Missionary Tropics:The Catholic Frontier in India (16th–17th Centuries) (review)

This book addresses the uniqueness of Jesuit/Portuguese missionary activities in India during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The title of the book, Missionary Tropics, is a bit bewildering to the reader, at the outset, but toward the middle of the introduction the author gives two explanations for this: one, "to evoke the fact that, historically, the climate was considered part of the difficulty in converting the natives because of its humoral connection with idolatry"; two, because of the linguistic vernacularization (or tropicalization) of the Christian message, church rites, and social customs associated with conversion." The first reason is not at all convincing as there is no established connection between climate and idolatry. The second reason is indeed valid as there certainly was an integration of native religious beliefs and rituals with the liturgies and devotions the missionaries introduced among the natives.

What strikes the reader as admirable is the richness of resources the author used in putting together this well written book. They include every relevant archive, collection, or published work available: the Jesuit Archives (Rome), and every other archive, library, or collection in Rome, Lisbon, Oxford, the British Museum, the State Library in Panaji (Goa), the eighteen volume Documenta Indica edited by Josef Wicki, S.J., and the Epistolae S. Francisci Xavierii aliaque ejus Scripta, edited by G. Schurhammer, S.J., and J. Wicki, and several hundred published works and manuals which either exclusively or partially deal with Jesuit/Portuguese activities in India.

The book is divided into three parts. The first entitled "Tropical Saints and Relics" has two chapters, the first, with the heading "The Sacred Body: Francis Xavier the Apostle, the Pilgrim, the Relic," deals in much detail with the apostolate of Saint Francis Xavier in India and in Japan, his death in the island of Sanciam, overlooking the Chinese coast, the arrival of the miraculously preserved body, fresh and full blooded, to Goa in 1554, ensuing public veneration of the body, the flow of pilgrims to venerate the body and the mutilation of the sacred body, starting with Isabel de Carom biting off the little toe of his right foot and other pieces of the body given away as gifts to powerful Portuguese officials and families, and finally his right arm divided and distributed to be enshrined in the Jesuit Church of the Gesu in Rome, and the shrines in Cochin, Melaka, and Japan.

Chapter II deals with Portuguese efforts to discover the burial place of Saint Thomas the Apostle, their success not only in discovering the tomb but also the bones of the Apostle, the building of a new church, enclosing the tomb of the Apostle, and the founding of Sao Thome de Meliapur as a commercial and pilgrimage center.

Part II of the book has the overall theme of "Tropical Virtues and Vices" and in three chapters it covers the following topics: "Fervors and Tropics," which deals with the career of Antonio Gomes, who served in India between 1548 and 1554 as Jesuit Superior. Gomes, who was headstrong, fervent, passionate, and ambitious, was seen as an asset and at the same time a problem for the Jesuit Mission. For this reason Francis Xavier wrote to Gomes urging him to be moderate as his Superiors in Europe moved him from place to place frequently.

The next chapter, titled "The Art of Dying in the Tropics, Jesuit Martyrs in India," deals with the ambition of young Jesuits, aspiring to be missionaries in far away places to become martyrs as well as the stories of a few Jesuit martyrs, in India, such as Antonio Criminali.

"Tropical sins and sins of Hinduism" are the themes of the next chapter. The author addresses the issues of "sex, lust and sociability," "uses and abuses of the Malabar marriage customs," and "pollution, free will, and Indian Christian Marriage," largely based on the correspondence, accounts, and...