WRITING (DESCRIBING (PERSUADING...

BRUNA SOALHEIRO , “WRITING, DESCRIBING, PERSUADING: MUSLIMS AND TIBETAN BUDDHISTS IN JESUIT SOURCES (1570 – 1721)”, Le Verger – bouquet n°V, février 2015.

WRITING, DESCRIBING, PERSUADING: MUSLIMS AND TIBETAN BUDDHISTS IN JESUIT SOURCES (1570 – 1721)

Bruna SOALHEIRO (UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)1

La découverte du Nouveau Monde, le morcellement de la chrétienté, les clivages sociaux qui accompagnent la naissance

d'une politique et d'une raison nouvelle engendrent un autre fonctionnement de l'écriture et de la parole. Pris dans l'orbite de la

société moderne, leur différenciation acquiert une pertinence épistémologique et sociale qu'elle n'avait pas encore ; en

particulier, elle devient l'instrument d'un double travail qui concerne d'une part le rapport à l'homme « sauvage », d'autre part le rapport à la tradition religieuse. Elle sert à classer les problèmes

qu'ouvrent à une intelligentsia le soleil levant du « Nouveau Monde » et le crépuscule du christianisme « médiéval ».2

The Early Modern Era was a time of multiple intercultural and interreligious encounters, which, once captured in writing, instigated a reformulation of the European epistemic horizon. It was a time of great knowledge renewal and geopolitical (re)ordination.

The importance of the Iberian crowns during this period is already very well established in historiography, which means any dwelling on the topic would be irrelevant here. Nevertheless, it may be convenient to point out some aspects of the prominent role the crown played. In 1492, Christopher Columbus, a Genoese man under Spanish orders, reached the American continent. The “discovery” of this “New World” thrust Europeans in a process of epistemological, philosophical, social and political reorientation, due to the needs of incorporating these “new peoples” or “savages” in the religious and political order of the “Old Continent”.

A second aspect regarding the Iberian expansion that should be emphasized is related to the Catholic Reformation. In 1540, a Basque man named Ignatius de Loyola, whose both missionary and pedagogical character were extremely important for this European process of geopolitical and epistemological reformulation, founded a new Religious Order, the Jesuit missionaries. The Jesuits were renowned for their pragmatic spirit and evangelical devotion, and scattered throughout the globe, from the Iberian lands in the “New World” to the extreme frontiers of Christianity in the East.

The rhetorical preparation and the epistolary discipline for which the members of the Society of Jesus were known are also worth noting.3 The necessity of creating a web of information, keeping superiors informed and guiding missionaries, brought about a new circulation of knowledge, which resulted in new rhetorical elaborations in order to describe

1 The author would like to thank CAPES for the support that made this work possible, through the PNPD

scholarship program at UERJ. 2 Michel de Certeau, L'Écriture de l'histoire, Paris, Gallimard, 1975, p. 217. 3 José Eisenberg, As Missões jesuíticas e o pensamento político moderno, Belo Horizonte, UFMG, 2000.


and categorize the “other”. Such categorization was much more than a mere description, but rather a somewhat logical operation of attributing qualities, adjectives, and predicates. It is possible to imagine that this so-‐called logical operation of predication and attribution can be identified under different patterns. The first one would be an ordinary sentence containing a subject followed by an adjective, in which the subject is a community, a “nation”, or a ruler, and the adjective is a quality added for the purpose not only of describing, but also of classifying or situating this subject within a given cultural scheme or political order.

The second manner in which this operation may appear in a Jesuit text from the late 16th to early 17th century is as a dialogue. When attributing a line of speech to an individual, the missionaries would do so aiming not only at describing a person or a ruler, but mainly at anticipating and justifying their choice of the most prudent strategy of conversion. Both types of subject characterization were elaborated conceptually by the ministries of the word, and can also be called epistemological strategies or representational strategies.4 This hypothesis will be discussed on the next pages.

In this article, the reports of two specific missions located outside the territories under Iberian rule will be examined. First, there will be a presentation of how Akbar (1556-‐1605), the Mughal ruler, was described as a reasonable man during the first years of the Mughal mission, the same period when the missionaries participated in debates that took place in the sovereign’s presence.

The second case presented depicts the experience of the Order in India. There will be an analysis on how dialogue was considered a prudent method of conversion for the Tibetan people – specially the Tibetan ruler – since they were considered a “pious people”. After the missionaries discarded this category (“pious people”), another strategy was considered, including the possibility of abandoning the mission.

Therefore, by the end of the present study, the necessary articulation between the elaboration of categories and the choice of specific strategies of conversion will have been demonstrated. In addition, it will be also shown that these were the representations that contributed to the (re)elaboration of the European mental picture of the world during the 16th and 17th centuries, contributing to the composition of the nouvel savoir of the modern period.

THE JESUITS IN THE MUGHAL COURT

Akbar, the Mughal ruler, invited the Jesuits to take part in the Mughal mission following the recommendations of a Christian priest called Gileanes Pereira, who had been living in the court for a while. After some deliberation, a group of Jesuits was sent to the North of India where they would be able to take part in a series of debates that Akbar was promoting in his Ibadakhanah.5 This cycle of discussions had started in 1576, but only a few years later did Akbar decide to allow representatives of other faiths (i.e., non-‐Muslims) take part.

It is necessary to keep in mind that, at this moment, the Mughal court was a multilingual place in which many cultural encounters took place. These exchanges were a consequence of the mixture of two major cosmopolitan traditions – the Persian and the Sanskrit traditions -‐ which came to live side by side under the Mughals in northern India.6 Therefore, it should be emphasized that the Mughal court was the scene of concurrent social, 4 “Ministries of the word” might be “defined broadly as preaching, teaching, sacred conversation, confession, and

writing and publishing edifying and pastoral literature.” by Ines Zupanov, “Jesuit Orientalism; Correspondence between Tomas Pereira and Fernão de Queiros” in: L. Barreto, Tomás Pereira, S. J. (1646-‐1708), Life, Work and World (ed.), Lisbon, Centro Cultural e Cientifico de Macau, 2010, p. 43-‐74.

5 Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, “Religious Disputation and Imperial Ideology: The Purpose and Location of Akbar’s Ibadatkhana”, Studies in History. Sage, vol. XXIV, n. 2, July-‐December, 2008, p. 195-‐210.

6 Audrey Truschke, Cosmopolitan encounters: Sanskrit and Persian at the Mughal Court. Unpublished Phd Thesis. Columbia University, 2012.


political, religious, and esthetical negotiations that acted together establishing the basis of an empire.7

As participants of this process, the Jesuit missionaries of the Mughal mission not only took part in the debates, but also were also responsible for a significant production of various written texts, from letters to apologetic works.8 Analyzing these documents, one can understand the impressions the Mughal ruler made on the missionaries, and how they changed throughout the period, from the beginning of the mission to the sovereign’s death. Nevertheless, the elaboration of Akbar’s portrait emphasizing his “reasonable nature” can be found in Jesuit texts even before the missionaries formally met him. In a document found in Arquivo da Torre do Tombo, in Lisbon, it is said:

Based on letters from Pero Tavares, a rich noble man from the Portuguese nation, captain in the small harbor of Bengala, to its foreign people, and on letters from the clergyman living there, together with other information, it is known that this King is in high spirits, a friend of Godly things, and bows and respects the Cross and the images, especially those of Our Lord and Our Lady, and the same can be said by many important lords of his kingdom who, even if in secret, are Christians in their hearts. (…) They have ordinary meetings at nighttime to discuss their cult, and because someone had pronounced a blasphemy against Our Lady, whom he the King believes to have remained a virgin throughout her life, as she did, (this person) was removed from court. (...) His main wife is gentile, and because he and his people became Muslim a little over thirty years ago, (because they are reasonable and white-‐colored people) they are not extremely fond of this cursed cult.9

From the information given by this captain, Pero Tavares, the disputes that took place in the Mughal court were led by “men of reason”, or even “white people”. For it is well known that the Jesuits believed that reasonable men should not be forced, as savages, to accept the Christian Law, but should be taught, following the model of Saint Paul the Apostle among the Greeks and Romans.10 That is also what we wish to point out here, namely, the relationship established between one’s reasonable nature and the existence of discussions.

7 “Mughal India provides a particular case study of how kings and poets alike dynamically mobilized the aesthetics

and political resources of multiple traditions in order to further their intertwined literary, intellectual, and imperial interests.” in Audrey Truschke, op. cit., p. 3.

8 Some of these works can be mentioned here, such as Antônio Monsterrat’s Relação de Akbar rei dos mogóis (1582). Its manuscript can be found in “book 28” of the “Armário Jesuítico” (fl. 81-‐85), Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (ANTT). By the same autor: Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius, written in the last years of the 16th century. Jerome Xavier also wrote some important works while at the Mughal mission, such as Fuente de Vida: Tratado apologético dirigido al Rey Mogol de la Índia en 1600. About this subject, Camps’ article is recommended: Arnulf Camps, Studies in Asian Mission History, Leide/ Boston/Köln, Brill, 2000.

9 “Por cartas de Pero Tavares, homem nobre e rico de nação portuguesa, que no porto pequeno de Bengala é seu capitão-‐mor da gente estrangeira e por cartas do clérigo que lá está e por outras informações se sabe ser este Rey muy bem inclinado, e amigo das cousas de Deus e que faz reverência e acatamento à Cruz e imagens, especialmente de Nosso Senhor e de Nossa Senhora, e que fazem o mesmo muitos senhores principais de seu reino ainda que escondidamente, e que no coração são cristãos. (...) Têm ordinárias disputas à noite sobre a seita e por que hum casis disse uma blasfêmia contra Nossa Senhora, que ele crê que foi perpetua virgem como o é o desterrou de sua corte. Folga (...) com o trajo de Europa pera os homens e mulheres a sua mulher principal é gentia, e ele com os seus há pouco mais de trinta anos que se fizeram mouros pelo qual não estão (por serem homens de razão e gente de cor branca) muy afeiçoados a esta maldita seita.” Copy of a letter from India to Portugal in the year [15]79, ANTT, Armário Jesuítico, no. 28, p. 91-‐2. Our translation.

10 “Hae gentes, quamvis barbarae reverá sint et a recta et naturali lege plerisque in rebus discrepent, tamen ad salutem Evangelii non aliter fere vocandae sunt, quam olim ab apostolis graeci et romani caeterique Asiae atque Europae populi Nam et potentia praestant et nonulla humana sapientia atque a sua ipsi ratione


As mentioned before, when the first missionaries arrived in Fatehpur Sikri in 1579, they

were welcomed by father Gileanes Pereira, and given some initial information about Akbar’s mood (“estado de ânimo”). Pereira had dinner with the newcomers ‒ Rodolfo Acquaviva, Antônio Montserrat, and Francisco Henriques – and told them that Akbar would accept the truth of the Christian faith if they were able to persuade him that the Gospels had really come from God.11 This meant that, at that point, the only obstacle in Akbar’s path toward embracing the Christian law was his questions about the Bible’s origin. It had nothing to do with his attachment to the Muslim faith, or even to the fact that he had more than one wife (which would be a problem mentioned by the missionaries later on). It was, then, neither a religious nor a moral problem, but a problem of persuasion.

After this meal with father Pereira, the Jesuits decided that it was necessary to ponder about how to proceed next.12 An opportunity to take part in a debate was presented to the Jesuits a few days later, and the subject was exactly the one anticipated by Pereira: the authority and accuracy of the Gospels. Once the discussion was over, Akbar apparently told the Jesuits that he found their arguments satisfactory, but he could not understand how “God Almighty” could be one and three at the same time, how He had had a son, and made Himself into a man, and how He had been born from a virgin.13 Yet, instead of answering Akbar’s questions, the Jesuits appeared to intend to submit him to a longer process of catechization, giving him a vague response: he should listen humbly to the next teachings.

A few days after that, another debate took place in which the subject was Paradise. In this specific dispute, the missionaries revealed that Akbar himself presented some arguments. Francisco Henriques wrote in one of his letters that the most difficult questions asked by the missionaries were answered by Akbar, not his mullahs. This shows that the Mughal ruler took an active part in these debates, not only as an audience member, but actually answering questions. According to Henriques’ words, the Muslim sovereign answered the questions because he was a man of sound judgment and understanding.14

Based on the letters and reports on the first year of the Mughal mission, it can be noticed that, as long as Akbar remained seen and portrayed as a reasonable man, the missionaries kept participating in the debates considering this the most prudent strategy of conversion. However, after taking part in some disputes and failing to achieve their goals of conversion, the Jesuits began to disassociate Akbar’s reasonable nature from his need of making sense of the teachings only following his reason.15 Faith and the Gospel had not been

potissimum, Deo intus agente, vicendi sunt et Evangelio subigendi. Quos si per vim et potentiam Cristo subicere pergas, nihil aliud quam ut a lege christiana alienissimos reddas.” in José de Acosta, De procuranda Indorum salute, Madrid, Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas, 1984 (1589), p. 62-‐63.

11 Antônio de Montserrat, Mongolicae Lagationis Commentarius, presented and edited by Josep Lluis Alay, Embajador en la corte del Gran Mogol, Lleida, Milenio, 2006, p. 84.

12 “Resumiendo, el relato del sacerdote sobre el estado de ánimo del rey ilusiono a los demás sacerdotes, de modo que consideraran necesario reflexionar com profundidad e fin de decidir sobre el curso de los acontecimientos.”, Ibid. p. 85.

13 “He encontrado satisfactorias las pruebas que habéis aducido para probar vuestro caso y me siento feliz com las enseñanzas contenidas em vuestra ley (...). Ahora quisiera que me explicárais lo seguinte: como es possible que el Dios Todopoderoso sea três y uno al mismo tempo, y como puede tener un hijo hombre y nascido de uma virgem. Estas tesis desafían mi compreensión.”, Ibid. p. 92.

14 “Algumas disputas diante dele [Akbar] com sues mulás, e às coisas mais dificultosas que lhe perguntávamos, ele era o que nos respondia pelo seus mulás (...) por naturalmente ser homem de muito bom juízo e entendimento.” Letter from Francisco Henriques to Laurentio Peres. Fatehpur, April 6th, 1580, in Documenta Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), p. 5. Manuscript: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Goa, 38 I, f. 121r-‐24v.

15 “Con tutte queste bone nove stiamo en molto dubio dela conversione de questo re: primo, porque di tutto dubita et por questo non basta provarli li misteri dela fede con la Scrittura, ma vole entenderli com la ragione”. Letter from Rodolfo Acquaviva, Fatepur Sikri, July 18th, 1580. Documenta Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), doc. 6, p. 49-‐50. Manuscript: ARSI, Jap-‐sin. 37, f. 100r-‐02v.


enough to persuade the King. Akbar, then, became a stubborn king, or worse, a fraud.16 Therefore, at this point, participating in the debates ceased to be their main strategy, and the Jesuits had to stay in the Mughal court for reasons other than to convert Akbar.

From this moment on, the missionaries would use the Mughal mission to disseminate the Christian law and establish missions in other parts of the subcontinent, as well as to teach one of Akbar’s son to translate Christian books into Persian17.

The frustration in Fatehpur Sikri and the possibility to expand the missionary field from the Mughal mission to central Asia gave rise to the first Tibetan mission, in Tsaparang, in 1626. This subject will be discussed next.

FRUSTRATION IN HINDUSTAN, HOPE IN THE MOUNTAINS

The Jesuits had been in the northern part of the subcontinent for some time when, in 1624, the superior of the Mughal mission decided to investigate some rumors about a certain “Christian nation” that lived on the other side of the mountains.18 The Tibetan mission was formally established in 1626, and its superior, the Portuguese missionary Antônio de Andrade, was the first European to present direct information about Tibet.

His letters from 1624 to 1626 contain precious descriptions of the natural landscape that he found in Tibet, as well as of cultural traditions, social and political organization and religious practices. According to Andrade, the Tibetans were a pious and merciful people. Their “sect” ‒ which he called “the sect of the lamas” – was first identified as an ancient or distorted form of Christianism. There was no such thing as “Buddhism” at that time, so the Portuguese missionary struggled to explain it to their European readers.

In all these kingdoms, they follow the same Tibetan cult, without difference throughout the cult and little change in their language. They are mostly good-‐natured, pious, and inclined to matters of salvation. They have great aversion and hatred for the Muslim cult; do not consider themselves to be gentile, and are actually quite different from those we have seen so far.19

This excerpt shows that the Tibetans were first portrayed as a pious people, and that the missionaries were eager to establish the difference between Tibetans, the Mughal Muslims and from the Indian gentios.

16 “No obstante, acordaran [los missionários] que uno dellos permanecería en la corte mientras que el outro

regressaria (...). De esse modo, no abandonaban al rey, porque quizás existia todavía una brizna de esperanza para su alma, gracias a los esforços de los sacerdotes. Aunque, después de todo lo que se há dicho, las propuestas del rey hubieran podido parecer fraudulentas y llena de hipocresía, algunos otros hechos nos indicaron la possibilidad de albergar aún algunas esperanzas.” Antônio de Montserrat, op. cit., p. 215.

17 “Queste parti onde stiamo è la própria India, et è questo regno como scala di tutta l’India et como asilo d’onde concorren de tutte le parti d’India et de moltas (sic) d’Asia. Et ja que la Compagnia tiene cqui (sic) posto il piè con tanta benevolentia d’hun re sì grande et de suoi figli, non pare que è conveniente lasciare questa ocasione prima di provare tutti li mezi que possiamo per commenzare conversione nella terra ferma dell’India, que quella que fin ora si è fatta è solamente nella costa del mare.” Letter from Rodolfo Acquaviva to Claudio Acquaviva, Fatepur, 25 April 1582. Documenta Indica, vol. XII (1580-‐1583), doc. 106, p. 584. Manuscript: ARSI, Jap-‐sin 37, f. 109r-‐111v.

18 Ibid. 19 “Em todos estes reinos corre esta mesma seita Tibetense, sem diferença alguma de momento e com pouca na

linguagem nos mais deles. É gente pela maior parte de boa natureza, pia e inclinada às cousas da salvação. Têm grande aversão e ódio à seita maometana; não se têm por gentios e, na verdade, são muito diferentes de todos aos de que (sic) tivemos notícia até agora.” Letter from Antônio de Andrade, 15 August 1626, presented and edited by Hugues Didier, Os Portugueses no Tibete. Os primeiros relatos dos jesuítas (1624-‐1635), Lisbon, Comissão Nacional pra Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2000, p. 107. Our translation.


As was quite common among the initial reports of a given mission, Andrade displays

very positive and optimistic attitude towards the Tibetans. This could be connected to our earlier remarks regarding the Mughal mission. The main obstacle to evangelization at this point was not Lamaism, or some moral or natural characteristic of the Tibetan people, but communication problems caused by language difference. The people, Andrade states, were ready to receive the “True Law”:

I pray to God that we already have the necessary knowledge of the Tibetan language to catechize as we should, and it is my belief that they will receive our Holy Law and I say that these are people who are very well-‐equipped to receive it in a quick manner, because, despite this being an act of God Himself, since He is the only one who knows and decides the best time for this to take place, these people are asking for it, for they are very pious, dedicated to prayer, to bringing relics and holy things, and performing the good deeds.20

Therefore, it should be reiterated that, in both paragraphs, Andrade insists that the Tibetans are ready to receive the Christian Law because of their good nature. The only problem, according to the Jesuit, is the missionaries’ lack of knowledge of the Tibetan language. If they knew the idiom, they could teach the people from Tibet the Christian Law and convert them properly. After all, those who were ready (“gente aparelhada”) needed only to be introduced to the “True Law of Salvation” and shown their errors, which is indeed what Andrade attempted to do:

During this time, I visited the same King and very purposely questioned his lamas before him, so that they would be embarrassed by their ignorance, and the king would be free to get rid of them. In all disputes, they lost and felt embarrassed, and when they did not know what to say, they would make fun of things, before the king himself. Many times, after engaging in the disputes, they would pretend, doing things to amuse the King, while other times they used words I could not understand, and when I said so, they would tell me that it is necessary to learn the Tibetan language first, and then we would all be satisfied. (…) For these people, palpable and ordinary [ideas] are better to persuade and convince than other theological and speculative ones, since the latter are difficult to be understood and figured out, for they know too little.21

Andrade’s attempts at showing them their mistakes were not completely different from what had happened in the Mughal mission a few decades earlier. There were disputes

20 “Prouvera a Nosso Senhor que houvera em nós já o cabedal necessário da língua tibetense para catequizar como

convém, como creio mui depressa receberão nossa Santa Lei, e digo que é esta gente mui aparelhada para depressa a receber, porque, sem embargo disto ser obra somente de Deus e guardada aquela hora e tempo que Ele só sabe e tem determinado, contudo a mesma gente está bradando por ela por ser muito pia, inclinada a rezar, a trazer relíquias e coisas santas, e bem obrar.” Letter from Antônio de Andrade, 15 August 1626, presented and edited by Hugues Didier, op. cit, p. 137. Our translation.

21 “Neste tempo tratei de visitar o mesmo Rei e mui de propósito armei questões com os seus lamas diante dele, para que, vendo sua ignorância, lhe ficassem servido de laço a eles mesmos, e de meio para o rei se livrar melhor do que eu armava. Em todas estas disputas ficaram sempre corridos e envergonhados e, quando não mais sabiam, davam em zombar, mas tudo isto lhe arguia diante do mesmo Rei. Por muitas vezes tendo entrado em disputas, fingiram e trataram várias coisas para o divertir, outras usavam na prática de palavras que eu não pudesse entender, e como se feito as não entendia, ajuntavam que era necessário primeiro saber a língua tibetense e então ficariam eles e eu satisfeitos. (...) Para esta gente as [ideias] palpáveis e ordinárias são as melhores para os persuadir e convencer, que outras teológicas e especulativas, nem as entendem, nem lhe armam seus termos, porque sabem muito pouco.”, Ibid., p. 125-‐6. Our translation.


involving the missionary and the representatives of other faiths, always in the presence of the ruler. The goal was both to discredit the lamas and persuade the ruler that Christianity was the true path for salvation. Once again, for people of good nature and understanding, dialogue and debates were considered the best strategy of conversion.

It can also be observed from the missionary’s correspondence that Andrade always defended the great potential of the Tibetan mission, assuring that the Tibetan people were ready to be converted and that it was only necessary to prepare the missionaries properly, giving them time to learn the language. Besides being merciful, there were other characteristics – related to their social-‐political structure – that indicated their potentiality as catechumens which would make the mission viable. The Guge Kingdom was in this sense a perfect community, for it was regulated by laws and a political order that even included a leader or “head”.22 The ruler’s support of the mission was indispensable for Andrade’s plans, and this seems to have been the case until the Guge king was imprisoned during the Reign of Ladakh, in 1633.

However, it seems that this positive and hopeful opinion about the Tibetan people was not shared by all the missionaries. A couple of years after Andrade’s death,23 another Jesuit, Nuno Coresma, had a totally different opinion about the people who lived on “the roof of the world”:

These people are generally incapable of perceiving our affairs and understanding, in any way, the mysteries of our faith, because their brutality and rudeness are such as I have never seen or read about before: they have no police, don’t even know what it is. (…) These people are not pious at all, since the place where they should pray to God is the church, but they’d rather be eating and drinking than going to church.24

For Coresma, they were not a merciful people, but some kind of “hungry Christians”:

[Only in witchcraft] they recognize sainthood, and they don’t see anything beyond the things that are wicked or bewitched, since their capacity and natural rudeness do not help them, except to fill their stomachs.25

Once established that they were not of a good nature, and incapable of understanding the teachings of the missionaries, but only available for conversion when offered some reward, there was no point in discussing with them. The most prudent strategy for this kind of people, for a Jesuit like Coresma, was coercion:

Where there is no favor from the king in lands so far away, where there’s no Portuguese army, fear, (…) where the people are so

22 “Toda comunidade perfecta es um cuerpo político propriamente dicho y se gobierna por verdadeira jurisdicción

dotada de fuerza coativa, que es la que da las leyes.” in Francisco Suarez, Tractatus de legibus ac Deo legislatore, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, vol. I, book I, 1971-‐81 (1613), p. 37.

23 Antônio de Andrade was poisoned at the lunchroom of Saint Paul’s College, in Goa, in 1635. 24 “É gente geralmente incapaz de perceber nossas coisas e de qualquer modo entender os mistérios de nossa fé, pois

a rudeza e brutalidade é tal que até agora não vi nem li semelhante: a cultivação nenhuma a polícia, nem sabem o nome. (...) É gente em nenhuma forma dada a piedade, pois o lugar em que para com Deus a deviam exortar seriam suas igrejas, mas é coisa certa que achas, não vão nem nelas se ajuntam, mais que para comer e beber” Letter from Nuno Coresma to the Provincial in Goa, Tsaparang, August 30th, 1635 in ARSI, Goa 73, f. 97v. Our translation.

25 “[Só na feitiçaria] reconhecem santidade, e tudo o mais em que não entra trejeito ou feitiçaria, não é possível perceberem, pois sua capacidade e natural rudeza os não ajuda a mais, salvo se for proveito de barriga.”, Ibid. Our translation.


dependent upon the king or held captive or at his service, even if there are so few of them, and they are so poor, so selfish, so rude, uneducated, merciless, the Christian fruit can hardly be expected to ripen.26

Coresma was so convinced that there was no hope for Christianity among the Tibetans that, for him, there was no reason to maintain the mission. There existed, nevertheless, a third opinion on the matter. Another missionary, Antônio Mendes, defended the Tibetan mission against Coresma’s statements, and insisted upon the veracity of Andrade’s descriptions:

We cannot doubt, based on the letters from Father Antônio de Andrade’s, and those of other fathers, even from Father Nuno Coresma, that not only there were Christians made there, and there were Christians made in an easy way, but there was great hope to grow and to make a Christainity there, due to the natural tendency and pious affection that those people showed towards things of our holy faith, something not yet seen in a mission in the East; on the contrary, (what had been noticed was) great impediments and difficulties.27

In addition, Mendes pointed out that if even savages and barbarian people such as the “brasis” had the ability to accept the Christian Law, why would the Tibetans, so naturally inclined to matters of salvation, require the presence and awe of the Portuguese secular branch?28

The question rose by Mendes shows clearly articulations that were only possible by the elaboration of categories. Such categories – pious, rude, barbarian people – were only effective as a means to anticipate a strategy of conversion. Furthermore, these predicative or attributive formulations also had to be able to allow a comparison, or even better, a hierarchization of these “nations”, following the purposes of the Company of Jesus.

They also shed light on a net of communication among the Jesuit missionaries, informing what was going on around the globe, thanks to the epistolary discipline of the members of the Order.29 For every kind of people, there was a prudent way to evangelize, and each nation should have a proper place within a universal epistemological order of the world. Ines Zupanov says as much in her book Disputed Missions:

In the distant missions, Jesuit ‘proselytism’ and ‘civilizing acts’ were necessarily coupled with the description, interpretation and classification of the phenomena, spaces and peoples whose mere existence presented disconcerting theological, sociological and political problems. Conversion methods ranged from total extirpation of all vestiges of non-‐Christian religious practices, the so-‐called tabula rasa,

26 “Donde sem favor de rei em terras tão remotas aonde não há braço português, temor, (...) aonde a gente é tão

dependente do rei ou toda é cativa ou obrigada a seu serviço, contudo tão pouca, tão pobre, tão interesseira, tão rude, sem culto algum, sem piedade, mal se poderá esperar fruto de cristandade.” Letter from Nuno Coresma to the Provincial in Goa, Tsaparang, August 30th, 1635 in ARSI, Goa 73, f. 97v. Our translation.

27 “Não temos que duvidar, pois como consta nas cartas do Padre Antônio de Andrade, dos mais padres e ainda do Padre Nuno Coresma, não só se fizeram e havia Cristãos feitos com muita facilidade, mas (sic) muito grande esperanças de crescer e se fazer ali grande cristandade, pela natural inclinação e pia afeição que aquela gente mostrava às coisas da nossa santa fé o que em nenhuma missão de todo este Oriente se viu em seus princípios, antes nas mais delas grandes impedimentos e dificuldades.” Letter from de Antônio Mendes, Ibid., f. 102r. Our translation.

28 “E quando os Brasis, gente tão agreste, bárbara e fera, teve capacidade para receber nossa dita fé”, Ibid., f. 102r. 29 “Letter writing, like the rest of their [i.e. Jesuit’s] rhetorical practice, was strategic. What the Jesuits taught about

rhetorical form (...) is consistent with the function letters had for the society.” in Grant Boswell, “Letter writing among the Jesuits: Antônio Possevino's advice in the Bibliotheca Selecta (1593)”, Huntington Library Quarterly. University of California Press, 66/3-‐4, 2003, p. 249.


which were applied to the ‘stateless’, illiterate barbarians’, to various degrees of adaptation to the advanced civilizations of Mexico, Peru, China, China, Japan and India, and bear witness to the uneasy process of selecting appropriate strategies and missionary role models for the grafting of the Christian message, culture and government.30

The cases presented here are not supposed to be any different. Describing, interpreting, classifying and elaborating categories are all part of the Jesuits’ modus operandi. As such, they proved fundamental to the creation of a new manner of perceiving a recently extended world in the Early Modern Era.

CONCLUSION

The modern perception of discrepancy and dissimulation (...) is likely an anachronism consequent on our failure to understand the Jesuits’ knowledge

and use of rhetoric, both to convey information and to respond to circumstances in a rapidly changing Europe.31

It is already well-‐established that the Jesuits discussed the viability and potential of a given mission in their writings — letters, reports, and other works. Even in moments of doubt the plan of the priests was never to abandon the mission, but rather to change strategies or, even better, to diversify strategies. Therefore, to justify the mission and to reflect upon the best plans, it was necessary to observe very closely the “nations” and the rulers one wanted to convert. They had to be described, studied, and categorized along the most prudent lines. Dialogues appeared simultaneously as a conversion strategy and as a way to ratify, confirm, and illustrate the description of Akbar as a sovereign that was a friend of reason, prudent, gentle to the priests, and, therefore, an ally of Christianity in India. In the same way, the attribution of some specific features to a given subject would necessarily lead to a specific way of acting, meaning a strategy of conversion.

The epistolary and rhetorical Jesuit discipline anticipated that dialogue should be the main strategy, describing Akbar as a man of reason. It should be said, therefore, that the adequacy or adjustment of reality to the narrative, the development of writing and the rhetorical operation performed by the Jesuits had, as main goals, not only the description of Muslim Akbar and his court, but mostly their categorization. The category surpasses simple description: it places people or society in a spot from which the missionary project is conceived.

We can distinguish an endless process of (re)formulation and elaboration of categories, which were supposed to surpass the limits imposed by terms such as “idolatrous”, “pagan”, “unfaithful”, etc. As these categories became ineffective in solving the epistemological and missionological problems faced by the missionaries, the priests needed to develop new predicates that were capable of describing the “other” and anticipating the wisest form of catechesis to be applied.

The descriptions presented were elaborated considering their missionary function. Nevertheless, they also made it possible to create a new modern cognizance. These categories circulated all over the world, from the Mughal mission to Portuguese America, from Tsaparang to Salamanca, from within to outside Iberian world borders. The elaboration of such categories, associated to the epistolary discipline, prepared the Jesuit missionary action and, at

30 Ines Zupanov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in 17th-‐century South India.,

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 149 31 Grant Boswell, art. cit., p. 262.


the same time, engendered a process of circulation of men and their knowledge, which was only possible due to this linguistic operation, i.e. the materialization of the intercultural and interreligious encounters experienced in the writing activity.

As mentioned in regard to Mendes’ notions of the “brasis”, it is clear that Jesuit words traveled throughout the globe. The same can be said about the first information on Tibet, written by Jesuit Antônio de Andrade. They were translated and published in Europe,32 and also circulated within Iberian lands in India.33 On the opposite direction, the written material produced to convince and persuade Akbar and his mullahs also contributed in building a bridge between European notions and Sanskrit and Persian traditions.34 Therefore, it seems fair to say that the epistolary discipline and the description activity not only made the missionary enterprise possible, but imposed a (re)formulation of the European ordination of the world.

32 Hugues Didier, op. cit., p. 16. 33 “Porque estando o Padre Antônio de Andrade por superior da Missão do Mogor e assim pelo que cá em Goa tinha

ouvido como pela notícia que ali achou mais clara com o espírito de fervor que Nosso Senhor lhe tinha comunicado e foi com tão bom sucesso como mostrou a primeira carta que dela escreveu, a qual correo toda a Índia e Europa de muita satisfação e edificação de todos”. Carta de Antônio Mendes, ARSI, Goa 73, f. 101r.

34 “The mission was invited to Akbar’s court for two main purposes: to provide Catholic debaters with an interfaith forum held regularly in Akbar’s palace at Fatehpur Sikri, and to provide works from the late European Renaissance for his enjoyment and his court artist’s edification.” in G.A. Bailey,“The Truth-‐Showing Mirror: Jesuit Catechism and the Arts in Mughal India” in John W. O'Malley (dir.), The Jesuits: cultures, sciences, and arts, 1540-‐1773, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1999, p. 480.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Main sources:

Manuscripts: COPY of a letter from India to the Portugal province in the year [15]79, Lisbon Nacional Archive

(Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, ANTT, Lisbon, Portugal), Armário Jesuítico, no. 28, f. 91-‐2.

FORMÃO de Zeladin Machamede Achebar, rei posto por Deus, [aos] principais padres da Ordem de São Paulo, Lisbon Nacional Archive (Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, ANTT, Lisbon, Portugal), Armário Jesuítico, no. 28, f. 88v-‐89.

MONTSERRAT, Antônio, Relação de akbar rei dos mogóis (1582), Lisbon, Nacional Archive (Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, ANTT, Lisbon, Portugal), Armário Jesuítico, no. 28, f. 81-‐85.

Published sources : ACOSTA, José de, De procuranda Indorum salute, Madrid, Consejo superior de investigaciones

cientificas, 1984 (1589). LETTER from Rodolfo Acquaviva, Antônio de Montserrat e Francisco Henriques to the

Provincial Roderico Vicente, Agra, 13 July 1580, Documenta Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), doc. 05. LETTER from Francisco Henriques to Laurentio Peres , Fatehpur Sikri, 6 April 1580, Documenta

Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), p. 5. Manuscript: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Goa, 38 I, fl. 121r-‐24v.

LETTER from Rodolfo Acquaviva, Fatepur Sikri, 18 July 1580, Documenta Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), doc. 6, p. 49-‐50. Manuscript: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Jap-‐sin. 37, f. 100r-‐02v.

LETTER from Rodolfo Acquaviva to Claudio Acquaviva, Praep. Gen. S.I., Fatehpur Sikri, 25 April 1582, Documenta Indica, v. XII (1580-‐1583), doc. 106. Manuscript: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Jap-‐sin 37, f. 109r-‐111v.

LETTER from Antônio de Andrade, 15 August 1626, presented and edited by DIDIER, Hugues, Os Portugueses no Tibete. Os primeiros relatos dos jesuítas (1624-‐1635), Lisbon, Comissão Nacional pra Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2000.

MONTSERRAT, Antônio, Mongolicae Lagationis Comentarius, presented and edited by ALAY, Josep Lluis, Embajador en la corte del Gran Mogol, Lleida, Milenio, 2006.

XAVIER, Jeronimo. Fuente de Vida: Tratado apologético dirigido al Rey Mogol de la Índia en 1600, San Sebastián, Universidad de Deusto, 2007.


Critical Texts:

BOSWELL, Grant, “Letter writing among the Jesuits: Antonio Possevino's advice in the Bibliotheca Selecta (1593)”, Huntington Library Quarterly, 66/3-‐4, 2003, p. 247-‐62.

CAMPS, Arnulf, Studies in Asian Mission History, Leiden, Boston/Köln/Brill, 2000. CERTEAU, Michel de, L'Écriture de l'histoire, Paris, Gallimard, 1975. DIDIER, Hugues, “Muslim Heterodoxy, Persian Murtaddûn and Jesuit missionaries at the court

of king Akbar (1580-‐1605)”, The Heythrop Journal, 49, November 2008, p. 898-‐939. EISENBERG, José, As Missões jesuíticas e o pensamento político moderno, Belo Horizonte, UFMG,

2000. REZAVI, Syed Ali Nadeem, “Religious Disputation and Imperial Ideology: The Purpose and

Location of Akbar’s Ibadatkhana”, Studies in History, vol. xxiv, no. 2, July-‐Dec 2008, p. 195-‐210.

ZUPANOV, Ines, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-‐Century India, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.

ZUPANOV, Ines, “Jesuit Orientalism; Correspondence between Tomas Pereira and Fernão de Queiros” in BARRETO, L. (ed.), Tomás Pereira, S. J. (1646-‐1708), Life, Work and World, Lisbon, Centro Cultural e Cientifico de Macau, 2010, p. 43-‐74.

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