{
  "bookName": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials",
  "authorName": "M. K. Kuriakose",
  "publisherName": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge",
  "publicationYear": 2011,
  "chapterNumber": 44,
  "chapterName": "c.1619. Robert de Nobili’s Letter to Pope Paul V",
  "pageFrom": 50,
  "pageTo": 51,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 50,
      "ocrText": "50\nHISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA\n44. ROBERT DE NOBILI'S LETTER TO POPE PAUL V\n(c. 1619 A.D.)\nRobert de Nobili, a Jesuit missionary in Madurai, is well known\nfor his experiments in the adaptation of Hindu customs to Christianity.\nThis led to opposition from his co-workers and ecclesiastical autho-\nrities. Eventually Rome took decisions in favour of his methods.\nThe following is a letter written to Pope Paul V in which he gives an\naccount of his apostolate in Madurai and also mentions the procee-\ndings of the Goa conference which was convened to consider his\nexperiments in what is today termed; indigenization'. The letter was\nwritten in Latin. It was translated into English by Fr. Sauliere. The\noriginal copy is kept in the Roman archives of the Society of Jesus:\nARSI Goa 51, ff. 286-290. The translation as it appears here was\npublished in the Indian Church History Review, Vol. II, No. 2,\n(December 1968), pp. 84-96.\n1. Origin of the Madurai Mission\nHaving heard by word of mouth and chiefly from the Annual\nLetters of the great progress of the Christian religion in India and\nthe wonderful labours of many of my fellow Jesuits, I decided with\nthe consent of my superiors to hasten to a place where the hope of\nspreading the faith was so inviting. With the permission of Father\nGeneral I left Rome in 1603 and after two years spent in travelling\nI arrived at Goa. Soon after I came to Cochin, and thence to\nMadura. There I remarked that all the efforts made to bring the\nheathens to Christ had all been in vain. I left no stone unturned\nto find a way to bring them from their superstition and the worship\nof idols to the faith of Christ. But my efforts were fruitless, because\nwith a sort of barbarous stolidity they turned away from the\nmanners and customs of the Portuguese and refused to put aside\nthe badges of their ancient nobility.\nWhen I noticed that certain Brahmins were highly praised\nbecause they led lives of great hardship and austerity and were\nlooked upon as if they had dropped from the sky, I thought that,\nif to win popularity among the pagans, and raise themselves in\ntheir esteem, they contrived to keep perpetual chastity and weaken\ntheir bodies by watching, fasting and meditation, I could, to win\nthem to Christ, conform myself to their mode of life in all such things\nwhich were not repugnant to the holiness of Christian doctrine, for\nit seemed to me that with divine help I could do for God's sake,\nwhat they did with wicked cunning to win vain applause and wordly\nhonours.\nTherefore I professed to be an Italian Brahmin who had re-\nnounced the world, had studied wisdom at Rome (for a Brahmin",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 51,
      "ocrText": "SOURCE MATERIALS\n51\nmeans a wise man) and rejected all the pleasures and comforts of\nthe world.\nI had already learned Tamil and Sanskrit, which among them\nholds the same place as the Latin among us, and was pretty well\nacquainted with their books which, although it is contrary to their\ncustoms, they had allowed me to read. In a short time I went\nthrough them and found it clearly stated in them that the thread\nand the long tuft, which are the object of the present controversy,\nindicated the nobility of their family and not their worship or\nreligion, and that the nobles, specially the Brahmins, the Rajahs\nand the merchants were thus specially distinguished from the rabble\nand lower classes. For as they apply their heir laws whether secular\nor religious to all social actions without any expectation, the way\nthey speak of their thread show that it is a badge of their rank or\nfamily but not of their religion. Not only can this opinion be\nread in their books and codices, which the Brahmins read cons-\ntantly, but I know that it is so deeply ingrained in their soul and\nstamped in their minds that merely raising a doubt it looks\nridiculous\nI may add further that the Indians who live in Portuguese\nterritory dress and live in Portuguese style and run no risk of loosing\ntheir status as is the case with the neophytes who are subject to\nHindu Princes. If the latter were to lay aside the traditional\nemblems of their family and caste, they would by the very fact be\ncompletely cut off from their friends, relations, and castemen,\nuntil broken down by tribulations and miseries of all kind they\nwould be driven to seek shelter in some faroff places, where unknown\nto all men they might hide their shame. If on the other hand they\nshrink from exile, they must resort to ignoble dens and spend their\nwretched life without the least consolation, for if they come out\nin the open, they are exposed to so many affronts and insults\nthat they are compelled to hide themselves in ill-famed quarters,\nthere to endure endless sufferings\nMy efforts were not in vain. By God's grace in two years\nnearly two hundred persons embraced the faith of Christ. At the\nsight of the present and the prospect of the future harvest our joy\nwas very great, but it was soon damped by unexpected rumours.\nAmong our Fathers there was no agreement regarding this new\nmethod; some did not approve this mode of life, nor the wearing\nof the thread. Shortly after a superior, moved no doubt by a well\nmeaning zeal-(as we must in justice believe)-forbade me to carry\non with my work and baptize neophytes, until that question of\nthe thread was more closely examined. Not only this order affected\nall the neophytes, but many others who desired to embrace the\nChristian religion. That is why the Archbishop of Cranganore",
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ]
}