1 The transcription of Tamil personal names reflects the language and conventions of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century source texts. Toponyms are given in the modern English form.

2 These groups have been the subject of many anthropological studies. Louis Dumont’s first ethnographical investigation was conducted among one sub-group of the Kaḷḷar: Dumont, Une sous-caste de l’Inde du Sud. Organisation sociale et religion des Pramalai Kallar (La Haye: Mouton, 1957). On the same group, see also the recent work by Zoé E. Headley, “Of Dangerous Guardians and Contested Hierarchies: An Ethnographic Reading of a South Indian Copper Plate,” in New Dimensions in Tamil Epigraphy: Select Papers from the Symposia Held at EPHE-SHP, Paris, in 2005, 2006, and a Few Invited Papers, ed. Appasamy Murugaiyan (Chennai: Cre-A Publishers, 2012), 253–81.

3 Selva J. Raj, “Transgressing Boundaries, Transcending Turner: The Pilgrimage Tradition at the Shrine of St. John de Britto,” in Popular Christianity in India: Riting between the Lines, ed. Selva J. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 85–111, here p. 87.

4 This logic is described in David Dean Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Śaiva Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). It was applied to village gods, and by analogy to South Indian Muslim pirs and Christian saints like Brito, by Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and David Mosse, “Catholic Saints and the Hindu Village Pantheon in Rural Tamil Nadu, India,” Man 29, no. 2 (1994): 301–32.

5 As I observed during fieldwork in Oriyur in February 2017 with Fr. Anand Amaladass SJ.

6 This approach was pioneered in Ines G. Županov, “Le repli du religieux. Les missionnaires jésuites du xvii^e siècle entre la théologie chrétienne et une éthique païenne,” Annales HSS 51, no. 6 (1996): 1201–23.

7 Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings.

8 I paraphrase here E. Valentine Daniel’s expression in Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). The works of Ā. Civacuppramaṇiaṉ, a long-term associate of the Department of Folklore at St. Xavier’s College in Palayamkottai, have explored Tamil village culture in a granular way, with a special attention to Christian rituals.

9 I discovered this manuscript (Paris, BNF, Indien 469, discussed in more detail below) in the context of the project “Texts Surrounding Texts” (TST, FRAL 2018, ANR & DFG).

10 Witness statements recorded during canonization inquiries have so far attracted relatively little attention, especially compared to those used in other types of canon-law trials and notably by the Inquisition. There has been much historiographical debate over the possibility of reading these depositions—even given the biases introduced by the inquisitorial process itself—against the official discourse of the Church to reveal the lives of subaltern actors and their place in wider historical narratives. The most famous example is the case of the miller Domenico Scandella, known as Menocchio, studied in Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller [1976], trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). Another study of the same case is Andrea Del Col, ed., Domenico Scandella detto Menocchio: I processi dell’Inquisizione, 1583–1599 (Pordenone: Ed. Biblioteca dell’Immagine, 1990).

11 Pascal Marin, “Penser la croyance à la lumière du témoignage. Lorsque l’adhésion à la parole d’un autre permet de devenir soi-même,” Revue française d’éthique appliquée 2, no. 8 (2019): 77–89.

12 Christian Renoux, “Une source de l’histoire de la mystique moderne revisitée : les procès de canonisation,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 105, no. 1 (1993): 177–217.

13 I take the narrative framework of Brito’s biography, especially his early years, from Augustin Saulière SJ, Red Sand: A Life of St. John de Britto, S.J., Martyr of the Madura Mission (Madurai: De Nobili Press, 1947), and Albert M. Nevett SJ, John de Britto and His Times (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1980), enriched by the primary sources presented later in the article.

14 The available information on Brito’s family has been summarized in Marquês de São Payo, “A ascendência de S. João de Brito,” Brotéria 44, no. 6 (1947): 634–39.

15 Lennart Bes, “The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits in Eighteenth-Century Ramnad (South India),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44, no. 4 (2001): 540–74.

16 Rakunāta Tēvaṉ, better known in the historiography as Rakunāta Kiḻavaṉ, took the title of Cētupati, “Lord of Adam’s Bridge,” and established Ramnad as a small kingdom: S. Khadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, 1700–1802 (Madurai: Madurai Publishing House, 1977), 33–50. Unlike the Nāyaks of Madurai, who had a policy of mild acceptance of the mission, he did not encourage Jesuit missionaries. See Margherita Trento, Writing Tamil Catholicism: Literature, Persuasion and Devotion in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 77–81.

17 This was the case, for instance, of Antonio Criminali (1520–1549), whose death in South India might have been related to a systematic pessimism (or even clinical depression). See Gian Carlo Roscioni, Il desiderio delle Indie. Storie, sogni e fughe di giovani gesuiti italiani (Turin: Einaudi 2001), 39–40.

18 An analysis of Taṭiya Tēvaṉ’s conversion, Brito’s role in it, and the political context of the Maravar can be found in Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, 397–404.

19 The exact location of this village, surrounded by a forest, is not clear; a possible identification is proposed in S. Ponnad SJ, “Through Marava in the Footsteps of St. John de Britto,” Caritas 45, no. 1 (1961): 58–65.

20 Although hagiographic in purpose, Saulière’s Red Sand contains an accurate, well-documented account of his life, including the earlier years.

21 Letter in Portuguese from Francisco Laines to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus (Madurai, February 11, 1693), in Frederico Gavazzo Perry Vidal, ed., Um original do beato João de Brito conservado inédito na Biblioteca da Ajuda agora dado à estampa e seguido da publicação de outras espécies respeitantes a éste Missionário-Mártir existentes na dita biblioteca (Lisbon: Divisão de publicações e biblioteca Agência geral das colónias, 1944), 69–70. The original letter can be found in Lisbon, Biblioteca da Ajuda (BAL), Cod. 51-VI-34, fols. 73r–85r, here fol. 84v (my translation from Portuguese): “On the same day that the news of our glorious Confessor’s imprisonment reached me, I immediately set out for the Maravar to attend to whatever was necessary. Having walked for some days with great diligence and unbelievable suffering, I received the news of his martyrdom. I wanted to continue, but the Christians who accompanied me, like the Gentiles who were present, explained to me that if I went ahead, I would expose this poor Christendom to a new persecution without hope of any favorable outcome. So, I have had to change my resolution and retire to a small village where I can more comfortably help those who are still in prison, and collect the holy relics of the martyr or have them decently buried.”

22 Pierre-Antoine Fabre, “Vocation et martyre dans les Vocationes illustres,” Rivista storica italiana 132, no. 3 (2020): 1032–48, here p. 1035 (emphasis in the original).

23 For a list of lives and biographies of Brito, see Auguste Carayon, Bibliographie historique de la Compagnie de Jésus, ou catalogue des ouvrages relatifs à l’histoire des Jésuites depuis leur origine jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1864), 233–36.

24 The way the family was able to use the martyrdom to pursue their own interests is clear in two recommendations for office signed by Pedro II of Portugal for a member of Brito’s family, including on the basis of his relationship to the martyr. These documents published in Gavazzo Perry Vidal, Um original do beato João de Brito, 106–10.

25 On Maldonado, see Stefan Halikowski-Smith, “Tempestatem, Quæ cum Adventuro D. Francisco Pallu Timero Potest: Jean-Baptiste Maldonado SJ, a Missionary Caught between Loyalties to the Portuguese Padroado and the Political Ascendancy of the Missions Étrangères de Paris in the Siam Mission,” Revista de Cultura/Review of Culture (International Edition) 34 (2010): 34–51.

26 Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères par quelques missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. 2 (Paris: Nicolas Le Clerc, 1707), 1–56.

27 On the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, see Sylvia Murr, “Les conditions d’émergence du discours sur l’Inde au siècle des Lumières,” in Inde et littératures, ed. Marie-Claude Porcher (Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS, 1983), 233–84.

28 On the Malabar Rites controversy, the work of Paolo Aranha is key. See in particular Paolo Aranha, “Sacramenti o saṃskārāḥ? L’illusione dell’accommodatio nella controversia dei riti malabarici,” Cristianesimo nella storia 31 (2010): 621–46; Aranha, “The Social and Physical Spaces of the Malabar Rites Controversy,” in Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, ed. Giuseppe Marcocci et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 214–32.

29 Francisco Laines SJ, Defensio indicarum missionum: Madurensis, nempe Maysurensis, & Carnatensis, edita, occasione decreti ab Ill.mo D. Patriarcha Antiocheno D. Carolo Maillard de Tournon visitatore apostolico in Indiis Orientalibus lati; & suscepta a Francisco Laineze Societate Jesu electo Episcopo Meliaporensi … Superiorum permissu (Rome: Ex Typographia Reverendæ Cameræ Apostolicæ, 1707).

30 Ibid., 83 (my translation from Latin): “Indeed, after I entered the Maravar region, and found it wonderfully fruitful with the blood of the Venerable Father John de Brito, I gathered there a most abundant harvest. During the two years I spent there, I purified more than 13,600 [people] at the sacred font, meaning that in a single day I baptized 550. Not only were my arms scarcely able to bear the work, but my whole body was almost dying from the sweetest exhaustion of the Holy Ministry.”

31 See Vincenzo Criscuolo, “Prospero Lambertini (Benedetto XIV) Promotore della Fede presso la Congregazione dei Riti,” in Signum in bonum: Festschrift für Wilhelm Imkamp zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Nicolaus U. Buhlmann and and Peter Styra (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2011), 125–217. Lambertini (1675–1758) played a crucial part in the redefinition of modern sainthood via his treatise De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione. The authoritative edition was published as the first eight volumes of his twenty-volume complete works: Emmanuel de Azevedo, ed., S.S.D.N. Benedicti XIV opera in duodecim tomos distribuita (Rome: Nicolaus et Marcus Palearini academiæ liturgicæ conimbricensis typographi, 1747–1751).

32 This historical turning point is sketched in Sabina Pavone, “Propaganda, diffamazione e opinione pubblica: i gesuiti e la querelle sui riti malabarici,” in L’Europa divisa e i nuovi mondi. Per Adriano Prosperi, vol. 2, ed. Massimo Donattini, Giuseppe Marcocci, and Stefania Pastore (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2011), 203–16.

33 On the tension between collectivity and individuality in martyrdom, see Pierre-Antoine Fabre, “Les quarante ‘martyrs du Brésil’ (1570) et leur procès en béatification (1854) : historiographie et hagiographie dans la longue Compagnie de Jésus,” Rivista di storia del cristianesimo 15, no. 2 (2018): 321–40.

34 The original documents of the 1695 inquiry, written in Portuguese, are held in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (hereafter “AAV,” formerly Archivio Segreto Vaticano), Cong. Rit., Proc. 1699. An Italian translation of the same inquiry is held in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (hereafter “ARSI”), APG-SJ 717, Processus super Martyrio (Mylapore, 1695).

35 AAV Cong. Rit., Proc. 1699: “… acompanhou ao dito P[adre] do primeiro dia da sua prizão, athe a ultima hora do seu martyrio, e foy hum dos que furtarão suas reliquias, e o viram tambem com seus olhos o Bramane Arlapâ cazado e morador em Madurey, q[ue] a occasião de sua prizão se achava com o dito P[adr]e; e fou co’ elle prezo; o cathequista Mutû, Arlandren, e Mariadasso todos tres servidores do dito Padre, q[ue] selhe ajuntarão vindo prezos de Canddamaniquam aldea do dito Maravâ, onde assistião em huã igreja, que tinha a aly o dito Padre, Xilvenaiquem, e Arlapâ, q[u]e furtarão co’ elle testemunha suas reliquas; Cheganadâ, Chinapen, Anddi, Arlapa Cottegarâ todos moradores nas terras do Maravâ, que incubertos seguiã de longe ao dito Padre, e os sois ultimos vendo ai Padre ja posto de joelhos no lugar do martyrio por não poder incubrirse mais, se forão abraçar come elle, e a hum lhe cortarão o narij, e as orelhas, e a outro as orelhas só.”

36 The title “Nāyakkaṉ” attached to Ciluvai’s name, for instance, refers to a group of Telugu origins, sometimes called “northerners” (vaṭukar), who settled in the Tamil region at the time of Vijayanagara. Ciluvai Nāyakkaṉ and his son Mariyatācaṉ therefore belonged to this caste. Aruḷ Paṟaiyaṉ, one of the men who asked to be imprisoned with Brito on his last day, likely belonged to a Dalit group (paṟaiyar). Unfortunately, witnesses only sporadically declared their caste in the 1695 hearings. This information is more consistently recorded for later inquiries (including the one held in 1726, discussed below).

37 The list of the catechists who supported Laines on the Malabar Rites, given as an appendix to his treatise, includes many of Brito’s catechists who had by then settled in other regions, away from the Maravar: Laines, Defensio indicarum missionum, 605–28.

38 The only exception was Pero Luís Bramane, the subject of a short article that remains a good analysis of the choice not to allow Indian recruits into the Society: Joseph Wicki, “Pedro Luis Brahmane und erster indischer Jesuit (c. 1532–1596),” Neue Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft 6 (1950): 115–26.

39 Carlos Mercês De Melo, The Recruitment and Formation of Native Clergy in India (16th–19th Century): An Historico-Canonical Study (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca, 1955).

40 The term is explained and analyzed in Fr. Perroquin SJ, “The History of Vadakkankulam Christianity” [1908], Shenbaganur, Jesuit Madurai Province Archives (hereafter “JEMPARC”), 217/459.

41 The resident catechist (vācal upatēciyar) is listed among the local administrative roles in a manuscript concerning the history of the village of Sarugani compiled by a Jesuit parish priest in the late nineteenth century. See Anonymous, “Crâmam de Sarougany” [ca. 1882], JEMPARC, 217/278.

42 While the paraliturgical role of the catechists is implied in many Catholic documents of the period, it is (pejoratively) described in Lutheran reports. See, for example, Johann Lucas Niekamp, Histoire de la mission danoise dans les Indes orientales, Qui renferme en abrégé les relations que les missionnaires évangéliques en ont données, depuis l’an 1705 jusqu’à la fin de l’année 1736, vol. 1 (Geneva: Henri-Albert Gosse & Comp., 1745), 234: “In certain parts of the Kingdom of Madurai where there are no missionaries, the catechists perform their duties, which consist in reading a few shreds of devotional books, reciting the prayers of the Mass, and singing a Litany.”

43 Gianbattista Buttari to his brother (Madurai, September 4, 1740), Rome, Archivio della Pontifica Università Gregoriana (hereafter “APUG”), Miscellanea 292, pp. 655–67, here pp. 663–64. “Ciascun missionario nella sua Residenza elegge otto, ò più Catechisti divisi in varie Popolazioni, dove sono i Cristiani. … Or due di questi debbono sempre stare dove in quel tempo risiede il missionario, mentre p[e]r alcuni mesi stà in una Chiesa, e poi si porta in un altra, per commodo de’ Cristiani. Ciò presupposto, quando vengono li Cristiani per confessarsi, dato il segno, e radunati tutti in Chiesa, ciascuno (nemine excepto) viene esaminato, o dal missionario, o dalli Catechisti di quella residenza, se sà la Dottrina Cristiana, e l’orazioni: e ne’ giorni di grande concorso si radunano tutti i Catechisti di quella residenza, e ciascuno viene con li Cristiani delle Popolazioni a lui soggette, e tutti esaminano li penitenti sopra la Dottrina &c. … Così preparatisi si da loro un pezzetto di foglia di palma scritto quale essi in andare a confessarsi devono dare al missionario in contrasegno che sanno la dottrina Cristiana, gli atti delle virtù Teologali, e che si sono preparati per la Confessione.”

44 The Italian translation of Ciluvai Nāyakkaṉ (Xilue Naiquen)’s witness can be found at ARSI, APG-SJ 717, fols. 42v–46r.

45 ARSI, APG-SJ 717, fol. 44r: “… anche fù carcerato con esso lui esso testimonio, e dando ad esso testimonio un soldato diversi colpi con una corda, et havendolo colto uno sopra l’occhio destro gli saltò fuori, il quale dal detto Padre gli fu messo di nuovo dentro colle sue mani et havendoglielo Benedetto, rimase esso testimonio immediatamente sano, e che viddero questo Vedapà, e Canagapà nativi di Maissur, et habitanti di Tanjaor, che erano anche catechisti del detto Padre.”

46 Witness of Pierre Martin, given on December 17 and 18, 1715, recorded in Italian in AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1694, fol. 124r (my translation from Italian): “For I have been told that a few days before he [i.e., Brito] was killed, the son of one of his catechists was beaten by those barbarians. They struck him in the eye, which came out of its socket, but the servant of God consoling him with his own hands put back his eye, making the sign of the cross, or so I have heard. So that the said son of the catechist remained without a scar, or any other mark, and I have seen him several times, since that son later became my catechist in the Madurai Mission, in the Maravar region.”

47 The original minutes of the hearings of the 1726 inquiry, written in Tamil and Portuguese, are in AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697. An Italian translation of the same documents is preserved in ARSI, APG-SJ, 726, Processus super Martyrio (Mylapore, 1726).

48 See Kristin C. Bloomer, Possessed by the Virgin: Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, and Marian Possession in South India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

49 AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fol. 224v.

50 ARSI, APG-SJ 717, Processus super Martyrio (Mylapore, 1695), fols. 39r–43v. In this early statement, Mariyatācaṉ does tell the story of his father, but only in brief. There was no need to add further details, since Ciluvai Nāyakkaṉ was interrogated as a witness immediately after his son.

51 Mariyatācaṉ’s original statement in Portuguese is in AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fols. 172r–178v, here fol. 172r. The Italian translation of the same statement is in ARSI, APG-SJ 726, fols. 664r–694v.

52 AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fol. 172v.

53 AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fol. 173r.

54 The miracle of Mariyatācaṉ (Mariadagen)’s skin tumor had already been described in a letter from Carlo Colano to João da Costa (September 14, 1696), in AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1698, fols. 104r–109r, especially fol. 108r. The same miracle is recounted in one of the articles of interrogation in the 1726 inquiry, AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fols. 20v–21r (my translation from Latin): “43. How true it was, and is, [qualiter veritas fuit, et est] that in the city of Vaipur on the Malabar coast there was a boy named Mariyatācaṉ, afflicted by a similar pustular disease and close to death, … so disfigured by the tumor that his body was not human in shape, according to what informed witnesses said, it was and is public, &c. [prout testes informati deponunt fuit et est publicum &c.] 44. How true it was, and is, that the parents of the aforesaid Mariyatācaṉ, destitute of all other human aid, implored the support of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the intercession of the Venerable Father João de Brito, the father of the child having been his catechist. They were reciting the litanies with the bystanders when the sick boy, who had lost his speech for a long time, immediately turning to his father with a cheerful countenance, told him that the most holy Virgin had appeared to him surrounded by a host of angels, together with the Venerable Martyr John of Brito at her right hand, and offered him good health from God; and after the interval of one hour, all the swelling disappeared, the fluid flowed out, and the child was completely free of all the draining humors, according to what informed witnesses said, it was and is public, &c.”

55 AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fol. 176r.

56 See AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697, fol. 52r. Catechists in this inquiry gave their witness in Portuguese, but signed in Tamil, while the schoolmaster Āṭippaṉ testified and signed in Tamil.

57 As shown, for instance, by the fact that the Lutheran missionary Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) began by translating the Lutheran doctrine for the local fishing communities in Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) into Portuguese, and only later switched to Tamil. See also the short note by Julien Vinson, “La langue portugaise dans l’Inde,” Revue de linguistique et de philologie compare 41 (1908): 292.

58 The original Latin letter by Beschi is in AAV, Cong. Rit., Proc. 1697 (unnumbered page at the beginning); a transcription can be found in ARSI, APG-SJ 726, fols. 9r–12v.

59 There exist several manuscripts and printed editions of this text. In this essay, I refer to Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (Vīramāmuṉivar), Vētaviḷakkam: iḥtu mikunta kīrttip peyarpeṟṟa meymmaṟai pōtaka vīramāmuṉivar eṉṉuñ cecucapaik kuruvākiya irājariṣi tairiyanāta cuvāmiyār avarkaḷāl aruḷicceyyappaṭṭatu (Putuvai: Mātākkōyil accukkūṭam, 1936).

60 Ibid., 222: “nammuṭaiya cattiya vētattai eṇpikka ulakameṅkum ataṟkāka valiyap pirāṇaṉait tantu, kōṭākōṭi pērkaḷ cāṭci colliyirukka, nīṅkaḷ antac cāṭcikaḷait tēṭi puṟa nāṭṭiṟkup pōkāmal iṅkētāṉē ataṟkuc cāṭciyaic colli uṅkalukku eṇpikkum poruṭṭāka āṇṭavar aruḷānanta cuvamiyait terintukoṇṭār.”

61 Peter Schalk, “Images of Martyrdom among Tamils,” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.45.

62 Trento, Writing Tamil Catholicism, 118–21.

63 V. M. Gnanapragasam, “Contribution of Fr. Beschi to Tamil” (PhD diss., University of Madras, 1965), 49–50.

64 Beschi, Vētaviḷakkam, 230–31: “coṉṉa putumaikaḷāl ārōkkiyam aṭainta pērkaḷ ellāraiyum nāmē kaṇṭu pēciṉōm. avarkaḷ coṉṉatai ārāya vēṇtum eṉṟu cāṭciyāyk kūṭa niṉra anēkam pērkaḷai vevvēṟē aḻaittu, nuṇukkamāyc cōtittu, cattiyamuṅ koṇṭu kēṭṭa iṭattil ellārum antap putumaikaḷ campavitta nēramum iṭamum vakaiyuñ coṉṉatilē caṟṟum vēṟṟumaiyiṉṟi otta cāṭciyai colla kēṭṭom.”

65 BNF, Indien 469, “Vētacāṭciyar rācariṣi aruḷāṉantacuvāmi tivviya vētattukkāka maṟavaṉ cīrmaiyil piṭipaṭṭup pāṭuppaṭṭa avaruṭaiya carittiram” (“Life of Martyr João de Brito, Captured and Tortured in the Maravar for the Sake of the True Faith”).

66 This information seems to form the basis for chapters 23 and 24 of Saulière, Red Sand.

67 BNF, Indien 469, fols. 1r–2r: “Icēcumariyē tuṇai. Vētacāṭciyāṉa rācariṣi aruḷāṉantacuvāmi tivviyavētattukkāka maṟavaṉ cīrmaiyil piṭipaṭṭup pāṭupaṭṭa avaruṭaiya carittiram caṟuvēcuraṉukku sttōttiramuṇṭākavum tirucapaiyākiya kiṟīsttuvarkaḷ yāvarum aṟintu tēvavicuvācapattinampikkaiyil ttiṭapaṭavum aruḷāṉantaṉ yeḻutikiṟēṉ. Nāṉ piṟanta eṭṭāṉāḷ yinta vētacāṭciyāṉa kuruvāṉavar tammuṭaiya pēriṭṭu ñāṉasnāṉaṅ kuṭuttu petta[sic., peṟṟa]takappaṉaip pōlē vicārittu yeṉṉai vaḷattār paṭippittār. Piṟapāṭu ttiruccapaik kāriyamāka cintu rāṭciya viṭṭu ṟōmāpurikkup payaṇam āy kappaleṟu cīrmaikkup pōy, maṟupaṭi tēvavutaviyāl ccinturāṭciyattukku vantu cēntavuṭaṉē, yentakappaṉ naṉṟi yaṟintavaṉāy yeṉṉai yaḻaittuk koṇṭu pōy avar pātattil tūyam paṇṇaccolli kkaṭṭaḷai yiṭṭoppivittar. Anta ṉāḷ mutal koṇṭu, avaruṭaiya pātattil avarukkup pūcaikk’ utavi ceytu koṇṭu, kaṭṭaḷai yiṭṭa maṟṟavūḻiyamuñ ceyt’, avarai viṭṭup piṟiyāmal iruntēṉ. Ippaṭi yirukkiṟa pōtu maṟavaṉcīrmaiyil anta cīrmaikk’ uṭaiya rekuṉātatēvaṉ tivviyavētattukku virōtiyāy iruntatiṉālē avaraip piṭikkiṟa pōtu ṉāṉ kūṭap piṭipaṭṭ’, avarōṭē kūṭa ciṟaicālaiyilē yiruntapaṭiyiṉālē avar aṉupavitta kasttina vātai yavamāṉam aṭi niṟpantam itu mutalāṉa turitaṅkaḷai yaṉupavittu, kaṭaciyāy avar vētacāṭciyāṉa carittira meyākavē kūṭa yiruntēṉ, kaṇṇāka kaṇṭēṉ aṟintēṉ: ippō naṭanta carittiram caṟuvēcuraṉukku stōttiramuṇṭāka yeḻutikiṟēṉ.”

68 Ines G. Županov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 244; Margherita Trento, “Śivadharma or Bonifacio? Behind the Scenes of the Madura Mission Controversy (1608–1619),” in The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World, ed. Ines G. Županov and Pierre-Antoine Fabre (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 91–121.

69 See Raj, “Transgressing Boundaries, Transcending Turner.”

70 The titles attributed to Jesuit missionaries from the early seventeenth century on include several terms originally associated with Hindu spirituality: swami (cuvāmi), guru (kuru), raja-rishi (rājariṣi).

71 BNF, Indien 469, fols. 41v–42r: “… tamatu ciracai maṟavaṉukkuk koṭuttu vētacāṭciyāy mokṣattukk’ eḻunt’ aruḷiṉār. Tiṉapiṟak’ avaruṭaiya iraṇṭu kaikaḷaiyuṅ kālkaḷaiyun tarittārkaḷ. At’ eṉ eṉṟāl eḻunt’ iruntu paṟantu pōvāṉ pillikkāṟaṉ eṉṟu kālkaḷaiyuṅ kaikaḷaiyun tarittuppoṭṭārkaḷ.”

72 For more information on this anonymous ballad on the life of Saint Margaret, likely composed in the eighteenth century, see the introduction to K. Jayakumar, R. Jayalakshmi, and R. Rajarathinam, eds., The Defender of the Faith: Arc. Marikarutammāḷ ammāṉai (Chennai: Institute of Asian Studies, 1996). The expression pilli vañcaṉai appears on p. 30 of this edition of the text.

73 The history of this title in the medieval period is unclear, though it likely referred to non-Brahmanical groups in charge of devotional practices in temples. From the early modern period onwards, paṇṭāram came to indicate the members of a non-Brahmanical monastic institution (maṭam). See Margherita Trento, “Translating the Dharma of Śiva in Sixteenth-Century Chidambaram: Maṟaiñāṉa Campantar’s Civatarumōttaram with a Preliminary List of the Surviving Manuscripts,” in Śivadharmāmṛta: Essays on the Śivadharma and Its Network, ed. Florinda De Simini and Csaba Kiss (Naples: UniOr, 2021), 101–44, here p. 131. By imitation, from the early eighteenth century Jesuits took up the role of non-Brahmanical paṇṭāram missionaries.

74 Ines G. Županov, “Conversion, Illness and Possession: Catholic Missionary Healing in Early Modern South Asia,” in Divins remèdes. Médecine et religion en Asie du Sud, ed. Ines G. Županov and Caterina Guenzi (Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS, 2009), 263–300.

75 Trento, Writing Tamil Catholicism, 60–68.

76 J. Pujo SJ, “The Cult of St. J. de Britto,” Caritas 57, no. 2 (1973): 73–81.

77 Ponnad, “Through Marava in the Footsteps of St. John de Britto.”

78 This makes Brito part of the small group of Christian saints also invoked for healing by Hindus and Muslims. For another example, see the case of Saint Anthony studied by Brigitte Sébastia, Les rondes de saint Antoine. Culte, affliction et possession en Inde du Sud (Paris: Aux lieux d’être, 2004).

79 On Christian literature and the training of catechists at the turn of the eighteenth century, see Trento, Writing Tamil Catholicism, especially chapters 1 and 2.

80 Talia Ariav, “Intimately Cosmopolitan: Genealogical Poets and Orchestrated Selves in 17th–18th Century Sanskrit Literature from South India” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2022), 12–24.

81 On these Śaiva monasteries, see Iva Kathleen Koppedrayer, “The Sacred Presence of the Guru: The Velala Lineages of Tiruvavatuturai, Dharmapuram, and Tiruppanantal” (PhD diss., McMaster University, Ontario, 1990); Trento, “Translating the Dharma of Śiva.”

82 Tēvacakāyam Piḷḷai was canonized on May 15, 2022.

83 The main source on this family, on which I am preparing a parallel article, is Fr. Marianus Arpudam SJ, “A Genealogical Study of the Catholic Vellala Families at Vadakankulam,” [1915] JEMPARC 217/463; the diary and family history of Cavarirāya Piḷḷai were first published in Yōvāṉ Tēvacakāyaṉ Cavarirāyaṉ, ed., Cavarirāya Piḷḷai vamca varalāṟu: The Ancestors of Savariraya Pillai, a Catechist of the Church Missionary Society (Palayamkottai: Sri Vijaya Laksmi Vilasam Press, 1899), and Cavarirāya Piḷḷai Carittiram: The Life of Savariraya Pillai, a Catechist of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 1, From 1801 to 1836 (Palayamkottai: Sri Vijaya Laksmi Vilasam Press, 1900). The two texs were later reedited in Ā. Civacuppiramaṇiyaṉ, ed., Upatēciyar Cavarirāyapiḷḷai (1801–1874) (Nākarkōyil: Kālaccuvaṭu patippakam, 2006).

84 Anonymous, Vētacāṭciyāṉa tēvacakāyam piḷḷai carittiram: iẖtu cēcucapaikkurucuvāmiyārkaḷil oruvarāṟ ceyyappaṭṭatu (Putuvai: Caṉmavirākkiṉi mātākkōyilaic cērnta accukkūṭam, 1892), 77.