Devapriyaji - True History Analaysed

De Nobili-The Roman Brahmin

The Portuguese had arrived in India in 1498 and were busy since then in taking over the roaring spice trade by hook or crook, and force, fighting battles with the Zamorin and his troops. They were also busy in enforcing Christianity where they could, making them a very unpopular lot, except as in the case of the Paravas, whom I wrote about earlier. The word Parangi (the person from Portugal) was a dreaded term and synonymous with forced Christianity.

It was into this turmoil in South India that his Lord’s calling led Robert De Nobili, and as he was soon to realize, specifically, to Madurai where he ended spending many years of his life. Madurai, the capital of Nayak kings at that time was also a center of Vedic learning, and Hindu philosophy and science were extensively studied. His story, like that of Dom Joao Da Cruz who I wrote about recently, is fascinating.

Sometime you wonder at the sheer audacity and sagacity of certain people, how they risk life & legacy, in order to achieve their higher goals or godly calling. Such was the effort of Robert De Nobili that he managed to carry it on for close to 50 years. Can you imagine a chaste Italian Jesuit priest, dressed in ochre robes, with a ‘ponool’ (sacred thread) around his body and the sacred sandalwood marks on his forehead and arms, conducting extensive religious debates and promoting his religion to the Iyers & Iyengars of Madurai in all the three languages, Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu, mastered in a couple of calendar years (In his life he is said to have mastered 32 languages) at Tuticorin, Goa & Cochin? Unbelievable, eh? Well, I was taken aback when I encountered him in history books, close on the heels of Joao De Cruz and St Xavier in timeline. So confident was this young upstart, all of 28 years of age that he promised the Roman clergy that he will start from the top of the Indian caste ladder and that he would have the South of India converted in no time.

Let us start with some basic information. Robert De Nobili, born at Montepulciano, Tuscany, September, 1577; died at Mylapore, India, in Jan 1656. Born in a family which claimed noble descent and distinguished relations. Ran away from home at the age of nineteen to join the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at Naples and after a brilliant course of studies sailed for the Indian mission in October, 1604, arriving at Goa on 20 May, 1605. After a short stay at Cochin (where he fell gravely ill and nearly died) and the Fishery Coast, he moved in November, 1606, to Madurai.

The policy until then by the Portuguese clergy was to try and achieve conversions of the downtrodden lower classes, sometimes forcefully, hardly making contacts with the upper castes. Parangi’s had strict rules after conversions, getting the new recruits to eat meat, change their entire ways of life etc which earned them no good will, and then again, the converts were still considered lower class. The revised priority in India, therefore for the Jesuits, was to free Hindus from the stranglehold of the Brahmanas as set by St Xavier. The resident Jesuit priest in Madurai was making no headway with conversions and not a single Brahmin had converted thus far.

De Nobili had other ideas (fashioned on his colleague Matteo Ricci’s methods of acting as a Confucian scholar in China). He would persuade the nobility to accept his way and start from the top of the caste ladder. First he had to understand the terrain and its constraints. As it goes, De Nobili learnt the first lessons about Hinduism from a teacher he met at Fr Fernandez’s school for the Parava fishermen in Tuticorin.

Having ripened his design by thorough meditation and by conferring with his superiors, the Archbishop of Cranganore and the Provincial of Malabar, who both approved and encouraged his resolution, Nobili planned his arduous career to visit Madurai in the dress of the Hindu ascetics, known as sanyasis. The permission came in 1607, and he exchanged his black cassock for Kavi (saffron) colored robes, shaved his head and put on a linen turban, a triple strand poonool across his shoulder, broad sandalwood paste ‘kuri’ on his forehead, and his leather shoes were exchanged for wooden sandals.

He carefully avoided meeting with Father Gonsalvo Fernandes the resident Jesuit priest as he took his lodgings in a solitary abode in the Brahmins' quarter obtained with the benevolence of a high officer in Madurai. He then engaged a Brahmin cook and ate vegetarian food consisting of rice, vegetables, fruit and milk, eating just once a day. He later employed a Telugu Brahmin Sanskrit scholar Sivadharma to teach him the Vedas, hoping & preparing to meet the Brahmins on their own higher ground. He operated as a `saint' from an `ashram' and offered `pujas.' At the end of the `pujas,' De Nobili distributed `prasadam.' All this while, he studiously avoided any contact with lower caste people. By 1610 he had mastered the Hindu scriptures and the three languages. He wrote two books ‘Dialogue of Eternal life’ and ‘Inquiry into the meaning of life’ in Tamil and used them to draw the local Brahmins to debates. Soon he came to be known as the Tattuwa Bhodhacharia Swamikal or the Roman Brhamin. 

J. N. Ogilvie in his work, Apostles of India says "It was told how a strange ascetic from some far land had arrived, drawn to the holy city by its great repute, and that he had taken up his abode in the Brahman quarter of the city. Soon visitors flocked to the house of the holy man to see what they should see, but only to find that the Brahman's servants would not permit their entrance. 'The master,' they said, 'is meditating upon God. He may not be disturbed.' This merely helped to whet the people's desire and increase the fame of the recluse. The privacy was relaxed, and daily audiences were granted to a privileged few."