Roberto de Nobili

Roberto de Nobili (* September 1577 in Montepulciano, Italy, † January 16, 1656 in Mylapore in Madras, India) was a Jesuit missionary and linguist India.

Life

De Nobili entered the Society of Jesus in 1597 and was sent in 1604 to the mission to India. He was born on May 20, 1605 in Goa and worked from December 1606 in Madurai. The Christian mission in India was then led by the Portuguese and took little or no regard for Indian culture. To gain the higher castes and Brahmins for the Christian faith, lived de Nobili as a Christian sannyasi ( " renunciate " ), avoided the public dealing with the pariahs and learned Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. He was probably the first European who spoke those languages. He wanted to express the Christian faith with the terms of the Hindu philosophy.

Since he also outwardly conformed to the Indian ways of life, he was accused by other missionaries and had to answer in 1619 to the bishop of Goa. For some years he had his mission to interrupt, but Pope Gregory XV. allowed on 31 January 1623 the bull Romanae sedis anti steady continuation of the new mission method. Nobili was able to extend his work on Tritschinopoli, where he founded a pariah community. In order not to jeopardize the mission to the Brahmins, he beat 1640 proposes to provide their own missionaries for the Brahmans and others for the pariah. Of the few Brahmins became Christian, the other higher and lower castes, he was successful. In 1666, there were about 40,000 Christians in Madurai mission area. In his last years, de Nobili was almost blind, was built in 1648 to Jaffna (Ceylon ) was added, and then came to Mylapore, where he died.

Aftermath

About 50 years after his death arose between the Jesuits and Capuchins to Akkomodationsstreit about the proposed by Nobili practice a cautious assimilation of European-influenced church life to Indian rituals and customs, the Pope Benedict XIV with the Bull Omnium sollicitudinum on September 12, 1744 ruled against the tolerant practices of the Jesuits.

Works

He has authored more than 20 religious works in Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu, many of which were not printed.

• Gnanopadesam. (Spiritual teaching) Ambalacatou 1673
• Attuma Nirunayam. ( On the Soul ) Madras 1889
• Agnana Nivāranam. (Counter ignorance) Trichinopoly 1891
• Tivviya Mādrigai. ( The divine model ) Pondicherry 1866