Roberto de Nobili (1577 – 16 January 1656) was an Italian priest, a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), who worked as a missionary in Southern India. He used novel methods to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not contrary to Christian principles, and he won papal approval for a policy of accommodation that allowed coverts to Christianity to continue to engage in Hindu practices deemed social practices rather than expressions of Hinduism.
Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany, in September 1577, Roberto De Nobili arrived at the ports of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay in western India on 20 May 1605. It is probable that he met here Fr Thomas Stephens, a Jesuit who had arrived in Goa in 1579, and was probably then in the process of composing his Khristapurana, an epic poem using Hindu literary forms to tell Christ's life story.[1]
Roberto de Nobili, "nicknamed the White Brahman", embodied the missionary fervor of Christianity in Portuguese India and its relations with the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.[2] His approach to evangelization began by focusing of areas where Hinduism and Christianity agreed.[3]
After a short stay in Cochin in Kerala, he took up residence in Madurai in Tamil Nadu in November 1606. He soon called himself a "teacher of wisdom" (தத்துவ போதகர்) and began to dress like a Sannyasi, someone who following Hindu custom practices a form of asceticism marked by disinterest in material life, wearing a white dhoti and wooden sandals. He adopted such local Indian customs as shaving one's head and keeping only a tiny tuft. He wore a three-stringed thread across the chest which he chose to believe a representation of the Holy Trinity. Claiming noble parentage, he approached high-caste people as an equal and eagerly engaged in dialogue with Hindu scholars about the truths of Christianity.
De Nobili mastered Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil languages and literature, with the help of his teacher, Shivadharma. Max Muller, a key figure in establishing the discipline of Orientalismes said of De Nobili: "I can only speak of him here as the First European Sanskrit scholar."[4] As De Nobili explained Christian doctrine in Tamil, he coined several words to communicate his message. He used the word "kovil" (கோவில்) for a place of worship, "arul" (அருள்) and "prasadam" (பிரசாதம்) for grace, "guru" (குரு) for priest or teacher, "Vedam" (வேதம்) for the Bible, "poosai" (பூசை) for Mass, and others. He composed Catechisms, explanatory works and philosophic discourses in Tamil and contributed to the development of modern Tamil prose writing.
The Portuguese missionaries who preceded him had found their converts among the lower classes, which had also earned them the scorn of the brahmins. De Nobili's methods implicitly criticized the Portuguese approach and were therefore very controversial with his fellow Jesuits and the Archbishop of Goa . Their dispute was settled by Pope Gregory XV, who issued the apostolic constitution Romanæ Sedis Antistes on 31 January 1623. The customs of the three-stringed thread, the tuft, the use of sandalwood paste on the forefront and baths were allowed, inasmuch as they did not imply any superstitious ritual. The Pope invited Indian neophytes (converts) to overcome their caste sensitivity and their contempt for pariahs.
Roberto de Nobili died in Mylapore near Chennai in Tamil Nadu on 16 January 1656 at the age of 79.
See main article: Ezourvedam. Some have identified Roberto de Nobili as the author of a spurious document that purported to be a French translation of an ancient Sanskrit scripture by the name of Ezourvedam. Max Mueller concluded that de Nobili was not its author.[5] Ludo Rocher published a detailed study of the Ezourvedam which shows that the author of this text must have been a French missionary and he proposed several names.[6] Urs App has offered evidence for Jean Calmette (1692–1740) as the author.[7]