Chapter 7: Hinduism in the Jesuit Lettres edifiantes et curieuses
From "Mapping Hinduism: 'Hinduism' and the Study of Indian Religions, 1600-1776
by Will Sweetman
2003
If Sylvia Murr’s claim that ‘at the beginning of the eighteenth century, all discourse on India was tributary to the ‘Relations’ supplied by the missionaries, Catholic and Protestant’,1 [‘au debut du 18e siecle, tout discours sur l’lnde etait tributaire des ‘Relations’ foumies paries missionaires, catholiques ou protestants’ [Google translate: at the beginning of the 18th century, all discourse on India depended on the "Relations" provided by missionaries, Catholics or Protestants] Murr 1986: 303.] is somewhat overstated, it nevertheless serves to emphasise the importance of such missionary ‘relations’ prior to the arrival in India of Anquetil-Duperron, who appears to have been the first European to visit India for purely scholarly purposes. Among Protestants, Murr mentions Ziegenbalg and also Lord and Roger, although the latter were not missionaries, nor writing at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Among Catholics, the main contributors to Indological discourse of the eighteenth century were French, in particular the Jesuits associated with the Carnatic mission, but also the Capuchins Jean-Jacques Tessier de Queralay and Thomas de Poitiers. At the end of the century another French priest, the Abbe Jean-Antoine Dubois, a secular priest of the Missions Etrangeres [Paris Foreign Missions Society], was responsible for publishing as his own work one of the most significant works of the earlier generation of French missionaries.2 [Despite being ‘a respected member of the Missions Etrangeres, a body traditionally hostile to the Jesuits’, Dubois’s relations with the Jesuits were good, and he supported the return of the Jesuits to Madurai after the restoration of the Society (Ballhatchet 1998: 3).]
The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society was initiated when the Jesuit Father Alexandre de Rhodes, back from Vietnam and asking for the dispatch of numerous missionaries to the Far East, obtained in 1650 an agreement by Pope Innocent X to send secular priests and bishops as missionaries. Alexandre de Rhodes received in Paris in 1653 a strong financial and organizational support from the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement for the establishment of the Paris Foreign Missions Society....The Company of the Blessed Sacrament (French: Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement), also sometimes referred to as the Company of the Most Blessed Sacrament, was a French Catholic secret society which included among its members many Catholic notables of the 17th century. It was responsible for much of the contribution of the Catholic Church in France to meeting the social needs of the day...
The associates met weekly and their organization was simultaneously a pious confraternity, a charitable society and a militant association for the defence of the Church. It was ruled by Baron de Renty from 1639 until his death in 1649.
The company was a secret one. Louis XIII covertly encouraged it but it never wished to have the letters patent that would have rendered it legal...The rule of secrecy obliged members "not to speak of the Company to those who do not belong to it and never to make known the names of the individuals composing it. New members were elected by the board and it was soon decided that no congréganiste, i.e. member of a lay congregation directed by ecclesiastics, could be eligible. Matters of an especially delicate nature were not discussed at the weekly meetings, these being frequently attended by a hundred members, but were reserved for the investigation of the board. The company printed nothing and the keeping of written minutes was conducted with the utmost caution. There were fifty important branches outside of Paris, about thirty being unknown even to the bishops...
The association worked to correct abuses among the clergy and in monasteries in order to ensure good behavior in the churches and to procure missions for rural parishes, and it urged the establishment of a Seminary of Foreign Missions for the evangelizing of non-Catholics.
-- Company of the Blessed Sacrament, by Wikipedia
The Society itself ("Assemblée des Missions") was formally established by the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement in 1658. The object of the new society was and is still the evangelization of non-Christian countries, by founding churches and raising up a native clergy under the jurisdiction of the bishops. The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society coincided with the establishment of the French East India Company.
In order to dispatch the three missionaries to Asia, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement established a trading company (the "Compagnie de Chine", founded 1660).The Compagnie de Chine was a French trading company established in 1660 by the Catholic society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia (initially Bishops François Pallu, Pierre Lambert de la Motte and Ignace Cotolendi of the newly founded Paris Foreign Missions Society). The company was modelled on the Dutch East India Company...
In 1664, the China Company would be fused by Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar into the Compagnie des Indes Orientales [French East India Company].
-- Compagnie de Chine, by Wikipedia
[T]he establishment of a trading company and the perceived threat of French missionary efforts to Asia was met with huge opposition by the Jesuits, the Portuguese, the Dutch and even the Propaganda, leading to the issuing of an interdiction of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement by Cardinal Mazarin in 1660. In spite of these events, the King, the Assembly of the French Clergy, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement and private donors accepted to finance the effort, and the three bishops managed to depart, although they now had to travel on land.
The three bishops chosen for Asia left France (1660–62) to go to their respective missions, and crossed Persia and India on foot, since Portugal would have refused to take non-Padroado missionaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries. Mgr Lambert left Marseilles on 26 November 1660, and reached Mergui in Siam 18 months later, Mgr Pallu joined Mgr Lambert in the capital of Siam Ayutthaya after 24 months overland, and Mgr Cotolendi died upon arrival in India on 6 August 1662. Siam thus became the first country to receive the evangelization efforts of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, to be followed by new missions 40 years later in Cochinchina, Tonkin and parts of China.
The mission had the objective of adapting to local customs, establishing a native clergy, and keeping close contacts with Rome...
Between 1660 and 1700 about 100 missionaries were sent to Asia.
-- Paris Foreign Missions Society, by Wikipedia
These writers produced a number of significant works on Indian religions, among them the Relation des erreurs qui se trouvent dans la religion des gentils malabars de la Coste Coromandelle3 [Google translate: Relation of the errors which are in the religion of the gentile malabars of Coste Coromandelle] [A substantial part of the text of the Relation des erreurs qui se trouvent dans la religion des gentils malabars de la Coste Coromandelle was printed in Picart’s Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde [Google translate: Ceremonies and religious customs of all the peoples of the world] under the title: ‘Dissertation historique sur les Dieux des Indiens orientaux.’ [Google translate: Historical dissertation on the Gods of the East Indians.] (Picart 1723: 83-100). This is immediately followed by a ‘Lettre de P. Bouchet sur la Religion des Indiens Orientaux’ [Google translate: Letter from P. Bouchet on the Religion of the East Indians] (Bouchet’s second letter to Huet, XIII: 95-225). A critical edition of the Relation des erreurs from three manuscripts, one of which attributes the work to Nobili was published by Caland (Caland 1923). Dharampal, who has used a fourth manuscript, discusses the origin of the work and its attribution to Bouchet (Dharampal 1982a: 233-239).] of Jean Venant Bouchet, the Traite de la Religion des Malabars4 [Google translate: Treatise on the Religion of the Malabars] [Extensive extracts from Tessier de Queralay’s manuscript were published in Burnouf and Jacquet 1835. The full text was published in Dharampal 1982a.] of Tessier de Queralay, Le Paganisme des Indiens nommes Tamouls [Google translate: The paganism of the Indians named Tamils] of Thomas de Poitiers, the Moeurs et Coutumes des Indiens5 [Google translate: Mores and Customs of the Indians] [Sylvia Murr identified a manuscript compiled in 1776-1777 by a French artillery officer Nicholas-Jacques Desvaulx as a version of Coeurdoux’s lost work, and has shown that Dubois’s celebrated work, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (1816; Moeurs, Institutions et Ceremonies des Peuples de l’lnde, [Google translate: Institutions and Ceremonies of the Peoples of India] 1825) is based on Coeurdoux (Murr 1987). In his Prefatory note to Beauchamp’s 1906 edition, Friedrich Max Muller noticed that the author of the work ‘really belongs to a period previous to the revival of Sanskrit studies in India, as inaugurated by Wilkins, Sir William Jones and Colebrooke’, although he did not doubt that the author was Dubois.] of Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux, and the infamous Ezourvedam.6 [Among those to whom the Ezourvedam has been attributed are, in addition to Nobili, five French Jesuits of the eighteenth century: Bouchet (1655-1732), Pierre Martin (1665- 1716), Jean Calmette (1693-1740), Antoine Mosac (1704-C.1784), and Jean de Villette (dates uncertain). Rocher reviews the long debate over the authorship of the Ezourvedam concluding that ‘the author of the [Ezourvedam] may be one of these, but he may also be one of their many more or less well known confreres. In the present state of our knowledge we cannot go any further than that.’ (Rocher 1984: 60). If nothing else, this demonstrates the sheer number of Jesuits who had significant knowledge of Indian languages and religions. The Ezourvedam was published in 1778 as L’Ezour-Vedam, ou Ancien Commentaire du Vedam contenant I’esposition des opinions religieuses & philosophiques des Indiens, [Google translate: The Ezur-Vedam, or Old Commentary on the Vedam containing the statement of the religious & philosophical views of the Indians] but doubts about its authenticity immediately surfaced. Pierre Sonnerat showed it to ‘a learned but fanatic Brahman’ who convinced him that ‘[i]t is definitely not one of the four Vedams, notwithstanding its name. It is a book of controversy, written by a missionary’ (Voyage aux Indes Orientates [Google translate: Travel to the East Indies] (1782) I: 215, cited in Rocher 1984: 13).] However, only the first and the last of these were published in the eighteenth century. Of more immediate impact were the letters of the French Jesuits, published in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses [Google translate: Edifying and curious letters], the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres [Google translate: Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres] and elsewhere.7 [The letters were widely read, both in the Lettres edifiantes and in other publications, for example in Picart’s collection in which Bouchet’s long, undated letter concerning transmigration (XIII: 95-226) was reprinted (Picart 1723: 100-106). A brief account of the origin, editions and influence of the Lettres edifiantes is given by Retif 1951.] The Jesuit letters from India had been contributing to European knowledge of Indian religions since the sixteenth century.8 [Zachariae goes so far as to say that if Europeans at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century ‘were tolerably acquainted with ‘Hinduism’, with the religion and mythology of India... that knowledge was attained through the letters which the Jesuit missionaries labouring in India sent to the members of their Order in Europe.’ (Zachariae 1921: 151). For earlier Jesuit ethnographic contributions see Rubies 2000.] It will be argued, however, that for a number of reasons it was the letters of the eighteenth century which were particularly important in the establishment of the concept of a pan-Indian religion, which subsequently came to be called Hinduism. Although this analysis is based primarily on the letters published in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, the other letters, both published and unpublished also played a role, and reference will be made to these and to the other mentioned works on Indian religions by French writers in this period. Among the Jesuits who served in the Madurai, Carnatic and Bengal missions and contributed to the Lettres edifiantes were Jean Venant Bouchet (1655-1732, in India from 1688), Pierre Martin (1665-1716, in India from 1694), Pierre de la Lane (1669- 1746, in India from 1704), Etienne le Gac (1671-1738, in India by 1709), Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux (1691-1779, in India from 1732), Jean Calmette (1693-1740, in India from 1725 or 1726), Jean Francois Pons (1698-C.1753, in India from 1726).
While Ziegenbalg, as we have seen, had a general concept of a religion stretching from Sri Lanka, up the Coromandel coast to Bengal and deep into the Mogul realm,9 [See above, p. 110.] his primary concern was with the religious beliefs and practices of the Tamils. By contrast, in their letters from around the time of Ziegenbalg’s death onward, the Jesuits consistently treat ‘the system of religion recognized among the Indians’ as a coherent religious entity.10 [‘le systeme de Religion requ parmi les Indiens’ [Google translate: the system of religion required among the Indians IX: 5. Note however, that while the existence of such a common religion is a shared assumption of the Jesuits, they differed concerning the nature and origin of this religion.] While they have no single term equivalent to ‘Hinduism’, they express the same idea in various ways. Bouchet notes that ‘one of the points of the Indian doctrine, is that the gods may be changed into men, and the men into gods’.11 [‘un des points de la doctrine Indienne, est que les Dieux peuvent estre changez en hommes, & les hommes en Dieux’ [Google translate: one of the points of Indian doctrine is that Gods can be changed into men, and men into Gods] XIII,147. Cf. the reference to ‘la religion des gentils malabars’ in the title of Bouchet’s Relation des erreurs (Caland 1923).] De la Lane, and Le Caron both offer summaries of ‘the religion of the Indians’12 [‘la Religion des Indiens’, [Google translate: the religion of the Indians] X: 14. ‘La Religion des Indiens est un compose monstreux de toute sorte de fables.’ [Google translate: The Religion of the Indians is a monstrous composition of all kinds of fables.] XVI: 122. De la Lane also refers to 'l'Idolatrie Indienne’ [Google translate: Indian Idolatry] X: 17.] And Calmette reports the successful outcome of his commission to obtain ‘the original books of the religion of the Indies’.13 [‘les Livres originaux de la Religion des Indes’ [Google translate: the original Books of the Religion of the Indies] XXIV: 437. A copy of the igveda sent by Calmette was received in Paris in 1731 (Dharampal 1982a: 247).] Le Gac, writing in 1718, twice refers to the threats faced by converts from Hinduism as a result of their renouncing ‘the religion of their fathers’.14 [‘la religion de leurs Peres’ [Google translate: the religion of their fathers] XVI: 183, 208. In this letter Le Gac discusses particularly the former followers of a ‘Gourou nomme Chivalingam’ (204) but his comments about the consequences of renouncing ‘the religion of their fathers’ refer to other converts from Hinduism as well.] Four years later, the same author recounts a conversation with a local prince, whose evident desire ‘to know and to embrace the truth’ was ‘mixed sometimes with the ideas of Gentilism’, for example his wish to continue to wear a lingam.15 [“‘Dieu vous a donne un fonds de droiture”, lui dit le Pere dans le meme entretien, “qui est une grande disposition pour connoitre & embrasser la verite: mais a cette connoissance vous melez quelquefois des idees de Gentilisme qui alterent beaucoup ces heureuses semences.’” [Google translate: “'God has given you a fund of righteousness”, said the Father to him in the same interview, “which is a great disposition to know & embrace the truth: but with this knowledge you sometimes mix ideas of Gentilism which greatly alter these happy people seeds.'” ] XVI: 293-294.] Although ‘Gentilism’ had been used in the previous century, for example by Ross,16 [Ross 1696: 63, quoted above p. 54.] it is used here, in contrast to ‘Christianisme',17 [XVI: 204, 247. Le Gac also refers to ‘la Religion Chretienne’ and ‘la loi Chretienne’ [Google translate: 'Christian Religion’ and ‘Christian law.'] e.g. XVI: 285, 251. In general, where the Jesuits use ‘la Religion’ [Google translate: 'religion'] or ‘la Foi’ [Google translate: 'the faith'] without qualification, they refer to Christianity.] to refer to the same entity as ‘the religion of their fathers’ and in the context of the Jesuits’ works is better understood as anticipating the ‘Gentooism’ and ‘Hindooism’ which were to appear later in the century,18 [In 1779 and 1787 respectively. See above, p. 56.] than referring back to the broader concept of ‘Gentilism’ of a writer such as Ross. The account in the Jesuit letters of the religion to which these different locutions refer shows clearly that they have a concept of Hinduism avant la lettre. [Google translate: before the letter.] In order to show that this idea emerged not simply from their preconceptions or apologetic needs, it is necessary to examine the nature of the Jesuits and their missions in India.
The Jesuit missions in India
The Jesuits had been present in India since shortly after the foundation of their Society in the mid-sixteenth century, at first in Goa and the Fisher Coast and then at the courts of Akbar in the north and Venkata II in the south. The seventeenth century saw the experiments in adaptation of Roberto Nobili in the Madurai mission and, toward the end of the century, the establishment of the Bengal and Carnatic missions, based in the French possessions of Chandemagore and Pondicherry respectively. Many of the letters in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses are from Jesuits associated with the Carnatic mission, although crucially several also worked in the other missions, particularly Madurai and Bengal.
The history of the Carnatic mission of the Jesuits begins with the arrival in Pondicherry, in 1688, of a number of Jesuits who had been forced to leave Siam following a revolution.19 [For the Jesuits’ enterprise in Siam, see Tachard 1686 and 1689.]
For the Paris Foreign Missions Society the starting point was Siam, with the establishment of a base in its capital Ayutthaya, because Siam was highly tolerant of other religions and was indeed the only country in Southeast Asia where the Catholic Fathers could establish themselves safely. With the agreement of the Siamese king Narai, the Seminary of Saint Joseph was established, which could educate Asian candidate priests from all over the country of the Southeast Asian peninsula, as well as a cathedral...
In 1687 a French expedition to Siam took possession of Bangkok, Mergui, and Jonselang, and France came close to possessing an Indo-Chinese empire, though failed following the 1688 Siamese revolution, with a knock-on effect on the missions. Mgr Louis Laneau of the Society was involved in these events, and was imprisoned for two years with half of the members of the Seminar until he could resume his activities.
-- Paris Foreign Missions Society, by Wikipedia
When it became clear that they would not be able to return to Siam, it was decided to start a mission in the region to the north-west of Pondicherry, along the lines of the Madurai mission established in the extreme south by Roberto Nobili at the beginning of the century. Initially the mission consisted of three missionaries, Bouchet, Jean Baptiste de la Fontaine,20 [La Fontaine does not appear in Sommervogel. His death is reported in a letter dated 10 December 1718 from Le Gac, who writes: ‘The Carnatic mission ... rightly regards him as its founder.’ (‘La mission de Carnate ... le regarde avec justice comme son Fondateur.’ [Google translate: Carnate's mission ... regards him with justice as his Founder.] XVL232-3).] who had both worked in the Madurai mission, and Pierre Mauduit (1664-1711), under the authority of Guy Tachard (1651-1712) in Pondicherry. Neill notes that ‘[d]uring the course of the eighteenth century forty French Jesuits served in the Carnatic mission’, although ‘[f]or the greater part of the time there were not more than six missionaries in the whole of the vast field.’21 [Neill 1985: 90, 93.] Although some of these missionaries lived into the nineteenth century, the mission effectively came to an end with the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773. While their missionary labours yielded ‘no more than a somewhat exiguous reward’,22 [Neill 1985: 93.] their contributions to European understanding of Indian religions were rather more significant.
Despite the sustained anti-Jesuit polemic throughout his work, the English translator of the Jesuit letters, John Lockman, nevertheless argued that ‘no Men are better qualified to describe Nations and Countries than the Jesuits.’
Their Education, their extensive Learning; the Pains they take to acquire the Languages of the several Regions they visit; the Opportunities they have, by their Skill in the Arts and Sciences, as well as by their insinuating Address, to glide into Courts, where Access is often denied to all but themselves; Their Familiarity with the Inhabitants; their mixing with, and, often, very long Abode among them; these, I say, must necessarily give our Jesuits a much more perfect Insight into the Genius and Character of a Nation, than others who visit Coasts only, and that merely upon Account of Traffic, or from some other lucrative Motives. In case these Mercantile Travellers happen to go up a Country, and make some little Stay in it, the most they are able to do is, to get a few of the most obvious Customs; to describe Habits, Buildings, and what ever else comes under the Notice of the Eye: But as to the Genius of the Inhabitants, their Religion, their Government, and other important Articles, these they can learn only superficially; since they must depend wholly, for Information, upon the Natives, in case they understand their Language; or upon Foreigners who may have resided some Years among them. Upon the Whole therefore, ‘tis my Opinion, that the Jesuits, to speak in general, have the best Opportunity of furnishing us with valuable Accounts of many far distant Countries.23 [Lockman 1743,1: viii-ix.]
Like Nobili, the Jesuits of the eighteenth century spent extended periods in India. Martin reports that his fellow Jesuit, Emmanuel Lopez, had spent more than fifty years as a missionary in South India.24 [V: 14.] Lopez was unusual, but not exceptional; Coeurdoux was in India for forty-seven years, De la Lane for forty-two. Martin himself spent nearly twenty years in India,25 [Martin was sent to India in 1694. He returned to Rome to represent the Madurai mission, dying shortly afterwards in 1716. In addition to his letters an unpublished account of the mission, and especially of the persecutions it suffered, has survived. (Sommervogel 1890-1909, V: 624-625).] and several other missionaries were in India for periods of more than twenty years. In every case this is significantly longer than the Protestant chaplains, Lord and Roger, or the missionaries Ziegenbalg and Grundler, both of whom died prematurely.
The other factors identified by Lockman, the Jesuits’ education, success in learning languages, and willingness to live away from European coastal settlements, would all have contributed to their deeper understanding of Hinduism. Some of these were necessitated by a particular obstacle which the Jesuits found they had to overcome if they were to be successful in their mission. The problem was the view taken of Europeans, and therefore also of their religion, by the Indians. Bouchet comments that ‘It is not possible to explain how dreadful is the idea which the Gentiles, who dwell in these lands, have formed of the Europeans who live on the coast.’26 [ 26 ‘II n’est pas possible de faire comprendre l’affreuse idee que les Gentils, qui demeurent dans les terres, se sont formee des Europeans qui habitent la Coste.’ [Google translate: "It is not possible to convey the dreadful idea that the Gentiles, who dwell in the land, formed themselves from the Europeans who inhabit the Coste." ] XV, 239-40. Cf. Rubino’s account of the same problem a century earlier (Rubies 2001: 220).] The problem was not simply behaviour which, from the point of view of the Hindus, was immoral, but that they were mlecchas, and as such outside the caste system. The Jesuits realized that in the early years of their mission most of their converts had come from the lowest ranks of the caste system. If they were to have any access to the Brahmans it was necessary for them to avoid being identified as ‘Pranguis’.27 [Parangi, Feringhee, European. In his Relation des erreurs Bouchet states that ‘we do not have in our European languages a single term which represents all the contempt and the disgust which this word expresses.’ (‘nous n’avons pas dans nos langues d’Europe un seul terme qui represente tout le mepris et le degout que ce mot exprime.’ [Google translate: “We don't have a single term in our European languages that represents all the contempt and disgust that word expresses.”] Cited in Dharampal 1982a: 243). Cf. Caland 1923: 84.]
Roberto struggled to understand why the Madurai mission was confined to outcaste Paravas and Portuguese. He felt himself fortunate therefore to have become associated with the Hindu schoolmaster whom Fernandez had placed in charge of the school. From the schoolmaster, Roberto was astounded to learn that the term used by the Indians to refer to the Portuguese and their converts, Parangis, was not, as the missionaries believed, a Tamil word meaning simply "Portuguese." Rather it signified polluted, uncultured, contemptuous foreigners and their proselytes. Parangis were despised, the Hindu schoolmaster said, because they ate meat, drank wine (usually to excess), bathed irregularly, wore leather shoes, and ignored the rules of social interaction...
When the Portuguese first came to India, the question was asked: To which caste do these foreigners belong? It seemed to the Hindus that the Portuguese were ignorant, uncouth, unscrupulous people who were unworthy to associate with anybody except the outcastes. How else could one explain their total disregard for basic religious and social principles? No Indian who valued his rank in society or who esteemed his religious faith would ever consider adopting the ways of these foreigners. This was the reason, according to the schoolmaster, why Hindus avoided contact with the Portuguese except for trading purposes. To be touched by or even gazed upon by a Parangi was even contaminating.
-- Roberto de Nobili: Case study in cross-cultural accommodation, by Howard Culbertson
The Jesuits therefore adopted the dress and manner of life of sannyasins and avoided polluting themselves by such actions as entering outcaste dwellings.28 [Martin notes that Lopez was ‘the last Jesuit who wore, in Madura, our European habit.’ (‘le dernier Jesuite, qui ait paru dans le Madure avec l’habit que nous portons en Europe.’ [Google translate: "The last Jesuit, who appeared in the Madure with the dress we wear in Europe."] V: 14).] Exposure as ‘Pranguis’ was a constant concern for the missionaries; Martin notes that it would ‘make us contemptible in their eyes, and raise in them an insurmountable aversion to the [Christian] religion’.29 [‘nous rendroit meprisables a leurs yeux, & leur inspireroit pour la Religion une horreur qu’on ne pourrait jamais vaincre’ [Google translate: "Would make us despicable in their eyes, & inspire them with a horror for Religion which we could never conquer."] IX: 126.] He writes that the Jesuits in Madurai ‘call themselves Brahmans, that is, divines, come out of the north to teach the law of the true God’30 [‘se qualifient Brames, c’est a dire, Docteurs, venus au Nord pour enseigner la Loi du vrai Dieu’ [Google translate: "Brames qualify, that is to say, Doctors, who came to the North to teach the Law of the true God."] I: 17.] and Mauduit confirms that this is how they were known.31 [VI: 9. The title ‘Les Brames du Nord’ [Google translate: The Brames of the North] is still in use in one of the last of the Lettres edifiantes, written sometime between 1760 and 1776 (XXXIV: 311). The Jesuits were also known as the ‘Saniassis Romains’ [Google translate: Roman Saniassis] (e. g. XVI: 207).] On their own account, in inland areas, they seem to have been successful in this ploy. Martin reports an occasion when he sought an audience with a local Prince to request protection against persecution.
If he had had the least suspicion that I was of the caste of the Pranghis, for it is thus that they call the Europeans, he would certainly not have admitted me to his presence, nor sent me food, as was his habit. One of his ministers, an intelligent man, drew in my presence a very ridiculous portrait of the Pranghis or Europeans whom he had seen on the Coromandel coast, and he concluded that my manners, and my way of life, so opposed to that of the Pranghis, was a convincing proof that I was not of such a contemptible caste.32 [‘S’il eut eu le moindre soupcon que j’estois de la Caste des Pranghis, c’est ainsi qu’ils appellent les Europeans, il ne m’auroit point certainement admis aupres de sa personne, ni envoye des plats qui sont a son usage. Un de ses Ministres homme d’esprit, fit en ma presence un portrait fort ridicule des Pranghis ou Europeans qu’il avoit vus a la Coste de Coromandel, & il concluoit que mes manieres, & ma facon de vivre si opposee a celle des Pranghis, estoient une preuve convainquainte que je n’estois pas d’une caste si meprisable.’ [Google translate: 'If he had had the slightest suspicion that I was of the Pranghis Caste, as they call the Europeans, he certainly would not have admitted me to his person, nor sent dishes that are its use. One of his Ministers, a man of wit, painted in my presence a very ridiculous portrait of the Pranghis or Europeans he had seen at the Coste de Coromandel, and he concluded that my ways, and my way of living so opposed to that of the Pranghis, was convincing proof that I was not of such a despicable caste.'] XIII: 88. Cf. IX: 233 where Martin reports ‘Swami, thus the people call the missionaries’. (‘Souamy c’est ainsi les Peuples appellent les Missionaires’. [Google translate: “Souamy is what the Peoples call Missionaries”.])]
Of course it was not always possible for the missionaries to convince Indians that they were not Europeans. Bouchet notes that ‘it is evident that we are white like the Paranguis’,33 [‘il est evident que nous sommes blancs comme les Paranguis’. [Google translate: "It is obvious that we are white like the Parangioses"] Caland 1923: 88.] and that the ‘Gentils’ argued that as ‘the faith and the religion that we profess are the same as that of the Paranguis and the Portuguese’, the Jesuits cannot deny that they are also ‘Paranguis’.34 [‘la foy et la religion que nous professons est la meme de celle des Paranguis et des Portugais, et que par consequent ne pouvons pas nier que nous ne soyons Paranguis comme eux’. [Google translate: "The faith and religion that we profess is the same as that of the Parangians and the Portuguese, and therefore cannot be denied that we are Parangians like them."] Caland 1923: 89.] Bouchet’s response was to argue that just as the Brahmans cannot be ‘reproached for being Parias, although they teach the same sects of Visnu and Rudra as the Parias follow’, so ‘[the Jesuits] are not Paranguis [although they] are of the same religion as the Europeans.’35 [‘reprocher aux Brahames ... qu’ils soient Parias, quoy qu’ils enseignent les memes sectes de Vichnou et de Rutren que les Parias suivent’, ‘nous ne somme pas Paranguis pour estre de la meme religion que les Europeens.’ Caland 1923: 89.] The result, according to Bouchet, was that 100,000 converted from ‘idolatry’ and became Christians. Many European missionaries in India both before and after experienced the same problem, although none of them went quite as far as the Jesuits in the search for a solution. Whatever the difference this policy made to the success of the mission, the attempt to dissociate themselves entirely from other Europeans in India meant that the Jesuits were integrated into Indian life to an extraordinary degree. Moreover both the practice and the defence of what became a controversial policy were important spurs to study and writing on Hinduism.
In addition to the length of time they spent in India, and their integration into Indian society, there are two further factors arising directly from the nature of the Society which influenced the Jesuits’ understanding of Indian religion. Unlike other religious orders the Society of Jesus was not based around traditional monastic communal life. To supply the lack of regular contact between members, Ignatius had instituted a practice of regular letter-writing, and it is within this broader tradition that the letters from India take their place.36 [Retif (1951: 39) notes that, at least since the time of Francis Xavier, the Franciscans had been sending letters from the east reporting their voyages, but that the Jesuits were the first to do so methodically as part of their apostolate, following the recommendations of Ignatius.] What this meant was that the Jesuits in India were able to gather information on religious practices from widely separated parts of India, and thus to recognize patterns of similarity across India. Moreover, the discipline of the Society required that a Jesuit be entirely at the disposal of his superiors, and missionaries could be, and often were, moved from one part of India to another, even if this meant discarding years spent learning a language that would be of little use elsewhere. Thus Tachard notes on being ordered to move to Bengal: ‘It was with regret that I left Pondicherry, I knew the Malabar language quite well ... It would be necessary in Bengal to begin to learn an entirely new language; this is not easy at the age of sixty.’37 [‘Ce fut avec regret que je quittai Pontichery; je spavois assez de lanque Malabare ... II falloit a Bengale commencer a apprendre une langue toute nouvelle; ce qui n’est pas aise a Page de soixante ans.’ XII: 367-8.] Ten years earlier, Martin, having learnt Bengali, had made the opposite journey and had had to apply himself to learning Tamil: ‘For it is an order which the Fathers of that Province have wisely established, not to allow anyone to enter the Madurai Mission, but those who have learnt the language of the country.’ 38 [‘Car c’est un ordre que les Peres de cette Province ont sagement etabli, de ne laisser entrer personne dans la Mission de Madure, qu’il a spache la langue du pays.’ V: 36-7. Special care was taken in the Madurai mission because of the need to avoid detection as Europeans.] As a result these Jesuits had personal knowledge, including acquisition of languages, of widely different parts of India; something that writers such as Lord and Roger never acquired, but which Ziegenbalg was perhaps able to replicate through the breadth of his reading. Not all Jesuits had personal knowledge of different parts of India, but through the exchange of letters and other contacts they were able to benefit from the knowledge of their fellow Jesuits. To demonstrate the importance of these factors in shaping the Jesuits’ view of Hinduism, we shall begin with the works of Bouchet, perhaps the best known of the members of the Carnatic mission.
Jean Venant Bouchet: ‘le systeme de Religion regu parmi les Indiens’
Bouchet was first sent to Siam, where he remained, according to his first letter to Huet, long enough to learn the language.39 [XIII, 217.] In 1688, he and other Jesuits were forced to leave Siam. Bouchet went to India, first spending twelve years in the Madurai mission at Aur, near Tiruchirappalli, where he was introduced to the principles of adaptation laid down by Nobili.40 [Neill 1985: 90.]
Roberto became convinced that Hindus would never listen to the gospel until a break was made with Parangi Christianity. He therefore determined to disassociate himself from people and customs which might identify him as a Parangi.
So, he sought the support of his older colleague. He shared his ideas with Father Gonçalo, attempting to persuade him of their soundness....what he heard from Roberto filled him with dismay.
Roberto told him he wanted to deny that he was a Parangi. He wanted to speak only Tamil and avoid touching or even associating with the Portuguese and outcaste Christians. He wanted to bathe daily, sit down cross-legged and to refer to himself as a sannyasi (a Sanskrit word meaning "one who has given up everything," but for a Brahman, being a sannyasi was the last stage of life). He wanted to eat no meat, and wear wooden clogs and a saffron robe instead of the traditional Jesuit black cassock.
Such a course of action, responded Father Gonçalo, would be a repudiation of three generations of missionary work in India and an irretrievable concession to social evils which Christianity should eradicate. Hundreds of missionaries had given their lives in India in an attempt to plant the Church and root out social evils. For Roberto and him now to withdraw from outcaste believers and accept the prohibitions of caste would be turning their backs on the Indians who had first accepted the gospel. Furthermore, the other changes Roberto was suggesting, such as refusing to eat meat or wear leather sandals, wearing Indian clothing and speaking only in Tamil, calling himself a sannyasi, would deny his priestly identity and seemingly sanction harmful superstitions and prejudices.
Roberto decided that he had no alternative but to appeal to his superior, Laerzio, who did confess that he was uneasy with the unconventionality of Roberto's ideas. Was it necessary, he asked, to go to such extremes? Laerzio affirmed that he longed for the conversion of Hindus as much as any missionary in India, but he could not himself grant permission for such radical departures from the traditional missionary strategy. Nonetheless, Laerzio indicated that he would consult with the Archbishop...
Roberto was not to be deterred. He simply ignored Father Gonçalo's protests. As long as he had the approval of Laerzio and of the Archbishop, Roberto felt he could continue....
He moved from the missionary compound into a hut in the Brahman quarter of the city and shaved his head except for a small tuft of hair. He spoke only Tamil, hired a Brahman cook and houseboy, and became a vegetarian. Like all Brahmans, Roberto limited himself to one meal a day. He abandoned the black cassock and leather sandals of the Jesuits for a saffron robe and wooden clogs. To cover the "nakedness" of his forehead, he put sandalwood paste on his brow to indicate that he was a guru or teacher. He referred to himself not as a priest but as a sannyasi. Eventually, he ate only with Brahmans, and for a brief period he also wore the Brahman thread of three strands of cotton cord draped from the shoulder to the waist as a sign of rank. He bathed daily and cleansed himself ceremonially before saying mass.
-- Roberto de Nobili: Case study in cross-cultural accommodation, by Howard Culbertson
Here Bouchet would have begun to live as a sannyasin. In a letter written some time after his move north to join the Carnatic mission he claimed to be accepted as a sannyasin by those among whom he lived.41 [XIII: 190.] After the arrival in 1703 of Charles Thomas Maillard de Tournon, the papal legate appointed to investigate the rites question, Bouchet was chosen by Tachard to explain the Jesuits’ practice in part because he had ‘applied himself with so much care and ardour to study and to understand the indigenous customs’.42 [Tachard, letter to the Pere General de la Compagnie, 18 February 1705, cited in Dharampal 1982a: 235.]
Malabar rites is a conventional term for certain customs or practices of the natives of South India, which the Jesuit missionaries allowed their Indian neophytes to retain after conversion but which were afterwards prohibited by Rome...
The missions concerned are not those of the coast of southwestern India, to which the name Malabar coast properly belongs, but rather those of nearby inner South India, especially those of the former Hindu "kingdoms" of Madurai, Mysore and the Carnatic.
The question of Malabar Rites originated in the method followed by the Jesuit mission, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, in evangelizing those countries. The prominent feature of that method was an accommodation to the manners and customs of the people to be converted. Enemies of the Jesuits claim that, in Madura, Mysore and the Karnatic, the Jesuits either accepted for themselves or permitted to their neophytes such practices as they knew to be idolatrous or superstitious.
-- Malabar rites, by Wikipedia
In 1704, following the decision of the legate against the Jesuits, he was sent to Rome to protest the Jesuit case. In 1710 he returned to India and succeeded Tachard as superior of the Carnatic mission, remaining there until his death in 1732. Throughout his time in India, Bouchet was in regular contact with other Jesuits, both in person and by letter, and was himself the author of nine letters from India in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses43 [1: 55-60; IX: 1-60 and 61-123; XI: 1-73; XIII: 95-225 and 226-228; XIV: 321- 410; XV: 1-82 and 209-332.] Two of the longest, both addressed to the former Bishop of Avranches, Pierre-Daniel Huet, are remarkable for the detailed accounts they contain of the Indian gods and of transmigration. It is likely that Bouchet is also the author of the Relation des erreurs qui se trouvent dans la religion des gentils malabars de la Coste Coromandelle, [Google translate: Relation of the errors which are in the religion of the gentile malabars of Coste Coromandelle] 44 [See above, p. 127.] written in defence of the Jesuit mission against the charges of Tessier de Queralay ...
[TESSIER DE QUÉRALAY, Jean-Jacques. Chantenay c. 1668 — Juthia 27.9.1736. French Missionary in India. Capuchin. From 1699 missionary (procureur of Société des Missions Etrangères) in Pondichéry. From 1717 Coadjutor to Vicar Apostolic of Siam (Thailand) and titulat Bishop of Rosalia, in 1723-36 Vicar Apostolic of Thailand.]
-- Persons of Indian Studies by Prof. Dr. Klaus Karttunen
and the Capuchins concerning the Malabar rites, and of other works which emerged from this controversy.45 [Sommervogel attributes three such works to Bouchet: the ‘Decision des Missionaires Jesuites du Royaume de Carnate’ [Google translate: Decision of the Jesuit Missionaries of the Kingdom of Carnate] (dated 3 November 1704 and signed by Bouchet, Mauduit, de la Lane and le Petit), the ‘Protestation des PP. Jesuites de Pondichery, Contre l’lntimation faite juridiquement par M. de Visdelou, Eveque et Vicaire apostolique du 15 janvier 1716’, [Google translate: Protest of Frs. Jesuites de Pondichery, Against the legal notice made by M. de Visdelou, Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of January 15, 1716 and the ‘Explicatio Decreti ab Illustrissimo Patriarcha Antiocheno pro Missionibus Indicis lati, quam ipsemet verbo tradidit; datee de Rome, 12 mars 1707.’ [Google translate: The development of the Patriarch of Antioch for the mission cause, the Decree by the most illustrious of the Index are broad, whom he is leaving he delivered to the word; datee of Rome, 12 March 1707.]
Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the bishop of Antioch. As the traditional "overseer" (ἐπίσκοπος, episkopos, from which the word bishop is derived) of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in Pauline Christianity from its earliest period...
Pauline Christianity or Pauline theology (also Paulism or Paulanity), otherwise referred to as Gentile Christianity, is the theology and form of Christianity which developed from the beliefs and doctrines espoused by the Hellenistic-Jewish Apostle Paul through his writings and those New Testament writings traditionally attributed to him. Paul's beliefs were rooted in the earliest Jewish Christianity, but deviated from this Jewish Christianity in their emphasis on inclusion of the Gentiles into God's New Covenant, and his rejection of circumcision as an unnecessary token of upholding the Law...
The church in Antioch was the first to be called "Christian," according to Acts. According to tradition, Saint Peter established the church and was the city's first bishop, before going to Rome to found the Church there. Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107), counted as the third bishop of the city, was a prominent apostolic father. By the fourth century, the bishop of Antioch had become the most senior bishop in a region covering modern-day eastern Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Iran. His hierarchy served the largest number of Christians in the known world at that time. The synods of Antioch met at a basilica named for Julian the Martyr, whose relics it contained...
The Antiochene church was a centre of Christian learning, second only to Alexandria. In contrast to the Hellenistic-influenced Christology of Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople, Antiochene theology was greatly influenced by Rabbinic Judaism and other modes of Semitic thought—emphasizing the single, transcendent divine substance (οὐσία), which in turn led to adoptionism in certain extremes, and to the clear distinction of two natures of Christ (δύο φύσεις: dyophysitism): one human, the other divine...
The Great Schism officially began in 1054, though problems had been encountered for centuries. Cardinal Humbert, legate of the recently deceased Pope Leo IX, entered the Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople during the Divine Liturgy and presented Ecumenical Patriarch Michael I Cerularius with a bull of excommunication. The patriarch, in turn, excommunicated the deceased Leo IX and his legate, removing the bishop of Rome from the diptychs. Consequently, two major Christian bodies broke communion and ended ecclesiastical relations with each other. One faction, now identified as the Catholic Church, represented the Latin West under the leadership of the pope; the other faction, now identified as the Eastern Orthodox Church, represented the Greek East under the collegial authority of the patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople and Alexandria...
When the Western European Crusaders established the Principality of Antioch, they established a Latin Rite church in the city, whose head took the title of Patriarch. After the Crusaders were expelled by the Mamelukes in 1268, the pope continued to appoint a titular Latin patriarch of Antioch, whose actual seat was the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
-- Patriarch of Antioch, by Wikipedia
The first two treatises appear in a work published from the other side of the debate by the Capuchin Pierre Parisot (or Platel) under the pseudonym Pere Norbert, (Pere Norbert 1766,1:406-8 and II: 221-3).] Bouchet’s position in the rites debate presupposes a demarcation between Indian social customs, tolerable in the church and the lives of the missionaries, and Indian religious beliefs and practices. It does not necessarily require a unified conception of Indian religion, but it is evident from his letters and other works that Bouchet did have such a concept.
In his introduction to the ninth volume of the Lettres edifiantes Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743),46 [Editor of eighteen volumes of the Lettres edifiantes after the death of Le Gobien and author of a major work on China, the Description ... de la Chine (1735). See Foss 1979.] describes the difficulties of gaining more than a superficial knowledge of the Indians’ religion: European writers have not been very familiar with the Indians on the coast, or if they have, these Indians have not been well-instructed in the principles of their religion; the Brahmans have not allowed their books to be read by others, in order, says Du Halde, that they can maintain the advantages they have over the other Indians.
Father Bouchet knew how to ease these difficulties which the Europeans have found in instructing themselves in the doctrine of the Indians: he has penetrated deep into the country, where he has remained for over twenty years: among more than twenty thousand idolaters, to whom he has had the good fortune to administer holy baptism, there are found a number of Brahmans, those of reputation in the country, and who are the most able: through them he has obtained their books, which their learned hold so great a mystery; and as he knows perfectly their language, he has read them with attention: beyond which, in the things which are in need of some explanation, he has had long and frequent debates with the converted Brahmans; in short he has lacked nothing which was necessary in order to know profoundly the ridiculous plan of religion which this people has formed.47 [‘Ces difficultez que trouvent les Europeans a s’instruire de la Doctrine des Indiens, le Pere Bouchet a scu se les applanir: il a penetre bien avant dans les terres, ou il a fait un sejour de plus de vingt annees: parmi plus de vingt mille Idolatres, a qui il a eu le bonheur d’administrer le saint Bapteme, il s’est trouve plusiers Brames, de ceux meme qui sont en reputation dans le Payis, & qui passent pour etre les plus habiles: il a eu par leur moyen ces Livres, dont leur Scavans sont un si grand mystere; & comme il scait parfaitement leur langue, il les a lu avec attention: outre cela, dans les choses qui avoient besoin de quelque explication, il a eu de longues & de frequentes conferences avec les Brames convertis; enfin il n’a rien omis de tout ce qui etoit necessaire pour connoitre a fond le plan ridicule de Religion que ce Peuple s’est forme.’ [Google translate: 'These difficulties that Europeans find in learning about the Indian Doctrine, Pere Bouchet was able to applaud: he entered the land long before, where he stayed for more than twenty years: among more than twenty thousand Idolaters, to whom he had the good fortune to administer holy Baptism, there are several Brames, even those who are in reputation in the Payis, and who pass to be the most skilful: he has had by their means these Books, of which their Scavans are such a great mystery; & as he knew their language perfectly, he read them carefully: besides that, in matters which needed some explanation, he had long & frequent conferences with the converted Brams; finally, he did not omit anything that was necessary to fully understand the ridiculous plan of Religion that this People has formed."] IX, xiii-xiv.]
Bouchet’s linguistic capacity owed much to the advantages of being part of the Jesuits’ corporate approach to India. He was first taught ‘la langue du payis’ [Google translate: the language of the country ] i.e. Tamil by Francois Laynes, procurator of the Madurai mission.48 [XV: 226.] Like Tachard, he complained of ‘the difficulties of beginning to learn, when already at an advanced age, the elements of a language which has no connection with those of which one is apprised in Europe’,49 [‘dans un age deja avance, les difficultez qui se trouvent a commencer les elemens d’une langue, qui n’a nul rapport avec cedes qu’on a apprises en Europe.’ [Google translate: "In an already advanced age, the difficulties of starting the elements of a language, which has nothing to do with those learned in Europe."] XV: 266.] especially as ‘at a certain age the nerves of the tongue are no longer supple enough to catch the pronunciation of certain letters.’50 [‘Les nerfs de la langue ne sont plus assez souples dans un certain age, pour attraper la prononciation de certaines lettres.’ [Google translate: "The nerves of the tongue are not flexible enough at a certain age to catch the pronunciation of certain letters."] XV: 267.] However, he notes that he had ‘the help of a grammar composed by one of our first missionaries.’51 [‘le secours d’une Grammaire composee par nos premiers Missionaires.’ [Google translate: "The help of a Grammar composed by our first Missionaries."] XV: 266. Possibly that of Henrique Henriques, begun in 1548 or 1549 (Henriques 1982).]
