Information Networks in the Estado da Índia, a Case Study: Was Garcia de Orta the Organizer of the Codex Casanatense 1889?

Abstract

Several Portuguese writers working in India during the sixteenth century on specific cultural projects were able to mobilize important information networks across maritime Asia. Outstanding examples, among many others, include Duarte Barbosa, Gaspar Correia, Dom João de Castro and Garcia de Orta. Each one of them worked and wrote under diverse circumstances, using different methods and receiving dissimilar support from the Portuguese authorities. But they were able to muster many of the official textual resources available from the Estado da Índia, while at the same time availing themselves of the collaboration of countless European and Asian informers. The chosen case study in the present instance is Garcia de Orta, the celebrated Portuguese physician and naturalist active in India between 1534 and 1568, for he offers a remarkable example of a private enterprise of information collection. Furthermore, Orta’s case is particularly noteworthy in the context of a research project dealing with the renowned manuscript Codex Casanatense 1889, which could have been organized or ordered by none other than the Portuguese writer himself.