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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[SEPTEMBER, 1916
The Jesuits were for concession and compromise; the others were not; and Popes had again and again to listen to their quarrels and decide. Decisions, however, were made only to give rise to discontent, ant the struggle actually closed only with the extinction of the Jesuits. We have already seen how Gregory XV vindicated the principles of De Nobilis in 1623. Twenty-two years later, in September 1645, Pope Innocent X issued another Bull prohibiting some of the 'rites.' This underwent further modification under Alexander VIII in March 1656. Similar orders were passed by other Popes from time to time, but these did not satisfy the never-ending murmurs of the non-Jesuit missionaries of India and China. Their importunities impelled Pope Clement XI in 170073 to send a legate to the East to inquire into and finally dispose of the questions in dispute. This man, the celebrated Charles Maillard de Tournon, a Savoyard of good family and the Patriarch of Antioch, landed at Pondichery in 1703, and during his nine months' stay there started a searching enquiry into the differences between the two parties. The men upon whom he chiefly relied for information were the Jesuits, Jean Venant Bouchet, superior of the Carnatic Mission, and Carlo Michaele Bertelde, missionary in Madura. As a result of his investigations Tournon drew up, in June 1704, a decree which claimed to effect a final settlement of the matter. It dictated the omission of saliva, salt and insufflation at baptism, prohibited the using of names other than those of Roman martyrology, and ruled that the baptism of infants ought not to be unduly postponed. In regard to marriages it laid down that no marriages by the tali should be celebrated at six or seven years of age, and that celebrations ought not to be held during puberty. It further ruled that the tali should not be worn without a cross or image of Christ, that the cord suspending the tali must not be saffron-coloured or have 108 threads, and that superstitious ceremonies like the use of the pipal branch, the breaking of cocoanuts and the use of crowns to ward off demons, ought to be avoided. The decree even fixed the number and nature of the dishes of food to be served on such occasions. In regard to worship the Patriarch decided that none should be excluded from the church or confessional. Socially he laid down that the Pariahs should be treated on an equality with the other castes, that no differences should be observed in the administration of extreme unction, that Christian musicians should seek no employment in Hindu temples, that baths should be confined to the necessity of physical cleanliness and be different from the Hindu usage, and that the wearing of ashes except on Ash Wednesday must be avoided. Even Hindu books of tales were prohibited unless the missionaries considered them entirely harmless. The settlement of Tournon was more a condemnation of the Jesuit system than an impartial adjudication; and it was therefore ignored by the Jesuit Mission of Madura, which carried on its activities in the same manner as of old, and in the face of the same opposition.
But the condemnation of the Hindu customs gave a death-blow to its progress. The invasions of the Mahrattas in 1740 and the suppression of the Jesuit Society itself in Europe between 1759 and 1773 resulted in a great fall of the Christian population.
73 Till this year all the Roman Catholic missions in S. India were subordinate to the Portuguest Provincial of Malabar. This year the French mission of the Carnatic was established independently, the Portuguese taking the country north of the latitude of Pondichery and the French the south.
1 See Storia do Mogor, Vol. IV.
