1606

The mission that turned inland

Christianity in these years “lay entrenched without the walls of India” — held to the coast. On 10 November 1606 a small party set out from Tuticorin for Madurai; among them the Roman Jesuit Roberto de Nobili, who made headway only after putting off European dress for the life of a sannyasi, “one who resigns or abandons all”. It was to the charge of that inland Madurai Mission that St John de Britto succeeded in 1683, and from it he came south.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 2 sources.
Pate 1917p. 89
THE PEOPLE 89 of the Bishop of Goa. Michael Vaz sailed back with the Paravans and, in consideration of their becoming Christians, undertook, with the aid of a number of Portuguese followers who accompanied him, the chastisement of the Muhammadans. The terms were accepted; the Moormen were repressed; the Paravans became Christians, and in 1532 was established “ the Christianity of the Fishery Coast”? under the supervision of the See of Goa. In 1542 the celebrated Francis Xavier, a member of the Society of Jesus, visited the new Christians, and during the two years that he laboured among them gave them their first practical lessons in the doctrines of their new faith. Having taught himself Tamil, he translated into the vernacular the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ave Maria, and travelling, bell in hand, from village to village collected the inhabitants, instructed and baptized them. The numerous letters written by him to his Society in Rome from Tuticorin, Manappad, Vaippar, Virapandyanpatnam, Alanthalai, Punnaikayal, Tiruchendtr and other places give a most interesting account of his activities. From the sea-coast Christianity spread into the interior, but little is known of its progress in the district during the next hundred years. According to an original authority quoted by Dr. Caldwell', there were in the year 1600 twentytwo congregations scattered over the district of Tinnevelly and Madura, no less than sixteen of which were on the coast. The work was in charge of seventeen fathers and three brothers, the chief residence of whom was the college already established at Tuticorin. In 1606 the Mission of Madura was established by Father Robert de Nobili; and, though formally it continued to be under the jurisdiction of the “Malabar province,” the new society had from the first its own methods and sphere of action and managed its own finances. It took under its nominal control the inland parishes of the Tinnevelly district, the missionary in charge being stationed far away, at Mullipadi, now in the Trichinopoly district. The Fishery Coast still remained an integral part of the “ Malabar province, ” under the authority of Goa. In its early years the Madura Mission was too much occupied with its work in Trichinopoly, Tanjore and Madura to pay much attention to Tinnevelly. In 1638 Father Emmanuel Martin, a member of the Madura Society, toured through the district. “The results of the mission,” he writes from Kurukkalapatti (near Andipatti, Tenkasi taluk}, “ are in 1 History of Tinnevelly, Pe 235» CHAP. IIL THE CURIS TANS,
89

Madras District Gazetteers: Tinnevelly, Vol. IMadras: Government Press, 1917

Published before 1930. In the public domain, and reproduced here in full.

What this source establishes

The founding of the inland Madura Mission in 1606, and — the load-bearing half — that de Britto succeeded to its charge in 1683. That succession is what connects a Roman Jesuit at Madurai to a priest on a forest path in the deep south.