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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(JUNE, 1916
to circumstances, wise, cautious, tactful and daring, the nephew of Cardinal Bellarmine and the relation of Pope Juling III, was a personality, born to attract and lead men. The most remarkable things about him were the extraordinary receptivity of his mind and the spirit of compromise of his acts. Undaunted by obstacles and indifferent to difficulties, he could study as many languages and could master as many literatures, as were necessary to meet his adversaries in their own fields. A close and acute student of the social customs and habits of the people, he could see which of these were consistent with Christianity and which were not, and unlike his predecessors, he could adopt a policy of compromise. Proceeding even further, he, in order to prove that the customs and habits of the Hindus could not be, in many cases, antagonistic to the profession of the Christian religion, a lopted them in his own life. Robert de Nobilis introduced thus two great innovations in the method of Christian propaganda in India, the study of Indian languages and literatures, and a reasonable concession to the Indian social customs and prejudices. Knowledge and compromise were, in his scheme, the twofold bases of Christianity in India. To study the Vedas and the agamas, to master the Upanishads and the popular culis, and to use this knowledge in the refutation of popular beliefs and in the interpretation of Christianity, was his first idea. To distinguish society from religion, caste from creed, and custom from belief, and to yield in respect of the former for the sake of ensuring the latter, was his second idea. He had the acuteness to see that his predecessors had failed in their proselytising movement, because of their defects in these two respects. They had not cared to arm themselves with the intellectual weapons of their adversaries. They had not been reagonable enough to gauge the feelings and understand the prejudices of those whom they wished to convert. They were, in other words, both ignorant and unpractical, both incapable and extreme. They had been wanting in argument as well as policy. No doubt they were men of exemplary character, of strong conviction, and of real sincerity ; but it was these very necessary, but unattractive, virtues that made their attempts a failure and their endeavours barren. Character, conviction, and sincerity were indeed very necessary virtues in preachers, but they were not the only ones needed. A certain amount of tact and moderation, of the capacity to follow the principle of give and take, and of sound knowledge of the capacities and achievements of the other party, were necessary; and in these the predecessors of De Nobilis had failed. They had, on account of their ignorance and their honest but tactless sincerity, gone to extremes in their condemnation of everything Hindu and popular. Customs good and bad, beliefs sound and harmful, creeds of gross idol-worship or the most advancod philosophy, were equally condemned by their crusade. De Nobilis introduced a new epoch in the history of Christianity by endeavouring to make it recognised as superior to advanced Hinduism in respect of intellectual culture, and equally ready, like Hinduism, to sanction social gravlations and customs.
(To be continued.)
47 Xelson wrongly attributes the event to 1623. For an adverse view of Jesuit Missions, in general, of De Nobilis and his labours in particular, ser Hough's Christianity in India II, 216-35. Mr. Taylor is much briefer, though not mikler, in language. His dates are much more inaccurate than Nelson's. He attributes De Nobilis, for instance, to the times of Chokkanátha and Raniga Krishna Muttu Virappa. Ser 0. H. MSS.. II, 220.
