The story of the Jesuit mission in Japan cannot be told without reference to earlier events in India, which was an important center of Christian missionary activity from the beginning of the sixteenth century. The exploratory journeys of Vasco da Gama (1469-1524) along the Indian coast in 1498 culminated in the conquest of Goa in 1510 for the Portuguese crown by Affonso de Albuquerque (1453-1515). The fate of the Indian missionary enterprise is inextricably linked to that of Japan fromthe time of Francis Xavier (1506-52), who first arrived in India on 6 May 1542 as papal legate and nuncio. Xavier had been sent to India by Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) at the request of Pope Paul III (1468-1549) and undertook the long journey from Lisbon via Mozambique with King John III (1502-57) of Portugal as his patron. The Jesuits, however, were not the first religious order to set foot in India or in Goa under the Portuguese. They were preceded by the Franciscans, who arrived in India in 1500, and the Dominicans, who came in 1503. The Augustinians, on the other hand, began their missionary activities in India only in 1572. Since the final decades of the fifteenth century, Spain and Portugal had become rivals inmaritime exploration and conquest. As a result of various arguments over sovereignty, arbitration was left to the papacy. Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503) stepped in to mediate in 1481 and again in 1493.