Roberto de Nobili

Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany, in September 1577, Roberto de Nobili arrived at the ports of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay in western India on 20 May 1605.

[1] Roberto de Nobili, nicknamed the White Brahmin, embodied the missionary fervor of Christianity in Portuguese India and its relations with the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

He soon called himself a "teacher of wisdom" (தத்துவ போதகர்) and began to dress like a Sannyasi, someone who following Hindu custom practices a form of asceticism marked by disinterest in material life, wearing a white dhoti and wooden sandals.

Nobili's methods implicitly criticized the Portuguese approach and were therefore very controversial with his fellow Jesuits and the Archbishop of Goa Cristóvão de Sá e Lisboa [pt].

Some have identified Roberto de Nobili as the author of a spurious document that purported to be a French translation of an ancient Sanskrit scripture by the name of Ezourvedam.