Madura Mission

The mission is distinguished from earlier Christian presence by being those related to and following in the steps of Roberto de Nobili in the city of Madurai itself and spreading out across the south east of the peninsula from that point.

In 1517 the Paravars of the Pearl Fishery Coast converted en masse to Christianity as a group in order to gain the protection of the Portuguese crown from Arab traders and raiders.

[12] When Fernandes attempted to talk to the Nayak of Madurai, he was bluntly told that if he was intending to convert people then he ought to leave and that he was not to speak of the ‘religion of the Frangui’.

[13] The failure of Fernandez to convert anyone led to Alberto Laerzio, the provincial official, to send Roberto de Nobili to replace him.

[15] De Nobili thus put into practise the idea of accommodatio; he rejected his similarities with Fernandez and stated that he was both a ‘Roman raja’ (i.e. a noble) and a sannyāsi and attempted to present Christianity as something not inextricably bound to the lower castes.

[16] His attempts to live correctly according to Brahmin lifestyle immediately began to bear fruit and he was given some land by Erumeikatti, a local chieftain.

[19] Not only did Śivadharma prepare de Nobili’s food, he also began to instruct him on the Vedic texts and even translated them, a crime punishable by death.

However, the Portuguese crown was lax in its payments and Antonio Vico, another Jesuit missionary, paid for much of the mission’s expenses out of his own pocket.

When some Brahmin from Madurai, including Hindu ones, heard that some Jesuit missionaries had not only converted some untouchables but also kept working with them after the fact, they burnt some churches down.

During the 1620s, de Nobili, and thus the Jesuits, became respected throughout southern India and he was given a royal reception, being cloaked in gold, in many local courts under the Kingdom of Madurai with many giving rights to construct churches or to move freely throughout the realm.

[36] One outcome of de Nobili’s success was the segregation of the missions’ clergy itself based on the caste system, although it would only officially be confirmed by Benedict XIV in the 18th century.

Instead, da Costa, as a paṇṭāram priest aimed to shift the focus of the mission away from the Brahmin although he did not go as far as Fernandes in discounting de Nobili’s method of accommodatio.

Catechists became vital for the mission as, unlike the European missionaries, they were truly Indian and could wholly shake off accusations that they were, in fact, Frangui.

[44] Fragments remain of an anti-Christian tract titled Ēcumata nirākaraṇam (The refutation of the religion of Jesus), probably written during de Nobili’s life and, therefore, possibly directed at him, which shows a great understanding of Christian myths and theology.

[47] Following the loss of Cochin to the Dutch by the Portuguese, the issue of funding for the mission became critical as the Padroado, for all intents and purposes, ceased functioning.

[57] Although they failed, due to Bouchet’s competent politicking and gift-giving in the Nayak’s court, the issue of apostasy would remain a threat to the mission’s goals.

[58] Furthermore, following the issuing of the Omnium Sollicitudinum in 1740, a Papal Bull condemning the Malabar Rites, the reliance on catechists (and thus any chance of actually converting the Indian population on any notable scale) declined.

[60] Constantine Beschi, an Italian Jesuit who also became personal friends with the last Madurai Nayak, Chanda Sahib, began to write a corpus of Tamil-language texts which, although clearly Christian in nature, were decidedly rooted in the Tamil literary tradition.

[63] This, in turn, led to an explosion of indigenous Catholic literature, such as the Marikarutammāḷ Ammāṉai (a ballad about St. Margaret which was possibly written by a Muslim convert).

Not much in the way of missionary work was done by the Goan clergy, who took the place of the Jesuits in certain stations, and the results previously gained were in prospect of being almost totally lost.