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Updated: May 23, 2025
Every one of them proposed divers questions to him; if the soul were immortal, or that it perished with the body, and in case that the soul died not, at what part of the body it went out; if in our sleep we dreamed we were in a far country, or conversed with an absent person, whether the soul went not out of the body for that time; of what colour God was, whether black or white; their doctors being divided on that point, the white men maintaining he was of their colour, the black of theirs: the greatest part of the pagods for that reason being black.
"They answered," said the saint in one of his letters, "that which many Christians answer at this day, what will the world say of us if they see us change? And after that, what will become of our families, whose only subsistence is from the offerings which are made to the pagods?
The polytheists and idolaters, who were ignorant of his name, might be lawfully extirpated by his votaries; but a wise policy supplied the obligation of justice; and after some acts of intolerant zeal, the Mahometan conquerors of Hindostan have spared the pagods of that devout and populous country.
What raised their indignation to the height, was, that a lady of great birth and riches, wife to one of the most considerable lords of all the court, and very liberal to the pagods, was solemnly baptized with all the family.
They ran immediately to their task, taking the command in a literal sense, which was not Xavier's intention. But the effect of it was, that the infidel, detesting and renouncing his idolatry, gave up his pagods to be consumed by fire, which was all the design of the holy man. Another infidel was more unhappy; he was one of the first rank in Manapar; a man naturally violent and brutal.
I think the first city, or town, or fortress, whatever it might be called, that belonged to the czar of Muscovy, was called Argun, being on the west side of the river Argun. Not a town or city we passed through but had their pagods, their idols, and their temples; and ignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands!
The Malabars are much given to soothsaying, and have lucky and unlucky days. They worship the sun moon and stars, the fire, cows, and the first thing they meet on going out of a morning, believing every manner of vanity. The devil is often in them, but they say it is one of their gods or pagods, as they call him.
As soon as Xavier had concluded, the whole assembly cried out, that he spoke reason; and the judges immediately pronounced, as a manifest truth, that the pagods were not gods. Fucarandono would have replied, but the general cry gave it for a cause decided; and the king imposed silence on the Bonza, according to the articles of agreement.
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