Dutch Sources on South Asia : C. 1600-1825: Vol.5: Philip Angel\'s Deex Autaers: Vaisnava Mythology from Manuscript to Book Market in the Context of the Dutch East India Company, C. 1600-1672

Contents: I. Introduction: 1. Context. 2. Philip Angel: a biography. 3. History of the Deex Autaers. 4. Use and abuse of Philip Angel. 5. Epilogue. II. Deex: Autaers: 1. Dasavatara (KITLV manuscript H771, annotated translation). 2. Deex-Autaers (KITLV manuscript H771, Dutch original). Appendices. Index.

In 1658 a Dutch East Indian Company merchant by the name of Philip Angel presented a manuscript to Company Director Carel Hartsinck. It was intended to get into Hartsinck’s good books: Angel had been recalled to the VOC headquarters at Batavia in disgrace for engaging in private trade and was to account for his actions in a hearing.

Back home in Holland, Philip Angel had been a painter and a published author. The manuscript recounts the well known Puranic myths of the Avataras of Vishnu. It conformed to all the contemporary conventions of an ‘exotic’ gift manuscript and reflects his artistic skills. But Angel offered no details of how he acquired the manuscript, in what language, or who assisted him. This requires an investigation into the practices of information-gathering on Indian religious texts by important players of the time ranging from Portuguese Jesuits to literati at the Mughal court. Finally, without acknowledgement of its author, Angel’s manuscript ended up on the commercial European book market where it gained a conspicuous place within the corpus of seventeenth century Dutch literature on the East.

Angel’s almost forgotten manuscript is not only a superb example of early Dutch Orientalism, it also stands in a long traditions of collecting, writing, borrowing and buying information on Indian religions. This fifth volume of Dutch sources on South Asia consists of two parts. Part one traces the history of the manuscript and its maker, as well as the larger historical context in which it was assembled. The second part provides the reader with a transcription of the original manuscript and an annotated translation. (jacket)