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I am glad to read that Fr. Mathew Almeida has questioned the current stereotype of pre-Portuguese Konkani literature (if it existed) having been destroyed by the Portuguese or Jesuit missionaries. In my own *Medieval Goa* (1979) pp. 94-95 I had referred to the agraharas / brahmapuris in pre-Portuguese Goa, but with references to sanskrit and marathi literatary works found in Goa, such as volumes of Anadipurana, Mahabharata, Viveka-sindhu, Yogaraja-tilak, poems of Krishnadas Shama, etc. I had also referred to the role of Shenvi brahmins in Goa and surrounding region, often referred by the Jesuit missionary writings as teachers of hinduism and great obstacle to their missionary drive. These shenvis operated as village and district clerks all over the Konkan region (kulkarni and deshkulkarni). They taught the brahmin youth to read, write and count. Would not these families have their archives in the New Conquest region and outside, even after Old Conquest region came under the firm control of the Portuguese? If they carried their deities beyond the borders of Portuguese-controlled territory, what could prevent them from carrying their literary treasures? And the Partagali math (now in Kankon taluka) is a pre-Portuguese institution and still keeps its pre-Portuguese documentation. Has Fr. Mathew or Fr. Pratap tried to check the contents of these archives? I stayed once for three days in 1975 as guest of the Swami, but my main interest was to consult the village community records, and I was even allowed by Swami to microfilm a few of his records. But it was too little time to delve more extensively on the secrets of this archival repository. A more detailed indexing of the archives was done by G.H.Khare ( of Bharat Itihasa Sanshodaka Mandal, Pune) and he published an introductory note as An uncared-for source material for the socio-economic history of the Goa territory", in S.P.Sen (ed.) Sources of the History of India, Vol.I (Calcutta, 1987), pp. 447-452. A more thorough checking of the archives of this math and other maths in the Konkan-Malabar region would be indispensable for sustaining the arguments of Fr. Mathew. Teotonio R. de Souza ------------------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Goa-Research-Net ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Send us a brief self-intro to justify your interest in this "specialized" forum. This should be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NOT [EMAIL PROTECTED]) * Leave SUBJECT blank * On first line of the BODY of your message, type: subscribe goa-research-net [EMAIL PROTECTED] or unsubscribe goa-research-net [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------
