The Translucence of the Missionary Translation in Seventeenth-Century South India: Cultural Filters, Translation Policies, Textual and Conceptual Grids

Abstract

This article investigates how religions are based on the process of translating religious concepts and practices, and how different translations have brought about different understandings and representations of religions in the past and may continue to do so in the present. Proceeding from the notion that the construction of religions is based on a constant process of translation, the focus of the analysis is on the translation process itself. I examine the translation of religious concepts and practices in the missionary context of South India in the sixteenth century, employing “cultural translation” as an analytical tool. In order to analyze the translation process, I apply a theoretical ‘tool kit’—a combination of theories from different translation studies, to a pivotal source, Roberto Nobili’s (1577–1656) Informatio. This Latin treaty was composed for the purpose of translating and accommodating the Tamil Sanskrit Brahmanism of South India so as to explain it to a Latin-speaking Roman audience.

Embedded, as they are, in a complex web of global connections, historical events and developments cannot be perceived as autochthonous because they do not result from intracultural factors alone.¹ Every historical context is a “contact zone”² where the cultural encounter takes place, where the encounter between multilingual / multicultural agents create a dynamic of ideas, doctrines, and meanings. In order to comprehend historical events, we should conceive of contact zones as “translation zones”,³ where the production of knowledge and the construction of cultures and religions is inextricably intertwined with the process of translating cultures and religions. In this contact zone, where differences must be negotiated and cultural boundaries crossed or established, religion plays a central role: it is a transfer of culture, a medium for conveying cultural, social, and political messages, it can be an instrument of communication, a means of circulating knowledge, or a symptom of cultural incommensurability and untranslatability. Although the term ‘religion’ bears strong Eurocentric and Christian etymological connotations, I use it as a theoretical concept, and I redefine the dominion of the concept of religion to encompass Christian and non-Christian phenomena. ‘Religion’ is meant in the following as a cultural representation defined by: 1. a theological or ideological datum (the dimension of the sacred word, of belief, of doctrine, of theological reflection), 2. a practical or ritual datum (the dimension of action), and 3. the social basis of beliefs and practices (as there is no individual religion).⁴

The process of translation is central to outlining religious concepts and traditions.⁵ Religion and translation are often defined in relation to a collective group pattern and to an ‘original’.⁶ But religions and translations are dynamic processes subject to constant redefinition. Within the mechanism of transferring and translating religious meanings, religions show their dynamism. From this perspective I view religion as the result of multiple translations and multiple identities, as a transcultural⁷ act. Transculturality reveals how every religion is internally hybrid, a conglomeration of different social groups and the successive realization of a number of possible identities, multiple attachments, and overlapping identities. It allows us to transcend the monolithic idea of cultural identity and embrace the discontinuity of religious tradition. Mauro Pesce, for example, describes the history of Christianity as a discontinuity, as the study of interruptions in tradition.⁸ It is important to investigate how history or religions are based on the process of translating religious concepts and practices and how different translations have determined different understandings and different representations of religions in the past and may continue to do so in the present. Whereas the connection between culture and translation has been studied in many works,⁹ religion in translation has hitherto received far less scholarly attention.¹⁰ My focus is on the translation of religious concepts and practices in the missionary context of South India in the sixteenth century, employing ‘cultural translation’ as an analytical tool.

8.1 The Elements of Cultural Translation: Structure, Actors, Policy, and Politics of Translation

Translation is a multidimensional, metalinguistic, and performative process that has also been referred to as ‘cultural translation’.¹¹ This term was originally coined by anthropologists in the circle of Edward Evans-Pritchard to describe what happens in cultural encounters when each side tries to make sense of the other’s actions: “Cultural translation is a double process of de-contextualization and re-contextualization, of appropriating something alien and then domesticating it.”¹² Indeed, the ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies helps us conceive of translation not in terms of faithfulness to an ‘original’ but as a dynamic equivalence, where the source is somehow still present but everything is constantly changing. As defined in Walter Benjamin’s famous metaphor,

Just as a tangent touches a circle lightly and at but one point, with this touch rather than with the point setting the law according to which it is to continue on its straight path to infinity, a translation touches the original lightly and only at the infinitely small point of the sense, thereupon pursuing its own course according to the laws of fidelity in the freedom of linguistic flux.¹³

As every translation is in and of itself a mode,¹⁴ a pseudo translation,¹⁵ or a translucence,¹⁶ my aim is to detect the elements within the translation process in which the translation is embedded (such as actors, policies, and politics). If the construction of religions / traditions is based on a constant process of translation; the focus of the analysis is on the process of translation itself.

In order to analyse the translation process, I apply a theoretical ‘tool kit’—a combination of theories from different translation studies—developed by Antje Flüchter and myself.¹⁷ On the level of linguistic / semantic analysis, my focus is on differentiating between textual and conceptual grids as theorized by André Lefevere (1945) for analysing the structure of a translation. In the translation, the textual / conceptual grid serves as a kind of text marker that exhibits a shared symbolic household in a literary context¹⁸. By analysing the textual grids, we can obtain information about the literary genres in which the translation is embedded. Conceptual grids are the concepts, messages, and contents that shape the translation. For Lefevere, these grids refer to a rather general and fundamental perspective, a kind of colonial or religious framing.¹⁹ We broaden this concept with the observation that translators translate not only in a special mental setting, but also refer to or choose specific topics and thus structure their readers’ understanding.

We moreover examine the textual / conceptual grids through the lens of formal or dynamic equivalences as developed by Eugene Nida (1914–2011).²⁰ This is necessary for analysing the different kinds of equivalences and avoiding references to any ‘original’ or ‘identity’. The translation oscillates between formal and dynamic equivalences as the two extremes of a range of possible translations, where dynamic equivalence is a translation focused on the message and directed towards the ‘receptor’s’ response, while formal equivalence is source-oriented.²¹ Whereas formal equivalence, in Nida’s view, focuses on the form and contents of the source and can be referred to as a “‘gloss’ translation”, “dynamic equivalence” seeks to ensure that “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message”.²² Thus whereas dynamic equivalence reveals the topics and characters of the target message, formal equivalence uncovers the form and content of the source message.

At this point we interpret the results of dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence through the lens of domestication / foreignization as defined by Lawrence Venuti²³ in order to unearth the political negotiation of meanings and we add Venuti’s theories to those of Nida and Lefevere. Venuti conceives of every translation as a political act aimed at domesticating or foreignizing cultural meanings from a source context to a target context. A foreignizing translation carries the characters of the foreign culture to the target culture and thus the translator codifies the means by which the alterity is characterized and ascribed in the target culture. Translation focuses not only on the foreign text, but also reflects the domestic values, beliefs, and representations of the target culture, which the translator adopts and inscribes in it²⁴. Analysing how the translation is foreignized or domesticated—that is, how the meanings and the characters of the source or target culture are translated and transferred—reveals important information about the function fulfilled by the translation and the embedded power structures which influenced the translation decisions.

Translation is also a practice, and it is practised for the purpose of translating cultural and religious practices. Anthony Giddens conceptualized the process of translation as something that is dis- and re-embedded through the performance and repetition of, for example, religious practice or rituals.²⁵ The translation process is performed by the repetitive act of de- and re-contextualizing words, phrases, and other entities. Understanding translation as a practice has many methodological advantages, as Maeve Olohan recently worked out for / in the field of translation studies.²⁶ The perspective on translation as a practice—an embodied and materially mediated social practice –highlights the relevance of routines and institutionalized structures within this context.

Every social context is a kind of fabric or grid defined by rules. Individuals are subject to rules—that is, the strategies created by the power hegemonies for ruling and governing the masses. The agents, however, are not just passive consumers, but create tactics for operating and applying the strategies in their everyday practice. Michel De Certeau links “strategies” with institutions and power structures, which are the “producers”, while individuals are “consumers” acting in environments defined by strategies by using “tactics”.²⁷ A city, for example, is shaped by roads (the strategies created by the institutions). The individuals, however, can use shortcuts, for example, or in general move in ways that are tactical in nature and never fully determined by the plans of the strategic grid of the streets. Everyday life, by analogy, plays out in ways that are influenced, but never wholly determined, by the rules of cultures and societies.

Like every practice, the practice of translation is entwined in a fabric characterized by different elements: structure, actors, and factors. The structure of the translation practice is constituted by the setting in which the translation takes place: the literary genre, geographical and architectural environment, and social and political context. The first actor of the translation is the translator, followed by the primary and the secondary addressers and the power hierarchies reflected by the translation process. Translation is not a neutral act but a negotiation of meanings, structures, messages, and values between the poles of assimilation and subversion. In the translation process, some concepts / meanings resist the process of assimilation by means of a kind of untranslatability or subversion. Some concepts are only transliterated or left untranslated altogether. The negotiation and selection of the concepts to be translated, domesticated, or left untranslated are epistemological and political acts by the power agencies involved. In fact, the selection process establishes which characters and values will be part of the translation and thus of the respective religions / cultures. Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler describe how translation plays both a political and epistemological role and how the act of translation itself is involved in the production of knowledge. They also point out the importance of translation as a force for innovation and the role of translators in changing power discourses.²⁸ The process of translation is therefore highly influenced by the politics of translation and the power hierarchies involved.

What is more, the policies of translation—“those factors that govern the choice of text types; or even of individual texts, to be imported through translation into a particular culture / language at a particular point in time”—cooperate in the translation process.²⁹ The policies of translation are part of the structure of the translation, or, more specifically, of the socio-cultural, economical, religious, and linguistic rules and principles governing it, and generate the norms which regulate the translation.

As theorized by Giddens and Bourdieu, there is a biunivocal interdependent relationship between the structure (the society) and the actors (the individual).³⁰ Whereas the actions of people (actors) create the structure (the social context), their agency is only meaningful within a given social structure. Actors, while bounded in structure, draw upon their knowledge of that structural context when they act. However, actions are constrained by actors. The practices precede the action and the action produces, reproduces, and sometimes modifies the practices³¹. In this model, the actor is not the old independent subject, but a “social intersubjective actor”.³² Practices thus precedes actions, frame them, and are socially and culturally contingent. But they are also driven by the actor’s intention.³³ The translation is moreover shaped by the functions it fulfils: is it a means of communications? of becoming acquainted with other cultures? of spreading knowledge? of dominating another culture?³⁴

When I apply the theories of cultural translation³⁵ to the missionary translation, the translation appears translucent and reveals its constituent elements: its actors, factors, and structure. Through the translucence of the missionary translation, I can grasp historical details and uncover part of the historical scenario.

8.2 Informatio de quibusdam moribus nationis Indicae (1613): The Practice of Translation as a Missionary Strategy

My case study investigates the historical scenario of a Jesuit missionary in South India³⁶ based on the analysis of the translation practice of the Italian Jesuit missionary Roberto Nobili (1577–1656).³⁷ Nobili arrived in Madurai (today Tamil Nadu) on 15 November 1606. There he encountered the Jesuit Gonçalo Fernandes, formerly a Portuguese soldier, who was already operating as a missionary in Madurai. Supported by his Jesuit superiors in India, among them Francisco Ros, archbishop of Cranganore, and Alberto Laerzio,³⁸ the Jesuit superior of Malabar Province, Nobili developed his missionary strategy for the evangelization of Tamil people in the Madurai mission: he dissociated himself from Fernandes (whom locals considered a Prangui,³⁹ or foreigner, and excluded from the local social hierarchy) and started dressing in the clothes of a Saṃnyāsa (a Hindu ascetic), following a vegetarian diet, learning the Tamil and Sanskrit languages, and studying Tamil and Sanskrit literature. Nobili believed that only by translating and accommodating himself to a local missionary model could he establish a dialogue with the local people. He therefore translated and domesticated Catholic practice and concepts into the grids of Hindu Tamil Brahmanism (the cultural and religious elite), and the image and the role of a Jesuit missionary into a Hindu Saṃnyāsa. The missionary method adopted by Nobili, defined as accommodation,⁴⁰ is based on the twofold cultural translation of theology, literature, and social and religious practices. In the role of a cultural broker, Nobili translated Catholic doctrine into the Tamil language and practices for the Tamil target group of the Madurai mission: he translated his missionary character, the Catholic theology, rituals, prayers, and books⁴¹. The process of translation and accommodation created a transcultural missionary model.

As a transcultural actor in a Catholic Tamil context, Nobili shaped his actions around the local social practices, and in doing so participated in structuring a transcultural community.⁴² His letters and his writings in Tamil report on and testify to this cultural translation.⁴³

Conversely, Nobili translated the Tamil social context for the Catholic prelates in India and Rome. He translated and domesticated the social Tamil characters into the Roman Latin Catholic grids to make them accessible to the Latin Roman audience and adapt them to the orthodoxy of Catholicism. In his Latin trilogy, the Responsio (1610),⁴⁴ Informatio (1613),⁴⁵ and Narratio (1619),⁴⁶ he translated and described the elements—the social groups and power hierarchies—of the Tamil society.

I already analysed Nobili’s translation of the Catholic doctrine for the Tamil context in other papers⁴⁷, now I focus on a main Latin source, the Informatio,⁴⁸ which Nobili wrote after five years of missionary life in South India in support and explanation of his missionary method⁴⁹ vis-à-vis the prelates of the Roman church in India. In this work, he accurately translated the practices, social groups, and social hierarchy of the Brahmanic context, reshaped and recodified the Tamil social characters for the Catholic orthodoxy, carried out a cultural translation, and created dynamic equivalences transferring the practices and meanings of the Tamil social context into the grids of the Latin, Catholic context.

8.3 The Translucence of the Informatio Through the Lens of the Analytical Tool Kit Provided by Cultural Translation

I applied my analytical tools to the Informatio, starting with Lefevere’s theories of textual and conceptual grids. With these tools I determined the elements of Nobili’s cultural translation: seen through the lens of textual grids, the Informatio exhibits a structure characteristic of a Latin literary genre: the skeleton of the translation corresponds to that of a Latin medieval epistle. The examination of the conceptual grids reveals a transcultural semantic fabric interweaving Hindu-Tamil with Latin-Catholic concepts and practices.

In the Informatio, the textual grids exhibit the literary structure of the medieval epistolary dictamen: a quadripartite format, divided into salutatio, exordium, narratio, and conclusio. This style was used by the Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola and adopted by the Society of Jesus as a model for the letters from the missions.⁵⁰ The Informatio opens with the salutatio, in which the author addresses his audience, formally the General of the Order, Claudio Acquaviva (“Ad Reverendum Patrem nostrum Praepositum Generalem”), and generally the prelates of the Church of India, as well as all his interlocutors who are interested in learning about Indian culture and the “nature of truth”.⁵¹ Then the work proceeds with the captatio benevolentiae, in which Nobili addresses his opponents directly, describing them as men of intellect and good faith, but mistaken in their judgments owing to misunderstandings the Informatio tries to correct.⁵² Then follows the exordium, in which he states the purposes of the Informatio: the description of the practices and customs of India on the basis of an investigation, carried out in three years of assiduous study, of “the nature of truth with a sincere soul”.⁵³ The main section is a long narratio (eleven chapters) devoted entirely to the description of the social groups of Madurai society with a focus on the specific character of the cultural / religious elite group, the Brahmans (Sanskrit brāhmaṇa).⁵⁴

The argumentative structure of the work adheres to the style of classical rhetoric characteristic of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum (the programme of studies, texts, and authors drawn on in the instruction at the Jesuit colleges).⁵⁵ The author is also obviously trained in the philological criteria of the critical and comparative analysis of sources, as he quotes authors and sources from Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Tamil literature to provide evidence of the veracity of the Hindu arguments. What is more, the book ends with a summary of the work in Tamil signed by 108 Brahmans.⁵⁶

The narrative development of the book is the translation and explanation of the four social classes (varṇa) of the Brahmanic social hierarchy: the Brāhmaṇa (Brahmans), Kṣatriya (Ksatriya), Vaiśya (Vaisya), and Śūdra (Shudra). The main section is devoted entirely to the top of the pyramid, the Brahmans, and to the translation of the main conceptual grids of Brahmanism:⁵⁷ the concepts of jñā na (knowledge), Brahmā (God), dharma (norms), kárman (actions), Veda (sacred scripture), and Trimurti (three Gods).⁵⁸

Taking the division of the society into four classes (varṇa) as its point of departure, Nobili’s cultural translation domesticated the cultural and religious aspects of the Tamil society into the grids of Latin Catholicism: “Indian society is first divided into four grades of civil functions to which there corresponds a similar gradation in nobility.”⁵⁹ The origin of the four classes is narrated in the famous hymn of Ṛg Veda 10, 90 (one of the books of the Veda, the fundamental corpus of Hindu religious books), where the four classes originate in the dismemberment of the cosmic being Puruṣa:

11. When they divided Purusa how many portions did they make? What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet? 12. The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made. His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced. 13. The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth; Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vayu from his breath.⁶⁰

In the Mānavadharmaśāstra⁶¹ I, 31 (traditionally the most authoritative book of Dharma-shastra, the ‘book of law’ of Brahmanic tradition), this cosmogony is reported in a different version in which the members of the four varṇa are emitted from the different parts of the body of Brahmā (God), who was born in turn from the golden embryo in which the ‘existing in itself’ (Sanskrit Svayaṃbhū) is manifested to initiate creation: “31. For the growth of these worlds, moreover, he produced from his mouth, arms, thighs, and feet, the Brahmin, the Ksatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra.”⁶²

Nobili reported and translated this passage of Mānavadharmaśāstra: “That is, with the intention to be useful for the collectivity which he created, (God) attributed diverse occupations to diverse castes so that some should be like the head, some the shoulders, some the thigh, some the feet.”⁶³ Nobili applied to the Hindu cosmogony the allegory promoted by the Apostle Paul:

18. But in fact, God has arranged the members of the body, every one of them, according to His design. 19. If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20. As it is, there are many parts, but one body […] 27. Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it. 28. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues (1 Corinthians 12:12–28).

The missionary understood the cosmogony, as reported in the Mānavadharmaśāstra, as a kind of Catholic allegory: just as God created one body with different parts, he also assigned different professions (officia) to the various lineages of the same community. The Mānavadharmaśāstra (I, 21), however, is a foundational creative act: the supreme being (Brahmā) is a kind of demiurge who creates all that exists from his body parts in accordance with a pre-existing sacred revelation (Veda): “In the beginning through the words of the Veda alone, he fashioned for all of them specific names and activities, as also specific conditions.”⁶⁴

An analysis of the textual / conceptual grids of the Informatio reveals some of the tactics⁶⁵ applied by Nobili in his translation. He transferred the elements of Brahmanism into the structure of a Latin medieval epistle, preserving the civil aspects of Brahmanic society and veiling the religious contents. Indeed, he domesticated Hindu religious conceptual grids into the Christian revelation.

8.3.1 The Tactics of the Cultural Translation of the Brahmanic Social Hierarchy

The first class is that of the Brahmans, which are defined by Nobili as “wise” in reference to an etymology of the term Bṛhmate, which Nobili links with the Sanskrit root “bṛh”, meaning ‘wisdom’⁶⁶: “The first class is that of wise people, these are called Brahmans, from the word Bṛhmate which means to know”⁶⁷ In the description of the Brahmans as scholars, the author does not consider the mythical origin of the figure of the Brahmans as guardians of the Veda (vacaḥ, the sacred word), generated by the sacrifice of the Puruṣa by emanation, as described in the cosmogony of the Ṛg Veda 10, 90.⁶⁸

Having originated from the noblest part of Brahmā, the Brahman alone possesses the knowledge of the Veda, and since everything has been established on the basis of the Veda, only the Brahmans have the necessary authority to create every kind of norm / law (dharma). It is specified in the Mānavadharmaśāstra (I, 98–99): “A Brahman’s birth alone represents the everlasting physical frame of the Law; for, born on account of the Law, he is fit for becoming Brahman.”⁶⁹ The Brahman represents the embodiment of the norm itself (dharmārtham) and only he has the ability to distinguish what is moral or ethical. The sphere of law is the sphere of dharma, a universal law, the norm, which holds and supports the cosmic order: “To establish distinctions among activities, moreover, he distinguished the Right (dharma) from the Wrong (adharma) and afflicted these creatures with the pairs of opposites such as pleasure and pain” (Mānavadharmaśāstra I, 26).⁷⁰

Nobili played with the thin line between ‘civil’ and ‘religious’, in that he translated and underlined the civil and cultural aspects of Brahmanism, eulogizing the Brahmans’ intellectual knowledge and cultural supremacy. In this description, the author completely veils every religious connotation of the Brahmanic institution. Likewise to achieve conformity to the Catholic orthodoxy, he implemented his translation with the Christian revelation. In the Informatio, the Brahmans are the learned class of the society, the missionary’s aim is to teach them the Catholic doctrine in order to develop their knowledge.

The Brahmans elaborated a cultural system and aimed to guarantee the dominance of their class at the top of the social hierarchy. The Roman Church tried to identify and homogenize the cultural system under the narratives of its own orthodoxy. Nobili therefore retained the privileges and the characters of Brahmanism and adapted them to the master narratives of Catholic orthodoxy.

This is evident in the domestication of the conceptual grids: dharma with officium. Nobili established a dynamic equivalence of the conceptual grid of dharma with officium, selecting and transferring only the civil / cultural meanings of this concept. He differentiated between the classes concerning the varṇadharma (from the Mānavadharmaśāstra) and translated their different levels of nobility and their official—professions or roles in society—into Latin as “variarum stirpium officium”.⁷¹ In the varṇadharma, however, dharma is precisely what regulates the characters and the roles of the classes and, as I previously explained, this is the religious law, the eternal norm.

The same process of domestication permeates the translation of the other groups of the society. The second class, the Ksatriya (Sanskrit kṣatriya) is described as “that of kings or chiefs, and of royal families. They have to pursue, as primary occupations, the government of the state and the conduct of war and arms; they are called Rajas or Ksatriyas, a name derived from Kṣatāt trāyante which means people free from fear.”⁷² In support of his description, Nobili again quotes the Mānavadharmaśāstra (VII, 88): ”That is, not to flee in battle, to protect people, to mind the words of the wise, in these three (duties) lie crystallized the Rajas’ activity, good and excellence.”⁷³ The chapter quoted by the author ends with a reference to the ‘eternal law’ (Mānavadharmaśāstra VII, 98) which is not reported by Nobili: “98. I have set forth above the eternal law of warriors without elaboration. A Ksatriya must never deviate from this Law, as he kills his enemies in battle.”⁷⁴

The Vaisya (Vaiśya in Sanskrit) constitute the third social order, they are free-born merchants dedicated to commercial activity, which is an honourable occupation and useful for the prosperity of the society. Nobili quoted the Mānavadharmaśāstra IX, 329–330: “That is: to know, deal out, appraise prices and values of precious stones, large gems, red coral-ware, metals, dyed clothing, perfumes and dainties all this pertains to the function of this class.”⁷⁵ Again passages of the Mānavadharmaśāstra are omitted, in this case IX, 326–327, which address the religious consecration of the Vaiśya:

326. After undergoing initiatory consecration and getting married, a Vaisya should devote himself constantly to trade and to look after farm animals; 327. for, after creating them, Prajpati handed over to the Vaisya the farm animals, and to the Brahmin and the king, all creatures.⁷⁶

The author draws the description of this class from the etymology of the word viśhati which suggests the meaning ‘to enter’ (to advance), referring to the acquisition of goods and wealth: “The third class is that of the free-born merchants, who acquire wealth by dealing in apparel, gems, and other articles of the same quality.”⁷⁷ The lowest rank of the society is represented by the Shudra caste (Sanskrit Śūdra), who perform jobs considered servile: “The fourth class consists of those who are called Shudras, who are employed in such works considered as servile”.⁷⁸ Nobili derived the meaning of the term Shudra from the Sanskrit word śocati (to be depressed or to work under stress), meaning those who hold a position lacking civil dignity. Shudra constitutes the lineage of servants, whose role in society, as stated by the Mānavadharmaśāstra (I, 91), would be to serve the aforementioned classes without resentment. The passage of Mānavadharmaśāstra (I, 91), is quoted and translated into Latin in the Informatio: “That is: the Shudras or Plebeians have one single task, they are ungrudgingly at the service and convenience of the higher classes enumerated above”⁷⁹. In this case Nobili ignored the section of the Mānavadharmaśāstra (IX, 334–335) dedicated specifically to the prescriptions for the Shudra, as the norm (dharma) assumes strong religious meanings, is based on the authority of the Veda, and promises a ‘higher birth’:

334. For the Shudra, on the other hand, the highest Law leading to bliss is simply to render obedient service to distinguished Brahmin householders who are learned in the Veda. 335. When he keeps himself pure, obediently serves the highest class, is soft-spoken and humble, and always takes refuge in Brahmins, he obtains a higher birth⁸⁰.

Everything is regulated by the dharma, the universal law, but for each social rank the author highlights the specific conceptual grid of the officium that characterizes and distinguishes the classes.

8.3.2 The Process of Domesticating the Brahmanic Conceptual Grids

The domestication of the whole system of Brahmans is based on the translation of the conceptual grid of jñāna, which Nobili translated into Latin as sapientia, wisdom, as a perfecta ratio, intellectual capacity.⁸¹ The finis of the activity of every Brahman, described by Nobili, is a ‘secular’ jñāna, pursued by way of rational investigation. By virtue of their wisdom the Brahmans are jñānangal, sapientes, and have the necessary skills to create and control an apparatus of norms valid for the society, devoid of any religious connotation. They are said to be the holders of the civil code of law, the dharmaśāstra, which Nobili translates into Latin as ius gentium (civil law).⁸²

He thus translates the term jñāna as the total sum of the distinctive attributes of the Brahman and refers neither to any universal or cosmogonic law nor to the Hindu principle of karma.⁸³ Nobili argues that the path to wisdom is a path guided by the light of the recta ratio and addressing the “true God” (“Deum verum contemplantur”).⁸⁴ Jñāna, which connotes the summa of the Brahmanic sciences, is a virtue of the rational mind and aims to know the one and only God (“Deum unum atque unicum”):

Furthermore, the word jnana, which is the appropriate word for wisdom and which is said to designate the sum total of the distinctive tasks of the brahmin, does not include any law or knowledge of the false gods of this country (by “knowledge” we mean the specific sense). It means wisdom which consists in the knowledge of the sciences or, rather, expresses the knowledge pursued through the light of the nature of all things, and particularly of the one and only God. On the contrary, the science of laws is distinguished from jnana, and is denoted by the term karmam.⁸⁵

The author domesticated the conceptual grid of jñāna into the Thomistic grid of ‘knowledge’:⁸⁶ human, rational knowledge, necessary but incomplete. Only by way of the lumen fidei, the evangelical message the missionary himself announces, can the disciple attain complete union with God. This concept, which betrays clear Thomist derivation, is in fact explained through the direct quotation of passages I–II.3 and II–II of the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas:

I do not see how this definition differs from our Christian authors, e.g., St. Thomas in Summa Theologiae I–II.3 and II–II.180, and other theologians, who define the happiness of the perfect sage. In fact, they do not argue that the perfection and happiness of man in this life—where man is in a state of imperfect understanding—mainly and, as I have already said, essentially consists in the contemplation of God, while secondarily and through a preparation consists in practicing in the speculative sciences, together with the use of an intellectual practice and the practice of the moral virtues.⁸⁷

Jñāna in this work is therefore clearly purified of any religious, spiritual, or metaphysical attribute belonging to the Hindu Vedic tradition.⁸⁸ According to the Vedic revelation, jñāna is true knowledge, the realization and identification with the Brahmā. For the Vedanta school (one of the six systems of Indian philosophy),⁸⁹ jñāna (absolute reality) leads the Brahman to successive stages of knowledge: the first step is acquiring moral virtues by practising self-control, then the student obtains knowledge by learning, and to complete the process the Brahman scholar must master his practice to attain contemplative union with the Brahmā. Nobili describes the different levels of the process of coming to know God, revealing his knowledge of Vedanta philosophy. In verse I.97 of the Mānavadharmaśāstra it is written: “Among Brahmins, the learned are the best; among the learned, those who have made the resolve; among those who have made the resolve, the doers; and among doers, the Vedic savants”⁹⁰ which Nobili translates as:

That is: among the brahmans those who are reputed to excel and to be perfect are those who are truly wise and competent in the field of science, among the scientists, those who, to other intellectual achievements, add a thorough knowledge of ways of acting with righteousness or prudence, among these, for example, who actually behave virtuously, finally, those who are dedicated to the contemplation of the true God are perfect.⁹¹

In this case, the translation is based on the domestication of the Brahmā as the ‘true God’, as described in the first chapter of the Mānavadharmaśāstra (I, 5–9):

There was this world—pitch-dark, indiscernible, without distinguishing marks, unthinkable, incomprehensible, in a kind of deep sleep all over. Then the Self-existent Lord appeared—the Unmanifest manifesting this world beginning with the elements, projecting his might, and dispelling the darkness. That One—who is beyond the range of senses; who cannot be grasped; who is subtle, unmanifest, and eternal; who contains all beings; and who transcends thought—it is he who shone forth on his own. As he focused his thought with the desire of bringing forth diverse creatures from his own body, it was the waters that he first brought forth; and into them he poured forth his semen. That became a golden egg, as bright as the sun; and in it he himself took birth as Brahmā, the grandfather of all the worlds.⁹²

In the Informatio the resulting description is: “The word Brahma with the short final syllable does not signify any limited and false God, but God in the most comprehensive sense and it denotes the true unique and immaterial God who can be known by the light of natural reason”.⁹³

Here the word ‘brahma’ is used in the neutral form to indicate God the creator, the personification of the divine creative power. With the formula “Deus unus atque unicus”,⁹⁴ Nobili evokes the divine grasped by the human intellect in its full faculties, the God to which jñāna, rational human knowledge, tends. This is the God of the Christian revelation. Nobili thus domesticates another pillar of Brahmanism, the conceptual grid of God (Sanskrit Brahmā), into the Christian concept.

In the process of domestication, Nobili presents the Catholic doctrine as a refinement, as the perfection and conclusion of the Brahman’s knowledge, the last level of knowledge attainable only by the lumen fidei and the Christian revelation. The Brahmanic science, however high, remained relegated to the scientific-rational level, to the recta ratio; only by way of the Christian revelation could anyone reach the union with divinity (the biblical God, the creator).

Nobili addresses his teaching of Catholic doctrine and Christian revelation to a special group of Brahmans he referred to as “Gnanis” (Sanskrit Jñāni). He distinguished the Jñāni, which he considered a monotheistic and spiritual group, from other sects considered atheists and idolaters. He described idolaters as too corrupt and decadent to officiate sacrifices and deal with the ‘laws of the gods’ (karma): “On the contrary, the science of laws is distinguished from jnana, and is denoted by the term ‘karmam’”.⁹⁵ The translation of the conceptual grid of karma is a formal equivalence, and thus radically foreignized into Brahmanic religiosity. In this way karma, translated as ‘the science of laws’ is considered the science of idolaters, the degeneration and disorientation of a particular group of Brahmans. It is against this sect that Nobili hurls the harshest criticisms.

Nobili addressed his preaching to the group of the Jñāni, whom he defined as wise Brahmans, the experts on Vedanta. Nobili presents Vedanta philosophy as the culminating point (finis) of a scientific investigation. It is known that the term Vedanta (understood as Vedanta philosophy), which should be translated ‘finis Vedae’, rather represents the culminating point of Vedic exegesis, and the Vedas, as the source of sacred authority, is the end of Vedanta philosophical research.⁹⁶ Here Nobili concealed the Vedic revelation on which the Vedanta school is based: “Their theology is called Vedanta, which means the end of the science.”⁹⁷ Nobili instead classifies the Vedas as the texts of the law of the Māyāvādīs,⁹⁸ the idolaters:

I have omitted to provide a precise numbering of the sections and topics of these collections of laws, because they will hardly serve my purpose and because the contents lack order and definition. Moreover, since they deal with almost everything possible, they are little more than a messy jumble of various opinions that deal partly with topics on divinity, partly on human beings, a mixture where civil and religious precepts are mixed together.⁹⁹

With these words he dismisses the study of Veda, the fundamental texts of ancient Brahmanism, but he domesticated some other books of Hindu literature into the Catholic grids. For example, he quotes some passages from the Āraṇyaka¹⁰⁰ (Sanskrit Hindu religious books) in which Brahmā is described as “good by his very nature” (“ritam tva bhagah”), “infinite understanding” (“jnanam anantam brahma”), and “spiritual form” (“akasha shariram brahma”), and assimilates these attributes into the God of Christian theology.¹⁰¹

Nobili’s process of domestication is completed. He retained the structure of Brahmanism but filled it with Catholic contents; he theorized the God (Brahmă) of the Brahmans as the ultimate truth while at the same time explaining how this term would represent the Christian God, hitherto never attained by Brahmans:

You are God (note that the term brahma with the short final syllable is the most commonly used name for God; and it is different from brahma with the long syllable, which indicates one of the three false gods I mentioned earlier. In this text, on the contrary, the term used is always brahma with a short final syllable, because it refers to God in a true and absolute sense).¹⁰²

For example, he underscored the reference to the Holy Trinity (Sanctissima Trinitatis) in the Sanskrit literature (Taittirīya Upaniṣad II), showing that Catholic theology is contained in some of Brahmanic literature and philosophy but never understood by Brahmans:

But, what is even more surprising, I also discovered in these texts an allusion to the hidden mystery of the Holy Trinity, the most merciful and exalted God who undoubtedly granted even on these distant lands some hints to the innermost secrets of our faith through the teaching Of some sage living among these people, in the same way that a mysterious inspiration has enlightened the Sybils, Trismagistus, and certain other masters of human wisdom in our part of the globe.¹⁰³

Nobili finds in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad II¹⁰⁴ the allusion to the “hidden mystery of the sacred trinity”; the text reads as follows:

That is: The true person is within his spirit nature; in him is one who is equally spirit, existing through an act of the will; he who exists through the mouth (i.e. the word) and is held close to the breast of this person (i.e. as a son), this person is at the same time Lord and cause of things.¹⁰⁵

The missionary’s role is necessary to correct the deviance of idolaters from true precepts, dissuade them from observing the rules that go by the name of karman (scientia legum), improving and developing the knowledge of Brahmans (Jñāni), and teaching them the new message of the Christian revelation.

8.4 Conclusions

This analysis helps us gain an understanding of the elements of the translation process (actors, factors, policies, and politics), and thus insights into the historical scenario of the Madurai mission: the social structure, actors, and characters addressed by the Informatio. In fact, by way of this analysis we can state that the translation is characterized by a collection of dynamic equivalences, which means that the translation centres on the target context, and thus predominantly reveals the characters and elements of that context. As we have seen, the Informatio formally addresses the General Father of the Society of Jesus and explicitly the Catholic Church of India. As the author explains, it also targets all the men concerned about the ‘salvation of the soul’, the Latin audience in general, and the curia in Rome. The analysis of the textual grids reveals that the book adheres to the medieval epistolary pattern. Nobili thus reclaims the Jesuit tradition, in which the reports were written for publication and a large audience. Furthermore, as the textual grids shows, it contains a summary in Tamil addressing the Brahmans of the Madurai mission. The target, or social structure, of the translation therefore involved the following actors: the General Curia of the Society of Jesus, the Church of India, the prelates of the Latin church, the Latin audience in general, and the Brahmans of Madurai.

The collection of textual and conceptual grids displays the translation policies (social, linguistic, economic, and geographic rules). The textual grids shed light on the literary patterns characterizing the translation: the Jesuit epistolary model and Latin medieval dictamen. The translation process is based on an erudite register. The Informatio is written deliberately for an erudite and intellectual audience (unlike the demotic style of Ñāna Upadēsam¹⁰⁶). There are numerous quotations of classical Latin and Greek authors (Seneca, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cicero) and many references to Thomistic theology, as well as passages from the Gospel (mostly from the epistles of Paul). The Informatio reflects the cultural background of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: scholastic theology, rhetoric, dialectic argumentation, accommodation. There are numerous quotations from Sanskrit literature (mainly founding texts of Brahmanism such as the Mānavadharmaśāstra and the Āpastamba dharmasūtra) but also the Vedas, Āraṇyka, Upaniṣad, Purāṇa, and Tamil literature (Civañāna Cittiyar). In particular, many conceptual grids refer to three different Hindu philosophical systems (the Śaiva, Vedanta, and Nyāya).¹⁰⁷ With the aid of the conceptual grids, we focused on the thematic elements of the argumentation: the social structure of the Madurai context, Brahmanism as a cultural elite, and the overlap of Christian revelation and Brahmanic science.

This in turn reveals the tactics (De Certeau) of the translation: to translate the cultural values of Brahmanism, covering all its religious aspects. The Informatio moreover takes into account some of the epistolary themes prescribed by Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Society of Jesus):¹⁰⁸ the collection of information about the local context for the foreign audience, proselytism, and ministry. The Informatio is indeed a narrative ethnographic description; it reports the elements and practices of Brahmanic society translated for the Latin audience. From another perspective, the Informatio is an explanation of the missionary strategy aimed at evangelization and proselytism.

With my analysis I expose the influence of the main actor of the translation: the spiritual aspirations of the missionary / translator. Each missionary experience is marked by the complex personality of the respective missionary, their individual biography, emotional life, and personal attitudes as well as missionary styles, religious devotion, and fervour: missionaries were intellectuals, soldiers, politicians, merchants, scientists, doctors, artists, et cetera. Furthermore, they pursued self-cultivation for the purpose of spiritual development after the manner of the Imitatio Christi, which aspires towards a glorious martyrdom and the salvation of the soul. In this context Roberto Nobili presents himself as a Roman scholar: he displays his cultural background in Latin studies at the Jesuit college and addresses his work to the intellectuals of the Catholic church and the Tamil context. He also performs the role of the missionary apostle between ‘gentiles’ as described by the Pauline epistolary.

Interpreting the analysis results through the lens of ‘domestication / foreignization’ provides a perspective on how the translation process is influenced by the politics of translation—the political negotiation of concepts and meanings and—how every translation deals with the tension between embedded political asymmetries.¹⁰⁹ The Informatio is deeply characterized by the negotiation of concepts and practices between the Catholic power hierarchies (the Jesuits, the Church of India, and the curia in Rome) and the cultural elites of the Tamil community. The translator invests his efforts in the negotiation between the Jesuits’ textual and cultural grids (epistolary patterns, theology, missionary method of accommodation to the local context, and the establishment of a dialogue with the local cultural elite), the political dynamics of the Catholic Church (the governance of a faraway land, the narratives of orthodoxy, and the cultural / ethnographical interests of the curia in Rome), and the political / cultural power of Brahmanism (the retention of religious power, knowledge, and literature).

Located at a great geographical distance from Rome and the local Church in Goa, to which they were connected only by difficult epistolary communication, the Jesuit missions in South India were highly autonomous and independent. At the core of the Jesuit missionary work, however, there was the ratio studiorum, the metodus, a strategy of accommodation as a competence for adapting oneself to the local context. At the same time, the missionary approach reflects the tendency of Christianity to centre on the uniqueness, exclusivity, and superiority of the religion, as well as the Roman liturgy, concepts, and practices. Yet evangelization cannot be conceived of merely as a top-down process, but rather as a negotiation¹¹⁰ of practices and beliefs that involves all the actors in the process of translating and conveying the reciprocal cultural codes and meanings. The local agencies take part in the process of translation. As we have seen, the translation preserves the Brahmanic system in the attempt to attain the favour of and inclusion in the local power hierarchies.

This structure reveals crucial information about the Catholic Church of India, which is characterized by the Latin ethos (language, literature, theology) and deeply involved in the questions of orthodoxy. The translation shows the linguistic distance between the Madurai Tamil and the Sanskrit context on the one hand, and the Catholic Church in Goa and in Rome as a Latin audience on the other. The analysis exposes some features of the Roman Church in the post-Tridentine period: the translation focused on Catholic orthodoxy, on the necessity of conveying the Catholic dogma and maintaining conformity to it. Yet the translation also manifests the symptoms of the distance and the difficult communication between the Church and the missions. It is interesting to trace the discrepancies between the Tridentine conciliar decrees for the homogenization and capillary organization of the church and the needs and transcultural features of the missionary context—Madurai, for example –as described by Nobili in the Informatio.

In the comparison of two of Nobili’s translations—the Informatio, an early product of his writings, and the Ñāna Upadēsam (‘The Teaching of [Religious] Knowledge’), his Tamil compendium for teaching Catholic doctrine¹¹¹—, it is interesting to note the progress of the translation strategy. The Ñāna Upadēsam, which was written at the end of his missionary life, is directed towards a vast and stratified audience and is not just a book for intellectuals, theologians, and Brahmans as is the Informatio. The Ñāna Upadēsam addresses the different groups of Madurai society (intellectuals, religious experts, fishermen, farmers, warriors, and kings). We can thus assume that, at the beginning of his missionary life, Nobili (and accordingly his writings) was (were) strictly connected with the Latin and Jesuit context: he adopted Latin narratives and literary genres, adhered to the Jesuit method of evangelization targeting the cultural elite of the society, and was compelled to address himself to questions of orthodoxy. Madurai, however, was not a Brahman-centred society (like, for example, the main sites in central and north India), but a Nāyaka kingdom. Nāyaka kings were warriors, cultivators, and affiliated with merchant groups. In his late writings such as the Ñāna Upadēsam, Nobili therefore tried to connect and domesticate his teaching to the fluidity and the existential modes demanded by the ethos of the Madurai Nāyakas. We can thus conceive of the translation of Brahmanism and the social hierarchies of Madurai as the translucence of Brahmanism and the transcultural context of Madurai.