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CHAP. IX.

Feast of Saint
John the

tist; perfor-
mances of the

tians.

On the 24th of June the feast of Saint John the

Baptist was celebrated at Goa. The Viceroy and other Portuguese gentlemen rode through the city in Kanarese Chris- masquerade habits, but without masks. They next heard Mass in the church of Saint John, and then went to the large street of Saint Paul. Many companies of Kanarese Christian soldiers marched past with ensigns, drums, and arms, leaping and playing along the streets with drawn swords in their hands. Della Valle saw the show from the house of a native who was called King of the Maldives. The ancestors of this man had been real kings, but he had been driven out of his dominions by his own subjects; and he had fled to Goa and turned Christian, in the hope that the Portuguese would help him to recover his kingdom. He soon discovered that he had been deceived; and there were many other princes in India who had been deceived by the Portuguese in like

Canonisation of
Ignatius and
Xavier cele-
brated by the
Jesuits.

manner.

Subsequently the Jesuits of the college of Saint Paul celebrated the canonisation of their two saints, Ignatius and Xavier, and the splendour of the ceremonial far exceeded that of the Carmelites. All the collegians came forth in a great cavalcade, divided into three squadrons under three banners. One squadron represented Europe, the second Asia, and the third Africa; and the men of each squadron were dressed in the costumes of the nations of their respective continents. Before the cavalcade went a chariot of clouds, with Fame on the top, who sounded her trumpet to the accompaniment of other music, and proclaimed the canonisation of Ignatius and Xavier. Two other chariots followed; one represented Faith, or the Church; the other was a

Mount Parnassus, carrying Apollo and the Muses as representatives of the sciences taught in the college. Five great pyramids, covered with pictures, were also drawn along on wheels by men on foot. The first was painted with all the martyrs of the order of Jesuits. The second was painted with doctors and authors belonging to the same order. The third was painted with figures of every nation to which the Jesuits had sent missions, and thus represented the various languages in which the Jesuits preached and taught. The fourth pyramid was painted with devices showing all the provinces of the said religion. The fifth displayed all the miracles which had been performed by the two saints, Ignatius and Xavier. These pyramids were drawn through the principal streets, and then placed as monuments in different parts of the city.

CHAP. IX.

our Lord s

On the first Sunday in Lent the Augustine fathers Procession of made a solemn procession to represent the footsteps Passion. of our Lord during His Passion. They carried a figure of Christ with a cross on his shoulders, and many scourged themselves as they walked along. They were clad in white sackcloth, very gravely, according to the humour of the Portuguese nation. Altars had been set up at certain places in the city, and the procession halted at each altar, whilst the fathers sang appropriate hymns. After a while the figure of Christ was turned back, and the people filled the air with their lamentations.

processions and

There was no city in the world where there were Multitude of so many processions as in Goa. The religious orders priests at Goa. were rich and numerous, and the priests were vastly in excess of the needs of the city. At the same time. the people of Goa were naturally idle and addicted to

CHAP. IX.

Objections of
Della Valle.

Low tone of
Christianity at
Goa.

Embassy from Gon to the Raja of Kanara,

shows. They neglected matters of more weight, and more profit to the public, and readily busied themselves in these exhibitions.

Della Valle remarked that, from a religious point of view, such shows were all very well as part of Divine worship; but from a worldly point of view they were unprofitable, and much too frequent. The crowd of monks and ecclesiastics was burdensome to the state and prejudicial to the militia. Goa was a city bordering on enemies; it was the metropolis of a kingdom lying in the midst of barbarians. Under such circumstances the utmost attention should have been given to fleets and armies.

Della Valle furnishes a striking illustration of the low tone of Christian thought in Goa. During Lent there were sermons preached at evening time in the different churches on the Passion of our Lord. At the end of these sermons pictures were exhibited by lighted tapers; one day that of "Ecce Homo," another day that of our Lord carrying the cross, and on the last day there was a picture of the Crucifixion. Sometimes the figures in the pictures were made to move and turn; thus a robe fell from the "Ecce Homo" and discovered the wounded body. At this sight the people raised prodigious cries and the women shrieked and screamed. The gentlewomen were so zealous that they not only cried out themselves, but obliged their maids to cry out in like manner; and if there was any failure in this respect, they would beat their maids in church, and that very loudly, so that every one could hear them.

In October 1623 the Viceroy of Goa proposed sending an ambassador to the Raja of Kanara, a potentate whose dominions lay at some distance to

the south of Goa. Della Valle was very anxious to see some Hindu country under Hindu rule, where the people performed their own rites after their own manner, without any interference from Muhammadan or Christian masters. Accordingly he accompanied the ambassador on his mission to Kanara.

CHAP. IX.

Southern India.

Before describing Della Valle's visit to Southern History of India, it may be as well to glance at the general history of the Peninsula.

empires:

and Kanarese.

There were three traditional Hindu empires or Three Hindu nationalities in the south, which are distinguished Telinga, Tamil, by their respective languages; namely, the Telinga, the Tamil, and the Kanarese. Each of these empires was occasionally disjointed into groups of kingdoms, and sometimes one or more kingdoms were consolidated into some temporary empire. The Telinga empire of Vijayanagara, the Tamil kingdom of Madura, and the Kanarese empire of the Belál dynasty, might be accepted as representatives of such Hindu states and powers; but it must always be borne in mind, in dealing with Hindu history, that whilst the political areas were constantly changing, the areas of the respective languages remained the same.17

provinces into kingdoms and

When a Hindu empire was broken up, its provinces Conversion of became kingdoms, and the Naik or deputy governor Naiks into of a province became an independent Raja. The Rajas. breaking-up of the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar is an illustration of these revolutions. A number of petty princes, like the Naiks of Kanara, Mysore, Vellore, Tanjore, and Madura, sprang into existence, and were soon engaged in intermittent wars amongst them

17 See Appendix II., Hindu Annals.

CHAP. IX. Selves. 18

Successful wars of Venk-tapa

selves.18 Della Valle's visit to the south will bring some of these petty Rajas under close review.

According to Della Valle, the Raja of Kanara was Naik of Kanara. known by the name of Venk-tapa Naik. The father or predecessor of this prince was some time vassal of the great Raja of Vijayanagar; but after the downfall of that empire he became absolute sovereign of the province of which he had been hitherto only governor. Venk-tapa Naik was a good soldier, and had greatly enlarged his dominions by seizing the territories of his neighbours. He had gone to war with a neighbouring prince, known as the Raja of Banghel, who was an ally of Portugal. He had dispossessed the Raja of his fort and territory, and defeated a Portuguese force which had been sent to restore the Raja to the throne of Banghel.

Interference of war with the

pepper trade.

In spite of this victory over the Portuguese forces, Venk-tapa Naik was anxious for peace with Portugal. His country produced much pepper, and the Portuguese were accustomed to buy it. Moreover, the Portuguese owed him a large balance for the pepper of the previous year. He was thus ready to form an alliance with the Viceroy of Goa, but he suspected that the Viceroy wanted him to restore the territory and fortress of Banghel, and he was resolved to do nothing of the kind. He sent a Brahman named Vitula Sinay to Goa, and this Brahman had carried on some negotiations with the Portuguese Viceroy, and was now returning to Kanara, accompanied by the Portuguese ambassador and Della Valle.

18 The legends of the Naiks of Madura furnish a fair specimen of the Hindu annals of these little Rajas. See Appendix II.

Strictly speaking, the old Rajas of Vellore were not Naiks, but representatives of the old family of Vijayanagar, and as such claimed to be suzerains over the whole Peninsula,

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