INES G. ZUPANOV - Ines G. Županov

Prologue • 25
expertise, and linguistic achievements, in addition to relying somewhat
excessively on Brahman 'ancient' ' =;xts' (or laws—leggi), Nobili
proposed a portfolio of possible Jesuit proselytizing strategies and
religious investments in the Tamil hinterland. Some of these were
counter-proposals to those advocated by his adversary Gonçalo
Fernandes. Brahman converts/informants and their 'authentic' texts
were Nobili's foremost obsessions during the first decade in the missionary
field. As a Catholic humanist, he trusted 'ancient' texts more
than his eyes, the 'origins' of phenomena more than their present,
incomplete 'residues'. 70 Moreover, Brahmanical 'theology', 'philosophy'
and 'ethics', or rather what was distilled for him under these
familiar categories by his Brahman teachers, gave him a reassuring
sense of textual order that also claimed to represent reality. If there
was no perfect fit between the two in Tamil Nadu, the same was true
in Europe, and finally, this is why orders like his came into existence—to
bridge the gap between the real and the ideal.
Proceeding in analogical fashion, Nobili assembled and tested part
by part a model of—and for—Tamil 'holiness'. 71 Each Jesuit missionary
replicated and made it operative in his own apostolic practice.
Nobili clearly saw that the basic principle of 'holiness' was dissociation.
A holy man had to estrange himself deliberately, physically and/
or ritually from the community in which he intends to operate. The
Indian model was in this respect similar to the European. With a view
to this goal, after having spent a few months in Madurai, Nobili
retreated into isolation or 'meditation', according to the local rumours,
filtering drastically all possible communication. The few people
allowed to approach him were his Brahman cooks and his Brahman
teacher and, we are told, his missionary collateral, Gonçalo Fernandes,
who sometimes came furtively at night to speak with him. His visits
were mostly geared at dissuading Nobili from his newfangled missionary
project. The fact that Brahmans were welcome and visible in
Nobili's presence, while Jesuits had to hide, marked the break with
Sacred, Cambridge, 1995; See also Turner, V. 'Social Dramas and Stories about
Them', Critical Inquiry, vol. 7, no. 1, Autumn, 1980.
70 On misappropriation of textual tradition before the age of scientific breakthrough,
see Graf ton, A-, Deferidas of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age
of Science, 1450-1800, Cambridge, Mass., 1991.
71 The famous, and still applicable, distinction between model of and model for
'reality' is borrowed from Geertz, C, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, 1973,
pp. 9S-4.