Yesterday, visiting the Xavier Historical Centre, Porvorim, I browsed through Mariano Saldanha's very interesting account of Christian puranic literature. Some points I found useful:
1. His list of Christian puranas - at least 8.
2. His mention of a Devanagari script MS of the Khristapurana in the Bibliothek National, Vienna. (M. Saldanha p. 8)
3. That this literature is largely unknown and forgotten in Goa - the reasons he gives are that, with education, people were unable to access the Marathi language Puranas. The exceptions in Portuguese Goa are the fishing communities of Tiracol, Chapora, Morgim and Assanora:
"constituindo o único deleite literário de alguns rendeiros e pescadores de nossas remotas aldeias, como Tiracol, Chaporá, Morgim e Assonorá," (M. Saldanha p. 5)
4. He takes issue with Abbott, who considered the Marsden Devanagari MSS the originals. [However, the issue is still debatable, according to me.] Abbott does, however, reveal an insufficient knowledge of the Stephens' KP, as when he says that no one even suspected the existence of a Devanagari MS. J.L. Saldanha clearly mentions that he had one such MS at his disposal.
"The discovery I made that these two parts (do Purana de Londres) were the Devanagary Original of the Christian Purana of T. Stevens, edited by J.L. Saldanha and published in Mangalore in 1907, was a complete surprise, for I believe it has not even been suspected that such a Devanagary original existed. » (Abbott, at M. Saldanha p. 8)
5. M. Saldanha considers the Mangalore edition of J.L. Saldanha as standard.
6. Cunha Rivara did not know any Indian languages. He considered the KP as a work in Konkani, which is clearly contradicted by what Stephens himself writes.
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