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SEPTEMBER, 1928]
A NAIR ENVOY TO PORTUGAL
157
A NAIR ENVOY TO PORTUGAL. By U. B. NAIR.
THE recent Goa Exposition, which synchronized with the tercentenary of the canonization of Francis Xavier, has drawn the homage not only of the Catholic world but of all spiritually-minded Indians to Xavier's memory in a special degree. The event set many people writing about the Saint, but few of them, I fear, have succeeded in shedding fresh light on his career. An exception is afforded by the Rev. J. C. Castets, S.J., of Trichinopoly, who lectured so informingly at Goa on Xavier's Mission to the Paravas. Father Castets only dealt with one episode of the Saint's Indian career. But that episode holds sufficient to merit attentive study. The lecture is well worth reading, especially as it depicts an India that has passed into oblivion. He makes a slight reference therein to the part played by "one Juan da Cruz" in christianizing the pearl-fishers. And thereby hangs a tale.
Now who is this Juan da Cruz? Father Castets, as reported, makes but the barest reference to this remarkable man. This shadowy figure with a Portuguese patronymic he describes, in passing, as having applied on behalf of the Paravas for Portuguese protection against their Muhammadan trade-rivals and-the better to succeed in this request-for their baptism. The reader is thus led to believe that Juan's share in this transaction was negligible-in other words, it was that of a mere case of also ran'. This however is far from the truth. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that this Hindu in Portuguese garb was primarily and mainly instrumental for the conversion of the fisher folk-nay, he was in a sense the forerunner of the great Xavier himself on the Pearl Coast. There is, however, not even a vague hint or suggestion of this well-known historical fact in the lecture. Surely, the reader would like to know something about so remarkable a man. A friend and coadjutor of the Apostle of the Indies', his name now and then crops up in the Saint's letters and is variously written Juan da Cruz, Juan de la Cruz, Joam de Cruz and St. John of the Cross. Judged alone by his achievements, this Malabar Prince' and native Christian' (as he is termed in the latest Life of Xavier) was undeniably a hero. With the aid of the priceless records in the archives of Lisbon and Rome it may be possible for a future biographer to reconstruct an adequate "life" of Juan, but that, as Kipling would say, is "another story."
For the nonce, let us attempt a thumb-nail sketch of this great Malayalee. Some of the Saint's letters (contained in Coleridge's Life, 1872) clearly state that he was a Nair, although his latest biographer is not quite so explicit. The latter (Edith Anne Stewart, 1917) in one place refers to him as a Malabar prince or nobleman, who had come into touch with the Portuguese and had become a Christian'; while in another, as a Parava convert' with a fair grip of the Law of God; and as a native Christian of the Fishery Coast and one of the prin cipal men of that land'. Where doctors differ laymen are sometimes the best judges, but there is absolutely no uncertainty about Juan's origin. He was presumably, at the outset of his carrer, an influential Nair functionary of the Zamorin's Court. Here are the few known facts concerning him. He visited Portugal in the early decades of the sixteenth century (1513 has been, obviously incorrectly, suggested as the very year) as an envoy of the Zamorin. João III was then king, and he received the deputation from Calicut with great pleasure. The Nair envoy was knighted and named after the Portuguese monarch, and he, of course, became a Christian. João de Cruz--Sir John of the Cross-as he now became, was perhaps (with the exception of Manoel Nair) the first Indian to receive such a high mark of royal favour from Portugal. He was, be it noted, the first knight of any European order from Malabar, anticipating Sir C. Sankaran Nair by some 400 years. The Hindu knight was lionised in Court circles and by Church dignitaries in Portugal, but when he returned home to Malabar he was put out of caste and banished the country by the Zamorin. He then transferred himself and his allegiance for a time to Cochin, whose ruler, as is well-known, had a hereditary feud with the Zamorin: Eventually he quitted the inhospitable pepper coast of Malabar for the
