Christianity and Tamil Culture: Father Joseph Beschi and the Image of the Virgin Mary

Abstract

Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (1680–1747) was an Italian Jesuit sent to the Madurai Mission in 1711. Father Beschi was a highly educated man who commanded several languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Portuguese prior to his move to India. Once at the mission he learned Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Urdu and wrote extensively in Tamil on both religious and profane subjects. Beschi had a deep veneration for the Virgin Mary. He, like many other missionaries, called upon her for protection during sea voyages and for help in evangelization. In fact, Beschi was responsible for the erection of two important places of worship dedicated to the Virgin Mary: Konankuppam, near Parur, and Ellacurichi, near Tanjore. These two sanctuaries became places of pilgrimage during the seventeenth century and continue to be respected as such places today. The cult of the Virgin Mary in southern India and especially in Tamil Nadu is very popular, and she incarnates the emblematic figure of contemporary Indian Catholicism. This article examines the image of the Virgin Mary as portrayed by Father Beschi in his Tamil poems and as shaped in the artistic representations that decorate the two sanctuaries he erected in her honour in Tamil Nadu.