Malabar rites is a conventional term for certain
East Syriac customs or practices of the native
Eastern Catholics of South India, concerning
the liturgical rites, which the Jesuit missionaries
allowed their Indian neophytes to retain after
conversion but 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.
== Origins ==
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.
Others reject the claim as unjust and absurd
and say that the claim is tantamount to asserting
that these men, whose intelligence, at least,
was never questioned, were so stupid as to
jeopardize their own salvation to save others
and to endure infinite hardships to establish
among the Hindus a corrupt and sham Christianity.
The popes, while disapproving of some usages
hitherto considered inoffensive or tolerable
by the missionaries, never charged them with
having knowingly adulterated the purity of
religion.
One of them, who had observed the "Malabar
Rites" for seventeen years previous to his
martyrdom, was conferred by the Church the
honour of beatification.
The process for the beatification of Father
John de Britto was going on at Rome during
the hottest period of the controversy over
these "Rites", and the adversaries of the
Jesuits asserted that beatification to be
impossible because it would amount to approving
the "superstitions and idolatries" maintained
by the missioners of Madura.
Still, the cause progressed, and Benedict
XIV, on 2 July 1741, declared "that the rites
in question had not been used, as among the
Gentiles, with religious significance, but
merely as civil observances, and that therefore
they were no obstacle to bringing forward
the process".
The mere enumeration of the Decrees by which
the question was decided shows how perplexing
it was and how difficult the solution.
It was concluded that there was no reason
to view the "Malabar rites", as practised
generally in those missions, in any other
light and that the good faith of the missionaries
in tolerating the native customs should not
be contested; but on the other hand, they
erred in carrying this toleration too far.
== Father de Nobili's work ==
The founder of the missions of the interior
of South India, Roberto de Nobili, was born
in Rome, in 1577, of a noble family from Montepulciano,
which numbered among many distinguished relatives
the celebrated Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine.
When nineteen years of age, he entered the
Society of Jesus; and, after a few years,
the young religious, aiming at the purest
ideal of self-sacrifice, requested his superiors
to send him to the missions of India.
He embarked at Lisbon, 1604, and in 1606 was
serving his apostolic apprenticeship in South
India, where Christianity was then flourishing
on the coasts.
It is well known that St Francis Xavier baptized
many thousands there, and from the apex of
the Indian triangle the faith spread along
both sides, especially on the west, the Malabar
coast.
But the interior of the vast peninsula remained
almost untouched.
The Apostle of the Indies himself recognized
the insuperable opposition of the "Brahmins
and other noble castes inhabiting the interior"
to the preaching of the Gospel.
Yet his disciples were not sparing of endeavours.
A Portuguese Jesuit, Gonsalvo Fernandes, had
resided in the city of Madura fully fourteen
years, having obtained leave of the king to
stay there to watch over the spiritual needs
of a few Christians from the coast; and, though
a zealous and pious missionary, he had not
succeeded, within that long space of time,
in making one convert.
This painful state of things Nobili witnessed
in 1606, when together with his superior,
the Provincial of Malabar, he paid a visit
to Fernandes.
At once his keen eye perceived the cause and
the remedy.
It was evident that a deep-rooted aversion
to the foreign preachers hindered the Hindus
of the interior, not only from accepting the
Gospel, but even from listening to its message.
The aversion was not to the foreigner, but
the Prangui.
This name, with which the natives of India
designed the Portuguese, conveyed to their
minds the idea of an infamous and abject class
of men, with whom no Hindu could have any
intercourse without degrading himself to the
lowest ranks of the population.
Now the Prangui were abominated because they
violated the most respected customs of India,
by eating beef, and indulging in wine and
spirits; but much as all well-bred Hindus
abhorred those things, they felt more disgusted
at seeing the Portuguese, irrespective of
any distinction of caste, treat freely with
the lowest classes, such as the pariahs, who
in the eyes of their countrymen of the higher
castes, are nothing better than the vilest
animals.
Accordingly, since Fernandes was known to
be a Portuguese, that is a Prangui, and besides
was seen living habitually with the men of
the lowest caste, the religion he preached,
no less than himself, had to share the contempt
and execration attending his neophytes, and
made no progress whatever among the better
classes.
To become acceptable to all, Christianity
must be presented to all, Christianity must
be presented in quite another way.
While Nobili thought over his plan, probably
the example just set by his countryman Matteo
Ricci, in China, stood before his mind.
At all events, he started from the same principle,
resolving to become, after the motto of St
Paul, all things to all men, and a Hindu to
the Hindus, as far as might be lawful.
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 boldly began his arduous
career by re-entering Madura in the dress
of the saniassy (Hindu ascetics).
He never tried to make believe that he was
a native of India; else he would have deserved
the name of impostor; with which he has sometimes
been unjustedly branded; but he availed himself
of the fact that he was not a Portuguese,
to deprecate the opprobrious name Prangui.
He introduced himself as a Roman raja (prince),
desirous of living at Madura in practising
penance, in praying and studying the sacred
law.
He carefully avoided meeting with Father Fernandes
and took his lodging in a solitary abode in
the Brahmins' quarter obtained from the benevolence
of a high officer.
At first he called himself a raja, but soon
he changed this title for that of brahmin
(Hindu priest), better suited to his aims:
the rajas and other kshatryas, the second
of the three high castes, formed the military
class; but intellectual avocations were almost
monopolized by the Brahmins.
They held from time immemorial the spiritual
if not the political government of the nation,
and were the arbiters of what the others ought
to believe, to revere, and to adore.
Yet they were in no wise a priestly caste;
they were possessed of no exclusive right
to perform functions of a religious nature.
Nobili remained for a long time shut up in
his dwelling, after the custom of Indian penitents,
living on rice, milk, and herbs with water.
Once a day he received attendance but only
from Brahmin servants.
Curiosity could not fail to be raised, and
all the more as the foreign saniassy was very
slow in satisfying it.
When, after two or three refusals, he admitted
visitors, the interview was conducted according
to the strictest rules of Hindu etiquette.
Nobili charmed his audience by the perfection
with which he spoke their own language, Tamil;
by the quotations of famous Indian authors
with which he interspersed his discourse,
and above all, by the fragments of native
poetry which he recited or even sang with
exquisite skill.
Having thus won a benevolent hearing, he proceeded
step by step on his missionary task, labouring
first to set right the ideas of his auditors
with respect to natural truth concerning God,
the soul, etc., and then instilling by degrees
the dogmas of the Christian faith.
He took advantage also of his acquaintance
with the books revered by the Hindus as sacred
and divine.
These he contrived, the first of all Europeans,
to read and study in the Sanskrit originals.
For this purpose he had engaged a reputed
Brahmin teacher, with whose assistance and
by the industry of his own keen intellect
and felicitous memory he gained such a knowledge
of this recondite literature as to strike
the native doctors with amazement, very few
of them feeling themselves capable of vying
with him on the point.
In this way also he was enabled to find in
the Vedas many truths which he used in testimony
of the doctrine he preached.
By this method, and no less by the prestige
of his pure and austere life, the missionary
had soon dispelled the distrust and before
the end of 1608, he conferred baptism on several
persons conspicuous for nobility and learning.
While he obliged his neophytes to reject all
practices involving superstition or savouring
in any wise of idolatrous worship, he allowed
them to keep their national customs, in as
far as these contained nothing wrong and referred
to merely political or civil usages.
Accordingly, Nobili's disciples continued
for example, wearing the dress proper to each
one's caste; the Brahmins retaining their
codhumbi (tuft of hair) and cord (cotton string
slung over the left shoulder); all adorning
as before, their foreheads with sandalwood
paste, etc. yet, one condition was laid on
them, namely, that the cord and sandal, if
once taken with any superstitious ceremony,
be removed and replaced by others with a special
benediction, the formula of which had been
sent to Nobili by the Archbishop of Cranganore.
While the missionary was winning more and
more esteem, not only for himself, but also
for the Gospel, even among those who did not
receive it, the fanatical ministers and votaries
of the national gods, whom he was going to
supplant, could not watch his progress quietly.
By their assaults, indeed, his work was almost
unceasingly impeded, and barely escaped ruin
on several occasions; but he held his ground
in spite of calumny, imprisonment, menaces
of death and all kinds of ill-treatment.
In April, 1609, the flock which he had gathered
around him was too numerous for his chapel
and required a church; and the labour of the
ministry had become so crushing that he entreated
the provincial to send him a companion.
At that point a storm fell on him from an
unexpected place.
Fernandes, the missioner already mentioned,
may have felt no mean jealousy, when seeing
Nobili succeed so happily where he had been
so powerless; but certainly he proved unable
to understand or to appreciate the method
of his colleague; probably, also, as he had
lived perforce apart from the circles among
which the latter was working, he was never
well informed of his doings.
However, that may be, Fernandes directed to
the superiors of the Jesuits in India and
at Rome a lengthy report, in which he charged
Nobili with simulation, in declining the name
of Prangui; with connivance at idolatry, in
allowing his neophytes to observe heathen
customs, such as wearing the insignia of castes;
lastly, with schismatical proceeding, in dividing
the Christians into separate congregations.
This denunciation at first caused an impression
highly unfavourable to Nobili.
Influenced by the account of Fernandes, the
provincial of Malabar (Father Laerzio, who
had always countenanced Nobili, had then left
that office), the Visitor of the India Missions
and even the General of the Society at Rome
sent severe warnings to the missionary innovator.
Cardinal Bellarmine, in 1612, wrote to his
relative, expressing the grief he felt on
hearing of his unwise conduct.
Things changed as soon as Nobili, being informed
of the accusation, could answer it on every
point.
By oral explanations, in the assemblies of
missionaries and theologians at Cochin and
at Goa, and by an elaborate memoir, which
he sent to Rome, he justified the manner in
which he had presented himself to the Brahmins
of Madura; then, he showed that the national
customs he allowed his converts to keep were
such as had no religious meaning.
The latter point, the crux of the question,
he elucidated by numerous quotations from
the authoritative Sanskrit law-books of the
Hindus.
Moreover, he procured affidavits of one hundred
and eight Brahmins, from among the most learned
in Madura, all endorsing his interpretation
of the native practices.
He acknowledged that the infidels used to
associate those practices with superstitious
ceremonies; but, he observed,
"these ceremonies belong to the mode, not
to the substance of the practices; the same
difficulty may be raised about eating, drinking,
marriage, etc., for the heathens mix their
ceremonies with all their actions.
It suffices to do away with the superstitious
ceremonies, as the Christians do".
As to schism, he denied having caused any
such thing:
"he had founded a new Christianity, which
never could have been brought together with
the older: the separation of the churches
had been approved by the Archbishop of Cranganore;
and it precluded neither unity of faith nor
Christian charity, for his neophytes used
to greet kindly those of F. Fernandes.
Even on the coast there are different churches
for different castes, and in Europe the places
in the churches are not common for all."
Nobili's apology was effectually seconded
by the Archbishop of Cranganore, who, as he
had encouraged the first steps of the missionary,
continued to stand firmly by his side, and
pleaded his cause warmly at Goa before the
archbishop, as well as at Rome.
Thus the learned and zealous primate of India,
Alexis de Menezes, though a synod held by
him had prohibited the Brahmin cord, was won
over to the cause of Nobili.
And his successor, Christopher de Sa, having
thought fit to take a contrary course, remained
almost the only opponent in India.
At Rome the explanations of Nobili, of the
Archbishop of Cranganore, and of the chief
Inquisitor of Goa brought about a similar
effect.
In 1614 and 1615 Cardinal Bellarmine and the
General of the Jesuit Society wrote again
to the missionary, declaring themselves fully
satisfied.
At last, after the usual mature examination
by the Holy See, on 31 January 1623, Gregory
XV, by his Apostolic Letter "Romanae Sedis
Antistes", decided the question provisionally
in favour of Father de Nobili.
Accordingly, the codhumbi, the cord, the sandal,
and the baths were permitted to the Indian
Christians, "until the Holy See provide otherwise";
only certain conditions are prescribed, in
order that all superstitious admixture and
all occasion of scandal may be averted.
As to the separation of the castes, the pope
confines himself to "earnestly entreating
and beseeching (etiam atque etiam obtestamur
et obsecramus) the nobles not to despise the
lower people, especially in the churches,
by hearing the Divine word and receiving the
sacraments apart from them.
Indeed, a strict order to this effect would
have been tantamount to sentencing the new-born
Christianity of Madura to death.
The pope understood, no doubt, that the customs
connected with the distinction of castes,
being so deeply rooted in the ideas and habits
of all Hindus, did not admit an abrupt suppression,
even among the Christians.
They were to be dealt with by the Church,
as had been slavery, serfdom, and the like
institutions of past times.
The Church never attacked directly those inveterate
customs; but she inculcated meekness, humility,
charity, love of the Saviour who suffered
and gave His life for all, and by this method
slavery, serfdom, and other social abuses
were slowly eradicated.
While imitating this wise indulgence to the
feebleness of new converts, Father de Nobili
took much care to inspire his disciples with
the feelings becoming true Christians towards
their humbler brethren.
At the very outset of his preaching, he insisted
on making all understand that
"religion was by no means dependent on caste;
indeed it must be one for all, the true God
being one for all; although [he added] unity
of religion destroys not the civil distinction
of the castes nor the lawful privileges of
the nobles".
Explaining then the commandment of charity,
he inculcated that it extended to the pariahs
as well as others, and he exempted nobody
from the duties it imposes; but he might rightly
tell his neophytes that, for example, visiting
pariahs or other of low caste at their houses,
treating them familiarly, even kneeling or
sitting by them in the church, concerned perfection
rather than the precept of charity, and that
accordingly such actions could be omitted
without any fault, at least where they involved
so grave a detriment as degradation from the
higher caste.
Of this principle the missionaries had a right
to make use for themselves.
Indeed, charity required more from the pastors
of souls than from others; yet not in such
a way that they should endanger the salvation
of the many to relieve the needs of the few.
Therefore, Nobili, at the beginning of his
apostolate, avoided all public intercourse
with the lower castes; but he failed not to
minister secretly even to pariahs.
In the year 1638, there were at Tiruchirapalli
(Trichinopoly) several hundred Christian pariahs,
who had been secretly taught and baptized
by the companions of Nobili.
About this time he devised a means of assisting
more directly the lower castes, without ruining
the work begun among the higher.
Besides the Brahmin saniassy, there was another
grade of Hindu ascetics, called pandaram,
enjoying less consideration than the Brahmins,
but who were allowed to deal publicly with
all castes.
They were not excluded from relations with
the higher castes.
On the advice of Nobili, the superiors of
the mission with the Archbishop of Cranganore
resolved that henceforward there should be
two classes of missionaries, the Brahmin and
the pandaram.
Father Balthasar da Costa was the first, in
1540, who took the name and habit of pandaram,
under which he effected a large number of
conversions, of others as well as of pariahs.
Nobili had then three Jesuit companions.
After the comforting decision of Rome, he
had hastened to extend his preaching beyond
the town of Madura, and the Gospel spread
by degrees over the whole interior of South
India.
In 1646, exhausted by forty-two years of toiling
and suffering, he was constrained to retire,
first to Jafnapatam in Ceylon, then to Mylapore,
where he died 16 January 1656.
He left his mission in full progress.
To give some idea of its development, we note
that the superiors, writing to the General
of the Society, about the middle and during
the second half of the seventeenth century,
record an annual average of five thousand
conversions, the number never being less than
three thousand a year even when the missioners'
work was most hindered by persecution.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the
total number of Christians in the mission,
founded by Nobili and still named Madura mission,
though embracing, besides Madura, Mysore,
Marava, Tanjore, Gingi, etc., is described
as exceeding 150,000.
Yet the number of the missionaries never went
beyond seven, assisted however by many native
catechists.
The Madura mission belonged to the Portuguese
assistance of the Society of Jesus, but it
was supplied with men from all provinces of
the Order.
Thus, for example, Father Beschi (c. 1710-1746),
who won so high a renown among the Hindus,
heathen and Christian, by his writings in
Tamil, was an Italian, as the founder of the
mission had been.
In the last quarter of the seventeenth century,
the French Father John Venantius Bouchet worked
for twelve years in Madura, chiefly at Trichinopoly,
during which time he baptized about 20,000
infidels.
And it is to be noted that the catechumens,
in these parts of India, were admitted to
baptism only after a long and a careful preparation.
Indeed, the missionary accounts of the time
bear frequent witness to the very commendable
qualities of these Christians, their fervent
piety, their steadfastness in the sufferings
they often had to endure for religion's sake,
their charity towards their brethren, even
of lowest castes, their zeal for the conversion
of pagans.
In the year 1700 Father Bouchet, with a few
other French Jesuits, opened a new mission
in the Karnatic, north of the River Kaveri.
Like their Portuguese colleagues of Madura,
the French missionaries of the Karnatic were
very successful, in spite of repeated and
almost continual persecutions by the idolaters.
Moreover, several of them became particularly
conspicuous for the extensive knowledge they
acquired of the literature and sciences of
ancient India.
From Father Coeurdoux the French Academicians
learned the common origin of the Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin languages; to the initiative
of Nobili and to the endeavours of his followers
in the same line is due the first disclosure
of a new intellectual world in India.
The first original documents, enabling the
learned to explore that world, were drawn
from their hiding-places in India, and sent
in large numbers to Europe by the same missionaries.
But the Karnatic mission had hardly begun
when it was disturbed by the revival of the
controversy, which the decision of Gregory
XV had set at rest for three quarters of a
century.
== The Decree of Tournon ==
This second phase, which was much more eventful
and noisy than the first, originated in Pondicherry.
Since the French had settled at that place,
the spiritual care of the colonists was in
the hands of the Capuchin Fathers, who were
also working for the conversion of the natives.
With a view to forwarding the latter work,
the Bishop of Mylapore or San Thome, to whose
jurisdiction Pondicherry belonged, resolved,
in 1699, to transfer it entirely to the Jesuits
of the Karnatic mission, assigning to them
a parochial church in the town and restricting
the ministry of the Capuchins to the European
immigrants, French or Portuguese.
The Capuchins were displeased by this arrangement
and appealed to Rome.
The petition they laid before the Pope, in
1703, embodied not only a complaint against
the division of parishes made by the Bishop,
but also an accusation against the methods
of the Jesuit mission in South India.
Their claim on the former point was finally
dismissed, but the charges were more successful.
On 6 November 1703, Charles-Thomas Maillard
de Tournon, a Piedmontese prelate, Patriarch
of Antioch, sent by Clement XI, with the power
of legatus a latere, to visit the new Christian
missions of the East Indies and especially
China, landed at Pondicherry.
Being obliged to wait there eight months for
the opportunity of passing over to China,
Tournon instituted an inquiry into the facts
alleged by the Capuchins.
He was hindered through sickness, as he himself
stated, from visiting any part of the inland
mission; in the town, besides the Capuchins,
who had not visited the interior, he interrogated
a few natives through interpreters; the Jesuits
he consulted rather cursorily, it seems.
Less than eight months after his arrival in
India, he considered himself justified in
issuing a decree of vital import to the whole
of the Christians of India.
It consisted of sixteen articles concerning
practices in use or supposed to be in use
among the neophytes of Madura and the Karnatic;
the legate condemned and prohibited these
practices as defiling the purity of the faith
and religion, and forbade the missionaries,
on pain of heavy censures, to permit them
any more.
Though dated 23 June 1704, the decree was
notified to the superiors of the Jesuits only
on 8 July, three days before the departure
of Tournon from Pondicherry.
During the short time left, the missionaries
endeavoured to make him understand on what
imperfect information his degree rested, and
that nothing less than the ruin of the mission
was likely to follow from its execution.
They succeeded in persuading him to take off
orally the threat of censures appended, and
to suspend provisionally the prescription
commanding the missionaries to give spiritual
assistance to the sick pariahs, not only in
the churches, but in their dwellings.
== Examination of the Malabar Rites at Rome
==
Tournon's decree, interpreted by prejudice
and ignorance as representing, in the wrong
practices if condemned, the real state of
the India missions, affords to this day a
much-used weapon against the Jesuits.
At Rome it was received with reserve.
Clement XI, who perhaps overrated the prudence
of his zealous legate, ordered, in the Congregation
of the Holy Office, on 7 January 1706, a provisional
confirmation of the decree to be sent to him,
adding that it should be executed "until the
Holy See might provide otherwise, after having
heard those who might have something to object".
And meanwhile, by an oraculum vivae vocis
granted to the procurator of the Madura mission,
the pope decree, "in so far as the Divine
glory and the salvation of souls would permit".
The objections of the missionaries and the
corrections they desired were propounded by
several deputies and carefully examined at
Rome, without effect, during the lifetime
of Clement XI and during the short pontificate
of his successor Innocent XIII.
Benedict XIII grappled with the case and even
came to a decision, enjoining "on the bishops
and missionaries of Madura, Mysore, and the
Karnatic " the execution of Tournon's decree
in all its parts (12 December 1727).
Yet it is doubted whether that decision ever
reached the mission, and Clement XII, who
succeeded Benedict XIII, commanded the whole
affair to be discussed anew.
In four meetings held from 21 January to 6
September 1733, the cardinals of the Holy
Office gave their final conclusions upon all
the articles of Tournon's decree, declaring
how each of them ought to be executed, or
restricted and mitigated.
By a Brief dated 24 August 1734, pope Clement
XII sanctioned this resolution; moreover,
on 13 May 1739, he prescribed an oath, by
which every missionary should bind himself
to obeying and making the neophytes obey exactly
the Brief of 24 August 1734.
Many hard prescriptions of Tournon were mitigated
by the regulation of 1734.
As to the first article, condemning the omission
of the use of saliva and breathing on the
candidates for baptism, the missionaries,
and the bishops of India with them, are rebucked
for not having consulted the Holy See previously
to that omission; yet, they are allowed to
continue for ten years omitting these ceremonies,
to which the Hindus felt so strangely loath.
Other prohibitions or precepts of the legate
are softened by the additions of a Quantum
fieri potest, or even replaced by mere counsels
or advices.
In the sixth article, the taly, "with the
image of the idol Pulleyar", is still interdicted,
but the Congregation observes that "the missionaries
say they never permitted wearing of such a
taly".
Now this observation seems pretty near to
recognizing that possibly the prohibitions
of the rather overzealous legate did not always
hit upon existing abuses.
And a similar conclusion might be drawn from
several other articles, e.g. from the fifteenth,
where we are told that the interdiction of
wearing ashes and emblems after the manner
of the heathen Hindus, ought to be kept, but
in such a manner, it is added, "that the Constitution
of Gregory XV of 31 January 1623, Romanae
Senis Antistes, be observed throughout".
By that Constitution, as we have already seen,
some signs and ornaments, materially similar
to those prohibited by Tournon, were allowed
to the Christians, provided that no superstition
whatever was mingled with their use.
Indeed, as the Congregation of Propaganda
explains in an Instruction sent to the Vicar
Apostolic of Pondicherry, 15 February 1792,
"the Decree of Cardinal de Tournon and the
Constitution of Gregory XV agree in this way,
that both absolutely forbid any sign bearing
even the least semblance of superstition,
but allow those which are in general use for
the sake of adornment, of good manners, and
bodily cleanness, without any respect to religion".
The most difficult point retained was the
twelfth article, commanding the missionaries
to administer the sacraments to the sick pariahs
in their dwellings, publicly.
Though submitting dutifully to all precepts
of the Vicar of Christ, the Jesuits in Madura
could not but feel distressed, at experiencing
how the last especially, made their apostolate
difficult and even impossible amidst the upper
classes of Hindus.
At their request, Benedict XIV consented to
try a new solution of the knotty problem,
by forming a band of missionaries who should
attend only to the care of the pariahs.
This scheme became formal law through the
Constitution "Omnium sollicitudinum", published
12 September 1744.
Except this point, the document confirmed
again the whole regulation enacted by Clement
XII in 1734.
The arrangement sanctioned by Benedict XIV
benefited greatly the lower classes of Hindu
neophytes; whether it worked also to the advantage
of the mission at large, is another question,
about which the reports are less comforting.
Be that as it may, after the suppression of
the Society of Jesus (1773), the distinction
between Brahmin and pariah missionaries became
extinct with the Jesuit missionaries.
Henceforth conversions in the higher castes
were fewer and fewer, and nowadays the Christian
Hindus, for the most part, belong to the lower
and lowest classes.
The Jesuit missionaries, when re-entering
Madura in the 1838, did not come with the
dress of the Brahmin saniassy, like the founders
of the mission; yet they pursued a design
which Nobili had also in view, though he could
not carry it out, as they opened their college
of Negapatam, now at Trichinopoly.
A wide breach has already been made into the
wall of Brahminic reserve by that institution,
where hundreds of Brahmins send their sons
to be taught by the Catholic missionaries.
Within recent years, about fifty of these
young men have embraced the faith of their
teachers, at the cost of rejection from their
caste and even from their family; such examples
are not lost on their countrymen, either of
high or low caste.
== Notes ==
== 
Sources ==
This article incorporates text from a publication
now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles,
ed. (1913).
"Malabar Rites".
Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: Robert Appleton.
