Jesuit Orientalism; - Ines G. Županov

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interpretations and shriveled into myths and lies. Various methods of reading them were
already in vogue, from analogical juxtaposition of Christian and pagan forms to Kircher‟s
Neoplatonic readings in which mystical genealogies reduced all difference into the cipher of
the Same. 62
Since Queiros predecessors had already identified “Buddhism” as a particular all-
Asian sect, what he was interested in was its diffusion and its obvious success. This is where
the method of comparison is crucial. Thus, even if the original story is mired in myth and
corruption, by comparing derivative plots across the regions, one could, perhaps, come to a
true knowledge. As we can see from Pereira‟s letter, one should not look for authentic stories
in Chinese scriptures.
“By comparing fables , many of them invented by those people, with the notices which Your
Reverence will find [here], many of them would be found to be conflicting, and you would be
able by comparison to discover falsity of the - for them – incontestable Scriptures.” 63
The comparison appears to be here a method of killing two (or more) flies with one stone. To
put it differently, Pereira is telling Queiros to use his little treatise in order to compare
Chinese “false” texts with his Sinhalese, or other “false” texts. Behind this strange
hermeneutic alchemy, we can see why Jesuit Orientalist project remained problematic. Surely,
the amount of energy spent by the Jesuit missionaries on translation and study of “false”
doctrines was never considered a waste of time. The accommodationist method applied, not
without controversy, in India and China was a result of the same underlying certainty – that
paganism veiled the true Christian message. Comparison, therefore, as handled by Queiros
and Pereira was an Orientalist method capable of overwriting (and thus eliminating) another
Orientalist axiom – the identification of an authentic text.
Refutation
And yet, Pereira‟s letter is reproduced verbatim precisely because it “posed” as an authentic
native text. Although Queiros thought of himself as an expert on Indian idolatry and knew the
62 See Alain Strathern, “Fernão de Queirós: History and Theology”, in Anais de História de
Além-mar, 6 (2005), pp. 47-88, p. 61.
63 Queiros, p. 95.