mythology are discussed in detail. The Brahman next goes on to explain the Hindu trinity which is also rejected by the Christian. Finally some of the popular religious practices and rites are reviewed and the Brahman is converted to the views of the Roman Catholic. The dialogue ends rather abruptly.
Dom Antonio had one advantage over the Portuguese missionaries. He was more familiar with the religious beliefs and superstitions of his countrymen than the foreign priests, and as Bengali was his mother-tongue he uses its idioms with greater success and more freedom than Frei Manoel. But at times Dom Antonio betrays the superficial nature of his acquaintance with the Puranas, for he includes Kripacharya, the Brahman warrior, among the ten incarnations of Vishnu and omits Buddha, the ninth on the popular list. Nor is his version of other Pauranik incidents free from inaccuracy. But we do not expect in this rare manuscript a reliable treatise on popular Hinduism; it is to be prized as the earliest known prose work in Bengali and as such is its value to be assessed.
The prose of Dom Antonio is simple but it cannot be claimed that he always used the colloquial language of his time. Although the vulgar word is not systematically excluded, the author does not hesitate to use the more polished language which the learned alone would appreciate. It is not the place to discuss the method of transliteration, suffice it to note that the same word is sometimes differently reproduced in Roman script. The text covers 120 pages quarto of foolscap, in one column is reproduced the original text while the Protuguese version is written opposite. There are in the text several Sanskrit quotations, but the transliteration is in these cases so unsatisfactory that I have not been able to restore two of them.
The major portion of the text was copied by me during my sojourn in Portugal. The text, as now published, will, I hope, be
