latter part is a clear reference to the funerary practices of the
Parsees, who didn't settle in India till 936 CE.  Browne doesn't give a
source for this, but it must at least be post-classical.

Valerie J Roebuck
Manchester, UK