Beschrijving der Oost-Indische Kusten Malabar en Choromandel der selver aengresende Koninckrycken en Vorstendomme als .. Ceylon nevens de Afgoderije..

Title

Beschrijving der Oost-Indische Kusten Malabar en Choromandel der selver aengresende Koninckrycken en Vorstendomme als .. Ceylon nevens de Afgoderije..

Description

Travel description of the Eastindia coast and Sri Lanka. Complete copper print book with description on 610 pages. 67 views and maps, many illustrations if the natives and their way of living, 1 title page, a portrait of Baldaeus and index. First edition in Dutch of this magnificently illustrated work, rare colored edition. Perfect condition.

ca. 1672

Artist

Waesberger/Baldaeus (1632-1671)

He was a Dutch minister. He went to Jaffna during the Dutch period in Ceylon with an invading Dutch force. He wrote much about the religious, civil and domestic conditions of the places he visited. Baldaeus had to serve in Ceylon, both the Dutch Reformed Church as well as the native, formerly Catholic Christians, whom he had almost put the new faith. The mountainous country of Sri Lanka with the Buddhist Kingdom of Kandy however remained independent until the British conquest in 1796, was cut off from the sea and completely isolated. Baldaeus' parish encompassed the entire coastal area of Sri Lanka, together with the islands and the Tamil southern tip of India, a territory that had been divided by the Portuguese in the 32 parishes, each with a church and a school and cared for by many monks and a Jesuit colleges. Baldaeus had a good understanding of the culture and religion of the Tamils, and Sinhalese. Although primarily interested in proselytizing the Hindus and Catholics, he also strove for a better education for the natives. During 1665-1666 he returned to the Netherlands. Here he completed his Description of Calon and the East India, Malabar and Coromandel coasts (Amsterdam 1672). When he died he was only 39 years old.

Historical Description

Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Central Asian steppes. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands. The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated. The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.