Opmaak 1 - Gert Jan Bestebreurtje

188 ROGERIUS, Abraham. De open-deure tot het verborgen heydendom ofte
waerachtigh vertoogh van het leven ende zeden, mitsgaders de religie, ende godsdienst
der Bramines, op de cust Chormandel, ende de landen daar omtrent. Met korte
aenteykeningen (door A. Wissonatius).
Leyden, Françoys Hackes, 1651.
4to. Contemporary limp vellum (soiled, sl. dam.). With engraved title with 7 illustrations
(temple, hook-swinging, widow-burning, procession, ceremony and self-chastisement).
(16),251 pp. € 1.650,00
First Dutch edition. - The reverend Abraham Roger / Rogerius left in 1630 as an
employee of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and worked in Palicatta
(Coromandel) for ten years. He then went to Batavia where he served the Portuguese
Church for five years. He repatriated in 1647 and settled in Gouda where he died in
1649. His book contains the earliest European account of Hinduism in Southern India
and is still one of the most important sources for our knowledge of the type of
Hinduism then prevalent south of the Dekhan. 'Roger prepared probably the most
thorough description of south-Indian Hinduism to be published before the end of the
nineteenth century. Dispassionate and objective in its content, it contains an account
of the religious practices of the Brahmans and a translation of some of the seventeenth-century
poet, Bhartrihari. Roger died in 1649, two years before the publication
of his book' (Howgego p.903). – (Some marginal wormholes). - Rare.
Landwehr, VOC, 650; Tiele 928; not in Cat. NHSM.