Oct 1714

The vows of Veeramamunivar

That year permission came from Rome, and the Provincial named the priest who was to act on it: the father of this church. Constantine Beschi — the Italian Jesuit whom Tamil would come to know as Veeramamunivar, and whose Thembavani is counted among the classical poems of the language — was to make his profession of four vows, the last and gravest promise a Jesuit makes, and Fr Antonius Brandolini was to receive them, being “his neighbour in the district of Vadakenkulam.” On the feast of Saints Simon and Jude, the twenty-eighth of October 1714, the poet made his vows and the priest of Vadakkankulam received them. This village has said ever since that it was done here, and that Beschi brought his own catechist with him for the day. He was young in the mission then, and not yet the poet Tamil remembers. The annual letter written a few months later says he had given himself entirely to the study of Tamil poetry, and had gone further in it in the space of a few months than any missionary since the mission was founded — because in this country, it explains, nothing is held in higher esteem.