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