Guru Paramartha

Published in 1728, it is a satirical piece on a naive religious teacher and his equally obtuse disciples, Matti (dull-head), Madayan (fool), Pethai (ignoramus), Moodan (moron) and Milechan (lowly dull-wit).

They went on mourning the missing person, but luckily a passer-by declared himself having powers to recall the one swallowed by the river, for a reward.

[5] While in South India, Beschi compiled a collection of stories about various foolish deeds and attributed them to a Hindu guru from a monastery.

Benjamin Babington of East India Company translated them in English in 1822 [b] and noted the similarity of them with the stories about the Wise Men of Gotham, concluding that either they were either borrowed from the latter or they had a common source.

Combined with the teachings that Catholic missionaries are enlightening the Tamils, Beschi's book essentially imposed the feeling of civilizational inferiority onto the colonized people.