the first protestant mission to india: its social and

THE FIRST PROTESTANT MISSION TO INDIA: ITS SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS1

D. Dennis Hudson

n 9 July 1706, two Germans landed in the Danish colony on the south-eastern coast of India called Tranquebar. Nearly 200 years after

Martin Luther had circulated his 95 theses in Germany, they had come to be his voice to Hindus and Muslims. When they landed, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (1682-1719) was 24 years old and Heinrich Pluetschau (b. 1677) was 29. King Frederick IV of Denmark, as head of the Lucheran Church of Denmark and Norway, commissioned and financed them, but no one in Tranquebar, not even the Danes in the factory, knew they were coming. After a surprised and hostile reception in the Danish fort, the young men found themselves in a market place with nowhere to go.

They stood in a town on a strip of coastal land, three miles by five, that the Danish East India Company had been renting from the Kings of Tanjore for 86 years. Tranquebar town had a population of about 18,000 (Ziegenbalg 1957: 35), and Tranquebar colony contained 15 towns and villages and a total population of about 30,000 (Lehmann 1956: 17; Ziegenbalg 1717: 1-4). The Tanjore kingdom was about 100 miles long and 70 miles wide, contained three notable palaces, four fortified towns. Many large temple ('pagoda') towns, and rest houses for travellers supported by local 'pagans' of means, spaced about four miles apart and open to all for any length, as Ziegenbalg would later report: 'let him be Heathen or Mahometan, black or white Christian' (Ziegenbalg 1717: 6-7).

Tanjore, the capital, lay 60 English miles to the north-west of Tranquebar and was a walled town with a spacious palace, where the Maratha ruling family resided. According to Ziegenbalg in 1709, the king drew 'above thirty Tuns of Gold in Money' each year out of his dominions and was said to possess 'above Thirty Hundred Thousand Tuns of Gold' in his treasury. He kept 140 elephants for battle and over 300 imported horses and with his funds

D. Dennis Hudson is a faculty member of the Department of Religion, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063, USA.

SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 42 (1 & 2), March-September 1993

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38 Sociological Bulletin

could raise 'a most numerous Army' in a short time. About 10 years previously (c.1799), Ziegenbalg said, 'he besieged the Town of Tranquebar with forty Thousand Men, for the Space of nine whole Months, from which he would not retire, till they paid him down a Sum of Money, and agreed to Money, and agreed to such Terms as he demanded.' Then he explained why:

He is obliged to pay Annually a very great Sum of Money to the Mogol, to whom he is Tributary. Thus is he no Sovereign King, but a Vassal of the great Mogol. And such are all the other Kings and Princes upon the other Coasts, since they all pay Tribute to the Mogol...At present here is no Sovereign King in all East-India, except in the Island of Ceylon, who is called Kandiarasha [Kandiya -raja] and is altogether independent (Ziegenbalg 1717: 7-8).

As they were soon to realize, the two young missionaries had landed in a complex cultural environment created by generations of trade between Europe and the kingdoms of south India. A Portuguese patois now bridged the gaps between the Danish and German of the Europeans and the various forms of Tamil and Telugu of those whom Europeans referred to as 'pagans' and 'Moors', and it was the mother tongue for the Eurasians called 'Portuguese'. Three years later Ziegenbalg described the population of the colony to correspondents in Germany in terms of skin colour. The Europeans are white, he said, the 'Portuguese' are half-white, the 'Moors' are yellow, and the majority population, the 'Malabarians', are dark brown.2

A German-speaking Dane eventually came to the market place and took the two men home. He rented them a house in a neighbourhood made up of Eurasians and of slaves of the Europeans. The slaves were the result of the political turmoil of the period and appear to have contained many Catholics. Dislocation and famine created by battles between Nayaka and Mughal forces had produced dislocation and famine in the Tanjore kingdom, causing many to flee to the coastal towns. According to Philippus Baldaeus writing in 1660, in Nagapattinam:

the poor Country Wretches being forced to fly to the City for want of Rice and other Eatables, you saw the streets cover'd with emaciated and half starv'd Persons, who offer'd themselves to Slavery for a small quantity of Bread, and you might have bought as many as You pleased at the rate of 10 Shillings a Head; about 5000 of them were there bought and carried to Jafnapatnam, as many to Columbo, besides several thousands that were transported to Batavia.3

It was from that socially marginal and dependent Portuguese-speaking, Catholic and 'pagan' setting of slaves and Eurasians that the two Germans commissioned by Denmark's Lutheran king began to address their Protestant

The First Protestant Mission to India 39

('Evangelisch') message to India. Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau were not, of course, the first Protestant

spokesmen among Indians, nor the first Protestant students of India's religions. After the Dutch had established a trading post up the coast at Pulicat, about 30 miles north of Madras, in 1613, Abraham Rogerius served in the 1640s as its first Reformed minister to the Dutchmen and to Catholics of the 'Luso-Indian' community. His interest in the 'pagans', however, was study and not conversion.4 Similarly, the Reformed minister Philippus Baldaeus served Dutchmen and indigenous Catholics in Jaffna and the Pandya coast between 1656 and 1662 and wrote his own reports.5 The next important studies of India's 'paganism' would be by Ziegenbalg.

Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau, however, had not come to Tranquebar to study. They had come to address 'pagans' and 'Moors' with the Protestant message and were the first Europeans sent to India for that express purpose. The various trading companies of Protestant Europe had long employed chaplains for their personnel in the colonies, and in Tranquebar the Danes possessed their own Lutheran church and had two pastors. Yet no Malabarians belonged to the congregation nor, apparently, did any Eurasians. Those among the Eurasians and the Malabarian slaves who were Catholics were served by a Jesuit. No 'pagans' or 'Moors' had yet voluntarily sought baptism from Protestants.

Over the following century and a half, 54 other Europeans would be sent to continue what Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau had begun as the Protestant message spread out of Tranquebar and gained a foothold in south-eastern India. Here we shall look at the emergence of issues that set the context and contours of later developments.

SPREADING THE WORD

To do their commissioned work, the two missionaries had first to study language. They divided the labour, Ziegenbalg working on Tamil and Pluetschau on Portuguese, and their efforts bore fruit quickly. After 14 months they had formed a congregation of 75, possessed a new church building, and held worship services in both languages. The congregation, however, was not typical of the colony. It was economically and socially dependent on the Danish fort, on mercantile trade, and on the mission institutions. By the time the church building was completed, only one free 'pagan' Malabarian had received baptism, Ziegenbalg's 30-year old 'Shudra' man servant, Seperumal (Lehmann 1956: 42). Yet, during the remaining 12 years of Ziegenbalg's life it grew. By 1712 there were 202 members in the congregation, 117 of them Malabarians and 85 Portuguese. In 1720, the year after his death, there were 250 members, 147 of whom were high-status 'Shudras' (who were Velalans) and the remainder low-status 'pariah' caste members. In 1738 the missionaries reported that since the mission began,


they counted 4,609 people as members, of whom 3,186 were then living (Lehmann 1956:121).

A printed report cited by Lehmann (1956: 43) gives us some idea of their occupations. Of the 87 Malabarian adults, it reported, five served the Danish company, six were soldiers or sailors, others served the mission as catechists, clerks, or teachers, and the remainder sought work with the Europeans and gained food however they could, some earning a little by knitting stockings, a skill taught to children of the mission's school. Of the Portuguese adults, 13 were soldiers and sailors, and the rest served the company and earned money by knitting stockings and weaving reeds (ibid: 43).

What was the message to which those people had responded positively? It was Pietist, meaning that it stressed an inner and personal experience of a warm faith in the story of Jesus Christ as the mediating saviour from sin, death, the devil and hell. If genuine, that pious faith would transform one's everyday life. It was a devotion to a personal saviour that Johann Sebastian Bach was at the time expressing through classical music in Germany. As a religious ideal it was not unlike the agamic devotion of surrender that would be expressed some decades later by the classical music of Tyagaraja of Tanjore (c.1759-1847) and of his contemporaries, Muttuswami Diksitar (1776-1835) and Syama Sastri (1762-1827). In that musical context the Protestant poet of Tanjore, Vedanayaga Sastri (1774-1864), would also compose his many works.

Within its European context, Pietist devotion tended toward an individualistic conscience that would later develop intellectually into Enlightenment rationalism and deistic theism. It was harmonious with the individualistic freedom of laissez-faire capitalism. It contrasted on the one hand the sacramental stress of the Roman Catholics and on the other the established Calvinist and Lutheran corporate ethos of the Dutch, Danish and British East India companies. Ideally it required a continuous cultivation of the inner experience of faith and repentance expressed through ethical living, as Ziegenbalg explained in Anandamangalam to a gathering at the house of a temple Brahman:

If you suffer Faith and unfeigned Repentance to be wrought in your Souls; a Faith, I mean, attended with a constant Exercise of good Works, and with a continued Perseverance to the End; there is no doubt but your Souls shall be saved by Virtue of our Religion. But if you barely change the Name, and not the Heart, then the coming over to our Religion, and the taking upon you the Name of a Christian, will do you no good at all.6

Ziegenbalg wanted to get that message to the 'pagans' and 'Moors', and by doing so, he believed, he would be responding to the desire for wisdom that was itself a sign of God's earlier work in India.7 Those who desired

Tlie First Protestant Mission to India 41

wisdom, however, lacked the full story, and to get it to them he worked in three ways.

First, assisted by Tamil books of his Catholic predecessors, he translated Lutheran and Pietist doctrinal and liturgical works into Tamil, such as Martin Luther's 'Small Catechism' (Gensichen 1967:33). He chose to use everyday spoken Tamil, not the poetry of the elite, even though it was not customarily used for books. He had his translations, tracts and letters copied by hand on to palm leaves by up to 12 copyists and distributed them to interested Muslims and Hindus who could read. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of pieces circulated, including, in one example, a translation of Matthew's gospel with an exposition of Christian doctrine and a letter explaining conversion (ibid.: 30).

In 1713 Ziegenbalg employed a Tamil printing press sent from the Pietist centre of Halle, Germany. Its first product, he reported, was 'a booklet dedicated to the heathen, and consisting of eight chapters, in which is shown how great a horror heathenism is and how those who live in it may be saved and go to heaven.'8 According to Han-Werner Gensichen, although Catholic Tamil writings of the 16th century were the first printed books to appear outside of Western Europe and there had been four Catholic printing presses in India since 1548, Ziegenbalg's booklet of 1713 'inaugurated the modern era of Tamil book-printing and printing in Indian languages as a whole' (Gensichen 1967: 34). It would be nearly a century and a half before Arumuga Navalar would assimi late the printing press to Tamil Shaiva missionary efforts.

It is clear that his widely distributed literature was of interest to many and effective. One of his letters addressing a set of questions to the 'heathen' may be the first survey ever conducted in India. Ziegenbalg received 99 written responses to it that contain an abundance of information, some of which shall be discussed shortly.9

His literature had a direct effect on the establishment of Protestants in the Tanjore capital, a major step in the spread of the religion. The missionaries were not allowed to work inside the Tanjore kingdom. Ziegenbalg had attempted to walk to Tanjore in 1709, but had learned on the way that 'no white European could travel in the country unless he had a passport issued by the King or one of his highest officials', and that the King had killed a few Portuguese priests and imprisoned others who then died (Lehmann 1956: 124-25). Nevertheless, the Tanjore king's maternal uncle had read some of the Tranquebar literature and had corresponded with the missionary Benjamin Shultze and in 1721 had sent him an emissary. In the meantime, a low-caste Catholic in Tanjore named Rajanaikan (1700-1771), who was a subordinate officer of the king, had read the literature as well as the Tranquebar translation of the Bible into Tamil. He had instructed three soldiers and in 1727 the four of them went to Tranquebar for baptism. When Rajanaikan returned to Tanjore, he served as catechist for over 40 years and


brought hundreds into the church from the lower castes.10 At the end of 1717 there were only 15 Protestants in the Tanjore territory, but by the end of 1728 there were over 100.

In 1728 the Tanjore king's uncle invited the missionary Friedrich Pressier to the July wedding of his son and there the missionary met the Tanjore Lutherans who appear to have congregated outside of the capital. The Velalan or 'Shudra' Protestants were allowed to meet him upstairs in the prince's house but the 'pariahs' he could speak to only through a window. Yet, two years later Tanjore had 367 Protestants in its region and 14 years later they were meeting inside the capital, for in 1742 Rajanaikan opened a school there where he held worship services, and in 1744 a prayer hall had been built for 'Shudras' in a 'Shudra' street.11 Following the lead of Rajanaikan, the Tanjore Protestant:;, both 'Shudra' and 'pariah', would emerge as significant to the Malabarian application of Pietist faith, as will be seen later.

Ziegenbalg's second way of communicating his message was to study Tamil writings assiduously and discuss religious matters whenever he could. In 1708 and again in 1709 he visited the Dutch in Nagapattinam to the south. After his abortive effort to walk to Tanjore, in 1710 he went in a caravan to the English in Madras to the north, taking nine and a half days to pass through Sirkali, Cidambaram, Porta Nova, Kudalur, Pondichery, Sadraspatnam and St. Thomas Mount. On his trips he distributed literature to Brahmans and gathered names for future correspondence. Whenever he could, he talked with men who frequently came to his house and with those he met on his walks through the colony: in market places, in front of temples, on the streets during festivals, in public resting places, and in private homes.

In those discussions Ziegenbalg began with a shared notion of wisdom, and then moved to his particular message. 'To start with the crucified Jesus is not possible', he explained to Danish supporters. 'One has to begin with the book of Nature, from there move on to the Holy Scripture, and on that basis proclaim the crucified Jesus, as the circumstances and the occasion present themselves' (Lehmann 1956: 37). He used reason to bludgeon through what he thought to be blind ignorance. Yet, as a result of his studious efforts to understand whatever wisdom the Tamils had, Ziegenbalg ended up producing for Europe the most accurate studies of the 'pagans' in India since Rogerius. Not until he began sending his voluminous reports and studies of Tamil culture and religion to Halle did the Pietists in Germany have an opportunity to gain a reasonably clear idea of what they were trying to save people in India from. Yet, when Ziegenbalg sent that information to be published, the Pietist authorities at Halle suppressed it. As August Hermann Francke said, 'the missionaries were sent out to exterminate heathenism in India, not to spread heathen nonsense all over Europe' (ibid: 32).

As his third approach, Ziegenbalg welcomed Hindus and Muslims to the liturgies of the church in Tranquebar, the context in which the Protestant


message was heard in its fullest resonance. He and Pluetschau conducted their catechetical instructions and worship services in the New Jerusalem Church, a stone building 20 by 50 feet, white-washed, with a stone altar and a stone pulpit, but purposely bare of pictures, images and crucifixes (Ziegen-balg 1717: 53-54). When the congregation gathered, Ziegenbalg reported:

Those women and men who wear European clothes sit on benches and stools, but those men and women who wear Indian clothes sit on mats and down on the paved floor. No one but Heathens and Moors, who do not belong to the congregation, stand at the four windows and doors (1957: 90).

Those who sat on mats were apparently the Velalans; those who sat on the bare floor were 'pariahs'. The men and women of the congregation no doubt sat apart and attendance was high, partly because mission employees did not want to jeopardize their positions (Lehmann 1956: 45).

In that context, Ziegenbalg articulated the Protestant message vigorously. He led worship each Sunday and included the rite of the Holy Supper, he preached doctrinal sermons, and he catechized the members present. On Wednesday he reviewed for them the Sunday sermon and again catechized. On Friday he drilled them in Luther's Catechism. According to his reports, 'pagans' and Muslims attended all of those occasions, sometimes by the hundreds.

We shall return to the seating arrangement of that liturgical setting later, but should now turn our attention to those observers at the windows and doors. What evidence do we have for their response to what they saw and heard?

THE 'MOORS'

Let us begin with the 'Moors' or Muslims, who were well established in Tranquebar. As Susan Bayly has noted, a chain of Muslim trading towns had come up along the east coast, from Pulicat down to the southern-most Tamil ports, and some of the richest were in the Tanjore delta area where Tranquebar is located (Bayly 1989: 72-82). Tranquebar town contained a large mosque and nearby Poreyar contained several, including a fine new one, and a Sufi lived not far away. At Nagore down the coast near Nagapattinam was the dargali of the Sufi master Shahul Hamid Naguri, an international pilgrimage centre that received patronage from the rulers of Tanjore: from the Telugu Vaishnava Nayakas (it was believed), from the Dutch East India Company (it was believed), and most magnificently from the Marathas who had taken Tanjore from the Nayakas in 1674 (ibid.: 91-94, 216-21).

Among Muslims the endogamous Tamil-speaking Maraikkayar


dominated, a Sunni elite of merchants and ship-owners who sustained close ties to Arab centres of trade and pilgrimage and to Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and along the west coast of India to Gujarat. They followed the Shafi'i school of Quranic law (madhab) that tended to link them to Arabia. They distinguished themselves from the Labbais, also Tamil-speaking Sunnis, who included fishermen and pearl divers, cultivators, weavers, artisans and petty traders, some dealing in fish and leather. The Labbais followed the Hanafi school, which tended to link them to the Deccaa and to Central Asia and Iran (Bayly 1989: 79-81).

It is likely that when Ziegenbalg described the Muslims in the colony as 'yellow' in pigmentation, he meant the Maraikkayar elite who claimed descent from Arab settlers and regarded the Labbais as 'mere converts' (Bayly 1989: 80). The Labbais who lived on the fringes of Tranquebar town's Muslim society may have appeared to him as indistinguishable from the 'dark brown' Malabarians. Yet Ziegenbalg's perception of them as different from the majority population may have been the way the Maraikkayar elite represented themselves to him, as not really 'of Malabar'. Nevertheless, unlike Muslims in Bengal, who favoured Arabic, Persian or Urdu as their language and identified the Bengali language with non-Muslims (Roy 1983: 65-72), Tamil was the mother tongue for both the Maraikkayar and the Labbais. A Maraikkayar of coastal Kilakkarai, who claimed kinship with the Pandyas, had by this time commissioned the Sirappuranam, a Tamil kavya of 5,000 stanzas about the life of the Prophet,with explicit allusions to Kamban's Tamil Ramayanam, And its author, Umaru Pulavar (c.1665-?), was developing the literature of what might be called a 'Muslim Manipravala', an Arabic-Tamil literary language written in Arabic script.12

Still, according to his report of 1709, Ziegenbalg assumed that the Tranquebar Muslims were so different from the Malabarians that they had their own language, yet oddly enough did not speak it often and sent their children to Tamil schools. In answer to the question from Europe, 'Are the Malabarians for the most part Heathens or Mahometans?', he wrote:

I have never seen as yet a Malabarian that was a Mahometan. The Mahometans here, are generally Blackamoors: Though they are settled every where among the Malabarians, yet do they make a particular Body of Men, or a quite different sort of People from the Heathens. And since the Malabarick Language has the Ascendant here above all others, they very seldom speak their native Tongue, and suffer their Children to frequent the Malabarick Schools, without obliging their Masters to teach them the Tenets of the Mahometan Faith. So that the Moors or Mahometans understand the Malabarick Language, both as to read, write, or to speak it; yet are they no Malabarians, but vastly different from them, as well with respect to their Religion, as likewise to their Complexion, their Shape, and Apparel. Many Hundred Thousands of


those Moors inhabit the Coast of Coromandel, enjoying every where great Power and Liberty: For as they depend on the great Mogol, so he doth always protect them against the Insults of the Heathenish Kings, if they should offer to molest them (Ziegenbalg 1717: 31-32.

By the time Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau had landed, Mughal rule was close at hand, with its use of Persian and Urdu. Through the Nizam of Hyderabad the Mughal Emperor in Delhi had claimed the whole of the Tamil country as a province, the Maratha-built fortress in Vellore was now in Mughal control, and the Nawabi of Arcot was about to be established (Bayly 1989:151-52).

Those Muslim men who stood on the edges of Ziegenbalg's church to watch the liturgies must have found some things familiar, but nothing quite right. They were accustomed to weekly communal gatherings for prayer and to daily individual prayers, but unlike the Protestants, they washed themselves at the mosque before worship, and during worship did not sing or eat, and did not sit with women. The mosque, like the church, was an image-free building painted white and with a pulpit, but it had no altar, and no priestly rituals. They too heard a weekly sermon expounding revealed scripture, and they too knew Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. Yet, just as they no doubt thought he would, in their eyes Ziegenbalg distorted the teach-ings of those prophets and ignored the most important one, Muhammad.

The church building, perhaps, seemed to them more like the court of a Sufi saint than a masque. Men and women went together to see the Sufi who lived nearby and sometimes they sang while worshipping (Ziegenbalg 1717: 32-37). As did Ziegenbalg, that Sufi nurtured individual piety and spiritual growth, and his own life too was meant to be a model for others. Yet Ziegenbalg talked of the experience of faith in God, while the Sufi talked of the experience of God. Ziegenbalg waited for the next life to see God, while the Sufi longed to see him now. Ziegenbalg wanted to be a model of faith and repentance for his congregation, while the Sufi was looked to by his disciples as an embodiment of holiness. As Ziegenbalg described him:

His Dress was Mahometan; he had on his Head a green silken Turbant, with a black silken Scarf about his Body. He was besides loaded with Gold, Silver, Pearls,and other precious Ornaments hanging about him. A Scymeter lay on his left Side. His Bed was all of pure red, black, and green Velvet. Whilst we thus conversed together, a great many Moors sitting on the Ground near us, listened with much Attention to what we said. All the Moors of both Sexes, very reverently kissed his Feet both when they came, and when they went, and behaved themselves so respectfully as if he had been a Piece of a Deity (Ziegenbalg 1717: 34-35).

Ziegenbalg had no better knowledge of Islam or respect for it than most


Europeans of his time. Twice when he visited the Sufi's court he refused to remove his shoes even though he thereby offended everyone. The second time, Ziegenbalg reported, the Sufi told him 'that even the King of Tanjour himself, did not only take off his Shoes in his Presence, but prostrating himself on the Ground, did not rise till he bade him.' Ziegenbalg told the Sufi that he was too proud and needed to practice humility. Not surprisingly, the third time Ziegenbaig visited he was not admitted, which, he said, illustrated the 'intolerable and silly Pride' of Muslims (1717: 32-37).

Muslims told Ziegenbalg that they venerated Muhammad as the greatest Prophet, but more than that, as the intimate friend of God, as a unique man whose life was for them the model of piety and faithfulness. Nevertheless, Ziegenbalg insisted that Christians knew more about Muhammad than did Muslims. Not only was the Prophet morally corrupt, he told them, he had corrupted divine revelation. The Qur'an, he said:

...is partly taken out of the Writings of our holy Bible, and partly out of the Books of Pagans, mix'd with many of his own Extravagances, as may be clearly seen by any discerning Reader: Therefore Mahomet gave the World no new Law; but dismembered, mangled, and corrupted the Laws of Moses, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Ziegenbalg 1719: 227).

Such an outspoken attitude toward the Prophet provoked at least one public disturbance during his career, and the responses of Muslim intellectuals were predictable. They told him that Muslims have a better understanding of Jesus than the Christians, because the Christians have turned him into a god and are thus polytheists. As one man explained:

For tho' Jesus Christ was adored as God by some of his own Disciples and heedless Followers; yet he himself preach'd against the Plurality of Gods: And when he came to hear, that some of his Disciples adored him, calling him the Son of God, he abandon'd them to themselves, and retir'd into the Wilderness.... Therefore Mahomet was sent into the World to destroy the Worship of many Gods, both among the Heathens and Christians (Ziegenbalg 1719: 303-304).

The Muslims wondered if Christians were not also idolators like the Malabarians, except perhaps for Ziegenbalg's congregation. Ziegenbalg had gone out of his way not to use the crucifix on liturgical garments or in the church so as not to tempt the Malabarians to idolatry, but that made it unclear to Muslims whether the Protestants of the Danish church belonged to the same religion as the missionaries.13

The Muslims had their own Christology, they felt politically and economically secure, and they believed Islam to be the future of the world. As Ziegenbalg wrote to Europe:


The Mahometan-Moors are far greater Enemies to the Christian Religion, than the Heathens themselves. They often visit me, as I do them; but they will seldom listen to any Reason, firmly believing their own Religion to be of the greatest Extent of all, as having possessed no less than almost Three Parts of the Universe. This is the Reason, that when they write a Letter to a Christian, they cut off three Corners of the Letter, leaving but one entire, to intimate thereby, that the Christians possess but one, and they,the other three Parts of the World (Ziegenbalg 1717: 32).

No Muslim became a Protestant in Ziegenbalg's time.

THE 'MALABARIAN PAGANS'

Now let us consider 'Malabarian pagan' responses. In 1709 when Ziegenbalg answered the European question, 'By what Means do the Malabarians get their Livelihood?', he gave a rather full picture of 'pagan' Tamil society in secular occupational terms as he observed them:

Some of the Malabarians maintain themselves by Trade and Commerce; others by the Plow; others again by Handy-craft Work, and other Labour and Business of that Nature. In such Sea-port Towns as Tranquebar, Trade is far greater, and everything more plentiful, than in any other Parts of the Country. Those that can and will Work, find Employment enough to get a Livelihood. There are no Beggars to be seen among them except the Faquiers....14

There are many rich and great Men among the Malabarians; but for the generality they are poor, or of midling Circumstances. The chief Handy-craft Trades among them are, Linnen-Weavers, Shoe-makers, Taylors, Knitters of Stockings, Dyers, Painters, Masons, Carpenters, Joiners, Potters, Goldsmiths, Brasiers, Ironmongers, etc. and some work in Chalk and Lime-Houses, in Brickilns, and Glass-Houses, where Glass-Bracelets are made.

There are Physicians, Surgeons, Barbers, Exchangers of Money, etc. I may truly say; the Malabarians are as expert and ready in their several Trades and Arts as any Nation in Europe, and are able to imitate almost everything that cometh to their Hands, and relateth to their Profession.

Their Women maintain themselves by Spinning of Wool, grinding of Rice; by selling of Cheese, Milk, Butter and Fish; by baking Cakes, fetching and carrying of Water; by putting themselves out to Service, etc. (Ziegenbalg 1717: 21-22).

A spokesman for the 'Malabarian' literati view would have organized that same description somewhat differently. For example, in the latter half of the 19th century, Dandapani Swamikal (1839-1898), a Velalan born in


Tirunelveli, explained the social world in his 'Sutra of Truth' (Sattiya Suttirani) in accord with the ancient Tinikkitral and the ritual concerns of agama. The relevant portions of his text may be summarized thus.15

He began with God, and then turned to the guru, and then to the practice of tapas, which, he said, is the performance of one's work in order to attain a higher realm. Under that umbrella, he described the nature of people according to their social functions, following an agamic revision of vama-dhanna. First are the Brahmans of the veda, whose nature is to consider all souls (uyir) as equal to their own. Second are the rulers, whose nature is to possess truth, political skill (niti), and compassion. Third are the merchants (vanikar, cetti), whose nature is to buy and sell. (Their otherwise inferior name, he said, is great because it is one of Murugan's, who sells emancipation for the price of devotion. He offered that explanation, it appears, to explain why he had distinguished merchants from the next class and thereby placed them in a position analogous to Vaishyas.) Fourth are the Velalans, whose nature is to engage in many kinds of work. They differ according to region, language and function, and have differing titles (Mudaliar, Pillai, Cettiyar, etc). They provide subsistence for ascetics, Brahmans and rulers, and their fundamental and ancient duty is to worship God when rain is required. (That, it appears, explains the name Velalan as 'he who possesses abundance [velanmai] that comes through sacrifice [VELVU] motivated by desire [veli]'.)

The fifth class, finally, consists of those whose nature is to kill souls and eat flesh. Their duty is to do what the ruler commands and to announce events to everyone, usually with a drum (parai) (for example, the Paraiyans or 'pariahs'). Yet, he explained, there is no reason to fault them in their serving people of the other four classes and they are to be respected - in fact, those of the fifth class who do not eat flesh are to be counted among the higher people, because purity inside purifies the outside. (That suggests the agamic diksa that purifies the grossly physical body, making 'unclean' Paraiyans into true devotees and Shudras into 'Shudras of true being' [sat-sudra] who have the ritual status of 'twice-born'.16

In any case, he continued, to kill is not part of one's work (karma), even if veda requires it for sacrifices. The acaryas of agama have spoken firmly that even if veda appeared and spoke, and even if Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva came and spoke, still the sin of eating flesh is not allowed for high castes. When killing, no compassionate person's mind will bear the victim's tormented thrashing.17

Although Dandapani Swamikal's text obviously organized itself according to the varna-dhanna model of such dharnia texts as the Laws of Manu, his five classes do not correspond in ritual status to Manu's varnas. Viewed from those ritual categories, there are in fact only three classes in his description: the Brahmans, the Shudras, and the unclean 'fifth'. The rulers of society, ritually speaking, are 'Kshatriya' natures in Shudra bodies and those who


function as 'Vaishyas' are ritually Shudras as well. Nevertheless, as Arumuga Navalar explained in his 19th century works,

the means by which Shudras could become 'twice-born' were the initiations (diksa) and ritualized modes of life (sadhana) provided by the acaryas of agama. The relevant agamas were those of the Shaivas and of the Vaishnavas and crucial to their sadhanas was the avoidance of flesh and liquor to sustain ritual purity in mind and body. Such 'pure' food was the liturgical coin used in the Shaiva and Vaishnava temples to mediate between God and the worshipper.

Tranquebar town possessed five large agamic temples and numerous large and small ones dotted the colony. In contrast to the church and the mosque, the temple is thought to be a palace (koyil) for the iconic presence (sannidhi) of Shiva or Vishnu, who grants audiences to subjects at stated times each day. In the 18th century, traffic in and out was limited to men and women of requisite purity; polluted devotees worshipped outside the boundaries of the temple mandala.

For centuries the Tanjore kings had followed agama under the guidance of acaryas, notably the Shaiva Agama of Shaiva Siddhanta during Chola rule and the Vaishnava Agama of the Pancaratra and Vaikhanasa schools during Vijayanagara rule. For example, the last Nayaka ruler before the Maratha kings, Vijayaraghava, reigned for 40 years (1633-1673) and was noted for his personal devotion to Krishna housed at Mannar. Amidst a period of at times devastating strife with other rulers, he sustained that piety under the guide of his acarya, Kumara Tatacarya (d.1658). During giini puja, it was reported, his acarya was taken in a procession through the streets of Tanjore in a richly decorated palanquin, his slippers in another palanquin, and the king walked in front of the slippers with a censer (Sathianathaier 1956: 58-88).

The king celebrated the Panguni festival of March-April with the procession of chariots (ter, ratha). He observed the Margali rites of December-January at the Mannar temple, where he went each morning before sunrise to worship Krishna with flowers for five hours while the town celebrated. During that month he lived as a renunciate and ate in strict purity. When his acarya died, the king was shaved head to foot and made a pilgrimage to Ramanangur at Ramesvaram where he and the queen gave their collective weight in gold to the Lord. Upon his return he gave gold to Krishna at Mannar. Then, after the Nayaka of Madurai defeated him in 1664, Vijayaraghava performed the rite of hiranyagarbha, by which he was 'reborn' through a metal cow into the arms of his acarya's wife as her 'newborn'. At that time he also visited the temple of Sri Rangam daily, starting the 30 mile journey early enough to worship there by sunrise (Sathianathaier 1956: 81).

Such royal behaviour, even if exceptional, modelled for the Tanjore kingdom the ideas and values of agama and its view of the world. Central to that view is the mandala, a design whose sacred centre expands outward into Peripheries bounded by a wilderness. The mandala mapped the world,


kingdoms, capital cities, temples, ritual arenas, and the relations of peoples to one another. Drawing upon another 19th century description in Tamil, we may describe the agamic mapping of socio-religious groups thus:18

At the mandate's centre stands the Light that is wisdom or knowledge (jnana), understood either as Shiva or as Narayana, depending on the agama. Around that centre of Light three circles or squares expand concentrically outward into Darkness to form the realm of dhanna. Outside of dharma is the wilderness of delusion, the dark realm of ignorance (ajnana) where, in European terms, the 'heathen' live. All traditions that accept veda are truly civilized and exist within dharma. Within the boundaries of dharma, however, only those that in addition accept agama are in or near the centre of Light. Any tradition that rejects veda is outside dharma, is uncivilized, and is in the realm of darkness.

Although veda defines the boundary of dharma, by itself it is not at the centre, which is occupied by agama as taught by acaryas. The Shaiva acaryas and the Vaishnava acaryas disputed one another regarding the nature of the mandate's centre, but in the early 18th century they agreed on its outermost boundaries. Outside of those boundaries, in the realm of darkness, lived the meat-eating and demon-worshipping 'pariahs', the Buddhists, the Jainas, the Muslims, the Catholics and the Protestants.

With that background, let us now return to the New Jerusalem Church in Tranquebar and to the people standing at its windows and doors watching Ziegenbalg's lituriges. Any Shaiva or Vaishnava participating in the world of thought just outlined would have understood Ziegenbalg's proclamation of Christ as the form of God's love (anpu), yet must have thought it odd that he would be iconically present only for a few minutes and then in bread and wine, while in the temple God was present, continuously and in anthropomorphic forms that stimulate devotion. Ziegenbalg's use of food must also have seemed both familiar and strange. God embodied in iconic form in his palace receives 'pure' food and distributes 'pure' food through his serving priests so that the transaction of food between God and communicants that Ziegenbalg effected in the Holy Supper was not unfamiliar. Yet he used polluting wine and the interpretation he gave it and the bread he served were completely polluting: To think of eating the flesh and blood of a human, even symbolically, must have been repulsive to anyone who gave it serious thought. Yet the feast of the Lord's Supper in which Christ's body and blood were eaten and drunk was so important in the Church cultus that any who wanted to consume those sacred elements had to give notice eight days in advance and then each day receive an hour of instruction and admonition (Lehmann 1956: 61). Nevertheless, in its symbols it would suggest to agamic thought the bloody and polluting 'pariah' rites of darkness.

Moreover, the fact that 'Shudra' and 'pariah' Christians sat in the same room and shared in the same liturgical meal implied that they were of the


same polluting social status even though they maintained distinctions in their seating. The thoughtful observer must have found it bizarre that familiar doctrines of God, love, grace and purification from sin should be taught through such a mixture of the clean and unclean and with such defiled imagery. Standing on the boundary of the church, he must have thought he was looking into a curious mixture of ignorance and wisdom.

He would have noticed, nevertheless, that those sitting within that arena retained the distinctions between the 'clean' and the 'unclean' classes. We have seen it in the seating, to which we shall return later. He may also have perceived it in the distribution of the food, namely in serving the wine. Despite the report by some later missionaries that caste distinctions were not made in the rite of the Supper, 'Shudras' may have been served before 'pariahs' and perhaps even two cups were used. In Germany, two full cups were consecrated during the rites and, if two were similarly consecrated in the Tranquebar context, the 'clean' may have drunk from one and the 'unclean' from the other, as was the practice in 1777. Censorship in Germany of missionary reports from Tranquebar may have eliminated information about the practice. 19

Nevertheless, the congregants' own self-consciousness about observing purity-pollution distinctions in the sacred context was unambiguous. It was revealed, interestingly, by the one time that missionaries reported that the congregants sat together without observing caste distinctions. That was during Ziegenbalg's funeral in 1719. In his study of the mission, Arno Lehmann viewed that event as 'a splendid example of what the Church was able to achieve already in 1719, something that in Hindu circles had not been considered a possibility' (1956: 64). Yet it reveals, I think, quite the opposite. According to the categories of dhanna, funeral rites are polluting and all who participate in them are polluted. Moreover, insofar as all the congregants viewed themselves as forming one 'family', they understood themselves as all polluted by virtue of kinship relations. In such funereal situations, there is no purity to preserve and all who are polluted may intermingle without regard to caste distinctions. From that point of view, the unity that Lehmann applauded was the social unity of people who shared the unclean ritual status of 'pariahs', and their practice of it revealed a conscious adherence to the symbolism of purity and pollution.

Most of the high-caste people Ziegenbalg talked with at length and corresponded with were Shaivas. To them it was not strange to think that God had revealed himself and his way of life through a series of disciples and their books, as Ziegenbalg taught. The idea of salvation through divine grace was nothing new either, nor the fact of resurrection, because both were attested to in the lives of their saints, the Nayanar. They also believed that Shiva takes on human form, and so that doctrine too was sensible. What may not have been appealing to them, however, is the doctrine that God was born through a woman's body, which is what the Vaishnavas taught. But responses


by Vaishnavas to Ziegenbalg were fewer than those by Shaivas, suggesting, perhaps, that as a minority who relied more on Brahmans for leadership than did the Shaivas, they were less available to him.

When Ziegenbalg wrote to people, he often asked them: 'What do the Tamilians think about the Christian Religion and Law?' (Grafe 1972: 51). In his use of the word Tamilian' he appears to mean 'Velalan'. One of his 99 respondents wrote back:

Christianity is being despised by us for the following reasons:

because Christians slaughter cows and eat them, because they do not wash after easing themselves, because they drink strong drinks, because they do not do many works (karma), when someone has died, in order to help the soul of the deceased to reach the place of bliss, because they do not do many works (karma) of joy at weddings.

This seemingly random sequence, that a European reader would likely have found incoherent, in fact articulates a coherent statement of dharma by describing what opposes it. Those five objectionable acts imply the disintegration of the social mandala. European and Eurasian Christians, for example, slaughter cattle and eat them, like the 'pariahs'. As the purest of animals, cattle are used to embody the divine in Shaiva temple rites and, as noted, in 1664 Vaishnava rites enabled the Nayaka of Tanjore to be reborn through a bronze cow (Sathianathaier 1956: 81). Europeans perpetuate their 'pariah-like' pollution because they do not use water to remove the pollution of bodily wastes, and because they drink alcohol and lose their self-control -as was apparent to everyone who saw the drunkenness and debauchery common among the Europeans of the trading companies. In other words, the respondent was saying, Christianity is dangerous because it creates unclean people who live chaotic lives.

He was also saying that Christians weaken the family, which is the very heart of dharma. The Pietist Lutherans, for example, buried the dead with a ceremony and left it at that. Neither fasting nor feasting, they did nothing to assist the soul to reach its rebirth and thereby invited disaster from the unsatisfied preta. Likewise, they conducted simple weddings and did not spend generously on feasts for families, caste members, friends and fellow villagers. They thereby left the social ties that bind kin, caste and village weakened, and the family of the present and the future socially vulnerable. Pietist Lutherans, through simple and inexpensive funerals and weddings, weakened the past and future links of the very lineages on which they themselves depended. They were, it appeared, not only ignorant but


ungrateful. Ziegenbalg asked his correspondents another question: 'Why do the

Tamilians refuse to embrace the Christian religion?' Again, Ziegenbalg appeared to mean the Velalans. One man responded:

There are many castes among men, which have been created by the Lord. Now because we see that Christians do not observe such distinctions of castes, but bring everybody to one level, and although there is a big difference between the male and the female sex, they gather them all without distinction into one congregation, we do not like to embrace such a religion (Grafe 1972: 53).

Despite the fact that members of Ziegenbalg's congregation did sustain fundamental caste distinctions, the Velalans knew that the converts in principal had stepped outside of the dharma mandala into 'heathen' darkness. The price many of them paid was high, because once they had been baptized into that 'darkness' they were in the realm of the polluted and their families, in order to protect themselves, in theory should cut them off from all social, economic, kinship and ritual relationships. That was one reason the mission had to support its members. No matter how positively those respondents may have felt toward the Protestant message - which shared much in common with agamic bhakti — they did not think such a break with dhanna necessary. '[We] believed', one man wrote, 'that God will give us salvation, if we in this life go by what we discern as true in your law, although outwardly we do not convert to your Church' (Grafe 1972: 54).

Let us glance quickly at four responses to Christian thought by the Malabarians. One offered a Shaiva definition of 'heathen'. The word ajnana, which Ziegenbalg had used to translate 'heathen', this respondent applied to Christians: Anyone who does not wear the ashes of Shiva, does not rely on Shiva's five-syllable mantra for ritual purposes, does not make offerings and fast, and is without mercy, love, humility, and patience — that person is a heathen (Grafe 1972: 60).

Another response was a theological version of the multiplex unity of dharma. Just as God created different communities and nations with different modes of dress, laws and customs, so he created different religions and wants to be worshipped in different ways. That implies that to remove many religions in favour of one, as the Christians and the Muslims wanted, is not only unnecessary, it will lessen God's own delight in diversity. Underlying that is the belief that if truly seen, this whole moving universe and its events manifest God's joyful play.

A third response was to clarify Ziegenbalg' s misunderstanding about agamic polytheism. God is the Supreme Being, this response said, and he has no bodily shape and cannot be compared to anything else. He creates the various devas for his purposes but ultimately they are forms of himself that


he will resorb one day. Many ignorant people worship as devas beings that are not devas at all, but are actually lies, while others worship beings so low in the hierarchy that they appear to be demons. It is that ignorant mode of worship that Ziegenbalg has erroneously taken to be representative of all Tamilian worship and which he attacks as gross idolatry. When properly understood, this response maintained, those who follow agama are no less monotheistic than the Christians and the Muslims.

Finally, some respondents pointed out to Ziegenbalg that although the observance of temple rites and the maintenance of purity are important, more important is the personal cultivation of devotion to God. Faith in God, love for God, and faithfulness to God are the essential elements of religion, they said, and at times they may take precedence over temple worship and purity. That approach is typical of those who had broken with the normal householder life, renunciant asectics perhaps. Such people found a great deal to admire in Ziegenbalg's own pious behaviour, though not in his doctrine. Those responses, however, are of the Tamil elite, the Brahmans and the Velalans of leisure and learning. We know little of what unsophisticated ' people thought, or what those at the bottom of the social hierarchy like the 'pariahs' thought. Some Malabarian 'pagans' found Ziegenbalg's message persuasive and became Christians, but most did not. Ziegenbalg attributed that to the Devil's power to keep people blind to the otherwise obvious truth.

CONCLUSIONS

Leaving Ziegenbalg's Devil aside, what conclusions may we draw from this brief sketch of the first indigenous Protestant movement in India?

To begin, it is clear that Protestant beginnings depended significantly on Catholic predecessors. That, of course, repeats the history of Europe, where Martin Luther, John Calvin and others sought to reform what was already there. Similarly, Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau sought to reform the Catholic 'Portuguese' and 'Malabarians' in accord with Pietist ideas, some of whom apparently wanted such religious reform. Rajanaikam in Tanjore is a notable example.

It is also clear that the Catholics and 'pagans' who became Protestants created their own view of themselves as they responded to the missionaries' message. What they had converted to was not always what Ziegenbalg and others intended.20 The doctrine they accepted they applied to the categories of life as dhanna defined it for them, a dhanna represented by the agamic gaze focused on them at the windows and doors of the church during worship. They lived within a dhanna-based culture as signified by the many palaces of God around them and by the palace of the king in Tanjore. They heard the story of Jesus as it was told by Europeans who came from a different culture as signified by the Danish fort and its church. Yet the Europeans they heard it from were themselves at odds with that fort and its


church, and critical of its seemingly debauched and impious way of life. The mission church and school signified that fact. The Tamil-speaking Christians worshipping at the New Jerusalem Church, then, had located themselves somewhere between the dhanna of Tanjore's king and the mores of the European fort.

The clearest expression of their recently created self-understanding appears to us in the sacred setting of the Lord's Supper. Let us recall the matter of their seating in the New Jerusalem Church. Modes of dress implied modes of sitting, and within a sacred liturgical context, both dress and placement signified distinctive social identities. Those who wore European clothes sat on benches and stools, which would include the missionaries and Eurasians and perhaps soldiers in uniform. Those who wore indigenous clothes sat on mats, which would have been the high-status Velalans; or they sat directly on the floor, which would have been the low-status 'pariahs'.

By conducting the Lord's Supper in that liturgical context, the missionaries conveyed to the congregation and to the onlookers that the social order articulated by their seating arrangement expressed the Protestant message, just as the rites of the temple expressed the hierarchy of dhanna and the rites of the mosque expressed the equality of Shari'a. In other words, faith in God's love as expressed in the story of Jesus Christ expressed itself as a cultic unity that was socially pluralistic. They sat together separately. In 1727 missionaries reported that 'pariahs and sudras sit in the church separated by one yard. But in the distribution of the Sacrament, no difference was made' (Lehmann 1956: 64). Between 1743 and 1746 a church was built in Porayar, an important Muslim town an hour and a half walk from Tranquebar town. It was built to serve the Protestants in Tranquebar and various villages, and it was designed as a cross precisely to express the plurality of Christian unity: In the south wing behind the altar sat the 'Shudra' women, opposite them in the north wing sat the "Shudra' men, in the east wing sat the 'pariah' women, and in the west wing sat the 'pariah' men {ibid.: 129).

Light is shed on that 'pluralistic unity' by a document written in Tanjore in 1829. The occasion for it was a split in the Tanjore congregation caused when more recent missionaries sought to erase any caste distinctions in the sacred context. The writer was Vedanayaga Sastri, a Velalan who identified himself as 'the Evangelical Poet'. Because he was a highly influential Tamil voice for the Protestant message, his views on this matter are instructive.21

Vedanayaga Sastri opposed the newer missionaries, arguing that earlier missionaries like Ziegenbalg had won converts because they had respected the customary divisions of the country. Not only did they follow 'Popish' practice and dress like a 'Tamilian priest', he said, but they had used Velalans to convert Velalans and Telugus ('Gentoo') to convert Telugus, had respected their castes, and had built the church in the form of the cross to allow them to sit separately. Moreover, they kept the habits of the high castes


and used only 'Malabars' as their cooks and did not eat flesh in public. 'They acted prudently without causing any offence either to the higher or to the lower according to the saying of the Apostle [Paul], being made all things to all men in order to gain all.'

The symbolism of mats in the liturgical setting had continued in the mission for over a century and the Tanjore congregation also used them. For over 50 years, Vedanayaga Sastri wrote, the Velalans ('Tamilians') sat on 'Sedge' mats and those who belonged to the 'Right Hand' division of Paraiyans ('Valangamattan') sat separately on mats of 'Coldrickoo'. But recent missionaries had insisted that everyone sit together publicly on the same mats of 'Ratten' without any distinction. They also refused to allow a four-foot strip to separate the two groups. If the Paraiyans sat on the 'Rattan' mats, he said, the Velalans were left to sit on the ground. The congregation had therefore divided. The issue posed by 'Ratten' mats, it appears, derived from the fact that they were woven from long strands into large sections, so that all who sat on them would sit on a single inter-connected surface. Assuming that 'Sedge' and 'Coldrickoo' mats were smaller, they would allow social distinctions to be retained even within the larger grouping of 'Shudras and 'the fifth', for example, between the 'Right Hand' and 'Left Hand' divisions of 'pariahs', if there were any of the latter.

The point, he explained, was not that the Paraiyans should sit on the ground while the Velalans sat on mats, but that each group should sit on mats or carpets, but with their distinctions retained. And it was not because of caste pride, he insisted. 'We likewise know that everyone is the descendant of Adam, and the pride of Caste is nothing ...'. He rejected any claim that in essence human beings are different from one another. Yet, he said, ancient customary social divisions match differences in styles of living. Customarily Velalans did not eat with Paraiyans because they abhor the flesh of kine, which Paraiyans ate. Paraiyans and Pallans, however, both ate beef, yet did not interdine with each other, not because the other was unclean or due to pride of caste, but because of customary separation. Europeans, in fact, customarily eat beef and like it and therefore they ate with the Paraiyans. Those divisions, he maintained, are civil distinctions. They are characteristic of the country, are not essentially contrary to the Christian message, and should not be opposed if converts are sought.22

The missionaries apparently believed, he said, that the meaning of being 'reconciled to your brother' before eating in the Lord's Supper is that Velalans should unite with the Pariayans and eat with them 'without arrogance and shame'. In response, he rejected the implication that the observance of caste distinctions manifested 'arrogance' and he asked whether offending the country out of fear of the missionaries' orders would lead to heaven. 'Can you say', he asked, 'that this is the principle doctrine of Christianity?'

It appears that Vedanayaga Sastri belonged to a Tamil Protestant view of


reality that by now was more than a century old. According to it, humans may be uni fied by faith in the same story, which is expressed cultically by the Lord's Supper, while they live separately according to caste divisions organized hierarchically. Individually speaking, to be oneself fully is to be in and of a particular caste. There is no such thing as a Christian 'in general'. When in 1825 missionaries wrote in their explanation of the Lord's Supper that 'no Brahmins, Chatrias, Vasia, Shudras and Parayers, be partakers of this Table but Christians', that sounded to Vedanayaga Sastri like arrogant nonsense. He wrote in response that there are more than 100 castes in India and wondered why, if they added the Paraiyans to the usual four varnas, they had not also added the Pallars and shoemakers 'whom Parayers abhor', and the Europeans too. If 'Christians only' are to come to the Table, he asked rhetorically, 'who are they, are they the white men?' His point, it appears, was that whoever went to the Table went as a whole person, and one's wholeness extended into one's family which extended into a caste, of which the Europeans formed one among many others. Each person's body of flesh encoded an 'ethnic' social reality that was as much a part of a person as internal faith and feeling. That 'code' of the body, it appears, was unpalatable to the recent missionaries in a way it had not been to their predecessors.

That brings us, finally, to the fact that once Ziegenbalg had established the Tamil Protestant cultus, its members over the years had to deal with the changing intellectual and social climate of Northern Europe, because the cultus depended on European patronage.23 Need for European Christian financial support had led Halle authorities to censor the publication of missionary reports in Europe. Among the intellectual and political changes they had to face at the beginning of the 19th century were Enlightenment thought and values that had developed throughout the 18th century in the context of an international and colonial market economy. The 18th century had produced in Europe a new idea of autonomous personhood in which the individual human body encodes 'rights' and 'freedoms' rather than family, caste and status. It was that new sense of the person, it appears, that caused missionaries to Tanjore in the early 19th century to change the mats in the Church.

Such changes are not surprising, because the Protestant mission was not a well-conceived strategy aimed at the Tamils. European Protestants in the early 18th century had not been prepared for India as a mission field. Frederick IV of Denmark had sent Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau there as a last-minute decision. Although he had first wanted them to go to India, he then seriously considered Guyana in the West Indies and the African coast, and the young men from Halle were not sure where they were actually being sent until they reached Copenhagen. The king changed his mind in the way one would change one's mind about a commercial venture, switching investments easily according to fluctuations in the market. His motivation was entirely impersonal as far as the Tamils went; to his mind, it appears,


they were interchangeable with the people of the Caribbean and the people of West Africa. If one wanted to 'save souls' in the abstract, it did not matter where the souls were, or whose they were, or what they were to be saved from.

A similar seemingly commercialized 'universalism' drained of civilizational particularity, it appears, was found in Ziegenbalg's ability to adjust to Tamils rather than to West Indians or to Africans. He believed seriously that the Wisdom of God acts throughout the world and that he was to use reason to complete that 'natural' Wisdom with the Christian story. In whatever cultural context, he apparently believed, a rational exposition of the story would elicit the same response in its hearers, because Divine Wisdom operated everywhere. Yet that rational 'universalism' coupled with his own seriousness of purpose led him to study Tamil as no European Protestant before him had, investing in the scholarly study of native beliefs and practices in order to use them rationally to destroy the authority of dhanna for those who were steeped in it. The direct result, among others, was the beginning of the history of Bible translation and of the Protestant printing press in India. Ziegenbalg's Bible translation was the first in India and his translation of Luther's Catechism the first in any Asian language (Beyreuther 1955: 97; Hooper 1963: 67). And from his printing efforts we can trace the mid-19th century emergence of the vigorous Shaiva press of Arumuga Navalar (Hudson 1986-92,1992a, 1992b). At the same time, the particularity of Tamil religious culture, when it did not correspond to Halle's universalistic rationalism, was suppressed.

It is also true that people in early 18th century south India generally found the Protestant message unexciting, though many admired its spokesman. The missionary, at least, provided the model of a Protestant of piety whom they could admire, something they had not seen in the colonies before. The elements of Ziegenbalg's message — revelation, incarnation, faith, grace, sin, salvation — were not new to them, of course, although the way he put them together around the figure of Jesus was new, even for the Catholics. Yet, in the early 18th century, the context for the Protestant cultus was the European colony that Shaivas, Vaishnavas and Muslims found outside the framework of true and admirable civilization, though for different reasons. Partly because of that fact, partly because of ill health, and partly because of continuing disagreements with mission headquarters in Germany, Ziegenbalg wrote in 1718:

And since I know that my work often does not attain the looked-for goal, at times such great sorrow and sadness overtake me that I cannot comfort myself and I experience many sleepless nights. Much patience is required in order to labour tirelessly for souls and not be frightened away when the work seems useless.


Working in the shadow of the Danish fort and its corporate enterprise, his heavy personal investment in the relatively small mission enterprise apparently tallied in his books as more debit than credit. Seven months later, at the age of 36, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg was dead, but the Protestant message in Tamil was there to stay

NOTES

1 This is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered to the symposium on Socio-Religious Movements and Cultuial Networks in Indian Civilization, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simula, 3-7 May 1993 It has been expanded for the IIAS as 'Tamil Protestants of Tranquebar and Tanjore, 1706-1830'

2 Letter of 27 August 1709, cited by E Aino Lehmann (1956 17) See also Ziegenbalg (1717: 2)

3 Quoted by R Sathianathaier (1956 76) For the refugees as Catholics see pages 75-76 4 Guided for a decade by the probably) Sn Vaishnava Brahman Padmanabhan, he published

De Open Dcure tot Veiboigen Heidendom (Open-Door to Secret Heathendom) in Leiden in 1651, and for many decades it served as the most authentic description of India's religions available to Europe (see Arasaratnam 1981 12) His study was translated into English as.4 Door Open'd to the Knowledge of Occult Paganism Or, a True Representation of the Life, Manners, Religion, and Divine Service, of the Brahmins, who Inhabit the Coast of Coromandel, and the Neighbouring Counties (Amsterdam 1670) It was then reprinted as. A Dissertation on the Religion and Manners of the Brahmins Extracted from the Memoirs of theRev Abraham Rogu, a Hollander

5 He published his own less accurate observations in Amsterdam in 1672 Naauwkeunge Beschyvinge van Malabaren Choromandlen het machtige Eyland Ceylon, Nevens een omstandige en grondigh doorzoclue ontdekking en Wederlegginge van de Afgoderye der Oost- Indische Heydenen (Amsterdam 1972) (Extract Description of Malabar and Coromandel — and the Powerful Island Ceylon Together with a Detailed and Tho-roughly Investigated Discovery and Refutation of the Idolatry of East-Indian Heathens) According to Arasaratnam (1981 11-14), Baldaeus owed much to earlier Catholic mis-sionary writings that fell into the hands of the Dutch

6. Ziegenbalg (1717 40) One day Ziegenbalg walked with colleagues to the town of Anandamangalam and ended up in the house of a Brahman priest attached t o its large temple Brahmans were gathered there and one of them was writing accounts ('Accompts') Ziegenbalg used his accounting as a metaphor to explain his message, an explanation he developed when townspeople gathered to listen

He first spoke about the 'spiritual Accompts' due to God on the last Day when all the dead will be raised to life and summoned to Christ the judge to give an account of all their thoughts, words and actions In preparation for that Day, he explained, they must know who that God is Moreover, they must have someone to mediate with him on their behalf, because they are too sinful to stand before his justice themselves No one is qualified to mediate (and by no means Vishnu, or Ishvara, or Brahma he stressed) except Jesus Christ He is qualified because he is God's own son who had become a man, had taken everyone's sins upon himself, and had suffered and satisfied God's justice on their behalf in order to redeem them from sin, death, the devil and hell

Through faith in that saviour, he continued, people must turn themselves to God, give up communion with wicked people and devils, and enter into a close union with God Then, not only will their sins be pardoned, but they will also be given the power to flee from sin and to do the good And then they will be able to keep a strict and daily account of all their actions, morning and evening, considering the manifold mercies God has given them and the sin and ungratefulness of which they are guilty That consideration will inspire them to pray ferve ntly for mercy to resolve firmly to sin no more Such an account, he noted, will be pleasing to God Moreover, he concluded, all that is required for that is 'Singleness of Heart, joined to a hearty Love to that Truth', a truth that is so 'plain' that people of the


'meanest Capacity, and even Children', may understand it {ibid 38-39) 7 Ziegenbalg once wrote 'God is all wisdom and does not need man's help Yet he walks

around in the whole world so to speak, offering his grace and his wisdom to men And if He did not precede men in this work, nobody would feel even the desire for wisdom, let alone seek it and achieve it as they ought' (Gensichen 1967 40)

8 The booklet was reprinted in 1729 and 1745 and then forgotten until a copy turned up in 1965 in Czechoslovakia on a rubbish heap (Gensichen 1967 31)

9 For a discussion of that literature, see Grafe (1972) 10 Even though he incurred debts, Arno Lehmann noted, 'mostly due to drinking, through

which the missionaries were put to indescribable grief (Lehmann 1956 152) 11 In 1755 a prayer hall was built outside the city and in 1761 a little church was erected,

wiped out it appears in the siege of 1771 (Lehmann 1956 140-41) 12 Among Muslims it is known as 'Fatha at-Dayyan' (Arabic-Tamil), 'a type of Tamil written

in Arabic script drawing on such Arabic terms as constituted the religious and cultural vocabulary of a non-Arabic speaking community' The subject is discussed by Abdul Majeed Mohamed Mackeen in Fat hud dayyan: Fi Fiqhi Khairil Adyan (A Compendium on Muslim Theology and Jurisprudence) by Mapillai Alim of Kayalpattanam (d. 1889), a Shafi'i text first published in 1873, tr. from the Arabic-Tamil by Saifuddin J. Aniff-Doray (see Lebbai 1963 V)

'Manipravala' commonly refers to the language of the Sri Vaishnavas, in which the 'Jewels' (mani) of Sanskrit are placed in the 'coral' (pravala) bed of Tamil linguistic structure and which was written in Grantha, or Telugu, or Tamil script See K. K. A Venkatachan (1978)

13 As Ziegenbalg reported, that same Muslim told him, ' I don't altogether disapprove of your Religion and was mightily pleas'd to see no Idols of Images in your Church, as among the Portugueze, who symbolize almost in every thing wish the Heathens, in the Number of Idols and Graven Images I was likewise in the Danish Church, where all the Hearers are White Men, and there also I saw some Images Pray, are your Religions different9' (Ziegenbalg 1719 304)

14 [and it continues] who pretend, that for the better serving of the Gods they have denied all their Friends and Relations, their Houses and Estates, their Wives and Children, and such have some Rice given them wherever they come

15 From Arulmiku Dandapani Swamikal, Sattiya Suttiram and Sattiya Vacakam, Tirupperur 1911

16 Arumuga Navalar (1969 75-83) explained the agama approach to ritual hierarchy in an essay entitled Varna' in his 'Children's Primer' (Palapatam) of 1850-51

Shudras, he wrote, are qualified to recite itihasa and purana, etc, to hear the meaning of veda , to pe r fo rm the ances t ra l and o t h e r r i t e s o f t h e f i v e m a j o r s a c r i f i c e s (panca malxa yajna) (except for the Brahma-yajna), and to give ritual gifts (dana) Shudras fall into two types, the 'Pure Shudra' (sal sudra) and the 'Impure Shudra' (asat sudra) Those who do not consume liquor and meat and keep the religious conduct prescribed by the texts are the 'Pure Shudras', the others are 'Impure Shudras' 'Pure Shudras' are equal to Vaishyas

Shudras, he then explained, may also be 'twice-born' They receive the sacred thread (upanayana) during agamic diksa, while the other three varnas receive it at stipulated ages Prior to thread investiture, a Brahman is a Shudra, and if after receiving the thread he does not recite veda, he is disqualified for any Vaidika rite and becomes a Shudra again

Moreover, those among all four vamas who become twice-born by means of agamic diksa have the authority to recite agama Indeed, males among all four varnas (save the 'Impure Shudras) may become acaryas (Caivacamayaneri 1.3, in Arumuga Navalar 1911 13)

17 To continue the summary The primary advantage of human birth, he then said, is worshipping God, which is done by imagining his form in dhyana, by reciting mantras, and by controlling the breath Wisdom (jnana) is believing and following God, the supreme being, who encompasses all the world and exists within it Status in the world does not derive from birth, but from conduct ansing from wisdom the Brahman who ruins his conduct falls to the level of the fifth class, a member of the fifth class who is outstanding in conduct is superior to that Brahman


Each of the many religions (sumaya) has its god, he explained, and the god may be called the guru of that religion Having become one with the Lord's soul, (he god s blessing, when it is like the great joy of emancipation resulting from wisdom, is no different from it Nevertheless, the wisdom about the evil of eating flesh is not useful to all people and that is no fault of theirs Divine grace is given to the degree that it is useful Souls, after all, are not independent Common wisdom is that worshipping a demon (pc\) with pure vegetarian rites will turn it into a god (leys ant"), while worshipping a god with the sacrifice of souls turns it into a demon God, he explained, is love (anpu) All souls are the abode of God and the body is the abode of the soul God whose form is love does not desire the affliction and killing of the soul, which, after all, is his own abode, as is the temple

18 Derived from Sabhapati Navalar (1893 1 -6) , scholar (vidvan) of the Tiruvavatuturai Atinam

19 Lehmann (1956 65) discussed the fact that the Halle authonties had a large pair of editorial scissors to cut out everything from the reports which seemed strange to the readers, or might diminish the flow of gifts for Missions Professor Francke said very plainly 'Unpleasant things I leave out of all diaries on publication ' (62) Lehmann then added, 'We do not find any helpful statement by Ziegenbalg, Pluetschau, or Gurendler, about the order of distributing the Sacrament and about the question whether one or two cups were used in Tranquebar at that time '

20 Summarizing studies of conversions, Alan F Segal (1990 75) drew these conclusions '(1) A convert is usually someone who identifies, at least retrospectively, a lack in the world, finding a remedy in the new reality promulgated by the new group This is another aspect of the convert as a religious quester and biographical le-evaluator (2) The central aspect of the conversion is a decision to reconstruct reality so that (3) the new group the subject enters supports that reality by its self-evident assumptions (4) Finally, the talents and attitudes that the convert brings into the movement are greatly affected by the previous socialization, no matter how strongly the subject affirms the conversion or denies the past Though conversion is one of the sources of a particular person s commitment to a religious group, it is not the only one Conversion necessarily involves strong emotional commitments, but conversion itself is not enough to preserve the commitment to the group after initial entrance to the group, unless the other social mechanisms of commitment act in concert with it'

21 Found in a handwritten manuscript See Vedanayaga Sastri 22 As he explained (slightly edited) 'We likewise know that everyone is the descendant of

Adam, and the pride of Caste is nothing but there is not a Christian amongst thousand and ten thousand heathens in this Country, although there are six thousand villages in Soladesam [Choladesam] yet have we six thousand Christian houses, at the rate of one house at each village' We know the whole kingdom is filled with heathenism and civil distinction You who came to convert such persons ought you not to follow the example of Paul the Apostle In this time of the convenant, though circumcision is of no profit and it is a sin against the virtue of Christ, yet did he not circumcise Timothy to gain the Jews ['] ( Acts 10 1-3 ICorinth 9 22 ) So you not knowing what to do to gain this land filled with civil distinctions, turn them from coming to Christ causing them a great offence Did they who came before you act so9 '

23 The first non-European ordained as pastor of a congregation was Aaron (c 1698 or 1699-1745) He was the pagan' son of a prosperous merchant (Sorcanada Pillai) in Cuddalore who received his name at baptism in 1718 and then seived as catechist He was ordained by election in 1733 The second pastor was Diogo (1709-1781) born to a Catholic family, and ordained in 1741 The third was Ambrose (d 1777) also born a Catholic, who was ordained in 1749 The fourth was Pulleimuttu (c 1731-1788), son of a 'pagan' headman from near Nagapattinam who had been abducled to Tianquebar as a slave He was baptized as Philipp, served as catechist and was ordained in 1772 The fifth was Rajappen, ordained in 1778, and the sixth was Sattyanathan ordained in 1790 In the time of the old Tranquebar Mission, 14 Indians were ordained, all of whom were caste people' (Vela-la 'Shudra') The first adi-dravida (B Samuel of Manikraman) was not ordained until 1890 In the 216 years between 1733 and 1949, 140 Tamil pastors are listed in the Tamil Evangelical Church (Lehmann 1956 147-52)


REFERENCES

Arasaratnam, S 1981 'Protestant Christianity and South Indian Hinduism 1630-1730 Some Confrontations in Society and Beliefs , Indian Church History Review 15 (1) 7-33

Arumuga Navalar, Jaffna Nallur 1911 Can asamayanen Citamparam Maraijnanacampantanayanar arulcceyltatu Yalppanattu Nallur Arumukunavalar avarkal ceta putturaiyutan [The Path of the Shaiva Religion, by Maraijnanasambandar Nayanar of Cidambaram, with a New Gloss by Arumuga Navalar of Nallur in Jaffna] 3id ed Madras Vittiyanupalana Yantiracalai

Arumuga Navalar, Jaffna Nallur 1969 Palapatam Nankam Puttakam [Children's Primer Book Four] [of 1850-51] Madras Arumuganavalar Vitnyanupalana Accakam

Baldaeus, Philhpus 1816 A Shou Account of Jaffnapatam, in tlie Island of Ceylon, as it was Published in Dutch, in the year 1672 Tr into English in 1704 Colombo Wesleyan Mission Press

Bayly, Susan 1819 Saints, Goddesses and Kings Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700 1900 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Beyreuther, Erich 1955 Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg A Biography of the First Protestant Missionary in India 16S2 1719 Madras Christian Literature Society

Dandapani Swamikal [of Tiruvamattur] 1911 Sattiya Suttiram and Sattiya Vacakam Published during Tirupperur Arulmiku Santalinga Swamikal Gurupujai Vila Palani-Kattaiccinampatti A Palaniveluttevar

Gensichen, Hans-Werner 1967 '"Abominable Heathenism" A Rediscovered Tract by Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg.' Indian Church History Review 6(1) 29-40

Grafe, H 1972 'Hindu Apologetics at the Beginning of the Protestant Mission Era in India' Indian Church History Review 6(1) 43-69

Hooper, JMS 1963 Bible Translation in India, Pakistan and Ceylon 2nd ed , rev by W J Culshaw London Oxford University Press

Hudson, D. Dennis 1986-92 'Tamil Hindu Responses to Protestants (Among Nineteenth Century Literati in Jaffna and Tinnevelly)' The Journal of Oriental Research, Madras vols LVI-LXII 130-53

------- 1992a 'Arumuga Navalar and the Hindu Renaissance Among the Tamils'm Kenneth W Jones (ed ), Religious Controversy in British India Dialogues in South Asian Languages 27 51 Albany, New York State University of New York Press

------- 1992b 'Winning Souls For Siva Arumuga Navalar's Transmission of the Saiva Religion' in Raymond Brady Williams (ed ), A Sacred Thread Modern Transmission of Hindu Traditions in India and Abroad, 23-51 Chambersburg, Pennsylvania Amma Press

Lebbai, Sayyid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad (Mapillai Alim of Kayalpattanam) 1963 Fat-hud-dayyan Fi Fiqhi Kliaml Adyan (A Compendium on Muslim Theology and Jurisprudence) Tr from the Arabic-Tamil by Saifuddin J Aniff-Doray (1873) Colombo The Fat-hud-dayyan Publication Committee

Lehmann, Arno 1956 Es begann in Tranquebar Die Gesch ichte der ersten evangelishcn Kirche in Indien Berlin Evangelische Verlagsanstalt

------- 1956 It Began at Tranquebar [Translation of edited version of Es begann in Tranquebar by M J Lutz) Madras Christian Literature Society

Roy, Asim 1983 The Islamic Synereust Tradition in Bengal Princeton Princeton University Press

Sabhapati Navalar [of the Tiruvavatuturai Atinam] 1893 'Varalaru' (History) in Sivasamavatavuraimaruppu, by Sivajnana Yogi 1-16 Chidambaram Siddhanta Vidyanupalana Yantrasala

Sathianathaier 1956 Tamilaham in the 17th Century Madras University of Madras Segal, Alan F 1990 Paul the Convert The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee New

Haven and London Yale University Press Vedanayaga Sastri 'Saditeratoo' (Jatiterattu), written by Vedenayaga Sastri, the Evangelical

Poet Tanjore 1829 (British Museum Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts, Cat OR. 11,742)

Venkatachari, K K A 1878 The Manipravala Literature of the Srivaisnava Acaryas, 12th to 15th Century A D Bombay Ananthacarya Research Institute


Ziegenbalg, Bartholomaeus. 1957. Alie Briefe aus Indian. Unvcrocffcniliche Briefe von Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg 1706-1719. Ilrsg. von Arno Lehmann. Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt.

------- . 1717. An Account of the Religion and Government, Learning and Oeconomy, etc. of the Malabarians, sent by the Danish Missionaries to their Correspondents in Europe. Tr. from the High-Dutch. London.

------- . 1867. Genealogies cler malabarischen Goetter. Aus cingencn Schriften und Briefen der Heidcn zusanimengetragen und vcrfasst von Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg. (Written in 1713) Ed. by W. Germann. Madras.

------- . 1869. Genealogy of the South-Indian Gods: A Manual of the Mythology and Religion of the People of Southern India, Including a Description of Popular Hinduism. Ed. by W. Germann and tr. with new additions and an index by G. J. Metzger. New Delhi: Unity Book Service, 1984 reprint.

------- . 1930. 'Nidi Wunpa Oder malabarische Sitten-Lehre bestehende in sechs and neunzig feinen Gleichniszen and Lebens-Rcguln, so da vor mehr als sieben hundert Jahren von cincm Ostijndischcn heyden in Malabarische versen geschrieben aber nunmehro von Wort zu Wort in die hochteutsche Sprache versetzet worden von Bartholomaeo Ziegenbalg', Tranqucbar, 1708, in B. Ziegenbalg's Klcinere Schriften. Hsrg. von W. Caland. Amsterdam.

------- . 1709, 1710, 1718. Propagation of the Gospel in the East. Being an Account of the Success of Two Danish Missionaries, Lately Sent to the East Indies, for the Conversion of the Heathens in Malabar. In several Letters to their Correspondents in Europe....Rendered into English from the High-Dutch and Dedicated to the most honourable Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London.

------- . 1719. Thirty Four Conferences Between the Danish Missionaries and the Malabarian Bra mans (or Heathen Priests) in the East Indies, Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion: Together with some Letters written by the Heathens to the said Missionaries. Tr. from the High-Dutch by Mr. Philips. London.

-------- . 1926. Ziegenbalg's Malabarisches Heidenthum (written in 1711). Ilrsg. von W. Caland. Amsterdam.

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