458 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
especially in connection with Caste. According to de Nobili, caste had little signification. To him it was in the main a social observance, and so regarding it he saw no reason for compelling his converts to break with their caste fellowship or observances. His converts retained the ‘Shendi’ or tuft of hair which marked the caste Hindu, they wore a sacred cord indistinguishable from that of their Hindu neighbours, and they bore an oval caste mark on their brow, the paste composing or being made of the ashes of sandalwood instead of as formerly of the ashes of cow dung.
“For forty years de Nobili lived his life: a life of daily hardship, sacrifice and voluntary humiliation, such as has seldom been paralleled. On February 16, 1656, he died, having reached his eightieth year. Nearly one hundred thousand converts have been attributed to him, directly or indirectly, and allowing for much exaggeration their number must have been very great.
“In 1673, John de Britto, belonging to one of the noblest families of Portugal, sailed for India. He is now a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. William Robinson of the London Missionary Society and belonging to our own day said of him, “His eminence as a disciple, intrepid, selfless and enduring in all great qualities that add to the vigour of the Christian life, is assured.
“He and the Christian converts, after the disruption of the Kingdom of Madura and the establishment of petty Kingdoms, were mercilessly persecuted.
“Yet in spite of all that enemies could do, the worker went steadily on with his accepted duty, and wherever he journeyed the same tale of success was told. To the power of the message was added the charm of the messenger, and his converts were numbered by thousands. When by his hands a prince of Marava, Tadia Tevar, was baptized, measures were quickly taken to secure de Britto’s death. He was mercilessly done to death on February 4, 1693.
“Father Joseph Beschi, an Italian priest and successor to de Britto, reached India in 1707. Beschi adhered to the policy of the “Roman Brahmans,” but in his missionary practice differed considerably from his predecessors. De Nobili, so long as it had been possible, acted the part of a devout recluse, a holy Guru; de Britto had been chiefly the wandering Sanyasi, the holy pilgrim and in their personal life both had practised the greatest asceticism and simplicity. But Father Beschi followed a new line. If Hinduism had its ascetics, it had also its high priests, who lived in luxurious comfort, and whose outward surroundings were marked by pomp and circumstance. This was the line chosen by Beschi by