RAIMON PANIKKAR HAD HIS ROOTS IN KERALA

The Christian thinker had roots in Palakkad

Raimon Panikkar,the gigantic Christian thinker of 20th Century,had his roots in Mannarkkad.It is a small town 40 kilometers north east to the district head quarters of Palakkad in Kerala,South India,on the way to Kozhikode.I had been there only twice.But the book,Ootacamund:A History says that the first missionaries took this route to reach Ooty. The Silent Valley tropical rain forest with an unbroken evolution history of 50 million years is not far.Ramunni Panikkar,father of Raimon Panikkar,was born in Mannarkkad,in the Nair family ,Karimba Menakath Allambadath. 

He did his BA(it was not Bsc then) in Chemistry from Presidency College,Madras.The gold medal in BA Physics went to Nobel laureate C V Raman the year Panikkar finished the course.

Panikkar won a scholarship to study Msc in Leeds University,England.The family insisted that he should marry before crossing the sea.He married Kalyani and they had a son,Madhava Menon.

In England,Ramunni Panikkar organised a student group to fight against the British as part of the freedom struggle.After wandering a lot,Panikkar became a pauper,but got associated with a rich business family,Alemany which had interests in leather and sea foods.Their business which was on the verge of a collapse,was given a turn around by Panikkar.The Lady in the family placed a proposal before him to marry her daughter,Carmen.He was agonised.He wrote to his wife Kalyani,seeking her view.She wrote back:"If you can find happiness by marrying that girl,go ahead.I will look after our child".Mercedes,Raimon Panikkar's sister reminisces  having seen the letter.

Raimon Panikkar in India

Alemany was a Roman Catholic Catalan family from Spain.The first World War broke out and Panikkar together with the Alemany family escaped to Barcelona in Spain since Spain was a neutral country, not in war.Panikkar became representative of a German Chemical Company in Barcelona.Carmen and Ramunni Panikkar were married invoking the Pauline privilege.It is a term used for dissolution of a purely natural marriage which had been contracted between two non Christians,one has since become a Christian.It has reference to the letter of St Paul in  1Corinthians 7:12-16:To the rest I say,that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever,and she consents to live with him,he should not divorce.It means that Ramunni Panikkar had already become a Christian before he got the consent letter from his first wife,Kalyani.

Ramunni Panikkar didn't assume a Christian name after baptism.I have seen a Spanish Education Ministry document on Ramuni(one n is silent)Paniker Udbodhan Trust registered in the Ottappalam sub registrar office, Ottappalam Amsam Ariyoorthekkummuri Desam.So he has an Ottappalam connection.His earlier family members had contributed to the Trust which gives scholarships to 20 poor,deserving children in Rajagiri College,Kalamassery,Cochin.This was done after Mercedes met Madhavan Nair in Cochin.Raimon also had met his step brother on his first visit to India.

There is a story that Ramunni Panikkar was invited to join the first Indian Cabinet since he was a freedom fighter in England.He refused since he was married,settled and owned a chemical plant in Spain.Unlikely since V K Krishna Menon was there;Menon had gone to London only in 1924.Likely  if Nehru was friendly with Panikkar for which there is no proof-Nehru had studied law during 1910-12 there.Please remember the reference to C V Raman in the beginning.Raman had passed BA in 1904.So,Panikkar may have gone to London in 1906-1907.There is  chance for  Nehru-Panikkar meetings.The year of birth of Panikkar maybe 1885.He died in 1954.Carmen died in 1975.They settled in Barcelona in 1918 and had four children:Raimon,Josep Maria,Mercedes and Salvador.Salvador became a famous Spanish philosopher and journalist.Raimon had this to say about Panikkar and Carmen:"There was a profound harmony between my father and mother in spite of belonging to two different traditions."

Young Raimon

Raimon Panikkar or Raymundo Panikkar, the foremost Christian thinker of 20th century with roots in advaita was born in Barcelona on November 3,1918.He was educated in a Jesuit school.During 1936-1942,he Studied Chemistry and Philosophy at the Universities of Barcelona,Bonn and Madrid.The Spanish Civil war had put the family in risk and hence he left for Germany.He came back to Spain in the summer of  1935.Though he wanted to go back to finish his degree,the Second World War prevented it .He finished it in Spain.He also worked in his father's plant.He had three doctorates:in Philosophy (1946),in Chemistry (1958)from Madrid and in Theology from Pontifical Lateran University in Rome(1961).

He entered the Opus Dei,the most controversial force in the Catholic Church in 1940,made very unpopular by the Dan Brown novel,The da Vinci Code.It was a chapter he was never keen to speak on.Opus Dei,which means 'for work of God' in Latin ,was started in Spain by Catholic priest Jose Maria Escriva in 1928,to achieve full Christan life within professional work,though it is not clear what it means.It teaches everyone is called to Holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity.Most of its members are lay people with secular priests under the governance of a prelate elected by specific members and appointed by the Pope.It got the approval of Pope Pius XII,in 1950.It has 91960 members now,of which only 2051 are priests.Everything about it is secretive-I have read a book by the same name,by John L Allen Jr..

Escriva

Raimon became very close to Escriva and became a priest in 1946 agreeing to  his suggestion.Ramunni Panikkar was bedridden and took part in the ordination ceremony lying on bed.Raimon became a Chaplain at Colegio Major la Moncola and a Professor of Philosophy.He was accepted to the company of famous philosophy professors of Madrid,Lain Entralgo,Garcia Morente and Xabier Zubiri.They offered a Chair at Madrid University.Escriva didn't agree saying that it will affect Raimon's pastoral dedication.Raimon was in Madrid till 1950.After that he was in Salamanca for three years.At the end of 1953,moved to Rome and remained there for a year.He was incardinated at the Indian Diocese of Varanasi in 1954,after his father's death.
Varanasi transformed him.He felt proud of his Indian origin.It was a turning point.It made a decisive reorientation of his thoughts.He learnt Sanskrit;he studied Indian Philosophy and religion at Mysore and Benares Hindu University.He taught in Varanasi for long.There he met several western monks seeking Eastern wisdom for the expression for their Christian beliefs.He began to wear ochre dhoti, sandals and a shawl on his shoulders.In this transformation he was influenced by three Benedictan monks who were called the trinity of Tannirpalli.:Jules Monchanin(1895-1957) or Swami Arupiananda,Henri le Saux or better known as Swami Abhishiktananda(1910-1973) and Bede Griffiths(1906-1993) or Swami Dayananda.Monchanin and le Saux cofounded the Sachidanda Asram in Tannirpalli near Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu which was taken forward  by Griffiths.Abhishiktananda became Raimon's close friend.They tried to express their core Christian convictions in Hindu/Buddhist terms and forms.

Raimon began to take interest in advaita.Christianity began as a Jewish tradition,spread to Greco-Roman world imbibing Greek/Roman cultural expressions which gave it a certain form and character.He respected this,and it in turn equipped him to interact with greatest minds of 20th century Catholicism,like Jean Danielou,Yves Congar,Hans Urs Von Balthazar and several others.He famously said later:"I left Europe (for India)as a Christian,I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be a Christian".He mixed his multicultural origin with Hindu religion and metaphysical leanings.He said:"I don't see myself as half Spanish and half Indian,half Catholic and Half Hindu,but fully Western and fully Eastern...I have always been someone concerned about what is usually called the religious problem".

He lived in a house on the banks of the Ganges.Pope Paul VI called him back to Europe and selected him to be one of the founders of an  Institute in Jerusalem together with Hans Urs Von Balthazar and others.He was a Consultant during the second Vatican Council(1962-1965)to address the relations between the Catholic Church and modern world.He was also invited to the Synod of Rome(I have referred to the Second Council in my story,Panchakshatangal,the stigmata or five wounds of Christ).

While in Jerusalem,he was summoned by Opus Dei Chief Escriva.After a brief trial,Raymon was expelled from it for disobedience.In his 1972 autobiographical book,Cometas,Raimon said:"I don't repent that period in my life...Life's line is neither straight nor zigzag".Advaita rescued him from Opus Dei!

He had the option to be professor in Germany,Harvard and California.Harvard rejected his condition that he want to be in India for six months a year.California accepted it.He joined it in 1972,and taught only during spring.There in Santa Barbara,his Easter service was famous.Raymon would bless the elements-earth,air,water,fire and all surrounding forms of life-plant,animal,human,and then celebrate Mass and the Eucharist,as if he was chanting,agnaye idam na mama(Oh Fire,this was not for me).He coined a new expression for it:Cosmotheandric celebration.Cosmo is universe,theo is God  and antropos,man.After  retirement in 1987,he moved to Tavertet in Catalonia ,100 kilometres north of Barcelona.He bought a farmhouse on a hilltop and formed the Raimon Panikkar Vivarium Foundation,a centre for inter cultural studies.vivarium in Latin means speech.He became the first Indian and Asian to deliver the Gifford Lectures in 1989,in the University of Edinburgh ,thereby joining the company of geniuses like,Karl Barth,William James,Albert Schweitzer and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Raimon during his last days

He married at the age of 73,in 1991,Maria,a novelist against the Church rule to remain a celibate.Not much is known about her.Marriage was  a civil ceremony.She died of cancer;they had adopted a daughter.It was short lived.He considered it later an ineffective mistake.The matter of marriage was "satisfactorily settled" in Rome by Bishop of Varanasi,Patrick D'Souza.Mercedes shared the opinion that it was not right to get another person involved in his sign of protest against the Church.The official Church always kept him out,though few Seminaries in India teach his Theology.Though he was at loggerheads with the conservative Bishop Vic of his Diocese in Madrid ,the Bishop did Raimon's funeral service.Raymon had written against the Bishop to Rome.Raymon lived like an Indian monk completely in reflection and mysticism in his final days.He had even touched the feet of the dancers after a Sufi dance performance in Vivarium.
His doctorate in Philosophy was On the Concept of Nature.In the Introduction he said:
"Concerned about the theological problem of what is beyond nature as metaphysical substratum of an integral Anthropology that would explain the specific and personal man,the real and historical Christian,I had to deal first with the Metaphysical problem of nature".

He matured a lot by the time he got his doctorate in Theology.The thesis was the textual comparison between Adisankara's(788-820) commentary of Brahmasutras with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas(1225-1274).If Sankara was the father of advaita,Aquinas was the father of Thomism.He attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.His prominent works are,Summa Theologica and Summa Contragentiles.Raimon didn't confuse historical contingency with ultimate truth.In both Hinduism and Budhism he found other languages in addition to Biblical Hebrew,Latin or Greek.This was the main focus of this thesis which became a book,The Unknown Christ of Hinduism(1964).He found Christ transcending Christianity.Raymon called Christ a "super name" because it can encompass other names like Krishna,Rama or Ishwara.So he said:

"To the third Christian millennium is reserved the task of overcoming a tribal Christology by a Christophany which allows Christians to see the work of Christ everywhere,without assuming that they have a better grasp or monopoly of that Mystery,which has been revealed to them in a Unique way." This view is definitely against that of Rome.
Dr K S Radhakrishnan,philosopher,had met Raimon in 1980 in Cochin when he came for an International Religious conference.Radhakrishnan,whose doctorate is in The system of Advaita as it is Exposed in the Adhyatma Ramayana of Ezhuthachan,feels that Raimon had not been transformed to an advaitin.He had tried to read vedas on the basis of Aristotelian philosophy.So he is more close to Aquinas.His logical sructure was that of a Christian.Radhakrishnan felt Raimon was confused because his emphasis was on limitations.

His books include,The Crisis of Madhyamika and Indian Philosophy Today(1966),The Vedic Experience:Mantramanjari-An Anthology of the Vedas for Modern Man(1977) and Initiation to the Vedas(2006).He was unable to fine tune his last book, based on his Gifford Lectures,Rhythm of Being and also avoided the final chapter ,The Survival of Being.In the book he observed:

"I must admit that all ultimate questions cannot have final answers,but that we can at least be aware of the problem we have presented.I have touched the limits of my understanding and must stop here.The Tree of Knowledge again and again attempts one at the cost of neglecting the more important Tree,the Tree of Life.How can Human thinking grasp the destiny of life itself,when we are not its owners".

This view is again  at loggerheads with that of the Church.For Church,Christ is the ultimate truth.For them the final answer is Him.Raimon confessed he didn't get the final answer there.

Reference:
1.The Unknown Christ of Hinduism/Orbis Books/1981
2.Cometas
3.The Rhythm of Being/Orbis Books/2013
4.Talk with my friend Dr K S Radhakrishnan

See my blog,PRINCE RAMAVARMA BECOMES PRINCE JACOB RAMAVARMA  






 


 

QUEEN PROPOSES,GOD DISPOSES

Queen Victoria wanted Duleep Singh to marry Gowramma

Serendipity gives you handsome returns.For the past few years,I had been weighing the options between Ooty and Kodagu for settling down,finally.My choice was Ooty.After the decision,I have always been running into Kodagu one way or other,in books,references or memories.I have not been to Kodagu still,though my wife Gita accompanied our daughter Aswathy  to Kodagu recently on a trip from her college.

It is in the Higgin Bothams in Ooty that I found the book,Nuggets from Coorg History by C P Belliappa,last September.He is the son of the last Chief Minister(1952-1956)of Coorg,C M Poonacha.His great-great-great grandfather was Dewan Chepudira Ponnappa,who served under the last three Rajas of Coorg.Reputed doctor and novelist, Kaveri Nambisan is Belliappa's sister;Kaveri is married to  reputed writer Vijay Nambisan,a Malayali,who has translated poets,Poonthanam and Melpathur.Belliappa had discovered the tombstone of Gowramma,daughter of the last King of Kodagu,Chikka Veera Rajendra,in South London.Both the king and daughter had become Christians.Belliappa has written a book on her:Victoria Gowramma;The Lost Princess of Coorg.

Belliappa

I was immediately struck by a chapter in Nuggets from Coorg History-Christianity in Coorg,and I read it first because it had the name,Herman Moegling.The name of J A Casamajor is not mentioned.I had encountered both the names while I was researching the life of Yakob Ramavarman,the only Christian convert from the Cochin Royal family(see my post,Prince Ramavarma becomes Jacob Ramavarma).
James Archibald Casamajor( 1787-1865) was Resident of Mysore and later Travancore and Cochin(1836-1838).Casamajor was born in Chennai,  son of James Henry Casamajor and Elizabeth Rebecca Campbell.He entered the Company's service,as Writer in 1803;became Secretary/Accountant to Sinking Fund,Deputy Secretary,Board of Revenue,before taking over as,Registrar,Srirangapattana,in 1809.He was Judge/Magistrate/Collector there.There had been an investigation into the accounts,when he was Military Paymaster,in 1811.He married Mary Christian Peterson(born in India in 1792)in 1815 and they had three daughters:Jane,Mary and Elizabeth.Jane was Countess of Enniskillen,married to William Cole,3rd Earl of Enniskillen.Casamajor had to fight a legal battle for property after Mary's death.He was Resident during the reign of Chikka Veera Rajendra and Swati Thirunal.

Jane

Of course before General Cullen in Travancore.Casamajor had advised Chikkaveera against his nefarious and inhuman activities, after the killing of his sister Devamma and her family.Chikkaveera also had killed Muddayya,his tutor.He had taken the envoy of Collector of Malabar,Kalpully Karunakara Menon,as hostage.The very same Menon who cheated Pazhassi Raja earlier.Chikkaveera enjoyed his drinks and women.He had a harem of 100 women,his father's youngest wife among them.He ignored Casamajor's advice and was deposed in 1834.The 1835 January-April issue of The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany(vol 16)states that Casamajor left Travancore for the Hills.Of course,Residents settled down in Nilgiris after retirement.Cullen had died en route.Casamajor was a very reputed Judge in Madras known for philanthropy.C V Ranganatha Sastri,member of Madras Legislative Council had pleaded before Casamajor when he was just a child of 12,to rescue his father from arrest for tax arrears.Casamajor arranged private tutor for Sastri and sent him to college.He became a polyglot and interpreter at Madras Supreme Court. Casamajors were merchants of Tacking with close ties with the English East India Company.
There is a Casamajor Road at Egmore.Chennai,probably named after Casamajor's father,James Henry(1745-1815),because the road existed in 1798;James entered Company's service as writer,in 1762,still serving in 1811;he was Chief of Vizag and Masulipattanam Settlements.From his family,John and George James too,were with the Company.

mogling

Christians first came to Coorg in 1792 at the invitation of Veera Rajendra.They were 700 survivors from Mangalore who were forcibly taken to Srirangapatanam by Tipu Sultan,after the second war of Mysore.He established Veerarajendrapet or Virajpet.He built the St Anne's Church.He did all this because the kingdom had been depleted after the war.The first British Chief Commisioner of Coorg,Lt Col J S Fraser found the time ideal to spread Christianity.
Moegling was preparing to leave for Germany when Alamanda Somayya came to meet him,in 1852. Herman Friedrich Moegling(1811-1881) was a German missionary with the Basel Mission,in Mangalore.He published the first Kannada newspaper,Mangalooru Samachara in 1843.He published the traditional Kannada literary texts in six volumes as Bibliotheca Carnataca.It was when Moegling faced a crisis to publish it,Casamajor  stepped in.With his adopted and converted son,Anandaraya Kaundinya,Moegling went to Kodagu in 1852 and worked there till 1858.
Alamanda Somayya looked like a Sanyasin in distress. 

Chikkaveera with Gowramma in London

Somayya  belonged to a Koduva family which had a vast estate in the Armery village.In the 1837 Amara-Sullya rebellion they supported the British and got land in return.In 1842 Somayya went to Varanasi and met the exiled King Chikkaveera.He returned three years later.He married and did cardamom trade in which he incurred huge loss.As a debtor he was jailed in Kadanoor.He escaped from the jail on the third day and had come to Moegling for help.Moegling cleared his debts and baptized him in 1853.He became Stephanos Somayya.Moegling sheltered him when the village ostracized him.In the court battle which ensued,Somayya got back his share in lands;Moegling built a Church.130 labourers who built it were converted.Lt Col Mark Cubbon who succeeded Fraser gave him 97 acres in Siddapur and the jungle became a settlement.He built Anandapura in the area of Somayya and put Anandaraya Koundinya in Charge.Somayya developed 25 acres coffee estate in Anandpur.A friction with the missionaries resulted in the reconversion of Somayya.The mission was highly disappointing;Moegling could convert only 9 kodavas.
Moegling cherished a wonderful dream in his mind.It was to unite two converted Royal Christians,Gowramma and Duleep Singh of Punjab in holy matrimony.Queen Victoria joined in the grand design.

Gowramma:Painting by Franz Xavier Winterhalter

Gowramma was born in Varanasi in 1842 .The family moved to London and Chikkaveera and Gowramma were converted in 1852 in the St James Chapel,by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of the Queen.The Queen became her God Mother and she was called Victoria Gowramma.Duleep Singh read about the conversion and got interested.Punjab was annexed by the British in 1849 and the Kohinoor was taken as a gift.The 12 year old deposed king Duleep was entrusted with the Company physician  Dr Login and Leena Login for studies.He was converted in 1853 and reached London the next year.
Victoria Gowramma was put in the care of Major Drummonds and his wife.They had known the king in Varanasi.Queen Victoria invited both Duleep and Gowramma for dinners in Buckingham,Windsor and Osborne Hall.Gowramma didn't impress Duleep.The Queen proposes;God disposes.Gowramma found relief in a stable boy and later in a butler.Chikkaveera died in 1859.By that time Gowramma had almost separated from him.He didn't knew the language.

Gowramma sculpture by Baron Carlo Marochetti

Chikkaveera had gone to London and got converted with another intention.His uncle Dodda Veera Rajendra had invested Rs 680,000 in East India Company 1807 in daughter Devamma's name who briefly sat on throne.Dodda Veera manipulated the Company to withdraw interest.Chikkaveera got it till 1833.He had eliminated Devamma in 1832.He wanted that money.He had gone to London for only a year;prolonged his stay only because the case on the money was pending.Finally he lost the case.

Duleep

To save Gowramma from scandals,Duleep stepped in and gave Col John Campbell as husband.He was fifty,30 years senior.He was Lady Login's brother and a known gambler.John had served in India in the 38th Madras Native Infantry.Gowramma was his second wife.The marriage was solemnised in 1860;They had a daughter,Edith.When Gowramma died of TB in 1864,the marriage was in shambles.She was interred in the Brompton Cemetry,in the same grave of Colin,Campbell's second son from first wife,who was born in Bellary.John Campbell and Gowramma's Kodagu jewels disappeared immediately.
The Queen quoted St John on Gowramma's grave:
......other sheep I have,which are not of this fold.

Bamba

Belliappa says he traced one of Gowramma's female descendants in South wales in Australia;she was not interested in the past.Duleep married Bamba,the illegitimate daughter of a German merchant Banker,whom he met in Cairo.His son was christened in Queen Victoria's private chapel.He was called Prince Victor.




See my blog,PRINCE RAMAVARMA BECOMES JACOB RAMAVARMA
 

 

PRINCE RAMAVARMA BECOMES JACOB RAMAVARMA

A Prince's story of experiments with truth

Roberto de Nobili had claimed that he was a Brahmin. He came to Cochin and went to Madurai where he behaved like a Brahmin. He wore a white dothi, sandals and a three-stringed thread across his chest. He didn't call the thread poonool, but he said it represented the holy trinity. He encouraged shaving the head and the crest of hair on the head, kudummai.

Nobili

Nobili (1577-1656) was an Italian Jesuit missionary in South India who believed local customs are not contrary to Christianity. Born in Tuscany, he came to Goa in 1605. After a short stay in Cochin, he reached Madurai in November. Claiming Brahmin parentage, he approached Brahmins. From a teacher, Shivadharma, he learned Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. He applied Tamil equivalents to specific Christian terms: Kovil for Church, Arul/prasadam for Grace, Guru for the priest, Vedam for Bible and poosai for mass. Fellow Jesuits and the Arch Bishop of Goa, Cristovao de Sa e Lisboa didn't like his methods and there was a huge controversy. Pope Gregory XV stepped in and settled it-dothi, sandals and the thread got the nod of approval. He died in Mylapore. Though his mission was not a success, his contribution to Tamil prose is invaluable.

Munro

There had been an attempt to convert the King of Cochin, Unniraman Koyikal (1503-1537) to Christianity in 1510, just before the Portuguese shifted their capital from Cochin to Goa, under General Alfonso de Albuquerque, who became Governor General later. Vasco da Gama, on his second expedition, landed on November 7, 1502. Albuquerque came after four months, on April 6, 1503. The Portuguese fought fiercely with the Zamorin and secured the Cochin Raja, who had sought asylum in the Vypin temple, on the throne. In return, the Cochin King gave permission to build a fort in Cochin and to have trade relations with Quilon.

This established the Portuguese Eastern Empire. It definitely helped conversion. Portuguese Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes of Goa who arrived in Cochin on January 26, 1599, and stayed till the Diamper Synod (June 20-26,1599) was over, asked King Keshava Rama Varma (1565-1601) to get converted into Christianity. The King gave him several excuses; Menezes cursed him with dire consequences on D-Day and left. Colonel John Munro 9th of Teaninich (1778-1858) succeeded where all failed; he used his administrative power as Resident of Travancore and Cochin to ameliorate the work of the missionaries, among lower castes. Most of the well-known missionaries in Kerala belong to his period. He became a Resident of Travancore in November 1810 and was a Resident of Cochin during 1812-1818. Rev Yakob Ramavarman, the first Christian convert from the Cochin Royal family was born during this period, in 1814. He was a prize catch for the Protestant Church. But his conversion, according to him, was part of self-realization. I have seen a few writers getting confused with Constantine Rama Varma and Yakob Rama Varma-both are one and the same; the initial records show his name as Constantine.

Yacob Rama Varman was the second of the eight children of King Vira Kerala Varma(period of reign:1809-1828), popularly known as Virulam Thampuran or Karkadakathil Theepetta Thampuran. The second name refers to his death in the month of Karkadakam. Since the kings of Cochin have either the name of Ramavarma, Ravi Varma or Kerala Varma, they are known by a nickname, the month or place of their death. Vira Kerala Varma was the brother of Ramavarma who died in Vellarappally in January 1809, under mysterious circumstances. After four months after his taking over, Cochin was recognised as a Protectorate of the British. Vira Kerala Varma was the nephew of Sakthan Thampuran.

Albuquerque

In Francis Day's The Land of the Perumals, there is a wrong description of Vira Kerala Varma, attributing to him, the atrocities of Sakthan Thampuran.A chronic arthritis patient, Vira Kerala Varma, had no time for administration; he was immersed in Kathakali and Chakyar Koothu. He wrote more than 50 kathakali plays; none of them was staged. He also wrote, Poornathrayeesa Sathakam and Dasavathara Slokamala. 

It was a period of political turmoil. Just before Vira Kerala Varma took over, Paliath Govindan Achan, the Commander of the King had rebelled against the British. He was exiled first to Madras and then to Bombay. He died in 1832. After the rebellion, the military was deployed in Mattancherry, Alapuzha and Tripunithura, till 1809. In the year Ramavarman was born (1814) Fort Cochin was handed over to the British.

Athanasius

We get much of the information on Ramavarman from his speech which is considered the first autobiography in Malayalam by some. It is the story of his conversion. It was first published in the journal, Keralopakari in 1874 and was published as a book by Basel Mission Press in Tellicherry in 1874. It was written for a public reading in the hastharpanam on September 3,1856 when he was anointed a priest, in the presence of Chirakkal King and Herman Gundert. It was read after the sermon by Rev Samuel Hebich, before the anointment. Gundert founded the first Malayalam newspaper, Rajyasamacharam in 1847. Yakob knew him and was living with him since 1849, but doesn't seem to be connected with the newspaper at all. Which proves he was not a man of letters.

Yakob Ramavarma

Ramavarman was initiated into scriptures by the Sode Vadiraja Mutt Swamiyar of Udupi, Viswapriya Theertha when he was 12. The Cochin Royal family had divorced Vedanta and had embraced Dwaita of Madvacharya during Swami Viswadeesa Theertha of Sode Mutt. Ramavarma who became king later came under his spell during a visit to the Udupi temple. They followed it for 60 years(1805-1864). It means that Yakob was born in an already converted family, to Madhvaism. You see Embrandiris (Tulu Brahmins)as priests in Tripunithura temple whereas Nambudiris are everywhere. They are remnants of Madhvaism. My friend, U R Anantha Moorthy, the reputed writer has told me his grandfather was a priest in Tripunithura. Since they embraced Madhvaism, there was an influx of Embrandiris to Tripunithura. Sakthan Thampuran had expelled the Sode Swamiyar from Cochin. Before that, followers of Sakthan had caught the Swamiyar and made him bathe in water mixed with sacred ash, which was sacrilege to Madhvas. Then he was asked to sit on bhajanam at the nearby Chakkamkulangara temple for 12 days.

After Sakthan's death, Swamiyar came again and was Chief Priest in the coronation of both Rama Varma and Virakerala Varma. The last militant Madhva king was another Vira Kerala Varma who died in 1864. After his death, the family returned to the Advaita fold. When the King, Yakob's father died in 1828, a dispute broke out in the family and Ramavarman and his mother(the King had two Kshatriya wives: Lakshmi and Kunjikavu of  Kannezhuthu Madom, they are lower kshatriyas in Chakkamkulangara)were exiled to Vypin and poverty. After the dispute was resolved, they returned to Tripunithura.He studied the Ramayana, Bhagavatha, Sahasranamam and Ashtotharasatham.Though he continued reading, he stopped going to the temple after he was shaken by a theft in the Poornathrayeesa temple by the priest. He disappeared with the ornaments of the idol. Further, the idol worshipped by his father was also stolen. He felt, the idol is not God, it is a mere doll, bereft of life and sense.

Sode Vadiraja Mutt,Udupi

At the time of this inner struggle, he happened to see a Malayalam printed book for the first time, The Bible, gifted to his brother by the Captain of a ship. Though he read the Gospel of St Mathew, he was put off by the unfamiliar names and narrative. So he read Kamasastra and adopted a reckless moral posture. After upanayana, he led an amorous life. It was also shaken, by death. His niece died at a very young age and he was tormented by the 400 hells in the Hindu scriptures, after death. A second copy of the Gospel came his way and now he found it familiar. He identified himself with the criticism of idol worship, on a trip to Fort Cochin, where he listened to the sermon of Rev Samuel Ridsdale. He was struck by Isaiah 53:12:he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Ramavarman writes: It showed me I am that transgressor, that Jesus Christ prayed for me, still, and that he offers eternal salvation to those believing in him.

Gundert

The instances of the trial made him believe in Jesus more. When his boat began to capsize, he prayed and it stabilized. He went to Ridsdale and the baptism got fixed for next Sunday. This information reached the Palace from Vaithi, the cook with him in Fort Cochin and he was forcibly taken to Tripunithura. During his stay for 8 days there, a painful abscess in his stomach disappeared after he swore he would get converted if it is cured. The next day the baptism took place at St Francis Church. He became Yakob Ramavarman and his friend Ananthan, a Gowda Saraswat Brahmin, Yohannan. He shed the poonool (sacred thread) only on April 5, 1835.

Till then, he says, he had never heard praying by heart. Since he was not satisfied by rendering the ordinary prayer books, he talked to his friend Rev Joseph Fenn for a fine book. He told Yakob that God looks not at the book but at one's heart. He began following it to his happiness.

This Joseph Fen should not be confused with Joseph Fenn (1790-1878)  a lawyer turned missionary who resigned from Lincon's Inn, London to reach Kottayam in Travancore, in 1818. Munro had asked him and Rev Thomas Norton to work in Travancore. Benjamin Bailey too came the same year. Yakob's friend Joseph Fen was Ottapalam Chathuu Menon, who had joined Benjamin Bailey, with Moses and Vaidyanatha Iyer in the translation of the Bible into Malayalam in 1817. Before translation, Chathu Menon and his sons, Padmanabha Menon and Govindan Kutty Menon embraced Christianity. Padmanabhan became Bailey Fen and Govindankutty, Baker Fen. Those names were combined from the three missionary names, Benjamin Bailey, Henry Baker and Joseph Fenn.

Yakob sailed to Madras in may,1837  where Rev John Tucker helped him to get admitted to Bishop Corrie's Madras Grammar School. Tucker, who studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford was sent as secretary of the CMS Corresponding Committee. Daniel Corrie (1778-1837) was the first Bishop of Madras. The school was close to Church Mission Chapel. Yakob was there for three years where he had a friend called Maramon Mathen, who later became a gigantic figure in  Church history-Mathews Mar Athanasius of Marthomite Church.

When Tucker decided to go back, he gave Yakob and Mathen a letter to Rev Taylor, Belgaum.From Belgaum,Mathen left for Antioch.

Moegling

Rev Joseph Taylor had established two schools; one in Belgaum and the other in Sapur (Bijapur). He had got a Brahmin convert in Belgaum. Yakob taught Taylor's children in Belgaum. He was there for 18 months speaking in Tamil in the Church on Sundays. Taylor's colleague Beinen sent him to Sapur to speak in Kannada. He taught in Dharmachatram school, staying in a household. There he committed his biggest sin in 10 years. We are not told exactly what the sin was; it has to be assumed it was a sin of the flesh (please read the autobiography of Nikos Kazantzakis Report to Greco; when he had the desire to sleep with a prostitute, he was afflicted with ascetics' disease. He was truly spiritual).

Yakob began to sweat and shiver. Some days later when the missionaries got to know and asked him, he firmly denied it. They asked him to leave and Taylor gave letters to Rev Moegling in Mangalore and Hebich in Tellicherry. Herman Friedrich Moegling(1811-1881)did pioneering work in Mangalore and Kodagu and started the first Kannada newspaper, Mangalooru Samachara. Rev Samuel Hebich(1803-1868)established the first Basel Mission centre in Mangalore. From Germany, he reached Kozhikode on October 14, 1834, on a ship called Malabar. Gundert, Hebich and Moegling constitute the trinity of the mission. Hebich's sermons against Hindu idol worship got him more enemies than friends. Though Yakob preferred Mangalore, the pathemari anchored in Tellicherry after a fierce storm, and his life anchored in the footsteps of Hebich. He got married on February 10,1844 and was sent by Hebich as a missionary to Chirakkal. Nothing is there in his married life; nothing in his wife. So, what we have is not an autobiography. It is just a speech.
The turning point came in 1847. On a Thursday after the sermon of Hebich, two people Daniel and Joseph publicly confessed their sins.Yakob, who never confessed his grave sin, retired and wept in solitude. Then he returned to the congregation. A voice from within admonished him: You tough one, open your heart too!
He confessed on Sunday but was again silent on the sin in Belgaum.

Hebich

Next Sunday, at the time of the sermon, he felt a fireball hitting him in the heart, and he burnt his entire heart down. It descended to his bones and burned them down. His whole body glowed in the fire. A fountain erupted in his eyes. He wailed aloud and decided to vomit the poison inside. Unable to have lunch, with unwashed hands, he rushed to Hebich crying. It was a moment of self-dissolution. He confessed to Hebich.

He was with Gundert from 1849. He learnt German. His wife died in 1854, two years before he wrote the autobiography. He died on February 11,1858, while nursing people afflicted with cholera. He had postponed his first trip to Germany, to die on native soil.

Before writing this, I called Ramesan Thampuran of the Cochin Royal family, Son of Raman Nambudiri, a Historian, who has compiled the genealogy. The name of Yakob/Ramavarma is not there. They performed the ritual of irikkapindam, performing the last rites while one is living. So he is no anymore in Cochin history. His brother had gone to Fort Cochin to kill him with a dagger after conversion; instead, he agreed to remit a monthly amount to Yakob to Madras. Killing is never a strength, pardon is.

Philosophically, there was no conversion in Yakob's case. He was a Madvaite-dwaitam. He went to celebrate the same.

Note: In the modern period, Princess Lalitha married a Christian and went to the Gulf. Ramani Thampuratty joined a Pentecostal Mission. Dr Devadas married a Christian batch mate. A girl married a Dalit, the son of Captain Das. After posting this, I made a visit to Sode Vadi Raja Mutt, Udupi, where no records of the Cochin connection, they said, exist.

Vrischika festival in Tripunithura temple

Reference: Yakob Ramavarmante Athmakatha/Ed.Paul Manalil/Kerala Sahithya Akademi,2008

Various Church documents

Cochin State Manual/C Achutha Menon

A History of the Church of England in India/Eyre Chatterton/1924 

Rajavamsam: Tripunithura Smaranakal/R T Ravivarma/Manorama/2010 

Cochi Rajya Charithram/K P Padmanabha Menon/Mathrubhumi,1989

See my Post,A CHRISTIAN IN MALABAR ROYAL FAMILY

 

CONVERSION AND VERSE IN BENGAL

Four Intellectuals who embraced Christianity

 Proselytism didn't get many takers among high castes in India.Bengal the capital of British India,was not a virgin soil.People like Rajaram Mohan Roy(1772-1833),Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar(1820-1891) and Keshub Chandra Sen(1838-1884)had sown the seeds of renaissance.Hindus were taught to assimilate new ideas.Conversion had lost its charm.Christians in Bengal are just 0.6% of the population,and mostly belonging to one clan like Das and Hansde.But then,there was a reverse process.Self enquiry or an intellectual search made a few embrace Christianity.They with their moorings in the Indian culture made Indian society rich.While I am going to speak about a few men/women of letters,I remember the first printing press brought to India by William Carey to Kolkata.Indian literature flourished where the mission failed.

William Carey

William Carey(1761-1834),known as the Father of modern missions,was the first English Baptist Missionary in India.Born into a family of weavers,at 14,his father sent him to a cobbler as apprentice.Carey,who wanted to make a different kind of shoe,gave final shape to his missionary manifesto in 1792:An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.He formed the Baptist Mission Society with Andrew Fuller,John Ryland and John Sutcliffe as charter members.He met Dr John Thomas a medical missionary who was in Kolkata,then in England and decided to accompany him to India.His mission didn't have the blessings of English East India Company.He had to leave the ship midway and  board a Danish ship.He reached Kolkata in 1793 november and John Thomas made him manage a Midnapore Indigo factory for six years.He then moved to the Serampore Danish colony where a second hand printing press was installed.From there he printed The Bible in 44 languages.His favorite quote in his sermons was from Isaiah,54:2-3:Expect great things from God;Attempt great things for God.

Krishnapal

Carey's first convert was Krishna Pal ,a sudra,in 1802.Same year,Krishnapal's daughter married a Brahmin.This proved that his Church repudiated caste distinctions.With generous contribution from the  Governor General Richard Wellesley,the Serampore College was built;Carey became Bengali Professor.He had to sever his ties with the mission he founded towards the end of his life and he lived in the campus.

Krishna Mohan Banerjee(1813-1885) became a Christian two years before Carey's death.He was never under Carey's influence.He imbibed the essence of Bengal Renaissance and attempted to rethink Hindu philosophy,religion and ethics in response to the stimulus of Christian ideas.

His conversion took Bengal by storm.He lost his job and his wife for a while.
He was born in Syampur,in the house of his maternal grandfather Ramjay Vidyabhushan,who was court pundit of Santiram Singha of Jarasanko.He was the son of Jibankrishna Banerjee and Sreemoti Devi.In 1819 he joined School Society Institution of David Hare(1775-1842) which became Hare's School later.Hare was a Scottish watchmaker with no faith commitments.Banerjee attended the Hindu College(now  Presidency University) in 1831 where his English play,The Persecuted was staged.He became a member of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio's Young Bengal group.Derozio,poet,radical thinker and Principal of Hindu College died of cholera the year Banerjee joined the college.Banerjee attended the lectures of the Scottish missionary,Alexander Duff,who came to India in 1830.He came under Duff's sway and embraced Christianity in 1832.He lost his job in Hare's School.His wife Bindhyobashini was forced to flee to her father's house.She joined him in later life.He converted her,his brother Kalicharan and Gnanendra Mohan Tagore,son of Prasannakumar Tagore.Gnanendra Mohan married Banerjee's daughter Kamalmani and became the first Asian to qualify as a Barrister in 1862.

Banerjee

Gnanendra Mohan (1826-1890) belonged to the Pathuriaghata branch of the Tagore family and his father Prasannakumar was one of the founders of the Hindu College. His classmates there included Rajnarain Bose,writer and grandfather of Aurobindo and Gobinda Chandra Dutt,father of the poetess Toru Dutt.The syllabus of Hindu College was highly secular and many students became Christians.Gnanendra was converted in 1851.He was disowned by his father and deprived of his inheritance.His share in the vast estate of his father was given to his father's nephew,Maharaja Bahadur Sir Jatindra Mohan Tagore.Gnanendra was Professor of Hindu Law in University of London and was Judge in Kolkata High Court later.

Duff

Krishna Mohan Banerjee was the first Indian to be ordained as a priest of the Anglican Church,in 1839.He made the 13 volume Bengali adaptation of Encyclopedia Britannica and wrote two remarkable books:Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy(1861)and The Relation between Christianity and Hinduism(1881).Though he began as an apologist for Hinduism,after 1865 he began to argue Christianity was fulfilment of Hinduism.Sacrifice was the most important ritual according to vedic texts.Prajapati sacrificed himself to redeem humanity and was reborn as a mere mortal.Half man,half divine.All this,Banerjee argued,prefigured the incarnation of Jesus.Of course,there is the alternate argument from the view point of Vedanta,propounded by scholars like Vivekananda and Ranganathananda.Holgar Kresten,in his book,Jesus Lived in India,has shown that Jesus had his philosophical foundation in India,filling his missing years.Banerjee was instrumental in the conversion of Michael Madhususdan  Dutt and Lal Behari Dey to Christianity.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt

Michael Madhusudan Dutt(1824-1873)is one of the greatest poets of Bengal and father of the Bengali sonnet.He pioneered Blank Verse.Meghnad Bodh Kavya of him is a tragic epic.He,according to Aurobindo,expressed all the stormiest passions of man's soul in gigantic language.
He was the son of eminent lawyer, Rajnarayan Dutt and Jahnabi Devi of Sargordari,now in Bangladesh.From his early age on he wanted to be like an English man and converted to Christianity in 1843 at the Church of Fort William to the ire of his family.He came under the spell of his teacher in Hindu College,Captain D L Richardson who was a supporter of Thomas Babington Macaulay.Dutt adopted it.His intellectual inquiry told him that he was born in the wrong side of the planet and wrote his early works in English.He adored Lord Byron and like him was Bohemian and romantic.

To avoid persecution,he escaped to Madras.There he taught English in two schools.Worked in the Editorial section of Madras Circulator,General Chronicle,Aethenium,Daily Spectator.He was Joint Editor of Spectator and Chief Editor of Hindu Chronicle.After father's death,he became depressed and returned to Kolkata in 1856.He worked as Head clerk in Police Court and was Interpreter during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.In the 1860s  he went to Versailles where he lived in abject poverty.Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's timely intervention saved him from imprisonment and he returned home.He married twice.In Madras,Rebecca Mactavys;in Kolkata,Henrietta Sophia White.He divorced Rebecca.He had four children from Rebecca and two,Napoleon and Sharmishta from Henrietta.Tennis player,Leander Paes is his great grandson.His epitaph,a verse of his own,reads:
Stop a while traveller!
Should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son.
As a child takes repose on his mother's Elysian lap,
Even so here in the Long Home,
On the bosom of the earth,
Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep
Poet Madhusudan of the Duttas.
Lal Behari Dey(1824-1892) too was a student of Alexander Duff.Dey wrote a paper,The Falsity of Hindu Religion before his conversion in 1843.He wrote a novel,Govindasamanta which became Bengal Peasant Life in English.Charles Darwin read it and sent a letter of appreciation.Dey also wrote Folktales of Bengal and was Editor of Arunoday,Indian Reformer,Friday Review and Bengal Magazine.

Toru Dutt

The first  poetess in Indian English,Toru Dutt(1856-1877) was different:she didn't become a Christian  by her own will.In 1862,while she was a six year old,her father Gobinda Chandra Dutt became a Christian.He belonged to the illustrious Dutt family of Rambagan;the family of R C Dutt.Romesh Chandra Dutt (1848-1909) was the second Indian after Satyendranath Tagore to get into ICS.He was the first Indian to attain the Divisional Commisioner rank.He left ICS at 49,went to London and later bacame Dewan of Baroda.He wrote Economic History of India ,abridged Mahabaratha and Ramayana to Bengali.

Gobinda Chandra Dutt's conversion strained his relationship with his wife,Kshethtramoni Devi;She reconciled later,became Christian and translated Blood of Jesus to Bengali.
Toru was the youngest of Dutt's three children.Her brother Abju's early death was a staggering blow.Toru and sister repeatedly read Milton's Paradise Lost.Dutt took the melancholic children to a tour of Europe.They settled in France and had education there.Then Italy and  Cambridge.While at Cambridge,Toru became friends with Mary Martin,daughter of Rev John Martin of Sydney Sussex College.It became a lifelong bond.The Dutt family returned to Kolkata in 1873.Toru lived for only  21 years and her poetry,though meager,was brilliant.She translated around 100 poems from the French to form the anthology,A Sheaf Gleaned In French Fields.She retold Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan.The manuscripts of her novels,Bianca or the Young Spanish Maiden and Le Journal de Mademoiselle d' Arvers were found posthumously and published.She died of TB, among books.She spoke of her creativity in Jogadhya Uma:
Absurd maybe the tale I tell
Ill suited to the marching times,
I loved the lips from which it fell,
So let it stand among my rhymes.

R C Dutt

The Bengal renaissance made even outsiders expressive.Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922)got the Pandita title from Kolkata University in 1878.She was on a lecture tour to Bengal with brother  after the death of their parents in the 1877 famine.

Ramabai

Ramabai was born in Gangamoola,Karnataka to Anant Shastri,a Brahmin scholar and to his second wife,Lakshmi Bai.he had married her while she was just 9 and his decision the further educate her,ostracized him from his community.He and his family fled to the forest first and searched for new pastures.Ramabai at 12,memorised 18000 verses.After the death of her parents,she began giving lectures on women's education and against child marriage.Her fame reached Kolkata.After her brother's death in 1880,she married a Bengali sudra,lawyer Bipin Behari Medhvi.He died two years later.They had a daughter Mano.From there,Ramabai shifted to Bombay and then to Pune where she became famous.Since women were supposed to be treated by only women,she pressed for women's entry into medical colleges.This demand reached Queen Victoria and thus began Lady Dufferin's Women's Medical Movement.Ramabai was given a scholarship to England in 1883 to be trained as a teacher.There she became a Christian and joined the Anglican Church.It is clear from historical accounts that Queen Victoria funded a project to convert high caste Hindus to Christianity.Ramabai went to the US to seek funds for her institution in India,lectured for three years and raised $30,000.Her book,High Caste Hindu Women sold 10,000 copies.She dedicated the book to Dr Anandibai Joshi,the first Indian woman to study western medicine.On return she founded Mukti Sadan,Krupa Sadan and Sharada Sadan.She translated the Bible to Marathi.Her daughter Manorama preceded her in death.

Reference:
Pioneers of Indigenous Christianity/K Baago,1969
Pandita Ramabai:The Story of her Life/Helen S Dyer,1900
The Life and Letters of Toru Dutt/Harihar Das/OUP,1921
Extravagant Genius:Michael Madhusudan Dutt and his Oeuvre/Indian Poetry in English:Critical Essays/Ed.Z Mitra/Prentice Hall,2012
Life of Lal Behari day/Gerardine Macpherson/T & T Clark,1900

See my blog,KRUPA,BRAHMIN,CHRISTIAN AND NOVELIST