Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
These orders contained, That no toleration should be granted for the superstition of the infidels in the isle of Goa, nor in that of Salseta; that they should break in pieces all the pagods which were there, and make search, in the houses of the Gentiles, for concealed idols, and whosoever used or made them should be punished according to the quality of his crime; that as many of the Brachmans as were found to oppose the publication of the gospel, should be banished; that out of a yearly rent of three thousand crowns, charged on a mosque at Bazain, a subsistence should be made for the poor, newly converted from idolatry; that hereafter no public employment should be given to Pagans; that no exaction should remain unpunished; that no slaves should henceforth be sold, either to Mahometans or Gentiles; that the pearl fishing should only be in the hands of Christians, and that nothing should be taken from them, without paying them the due value; that the king of Cochin should not be suffered to despoil or oppress the baptized Indians; and, last of all, that if Sosa had not already revenged the murder of the Christians in Manar, who were massacred by the king of Jafanatapan's command, Castro, who succeeded in his place, should not fail to see it done.
We are not to wonder, after this, that the Brachmans cannot endure the Christian law; and that they make use of all their credit and their cunning to destroy it in the Indies.
This good commeth thereof, that many being alwayes about the Iudge to heare the euidence, and beare witnesse, the processe cannot be falsified, as it happeneth sometimes with vs. The Moores, Gentiles, and Iewes haue all their sundry othes, the Moores do sweare by their Mossafos, the Brachmans by their Fili, the rest likewise by the things they do worship.
There it was also, that to the end the compass of the plain might serve in the nature of a church, he sometimes celebrated the divine mysteries under the sails of ships, which were spread above the altar, to be seen on every side. The Brachmans could not suffer the worship of the pagods to be abandoned in this manner; but were resolved to be revenged on the author of so strange an alteration.
Their obstinacy, however, was of no long continuance; and that Omnipotence, which had pre-ordained Xavier to the conversion of idolaters, would not that his first labours should be unsuccessful. A woman of the village had been three days in the pains of childbirth, and had endured great torments, without being eased, either by the prayers of the Brachmans, or any natural remedies.
The Brachmans, who had never heard any thing of Christianity before, and had been listening to the father with great admiration, rose up, as soon as he had done speaking, and ran to embrace him, acknowledging, that the God of the Christians was the true God, since his law was so conformable to the principles of our inward light.
The public worship of the pagods was tolerated at Goa, and the sect of the Brachmans daily increased in power; because those Pagan priests had bribed the Portuguese officers. The people professed heathenism freely, provided they made exact payments of their tribute, as if they had been conquered only for the sake of gain.
The British Druids, like the Indian Gymnosophists, or the Persian Magi, had two sets of doctrines; the first for the initiated; the second for the people. That there is one God the creator of heaven and earth, was a secret doctrine of the Brachmans. And the nature and perfection of the deity were among the druidical arcana.
They say that Visnu has descended a thousand times on earth, and every time has changed his shape; sometimes appearing in the figure of a beast, sometimes of a man, which is the original of their pagods, of whom they relate so many fables. They add, that Brama, having likewise a desire of children, made himself visible, and begot the Brachmans, whose race has infinitely multiplied.
The two others were a young man and a maid, whom a pestilential fever had carried off after a short sickness. But these miracles, which gave to the father the name of saint among the Christians, and caused him to be called the God of Nature amongst the Gentiles, had no other effect upon the Brachmans than to harden their hearts, and blind their understandings.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking