Report on BnF Indien 765: a palm-leaf manuscript (in Malayāḷam script and language) containing the Christian poem Miśihācaritam by J.E. Hanxleden
(2020) TST Online Workshop — Location: Paris (21.September.2020)
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- Abstract
- The report dealt with a palm-leaf manuscript (BnF Indien 765) in Malayāḷam script and language containing the Christian poem Miśihācaritam or ‘Story of the Messiah’, without author’s ascription, that is the Puttaṉ pāna (the ‘New Hymn’) composed by the German Jesuit J.E. Hanxleden (1681-1732) alias Arnos Padiri. The Malayalam pāna tradition, an a capella singing of devotional songs, prevalent among the Hindus, was here adopted for a Christian topic. The text provided by this manuscript presents significant variation comparing to the critically edited text of the Puttaṉ pāna. With the absence of ascribed authorship, it bears testimony of some oral dimension (linked to a liturgical usage) acquired by the poem between about 1750-1850 (and the printing of the first edition, at the origin of a kind of “vulgate” version). At the end of the manuscript, the scribe (also known from a manuscript of another Malayalam poem of Hanxleden preserved in Rome) puts the date of finishing the copy as Kanni the 8th in the year 1774 after the birth of the Messiah and also as Kanni the 8th in the year 950 the of Kollam era, which corresponds to 8 September 1774. This double method of dating, both in the Christian and in the Kollam era, is interesting; the months of the Christian calendar are here equated with names of corresponding months in the solar Malayalam calendar.
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Vielle, C. (2020). Report on BnF Indien 765: a palm-leaf manuscript (in Malayāḷam script and language) containing the Christian poem Miśihācaritam by J.E. Hanxleden. TST Online Workshop, Paris. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/23935