A strange book, this - and complete escape reading (unless the
captious will take issue with the fact that the setting is now a
battle zone and part of Burma, then - in the 17th century, the
Kingdom of Arakan, Portuguese Asia, a country of perversities and
extremes, of Inquisitors and Jesuits, of murder and poison and
adultery, of luxury and debauchery). Based on what purports to be
contemporary source material and on a voluminous diary, this is the
story of the journeys taken by an Augustinian friar, Sebastiao
Manrique. Father Manrique stood out in sharp contrast to the lurid
background, - a plain man, resolute and unimaginative, lover of
sanity and reason. Collis has selected episodes from his Travels,
his trip to the Court at a time when the King was unfriendly to the
Portuguese; his attempts to gain converts; his founding of a
church; and finally the murder of the King who fell under the
influence of black magic. The English edition (and we presume this
one) is plentifully illustrated with engravings from various
sources which help offset an occasional didacticism on the part of
Collis. Of specialized interest to students of the East and to
readers seeking an exotic experience. (Kirkus Reviews)
A hybrid of history and biography, Maurice Collis's The Land of the
Great Image concerns a little-known Portuguese friar abroad in
early seventeenth-century Asia. The book chronicles the great
diplomatic coup of Friar Manrique's career, opening the kingdom of
Arakan, now Burma (land of the "great image" of the Buddha) to the
Church and to Portuguese trade, Dispatched from Goa, capital of the
now almost forgotten Portuguese empire in Asia, Manrique made his
way across and around the Bay of Bengal, surviving shipwreck,
tigers, and pirates, to reach the court of King Thiri-thu-dhamma.
And all along Manrique's way the author waits at every turn with
another curiosity, another historical tidbit for the reader to
relish. Collis notes how trials of the Inquisition were run (which
too had set up shop in Goa); the luxury enjoyed by Europeans in the
East; what was served for dinner at court; how elephant warfare was
waged; and what went into a potion magically brewed to bring glory
to King Thiri-thu-dhamina (the hearts of 2,000 white doves, 4,000
white cows, and 6,000 of his subjects).
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