c.1680

Santhaayi Ammaiyar and her cross

About the year 1680 a Christian woman named Santhaayi Ammaiyar came with her family out of Thoppuvilai and stopped at a place that was then nothing but forest — bush, trees and pits, and a tank on its northern side that gave the place its name. She built her house there. Because she was firm in her faith she raised a little roadside crusadi, a cross-shrine, in the open ground facing her door, and she prayed at it where anyone passing could see her. Others came and built beside her. A settlement gathered around one woman's cross.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 2 sources.
Hardgrave 1969
In 1680, the first congregation of Nadars was started at Vadakkankulam, in what is now Nanguneri taluq, with the conversion of a Nadar woman; a church was built in 1685; and a permanent mission was established in 1701.

What this source establishes

The second outside leg, and the one that carries the DATE. Hardgrave is writing the social history of the Nadar community from its own sources, with no interest in this church at all — and he independently gives 1680, a woman, and the 1685 church. Between him and Bayly the shape of the founding stands outside the parish: a woman, a cross, 1680, and a village that grew around her. What remains the parish's own is her name, Santhaayi Ammaiyar, and where she came from. Note also what he does NOT say: nothing here about a priest on horseback, and nothing about de Britto. We do not hold the volume — quoted at second hand, and still in copyright.

This is as much of the book as this site prints. It is named in full in the bibliography below.

The Nadars of TamilnadUniversity of California Press, 1969