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Missionary and explorer Antoni de Montserrat

Edmond Busquets

 

Antoni de Montserrat was a Jesuit missionary, explorer and cartographer, being one of the first Europeans to enter the mountains of Central Asia. He is credited with the first map of the Himalayas. Posted to Goa in 1574, he became an ambassador to the court of the Mughal king Akbar, the future grandfather of the king that built the Taj Mahal. At the court he would spend a year holding interreligious dialogues and debates held at the request of the Mughal king himself, with representatives of other religions such as Tibetan tantric Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism and Christianity. There he learned Persian and gained Akbar’s trust as evidenced by the fact that he appointed him tutor to his son Murad. 

 

After a year, in the north, a revolt led by a half-brother of the king who had the support of some Afghan warlords broke out. At Akbar’s request, Montserrat joined the military expedition and accompanied him throughout the campaign. This trip allowed the Jesuit to make contact with a good part of the territories of the Empire, being able to visit Delhi, the Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Punjab and the foothills of Tibet to Afghanistan. In the same year of his death, the definitive version of his work «Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius” and next to it, the design of his map of the Himalayas that includes a large part of India and large areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

 

He is also credited with being the first European to report the existence of Tibet, a historical region largely unknown to most of the world until the 19th century. In his chronicles, he maintains: “Inside these mountains live some People called Botthant. They never wash their hands and give the reason that something as clear and beautiful as water should not be dirty. They are white and horrible men, not very tall in body, they fight on foot and they have no king among themselves. They live by making felt and come to sell it in a town on this side called Negarcot: and they come down in June, July, August and September; Outside of these months they cannot come because of the snow…”

In the image, I made Antoni de Montserrat based on one of the few paintings that are preserved about him. I have added some old sunglasses to the character, which is accompanied by a with a Bactrian camel and a Mughal soldier. In addition, there are Buddhist monuments and houses in the mountains of Kashmir and Tibet.