Paixao de Cristo

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Several poems, known popularly as Paixao de Cristo (Passion of Christ) in Portuguese, and as Christi Vilapika in Marathi, were written in Goa during the 17th century in the Marathi language using the Latin script, based on the sublime pathos of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Some of these poems were well-known to scholars like A.K. Priolkar and V.B. Prabhudessai, who called for critical study of them. Critical texts of three of these have recently been published in the book Goan Christian Marathi Vilapika during the 17th Century by Dr. S. M. Tadkodkar, currently Head of the Department of Marathi at the Goa University. [1]

Contents

Attribution to Thomas Stephens, SJ

The three poems published by Tadkodkar are found in the bound volume of Thomas Stephens’ Khristapurāṇa at the Central Library, Panjim (Discurso sobre a vinda de Jesu Christo Nosso Salvador ao Mundo dividido em dous tratados feito pelo Padre Thomas Estevão Ingrez da Companhia de Jesus. Impresso em Goa com licenca das Inquisicão, e Ordinario no Collegio de S. Paulo novo de Companhia de Jesu. Anno de 1654, Escripto por Manoel Salvador Rebello, Natural de Margão no Anno 1767). (This manuscript will henceforth be referred to as CL.) Tadkodkar attributes two of these, for reasons which will be listed below, to Thomas Stephens himself. [2]

Of the three texts, the authorship of the second (PG-2) is clearly identified within the text itself: "Esta paixão foy composta pello Padre Manoel Jacques de Noronha natural de Sancoale morador em Azossim freguezia de Sam Matheus das Ilhas de Goa. Escripto por Manoel Salvador Rebello, morador em Margão da Provincia da Salcete no anno 1768". [3] As for the other two (PG-1 and PG-3), Tadkodkar proposes—somewhat tentatively—that the author is Thomas Stephens himself. [4] His reasons are as follows:

  1. 4 stanzas of the Khristapurāṇa (II, 48-92, 95, 183, 184) have been bodily transferred to PG-3 (44, 45, 59). "There is no doubt that the poet ... was well conversant with the [sic] Stephens' classic writing. One cannot avoid the possibility that Stephens himself wrote the Vilāpikā, since that writing is included in the same bound [volume]. Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara ... states about it in his epoch-making Ensaio ... (Nova Goa, 1858).” [5]
  2. A certain Alex Rhodes speaks of having seen "a very fine poem on the Passion of Our Lord which the Christians sang in the Church in the evenings of all Lent Fridays". However, he does not actually attribute this work to Etienne de la Croix. [6]
  3. J.H. da Cunha Rivara speaks of a Paixão composed by Stephens, with additions made by da Faria: "Passion of Christ Our Redeemer, composed by Father Thomas Stephens of the Society of Jesus, and additions made by Pascoal Gomes da Faria, priest of the Order and habit of the Prince of the Apostles Saint Peter, native of Batim, parish of our Lady of Guadalupe, of the Island of Goa of a few hymns at the end of the book. Year 1772". [7]
  4. PG-1 and PG-3 have no confirmed authorship. "However, the nature of sublimity one experiences in the texts of the Passion resembles the sublimity one experiences in the PURĀNNA. Besides, some of the strophes from the PURĀNNA are bodily present in the third text of the Paixão de Cristo". Croix, says Tadkodkar, would never have claimed authorship, given that Stephens had died just recently, in 1619. [8]
  5. Michel Foucault, drawing from St Jerome, proposes four criteria for determining authorship: a constant level of quality or value; conceptual or theoretical coherence; stylistic unity; and historical unity. [9] Apart from pointing out a stylistic similarity (the Charanna-seuacu in PG-1 recalls the Christadāssu of the Khristapurāṇa II, 59, 123) Tadkodkar does not really pursue this fertile suggestion.
  6. It would not have been possible for anyone to insert the verses from the Khristapurana into the main handwritten copy of the Paixao without a nod from the Inquisition. "I strongly feel that paixão do Christo was part and parcel of Christpurānna, and that Stephens might have written two of the three poems". [10]

Critical apparatus

The critically edited texts may be found in ch. 6 (Latin script) and 7 (Devanagari script) of Tadkodkar's book.

Besides these, there are the appendices. Any student of Thomas Stephens will rejoice to have available transcripts and translations of the Censures and Licences pertaining to the first three print editions of the Khristapurāṇa, as found in CL (Appendix A). Appendix B is a glossary of terms, beginning with Romanized Marathi, going on to Devanagari Marathi, and ending with English. Appendices C and D consist of explanatory notes, C of Christian terms, and D of terms sourced by the Christian writers from contemporary and prior Marathi writers. E is interesting: four texts of the Chilayābāl Vilāpikā, composed by Shridhar, a 17th-century poet from Nazhare-Pandharpur, not far from Goa, and published here for the first time, perhaps because of the "remote possibility" of some connection with the Passion poems. [11] F contains select bibliography, and G is an index to the texts of the three Vilāpikās in Devanagari transliteration (misleadingly, however, entitled "Texts of the Christi Vilāpikā" in the Table of Contents).

Contents

  1. Christian Marathi literature in Goa.
  2. Contribution of A.K. Priolkar and V.B. Prabhudessai to the study of Christian Marathi literature written during the 17th century.
  3. Textual criticism and the Christian Marathi literature in Goa.
  4. Depiction of suffering and the Cry.
  5. Scheme of transliteration of Christian Marathi literature in Goa.
  6. Texts of the Paixao de Cristo (Christi Vilapika) in the Latin script.
  7. Texts of the Paixao de Cristo (Christi Vilapika) transliterated from the Latin script into the Devanagari script.
  8. Structure of Marathi language in Christian literature in Goa.
Appendices
  1. Censures and licenses.
  2. Glossary (Marathi-Roman as well as Devanagari script-English).
  3. Explanatory notes-I.
  4. Explanatory notes-II.
  5. Four texts of CHILAYABAL VILAPIKA.
  6. Bibliography.
  7. Texts of the Christi Vilapika.

Commentary

"This book is a faithful reproduction of original texts of Christian Marathi Vilapika (Passion of Christ), written by Catholic missionaries during the 17th century in Marathi language and Latin script, while the Portuguese were ruling Goa. Prof. (Dr.) S.M. Tadkodkar, an ardent research scholar of Christian Marathi literature of the 17th century, and who is also Professor and Head of Postgraduate Department of Instruction and Research in Marathi at Goa University, has offered in this book edited copies of three poems based on sublime pathos of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. He also transliterated the texts into the Devanagari script. Dr. Tadkodkar has restored original texts after following principles of textual criticism. The author has also investigated linguistic form of the 17th century in Goa to explore whether it resembles with that of 12th and 13th centuries Marathi language in Maharashtra. The linguistic erudition reflected in these consolidated texts would emerge as a patient study of the 17th century enriched with glossary and copious notes. This attempt should be considered as the valuable contribution to the understanding of vernacular languages, which offer potentially abundant material for specialized linguistics." (jacket)

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Prof. (Dr.) S.M. Tadkodkar, Goan Christian Marathi Vilapika during the 17th Century an extraordinary book: Delhi: B.R. Publications, 2009.

Prof. (Dr.) Tadkodkar, proposes that 2 of the 3 Paixao de Christo found at the end of the MS of the Khristapurana preserved in the State Central Library, Panaji, Goa, were written by Thomas Stephens himself.

The book - which is practically sold out - contains transcriptions of many other parts of the MS: the Censures and Licences, for example.

Prof. (Dr.) Tadkodkar teaches a course called "Christian Marathi Literature" every year to his students. Every year, he told me, he has problems from his students: Sir, why do we have to study this stuff? And every year, by the end of the course, they say: This is the best course we have attended.

Prof. (Dr.) Tadkodkar has much admiration for Thomas Stephens. His writings are able to move people even today, reaching out across temporal, religious and community barriers to touch the hearts of those who read and hear. Posted by Father Ivo Coelho at Indian Christian Writings: A Bibliography

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Devanagari</span> Writing script for many North Indian and Nepalese languages

Devanāgarī or Devanagari, also called Nāgarī, is a left-to-right abugida, based on the ancient Brāhmī script, used in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. It was developed and in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanāgarī script, composed of 47 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 33 consonants, is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marathi language</span> Indo-Aryan language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state of Goa. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, with 83 million speakers as of 2011. Marathi ranks 11th in the list of languages with most native speakers in the world. Marathi has the third largest number of native speakers in India, after Hindi and Bengali. The language has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indian languages. The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi and the Varhadi dialect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konkani language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India

Konkani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Konkani people, primarily in the Konkan region, along the western coast of India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages mentioned in the Indian Constitution, and the official language of the Indian state of Goa. It is a minority language in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat & Damaon, Diu & Silvassa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goan literature</span>

Goan literature is the literature pertaining to the state of Goa in India.

Goans is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India, who form an ethno-linguistic group resulting from the assimilation of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Indo-Portuguese, and Austro-Asiatic ethnic and/or linguistic ancestries. They speak different dialects of Konkani language natively, collectively known as Goan Konkani. "Goanese" is an incorrect term for Goans.

Thomas Stephens was an English Jesuit priest and missionary in Portuguese India, writer and linguist.

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<i>Krista Purana</i>

Krista Purana is an epic poem on the life of Jesus Christ written in a mix of Marathi and Konkani by Fr.Thomas Stephens, S.J. (1549–1619). Adopting the literary form of the Hindu puranas, it retells the entire story of mankind from the creation days to the time of Jesus, in lyrical verse form. The Christian Puranas – 11,000 stanzas of 4 verses – were very popular in the churches of the area where they were sung on special occasions up to the 1930s. Although no copy of the original edition has yet been discovered, it is believed to have been published at Rachol (Raitur) in 1616, 1649, and 1654.

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José Gerson da Cunha was a Goan physician who achieved international renown as an orientalist, historian, linguist and numismatist.

The Arte da Lingoa Canarim, the grammar of the Konkani language, was composed by the 16th-century English Jesuit priest Father Thomas Stephens, thus making Konkani the first among the modern Indian languages to have its grammar codified and described. The system was expanded upon by Diogo Ribeiro and four other Jesuits and printed in Rachol in the year 1640. A second edition was then developed and introduced in 1857 by J.H. da Cunha Rivara, who possessed a great passion for Konkani. Consequently, three versions of the Arte exist:

  1. Arte da lingoa Canari. MS held by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
  2. Arte da lingoa Canarim, composed by Padre Thomaz Estevão and Padre Diogo Ribeiro of the Company of Jesus & amended by other Padres of the same company. 1640.

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Étienne de la Croix, was a French Jesuit, missionary to India and author of a life of St Peter in Marathi: Discurso sobre a vida do Apostolo Sam Pedro em que se refuta os principaes erros do gentilismo.

Krishnadas Shama, a Gaud Saraswat Brahmin and native of Quelossim in Goa, was the author of Krishna Charitrakatha. According to verses (ovis) 245-250 of this work, it was commenced on 25 April 1526, or Vaishakh Shukla of shake 1448 according to the Hindu calendar. The original manuscript of this work was discovered by Mariano Saldanha in the Public Library of Braga in Portugal. The work has 19 chapters (ovesvaru) and 3,123 verses (ovis). It is a rendering of the Tenth canto (Adhyaya) of the Bhagavata Purana. It may be the first extant prose work by a Goan in Marathi.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konkani literature</span>

Konkani literature is literature in the Konkani language, mostly produced in three scripts: Roman, Devanagari and Kannada. Konkani literature is eligible for the Sahitya Akademi Award

Goa is currently India's smallest state on the west coast, and its writers have written in many diverse languages. Poetry is a small and scattered field in the region, and this page makes an attempt to acknowledge those who have contributed to the field. It includes those listed below who have contributed to poetry in and from Goa, as well as those writing poetry in Goa. Poetry related to Goa is known to have been written in Konkani, in Portuguese, English and Marathi, apart from other regional, national and international languages to a lesser extent.

References

  1. ↑ Tadkodkar, S.M. (2010), Goan Christian Marathi Vilapika : During the 17th Century, B.R. Pub., ISBN   978-81-7646-498-7, OCLC   460868037 .
  2. ↑ See Ivo Coelho, Review of S.M. Tadkodkar, Goan Christian Marathi Vilāpikā in the 17th Century,Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 22/2 (2011) 265-271.
  3. ↑ Tadkodkar 28, 149.
  4. ↑ Tadkodkar 15-21, 62-64.
  5. ↑ Tadkodkar 15-16.
  6. ↑ Tadkodkar 19.
  7. ↑ J.H. da Cunha Rivara, "An Historical Essay on the Konkani Language", tr. Theophilus Lobo, in A.K. Priolkar, The Printing Press in India: Its Beginnings and Early Development. Being a Quartercentenary Commemorative Study of the Advent of Printing in India (in 1556) (Mumbai: Marathi Samsodhana Mandala, 1958) 227. Tadkodkar 19-20.
  8. ↑ Tadkodkar 20.
  9. ↑ Tadkodkar 20-21.
  10. ↑ Tadkodkar 125.
  11. ↑ Tadkodkar xii.
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