The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Cross-Cultural Encounters with India 9781472592354, 9781474234832, 9781472592378

Table of contents :
Cover page
Halftitle page
Dedication page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Preface
Introduction
I. Configurations of the other
II. Hermeneutics
III. Historiography
IV. Th e ethical dimension
V. How can we read the other?
VI. Scope of the investigation
1 Representations of the Indian Other
I. Classical representations
II. Indian representations
III. Biblical, patristic, and medieval representations
IV. Apocryphal, romance, and miracle-letter tradition
V. Conclusion
2 The Lure of Christian Allies and the Fear ofMuslim Enemies
I. Initial sightings
II. Prester John’s letter
III. Geographical relativism
IV. Prester John’s embassies to the West
3 The Quest for Christians and the Rediscovery of Monsters
I. Introduction
II. The historical background
III. Nicolò de’ Conti and Poggio Bracciolini
IV. The initial discoveries of Columbus
V. Giovanni Dati
VI. Conclusion
4 Vasco da Gama, the Meaning of Discovery, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion
I. The voyage
II. Gama’s sojourn in India
III. A Christian Imaginaire
5 Re-visioning the Christian and the Monster
I. Merchants
II. Missionaries and miscegenation
III. Conclusion
6 The Return of the Monster: Camoens and the Epic Venture
I. The poet
II. The epic
III. The anti- epic
7 There is No There Anymore: The Subaltern Speaks to Pietro della Valle
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

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Also From Bloomsbury Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India, Laetitia Zecchini Landscape and Travelling East and West: A Philosophical Journey, edited by Hans-Georg Moeller Queer Postcolonial Narratives and the Ethics of Witnessing, Donna McCormack Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Alison Scott-Baumann Ricoeur, Literature and Imagination, Sophie Vlacos

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The Hermeneutics of Suspicion Cross-Cultural Encounters with India Dorothy M. Figueira

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 © Dorothy M. Figueira, 2015 Dorothy M. Figueira has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: 978-1-47259-235-4 ePDF: 978-1-47259-237-8 ePub: 978-1-47259-236-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

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Contents Preface

Introduction I. Configurations of the other II. Hermeneutics III. Historiography IV. The ethical dimension V. How can we read the other? VI. Scope of the investigation 1

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1 1 3 6 8 10 12

Representations of the Indian Other I. Classical representations II. Indian representations III. Biblical, patristic, and medieval representations IV. Apocryphal, romance, and miracle-letter tradition V. Conclusion

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The Lure of Christian Allies and the Fear of Muslim Enemies I. Initial sightings II. Prester John’s letter III. Geographical relativism IV. Prester John’s embassies to the West

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The Quest for Christians and the Rediscovery of Monsters I. Introduction II. The historical background III. Nicolò de’ Conti and Poggio Bracciolini IV. The initial discoveries of Columbus V. Giovanni Dati VI. Conclusion

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Vasco da Gama, the Meaning of Discovery, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion I. The voyage

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39 42 44 46

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77 77

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Contents

II. Gama’s sojourn in India III. A Christian Imaginaire

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Re-visioning the Christian and the Monster I. Merchants II. Missionaries and miscegenation III. Conclusion

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The Return of the Monster: Camoens and the Epic Venture I. The poet II. The epic III. The anti-epic There is No There Anymore: The Subaltern Speaks to Pietro della Valle

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91 99 105 111 111 113 118

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Conclusion

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Notes Bibliography Index

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Preface Every stranger is an enemy. Primo Levi, If This is Man All travelers tell stories. Explorers may travel to discover new lands, but the process often involves self-discovery. They create a vision of the other to better understand the self. The same can be said of most people. In order to negotiate the treacherous waters that they traverse in life, they also construct narratives. I remember quite vividly the stories that my mother told me. I now see them to be myths that my parents constructed to forge an identity for themselves in their “new world.” The subtext of their narrative was the assertion of self-respect. We might be “economically challenged” newcomers in this great land, but we brought with us virtues that were sorely lacking here. Although deemed by some as “barbarians,” we were really quite civilized. This was our immigrant myth of identity. In my family, the mark of civilization was racial tolerance. My mother spoke not only for her Calabrian parents but also for my Portuguese father. The Portuguese were color-blind, so she told me. They married whomever they could convert, the proof being the ethnic mélange of my father’s family. I should be proud of my double heritage. Although I might be considered a second-class citizen and experience discrimination, I was in some respects superior to many Americans because on both sides I descended from people who “discovered” the world and were not, by tradition or inclination, racist. This myth structured my sense of self, just as other myths, some even more baroque, informed the identities of the people around me. It was the power of and respect for myths that led me to study them and then took me to India, like my forebears. I relate my family mythology as a preface to the following investigation not because I think that the study of literature concerns the psycho-drama of the critic. The study of literature is, after all, about texts. Rather, I relate these thoughts because it is precisely our prejudices (Vorurteile) that open up texts to us and it is then our task as readers to adjust our understanding through the process of mimesis. All narratives are then translations. Sometimes the hermeneutical process works, sometimes it does not. In any case, the very process of engaging vii

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the other leads us to confront alterity and position ourselves in relation to it. By investigating the other, we are forced to distinguish between us and them and this process often entails differentiating what is civilized from what is barbarian. My point here is simple: all heterologies (investigations of the other), whether they be my own alluded to here or those studied in these pages, have a timeless and universal quality to them. We take our myths with us on all our journeys. They nourish us in our dreams and protect us from our real and imaginary monsters. They help us fuel our fantasies regarding ourselves and respond to our fears regarding the other. Our lives are essentially hermeneutic games. Certainly, our engagement with others entails interpretive play. While recent literary theories and pedagogies of alterity may presume to help us engage the other in a responsible manner, it is quite clear that, despite all our multicultural initiatives, there still seems to be no viable ethic of encounter at work in the world today. The Muslim other continues to loom before the endangered Christian self just as it did in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. As we shall see, a political will always seems to resist allowing us to recalibrate our individual myths in light of the evidence at hand. In the following chapters, we will seek to apply a hermeneutic understanding to a selection of texts dealing with encounter. Our study follows in the wake of eminent past historians of the age of discovery (Boxer, Rogers, Lach) and more recent scholars (Subrahmanyam, Rubiés, Županov) whose work has informed my analysis. It applies the theories of my teachers, Gadamer and Ricoeur, to the texts under investigation. It has been made possible by my friends, without whom I would not have ventured forth on this journey. First and foremost, I wish to thank Maria Alzira Seixo of Lisbon who welcomed me into her ICLA research committee on the age of discovery and secured funding on several occasions for me from the Gulbenkian Foundation. I am indebted to Michael Palencia-Roth for introducing me to the study of monsters and mentoring me in cross-cultural analysis. I wish to thank Brigitte Steinmann who invited me to work in her ethnology group at the University of Lille, Anasthasie Kaskassiades without whose support and friendship I could not have edited this volume and Giulia Angelini of the Freie Universität in Berlin, who years ago housed me in Venice and, unknowingly to us both, set in motion my love for travel narratives. She has aided me with my translations of the Italian poetry appearing in this volume. I also wish to thank Jenny Webb for her constant aid and expertise in the preparation of this manuscript. I dedicate this volume to my daughters Lila and Mira who themselves had to journey to a new world and make a place for themselves in it.

Introduction Sire, ormai ti ho parlato di tutte le città che conosco. — Ne resta una cui non parli mai. Marco Polo chino il capo. “Venezia” disse il Kan. Marco sorrise. “E di che altro credevi che ti parlasi?” Calvino, Le Città invisibili1

I. Configurations of the other As far back as Parmenides and Plato, mainstream philosophy has defined the other in relation to the self. Due to their devotion to reason, philosophers have often sought to banish the other to the realm of unreason,2 relegating it to the domains of art, myth, and religion. Rendered temporarily invisible, the other has always resurfaced in the guise of strangers, gods, and monsters that do not go away, but continue to command our attention. Plato approached the other in terms of wonderment (thaumázein) and terror (deinon). In the Phaedrus, Socrates emphasized that strangers, gods, and monsters belonged to the realm of myth, not philosophy. He further noted that philosophy as a rule transcends myths. Nevertheless, Socrates questioned whether he was “a beast more complicated and savage than Typhon or a tamer, simpler animal with a share in a divine and gentle nature” (230.e). In other words, Plato established the apposition between the monster and the philosopher, suggesting that it was only by exorcising the monster that one can know oneself (Kearney 2003: 151–2). In the Sophist, Plato put the discussion regarding the other in the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger: does the existence of the xénos demand the establishment of another category (héteros génos) beyond Being? The Stranger argues that all kinds of beings blend with each other. This mixing ’ ) with the other (héteron) makes speech possible (Soph. 259e) of the same (autόs and enables us to distinguish between what is true and what is false. Without such blending, the other is literally unspeakable and unrecognizable (Kearney 2003: 153). Modern philosophy continues the pattern, set in place by the Greeks, of refusing to allow the other to be truly other and not a reflection of the self. In 1

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Romantic hermeneutics, as practiced by Schleiermacher and Dilthey, the purpose of philosophical interpretation is to unite the consciousness of one subject with that of another through a process of appropriation (Aneignung). Schleiermacher explored the retrieval of estranged consciousness in terms of a theological re-appropriation of the original message of kerygma (quoted in Dilthey 1974: 117). Dilthey analyzed it in terms of the historical resolve to reach some kind of objective knowledge about the past (Dilthey 1976: 66–105). Hegel historicized alterity in terms of the master-slave dialectic (Hegel 1994). Marx addressed the question of the other in his analysis of fetishism and ideology (Marx 1990; Marx and Engels 1970). In the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl identified the other as never absolutely alien, but as always and everywhere recognized as other than me (Husserl 1960: 112–17). In each of these philosopher’s formulations, the other is viewed by analogy. The notion of the other as alter ego was taken to an even more radical extension by existentialist philosophers such as Sartre (Sartre 1943: 413–29) and Heidegger, who described the other in the context of their theories regarding inauthentic existence and bad faith (Heidegger 1962). In all these theories, the other is reduced to the ego’s horizon of consciousness and is, as such, always mediated. Mirroring the ego, the other is assigned no intrinsic value beyond its role as a duplication of the same. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the Holocaust, certain critics, most notably Emmanuel Levinas, felt that a reassessment of Heidegger’s thought was warranted, as was a revaluation of the transcendent subject. In postcolonial literary studies, the other continues to be seen in autonomous terms. Now, however, it is understood to function as a gross distortion of the self and assumes a political significance. Narcissistic and aggressive projections onto this other are understood as compensations for a perceived lack in the European “individual.” Edward Said’s Orientalism claimed to reveal the extent to which the other was monolithically constructed to support imperial hegemony (Said 1978). Said borrowed from structuralism the notion that individual action, cultural forms, and social institutions can be reduced to stable essential elements. He then was able to view East-West encounters in terms of a Foucauldian drama where a “western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over” (Said 1978: 3) other cultures enables the actual deployment of European colonialism. Grounded in a hermeneutics of suspicion with its roots visible in the work of Marx, Freud, and Gramsci, Said’s critique of orientalism has informed subsequent scholarship. It spawned postcolonial theories, influenced multicultural debates, and invigorated Asian Studies (Figueira 2008: 32). In fact, it has become the master narrative of cross-cultural encounter where any

Introduction

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interpretations of the non-Amero-European other are judged as forms of subterfuge created to consolidate Amero-European power and domination. Individual theorists then added their own blend of spices to this heady brew. The other can now appear as obsessively reiterative. One can enlist Franz Fanon’s perception of the subjugated as a phobic object (Fanon 1963) or Jacques Lacan’s theory of the way in which individual subjects are constituted to support a postmodern theory of alterity (Lacan 1966). Henry Louis Gates, for example, borrowed from Lacan to map subject formation onto a self-other model (Gates 1991: 463). Homi Bhabha brought together Freud’s concept of the fetish and Fanon’s schema of the imaginary to define the colonial subject as the reformed and recognizable other, a subject of difference that is almost the same, but not quite (Bhabha 1992). Abdul Jan Mohammed has warned us against the undifferentiated Manichaean view of the other (Jan Mohammed 1985). Such postmodern approaches to the encounter with the other tend to focus on psychologizing modern fantasies of alienation. Their starting point can be situated in a pathologization of the classical era as the origin of a climate culminating in nineteenth-century imperialism. The problem with many of these more recent critical approaches is that they seek to “recreate the past by inventing precursors for the present” (Olender 1992: 18). The encounter with the other is portrayed prefiguratively. The western actor is presumed guilty of insinuating a subversive foreign doctrine (racism, colonialism, conversion) into a neutral conceptual stream by means of a cynical manipulation of the native [text]. While such theories provide insights regarding the psychological and hegemonic processes involved in cross-cultural encounters, they lack a nuanced understanding of the hermeneutical, historiographical, and ethical judgments that inform the heterological project. It is precisely these types of inquiries that should be brought into play in any examination of alterity, if not as a structuring mechanism, then certainly as providing an operating vocabulary to initiate such an investigation.

II. Hermeneutics Like their classical and early modern precursors, poststructuralist conceptions of the other focus primarily on the self. These recent conceptualizations of alterity, however, seek to assess the psychodynamics of appropriation. They also grapple with the impossibility of portraying the other as anything but a translation of European familiarity with the self. A key difference between these

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earlier conceptions of the other and poststructuralist formulations is that the latter acknowledge that the process of trying to understand involves issues of appropriation, or, at least, creates conditions for colonization. The result of this operation confirms Foucault’s assertion that power and knowledge are entwined and recognized as such (Foucault 1970). It is, however, in this very notion of recognition and, significantly, its relation to textual interpretation, that hermeneutic approaches to the other distinguish themselves from poststructuralist constructions of alterity. As Hans-Georg Gadamer so succinctly put it in Wahrheit und Methode: “To seek one’s own in the alien, to become at home in it, is the basic movement of the spirit, whose being is only a return to itself for what is other” (Gadamer 1960: 11). This movement, represented by the concept of Bildung, is particular to hermeneutic understanding. It provides a structure of excursion and reunion (Ricoeur 1969: 16–17). If the circular structure of hermeneutic understanding is complete, the spirit moves to the strange and unfamiliar, finds a home there, and makes it its own, or recognizes what was previously perceived as alien to be its genuine home. Hermeneutic understanding, then, consists of a movement of self-estrangement in which one must learn to engage and know the other in order to better know oneself. Selfhood is, thus, by nature dialogical or suffused with otherness. In fact, in a reversal peculiar to Bildung, the movement of the spirit resembles a true homecoming, its point of departure being essentially a way-station and the initial alien-ness a mirage produced by self-alienation. Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy—which stretched back from Heidegger to Dilthey and Schleiermacher—pursued the idea of a reconciliation between our own understanding and that of strangers in terms of a fusion of horizons (Gadamer 1960: 273–4, 337–8, 358). For Gadamer, the hermeneutic tradition accepts that understanding is always affected by history, prejudice (understood as pre-judgments or Vorurteile), authority, and tradition.3 While Heidegger viewed the retrieval of our past as a repetition of our potentialities of beingin-the-world (Heidegger 1962, section  25), Gadamer saw hermeneutics as a recovery of past consciousness (Gadamer 1960: 305–24) by rendering the past contemporaneous with our present modes of comprehension (Kearney 2003: 154–5). Ricoeur would develop Gadamer’s notion of hermeneutical consciousness by claiming that the retrieval of one’s destiny only occurs in the repetition of action through narrative.4 Ricoeur maintained that we understand the self as we would a character in a literary fiction (Ricoeur 1988: 190). Both are narrative identities constituted by means of emplotment that configures and synthesizes diverse and multiple

Introduction

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elements into a unified whole. Individuals and communities form their identities by telling stories about themselves and these stories become their history. Thus, history and fiction share a common form in that they both mediate the experience of the world through the unfolding of narrative. The only difference, according to Ricoeur, between history and fiction, is that the former is bound by argument, verification, and fidelity to what happened, while the latter is tied to imaginative variations of what occurred that, in turn, create new interpretations and new ways of seeing things.5 Our lives are inchoate storms of pre-narrative structures that only become fully intelligible when transformed into narrative through the act of mimesis whereby human action is presupposed, represented, and reinterpreted.6 Then, through the act of reading, the world of a work becomes linked to the world of the reader.7 The subject of this procedure is not a selftransparent cogito that functions as the ultimate foundation for reason. Rather, the path to self-understanding must be mediated by signs, symbols, language, and texts.8 Narrative is thus indispensable in articulating the intelligibility of human action. However, the same medium that configures human activity also distorts it. The question then becomes: How do we distinguish between ideological and non-ideological narrative, true and false consciousness, genuine and false communication? At one pole of the hermeneutical field, there is the hermeneutics of belief (hermeneutical consciousness) directed at recovering a lost message and animated by a willingness to listen. At the other pole, we find a hermeneutics of suspicion (critical consciousness) aimed at demystification and animated by mistrust and skepticism.9 In broad terms, these two hermeneutical positions define how we approach texts. A decade earlier, Ricoeur had recognized this broad spectrum within hermeneutics and sought to engage it, particularly when Jürgen Habermas had challenged Gadamer’s formulation of hermeneutics. In his mediation of what would become known as the Gadamer-Habermas debate, Ricoeur advocated a compromise between what was portrayed as the utopian ideation of tradition envisioned by Gadamer and the criticalconsciousness approach advocated by Habermas that saw all communication as distorted by ideology.10 The parameters of this debate need not be elaborated here.11 All we need to understand is that most subsequent forms of criticism (Foucauldian, post-Foucauldian, Saidian, post-Saidian, colonial discourse analysis, postcolonialism, multiculturalism) opted for a hermeneutics-ofsuspicion approach that is indebted to the Habermasian critique of ideology. The hermeneutical model championed by Ricoeur was tossed on the garbage heap, in much the same manner that Ricoeur himself was physically assaulted in May

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’68 at Nanterre. The Foucauldian quest to unmask some power structure was deemed not only righteous but also more relevant than any call to try and engage in reconciling the two approaches.12 The critique of ideology was simply too attractive and too rich. There were so many abuses, self-obsessions, and projections of the European sense of superiority and intellectual imperialism that scholars could claim to battle. Moreover, theory could now really pretend to be a viable form of social action. So, scholarship dealing with cross-cultural encounters simply adopted, with varying degrees of efficacy, the critical consciousness stance even though it could be quite self-referential and selfserving. It certainly became repetitive and its empty pretense of effecting actual change has worn very thin over time. In the last several years, Ricoeur’s middle path of charting the ontological and ethical categories of otherness and his advocacy for dialogue between the self and the other has gained renewed interest, especially since his death in 2005. In the fields of historiography and ethics, Michel de Certeau and Emmanuel Levinas shared many of Ricoeur’s general concerns. They too questioned how we might make ourselves more hospitable to those very strangers, gods, and monsters that have been too often exiled in western culture.

III. Historiography Certeau viewed history as necessarily shaped by the system in which it is developed. As a combination of a social place, “scientific” practices, and writing, the historical operation takes limited evidence and seeks to unify it into coherence. History, as a practice, collects rarities into a synthesis of “scattered positivities” (Certeau 1988: 56). The act of writing makes oppositions compatible in narrative. It temporalizes and makes coherent something that is heteroclite and irregular. A political will is seen to manage conflicts as well as select and direct an intelligibility toward normativity (Certeau 1988: 92). This same will then packages concepts (Certeau 1988: 97) in such a way that any reading of the past (no matter how controlled by an analysis of documents) is haunted by presuppositions in the form of models of interpretation. As such, history is as much a staging of the past (Certeau 1988: 9) as a fiction of the present. According to Certeau, modern western historiography was born out of a rift between the subject and the object. As such, it is a heterology or a discourse of the other. The writing of history is also an expression of a will to know and dominate by transforming inherited traditions into a textual product through a

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process of manipulation and analysis (Certeau 1988: 64). Events do not appear in their immediacy as the chronicler restages elements to figure into his writing/ interpretation. As a textual “poacher” or “prowler” (Certeau 1988: 79), the interpreter converts alterity into something assimilable to the prevailing configuration of European knowledge. However, in any selection of materials, shards, traces, or remainders are created. In other words, what disappears from the product appears in the production: not so much in terms of personal intentions, but rather the sociocultural localizations that inspire the foci of interest. Through a process of bricolage, the historian/author creatively revises and recombines heterogeneous materials. Meaning is thus tied to the significance that comes from each new use (Certeau 1988: 49). The interpreter does not passively absorb traces of the other, but operates them, redistributes them, and finally inscribes them in narrative form. In the process of attempting to control the material, the interpreter is often interrupted by sounds when what is repressed returns. This unassimilable residue, which returns in the text to upset the fabrications of interpretation, haunts and disquiets the organization of meaning. Such interferences overdetermine representations of alterity and lead the interpreter to produce (under the guise of interpretation) variants of a fantasmic other that “returns to” or “rebites” the present (Certeau 1986: Ch. 2). Certeau charted the heterological process of assimilating the other to the self by pinpointing those areas of slippage, where traces or remainders return to disrupt meaning. Ultimately, these shards or sounds bear witness to the short-circuiting of assimilation. The heterological procedure, as interpreted by Certeau, presents no simple opposition of the self to the other, but rather a procedure akin to a form of psychoanalysis. Of necessity, the interpreter’s representation of the other is contaminated by his or her own intrusive identity. Implicit instances of social alterity precede the interpreter and their effects continue to inform the interpreter’s work, inducing forms of unconscious repetition through which the past returns to haunt the present (Certeau 1986: 4). For Certeau, the other is thus structurally re-formed as a projection or residue of a legitimate interpretative operation. It becomes a site of uncertainty upon which the dead resistance of the past inhabits and haunts the present. Difference can be seen then not as something created by a given power structure, but by what hegemony fabricates in order to plaster over its former conquests “the forgetting of which organizes itself into psycho-sociological systems and the reverberations of which create possibilities for the present state” (Certeau 1986: 6). In this respect, the historian becomes not only a sort of psychologist, but also

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an apologist for the present regime as well as an operator of the forgotten past. Historians and their readers attempt to assimilate the other into the “same” by eliminating resistance through an idealization of the past13 in utopian visions that haunt history. Certeau suggests that idealizations cannot be avoided; they are present everywhere. His conceptualization of heterology thus brings us to question the ethics involved in any encounter with the other.

IV. The ethical dimension In order to respect the singularity of the other person, I must recognize the other as another self bearing universal rights and responsibilities. Ricoeur claimed that one of the best ways to de-alienate the other was to recognize and treat oneself as another and the other as (in part) another self.14 Ethics also enjoins me to recognize the other as someone capable of recognizing me, in turn, as a self capable of recognition and esteem.15 For Ricoeur, it is narrative memory that allows us to preserve the trace of the other (especially the victims of history) who would, if unremembered, be lost to the injustice of non-existence. Through narrative, the other within calls us to act on behalf of the other without. However, in order to be faithful to this other, one has to have a self16 and, once again, it is narrative that creates a sense of identity and allows us to sustain a notion of selfhood over time. This developed sense of identity also produces the selfesteem that is indispensable to ethics and serves as a guarantee of one’s fidelity to the other. According to Ricoeur, the indispensable critique of the other is necessary in order to supplement the critique of the self. The hermeneutics of suspicion must, therefore, operate in both directions and on both fronts simultaneously. Real relations between humans demand a double critique of the ego and the alien. The self and the other enter into a dialectic relationship of mutual responsibility. Ricoeur’s call for a hermeneutics of action stands in contrast to any deconstruction that seeks to disclose the interchangeable character of others and aliens. It alerts us to the irreducible alterity of all incomers. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics thus differs considerably from those theories of alterity based on a Foucauldian conception of power dynamics. It also stands in contrast to the radically minimized role of the self in relation to the other found in the work of Levinas for whom the other does not manifest itself in relation to the ego’s horizon of consciousness and subjectivity. For Levinas, the stranger is not relatively other, as in Ricoeur. It is so radically other that I cannot even represent it to myself or enter into a relationship

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with it. To do so would assimilate the other and, thereby, reduce it to the same. It bears noting that in the postwar period, both Ricoeur and Levinas were the chief proponents of phenomenology in France and both very early on in their publishing careers addressed the ramifications of Edmund Husserl’s philosophy. Husserl’s renewal of philosophy through phenomenology can be summed up by the term “intentionality.”All consciousness is a cogito of something (cogitatum). The intentional structure of consciousness can, therefore, be characterized as the interplay between subject and object. In the ’30s, Heidegger had transformed this vision of phenomenology by viewing consciousness as rooted in deeper levels of “being there” (Dasein). Heidegger conceived of Being in light of the expression es gibt. This concept of Being can be understood as a celebration of generosity that bestows light, freedom, and truth to all. It is a formulation that Levinas would transform into his notion of il y a. However, Levinas understood the concept of il y a as radically different from Heidegger’s es gibt. For Levinas, il y a is dangerous, generating neither light nor freedom, but rather terror. There is a loss of selfhood through the immersion in the lawless chaos of “there is.” In On Escape (2003b), Levinas instructs us how to evade it. The source of this light can only be found in something other than Being. I see another as someone I need in order to realize certain individual and personal wants. By looking at the face of the other, I should be able to transform it into a moment of my own material or spiritual property. Instead, the appearance of the other, in fact, breaks, pierces, and destroys the horizon of egocentric monism. The other invades my world; its face or speech thus interrupts and disturbs the order of my ego’s universe. It makes a hole in it by disarraying arrangements and denying any restoration of the previous order. Something present in the other manifests itself and I am chosen to discover myself as someone who is totally responsible for this determinate other and must bow before the absoluteness revealed by its look or speech. In others words, the other makes me accountable for my life. The self is thus linked ab initio to the other from which it is radically separated, yet unable to escape. Levinas thus posits the relation of the self and the other as the ultimate horizon that ideally should replace a Heideggerian concept of Being (Levinas 1969: 3/33ff ).17 To recognize the other is to give.18 Generosity to the other is, however, a oneway movement (Levinas 1969: 349). The other is not a member of my community, but a stranger who cannot be reduced to any role or function in my world. To do justice to others, we must come face to face with them, become subordinated to their vocative address, and speak to them. Most importantly, however, we cannot reduce the other to an element of a text about him or her. The other is an

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interlocutor (Levinas 1969: 69) not an object of discourse. In radical opposition to Ricoeur’s concept of engaging alterity through mimesis or Certeau’s procedure of manipulating it, Levinas’s other can neither be grasped nor objectified; it cannot be reduced to any textuality or reinscribed in narrative form.19 According to Levinas, the only possible response to this other is respect, generosity, and donation. Levinas distinguished two possible paradigms for the encounter with the other, the model presented by Odysseus and that of Abraham (Levinas 1986: 346).20 What he describes as the Odysseus paradigm is akin to the movement of hermeneutic understanding described by Gadamer, Certeau, and Ricoeur—the movement out, the process of making the other one’s own, and the return. In Levinas’s Abraham model, there is irreversible movement. One goes out to the other, but this departure is without return.21 This paradigm effects a one-way movement. It requires radical generosity on the part of the self and radical ingratitude on the part of the other as opposed to a cyclical hermeneutic movement of recognition and gratitude. In much the same way that Habermas found Gadamer’s hermeneutics problematic, Levinas cast doubt on the homecoming paradigm, interpreting it as a form of imperialism. He claimed it was an economy in which the self never really encounters the other. He viewed it as a reversion of alterity to the same, the imperialism of the same (Levinas 1986: 347). To approach the other, armed with a concept of dialogue, one destroys the alterity of the other in the guise of respecting it. It is necessary, according to Levinas, to realize that one has no power over the stranger (Levinas 1969: 39).

V. How can we read the other? There are several points we can take from the hermeneutic, historiographical, and ethical discussions concerning alterity outlined above. Hermeneutical consciousness seeks to engage the other. The critical consciousness approach that has almost exclusively informed the last thirty years of scholarship views such encounters as acts of intellectual and cultural mastery. In this sense, the critique of ideology severely limits the possibility of cross-cultural understanding. Ricoeur proposed a middle path between hermeneutics and the critique of ideology. He had culled from the Gadamer-Habermas debate the firm belief that these creative discourses permit us to recognize that we are confronted both by ideological distortions and utopian ideations. The former strive to dissimulate legitimate power and the latter question authority and seek to replace the reigning power structure. Ricoeur, therefore, acknowledged the need for a

Introduction

11

hermeneutics of suspicion. It allows us to transform the absolute other into a relative other that we might be able to see as another self. However, Ricouer also saw, as did Certeau, that the mastery of the self in relation to the other is disrupted before discourse can even imagine itself in control.22 Following Gadamer, Ricoeur recommended an understanding of hermeneutics that posits the possibility of recovering a text’s lost message while maintaining the necessary suspicions aimed at demystifying it. Underlying this understanding is the belief that our temporality and historicity make sense only when organized in narrative. Ricoeur saw narrative (in both history and fiction) as the product of multiple creative discourses (creative “swarms” in Certeau’s parlance) that contribute to the creation of a “unified” text. Certeau viewed narrative as an operation, a product of place and procedure. Both acknowledge that through narrative those in power and those bereft of power exercise a political will that renders data normative. Ricoeur believed that the distanciation involved in reading allows us to hear meaning behind the author’s intentions. Certeau placed his faith in our recognizing the shards (traces or residue) that remain when what is repressed returns. It is these interferences that overdetermine representation. Levinas presents us with a radically different perspective on our ability to engage the other. In the first place, he speaks of the irreducibility of the other to any text about him or her. Ricoeur and Certeau set certain limits to our engagement, but they never denied the very possibility of such an encounter. Levinas, however, claims that we cannot grasp or assimilate the other who, in turn, breaks and destroys our spiritual horizon of egocentric monism. As we will see, the encounters with the other described in the following chapters certainly “put holes” in the arrangements. As Levinas claims, there is certainly terror involved in the loss of selfhood and chaos engendered by these encounters with the other. Guided by the ethical analysis of alterity provided by Levinas as well as the historiographical schema devised by Certeau, this present volume seeks to investigate a series of paradigmatic encounters between the West and its other, here defined as “India.” Theoretically, this volume champions the middle path between hermeneutical consciousness and critical consciousness (hermeneutics of suspicion) that Ricoeur initially deployed in his mediation of the GadamerHabermas debate.23 Let us truly recognize the “hybridity” of these encounters. I consciously invert the recent theoretical use of this term where it represents native postcolonial movements that resist the essentializing narratives made of indigenous peoples by the colonizer. Rather, I view it as a process whereby an outsider can invent a

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The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

culture for a people and they can also invent a culture for him. There is a mutual coordinated construction by both the Europeans and the Indians. Both parties play a role. They see themselves through the prism of their respective representations of the other (Wagner 1981). In other words, “translation” is never unequivocal; it is never a simple representation but, as Certeau affirms, a selection and, as Ricoeur notes, a retelling. Moreover, I suggest that a text can be both a success of the hermeneutical process (in the form of some fusion of horizons) and a product and object of ideological discourse to solidify the imposition of power between the self and the other.

VI. Scope of the investigation The act of engaging the other brings taxonomy into play. When viewing something unfamiliar for which there exists few readily available antecedents, observers have to classify before they (and later we) can properly see. In order to classify in any meaningful sense, they have no alternative but to appeal to a system that is already in place (Pagden 1982: 2). It might even be said that we construct the other out of some innate need to classify according to difference and that travel narratives exist primarily to translate this difference. The traveler posits the other, inverts it, and thus transcribes alterity into the anti-same. In other words, the traveler constructs a transparent alterity. We no longer find a and b, but a and the inverse of a. The discourse of alterity is then nothing more than a means of talking about the same. First, we must suggest difference and then we must translate it by putting inversion to work. Inversion allows us to understand the other by giving it a meaning that renders it less opaque. Such translation through inversion creates a fiction that ultimately allows us to see and understand ourselves. This volume examines the operation of translation involved in early western encounters with India. One of our initial concerns is to determine exactly where these narratives situate this land.24 At times, India appears as a zone at the end of the world (eschatiá). Yet, it also surfaces as a totally imaginary locus, existing solely in order to present possibilities for cultural transformation and imaginative identification with others (Uebel 2005: 5). Another important question concerns the identity of the Indians one finds. We will see how each voyager presents a unique version of the Indian reality and that it often involves his denouncing the “lies” of other travelers. If one rendition is to be taken seriously, then another traveler’s account must be fiction.25 By explicitly or implicitly evoking other narratives, travel accounts are necessarily intertextual. In fact, travel literature is

Introduction

13

often nothing more than a journey through other narratives. Let’s not forget that Christopher Columbus took a copy of Marco Polo along with him on his First Voyage. This present volume examines a series of such journeys through books. It investigates how Indian others are delineated in classical (Greek and Sanskrit), apocryphal and patristic literature, the Alexander legend, medieval mapmaking, the Prester John letter, the miracle letter tradition, travel narratives, Jesuit letters, epic, and poetry. As early as the classical period, India was depicted as a land of thau ˆ mata (marvels and curiosities). In medieval times, three essential legends would be superimposed upon this classical image of India. The first legend concerns the mythical deeds attributed to Alexander. Here, India exists as a site where “civilization” encounters and conquers “barbarism.” There is even some speculation that Indian barbarians might be the Gog and Magog described in the Book of Revelation. In any case, Indians are found to be racially distinct from the Christian West. Another legend generally held in the Christian community and found in the writings of Church fathers claimed that the Apostle Thomas went to India immediately after the Resurrection to preach the Gospel. Thomas was believed to have established Christian communities and suffered martyrdom there.26 Finally, the third legend informing the medieval image of India involved Prester John, a rich and powerful ruler who lived to the east of the Muslims and could be counted on to aid the West in its fight against Islam. These three legends gradually became interwoven, along with the thaumata of classical accounts. They provided the backdrop for travel literature in the age of discovery. From the thirteenth century onwards the boundaries separating Latin Europe from its others were consistently crossed and rethought. A sustained missionary impulse defined the fifteenth century as a period of reason and hope, an era of contemplating cultural alterity while maintaining theological optimism in the unity of difference (Uebel 1996: 273). This world was divided into antithetical groups—the civilized and the barbarian, the pólis and the ecclesía. These antitheses represented inclusion and exclusion. Europeans could embrace the ideal of an Indian political, social, and religious order, but were wary of the possibility of disorder lurking out of sight, embodied in Indian monsters and bizarre practices. The thaumata of the classical accounts thus reappear as the fundamental topoi of ethnographic space and are classified in order to manage the danger they represent. While seeming digressive, the thaumata generally produce the narrative by prompting the narrator to speak or write (Hartog 1980: 231, 236). They act as translations of difference, identifying the “real” of the other, and thereby distinguishing between “us” and “them.”

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It is important to realize then that, before Renaissance explorers embarked upon their voyages to the East, a complex heterology with regard to India had already been delineated. Attempts to establish anatomical, physiological, and geographical relationships between various human and animal populations had not produced a fully developed idea of race, since there was no proper anthropology, natural history, or biology to support it (Hanneford 1996: 183). Nevertheless, the early voyages of discovery offered a variety of new reasons to account for the startling differences Europeans encountered in the lands they “discovered.” Since civilization entailed membership in a social community, travel narratives sought to investigate public governance and contrast it to the brutishness of private existence in realms bereft of a legitimate public dimension. They also examined civilization (or lack thereof) in personal space. On the private level, brutishness often expressed itself in extravagant sexual practices. In the public realm, civilization could sometimes be revealed by what constituted the nobility in such lands, often marked by the presence of Christians. Another important influence on the politics of empire-building in India was the Church, particularly from the arrival of the Jesuits in 1542 to the establishment of the Inquisition in 1560. The efforts of Ignatius Loyola and Alessandro Valignano in establishing the Jesuit mission in the East provide a crucial step in the literary emplotment of India in this period. The Lusiads, appearing in 1592, provides an epic counterpoint to this literature. Finally, the voyage of Pietro della Valle in 1623 marks the endpoint of our inquiry, where the Indian other is transformed into the “Christian” self. All these discussions, however, were framed by the traditional discourse that described India in terms of monsters and marvels, culled from classical and medieval literature. The texts under investigation here can be largely broken down into two categories. They can be either itineraries with lengthy descriptions of geography, economic, ethnological, and political information, or they can be historical. The travelers under investigation here comprise the former category. These itineraries are either spatial or temporal. They are colored by the travelers’ social class and ability to manipulate the language of Christianity (Rubiés 2000: xv). The itinerary account can follow a personal journey, as in the case of Conti, Varthema, and della Valle, wherein lands and peoples are described in depth. Travelers such as Paes and Nunes focus primarily on the geographical narrative. A personal biography or the account of a maritime expedition can also provide the main structuring element, as in the case of our examination of Columbus, his popularizer, Dati, or Gama. Narratives can also be structured on the basis of the practical interests of the merchants, soldiers, and crown officials, as in the case of

Introduction

15

our investigation of Pires and Barbosa. To contrast these western journeys eastward, we will look at Damião de Góis’s account of an “Indian” embassy westward in search of western Christians. In all these texts, Christians and monsters appear as theorizing tools, proliferating and sometimes even coalescing in the narrative. The fantasy of Indian Christians appears then as a utopian dream in response to the Muslim threat of encroachment. The cameo appearances of Indian monsters, however, were more ambiguous. Were they devised as general terms for the marginal or outcast, or as a more sinister process whereby a formerly tolerant society became obsessed with pollution, danger, and subversion from without and within? What strategies were employed by dominant players and what tactics used by weaker players to avoid impositions of power? It was vital for our authors to identify with the social category to which a group belongs in order to assess objectively its position within a society based on power relations. Even our early travelers had to consider their global context as a means of incorporating into their own futures the heteronomies of other cultures and accepting the reality of the other (Certeau 1997: 131). Their task was to render foreignness intelligible. They did so by taking as their model the Indian, a figure from their own farthest geographical zone, in order to render alterity inoffensive. They thus established an intermediary other, with some alterity, but sometimes not any more savage than the European self. This other is recognizable. It can be labeled with respect to what is near as well as far (Hartog 1980: 188). By assimilating alterity into a familiar space, it is thus reduced, even cancelled, in polysemic play. In this manner, the travel narratives and the literature they engendered make it possible to distinguish the self from the other, the colonizer from the colonized, the Christian from the Infidel, and the human from the monster. They reflect not only the dreams and aspirations of the age of discovery, but also the individual psycho-dramas and collective fears of their interpreters.

16

1

Representations of the Indian Other

India is brought near by lust for gain. Pliny, Natural History 6.26.60–5 The natives of all unknown countries are commonly called Indians. Maximilian of Transylvania, De moluccis (1888: 116)

I. Classical representations In the Greek epic tradition, the civilized and the barbarian were clearly delineated. Homer defined civilized peoples through their treatment of strangers, as in Odysseus’s encounter with the Cyclopes (The Odyssey, Bk. 9) and the Laistrygonians (Bk. 10). In the Timaeus and The Republic, Plato further developed the theme that individuals were deemed civilized only as members of a social group—identity was tied to life within a community or pólis. One accrued status only as a citizen of the legitimate Greco-Roman order. Outside this order dwelled the bárbaros. The barbarian was distinguished by a lack of an ordered urban or rural existence, an inability to manufacture and employ the material artifacts of more advanced civilizations, and the absence of a sophisticated spoken and written literary culture (Jones 1971: 376). The boundaries of the civilized GrecoRoman world and the dwelling place of the barbarian shifted as geographical knowledge of the world expanded. The more the world was explored and charted, the more distant the barbarian’s locale. Herodotus (ca. 484–425 bc) initiated the study of comparative culture by posing two basic questions. He questioned what an alien society had in common with his own and how cultures differ from each other. Herodotus defined barbarism in terms of arbitrary power, materialism, tyranny, and cruelty. He equated all foreigners with barbarians. The Scythians, for example, possessed cruel social practices not because of some racial criteria, but rather because of 17

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The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

their incapacity to maintain a moral public life capable of ordering human affairs. Herodotus focused primarily on the political aspects of alterity. He maintained that the East could not coexist with the Hellenic West, because it represented all that ran counter to Greek values of order and freedom. Thus, the Histories offered tales of cannibalism, lust, and bestiality. However, they also provided extensive data regarding peoples’ skull size, color of hair, and of skin. In this manner, Herodotus both linked civilization to membership in the pólis and highlighted racial and moral markers of barbarism in his descriptions of monstrosity. Herodotus’s depiction of India is particularly noteworthy in that he was the only classical author writing on India whose work has survived. All other classical works dealing with India based on personal knowledge exist only in citation by later authors. Herodotus gives us a fairly extensive description of India. Situated the farthest to the East in Asia (3.98), India possessed the largest population on earth (3.97). Its wealth comes from the gold that its natives ingeniously collect from gold-digging ants (3.106). These inhabitants are black, like Ethiopians (3.100). Herodotus distinguished between the fairer settled Aryans of the north and the blacker nomadic barbarians of the south. Significantly, Herodotus’s description of the Indian fits into his larger discussion concerning the nomad, epitomized by the Scythians. The Indians appear alongside other nomadic peoples, such as the Persians, Libyans, Egyptians, Massagetae, and Anthropophagae. These populations do not live in fixed dwellings. While these groups differ in certain respects, such as eating habits, sexual mores, and burial customs, they are similar in their lack of agricultural skills. Nomads were cannibals (3.99), as were those Indians who lived on the Persian frontier. Herodotus distinguished Indian nomads from other Indian settled populations who refrained from killing any living creature for sustenance (3.100). However, these vegetarians were, in their own way, as monstrous as the cannibalistic nomads. They were depraved, indulging in sex frequently and openly “like cattle” (3.100). Herodotus thus presented Indian barbarism on both a physical and a moral plane, a combination that would prove popular in later literature. Roughly 100 years would pass before India was next explored in any Greek literary work. Aristotle (384–322 bc) differed from Herodotus in that he did not identify populations by color, intellect, or culture. In fact, Aristotle’s refusal to distinguish Greek traits from those of Asians and Africans is all the more startling, since he had minutely compared the various different types of animals. As in the case of Herodotus, Aristotle linked one’s degree of civilization to the

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opportunity given or taken to be a virtuous citizen of the pólis. The Greek was thus specifically distinguished from the barbarian by governance and learning. The civilized were those who as citizens made choices among themselves in a legal compact. Barbarians were cut off from the world and not bound by any moral restraints. In Aristotle, as in Herodotus, Indians fit this description, since they shifted aimlessly, subsisting on grass and raw flesh. They were unable to join the society of the pólis, since they were already prisoners of their own private world (Politics 1.2.1253a). Indians thus ranked among brutish inferior peoples who could and should lawfully be enslaved. It is worth noting that, in their descriptions of India, Herodotus and Aristotle both focused primarily on the political and social order rather than the physical aspects of alterity. Although from very early on India comprised the undifferentiated East (Lach 1965: 1.1.4), it soon entered the western literary record. Alexander the Great invaded India as far as the Indus River in 326 bc. Seleucus Nicator, who had accompanied him on the Asian expedition, subsequently crossed the Indus. He allied himself with the Indian power structure by signing a treaty with Sandracottus (Chandragupta) and giving the Mauryan emperor his daughter in marriage. In 303 bc, he sent Megasthenes as his ambassador to Chandragupta’s court (Strabo 15.36) in residence in Pataliputra (Patna). It is Megasthenes who gives us the most complete account of India in Greek letters, upon which others would subsequently depend for information regarding its geography, social life, and political institutions. The work of Megasthenes, unfortunately, is lost, as are the other historical accounts of Alexander’s expedition. Megasthenes and these other historians are preserved, however, in Strabo (63 bc–ad 21), Pliny (ad 28–79), and Arrian (ad 92?–175). Strabo delineated and sought explanations for racial differences in Books 11–16 of his Geography. He depicted Indians as tall, slender, and free from disease. Their hair is straighter than the “wooly” hair of the African, because Indian air is more humid than that of Africa. He attributed the Indians’ skin color to the effects of the sun. But, even among themselves, Indians varied. In the north, their complexion was like that of the Egyptians, in the south, Indians were very dark, like Ethiopians (Strabo 15.13). Arrian also commented on how Indians’ skin color differed from that of black races. In the Anabasis of Alexander, we learn that they are blacker than the rest of mankind, with the exception of the Ethiopians.1 It is important to note that while these descriptions recognized racial difference, they did not exhibit any racial animus. In addition to tying racial difference to climate, these authors also offered descriptions of India’s crops, natural resources, spices, elephants, monkeys, and snakes. Megasthenes

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commented particularly on the customs and everyday life of the court at Pataliputra. We learn of the jewels, diet, and traits of the people. Indians of the Gupta period are seen as living moderate, happy, simple, and frugal lives. They are particularly honest and trusting in their demeanor (Strabo 15.20, 22, 53). Megasthenes paid special attention to Indian social structure. He enumerated with considerable precision the various castes. The highest and the least numerous of the seven classes he catalogued were the philosophers (Strabo 15.39–53). He described in depth how they congregate in enclosed groves before the city and lead frugal lives. Indian philosophers rest on straw mattresses and skins; they abstain from animal food and the delights of love, yet communicate with anyone who wishes to hear them. These brahmins converse more about death than anything else. They believe that life is like that of a child in the womb and that death, for those who have devoted themselves to philosophy, provides the real birth into true life. They, therefore, discipline themselves to be ready at all times for death. Megasthenes also described other Indian classes, such as farmers, herdsmen, hunters, and traders. He offered information regarding the duties of each caste and how the Indian social system functioned. One cannot, for example, marry outside of one’s caste (Strabo 15.49). Mauryan India possessed an aristocratic form of government with a large state apparatus (Strabo 15.53). Megasthenes described a very elaborate civic structure of thirty separate branches of government, their various departments, and their myriad responsibilities (Strabo 15.51). He also estimated the strength of Chandragupta’s forces. It was, however, Indian religious beliefs that particularly interested him. Like Plato, Megasthenes noted that Indians believed in the immortality of the soul. In fact, Strabo claimed that their ideas regarding the soul were quite similar to those of the Greeks (Strabo 15.59) and that Indian philosophy resembled that of Pythagoras (Strabo 15.65). The figure of the Indian philosopher would become a fairly common trope in classical literature. Philo (20 bc–ad 50) spoke of the gymnosophists, holy men who held to an ethical and natural philosophy and were living examples of righteous and good heathens (9.62–6). Clement of Rome (d. ad 97) wrote how brahmins were virtuous and lived in peace. In India, there was no murder, adultery, or drunkenness. Indians were god-fearing people. In the Life of Alexander (8.65), Plutarch (ca. ad 46–120) commented on the asceticism of the brahmins, as did Philostratus (ca. ad 172–250) in his Life of Apollonius (3.15–16). Porphyry (ad 234–305) spoke of the continence of the Indian wise men (On Abstinence 4). Clement of Alexandria (ca. ad 150–215) emphasized the courage and spirituality of the Indians Alexander encountered and contrasted

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the abstemious habits of brahmins with the indulgent behavior of Buddhist monks and nuns (Stromateis 4.7; 3.194). Strabo had also distinguished Hindu religious training from Buddhist practices (Strabo 15.60). Clement drew parallels between Plotinus and Indian philosophy, as understood from the Philosophoumenos (ca. ad 230) of Hippolytus.2 While the Greek travel accounts were quite specific regarding religious practices and civil organization, one theme, in particular, overshadowed all others in these narratives—the presence of fabulous races. India is uniformly described as existing beyond the borders of civilization and stamped as a land of marvels. Scylax (fifth and sixth century bc) was the first to note that India was populated with many monstrous peoples. He specifically mentioned the existence of cannibals and sciopods3 (Lach 1965: 1.1.6). The Indica of Ktesias of Knidus (400 bc) was the first and only full monograph devoted to India before Alexander’s expedition.4 In it, Ktesias claimed that India was inhabited by pygmies, sciopods, cynocephali, blemmyes,5 and giants. While the Indica purported to be an ethnographic, zoological, and geographic report, it was more of a teratology. The Indian monsters described by Ktesias would subsequently reappear in Pliny (7.2.14–22), Strabo (15.37, 56), Solinus (52), Philostratus (Life of Apollonius 3.47), Aulus Gellius (9.4), and Isidore (Orig. 11.3). Pliny specifically speaks of cannibals (16.c.17), satyrs, tailed men, sea-monsters (8.c.8), and people who are all ears in the literal sense (7.c.2).6 This proliferation of Indian monsters in classical sources did not go unnoticed. Although he himself described Indian monsters, Strabo found grievous fault with their frequent appearance in other works. In fact, he accused the Greek authors of mendaciously spinning tales of Indian monsters and argued that these lying historians had created Indian monsters in their own imagination. While criticizing all the writers who mention Indian monsters (Strabo 15.57), Strabo singled out Megasthenes particularly for attack, ranking him on a par with Ktesias. He directly challenged Megasthenes’s credibility7 and warned his readers not to take seriously such “incredible” accounts (6.21.3). We find a situation where Megasthenes could both be profusely cited as well as dismissed, especially when specific accounts (such as the stories about Herakles’s and Dionysus’s Indian adventures) were found particularly implausible. The Greek placement of monsters in India, however, was a significant event, not only for the credibility of the texts in question, but, more importantly, for all subsequent emplotments of India. It is also noteworthy that key classical authors, such as Pliny and Strabo, did not accept uncritically the existence of Indian monsters. Moreover, the Greeks were not unique in their vision of monsters inhabiting the Indian subcontinent. Long before the Greeks had even

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visited the court of Chandragupta, Indians themselves had developed a fairly comprehensive system for distinguishing themselves from what they deemed to be their barbarian and monstrous other.

II. Indian representations Both religious and secular Sanskrit literature shows that the Aryans had created an imaginaire of the non-Aryan, transforming linguistic divergence in racial difference. As early as the Rig Veda, the Indo-Aryan speakers had clearly differentiated themselves from the indigenous tribes they encountered in their migrations across the subcontinent. The Aryans depicted the physical traits of these tribes as hideous. Gradually, all those who did not conform to Brahmanism would become enveloped into an Aryan notion of the barbarian. The earliest distinction between the Aryan and its other dates from Vedic times. Aryans were distinguished both linguistically and racially. The outsider was the mleccha (believed to stem from the verb mlich “to speak indistinctly”). Like the term bárbaros, mleccha onomatopoetically imitates an alien tongue (Thapar 1978a: 154). It has the additional meaning of “impure.” In post-Vedic times, mleccha came to refer to non-Sanskrit speaking people, outcastes, foreigners, low castes, and tribals.8 The Rig Veda did not speak of the mleccha, but rather the Dāsa or Dasyu, enemies of the Aryan-speakers who were regarded as alien, barbaric (Thapar 1978a: 154), black-skinned (kr. s.n.a-tvac), and foreign speakers. They are also described as anās, a term that can be translated either as an-ās “without speech” or a-nās, without a nose or snub-nosed. The term either denotes the barbarian or people deemed racially distinct from the Aryans. Hans Hock has specifically enumerated the Vedic passages containing a racialist interpretation of Aryan descriptions of non-Aryans. He cites, in particular, the work of earlier Sanskritists (Geldner 1951 and Grassman 1872), whose racial interpretations have been echoed by followers of Hindutva (syndicated Hindu-based nationalism) that was first promulgated in the 1920s by V.D. Savarkar and more recently disseminated by Hindu fundamentalist parties. Hock cites the following passages (Hock 1999: 150–5): sánat ks.étram ˙ sákhibhih. śvitr. yébhih. (Rig Veda 1.100.18c) May he win the land with white/light friends ´āryam ˙ prā´vad . . . svàrmil.hes.v . . . / . . . tvácam ˙ kr.s.n.´ām arandhayat (Rig Veda 1.130.8)

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Indra helped the Aryan in the battle for the sunlight . . . He made the black skin subject . . . Pañcāsát kr.s.n.´ā ní vapah. sahásrā Átkam ˙ ná púro jarimā´ ví dardah. (Rig Veda 4.16.13cd) Fifty thousand Blacks you defeated. You slit up the forts like age [slits up] a garment Antáh. kr.s.n.´ām ˘ arus.aír dhā´ mabhir gāt (Rig Veda 3.31.21b) He excluded the Blacks with the fiery beings Ghnántah. kr.s.n.´ā m ápa tvácam . . . (Rig Veda 9.41.1c) Driving away the black skin . . . Sá vr.trahéndrah. kr.s.n.áyonīh. Puram ˙ daro dā´sīr airayad ví (Rig Veda 2.207ac) The killer of Vr.tra, India, broke open the dasic (forts) which protected the Blacks in their wombs Yáh. kr.s.n.ágarbhā niráhann (Rig Veda 1.101.1b) Who made the ones who were pregnant with the Blacks abort

Hock claims that, while these verses seem to refer to the enemies of the Aryans in terms of skin color, there can be an alternative reading. The Aryans are often associated with “whiteness,” “light,” or “brightness.” He cites numerous references to the Aryan world as “bright” or “broad” (Rig Veda 1.86.10; 1.117.21; 2.11.4cd; 2.11.18; 2.21.1; 2.27.14; 3.34.9; 3.39.2; etc.). As a consequence, their enemies could be associated with “darkness” or the realm bereft of light. Such an interpretation supports the reading that it is not the enemies themselves that are “dark,” but rather that they live in a dark world. Hock then cites numerous references in the Rig Veda where the enemies of the Aryans are described as living in fog or darkness (1.86.10; 4.51.3cd; 4.51.9c; 5.32.43). Hock makes a similarly non-racial reading of the term tvac. Rather than its customary meaning as “skin,” he notes that it can also connote “the surface of the earth,” as it does in Rig Veda 1.79.3; 1.145.5; and 10.68.4. Likewise, rather than reading anās racially as “snubbed-nosed,” he interprets it as connoting linguistic rather than racial difference. While anās can be read as a + nās (without a nose), it can alternately be broken down into an + ās and thus mean “mouthless” or a “speechless barbarian.” Rather than translating the verse: “an´āso dasyūm ˘ r amr.n.o vadhéna/ní duryon.á āvr.n.an˙ mr.dhrávācah.” (Rig Veda 5.29.10cd) as “You destroyed the noseless Dasyus with your weapon; you smashed those of evil speech in their abodes,” Hock claims that anās should just refer to the Dasyus as

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non-Sanskrit speaking foreigners. Hock’s non-racialist reading of the Rig Veda passages, while reasonable, is not completely conclusive, especially in light of those references where the Dāsas are described as “bull-lipped.” This adjective is taken by translators to refer to racial difference and does not lend itself to a facile alternative reading. So, as Hock notes, it is anyone’s guess what the following verse wishes to connote: dā´ sasya cid vr.s.aśiprásya māyā´ jaghnátur narā pr.tanájyes.u (Rig Veda 7.99.4cd) You have destroyed the tricks even of the Dāsa bull-lipped in the battles, O lords

Hock makes the case that the Rig Veda did not view their non-Aryan enemies in terms of racial difference. Rather, he asserts that notions of race are modern, more an invention of nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonialiam and imperialism (1999: 155) and, as such, the preferred reading of German Indologists in the past and followers of Hindutva ideology in the present. Even if, as Hock claims, the case for racial distinctions might be problematic in the Rig Veda, a vision of physical alterity certainly appears in the later epic tradition, where brahmanical India is presented as surrounded by many races, some real and some intermediary beings, that inhabit the space between demons and humans. Hindu mythology is full of such characters, with the Rākshasas and the Pishāchas among the most prominent. The plot of the Rāmāyan.a, one of the two Sanskrit epics, deals with Lord Rāma’s triumph over Rāvan.a, the king of the Rākshasas. This epic has been interpreted as a poetic version of the conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism in southern India (Talboys Wheeler 1869: 316). It can also be viewed as an allegory for the spread of Sanskritic culture into new areas (Thapar 1978b: 22). The epic can be read as a symbolic confrontation of caste versus tribe, the assimilation by Vaishnavism of animistic cults, the formation of a new kingdom from tribal territory and, at the base of all this, the migrations of peoples and the stabilizing of settlements (Thapar 1978b: 28). In broad terms, the epic can even be seen as an exaggerated form of the history of the Aryan invasion into the vast and then unknown continent of India (Vaidya 1973: 62). It articulates the universal sovereignty that the Aryans arrogated to themselves in their conscious sense of superiority over the aboriginal races of India (Vaidya 1973: 124). In this script, the monsters (rākshasas) are associated with the dark-skinned Dravidians of southern India because they are often referred to in the epic in terms of their dark complexions as opposed to the fair Aryans. Epithets used in connection with the rākshasas, such as

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nīlamjanacayopamā (like the black-bodied mass of people) have on occasion been used by northern Indians to describe Dravidians. One can argue that in brahmanical India a vision of the abject subhumanity of the barbarian finds its legitimacy in this epic representation of the other. In general, Indo-Aryan-speaking nomadic pastoralists in northern India regarded the indigenous populations as barbarians (Thapar 1978a: 152). The second half of the first millennium bc saw an extensive urbanization of the Ganges valley with Aryan speakers assuming the role of the technologically advanced civilization regarding with contempt the forest tribes who were still food gatherers and hunters (Thapar 1978a: 159). This Aryan migration is represented in the Rāmāyan.a where the distinction is drawn between the civilized urban culture of Ayodhyā standing in contrast to the barbarian hunting and food-gathering enemies of Rāma, the rākshasas (Thapar 1978a: 159). Elsewhere in the mythological literature, similar delineations between civilization and barbarism are made. The Vishn.u Purān.a (I.13), for example, mentions the Nisāda, a non-Aryan tribe described as black, dwarfed, flat-featured, with bloodshot eyes. The Mahābhārata describes the Kirāta, a non-Aryan tribe in the jungles of Megadha, as savage omnivores covered in animal skins (Karn.a Parva V.9). The Pulinda are described as dwarves who live in caves and are black like burnt tree trunks (Br.hatkathā Śloka Sam ․ graha 8.31; Nātyaśāstra 21.89). In all these Sanskrit texts, the mleccha are described as monstrous; no self-respecting Aryan should dare approach them (Thapar 1978a: 180–1).9 In other words, generic barbarian tribes, such as the Pulinda and the Shabara, described by Ptolemy as agriophagites or eaters of wild things (7.1.64), fit the description of the Pishāca, whom the Sanskrit texts claim eat raw flesh. There is, in fact, a marked similarity in the descriptions of Indian monsters found in both western classical literature and in Sanskrit texts. This coincidence led Wittkower to claim that Indian monsters were not entirely arbitrary inventions, but had their origins in the garbled transmissions of stories from Indian mythology (Wittkower 1942: 159 ff ). Wittkower here merely developed a thesis that classicists had introduced decades earlier. McCridle had shown that Ktesias’s monsters had their counterparts in Sanskrit literature (McCrindle 2000) and Schwanbeck directly tied Aryan conceptions of the non-Aryan to the portrayal of India in Megasthenes. Specifically, Schwanbeck argued that the Greek historians’ emphasis on monsters directly reflected Indian notions of barbarism. He claimed that, while consolidating power, the Aryans responded forcefully to the cultural, racial, and religious differences of the indigenous tribes

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that they encountered and gave this response a pointed expression (McCrindle 2000: 21). The Aryans not only viewed non-Aryan Indians as barbarians, but also saw them as inferior, even subhuman. The Aryans also identified groups that did not follow brahmanical ritual as barbarian, hideous, and monstrous. This racial ideology, held by brahmin Aryans and reflected in brahmin reports and Sanskrit literary representations, filtered down to the Greeks, just as the animal fables found their way to the Greeks, even before the name of India was known to them (McCrindle 2000: 23). Thus, the Greeks received Indian images of the monstrous other from their brahmin informants, whose learning, as bearers of Indian philosophy, they held in high regard. These brahmins were the authorities whose wisdom was sought by classical authors, especially in those matters for which they had no firsthand knowledge (Schwanbeck 1846: 74). Schwanbeck examined the monsters of Megasthenes (found in Strabo 15.57; Pliny 72.14–22; Solinus 59) and showed that their descriptions and even their names were clear transcriptions or transliterations of common Sanskrit terms applied by Aryans to groups over which they sought dominance (Schwanbeck 1846: 74). According to this argument, the descriptions of Indian monsters found in Greek classical sources derive from and elaborate upon derogatory terms that can be read in Rig Veda and resonate in the epic literature. Such terms were regularly used by Aryan Indians to describe non-Aryans and low-caste populations. As noted, many of these terms are direct translations of the Sanskrit terms: pamphágos is the Greek equivalent of sarvabhaksha and the viśvabhojana. They are also the Sanskrit equivalent of the amukhteres or people without nostrils who eat everything (Schwanbeck 1846: 69). The cannibal can be seen to derive from Sanskrit terms denoting anthropophagy (mānsabhāshala, āmishāshin, pishitāshin, kravyād). Monsters described as having ears that extend down to the ground derive from the Sanskrit insult for indigenous tribes as mahākarn.a, denoting long or big-eared individuals. The monster whose ear extends over his head so that he can sleep under its umbrella also has a Sanskrit equivalent insult of karn.aprāvaran.a, “one whose ear bends forward.”10 Sanskrit insults such as ushtrakarn.as (camel-eared), oshtakarn.as (lips close to ears), pānikarn.as (having hands for ears) are easily translated into monstrous traits (Schwanbeck 1846: 66). Those monsters depicted with their heels in front and toes pointing backwards are the Paschādangulayas, described in Megasthenes as the opísthodaktuloi. The people insulted as ekapādas (having one foot) are directly transliterated in Greek as okupédes (Schwanbeck 1846: 68). The cyclopes are, of course, the people whose eyes are close together and are derided by Sanskrit speakers as one-eyed (ekākshās or lalātākshas) (Schwanbeck 1846: 70).

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The significance of Schwanbeck’s thesis cannot be over-stressed. It problematizes one of the key premises of colonial discourse analysis, based as it is on the orientalist project. It calls into question the essentializing vision of a monolithically negative western construction of the eastern other created solely out of a western desire to subjugate the East. Significantly, it suggests a crossfertilization of racist notions at the source of the western classical literary tradition. It highlights the fact that no one group holds the monopoly on racism. Although the Greeks elaborated stories of Indian monsters that inform racist ideology vis-à-vis India and influenced western imperialistic ventures in modern times, they did not necessarily invent these stories. Rather, they heard and adopted terms of derision used by Aryans to describe non-Aryan and indigenous populations they held in contempt. The Greeks translated these derogatory terms and applied them literally. The classical image of the Indian monster that would influence all subsequent encounters in the age of discovery (and beyond) is thus not purely a western racist construct, but found its initial inspiration in Aryan ideology with regard to the non-Aryan other. The West, it seems, does not always set the standards for racist abuse. Moreover, the radical alterity of the other in India is shown to be ideological at its Sanskritic source.

III. Biblical, patristic, and medieval representations We have noted that the existence of Indian monsters and fabulous races had been called into question by certain classical commentators, as evidenced by Strabo’s invective against Megasthenes. Even so, Indian monsters remained in the western imaginaire. As India became more extensively explored over time and reliable eye-witnesses never seemed to encounter the physically monstrous creatures described in the classical literature, another form of monster, the ethically deficient Indian, appeared on the scene to assume its symbolic role. It was this form of monstrosity that would inform western medieval and renaissance interactions with India. Since the Bible had tied race directly to civility, it was possible to transform the absent physical monsters into moral monsters. According to the Old Testament, the earth was divided among Noah’s sons with Japhet’s descendants populating Europe, Shem’s sons peopling the region of the Indian Ocean, Chaldea, and Armenia, and Ham’s descendants inhabiting Egypt, Libya, and Africa. Ham’s exile to the far reaches of the earth was in punishment for having been the only one of Noah’s sons to have gazed upon his

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drunken father’s nakedness. Ham’s descendants were cursed or viewed as descendants of the cursed (i.e. Cain). By relegating Ham to Africa, the Old Testament associated sin with racial difference. Noah’s curse of perpetual servitude on the offspring of Canaan, the son of Ham (Genesis ix, 25), condemned Africans who were thought to be his descendants. India, due to its interchangeability with Ethiopia, was thus relegated to a site where Old Testament genealogy had racially embodied sin. Because sin was geographically configured, the biblical rendition of human descent coexisted nicely with the Greek belief that civilization was tied to the body’s relationship to the community (Hanneford 1996: 88). Physical alterity could be associated with moral difference. In the course of time, the classical and biblical conceptions of what it meant to be civilized were absorbed into the ecclesiastical Christian order. In the Pauline letters, the ethnic other was no longer a non-Greek barbarian but the heathen who did not share in the body of the faithful in Christ. There was, thus, another way of reading monsters—through a Christian schema of salvation that differentiated them from the monsters of antiquity. Monsters now were created, had souls, were rational, and could possibly be converted. They were objects of divine solicitude, capable of receiving Christ’s message. After all, some far-away places, such as Ethiopia and India, were even thought to be Christian. Eusebius (ca. ad 263–339) claimed that there was a sizeable Christian community in India and St. Jerome (ad 344?–420) spoke of the universality of Christianity, using India as his prime example (Epistola 60.4). Those who were considered citizens were perceived as such, not by virtue of their membership in the pólis, but as willing partners in the Christian community. Eusebius’s and Jerome’s attitudes stood in sharp contrast to those of other Church fathers, such as Tertullian (ca. ad 160–220), St. Hippolytus (ca. ad 170– 236), and Prudentius (ca. ad 348–410) who each identified Indians as heretics. However, by the time Augustine (ad 354–430) wrote De civitate Dei, a new political context had presented itself. The Goths had sacked Rome a few years earlier and barbarians, who had been situated at the edges of civilization, now occupied the epicenter of politics. They were much more to be feared than distant monsters. Although Augustine resisted a racialist argument, claiming that the “deserts of sons are not to be estimated by the qualities of bodies” (11.23), he nevertheless devoted an entire chapter to the existence of fabulous races. If monstrous races existed and were human, then they must have been descended from Adam. If they descended from Adam, Augustine maintained that we have no right to pass judgment on them (8.16). In doing so, Augustine challenged the orthodox interpretation of the division of mankind, claiming that the only

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categorization that counted concerned those who lived according to God and those who lived according to man. It did not matter if one was speech-gifted or mute, barbarian or civilized, black or white (16.8). It only mattered if one was a willing partner in the sacrament that brought membership in the mystical body of the faithful in Christ. Augustine claimed that marvels derived from extreme cases of natural phenomena. As such, they were part of the divine and natural order (Le Goff 1980: 195). Just as there are monstrous individuals in separate races, so in the whole of mankind there are monsters, such as sciopods, hermaphrodites, cynocephali, cyclopes, blemmyes, and pygmies (Augustine 16). As descendants of Adam (Augustine 21.8), the monstrous races provide a divine omen. Augustine explained that their existence revealed God’s higher purpose; they offered material proof of God’s plan and allowed us to contemplate the glorious superabundance of His creation. Monsters were prodigious; they were placed on earth as an indication of God’s power to create all things. Since they were related to the sons of Noah, they were redeemable. God had placed monsters on earth to participate in the Last Judgment at which time His power to refashion the bodies of the dead would be Faith’s witness. The monsters signified God’s omnipotence, wisdom, and presence in all creation. They were thus metaphoric illustrations of God’s inscrutable yet wondrous plan of making meaning known.11 The monster did not stand as something against nature but rather challenged the concept of nature as it was understood. Classical Greek accounts of the monstrous now had to be treated with circumspection. Whatever physical form they took, all men born of Adam were rational and mortal. Medieval representations supported this new attitude. Through the allegorization and moralization of marvels, Indian extravagances were given new meaning and stripped of their scandalous quality. In this manner, the dog-headed men reverted to querulous people and monsters could again become judgmental representations of ordinary mankind. Through a process of domestication, mystical allegories also became transformed into moral allegories (Le Goff 1980: 195). In the central interior portal of the cathedral church of St. Magdalen in Vézelay, cynocephali are placed beside non-monstrous men receiving the teaching of Christ (Lach 1965: 1.1.30). The diverse human nations (especially the marvelous peoples of India) stand beside Christ and the Apostles and await conversion. Early mapmakers also struggled with the role that monsters would play, given their new religious status. On medieval maps, the monster figures prominently and was articulated spatially. Relegated to remote space, monsters were made

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inaccessible. They were cut off from Europe by the ocean, mountains, torrid zones, or walls. The Book of Revelation (20: 7) had prophesied that horrible barbarians would ravage the world on Judgment Day. They inhabited Gog and Magog at the eastern limits of the world. Subsequent tradition held that they were separated from humanity and prevented from overrunning the Christian world by being enclosed behind a wall constructed by Alexander the Great. India, like Gog and Magog and Alexander’s Gate, had no fixed geographical location in medieval cartography. It was simply on the extreme border of Christian sacred geography. In the western epic tradition, India designated the most remote regions of the world. Ernst Robert Curtius offers five examples from early literature where India is depicted as situated beyond the limits of the known world (Curtius 1963 [1953]: 160–1). In The Aenied (6.794), Anchises prophesies that Augustus would extend dominion so far that he would rule even over the Indians. Boethius opined that even if as distant a place as India trembles before one’s power, it means nothing, if one cannot rule one’s own soul (Consolatio 3.5). Fortunatus claims that King Chilperic, like St. Martin and St. Hilary, was so well known that his renown extended even as far away as India. In the Old French epic, the Chronicle of Novalesa and Aymeri de Narbonne, the Emperor Charles is urged to take such vengeance on Ganelon that men will talk about it even in India. In such texts, India comes to represent both the totality of the world as well as its edge (Uebel 2005: 21). From the fourth to the twelfth century, Indians figure in European literature as simple and upright people who please God and invite Christian imitation. They become symbols of natural goodness, embodying the possibility of salvation without revelation. The twelfth through the fourteenth century will reproduce this general portrait (Hahn 1978a: 213). In Theologia christiana, Abelard presents Indians as virtuous heathen who are saved. They are protoChristians: devout and abstinent (Abelard 1969: 1.133). Because of their ignorance of Christianity, Dante also finds them blameless. When Dante revisits the topic of the salvation of just pagans in Limbo (Paradiso 19.70–8), he makes an Indian the single representative of the entire world’s virtuous heathen. The sole exemplum of the salvation of the just, the Indian lives a faultless life and observes God’s precepts naturally. He is as good as human reason can determine (Paradiso 19.73–4).12 For Dante, however, India’s geographical location was still a bit vague. He situated it at the eastern limit of the world— “agl’Ispani ed agl’Indi” (Paradiso 29.101). India could take on mythic proportions because of its geographical distance from “civilization.” It thus provided a

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convenient locus to denote the East beyond the Muslim realm (Nowell 1954: 113). Although present in the earliest global depictions of the world, the representations of India remained obscure since the mappae mundi focused on depicting spiritual geography rather than land masses and oceans (Hahn 1978a: 221). The eighth-century Beatus Map, for example, showed the dispersion of the disciples to the ends of the earth in order to highlight the Christianization of the globe. This map placed Paradise at India’s borders. On other maps, India is positioned at the limits of the world, either on the far right or the top (which, depending on the map-maker, represented the formal East). Early maps often provided pictorial representations of biblical genealogy as in the case of the BOC and V maps which prominently bear the names of Noah’s three sons. The Beatus Map also juxtaposed India with the Garden of Eden. The T and O maps and the seventh-century map of Isidore of Seville, the standard reference on Asia, are filled with representations of biblical personages. On these maps, India is usually depicted as converted to Christianity by St. Thomas. Marvelous depictions abound in the cartographical representations of India.13 The Hereford Map (dating from around 1280) lists twenty races and peoples India with sciopods, pygmies, giants, blemmyes, and unicorns. These various Indian “populations” are closely grouped around the easternmost section surrounding the medallion that encloses the Garden of Eden. Although monstrous, the Indian figures are relatively close to normal in appearance. The Pandeans and Gangines (Astomi) differ from westerners in customs and diet, respectively. The former are described as ruled by women and the latter live entirely on the scent of apples. Indian pygmies and giants are shown to differ from westerners only in size. The monocoli are deformed, but portrayed as harmless. The “humanness” of the Gangines, pygmies, and the Pandean queen is underscored by the fact that their bodies are clothed. The Gangines, for example, wear civilian clothing; the pygmies and the Pandean queen carry shields.14 Significantly, Indians are distinguished from Africans on the Hereford Map. Although the Nubians are described as “very Christian” (gens nibei ethiopes— christianissimi), they nevertheless are depicted as clearly racially distinct. Africans are portrayed either as deformed by birth (Himantopodes, Marmini, straw-drinkers, hermaphrodites, Amyctyrae, Amberi, Sciopodes, Epiphagi) or monstrous because of their weird cultural habits (Phylli, Agriophagi, Ethiopian Gangines, Troglodytes). It is their bizarre involvement with serpents, their diet of panthers and lions, and lack of civility within their own race that separates them

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from Europeans (Kline 2005: 36). Unlike the Indians, Africans are portrayed as naked, with prominent sexual organs sometimes accented in red. Whereas Indians have shields, Africans are armed with poles and mallets. As in Herodotus, so too with cartographers: the Scythians received the most extensive and damning descriptions. They are situated at the northern edge of the map. As opposed to the Ethiopians and the Indians, the Scythians are depicted as truly horrific cannibals and capable of eating the corpses of their parents. Unlike their depiction in Herodotus, the Scythians are clearly distinguished from the Indians on the Hereford Map. They are to be feared whereas the Indians are depicted as neither savage nor ferocious. It is worth noting that the Antichrist dwells in Scythia on this map. On the thirteenth-century Erbstorf Map, the world is represented by the body of Christ (BOC), with Jerusalem at the navel. This map presents a far more detailed primitive ethnography. It lists, for example, twenty-four races. On its side panels, the exotic physical traits and qualities of the various populations are portrayed, as well as their customs and foods. India figures prominently in these depictions. Both the Erbstorf Map and the London Psalter Map, which date roughly from the same time, place Africa and India at the lower right or extreme edge of the world disk and populate them with monstrous races who are depicted as physically, climatically, geographically, or technologically remote (Friedman 2005: 44). This placement suggests that monstrous excess and moral defect result from climate and geography. On the Ebstorf Map, Gog and Magog appear in upper left, the extreme northeast portion of the Caucasus Mountains in Russia and bordering on the Caspian Sea, where Alexander is depicted as having erected a wall secured with iron and brass gates. Ptolemy explained differences among peoples in terms of climatic, regional, and astrological influences. He believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed by land. As a consequence of the rediscovery of the Geographica in the fourteenth century, maps incorporated Ptolemy’s vision of the world in their representations. For example, the Walsperger Map (1448), which relied heavily on Ptolemy, connected the Indian Ocean to the ring of ocean that surrounded the world. The Walsperger Map situated the monstrous races not in India or Africa, but at the South Pole. The Fra Mauro Map (1459), which also followed a ptolemaic conception of the world, delineated the Indian Ocean as landlocked.15 This map did not depict any monstrous races living in Africa or India. It did identify, however, the existence of dog-headed men, cannibals, and phoenixes as well as the realm of Prester John and earthly paradise. In short, India had become, to cite Jacques Le Goff, a real site for fantasy (Le Goff 1980: 190).

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IV. Apocryphal, romance, and miracle-letter tradition The cartographical representation of Indian monsters not only reflected their new status within God’s providential plan, but also the growing significance India had assumed in apocryphal literature and, most notably, in the Acts of Thomas, texts dating from the first part of the third century that describe Thomas’s missionary activity in India (James 1969: 428). Thomas relates how, after the crucifixion, the disciples divided the world into missionary regions and the apostle was chosen to go to India. He declined this assignment, making the excuse that he was in bad health and spoke only Hebrew. To force him to go, Jesus had to sell him as a slave to a merchant from India, Habban, who had been sent by his master, King Gundaphorus,16 to Palestine to secure a skilled carpenter. Gundaphorus needed someone who could build him a magnificent palace. Thomas was asked to perform this task and readily took the funds that Gundaphorus offered. However, rather than building the palace, he distributed the money to the poor. As a consequence, the future saint was flogged and imprisoned. Gundaphorus’s brother, Gad, was so distressed by Thomas’s squandering of the funds from the royal treasury that he fell ill and died. On his journey heavenward, Gad spied a magnificent palace and asked to whom it belonged. He was told it was the palace of King Gundaphorus. Upon receiving this revelation, Gad immediately asked permission to return to earth so he could inform his brother of the palace that awaited him in heaven. The request was granted and he returned to life. After he related the story of the miracle to Gundaphorus, both Gad and his brother asked Thomas to baptize them as well as many of their subjects. This apocryphal story of Thomas’s career in India would subsequently find its way into the literature of adventures surrounding Alexander the Great. The Alexander Romance, as these adventures are generally known, was composed in Alexandria some time before the fourth century ad by an unknown author whom certain manuscripts identify falsely as Callisthenes, a nephew of Aristotle, the companion of Alexander and historian of his expedition to India (327–5 bc). Subsequently, this collection of stories was attributed to Pseudo-Callisthenes.17 The third book of Pseudo-Callisthenes describes Alexander’s victory in India over Porus and the ensuing adventures. Alexander receives a letter from some brahmins who want him to understand their world-view. The brahmins believe in detachment from worldly possessions and, as proof of their love for their fellow man, offer Alexander all that they have. They also inform Alexander that they possess a love of learning. Alexander, fascinated by the information reported

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in this letter decides to visit these brahmins, the half-naked Oxydrakes or gymnosophists. Alexander converses with them and poses a series of questions to which they give clever responses (Pseudo-Callisthenes 1955: 101–2). He questions them about their thoughts on death and they respond that they view the earth as their grave. In short, they respond to his queries with a series of philosophical riddles regarding fate, providence, and immortality. Alexander then writes a letter to Aristotle describing his experiences in India (PseudoCallisthenes 1955: 193), including his encounter with the brahmins. He also informs his teacher about India’s wealth of natural resources: gold, silver, and precious gems, and the variety of its exotic wildlife. Alexander tells of encountering marvels, such as talking trees that predict his future death in Indian languages as well as Greek (Pseudo-Callisthenes 1955: 106). He recounts meeting men with six hands (Pseudo-Callisthenes 1955: 105). Forced to battle wild beasts, monsters, and even Darius, Alexander conquers them all. Furthermore, he discovers in India the limits of civilization at the famed Caspian Gates (Pseudo-Callisthenes 1955: 104). It is important to note that here too the Caspian Gates, the site of the biblical Gog and Magog and the absolute limit between the human and the monstrous, are located in India. PseudoCallisthenes’s depiction of India, its marvels and saintly brahmins would provide the authoritative description for subsequent authors,18 such as his contemporary, St. Ambrose (ad 330?–397). In Ambrose’s account, the brahmins claim to wage war only among themselves. They sing hymns to God, live on a diet of fruit, and look forward to their life beyond this sorrowful existence. They seldom speak or quickly fall silent. These Indians depicted by Ambrose stand in sharp contrast to Alexander and his men who amass gold and silver, need large dwellings, and avidly procure slaves. The Greeks seek honors, run after positions of high rank, eat and drink as much as they can bear, and wear soft luxurious garments (Ambrosius 1962: 21). Indians are superior to these Greeks because their souls are not filled with an avid and unbound desire (Ambrosius 1962: 27). While the Greeks lust after everything, the Indians crave nothing (Ambrosius 1962: 29). They need no gifts, since the earth provides them with sustenance like a mother provides milk for her baby (Ambrosius 1962: 25). Ambrose’s brahmins instruct Alexander that if he wishes to learn the truth, he should remain with them in India, live naked in the wilderness, and renounce all honors and marks of distinction (Ambrosius 1962: 47). Alexander’s encounter with virtuous brahmins and the descriptions of Indian wealth and marvels would become popular themes subsequently reformulated in a series of spin-off texts in the genre of the miracle letter.

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A form of teratological literature, miracle letters described thrilling adventures in distant lands with strange people and weird customs. The miracle letters concerning India were disseminated in two forms. Some letters were embedded in the Alexander Romance. They concerned marvelous adventures, such as Alexander’s trip through the desert to the sea (the end of the world), his journey to the land of the blessed, his descent to the depths of the ocean, and his ascent into the sky. A number of these adventures were also condensed and disseminated in the form of individual “miracle” letters. As we have noted, the most significant miracle letter regarding India was Alexander’s Greek epistle to Aristotle that appeared in Book 3 of Pseudo-Callisthenes. This letter also appeared in Latin as the independent miracle letter entitled the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem (second–third centuries ad) and was part of a larger epistolary series focusing on the partnership of Alexander and Aristotle. It is important to understand that none of these letters can be considered as genuine documents or even forgeries. That was not their intended use. In the case of the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, its stated purpose was to inform Aristotle about India, its weather, animals, and inhabitants. What Alexander relates in it, however, is meant to test Aristotle’s credulity. To defeat Porus, Alexander must battle snakes and wild beasts encountered in the desert (Gunderson 1980: 28.8–27). There, he meets semi-nude Indians, two-headed beasts, hairy nine-foot tall humans, ichthyophagi, and cynocephali (Gunderson 1980: 27.4–33). He also encounters those prophetic bilingual trees (Gunderson 1980: 37.9–52). After traversing a desert where he is threatened by snakes, panthers, and tigers, Alexander encounters a ten-foot tall black priest with doglike teeth and people who live 300 years. In traversing India, Alexander also discovers an abundance of gold and emeralds. On the long march back, he has to battle even more monsters before he finally exits through the Caspian Gates19 at the entrance to India at Prasiace.20 In this letter, he actually defeats Porus twice (3.13 and 23.8–27), giving the impression of a never-ending confrontation between the Greeks and the Indians and thus between the civilized and the barbarian. By examining the East from a perspective of Aristotelian biology (Romm 1991: 17) with Alexander as its champion, western civilization undertakes the task of ordering Indian disorder (Romm 1991: 23). We learn that even our supply of names and categories are not large enough to describe the tremendous diversity encountered there. While seeking water, the Greeks pass the night under attack by swarms of various hostile beasts, beginning with an onslaught of scorpions (Romm 1991: 25). They accumulate vast stores of precious stones

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gathered from flowing rivers (Romm 1991: 22, 32–3, 34–40) and visit palaces and buildings encrusted with gems (Romm 1991: 47, 57–60, 62–3). They also discover other stones imbued with magical powers (Romm 1991: 29–30, 66). Of all the riches in the world, India’s magnificence is seen to surpass everything that is known. The Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, in fact, tests Aristotle’s taxonomic categories. The desire for accumulation itself can be seen as the real subject of the letter (Uebel 2005: 143). India definitively becomes a land of excessive wealth and monstrous beasts. It is this image that will nourish the imaginations of those who subsequently seek its shores. However, the other image of India prevalent in this literature, the philosopher-priest, would prove equally significant. Around 800, an anonymous author fashioned a series of letters allegedly exchanged between Alexander and the Indian philosophers documenting their moral excellence. Archbishop Leo of Naples (tenth century) wrote an offshoot of this collection entitled the Book of Battles (Historia de preliis). There was also a group of letters concerning Alexander’s contact with the gymnosophists (Alexander’s Disputation with the Gymnosophists). These letters are of a Cynic inspiration. They can be read either as contrasting the evil and materialist civilization of the Greeks with the pure and simple lives of Indian sages or as a response to Alexander’s Cynic opponents. They later served the purpose of extolling waning Christian asceticism. Their intent was to attack the corruption of their target audience.21 Other epistles, notably the Letter to Aristotle and Olympia or the Letter to Olympias, follow the pattern established in the Letter from Alexander to Aristotle. These letters relate how Alexander tried to catch the brahmins with trick questions only to be defeated by their superior wisdom and wit. As a whole, the miracle letters relating to India are all quite repetitive and largely dependent on Pseudo-Callisthenes. They are also derivative of a text attributed to Palladius (ad 363?–430) of a fictional exchange between Alexander and the ruler and teacher of the brahmins, Dindimus. This work, the Commonitorium Palladii (Palladius on the Brahmins), in addition to describing the Indian marvels, offers an account of Alexander’s visit, his conversation with Dindimis, and his assessment of the brahmin ascetic lifestyle. Here too, the evils of Greek materialism are compared to the virtuous simplicity of brahmin life. The same Cynic spirit, using a utopian India in contrast to a corrupt Greece, can also be found in another miracle letter, the Collatio Alexandri Magni cum Dindimo Rege Bragmanorum de Philosophia per Litteras facta. Although this particular letter had an anti-ascetic conclusion, readers tended to ignore it in favor of reading the tale of a virtuous pagan who is a good ally to Christians in their struggles against

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heretics and other pagans. We also have the wonder letter of Pharismanes (Fermes) to Hadrien (eighth century) and the letter of Premo to the Emperor Trajan. The significance of these letters resides in their representation of wise religious figures living virtuous and abstemious lives. In this literature, the Indian appears not as a pagan barbarian, but as something akin to a Christian saint. All these letters describe the wonders of the East for the benefit of political leaders in the West. But the significance of the epistolary genre, especially in the Middle Ages, was not whether a letter was actually sent but whether it performed its representative function. Its reality as a letter (origin, destination, factual content) was secondary to the purpose of giving an understanding of reality, manipulated by the play between sameness and otherness, presence and absence. Such letters created a space for managing and neutralizing this different reality. They could also be seen as mediating between two realities. In such instances, the letters contrasted the corrupt West with a utopian India inhabited by ascetic philosophers. They created an ersatz encounter between the supposed sender and the supposed addressee, providing one half of a complete dialogue (Uebel 2005: 109). They were read as fiction and non-fiction. As documents, the wonder letters structured the readers’ suspension of disbelief and called into question what one knows and what one thinks one knows. They set up a contrast between this world now and another possible world to come. Like the Alexander Romance, they fueled the popular imagination by attempting to reconcile the fabulous and the monstrous with an ideological quest for Christian redemption. With the reader situated in the gap between these worlds (Uebel 2005: 103), the stage was set for the subsequent travel literature of the age of discovery to generate a space for individual transformation.

V. Conclusion In the Middle Ages, the Indian Ocean22 and the land beyond it were presented as a repository for oneiric projections, a place of dreams, myths, and marvels, inhabited by fantastic men and beasts. India was also depicted as an earthly paradise, where one could experience bizarre carnal enjoyments and encounter saintly brahmins (Uebel 2005: 15). In the following chapters, we will see how this conception of India as an ambiguously situated land of fabulous races continued into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, well after explorers had reached its shores and actual physical encounters with Indian populations had cast the monsters’ existence into doubt. Even new-found knowledge would not force Europeans to relinquish these dreams. Explorers traveled to distant countries with

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a preconceived idea of what they would find. Since they knew their classical authors, Christian encyclopedias, natural science treatises, romances, maps, and miracle letters, it is not surprising that the lands they set out to discover would conform to the world previously configured in this literature. The myths regarding India found in classical sources and the Alexander legend that had been embellished with biblical allegory would thus enter into the subsequent popular literature of Latinity. This India, divided into antitheses of the civilized and the barbarian and cohabited with saintly heathens, Christians, and monsters, would continue to haunt western consciousness in various forms for many years to come. Indian Christians, pseudo-Christians, and monsters appear as embodiments of time, feeling, and place. They incorporate fear, desire, and anxiety. They are constructs and projections, existing to be read into the body of the Indian. They beckon from the edges of the world, providing lessons in morality for secular audiences (Cohen 1996: 18). It is significant to note that the term “monstrum” both means “that which reveals” and also offers a warning (from the Latin monere) of what a person could become (Cohen 1996: 4). The Indian Christian (whether in the form of real Christians or proto-Christian brahmins) would provide an ideal to be emulated. The Indian Christian would also be an ally upon whom one could rely when western Christian secular and religious powers showed themselves to be weak. Concomitantly, the body of the Indian monster would provide a safe expression in liminal space for fantasies of aggression and inversion. The Indian Christian and the monster would both provide escapist delight that gives way to fear when either threatened to overstep boundaries. When successfully contained, however, they function as our alter egos. By threatening to dissolve the border between the other and the same, imaginary Indian Christians and monsters expose the fragility of classificatory boundaries (Uebel 1996: 266). Both give voice to the fragmented self. They demarcate the bonds that hold together the system of relations we designate as culture. They call attention to the borders that must not be crossed (Cohen 1996: 13). To step outside the official geography is to risk attack or risk becoming other oneself. They ask us, much as does Montaigne’s cannibal, to question our cultural assumptions, perceptions of difference, and tolerance towards its expression. In the following chapters, we will see how imaginary Indian Christians and monsters appear as secondary bodies through which the possibility of other social practices and customs can be explored (Uebel 1996: 281). By residing on the interstices between civilization and barbarism, Christianity and paganism, the human and the monstrous, they direct us to a more complex understanding of ourselves.

2

The Lure of Christian Allies and the Fear of Muslim Enemies

I. Initial sightings As the classical literature attests, from very early on, India was perceived as a land of monsters and marvels. However, the Indian monsters were not as horrific as those found among truly barbaric peoples, such as the Scythians. With Augustine, these monsters were incorporated into a Christian schema of salvation. Medieval cartography continued both these trends by highlighting not only the existence of Indian monsters, but placing them geographically not too distant from the Garden of Eden. It also represented India as a Christian nation situated in the East and potentially an ally against the Saracens. Beginning with the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, India became even more directly associated with Christianity. It was still a land of monsters and marvels, but now it was also peopled by many devout Christians. The Alexander Romance and the wonder letters associated with it supported this double image. For chronological reasons (i.e. Alexander historically preceded Christ), these Indians were made into virtuous Hindus who appear as proto-Christians. The belief that there existed Indian Christians was reinforced in 1122, when an “oriental’‘ patriarch named John had audiences with Calixtus II and the Byzantine Emperor John Comnenus (Nowell 1954: 436–7; Slessarov 1959: 7–9). Two accounts describe his embassy to Rome. The first, an anonymous text, De adventu patriarchae Indorum ad Urbem sub Calixto a papa secundo (On the arrival of the Patriarch of the Indians in Rome under Pope Callixtus II), recounts how a visiting Indian prelate informed the Pope that his people had been converted by St. Thomas. This patriarch lectured the Roman curia on the miracles performed each year in India by the apostle whose incorrupt body reposes in a cathedral there.1 He related how, on the saint’s feast day, his body becomes animate and administers communion to the faithful at a local shrine (Slessarov 1959: 10–14). 39

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This Indian high priest’s descriptions of India caused a sensation, inspiring a second account of his visit. An anonymous author was so taken by the idea of an embassy arriving from India that he addressed a letter to Odo, the Abbot of St. Remi in Rheims (1118–51) who recorded its contents. Odo then wrote a subsequent letter to a certain Count Thomas telling of a delegation from Byzantium arriving at the court of the Pope in the company of an Indian patriarch. The Indian had gone to Constantinople because his archbishop had died and he sought the advice of the Byzantine emperor. According to this letter, the emperor had on two previous occasions chosen one from his court for the office and on both occasions the designate had died. This time, however, the emperor refused to name a third designate. The Indian prelate then requested to be allowed to accompany the Byzantine ambassadors who were on route to Rome in order to bring home a replacement from among the Byzantine emperor’s entourage. It is during his audience with the Pope that the Indian prelate is said to have offered a more restrained version than that found in the initial anonymous account. He also describes St. Thomas’s shrine and the miracles surrounding it. He identifies himself specifically as John, the patriarch of the Indies, and describes how his realm is filled with gold, jewels, and Christians. The belief that a mysterious Christian potentate lived in India was thus “confirmed” by the existence of these two texts. Each supplied complementary information and supported each other’s claims. The first anonymous tract was actually quite specific. It related how, in the fourth year of the pontificate of Calixtus II (the year beginning in February 1122), John, the patriarch of the Indians, had come to Rome in the company of papal envoys returning from Constantinople where he had gone to pay homage to the Greek orthodox patriarch and receive from him his pallium and other insignia of office. While at the Byzantine court, he encountered ambassadors from the Pope who had come to heal the schism between the Greek and the Roman Churches. He then accompanied them to Rome for a papal audience and during this interview he describes his country. He told the Pope that he presided as Patriarch John over Hulna, the capital of India, a city so big that it takes four days to circle it. The river Phison (known from Genesis as one of the four rivers emanating from the Garden of Eden) flows through India and is rich in gold and precious gems. He related how Hulna has a mother church and twelve monasteries. In this church, a silver casket containing the uncorrupted body of St. Thomas reposes. Its shrine is lit by an eternal flame whose oil miraculously cures the sick. On St. Thomas’s feast day, Indian Christians celebrate mass. The saint’s body, placed on a golden chair, officiates and he offers communion with

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his outstretched arm. If an infidel or heretic draws near him, he closes his fist, usually causing immediate repentance and conversion. After the mass, so the pious miracle tract concludes, the body of the saint is returned to its casket. Even if one disregards the miracles it describes, this letter immediately raises concerns regarding its veracity and the reliability of its account. In the first place, if John had really been a St. Thomas Christian from southern India, he would have gone to Iraq to seek confirmation of his office rather than Constantinople, since he and the patriarch of Constantinople would have been heretics to each other. Secondly, his description of India and its capital, Hulna, appear to be entirely fabulous. It is quite possible that no one would even have taken this anonymous tract seriously, if Odo’s letter did not exist and did not recount the visit of an unnamed archbishop from India who was said to have received a papal audience. Clearly, there were more pressing reasons to accept this spurious document than its mere verisimilitude or the coincidence of the other supporting tract. The tenuous political situation of the Christian states in the Middle East rendered the possibility of such an embassy to Rome simply too enticing. The need to discover Christian allies among the Indian other was just too great. The Latin warriors had set up a series of feudal states after their campaigns in the East and these strongholds were under constant Saracen threat. Around the same time as the two letters, messengers from the Middle East had been dispatched westward seeking Christian reinforcements. For example, Hugh, the French-born Bishop of Jabala (ancient Byblos and present-day Jubayl in Lebanon) was one of the emissaries sent by Raymond of Antioch to Eugenius II to secure aid for the beleaguered Christian states that the crusaders had established in the Near East.2 Hugh was an ideal ambassador. He had effectively in the past enforced papal authority in the East, was active in matters of high policy, and was a zealous defender of the Latins against Byzantine claims. In Antioch, he vigorously resisted the pretensions of John Comnenus. The Pope, who had been forced to flee Rome by an uprising against his secular authority, met with Hugh in Viterbo on November 18, 1145. Otto of Freising recorded this meeting.3 In Chapter  33 of the seventh book of his Historia de Duabus Civitatibus,4 Otto presents his account of Hugh’s visit and tells of his plea on behalf of the Latins in the Holy Land. Otto’s account also relates a story Hugh had told during his visit of an individual who called himself Prester John (Presbyter Joannes) and claimed to be both a Christian king and a Nestorian5 priest living in extremo Oriente beyond Persia and Armenia. Otto related Hugo’s claim that Prester John had made war on two brother kings of the Persians and the Samiardi6 and put them to flight. After this victory, Prester John went to help

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the beleaguered crusaders. He waged war against the Muslims and tried to march to Jerusalem. However, when he reached the Tigris, he could not get his troops across it, so they went north where he had heard it was possible to cross the river when it froze over. They waited three years for the frost to come. However, because of the mild weather, the river never did freeze over and Prester John returned home having lost many of his troops who were unaccustomed to the climate. Hugh reported that he had vowed to try again to bring aid to the failing crusaders from his position behind the Muslim front.7 In Otto’s text, the description of Prester John directly follows the narrative relating Hugh’s fears regarding the dangers facing the Church overseas after the capture of Edessa and his desire to cross the Alps, meet with the king of the Romans and the Franks, and implore their help. On Christmas Eve of the previous year (1144), Edessa had fallen to the Muslims. It is reasonable to suppose that Hugh’s objective when he came to Europe was to make western rulers aware of the perilous situation resulting from its loss and appeal for their aid. The loss of Edessa, the capital of one of the four Christian principalities in the East, caused great dismay in the Latin Orient as it was their biggest loss to date. It was also the site of the shrine believed to be the last resting place of St. Thomas.8 Hence, its loss was imbued with great emotional significance. In this regard, it is important to note that on December 1, 1145, less than three weeks after his meeting with Hugh, Eugenius called the disastrous Second Crusade. As significant as these early “appearances” of Prester John were, they only served as preludes to his spectacular entrance onto the western stage in 1165, when a Latin version of yet another letter began to circulate.9 This time, the missive was purportedly written by Prester John himself and addressed to the Pope, the Emperor of Rome, and the King of France.10

II. Prester John’s letter Simultaneously appearing in several western European language versions as well as in Hebrew, this letter was so widely disseminated that almost 100 manuscripts are still extant today. In this letter, Prester John swears that he is a devout Christian and promises to do everything in his power to protect the Christians “of our empire.” He describes his domain, its wealth, and his desire to wage war against the enemies of the Cross. He claims to rule over the three Indias, with his realm extending to farther India where the uncorrupted body of St. Thomas reposes. He says that he controls seventy-two kingdoms, comprising Christian provinces

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that are each ruled by separate kings. In this letter, Prester John also recounts waging war with 10,000 knights and a million soldiers marching behind twelve jeweled crosses. Prester John’s letter reiterates much of the information previously found in the earlier literature. Here too, the Phison is described as flowing from Paradise through India, carrying gold and jewels in its streams. Here also, we find exotic and marvelous fauna, such as elephants, camels, griffons, and phoenixes. Prester John’s palace is an exact replica of the one built by St. Thomas in Paradise for King Gundaphorus. Each day, 30,000 people dine at his emerald table. The letter also relates how Indians are free from all vice. They never engage in adultery, theft, avarice, or falsehood. In Prester John’s kingdom, no one lives in poverty. Even the wild beasts in India refrain from harming humans. Prester John also specifies that among his subjects can be found pygmies, Amazons, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. In short, the Prester John letter provides all the tropes that the earlier literature accustomed its audience to find in India—monsters, riches, Christians, and the miracles associated with St. Thomas. From 1190 to the late thirteenth century, this letter had five major interpolations. In the hands of translators and copyists, it grew longer and the marvels therein described became more wondrous. With the arrival of printing, 1,500 years of imagining India seem to have coalesced. All the various accounts of monsters, marvels, Indian Christians, and nobler-than-Christian Hindus found in the ancients, the Church fathers, the Alexander legend, the miracle letters, and the Prester John literature circulated simultaneously throughout Europe. Variations of these themes would be incorporated in the travel accounts, both real and fictional,11 that would come into being during the age of discovery. The significance of the Prester John letter, its interpolations and expansions, cannot be overstated. Prester John provided in one figure the union of temporal and spiritual power at a time when Pope Alexander III was fighting with Frederick Barbarossa, the Investiture Controversy was still lingering, the quarrel between Becket and Henry II was at its height, the Normans were agitating in Sicily, and Manuel I was at war with Venice. The fall of Edessa and the failure of the Second Crusade were still fresh in people’s minds. It is not surprising that the dramatic persona of Prester John, an ideal Christian and secular ruler, would emerge at this time. Unfortunately, his appearance set the stage for a very unrealistic vision of India’s religion, wealth, and military strength. It announced to Europe the existence of a potential Christian ally who would be sought for hundreds of years to come. On September 27, 1177, Pope Alexander III wrote and sent from the Rialto in Venice a letter “to his dearest son in Christ, John, illustrious and magnificent king of the Indians.” This letter has been

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historically regarded as a reply to Prester John’s letter.12 In it, Alexander says that his own son Philip had spoken with great men “in that region” (in partius illis) and that these people had told Philip that their king wished to understand fully the Catholic discipline, as they were the same in their faith as the Apostolic See. The Pope also wrote that he was sending Philip to John and requested that John dispatch envoys in return. This embassy supposedly sent to Prester John was to establish diplomatic relations. However, there is no further information about this papal embassy. Word of the king of the three Indias surfaced again forty years later, at the time of the Fifth Crusade. In 1217, news spread among the Franks in Palestine that Prester John was about to join the fight against the Saracens. He was said to have advanced into Persia and was coming to smite the Muslims. There were several versions of this report: one identified the anticipated savior of the Crusade with Prester John, another with his son or grandson. Around the same time, rumors also circulated in the Christian camp that the King of Ethiopia was joining the crusades and on the verge of capturing Mecca (Hennig 1956: 3, 11–23). Ethiopia’s ruling dynasty at the time was Monophysite Christian. The crusaders were so encouraged by these rumors that they marched to Cairo where they were soundly defeated. Damietta was lost and the Crusade collapsed (July–September 1221). Can we find a more persuasive example of the projection of utopian Christian desires than the case of Prester John? The literature leading up to the actual missive, along with the letter itself, attest to the levels of creative discourse involved in the hermeneutic process. The transformation of the endangered Christian self into the Indian other exposes the mimetic process of refiguration and configuration outlined by Ricoeur. Clearly, the distortions of reality resulting from this literature sought at all costs to dissimulate legitimate power, neutralize the threat posed by Islam, and replace that power structure with utopian ideation. What was lacking, however, was any suspicion or desire to demystify the figure of Prester John. Without such a hermeneutics of suspicion, the other remained absolute. What was needed, instead, was for this other to be relativized so that an observer might see it (in the form of the Indian Christian) as truly an other self. Considerable time would pass and there would be much searching after Prester John for this process to take place.

III. Geographical relativism Indeed, the distance between Europe and India was great both literally and figuratively. In a metaphorical sense, the geographical separation between East

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and West could be seen to represent the unbridgeable gap between human and divine understanding (Dante, Paradiso 19.79–81).13 India provided a fluid space not only on the spiritual plane but also geographically. As early as the fourth century, it was described by terms such as “India Major” and “India Minor,” specifying Ethiopia and India respectively. Whereas Otto of Freising would speak only of two Indias (Beckingham 1966: 18), later tradition often specified three Indias.14 Beyond these multiple Indias lay the vast Muslim realm. We have seen how Pseudo-Callisthenes, the Alexander Romance, the miracle letters, the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, and the Prester John tradition associated these Indias with wealth and monstrosities. Although their exact location was vague, we were told early on that they were inhabited by Christians who dwelled in communities that had been originally founded by the Apostle.15 They were all believed to be ruled by Prester John. As early as 1339, the Genovese Angelino Dalorto puts Prester John in Ethiopia and is the first map-maker to do so. On other maps around this time, Prester John also resides in the region of the Upper Nile. That Prester John of the Indies should dwell cartographically in Africa was not surprising, given the confusion regarding India and Ethiopia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.16 What we designate today as northern India was then referred to as Lesser or Nearer India. Farther or Greater India meant the Malabar Coast and Middle India usually signified Ethiopia with the Nile as the dividing line between India and Africa. However, Ethiopia was also a name applied to the whole of Africa, south of the Sahara. In other words, anywhere south of what we today call the Middle East was at one time or another designated as India. The confusion, perhaps, stems even as far back as the Book of Genesis (Chapter 2) and its description of the four rivers of Paradise, the Gihon (thought to be the Nile), Hiddekel (thought to be the Tigris), the Euphrates, and the Phison (identified by Josephus as the Ganges).17 Just as the fourth branch of the river of Paradise could be situated either in Ethiopia or India, so, too, could Prester John be situated either in India or Ethiopia. The form of the quest was, therefore, partly determined by the lack of geographical knowledge. Three other voyages contributed further to the confusion. They originated in Africa and provide a counter-hermeneutic paradigm of eastern travelers confronting the Christian West. These visitors from the East would introduce difference into the official version of Christian orthodoxy. What it meant to be Christian signified one thing in the West, and specifically in Portugal, and quite another thing in Ethiopia. Christianity was lived differently on the margin by those who dwelt outside the tradition and were cut off from its institutions and

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practices. Their expressions of faith, isolated from orthodoxy and its perception of itself, were, of necessity, performative. The Ethiopian visitors presented themselves to the West as Christians according to the pedagogical script of Christianity as they understood it. To borrow Homi Bhabha’s terminology, they were the same, but different (Bhabha 1993: 310–11). Their arrival from the margin and the performative nature of their message was presaged by the textual fictions of the Prester John letter and the fantastic projections that were placed upon his realm. Needless to say, state and ecclesiastical authorities in the West did not respond positively to the challenge that these visits posed. In the following discussion, we will examine how “doing Christianity,” to paraphrase Judith Butler’s notion of “doing gender,” ensured the failure of any effective union between East and West arising out of these final encounters with Prester John.

IV. Prester John’s embassies to the West In 1306, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Wedem Ar’ad, sent an embassy to Pope Clement V. In the first literary reference to this embassy, dating from 1483, Jacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo relates how this thirty-member embassy from Prester John had traveled to the King of the Spaniards. On their return home, after having visited Avignon and Rome, they were detained by inclement weather in Genoa. The cartographer Giovanni da Carignano, took advantage of this unplanned detour to question them concerning Ethiopia.18 Almost 200 years later, in 1486, a second African embassy was sent westward. This time, the King of Benin sent ambassadors to the King of Portugal in order to procure priests to instruct his subjects in Christianity. Barros wrote of this embassy in 1540. In his account, we learn of a powerful and Pope-like king named Ogané who held audiences hidden behind a curtain, confirming people in their office with a staff, headgear, and a cross around their necks. A third African embassy arrived in 1514. Damião de Góis (1502–74), then a twelve-year old page at the court of Manuel I of Portugal, witnessed this encounter. Although the embassy was said to come from Prester John, identified as the emperor of India, it actually originated in Ethiopia. Two ambassadors, named Mattêwos (Matthew) and Yâ’qob (Jacob), had been instructed by the Queen Regent Eleni to deliver on behalf of her step-grandson, King Dawit II (Lebna Dengel), a letter, five gold medals, and a fragment of the Cross. In her letter, the queen called upon the Portuguese to assist them against the Muslims of the Red Sea in return for military aid against Egypt.

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For twenty years, there was no written testimony on this third embassy until the then grown-up Damião de Góis wrote his account entitled the Legatio magni Indorum imperatoris Presbyteri Ioannis ad Emanuelem (Legacy of Prester John, the Great Emperor of the Indians, to Manuel). This work presents the main portion of Dawit II’s letter. It also relates the history of Matthew’s sojourn in Lisbon in 1514 and offers details, in the form of Matthew’s answers to a series of questions, on the religion, patriarch, kingdom, court, and emperor of these supposed “Indians.”19 Although his people differ in rites, laws, customs, and ceremonies, Matthew claimed that they were in accord with Christian nations and Catholic doctrine in all other matters pertaining to faith and religion. Góis’s account of Ethiopian culture and religion was primarily based on Matthew’s report. To this testimony, he added his own reminiscences of the 1514 embassy along with information he collected in the interim during a sojourn in the Low Countries. Góis’s narrative was inaccurate in many respects.20 However, the subtext of the Legatio is particularly interesting. The manner in which Matthew was questioned suggests the degree to which Manuel was interested in interrogating the ambassadors (Legatio iii). The Ethiopian embassy’s offer of collaboration was of no consequence. The Portuguese wanted to ascertain whether King Dawit was the elusive Prester John of the Indies. This persistent confusion concerning the exact status of Prester John sustained interest in Ethiopia. The Portuguese had still not found any large or powerful group of Christians on the Indian subcontinent, and especially, no “heir” to St. Thomas to whom Pope Eugenius had written almost a century before in 1439 (Rogers 1962: 137). They had begun to shift their attention toward finding a Christian potentate elsewhere. The arrival, therefore, of an embassy from a prince whose subjects supposedly included Amazons, pygmies, cynocephali, and other monstrous races (Lawrence 1992: 308) would certainly capture Manuel’s attention. Who would not wish to learn more about a king who was thought to possess seventy-two kingdoms, a palace with a bed of sapphire, and an emerald dining room table that nightly sat 30,000? Since receiving the purported letter from Prester John three centuries earlier, Europe had speculated about this mysterious oriental potentate. The fantasy that his successor could still be an ally for Christianity in a definitive confrontation with Islam was, of course, politically expedient. Some time between 1514 and 1527, Dawit II’s envoys returned to Ethiopia accompanied by the first Portuguese embassy. When a second embassy led by Rodrigo de Lima had returned home, its chaplain, Francisco Alvares, was accompanied by an Ethiopian priest named Sagâ za- Ab (Zagazabo). He brought

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letters from Dawit addressed to João III and Pope Clement. In 1533, Góis had the opportunity to meet Zagazabo in Lisbon, where he had been detained by the king. The Portuguese had not allowed him to convey his letters to Rome or even return home. The Ethiopian emissary was angry, since he had already been in Lisbon for seven years and had not been allowed to take communion or fulfill his emperor’s commission to describe his country to the West. He welcomed the opportunity to speak to Góis. For his part, Góis, who knew full well the limitations and errors of his Legatio, welcomed this opportunity to correct the record. Zagazabo provided Góis with the information necessary to emend Matthew’s articles. Góis then published Zagazabo’s statements in 1540 under the title of Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum (Faith, Religion, and Customs of the Ethiopians). In the introduction to the Fides, Góis addressed a statement to Pope Paul III, who had succeeded Clement VIII in 1534. In it, he deplored the state of Europe and rejoiced in the hope of new additions to Roman Catholicism. Góis laid particular stress on the geographic polarity between India and Ethiopia. He also held open the possibility of a reconciliation of Ethiopian Christians, Indian Christians, and European Catholics.21 The first section of the Fides recounts the history of the Portuguese search for Prester John up to the 1527 legation. It includes the exchange of letters between Manuel, Dawit, João, and the Pope. It then provides a direct translation of Zagazabo’s rectification of Matthew’s original articles. Zagazabo’s treatise on Ethiopia’s religious beliefs, rites, and customs supplements Matthew’s information on the country, its patriarch, and emperor. At various points in the narrative, Zagazabo complains that he was not sent westward to dispute small points of doctrine with prelates, but rather to begin a friendship between Catholic peoples. He affirms that the Ethiopians recognize the Pope and hope for one religion, one flock, and one shepherd. He views the discussions that had detained him and sabotaged his mission as trivial. What was necessary, he felt, was the need to sustain Christians such as the Greeks, Armenians, Ethiopians, and the seven other Christian Churches. Matthew thought that it was useless for him to justify his rituals, since all Christian brothers, as sons of one baptism, were bound together in one faith. This argument might have been difficult for his interlocutors to appreciate, since the religion that Matthew claimed was the same as their own included married clergy and female circumcision and lacked indulgences. Zagazabo’s responses suggest that the Ethiopians were well aware of the political advantages they stood to gain from embracing the Prester John legend for diplomatic purposes. Zagazabo responded performatively; he tailored his comments to suit what he

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believed to be both the theological substance of Christianity and its political context. The Fides champions the cause of Ethiopia and Portugal’s role in the longdreamt reconciliation between eastern and western Christianity. The text chastises Rome for its refusal to accept other Christian Churches and defends Portuguese imperialism as a divinely inspired crusade to spread the Gospel. What makes this text truly unique, however, is the fact that the subject is not the Portuguese humanist, but the Ethiopian Christian, the voiceless subaltern who was not allowed to share his message for seven years. In both the Legatio and the Fides, Góis gives voice primarily to the Ethiopian informants, unaccompanied by any commentary and uncensored by Góis himself (Lawrence 1992: 320). He scrupulously avoids anything that was his own invention and offers eyewitness accounts of Matthew’s and Zagazabo’s notes.22 In Góis’s narrative, the Ethiopians become the discoverers. For this reason, Góis’s accounts are of particular interest to us today. They provide significant case histories in encounter and comparativism where the European appears as the other and the West’s response to encounter becomes the object of the narrative. Clearly the time for such messengers and such a message had not yet come. Exposing and championing an alternative form of Christianity did nothing to promote any reconciliation between the eastern and western Churches. In fact, it contributed to their ultimate schism. Once the facts concerning Ethiopia were more or less known, Catholic opinion was that the Monophysite Church was heretical and its king and resources were not as great as one had once imagined. The faith and marvels announced in the Epistola Presbyteri Ioannis were not to be found in accounts of Góis, Alvares,23 or Ramusio.24 The fabulous Prester John was clearly not the same as the “real” one, nor did his fantasy Christians resemble real Ethiopian Christians. Although the Portuguese did eventually respond to the Ethiopian embassy sent to João II and Clement, they did not send scholars, goldsmiths, metalworkers, printers, engineers, and naval forces as requested. Rather, they dispatched a paltry military expedition, European clothes, a Latin primer, and Jesuits. Their aid was clearly focused on civilizing the Ethiopians. While not exclusively directed at economic gain, it was nevertheless half-hearted. Although the Ethiopians were more sophisticated than the Caribbeans that Columbus had encountered (Lawrence 1992: 319) and certainly very different from the other Africans that the Portuguese had until then met, they were still uncivilized. Even someone as objective as Góis, the humanist who gave them voice, consistently referred to the Ethiopians as barbari (Lawrence 1992: 319). They might be Christian, but Góis still ran down a virtual checklist of attributes

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from medieval and early modern ethnographers to question their level of civilization. The Legatio had, in fact, begun this process. The very questions put to Matthew sought to determine whether the Ethiopians ranked among the civilized or the barbarian according to Aristotle ’s criteria. To prove whether they lived a proper civil life (in cities with institutions), the articles focus on the existence of written laws, courts, and magistrates (#14, 16, 18–19), marriage and family life, inheritance (#23), commerce (#4, 25), possession of written history (#15), taxes (#20), and proper clothing and social distinctions (#2–3). Their eating habits were investigated to show whether they might be barbarian in what they ate and the manner in which it was cooked. Matthew was questioned about the emperor’s wives in order to elicit information on possible “bestial” sexual practices such as matriarchy, polygamy, and promiscuity (#3, 7) (Lawrence 1992: 322). As tolerant and ecumenical as Góis was, he held to this classical taxonomy. Góis might have been able to discard the baggage of the “romantic” fable of Prester John, but he could not relinquish the Aristotelian tradition regarding monstrous races (Lawrence 1992: 323). Aristotle’s typology was the only viable model. If the self was civilized, then the other must be barbarous. The determining factor in judging a population rested on its military might (Lawrence 1992). This is the point at which reality truly confronted fantasy. When the Ethiopians were discovered to possess insufficient defensive strength against their own enemies, to the point that they sought aid from the West to contain their Muslim neighbors,25 they were relegated to the class of barbarians. When they were found to possess insufficient wealth and engage in unorthodox practices, they were deemed insignificant Christians at best, heretics at worst. Civilization, force of arms, and the standard faith formed the package of Christianity in this literary geography. Once one or more of the components failed, the entire construct crumbled. The Portuguese recognized the agreed-upon characteristics of Christianity as a product based on the learned discourse and practices of religion in the West. These traits formed the layers of cultural recognition and the legacy of the tradition. The vocabulary of the Portuguese Christian, Damião de Góis in this instance, represented the traditional way of knowing, complete with all its categories and signifiers. Alongside the traditional and pedagogical ran the performative—the performance in utterance and the choice of vocabulary that had been learned. Matthew and Zagazabo provided a performative script in their responses to the inquiries regarding their adherence to Christianity. Their performance was not successful.

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Tradition is not all-powerful, since each performance requires a repetition of the learned lesson. If the lesson is repeated differently, or, as in our case, repeated by a person from a different background, the enactment of tradition varies. The speech act calls into question the intrinsic self-authorizing quality of the claim of tradition. Although tradition naturalizes itself to seem eternal, its efforts are undercut by the performative element that depends on the individual iteration to uphold that tradition. The emphasis on repetition opens the possibility for repeating differently, for “doing Christianity” differently, and for speaking, as Zagazabo, from a liminal space outside the Christian fold. Repetition with a difference defines what Bhabha calls hybridity. The outsider Zagazabo is supposed to speak the pedagogical tradition but does so from his own experience and thus the iteration of the tradition breaks down. In his responses, Christianity no longer means the same thing. Instead of representing a tradition cherished for its presumed uniformity, Zagazabo’s hybridity resisted the essentializing drive of the pedagogical. On the level of the fantastic expectations promised in the Prester John legend, he could not deliver. The Prester John letter was the initial and ultimate performative utterance. In fact, it might even be said that tradition is itself performative, an utterance passing itself off as essential, but showing the fissures within the dominant discourse. Our assurances regarding contracts between the subject and the other are shaken, as are the divisions drawn between authorial knowledge and its textual absence, fantasies of strength and fears of weakness. Protestantism was in the air, offering a real experience of how dangerous difference could be and what enormous havoc it could wreak. The Ethiopians were different and proof arrived in the form of returning travelers and their companion Zagazabo. The sympathetic efforts of Góis and the ecumenicism of the Ethiopian Christian ambassadors notwithstanding, prosaic reality hopelessly shattered any dream of unity. This encounter entailed the discovery of heresy and the resultant attempts on the part of the papacy to enforce authority, doctrine, and ritual. Tolerance toward this area never thrived. Due to the Portuguese military, naval, and commercial activity in the West Indian Ocean, Ethiopia became isolated from Cairo, just as the St. Thomas Christians would become cut off from Mesopotamia, the source of their bishops. In both areas, the Portuguese would insist on conformity with practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The decade of 1540 was crucial in that the Christians dwelling in Ethiopia were lost to Catholic unity (Rogers 1962: 169). Classical literature, medieval cartography, and early travelers had all confused these two realms. However, once they became truly known, it was of little consequence. They were,

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after all, just the same place of difference. The ideology of alterity prevailed. The Aristotelian categories were still firmly in place. The romance of Prester John existed alongside the tradition regarding Indian monstrous races. Fantasies of difference were not reconsidered in the light of new truth. Instead, the doubling of the Christian (self, civilized) and the monster (other, barbarian) provided an excuse for rejection. An opportunity for reconciliation was squandered by a failure of European consciousness on multiple levels: a failure of political intelligence, religious values, and imagination. As we shall see in the next chapters, this rejection would take place time and again, even after the travelers and missionaries arrived in India (or what they thought to be its shores).

3

The Quest for Christians and the Rediscovery of Monsters

I. Introduction Travel narratives interpret cultural encounters partially by means of semantic games. By articulating the development of an analytic discourse about human diversity, they express not only how people interact, but also how they comprehend or misunderstand each other. The success of the travel account depends, however, on its author’s ability to persuade. Perhaps the most powerful way to make someone believe something is to claim, “I saw with my own eyes” (autóptês). To describe is to see and make seen, to put something before the eyes (ante oculos ponere). The eye organizes, delimits, and controls the visual field.1 What the traveler claims to have seen must be true since, by bearing witness, he authenticates it. Such autopsy always trumps hearsay evidence. Having seen for oneself is more persuasive than just having heard. Explorers, therefore, report what they see. Their field of vision is, however, framed by an imaginary landscape they carry with them as much as by the reality spread before them. As Virgil Nemoianu has noted in The Triumph of Imperfection, historical and geographical descriptions, when honestly pursued, endeavor to provide us with accurate images of zones in space and time. They try to present correct and abundant raw material. However, in the production of these accounts, elements of narrative and rhetoric become necessary. As a result, the structuring and ordering of information follows rules that have much in common with those of novelistic fiction and poetry (Nemoianu 2006: 234). If literary contrivances appear in accounts that are “honestly pursued,” how much more do they operate in texts serving clear political agendas? The letter of Prester John came into being as a response to the unbearable shock of having lost the Holy Land. The very circumstances of its appearance and the auxiliary texts preceding it reflect the fear that the initial encounter between eastern and western Christianity must have elicited in the psyches of medieval Christians and illustrate how fantasy can 53

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be marshaled to allay anxiety. The legend of a mysterious Christian potentate and possible ally was thus mobilized to overcome fear and the trauma of loss. The appearance of the Prester John letter reflected the extent to which a society, or a creative segment within that society, could distort reality in direct relation to its insecurity.2 As travelers began to venture eastward they could not help but seek out the Prester John who had so captured their imagination and assuaged their fears. Marco Polo, for example, found him ruling over seventy-two subordinate kings in a territory vaguely beyond the Saracens. He was no longer a messianic priestking of a twelfth-century forger, but the Khan of the Kereit (Bar-Ilan 1995: 292), the lord of a tribe of Nestorian Christians who had been defeated by Genghis Khan (Rubiés 2000: 52).3 From Marco Polo on, other voyagers would incorporate legends surrounding St. Thomas into episodes culled from the Prester John letter.4 Travel accounts, in fact, became rather complex literary constructions. They depicted a diversity of customs in others lands and, at the same time, suggested that reason could be found among the populations they encountered that was somehow lacking among sinful Latin Christians. In other words, travel narratives increasingly sought to stress moral self-reflection. In the following discussion, we will examine just such a series of literary descriptions of “India” in the last decade of the fifteenth century. We begin with the two versions of Nicolò de’ Conti’s journey eastward in the first half of the century that appeared in print the same year that Columbus set forth on his First Voyage. We then examine the various accounts of Columbus’s First and Second Voyages to the New World. Finally, we will briefly look at the impact that Columbus’s discovery had upon the popular poetry of the time.

II. The historical background Portugal’s geography, to a certain extent, determined its historical fate. Its relative isolation—500 miles of coastline and narrow hinterland—contributed to its rather independent history. However, this isolation rendered it vulnerable. The Portuguese were blocked from any expansion over land because of Castile’s need to consolidate its territories. In 1147, the Moors had captured Lisbon and the Tagus. Penned in on both sides, Portugal concentrated on her association with the sea. The Portuguese contest for maritime control should be viewed then as an extension of her struggle against the Moors and the Spanish. Islam, although a distant menace to western Europe, was a real threat to the Iberian Peninsula.

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Saladin had driven the crusaders out of Jerusalem in 1187, ending eightyeight years of Latin rule. The Fall of Jerusalem led to the Third Crusade, which began in 1190 and ended with the treaty of 1192. This treaty allowed the Christians to visit Muslim-held Jerusalem and retain Acre. All in all, the first three crusades had brought Europe little reward. Saladin’s victory and the ensuing Muslim domination were, however, devastating. They prompted the Fourth Crusade, which was called in 1199 to liberate the Holy Land. This crusade too was a failure. The Venetian Doge Dandolo had convinced the crusaders to forget the Saracens and invade instead Christian Byzantium, Venice’s chief rival, and loot Constantinople. There then followed a period of relative calm between Latin Christians and the Saracens, lasting until 1215. Egypt had provided a Muslim base of operations ever since Saladin had recaptured Jerusalem. The Fifth Crusade (1218–21) was, therefore, directed against Egypt. Initially, this crusade was successful. The crusaders were able to seize Damietta. At this critical juncture, Saladin’s nephew even offered the crusaders the Holy Land, including Jerusalem, if they agreed to call off their invasion of Egypt. However, an arrogant and obstinate Portuguese cardinal, the Pope’s personal representative, Pelagius, refused the offer outright. He was holding out for unconditional surrender. The final attack, led by St. Louis, was a total failure. After 200 years of effort, the Holy Land, Egypt, and the vital coast of Syria remained in Muslim hands. Meanwhile, Portugal would endure attacks from Leon and Castile until the military defeat (with the help of the English) of the Castilians in 1386. Peace between Portugal and Spain only came about in 1411 with the marriage alliance between John of Avis and Philippa of Lancaster. The third son of their union was Henry. Henry “the Navigator” (1394–1460) spearheaded Portuguese territorial expansion by systematically exploring the African coast. He was guided by a variety of motives. He sought to discover (i.e. annex and colonize) new lands and extend the Christian faith at the expense of Islam. He also sought a sea route to India and the East where there were thought to be Christian allies. In 1419, Henry established the maritime headquarters at Sagres in the Algarve from where he began to launch regular forays down the African coast. With the capture of the fortress and trading center at Ceuta in 1415, the Portuguese achieved their first military success in Africa. They soon rediscovered the Canary Islands. Madeira was reached in 1420 and the Azores were explored in the next decade. By 1434, the Portuguese had landed in Africa to the south of regions under Muslim control. Meanwhile, the threat of Muslim encirclement continued to pose a real and pressing concern both for the Portuguese and the papacy. In addition to this

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formidable menace, the splintering of the Church under the Reformation had also taken a heavy toll. As a response to the Muslim and Protestant threat, Rome felt it advantageous to try and mend the schism separating it from the East. Pope Eugenius convened the ecclesiastical Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–45),5 to bring representatives from the eastern Church to Rome in order to open dialogue. It was at this council that emissaries from the East circulated news about India and its potential as a Christian ally. Discovering a sea route to India had always been economically and politically desirable. The need to connect with eastern Christians, already deemed crucial, became critical once Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453 and relations between Christians and Muslims further deteriorated. Henry the Navigator died in 1460. He was succeeded by King Afonso who, with the Treaty of Alćaçovas (1479), renounced any claim to the kingship of Leon and the Canary Islands.6 In return for this concession, Ferdinand and Isabella promised not to interfere with Portugal’s current or future discoveries. The wording of the treaty was sufficiently vague so as to be interpreted by Portugal as a blanket concession to their dominion over the whole world. The Portuguese subsequently extended their search for lucre by venturing into the African interior. During this period, a profitable trade with Lagos for slaves and gold also developed. In addition to exploring a trade route to India and exploiting the raw material Africa had to offer, the Portuguese continued to seek traces of the elusive Prester John. Well into the sixteenth century, long after the regions in the East had been fairly well explored, the dream of eastern Christians continued to fuel the European imagination. All the travel narratives (real and imaginary) cited two destinations—the shrine of St. Thomas and the court of Prester John. Since his appearance in European literature in the twelfth century, Prester John’s possible existence inspired exploration for more than two centuries. Although they invariably failed to find him, travelers continued to search for his kingdom. They persisted in believing in a mythical land that experience had repeatedly shown them did not exist (Lowenthal and Bowden 1976: 53–4). The myth endured; what changed was the geographical space it encompassed, moving between Africa and Asia and eventually shifting to the New World. As we have seen, the embassies from “India” in 1306 and 1486 had kept the myth of Prester John alive. They prompted King João of Portugal to send two embassies eastward, one by land and the other by sea. One embassy, led by Bartolomeu Dias, was a resounding success. Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. The other embassy led by Pêro da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva

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may be judged a failure. Covilhã and Paiva had set out on an inland trip to discover trade routes to India and spices. They carried with them a letter to be delivered to Prester John. Masquerading as Muslims, Paiva and Covilhã took a caravan to Aden where they separated. Paiva set off over land, never to be heard from again. Covilhã boarded a ship to take him to India where he landed in Cannanore in 1488. He was the first Portuguese to reach India. He visited Calicut and found it to be in the hands of Muslims. He also visited Goa. In 1490, Covilhã sent a report to Lisbon summarizing the commodities he found in India and the extent of Arab trade. He then proceeded to Ethiopia to deliver the letter to Prester John and look for Paiva (1493). He was, however, forced by the king to stay there. He settled in and was located thirty years later by Alvares, a member of a subsequent embassy sent from Portugal, who found him comfortably ensconced with a native wife and children. It was Alvares to whom Covilhã dictated his adventures. In this historical climate, Christopher Columbus approached King João in 1483–84 with the project of going westward. Since the Portuguese already had plans in the works and exploration was proceeding in earnest with Dias and Covilhã, Columbus’s hopes of recruiting Portuguese sponsorship were rejected. His next petition to João, coinciding with Dias’s triumphant return to Lisbon, was likewise denied. Ten years would lapse between the voyage of Dias and that of Vasco da Gama. This delay might have been due to the king’s health problems, the vast outlay of resources for a Portuguese expedition to Morocco, anticipation of news from the Covilhã-Paiva expedition, the cost and time needed to launch a major expedition or, just simply, a combination of the above. In any event, Columbus’s discovery of the New World renewed the competition between Portugal and Spain that supposedly had been settled by the Treaty of Alćaçovas. When Columbus arrived in Lisbon in 1493 announcing his discovery, King João immediately laid claim to the territory as islands off the coast of Africa believed covered under the treaty. Ferdinand and Isabella reacted by appealing to Pope Alexander, a Spaniard whom they thought would be sympathetic to their cause. The Pope responded with four bulls pronounced in 1493, the last of which revoked all earlier papal grants in Portugal’s favor and recognized Castile’s dominion over all territories not already under Christian power (Van der Linden 1916: 18–19). Portugal was thus limited to dominion over Africa. Since Portugal did not desire any renewal of fighting and Spain still feared Portugal’s strength on the seas, both countries settled on a compromise. In 1494 at Tordesillas they signed a treaty with the clever demarcation from pole to pole at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This document meant that Castile could not interfere

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with Portugal’s plan to circumnavigate Africa to reach India. The Treaty of Tordesillas was predicated upon the fact that no one knew that Columbus had actually discovered a new world. Although the Treaty of Tordesillas set the limits of jurisdiction and Columbus’s First Voyage expanded the borders of what was thought possible, the Council of Ferrara-Florence had already defined the aims and goals of all subsequent travel initiatives. The Council had also reanimated the fantasy that Christian allies could be enlisted in the battle to save the faith. The dream of eastern Christians cultivated by the Prester John myth and the legends surrounding St. Thomas served to fortify a sense of Christian solidarity. A desire for uniformity in the form of religious orthodoxy was seen as its precondition. The First Voyage of Columbus announced that there existed a world out there still to be “discovered” and exploited for politico-economic gain. As we will see, this sense of Christian identity and solidarity, formed through interaction and engagement with this new world, would prove to be a product of projections, doublings, idealizations and, ultimately, a rejection of otherness. The Council of Ferrara and Columbus’s voyage both demanded a re-examination and/or re-articulation of the classical and medieval conception of India as well as the accepted notions of what it was to be civilized or barbarian. In the following discussion, we examine several literary responses to this challenge.

III. Nicolò de’ Conti and Poggio Bracciolini Nicolò de’ Conti set out for the East in 1416 with a strong desire to go to India, where it was said that the inhabitants worshiped Christ. After twenty-five years, he returned to Italy in 1441. Conti traveled in the company of the Near Eastern delegates to the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Along with representatives of the Greek Church, Conti addressed the European delegates (Gill 1959: Chs. 1–3) during the second phase of the Council. He spoke about the Christian Indies, an area designating Ethiopia, India, and Cathay. The account of his journey would appear fifty years later in India recognita (1492). In this small volume, general information concerning Indian geography, customs, and natural resources form the backdrop to Conti’s larger thematic regarding Indian Christians and his personal need to engage them. During his travels, Conti had renounced or was forced to renounce his faith in order to ensure his personal safety and that of his family. Upon returning to Italy, he approached Pope Eugenius seeking absolution in the hope of recovering his place in Venetian society.7 Legend has it that the

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Pope exacted from Conti the narration of his memoirs as penance for his apostasy. Conti’s comments on Indian Christians must, therefore, be read not only within the political context of the Council in which he participated, but also in light of his personal spiritual dilemma. The myth of Indian Christians presented in Conti’s travel account effects the movement from self-estrangement to self-realization. It exemplifies the process described by Levinas in his Odysseus paradigm. It also exhibits the movement of play between distanciation and appropriation championed by hermeneutics and challenged by the critique of ideology. The Christian Indians appear as narcissistic objects resolving the lack experienced in the self. Conti consistently describes them as just like us, only better. They lead exemplary lives, are of sober demeanor, and excel in humanity and refinement. They are our equals in lifestyle and civilization. By constituting paradigms for model behavior, Conti’s Indian Christians present the means by which the lost, apostatized narrator reconstitutes his religious and civic self. The reader, in turn, is meant to be edified by this tale of divine providence and comforted by the knowledge that his faith is truly universal. India recognita was not the creation solely of the apostate traveler: it was significantly modeled by its editor, the papal secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, who closely questioned Conti regarding his experiences in India. Poggio had been intimately involved in both the Council of Constance (1414–18) and the Council of Ferrara-Florence and had obviously shared their aims of reconciling eastern and western Christians. Throughout Eugenius’s pontificate (1431–47), Poggio had gathered material for his Historia de varietate fortunae (On the Vicissitudes of Fortune) (ca. 1431–48), a compendium of the knowledge regarding the world of his day. The fourth book of the Historia deals specifically with India and was based on his interrogation of Conti.8 In the Historia, Conti’s account appears in the form of a dialogue between the experienced patrician merchant who tries to justify his religious lapse to the learned humanist. It can be broken down into two parts. The first section relates the journey and is particularly valuable for the precision of its geography. Conti provided general information on festivals, armor, and siege machinery, and stressed the regional differences of Indian customs, in particular, the behavior of the Indian Christians. It is, however, in the second part of the treatise that the reader most directly detects Poggio’s editorial presence. This section provides the analytic description of the people, customs, and religion of the Indians. Throughout the narrative, Poggio sought to expand Conti’s discussion to include more systematic categories, such as descriptions of Hindu religious rituals. It was Poggio’s task to prod the memory of the merchant traveler with educated questions (Rubiés

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2000: 98). Conti’s life story, in turn, provided Poggio with the central illustration of the beneficent aspects of fortune. The Historia, while it differed considerably from India recognita in tone, also has Conti’s apostasy as its organizing theme (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 6). Because Conti renounced his faith and wished to atone for his apostasy, he tends to identify Christianity with all that is good. The odd customs and perversions of the Indians, that he lovingly and humorously describes, are not, he assures us, practiced by Indian Christians. Conti’s narrative was clearly a response to the challenges posed by the encounter between East and West. First, Poggio and Conti established a hierarchy within Indian society as a point of reference for civilization and a starting point for their comparison of Europe and India. Even in his discussions of caste, Conti projects a Greek ideal of a well-ordered society, with the brahmins appearing once again as its wise philosophers (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 11). In this rendition, caste becomes almost rational. Poggio and Conti then focused on the role of cities as centers of geographical analysis. The logic of the Greek pólis is made to mesh with the system of identities then present in Italy (Christianprovidential, patriotic-republican, aristocratic-monarchic) (Rubiés 2000: 101–4). India replicates the values of the pólis and its dependence on tribal identity, good climate, and clear laws. It represents civilization in Greek terms: the social control of universal passions contributing to a peaceful social order. The principal thematic concern of both the Historia and India recognita was, however, the question of how to deal with the Indians that Conti had encountered on his journeys, whether they could be accommodated as fellow Christians or subjugated as barbarians. Also, Conti’s spatial dislocation provided the necessary geographical and cultural distance from which criticism could be directed against Europe. Poggio demonstrates that Conti had, indeed, discovered paradise in India (Major 1957: 13). The question then became the following: Was this a paradise peopled with Christians or monsters? Like Gaul, India is divided into three parts. The third India, the area beyond the Ganges and the Indus rivers, includes the jewels of Cambay (Gujarat), the site of St. Thomas’s tomb at Mylapore, and the wealth of Vijayanagara. Here dwell the virtuous Christians that Conti encounters, identifies as Nestorians (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 10), and extols. They represent a civilization far more splendid and accomplished than any found in Europe (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 25). India consists of powerful cities, possessing great wealth of gold, silver, and precious stones (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 13). Just as Jews are found throughout Europe, so, too, are Christians found throughout India (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 10). More numerous in the south,

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Indian Christians are gentle and wise. Their material wealth is equal to that of Renaissance Italy. Poggio leaves little doubt as to the broadly satirical thrust of his polemic. He effectively juxtaposes Conti’s account to the commentary of a fictive Indian whom he claims has come to the West. Poggio relates how this Indian came to the Pope to get information about Christians rumored to live in Europe. He is thus able to compare the Church unfavorably to an ideal Christian India. The Indian Christians that Conti observes function both as non-fictional characters and ideal types. By inventing the Indian who comes to Rome to test the rumor of Italian Christians, Poggio demythologizes the Indian Christian and sets up a parallel to Conti’s own journey, wherein the myth of Indian Christians assumes added authority. However, Conti embellished his account of ideal Indian Christians with tales of monstrosities: pig-headed elephants, fish-men, phoenixes, and androgynes. On the Andaman Islands, Conti described the behavior of cannibals (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 11). In Cochin, he encountered monstrous fish-men (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 22). It is important to note that the Indians described by Conti are both physically and morally monstrous. In Vijayanagara, the site of the most sophisticated Hindu kingdom of its time, Conti focused on those inhabitants who took pleasure in mortifications of the flesh and selfsacrifice. They perform barbaric religious practices to their idols. They throw themselves before giant carts carrying representations of their gods, crushing themselves under the wheels. Conti also describes acts of self-decapitation performed out of religious fervor. He tells how devotees make cuts under their skin, insert hooks and ropes and hang their body from idols that are drawn by chariots. Conti dwells particularly on instances of suttee9 and notes how they exhibit either the crazed devotion of the widows or the violence wrought upon those whose courage fails. He relates how certain princes marry hundreds of women who all sacrifice themselves on their husband’s pyre in a grand holocaust (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 9–10, 28, 32–3). Conti’s narrative also dwells on Indian perversities such as polygamy (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 23) and addiction to licentiousness (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 26). In a particularly descriptive and selfdeprecating passage, Conti described customs of male genital mutilation performed in order to satisfy the monstrous lusts of the Indian female population. Indian women encourage men to insert a series of small metal bells (called “ringers’‘) under the skin of their penises. Once these incisions heal, they cause small ulcerated bumps on the penis that are intended to “satisfy the wantonness of the women” (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 14). Some men insert so many

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of these bells that their penises “stretch way down between their legs so that when they walk, they ring out and may be heard” (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 14) approaching. Nicolò claims that he was scorned by Indian women because he had a small member. Indian females encouraged him to rectify his situation by inserting the ringers. He refused to do so, however, claiming that he did not want to endure pain just to give pleasure to others (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 14). In other words, Conti made sure to round out his detailed descriptions of geographical, social, and economic conditions with titillating reportage in order to entertain as well as educate his readers. Neither Conti nor his editor Poggio, who as a papal secretary had written a collection of licentious anecdotes,10 feared the risk inherent in diffusing their message.11 But, edification was of the first order. Due to his length of stay in the East, his knowledge of Asian languages and intimacy with Indians (evidenced by his Indian wife), Conti’s account of India and its customs is, of necessity, more informed than would be that of the casual visitor. He stresses the differences in customs and religions. He describes Hindu funerary rites (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 27), inheritance regulations (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 23), and religious festivals (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 33). He details the manner in which Indians write. He describes the king, his court, and its military strength. The breadth of Conti’s travels throughout Asia provides a unique and valuable perspective. He is able to compare India to Java, Sumatra, and Malaya. Indians are still described in terms of the Christian and the monster. However, we find a gradual shift in Conti’s narrative away from physical to moral difference. India was rich, humane, and refined. In other words, it was similar to Europe but also poor, cruel, religiously fanatical, and different from Europe. Indians were clearly in need of management. In the descriptions of Conti’s experiences, there is a tension between the physically and morally monstrous Indians that we see repeated some fifty years after his journey in the literature describing the discovery of the New World. As in Conti so too in Columbus, do we find a discourse concluding that Indians need oversight.

IV. The initial discoveries of Columbus In his famous letter to Luis de Santángel, a clerk for Ferdinand and Isabella,12 Christopher Columbus announced that he had arrived in the Indies (Columbus 1969: 111).13 To be precise, Columbus claimed that he “passed over to the Indies with a fleet” and “found many islands.” It is noteworthy that he used the term

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“Indies” rather than “India.” Either, as Washburn claims, Columbus was intentionally vague in his nomenclature14 or, as his son Ferdinand reported, he called the lands “the Indies” because they were the unknown eastern part of India and had no name of their own. Ferdinand added that his father named them after the nearest adjoining land, whose great fame and wealth were wellknown. Ferdinand also claimed that by telling the Catholic sovereigns that he was going to discover the Indies by way of the West, Columbus had hoped to arouse their interest in what was for them a doubtful enterprise (Ferdinand Columbus 1959: chap. 6: 16–17, cited in Washburn 1962: 16). Europe was aware that there were many islands to the east and the south of China. No European of Columbus’s time, however, had direct knowledge of their location or the character of their inhabitants (Washburn 1962: 17). Marco Polo had counted 12,700 islands off mainland Asia in the Sea of India (Polo 1903: 3.34).15 It is possible that, since Columbus had brought a Latin version of Il Milione along with him, he sought to match what he found with the descriptions supplied by the Venetian. For example, Columbus identified Hispaniola as Japan (i.e. the Chipangu of Marco Polo) and Cuba as the Asiatic mainland at the extreme end of the East (Columbus 1967: 119), the realm of the Grand Khan (Las Casas 1969: 76). Columbus also incorporated into his vision imagery culled from the Prester John legend. In a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of October 18, 1488, he wrote of his desire to discover the river of Paradise that flows from the center of Prester John’s realm (Columbus 1847). In fact, Columbus’s venture highlights the extent to which the centuries-long attempts to find Prester John animated the voyages of the Age of Discovery and became transformed into subsequent quests for El Dorado. Columbus had, indeed, landed in what he took to be a prelapsarian paradise. The land was extremely fertile. It possessed finer natural harbors than in any Christian land. It abounded in fertile plains, marvelous rivers, and mountains replete with abundant trees, plants, birds, and honey (Columbus 1969: 116). Its rivers flowed with gold (Columbus 1969: 117). Bartholomé de Las Casas, in his digest of Columbus’s lost logbook, corroborates the reports that the islands were rich in spices, gold, and pearls (Las Casas 1969: 73, 76). Although Columbus stressed the wealth of the New World, it is significant to note that its abundant gold was always somewhere else, usually a bit further to the East (Las Casas 1969: 86) than Columbus’s actual location at any given time. Columbus further noted that the inhabitants of the New World had no iron or steel, possessed no arms and, even if they did, would have been incapable of using them, not from lack of strength but because of their timidity (Columbus 1969: 117). They were so terrified that upon seeing his ships they fled, leaving

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their children behind on the beaches. Columbus judged the Indians to be childlike and innocent, content with the trifles that he and his men offered them. They “believe that power and goodness dwell in the sky” and mistook Columbus as descending from it (Columbus 1969: 118). While living in this edenic situation, the Indians exhibited signs of civilized behavior. Las Casas reports that they possessed clean houses, beds, and blankets. Their homes, equipped with good chimneys, were organized into villages. Their women wore undergarments (Las Casas 1969: 66). An expeditionary force that the admiral had dispatched returned to tell of large well-built villages in the interior of Cuba (Columbus 1969: 77). The natives, in fact, resemble Europeans. They are quite good looking, not black (Las Casas 1969: 56), and rather like the natives of Guinea. They have well-formed bodies (Las Casas 1969: 56). Their hair is straight, even though Hispaniola is 20 or 21 degrees from the Equator and the rays from the sun there are intense (Columbus 1969: 121). Racially, the people from the islands are all the same. Columbus noted no great difference in their customs or languages. They all understood each other, which, Columbus claimed, would facilitate the conversion process (Columbus 1969: 118). He believed that the natives could be easily Christianized, since they were intelligent (Las Casas 1969: 64). Columbus judged that they were predisposed to receive the holy faith since they had no religion and were not idolaters. He deemed them ready to adopt Christianity and moral virtue.16 Paradoxically, he also reported to Ferdinand and Isabella that the Indians were ripe for enslavement. The king and queen need only say the word and he would hold all the natives of Cuba as slaves on their own island or bring them to Spain. Columbus even boasted that he could subjugate them with a force of fifty men.17 Since trade in humans was legitimate only if they were not Christians, Columbus promised to send exclusively idolaters as slaves, the same idolaters whom he claimed, in an earlier passage, did not exist (Columbus 1969: 118). Indeed, the only real wealth of the islands Columbus “discovered” was their inhabitants. Although he forced the natives to look for gold, there never really existed the quantity that Columbus envisioned. From the earliest documents onward, Columbus advocated the export of natives to Spain as slave laborers. He even mentioned that they begged him to transport them to Castile for the honor to serve as native informants (Las Casas 1969: 80). The problem with this plan was that if the natives were converted (an original aim for the expedition), they could not be enslaved.18 Only criminals and prisoners of war could be enslaved. The colonizers would subsequently increase these numbers by provoking Indian

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rebellions. They also achieved this same goal by placing the natives outside natural law. Enter the monster. Columbus did not encounter the monsters in these islands that he and others had expected to find (Columbus 1969: 121). As Palencia-Roth (1996) has suggested, Columbus was rather disingenuous. To say that there were no monsters was a bit of an overstatement. Columbus related the rumor that people on the nearby island of Aven (La Habana in Cuba) have tails (Columbus 1969: 119). He also reported that the Indians he took captive recounted how, on a neighboring island of Quaris, a very ferocious people, who were in no way physically malformed,19 were monstrous in the sense that they ate human flesh (Columbus 1969: 121). He was referring to the Caribs who, navigating canoes, raided and pillaged the neighboring islands. The island on which these maneaters were said to dwell was the island Columbus would name Domenica. Captive Indians gave him directions and it was toward this island that Columbus would steer the vessels on his second foray to the New World. The subtext of Columbus’s letter to Santángel is not very subtle. Palencia-Roth views it essentially as a fifteenth-century equivalent of a grant proposal. He was reporting that the initial grant (the funding of the First Voyage) had been a success. India had been discovered and gold had been found. Columbus promised Ferdinand and Isabella “as much gold as they required” (Columbus 1969: 122). He claimed that Hispaniola was particularly well situated in proximity to the gold fields (Columbus 1969: 119). Columbus then made a compelling case for further funding and vouchsafed the veracity of his eyewitness account. He claimed to have also discovered natives who were civilized, virtuous, and proto-Christians of a sort, since they did not practice any heathen faith. Moreover, they seemed amenable to conversion and if that failed, he felt that, given their timidity and lack of arms, they could be easily enslaved. The paradox of Columbus’s proposal arises at this point. Either the natives are civilized and capable of easily becoming Christian and, hence, incapable of enslavement, or they are barbarian, monstrous, heathen, and worthy of enslavement. Columbus seems to be hedging his bets, suggesting both scenarios simultaneously to the Catholic monarchs. The problem Columbus would face on subsequent voyages would consist in finding a solution to this paradox. But, that was not yet his concern. He still needed to pin down the funding. He concluded his letter by enjoining Ferdinand and Isabella to celebrate the success of their triumph, the many conversions to come, and the temporal benefits that would accrue for Spain and all Christendom (Columbus 1969: 123). The application for further funding was granted in the form of the sponsorship of the Second Voyage. In their instructions to Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella

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set their conditions.20 They accepted his assessment of the Indians’ readiness for conversion. Since the Indians possessed neither dogma nor doctrine, the Catholic monarchs charged Columbus to win them over to the faith. Toward this end, they sent two friars along with him on the voyage. Furthermore, they instructed Columbus to force those who sailed with him to treat the Indians with due civility and not as an inferior race (Morison 1942: 208). He was to do them no injury. Columbus’s Second Voyage began on September 25, 1493. He took 1,200 men on seventeen ships. His goals and itinerary were simple: the destination was Hispaniola; the focus was to search for gold and land, found new cities, and inhabit them. The sailors were all volunteers. The fleet first landed in Domenica. It then traveled on to the Virgin Islands and Santa Cruz where it took on provisions. Columbus heard from the natives on these islands of the existence of a tribe called the cannibals, Canibs, or Caribs. He and his men then left the Virgin Islands and arrived in Puerto Rico (Berequen) on November 19, stayed there for two days before hurrying to Hispaniola where, on November 22, they discovered that all the men left in Navidad on the First Voyage were dead. Not one of the forty left behind in the exploratory force was found alive. Columbus roamed among the islands for another thirty months, visiting (among other islands) Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica before departing for Spain. It was Columbus’s intention on the route back to lead a punitive expedition against the cannibals whom he heard raided Puerto Rico regularly. It is recounted, however, that illness prevented him from doing so. The identity of the inhabitants of the New World was a source of some confusion for Columbus. When he landed in Guadaloupe, captive Indians ran down the beach shouting “Taino” to distinguish themselves from their Carib captors. Taino is the name used to describe the Arawak-speaking culture of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Virgin Islands. Taino means “good,” as opposed to Carib, a generic term meaning “brave warrior” or “bitter manioc eaters.” At the time of Columbus’s arrival, island Caribs living in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles were raiding the Tainos. The Caribs, who called themselves Calinago, were thought to kill and eat Arawak men and enslave their women. Columbus confused the Caribs with the subjects of the Great Khan of China and called them cannibels. One of the objects of Columbus’s First Voyage had been to seek evidence of the Great Khan. A similar term, cenegal, referred to cynocephali or dog-headed creatures, and was thought to be etymologically related. Thanks to the accounts in classical literature, as well as cartographic representations, Columbus had been predisposed to find such monsters in India.

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From the accounts of the First Voyage, we know that Columbus had heard of canibales from a chief in Espaniola and had promised him that he would destroy them. The Navidad residents had also complained to Columbus of the Caribs who eat people. They were relieved when Columbus showed them his weapons with which he promised to fight and kill the Caribs (Columbus 1969: 93). In fact, he made a treaty with their chief and claimed that the forces left behind were to defend them against the Caribs. He promised to return to Navidad with jewels and presents from Castile (Columbus 1969: 95). These seamen left behind were the unfortunate group that he found massacred the next year. Like the gold that was always a few islands further to the East, the cannibals likewise were always a few islands eastward (Columbus 1969: 98). As noted, the First Voyage accounts of Columbus ’s encounter with island Indians speak of the existence of man-eaters. The term cannibal thus took on the meaning of anthropophagite in the eyewitness accounts of the Second Voyage where cannibalism emerges as a device used to legitimize the bondage of native peoples. It was expedient to identify some natives as good Indians and, thus, capable of conversion, and others as cannibals in order to justify their enslavement. The real existence of the Taino necessitated the figurative creation of the cannibal, whether he existed as a real entity or not.21 For the purposes of our discussion, the central point to be grasped is the following: the cannibal serves as a foundational myth, whether in the service of colonialism or, as scholarship has shown, the modern rehabilitation of a quintessentially victimized other.22 Montaigne did say that we should view the cannibal as the greatest challenge to our categories of understanding the other. The wisdom of this adage is exemplified in the literature regarding Columbus’s second foray to the New World. Although Columbus’s logbook of the Second Voyage was lost, several eyewitness and second-hand accounts are extant. Michele da Cuneo sent a letter to friends in Liguria describing the journey. Nicolò Syllacio, a Sicilian lecturer in philosophy at the University of Pavia, provided a second-hand account of the voyage. His friend, Guillermo Coma of Aragon, who had accompanied Columbus, had written him letters recounting the journey. Syllacio translated these letters into Latin and published them as a twenty-page pamphlet. Another second-hand account of the voyage was produced by Peter Martyr, a courtier of Charles I. It was based on interviews with returning seamen and provided mostly the same material as found in Cuneo and Syllacio.23 Perhaps the most significant account was offered by the doctor Diego Alvarez Chanca, who sent a report to the town council in Seville.

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All these accounts relate how Columbus’s first encounters with islanders were mostly peaceful. They speak of how gifts were exchanged and hospitality was offered and accepted. Columbus especially emphasized the beauty and resources of the islands as well as the natives’ ignorance of weaponry. As in his letter to Santángel recounting the First Voyage, Columbus emphasized the natives’ natural goodness as a precondition of their possible conversion to Christianity. They did not practice idolatry, were a timorous people, and represented a prelapsarian state of innocence. Once again, we are told that the men and women are handsome and go about naked. The natives are so generous and grateful for any trinkets offered to them that Columbus has to stop his men from exploiting their gullibility. Michele da Cuneo, a native of Savona and a childhood friend of Columbus, traveled on the Second Voyage as a gentleman volunteer.24 Upon his return, he wrote to a fellow Italian who had asked for information about the New World.25 His letter is of particular interest in relating the discovery of the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Cuneo relates that St. Croix was the first Virgin Island to be discovered by Columbus’s fleet on the Second Voyage. Since St. Croix lacked forests, the Caribs dwelling there raided Puerto Rican trees in order to build their sea-going canoes.26 St. Croix, along with Guadeloupe and Domenica, constituted a Carib center, where captured Tainos made up a significant portion of the population. It was here that Columbus learned that Caribs used Taino women and boys as slaves, the former as concubines and the latter castrated and fattened up for later consumption. The adult males were eaten outright. Racial miscegenation was generally unacceptable: only children born of Carib women were kept; all others were eaten. Cuneo informs his reader that were it not for their cannibalistic practices, the Taino would overpopulate, since they procreate with anyone except their sisters. Aside from the fact that the Caribs feed off of the Taino, the two groups are otherwise alike. They speak the same language and live in a similar manner. Neither the Caribs nor the Taino are idolaters. They do not worship anything or sacrifice to any idol; they know neither God nor the devil. The Second Voyage narrative of Cuneo differs from the accounts of the First Voyage in that the natives now, both Taino and Carib, lack civilization: they live like proper beasts, they eat when they are hungry, fornicate when they want and wherever they want. They are cold-blooded sodomites. Cuneo claims that the Indians learned sodomy from the Caribs who were wilder and, perhaps, even sodomites “out of spite.” A Carib woman is so savage that she is said to even enjoy being raped by the “civilized” Cuneo. On all levels, the Caribs and the Taino are barbarians.

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Cuneo presents the Caribs as slightly more monstrous figures than the Taino because of their cannibalism. Nicolò Syllacio’s account of the Second Voyage consists of a translation of Guillermo Como’s eyewitness report. Syllacio’s narrative exhibits a marked shift in focus. Accounts from the First Voyage had tried to place the cannibal within the context of classical and medieval representations of the monstrous. There was some confusion regarding their existence and the nature of their alterity. Did they have dog faces, were they soldiers of the Great Khan, or were they just anthropophagites? With the Second Voyage and, particularly, Syllacio’s rendition, we finally meet the monster—in the form of the cannibal. The issue now is to describe and distinguish them from the non-cannibalistic Taino. In this discourse, the eyewitnesses and/or their redactors place the cannibal within the classical Aristotelian binary of what it is to be civilized as opposed to barbarian. Syllacio identifies the “canaballi” as a wild unconquered man-eating race that wages continual war on the gentle and timid Indians. These cannibals loudly affirm that they eat people. They do not, however, eat other “canaballi,” just captive boys and infants, as well as children born of captive women. They are ruthless and devour only the unwarlike. Syllacio cites Peter Martyr who saw Indians cooked on spits and limbless headless torsos strewn about. Syllacio’s account is far less interested in the peaceful Tainos. They have been consumed into the body politic of the cannibal. The concern now is how to deal with the Carib. Syllacio warns that if they cannot abstain from human flesh, they will surely be reduced to bondage. Syllacio hopes that, since the Catholic kings had won a great victory by driving the Jews out of Spain, they could now direct their efforts to the shores of the Orient. The third primary account of the Second Voyage was written by Dr. Diego Chanca, the surgeon for Columbus’s fleet. Of the three eyewitness accounts, Chanca’s report, made for the municipality of Seville, assumes greater authority as a document submitted for official purposes, with a political aim, and presumably based on scientific observation. Chanca recounts how he discovered in Guadaloupe skulls and bones hung up like vessels to hold things. He also relates how in one house he found a human neck cooking in a pot. These bones must be the work of Carib cannibals, since the surgeon informs us they had been gnawed. The bones Chanca describes were immediately taken as evidence of cannibalism, rather than some funerary practice of burning the dead and preserving their bones. It was these bones reported by Chanca that reappear in Peter Martyr’s and Syllacio’s descriptions of houses with kitchens, human flesh on a spit, and a human head hanging from the rafters. In Chanca’s report, the

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cannibal is everywhere and the Taino appears only in cooked form. The omnipresent danger exerted by the cannibal is so great that even when some Spaniards disappeared for a few days and then turned up alive, Chanca could not believe how they had escaped being eaten. With Chanca’s account, it becomes clear that the cannibal exists in all his terrifying glory and something must be done about him. Cannibalism has become the mark of the greatest cultural difference. These accounts of the Second Voyage suggest that upon arriving at Puerto Rico, Columbus’s fleet literally drops off the face of the civilized earth. Puerto Rico marks the limit of civilization. The sailors who land describe those very things that are the marks of civilization as defined by the Ancients—a site where people live in walled communities with a set social structure and cultivate the land. They make note of a large abandoned mansion surrounded by twelve wellbuilt houses formed around a plaza opened on one side to the sea. It is said to resemble the main square of Lisbon. They discover wide streets with cane fencing covered in vines, beautifully worked fields similar to the gardens of Valencia, and a road leading to a well-made watchtower. It is important to note that Columbus never meets a single inhabitant of Puerto Rico. Its civilized inhabitants had either been consumed or had fled at the approach of the strangers’ ships. While they theoretically exist, they are no longer the focus of interest. The non-cannibal literally disappears from the scene, leaving behind only traces of civilization. The New World becomes the domain for the cannibal, the point at which civilization is undone. Columbus sails from Puerto Rico to Hispaniola where he discovers the ruins of Navidad, where barbarism reigns. Here, the cannibals have killed all the Europeans who had been left there on the First Voyage. The First Voyage had partially convinced Columbus that the New World was inhabited, at least in part, by brutish man-eaters who were worthy of enslavement. Columbus also accepted the idea that the cannibal islands possessed a lot of gold. It is for this reason that the Lesser Antilles became the goal of the Second Voyage. Columbus wanted to find gold and enslave any cannibals he happened to encounter. At some point, perhaps during the Second Voyage, Columbus developed a strategy to achieve these ends. A binary schema was established to juxtapose the peaceful Arawak living on the large islands to the west and the north and the fierce cannibal Caribs of the south and east. The narrative has the ferocious Caribs chasing the timid Arawaks up the island chain, eating men and possessing women. They eat human flesh in opposition to all the tenets of Christian and civilized behavior. By the end of the Second Voyage, the peaceful Arawak have literally and figuratively disappeared from the narrative. All that

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Columbus now encounters are man-eating pagans, the Carib (and variant Caniba) who had become synonymous with the cannibal. The important point is that, as non-Christian prisoners, they can be treated as slaves. Ferdinand and Isabella had initially been reluctant to enslave new savages. It was deemed better to convert them than make them slaves, since they were merely ignorant of God, not His enemies. The accounts of the Second Voyage were constructed to disabuse anyone of such misplaced compassion. Dr. Chanca was certain that anthropophagy was practiced and described culinary practices— not ritual killing of kin but the predator-like tearing apart of people outside the tribe. Let us not forget that Chanca claimed that the bones had been gnawed. Peter Martyr also propagated the image of the ferocious and monstrous Carib as opposed to the gentle Arawak. He likened the Caribs to wolves and the Arawaks to lambs. This was a script created against a potentially enslavable people who ferociously resisted incursions into their homeland (Bouchon 1972: 7). Upon Columbus’s return to Castile, he urged the enslavement of these “cannibals” (Bouchon 1972: 16). In fact, he brought back 500 natives as slaves. Half died on the journey back, the survivors were displayed nude, sold in the market in Seville, and quickly perished. It was in “India” (geographically, Puerto Rico) that the battle line was drawn between the civilized and the monstrous. It was there also that the fierce Caribs set their own boundary. Columbus had initially presented the Indies as a bastion of civilization. It became, however, the final battleground for the barbarian and the site of his demise. The natives’ subsequent raids in resistance to Spanish slavers confirmed the validity of Columbus’s conclusions (Bouchon 1972: 17). Until 1530, the Caribs fought the Spanish occupation of eastern Puerto Rico while attempting to defend their islands against slave raids, punitive expeditions, and campaigns of conquest (Bouchon 1972: 13). But, already in 1503, Isabella authorized the enslavement of cannibals, as they were too inhuman to resist Spanish arms and evangelism.27 Columbus had constructed a sophisticated argument to justify at the conclusion of the Second Voyage what he only dared suggest after the First Voyage. If Columbus’s initial offer to bring back natives as slaves had been offensive to Ferdinand and Isabella who, forceful as they were in converting Jews and Muslims, wanted the Indians also converted, then, by the end of the Second Voyage, with the discourse on the cannibals, enslavement became the only possible option. The natives were no longer peaceful protoChristian Tainos and ferocious Caribs, just uniform cannibals. The ideological import of this literature surrounding the Second Voyage could not be clearer. Faced with the shock of the other, we find a situation

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described by Ricoeur and Certeau, where the heterogeneous elements of the encounter undergo an operation of transformation. As Certeau would later theorize, the authors of these narratives are able, through the selection of material, to combine elements for the new use that Columbus intended. The fiction of the cannibal was created as an imaginative variation of reality to show what needed to be done. This process calls to mind Ricoeur’s admonitions regarding the ideological capacities of the creative language within narrative. Through the discourse of the cannibal, a conscious effort is made to dominate the body of the “Indian” by changing the inherited tradition into a textual product through what Certeau would designate as the manipulation of materials. This process, akin to Ricoeur’s notion of refiguration, is necessary in order to make sense through narrative of heteroclite elements and render the native assimilable to the prevailing European knowledge regarding the Indian monster (i.e. cannibal). The transparency of this stratagem shows how, as Ricoeur rightly claims, nothing happens behind the back of language. Such a hermeneutic reading reveals the ideological discourse produced in this literature. It does not demand any particularly critical or suspicious reading to see how, through distortion and dissimulation, these various texts integrated a discourse of power, authority, and domination. In the narratives of both the First and Second Voyages, Columbus levels out the binary opposition between the civilized and the monstrous. We are left only with the monster. However, in the popular literature that Columbus’s voyages inspired and in subsequent travel accounts, this binary would once again resurface. India had, after all, not yet actually been discovered and Columbus’s codification of a monstrous India would undergo revision.

V. Giovanni Dati Giovanni Battista Dati (1445–1524) was a pious priest who would become the bishop of San Leone in Calabria. In June 1493, he printed in Rome a rhymed version of Columbus’s letter to Santángel (Lefevre 1992: 81–108). Dati’s poem, entitled “Inventione delle nuove insule di Channaria indiane,” provided in a relatively authentic form information concerning events which from the end of March 1493 had been spreading through the commercial aziende.28 Dati subsequently published a two-piece song cycle, the “Cantari dell’India” (1493– 95) that popularized the myth of a utopian India populated by Christians. Dati’s first song of the cycle was entitled the “Treatise on the Supreme Prester John,

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Pope and Emperor of India and of Ethiopia” (“La Gran magnificencia del Prete Janni, signore dell’India et dell’Etiopia”). This poem re-articulated the medieval emplotment of India as the site of a magnificent Christian kingdom and a potential ally of the West (Lefevre 1992: 111–32). The second poem, entitled simply “The Second Song of India” (“El secondo cantare dell’India’‘), reworked the classical image of India as the dwelling place of the monstrous (Lefevre 1992: 133–52). Both poems, while inspired by Columbus’s discovery of “India,” borrowed heavily from Conti’s narrative. They offered a response to what Columbus thought he had found and what he claimed to have not yet found. Dati was a mediocre versifier, writing with the tone and style of the cantastoria or ballad-singer. His India poems were wholly popular in nature, destined like his songs to be recited publicly in the markets and squares. The first poem opens with the enumeration of the ten Christian nations in which India figures prominently (stanza 3). Although Indian Christians may err in their beliefs, the poet claimed that they are more sincere in their faith than their more orthodox European coreligionists and they exist in great numbers (stanza 42). They have been in contact with the West through embassies to Pope Eugenius (stanza 43). Prester John is presented as the incarnation of power, wealth, and splendor (stanza 10– 18), expressing in a popular form the same vision of a Christian utopia as found in Conti and serving the same purpose: in the midst of global conflict, India represents the ideal locus of peace as well as the site of material and moral wellbeing. It is inhabited by brahmin “Christian” philosophers (stanza 45). There are also monsters (stanza 48) and marvelous animals (stanza 49). Prester John’s realm is situated near the Nile and Ethiopia (stanza 49). It is like Paradise, filled with abundant natural riches, fruits, and beautiful white and bejeweled inhabitants (stanzas 50, 51). Prester John figures as a just, tolerant, and pious sovereign who happens to be the most potent and richest emperor on earth, serving God with humility and governing his people wisely (stanza 24). All the political, social, and domestic virtues that did not predominate in the real world are thus projected onto this fictive India. Here, virtue and sanctity are clothed in extravagant opulence, as in the description of magnificent churches (stanza 36), where the faith is duly practiced (stanza 34). Endowed with power and richness, Dati’s Prester John is clothed as opulently as the Pope (stanza 18) and offers a model of humility coupled with virtue. In this respect, Dati’s poem presents a stylized expression of the effect that Columbus’s discovery had on the imagination of his contemporaries who were also convinced that India had been reached by sea. We need not focus too much on the plot of the poem for the very reason that it consists of an artless enumeration of marvels and recycled imagery. In his

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depiction of India, Dati was indebted to Conti’s description of the throne of Prester John atop the steps of the seven deadly sins (stanzas 14–16). He also cites his indebtedness to Andrea da Barberino’s Guerino il Meschino (stanza 52), and Foresti da Bergamo’s Supplementum Chronicarum (stanza 53). Dati’s description of St. Thomas’s tomb at Mylapore (stanza 42) paraphrases the account found in Poggio. His depiction of Prester John shifts the setting from Ethiopia (as described in Barberino) to India. Dati’s lack of lyric grace should not be misconstrued. The poem expresses, in a popular form, the same vision of political utopia expressed in India recognita and Poggio’s Historia and served the same purpose. It is important to keep in mind the historical context of these works. Battles for supremacy of the realm, the papacy, individual nations, dynasties, and republics were being constantly waged. As in the case of Poggio’s treatise, Dati’s poem also presents the legendary ideal of peace as well as material and moral well-being. It figured a just, tolerant, and pious sovereign who happened to be the most potent and richest emperor on the earth and who served God with humility and governed his people wisely. All the political, social and domestic virtues not prevalent in Europe are projected onto India. As in the case of Poggio and Conti, this ideological message was particularly ironic, since virtue and sanctity were clothed in extravagant opulence. In the “Second Song of India,” Dati presented the flipside of the Indian equation. Here, we have the barbarian India in the form of a traditional teratology or tale of monsters (stanza 10). Here too, Dati’s second poem follows the classical depiction of the monster, a tradition articulated in biological terms. Since, according to St. Augustine, these monsters are endowed with reason, Dati must also represent them in moral terms. Like Polyphemous, Indians live in physical isolation from civilization defined by a bountiful nature (stanza 7). They fit Aristotle’s biological definition of a monster as anomoiodés (different): without mouths (stanza 12), with one eye located in the middle of their chest (stanza 14), acephali (stanza 15), pygmies (stanza 18), sciopedi (stanza 21), monuculi (stanza 24), hermaphrodites (stanza 25), cynocephali (stanza 29), cannibals (stanza 31), giants (stanza 34), mermaids (stanza 39), and human serpents (stanza 43). But, even here, India appears as a political and social utopia, eliciting devout sentiments and pious considerations. Since India is also blessed with natural resources, the poet implores God to preserve its Christian faith (stanza 55). Dati explicitly acknowledges that his teratology was informed by Pliny, Solinus, and St. Augustine. In doing so, he associated science with faith and imbues his poem of Indian marvels with considerable authority. This authority was necessary, since the fables also served as an entertaining pretext to offer moral teaching and devout precepts.

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Let us not forget that these two “India” poems were inspired by Columbus’s “discovery” of “India” and were written subsequent to Dati’s rhymed version of Columbus’s letter to Santángel (Lefevre 1992: 81–108). It is significant that, although initially inspired by Columbus’s letter (Lefevre 1992: 69–80), Dati did not impart the information furnished by the various accounts of the first two voyages, nor did he present any images of the lands that Columbus had discovered. Rather, he recycled the classical literary and cartographic image of India. The poems thus document the manner in which the literary fantasy of a Christian India endured alongside the literature emanating from reports of the most recent discoveries. These poems also highlight the extent to which this imagery must have been widespread. In other words, Dati’s translation of an eyewitness account of the actual voyage to “India” was supplemented and supported by two poems that totally revert to the literary tradition, replete with considerable intertextual references to the Prester John letter, the Greek sources, St. Augustine, and the epic tradition. Prester John and the monsters stand out as the two major points of contact within the literary context. Even the historical reality of Columbus’s voyages could not dislodge them from the European imaginaire.

VI. Conclusion The depictions of India found in Conti, Columbus, and Dati resemble each other in an important respect. Each author’s cultural allegories of India repeat in narrative the same two myths. One identifies Indian Christians/proto-Christians and the other presents a theology of the monstrous. The first myth, as it appears in Conti and Dati, presents India as predominantly populated by Christians, descendants of those heathen who had been converted to the faith by St. Thomas. It creates a portrait of civilization in order to elicit sentiments of affinity and posit an ideal alternative to existing society, as a model for reality, rather than of reality. The second myth—that of the Indian monster—reappears in the travel accounts of Columbus’s voyages and popular literature. The myth of physical monsters would endure well into the era of printing, when relatively accurate knowledge concerning the geography and populations of India was becoming more and more available through maritime discovery. These physical monsters were transformed by Conti into moral and sexual monsters. Their transformation from the literal into the metaphorical suggests the extent to which the mirage of a Christian India was important, providing both refuge and solace to Europeans

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beset by internecine wars and threatened by Muslim encirclement. In Columbus, the possible existence of some monsters in the form of the cannibal renders all the natives (even those apt for conversion) morally monstrous and, thus, worthy of enslavement. The myth of the Indian Christian, by allowing the other to return to the same, explained the unknown through the known. The India inhabited by monsters justifiably could be marginalized as other. Through a symbolic positioning of the body of the monster, certain areas in India could be differentiated as pagan and barbarian. As we have already noted, this double discourse of alterity— the civilized (Christian) versus the barbarian (monster)—operated prior to Columbus. As we shall see in the chapters that follow, travel literature would retain this classical and medieval taxonomy. It would, according to Ricoeur’s schema, continue to flirt with utopian ideation and ideology. With Columbus’s “discovery” of “India,” travelers would henceforth actively seek evidence to confirm these various scenarios. However, discussions of the physically monstrous would have to change, since the travelers could not produce specimens. Proto- and lapsed Christians could be found anywhere, so imaginary monsters needed to be replaced by humans deemed monstrous on a moral, ethical, or spiritual plane. The New World had been discovered. Columbus’s letter marks the shift to a scriptural economy signifying a change in social authority. It was now a question of determining what exactly the act of discovery entailed. There would be a big difference between how Columbus dealt with the “Indians” and how Vasco da Gama treated them. Columbus encountered technologically weak populations in the Caribbean (Rubiés 2000: 181). He knew how to measure his strength against their military capacities and evolve strategies accordingly. He was the dominant player with a unified vision directed toward a defined goal. Gama, however, had to deal with the Indians he “discovered” as important political powers with whom he needed to negotiate. Gama’s problem would be one of accessibility rather than technological superiority. It would be necessary for him to develop tactics,29 since in his encounter with the Samorin of Calicut, he would be the weaker player seeking to avoid having the Samorin impose authority on him.

4

Vasco da Gama, the Meaning of Discovery, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Viemos buscar christãos e especiaria. Diario da Viagem de Vasco da Gama1

I. The voyage Voyagers carried with them royal commissions mandating that they “discover and gain” (Washburn 1962: 14).2 It is no surprise then that the anonymous firsthand account of Vasco da Gama’s first voyage, the Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama,3 begins in the following manner: “In the name of God. Amen. In the year 1497, to King Dom Manuel, the first of this name in Portugal, sent out (mandou) to discover (descobrir), four ships,4 which went in search of spices. . . .” The narrator uses the verb “discover” initially in an intransitive sense. The ships were sent in search of spices. Manuel, however, sent Gama to discover. What he was meant to discover remains unspecified in this first articulation. What was, in fact, discovered and what it even meant “to discover” unfolds in the course of Gama’s voyage. The verb “discover” is used strategically in this initial passage. In a letter of October 18, 1498, Gama wrote that he had reached the terra firma that was known to the ancients (O’Gorman 1961: 99–100). Gama’s terminology here suggests that he understood the act of discovery as entailing the arrival in lands that were known by reputation and past visitation. In this sense, the term “discover” meant uncovering land that was hidden but known to exist. Columbus also would have used the term “discover” in this sense (Washburn 1962: 12).5 The important point to be gleaned from this terminology was that the Portuguese saw themselves to be on a mission and believed that they were in control. Gama set sail from Lisbon on July 8, 1497. He carried with him letters of introduction from Manuel to be given to Prester John (Uebel 2005: 195–6). Routing themselves far out into the Atlantic Ocean, they passed the Cape of 77

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Good Hope on November 16. When they arrived in Mozambique, they anchored away from the settlement, off a small island, to avoid detection. Here, removed from the prying eyes of the natives, they celebrated mass. The sultan, learning of their presence, invited a representative, one of Gama’s captains, Nicolão Coelho, to his palace. They met and duly exchanged gifts. The sultan had received the impression that the Portuguese were white Moors who had come from Turkey.6 Coehlo did not disabuse him of this misconception. The Portuguese clearly had adopted a strategy of dissimulation. They did not want those they encountered to know they were Christians (Subrahmanyam 1997: 113). Obviously, the ruse did not work. However, upon learning that a plot was afoot to kill them because of their religion, the Portuguese quickly set sail only to be forced back by inclement weather. The sultan, surmising that communication had broken down, sent a white Moor to make peace and be their friend. Another Muslim and his young son were also dispatched to lead the Portuguese to a source of fresh water. All these initiatives failed and the Portuguese once again became suspicious. Under the cloak of darkness, Gama’s men set out to discover the water source themselves, only to find it guarded. The skirmish that ensued became a minor battle. The Portuguese returned to their ships, fired some artillery at the settlement, and promptly left Mozambique (March 29, 1498). On April 7, they arrived at Mombasa. Here, they did not hide their identity as Christians because they thought themselves to be among coreligionists. They also believed that the Christians of Mombasa coexisted peacefully with Moors. Indeed, upon arrival, they were met by an embassy of two alleged Christians along with four prominent Moors from the community. Wary after his experience in Mozambique, Gama only sent ashore two imprisoned native pilots7 who immediately absconded. The Portuguese then learned from torturing some captured Moors that the inhabitants of Mombasa had actually plotted revenge on the Portuguese for their earlier behavior in Mozambique, should they land. Once again, Gama felt that he had escaped Muslim treachery. The Portuguese were not surprised to have outwitted the Moors, since they believed themselves to be protected by God. As the anointed, they were convinced that they would prevail in any encounter with their enemies. Since Christians lived in an active state of war with Islam, Gama felt no compunction in dealing with the native population of Mombasa with the same brutality that the Portuguese would have inflicted upon any Muslims they encountered in the Mediterranean.8 The Portuguese next arrived in Malindi (April 14). Its ruler promised to supply them with merchandise and pilots. As a show of goodwill, he even left one of his sons as well as the sharif in Portuguese custody. None of these actions

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allayed Gama’s suspicions. Here too, as was his custom, he did not set foot on land. Rather, he received four boats of Indian “Christian” merchants who sailed out to meet him, carrying icons and reciting Christian prayers. The Roteiro relates how these “Christians” venerated both Jesus and the Madonna. They were described as dark-skinned, bearded, long-haired, and partially clothed. These Indians did not eat beef and spoke a different language from the Moors. Gama, always wary after his experiences in Mozambique and Mombasa, took hostage one of the king’s subjects and demanded a Christian pilot. These encounters on the African coast all served as a dress rehearsal for Portuguese action in Kerala. As Gama proceeded on his mission, he became increasingly suspicious of the rulers and natives he encountered. A specific pattern was established beginning in Mozambique and continuing in Mombasa and Malindi: upon arriving at a commercial center, the Portuguese captain waited until local vessels approached them. Before sending any of his own men ashore,9 he first took hostages. Even then, he usually sent Portuguese prisonersailors who had been brought along precisely for such hazardous tasks. Gama customarily extracted concessions from the natives by force, as in the case of the Christian pilot secured in Malindi (Subrahmanyam 1997: 121). The need for a pilot was essential, since the Portuguese soon realized that they were technically unable to chart and pilot the ships to India themselves. Thus, their mission to “discover” was thwarted early on by the recognition that they would be unable to reach Calicut on their own.10 The center of the spice trade for centuries, Calicut was the greatest commercial city in south India.11 It served as a conduit for pepper and cardamom from the Malabar Coast as well as spices from the Pacific islands. Calicut was a successful port because it was ideally situated to take advantage of the monsoon winds from the Red Sea to the Indian coast and back from India to the Arabian shores.

II. Gama’s sojourn in India It took Gama twenty-three days to traverse the Indian Ocean. The ships anchored north of Calicut on May 20, 1498 and Gama once again sent a convict ashore. Ideally, the Samorin12 should have welcomed Gama’s arrival. It was to his advantage to have as many channels as possible open for trade. However, since the arrival of the Portuguese was no boon to the Moorish traders who would be hit hard by Portuguese competition (Lach 1965: 1.1.73–4), Gama received a cold reception. Out of fear of Muslim hostility, the Portuguese led them to believe that

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they were Christians from the Levant. At this crucial juncture in the narrative, it is a convict-exile, and not Vasco da Gama, who becomes the protagonist (Subrahmanyam 1997: 129) of this famous encounter between East and West. He was taken to a place where there were two Moors from Tunis, who knew how to speak Castilian and Genoese. And the first greeting that they gave him was the following: —The devil take you! What brought you here? And they asked him what he had come to seek from so far; and he replied: —We came to seek Christians and spices. And they said to him: —Why do the King of Castile and the King of France and the Seignory of Venice not send men here? And he replied that the King of Portugal did not permit them to do so. And they said that he did well. Then they welcomed him and gave him wheaten bread with honey, and when he had eaten, he came back to the ship. And one of those Moors came back with him, who as soon as he entered the ships, began to say these words: —Buena ventura, buena ventura (Good fortune, good fortune)! Many rubies, many emeralds! You should give many thanks to God for having brought you to a land where there are such riches! We were so amazed at this that we heard him speak and we could not believe it—that there could be anyone so far away from Portugal who could understand our speech. Velho 1987: 54–5, cited in Subrahmanyam 1997: 129

Gama and a contingent then went ashore and were taken to a large structure they interpreted to be a church. It is this bizarre episode, described with a disingenuousness absent elsewhere in the narrative, that I would like to examine in greater depth. The Roteiro describes how the Portuguese are led to a building likened to a monastery. Before the building stood a pillar with a bird on top of it, most likely the bird Garuda who protects the god Vishn.u (Subrahmanyam 1997: 132). Inside, there is an image said to be that of Our Lady.13 At this point, the Portuguese kneel down in adoration of the Virgin. The author of the Roteiro notes that the images painted on the interior of the church were indeed strange. The “saints” depicted on the walls had big buck teeth and four and five arms.14 Castanheda relates the same episode. He also has Gama kneel and pray. The scrivener on the São Rafael, João da Sà, doubting that they were actually in a church, looks at the paintings and says: “If this is a devil, I adore the true God.” To which, Castanheda relates, Gama smiled (Castanheda 1924: I.45).

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After the Portuguese are encouraged to say their prayers in the outer enclosure, they receive water and white ashes which they believe the Christians in this land have the habit of putting all over their bodies. Gama demurs, giving the ashes to one of his minions with the excuse that he will put them on later. The “decorations” that Indian Christians wear as a sign of their religion (Velho 1989: 30–3) are most likely brahmin threads. Since the Hindus allowed them to enter the temple to pray, but prevented them from entering the inner sanctuary, we can assume that they knew the Portuguese to be Christian (Subrahmanyam 1997: 133). They had contact with Christians before, namely the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala, and recognized the Portuguese as such. The Portuguese relied on a slightly different logic with reference to cultural indicators. They expected to find Christians in Calicut and, as a consequence, saw them everywhere, no matter how physically distinct from other Christians (dark, with moustaches, beards, long hair, and topknots) they might appear. In some respects, the Indians must have seemed different, even barbarous, with their ears pierced and ornamented with much gold. They walked about naked from the waist up. In other respects, however, they appeared to be civilized. The Roteiro claims that they seemed to be a most honored folk. The Portuguese, therefore, believed (or feigned belief) that the Indians they encountered in Calicut were Christian. If the place of worship was not obviously a mosque, it must be a church. The Portuguese chose to be deluded, regardless of the signs pointing to a radically different religion. They pretended or convinced themselves that they had landed among some sort of deviant Christians. Anything not explicitly Muslim had to be Christian. This search for Christians in India was a direct continuation of the African quest where Gama and his predecessors had sought news of Prester John. The desire to find co-religionists arose from a perceived need for contact with free Christians beyond Muslim dominion and, particularly, those believed to dwell in the Indies. As we have noted, it had become Manuel’s mission to make the sea navigable as far as India, where Indians were believed to worship Christ, to enter into relation with them, and to incite them against the Saracens. In Africa, the Portuguese expected to find Christians and Moors. Each group would include whites and blacks, friends and foes. They applied this same imaginaire to the Indian venture. Lacking from this scenario, however, was any understanding of the particular situation in India: its dense and sophisticated network of small trading zones (Subrahmanyam 1997: 130) and its complicated religious and racial configurations and allegiances. The Samorins of Calicut had special relations with the Arabs whom they did not perceive as a threat since they exerted no political power in India and were

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not allies with the sultans in the north. However, as the hereditary “King of the Mountains and the Sea,” the Samorin did view the arrival of the Portuguese as a challenge to his authority. Muslim traders who had contact with Egypt, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf had fully informed him about them before their arrival. While the Samorin might have been alarmed by the Portuguese, he had a fleet big enough to enforce his authority along the western coast of India. Gama surely felt more threatened by the presence of Moors in the city and the influence they enjoyed at court. He had not at all been prepared for this situation. The bull of Nicholas V had proceeded on the assumption that the people of India were Christians. Hence, we have the temple scene as it was described in the Roteiro. The significant presence of the Muslims, their monopoly of trade, and their influence over the Samorin were unpleasant surprises for the Portuguese with which, as we will see, they did not cope especially well. The Portuguese also failed to take into account the linguistic difficulties of the encounter. The Arabic spoken by the Portuguese interpreter, Fernão Martins, would have been similar to that spoken in the Maghreb, quite distinct from the Arabic spoken in Kerala (Subrahmanyam 1997: 133). On all levels, there was a breakdown of communication. Dissimulation and wishful thinking would define Portuguese strategy. Suspicion and panic dictated their tactics. Another key scene, where the Portuguese refuse and/or are unable to engage in “cultural translation,”15 occurs during Gama’s first audience with the Samorin. Gama found him reclining in a fashion fitting an oriental despot, surrounded by courtiers and spitting betel into an enormous gold spittoon. Gama informed the Samorin that the Portuguese kings had been sending ships to India for the last sixty years “to discover.” Once again, we find that strange intransitive use of the verb. Gama claims that they send these ships because they know that India has Christian kings. He reiterates that the Portuguese do not come in search of gold or silver, since they have plenty of their own. The primary lie, of course, consists of Gama’s claim that the Portuguese do not seek gold. Always dissimulating, Gama then tells the Samorin that the King of Portugal is more powerful than the monarchs of France and Spain. He is soon proven wrong when, in the days that follow, the Portuguese try to sell their goods, only to be laughed at by the Muslim traders. When they try to give the Samorin gifts, their offerings are rejected as paltry. To save face, Gama claims that the gifts are personal, not from the king. But the reality is that his gifts are totally unworthy, even for a merchant to offer, let alone a king who had been described as the most powerful monarch in Europe. Gama assures the Samorin’s representatives that, when the King of Portugal chooses to present gifts on a subsequent visit, they will be sumptuous.

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In Calicut, Gama is at a disadvantage on all levels: diplomatic, economic, and militarily. Clearly irked by the position of inferiority in which he finds himself, Gama seeks a private audience with the ruler, only to be detained by the Muslim merchants’ intrigues. The text does not clearly confirm whether the various traps were set with the Samorin’s knowledge or simply at the instigation of Moors. However, when Gama finally does receive an audience, the Samorin keeps him waiting for hours. Once he gains entry, he chastises Gama for not coming as expected on the previous day. All these machinations are directed at intimidating Gama and turning Portuguese strategy back upon itself. The Samorin asks Gama point blank whether he came to discover stones or men. If the latter is the case, he demands to know why Gama has brought nothing of worth. To this query, Gama has no response. Assuming the role of a Christian ruler that Gama has tried to assign him, the Samorin rebukes the Portuguese as parsimonious. Given the supposed stature of the Christian king, the Samorin asks Gama to offer him a suitable gift—the gold icon of the Madonna that he heard was on the ship. Gama is taken aback by this request and replies that he cannot part with the icon. The Samorin has effectively trumped the Portuguese at their own game. He challenges their avowed mission, mocks their pretension of wealth, and demands payment (in the form of a gold Madonna) for the role of Christian that the Portuguese have sought to impose upon him. He will play-act being Christian for the Portuguese, but they must realize that his performance comes at a price. Needless to say, the encounter with the Samorin is an unpleasant experience for Gama. The audience concludes with Gama being given permission to return to his ships for samples of Portuguese products. However, on route, Gama’s palanquin is overtaken by the bale who houses the company overnight at a way-station.16 What was initially hospitality becomes detention on the next day when Gama and his group are denied boats to return to their ships. Gama protests that he is not treated as a fellow Christian. He is then moved to a Muslim merchant’s house. Here too, the machinations continue, when it is suggested that Gama order his ships closer to land in order to unload the samples. Gama counters that he would gladly stay with them as a Christian among other Christians, but the Samorin has instructed him to unload the ships. The Portuguese now are literally imprisoned, kept under guard and requested to turn over their sails and rudders, lest they try to leave without paying port duties. After further threats and negotiations, the Portuguese are finally allowed to unload some samples. When Gama lodges a complaint with the Samorin, he is told that this mistreatment

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was the fault of bad Christians who will be duly punished. Gama is then permitted to move his wares to Calicut proper where intermittent commerce can resume and the Portuguese are treated well by what Gama takes to be resident Christians. But the Samorin no longer feels the need to feign diplomacy. When Gama sends him what he feels to be a suitable serviço, he is again given a cold reception. Gama then requests to purchase some spices for King Manuel. The Samorin flatly refuses and orders Gama to pay his port taxes immediately. The Portuguese respond according to the script they have thus far used. They act baffled that a Christian such as the Samorin of Calicut should act in such a dog-like fashion (perraria). Their only possible explanation is that the Muslims must have poisoned him against them. With the entrance of the Portuguese into India, the Moors had indeed joined forces with the Samorin.17 By the end of the encounter between the Samorin and Gama, any hope of a viable interaction disappears. Gama now takes hostages in order to secure the return of his goods and the crewmen left on shore. The Samorin acts aggrieved, claiming no part in the hostilities. He strikes a bargain with Gama’s emissary, Diogo Dias, to return the hostages for the goods. Rather than keeping to this bargain, however, the Portuguese abscond without paying their customs duties. Gama leaves Calicut and sails home with the intention of returning to India later and exacting vengeance. The Portuguese arrived back in Lisbon on July 10, 1499. The Bérrio, under Nicolão Coelho, was the first ship to arrive. Gama himself was delayed in the Azores by his brother’s death. He arrived back home on August 29.

III. A Christian Imaginaire The debacle of Gama’s first voyage cannot solely be attributed to confusion over etiquette or suspicion regarding the Samorin and his court. Nor can we blame his difficulties on the Portuguese inability to distinguish between Hindus and Muslims, or foreign trading Muslims and indigenous Muslims.18 The outcome of the encounter depended in large part on how the Portuguese perceived their mission. We have seen how the Roteiro attributes the expedition to a desire to find Christians and spices. Damião de Góis says that the expedition sailed simply to discover India (Góis 1926: I.2). João de Barros alludes to the complexity of the endeavor. He contextualizes the voyage by recounting the background of Spain’s conquest by the Muslims, their expulsion from the peninsula by the Portuguese kings, the conquests made in Africa by those same kings, the enterprises of

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Henry the Navigator, and the efforts of Afonso V and João II (Barros 1778: 1.8–16). Barros thus frames Gama’s expedition as a natural continuation of the previous exploits of the Portuguese. He even records Manuel’s public declaration in which the king appears inspired by concrete motives: the desire to continue the efforts of his illustrious predecessors, propagate the faith, amass riches, and extend territory. Since Manuel had come to power in 1495, he sought, following the example of Spain, to break the Jewish and Moorish hold on the economy. In 1496, he ordered the expulsion of these groups from Portugal. Gama’s voyage of “discovery” must be viewed in this historical context. The Portuguese wished to strip the Muslims of their profitable monopoly over trade in the East. They wanted to find Christian allies who were experienced in dealing effectively with Jews and Moors. They decided simply to group Indians together as gentios or idolaters (Rubiés 2000: 171) and deal with them as such. The search for allies in the coming war against Islamic powers (Disney 1994: 26) and the ideological need to forge unity between eastern and western Christendom (Silva Rego 1947–58: I.379) were important motivating forces for the expedition. If we ignore that this initial contact was hostile and that the Christians discovered were actually Hindus, the first voyage may be seen as a success. At its conclusion, Gama claimed that the kings and people of India were Christians, albeit heretical ones. On their return trip, the Portuguese continued to encounter “Christians” on the Kanara coast and on the Angedive Islands. As far as Gama was concerned, the India he “discovered” possessed a considerable Christian community. The operative logic was that the caste Hindus that Gama found in Calicut had to be Christian because they were cultured and possessed an organized religion as opposed to the African pagans. Manuel also believed that Gama had discovered Indian Christians. In a letter to the sovereigns of Castile upon the arrival of the Bérrio, he announced that the Portuguese had found spices and stones in India. He also proclaimed that the Christians for whom they had been searching had been discovered. These Christians were not yet strong in faith; they did not possess the religion in its entirety, but Manuel hoped to convert them to complete acceptance so that they could help the Portuguese destroy the Moors. And your Highnesses may believe, in accordance with what we have learnt concerning the Christian people whom these explorers reached, that it will be possible, notwithstanding that they are not as yet strong in the faith or possessed of a thorough knowledge of it, to do much in the service of God and the exaltation of the Holy Faith, once they shall have been converted

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and fully fortified (confirmed) in it. And when they shall have thus been fortified in the faith there will be an opportunity for destroying the Moors of those parts. Velho 1898: 114

In a letter to the cardinal protector, Manuel also noted that the King of Calicut and the majority of his subjects were Christian, although heretical (Velho 1898: 115). It is interesting to note that Gaspar da Gama, a Moor who had been adopted by Gama and baptized, did not hold to the claim that Christians had been found in Calicut. After Gama’s return, a second expedition was mounted. It was a much larger affair with thirty-three ships, 1,500 men, and ample military equipment. It was meant to assert the authority of the Portuguese king over the Indian seas. Pedro Alvarez Cabral commanded the expedition. His officers comprised the flower of the Portuguese nobility. Manuel’s instructions to Cabral were predicated on the belief that a sufficient relationship had been established with the Samorin of Calicut and he could be called upon as a Christian king to fight the Muslims and refuse them trade relations (Silva Rego, 1947–58: 1.13ff.). Cabral’s orders were to sail directly to Calicut, demand from the Samorin the right to establish a trading post and permission to install five Franciscans there to preach the Gospel. Only six of the thirty-three ships reached India. The Samorin initially sent a welcoming message. In response, Cabral asked for an audience, but took hostages before he even landed. One of Cabral’s assistants, Correa, incited a skirmish in which fifty Portuguese were slain, including Correa. Cabral then withdrew his ships and bombarded the city. The Samorin responded by sending eighty ships and 1,000 men to counter the Portuguese attack. Cabral was forced to flee. Cabral’s attempt to set up a factory and mission thus failed miserably. When the Portuguese bombarded the city of Calicut and the Muslim vessels in the harbor, they effectively declared war on the Muslims in the Indian Ocean. Cabral then proceeded to Cochin, a city that had been a traditional enemy of the Samorin. Here, in 1500, he was well received by the King of Cochin and negotiated trade relations. The King of Cochin became a genuine ally. In fact, although his kingdom in Malabar was modest, he proved to be a reasonable substitute for the legendary Prester John (Rubiés 2000: 189). The Samorin, who had by then decisively sided with the local Muslim merchants, attacked the Portuguese in Cochin. After a hasty retreat, Cabral returned to Portugal via Cannanore loaded with spices and ambassadors (Lach 1965: 1.1.101).

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It is important to note that it was not until Cabral’s voyage that the Portuguese actually met real Christians in Malabar and Gama’s error of encountering Christians in Malindi, Mombasa, and Calicut was corrected. It was not until Gama’s second voyage that the fantasy of establishing extensive collaborative relations with Indian Christians perished. In a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella regarding Cabral’s voyage, Manuel could still maintain that many true Christians dwelled in India. However, an anonymous narrative by a Portuguese member of Cabral’s expedition claimed that, although Gama thought the Samorin was Christian, he was clearly an idolater (Greenlee 1938: 66–94). Among the Christians encountered near Cochin were two priests and they accompanied Cabral on his return voyage. One died en route. Joseph, the surviving Indian priest, visited Pope Alexander in 1505 (Greenlee 1938: 95–7). While he confirmed the existence of Christians in Malabar, Joseph informed the pontiff that the King of Cranganore was an idolater. Hinduism indeed had a trinity (consisting of Brahma, Vishn.u, and Śiva), but it also had social customs (such as polygamy) and religious practices that in no way conformed to Catholicism. These voyages might have appeared to an objective bystander as failures. However, Manuel viewed them as successes. Upon Cabral’s return, the king actually took on the title “Lord of Navigation, Conquest, and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India.” Despite considerable signs to the contrary, it appears that the Portuguese held firmly to their ideology and utopian fantasy. The king next fitted an even stronger expedition with orders to enforce his supremacy of the Indian seas. He sent Gama as the captain-major of this fleet. Again, the Samorin was ready for the Portuguese. Strengthened by heavy vessels of one of the merchants, Kluja Abbar, he routed Gama and sent him fleeing back home. Manuel then sent out another fleet led by Lopo Sodras and aided by the fleet of the Portuguese viceroy of India, Almeida. The Portuguese were once again routed. Even when the next viceroy Albuquerque subsequently sent Portugal’s greatest leader, Don Fernando Coutinho, to reduce Calicut to ashes, he too was defeated. The Portuguese were only able to make a base in Goa because they were aided by the Hindu ruler of the area, Tulaji, who wanted to weaken Adil Shah’s authority in the region. The fight between the Samorin and the Portuguese from Goa to Cochin would continue for a 100 years. It was only in 1599 that a treaty was finally signed. If King Manuel’s ridiculous assumption of titles is any indication of the Portuguese sense of their mission and success, it is clear that objective criteria did not apply and some other dynamics prevailed. An obvious question engendered by this encounter between East and West is the following: Did Gama find Christians in Calicut because he wanted to find them or were the Portuguese truly deceived?

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A close reading of the Roteiro suggests if not a solution then a possible reformulation of the question. To paraphrase Certeau (Certeau 1988: 92), Christianity appeared in the narrative as a package of practices, objects, and beliefs amplifying reality and adding ritual security to the encounter. It provided a code or cultural grammar that organized the Portuguese relation to the Indian other. It allowed adequate expression of the emotional states involved in the encounter. Thus, Christianity functioned as a trope combining representations of the real with the manipulation of reality conceived as such. The anonymous author of the Roteiro brought into play interpretation, decipherment, and wishful thinking, creating a body of knowledge that served to conceive the Hindu as Christian. Understanding became a truly subjective experience, based on individual interiorization. This “packaging” of Christianity stands in sharp contrast to the irruption of reality revealed in the narrative and the significant gap between representation and power. Before Gama’s return and at the same time that Manuel had written to his Spanish in-laws, Isabella and Ferdinand (July 1499), a Florentine merchant named Girolamo Sernigi wrote an account of Gama’s voyage to a friend in his home city (Velho 1898: 123–6). He remarked that Calicut was a Christian city that was larger than Lisbon. Its Samorin, however, was in the hands of the Moors. Sernigi also noted that Calicut’s churches had no priests. Divine offices were not performed there and masses were not celebrated. He understood that Prester John lived very far away from Calicut. In a second letter written after Sernigi had spoken to Gaspar da Gama, the native informant who had returned with the fleet, the Florentine wrote that the Indians were for the most part idolaters, although some of them were Christians and Jews. The supposed churches were, in fact, temples of idolatry and the pictures represented idols and not saints. He found this explanation more logical than the idea that Christians lived in India without divine offices, priests, and masses (Velho 1898: 137–41). To me this seems more probable than saying that there are any Christians there to be taken into account, excepting those of Prester John, whose country is far from Calicut on this side of the Gulf of Arabia, and borders on that country of the King of Melinde, and, far in the interior, upon the Ethiopians, that is the black people of Guinea, as also upon Egypt, that is the country of the Sultan of Babylon. This Prester John has priests, who offer sacrifices, respect the Gospels and the laws of the Church, much as is done by other Christians. Velho 1898: 138

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Clearly, native informants adapted their information to their interlocutors (Subrahmanyam 1997: 161).19 The letters by Sernigi highlight the degree to which the imaginaire of a Christian India was only maintained in official circles. However, misunderstanding was not only political but also functioned on the level of belief. Even though the Indians were obviously Hindus, the Portuguese chose to believe that they discovered Indian Christians and sought to impose this misprision. The Indians, given the Portuguese strategy of games and dissimulation, mistrusted their motives and agenda. The narrative mediated these misunderstandings, constantly shifting between idealized images and improvised tactics that became central to their dealings with the Indians (Rubiés 2000: 189). The Portuguese projected their own identity onto the Indians. Neither the Portuguese nor the Indians assigned the same boundaries to the real. Consequently each encounter led to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The Portuguese structured the Hindu reality. They introduced images and patterns of conduct into a Christian imaginaire. They created Christian scenarios to illustrate and resolve Portuguese conflicts of mission. India constituted a favored site for the projection of Portuguese fears. Christianity was, indeed, threatened, especially since, despite the imaginary Indian Christians, the Portuguese “discovered” (or rather) rediscovered on Indian soil their traditional adversaries—the heretic and the treacherous Muslim.

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If India was not going to be a place where one could find ready-made allies, it could certainly become a site for career advancement, economic profit, and evangelization. Those who traveled to India in the wake of Cabral’s voyage had little need for dissimulation. They had to get down to business whether it be of a commercial or a spiritual nature. The times demanded clear-headedness. India now had to be a space where one could function effectively. India might no longer be a land upon which one projected utopian fantasies. However, it became a site where one encountered a harsh racial reality.

I. Merchants Ludovico de Varthema, an informed citizen of Bologna, journeyed to India in 1504. Unlike Marco Polo and Nicolò de’ Conti, Varthema was not constrained by the economic interests of the Venetian republic. While Marco Polo and Conti had been merchant patricians from Venice, Varthema was simply an educated individual describing his journey to the East. Unlike Columbus, who was a devout Christian with providentialist claims, Varthema was empirical, not unlike Álvaro Velho, the presumed author of the Roteiro. He published on his own initiative and offered no justification for his enterprise. Varthema wrote in Italian for which there was a growing market for printed texts. Although he did not have an “editor” of the caliber of Poggio Bracciolini or even Rustichello,1 Varthema was a clear and concise stylist. His travel account employed the narrative techniques of the Renaissance picaresque style of storytelling. Moreover, it presented a new degree of self-consciousness, that of the secular traveler and no longer that of the pilgrim (Rubiés 2000: 131). Varthema’s journey followed the pattern established by Conti a century earlier. Like Conti, he took the main trading routes that connected the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean to Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Aden, Persia, and Cambay in 91

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Gujarat. He too descended the western coast of India to Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and the Spice Islands.2 Varthema had knowledge of colloquial Arabic and was able to disguise himself as a Muslim. He pretended to be a Christian renegade who had been captured by Muslims in his youth and converted by force (Rubiés 2000: 126–7). Like Conti, he also returned to the Christian fold. Given his ability to “pass” and to communicate with the Muslim population, his commentary carried considerable authority at home. In later years, he reaped significant gain by selling information to the Portuguese to aid them in their struggle against the Muslim merchants and the Hindu rulers of Calicut.3 In Varthema’s Itinerario (1510),4 we find descriptions of India similar to those found in other travel accounts of the time. Here too, India appears as a series of edenic sites. The Gujarat is a cornucopia (Varthema 1963: 120), rich in fruit, spices, and precious stones (115). The dry Deccan is described in terms of its opulence, a veritable storehouse of diamonds (122–3). Centacola abounds in peacocks, flowers, and fruits. The air is fragrant and the inhabitants are longlived (125). Varthema shared the prejudices of his era regarding Moors and African Blacks.5 In contrast, he found the Hindus he encountered to be Christianlike and advised that they should be baptized, since they were a truly good and virtuous people (116, 119). As in the case of other early travelers to India, Varthema related to the Indians he encountered in religious terms and did not seek to evaluate them racially.6 Like his predecessors, Varthema also judged the Indians according to Greek notions of what it meant to be civilized—living in a community, cultivating the land, and establishing social structures. The Indians he found lived in walled cities after our fashion (Varthema 1963: 121), farmed (154), and traded commodities (156). Varthema provided detailed information on the excellent conditions under which trade was conducted in Calicut before the arrival of the Portuguese. The south Indians fixed customs on the arrival and departure of ships. They did not indulge in petty persecution and possessed an impartial legal system. Their economy (155–6) and mode of warfare (144) were sophisticated.7 Varthema’s criteria for analysis corresponded to those used in Italian Renaissance depictions of European sites. Renaissance Europe also focused on a locale’s size, walls, fertility, air quality, and military capacity. Since ranking civility among nations was a prevalent trope in travel narratives within Europe (Rubiés 2000: 147), it was not exceptional that Varthema would rank India according to such indicators. However, Varthema’s representation of India was not seamless. It presented rifts in its fabric, as in those areas where Indians came into contact with the Portuguese. There, the markers of culture as tied to the production of

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bread, vegetarianism, and set communities living in proper dwellings, disappear.8 Varthema suggested that areas of India tainted by Portuguese contact or Muslim rule simply lapsed into a barbarous condition.9 In other words, he drew a distinction between a civilized India and one that had been contaminated by foreign elements. Like Gama, Varthema experienced interpretive challenges in his encounter with Hinduism. In an episode reminiscent of Gama’s temple visit, Varthema also visited the chapel of the Samorin of Calicut. His temple visit, however, stands in sharp contrast to the episode described in the Roteiro. As we saw in the last chapter, the clearly Hindu temple described in Velho’s narrative is misread (intentionalily or inadvertently) by Gama as a Christian church containing a monstrous image of the Virgin. With no little irony, Gama and his companions follow the logic that since these Indians are Christian, any site of worship, no matter how foreign or how pagan it might appear, must be a church and all the iconography must follow suit. The initial Portuguese script identified the Hindus they met as the Christians they expected to encounter. As a corollary, the Portuguese regarded any Muslims with whom they came in contact as their natural enemies (Rubiés 2000: 165). We have seen how Gama, feeling embattled by treacherous Muslim traders, engaged in an elaborate masquerade with the Samorin, who, in turn, temporarily play-acted an assigned role as Christian potentate and ally. The entire charade began to unravel when Gama and his men visited the Hindu temple. Confronting its foreignness, they misinterpreted or chose to misread the semiotics of the situation. They then proceeded down the path of wish-fulfilling delusion. Whereas for Gama there was some cynicism involved in the process (“If this is the true God . . .”), for Varthema, in contrast, there is no dissimulation. Varthema did not delude himself or his reader. What Velho takes pains to present as saints, Varthema depicted categorically as devils. In the Itinerario, Varthema describes his visit to the chapel in the following terms: And the king of Calicut keeps this Deumo in his chapel in his palace, in this wise; this chapel is two paces wide in each of the four sides, and three paces high, with doors covered with devils carved in relief. In the midst of this chapel there is a devil made of metal, placed in a seat also made of metal. The said devil has a crown made like that of the papal kingdom, with three crowns; it has also four horns and four teeth with a very large mouth, nose, and most terrible eyes. The hands are made like those of a flesh-hook and the feet like those of a cock; so that he is a fearful object to behold. All the

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pictures around the said chapel are those of devils, and on each side of it there is a Sathanas seated in a seat, which seat is placed in a flame of fire, wherein are a great number of souls, of the length of half a finger and a finger of the hand. And the said Sathanas holds a soul in his mouth with the right hand, and with the other seizes a soul by the waist. Varthema 1963: 135

On an initial level, it makes perfect sense that Varthema called the Hindu gods “devils,” since the Church fathers taught that all pagan gods were demons and devils (Mitter 1977: 17).10 As Partha Mitter suggests, once a god has been described as a devil, then it is only a matter of matching the visual representation of that god with known images of devils. This process of transference was first described by the art historian E.H. Gombrich who speculated, logically enough, that we attempt to understand the unfamiliar by proceeding from the known to the unknown. By classifying received information under a category and generalized schema, we adopt a preexisting formula as the starting point to be modified in light of the actual subject material. A literary description is thus transformed into a visual image and vice versa (Mitter 1977: 4–5). If devādasīs (temple dancers, prostitutes) are, for example, described in a text as nuns, in visual representation they become Renaissance nuns dancing, as in Boucicault’s visual illustrations for Marco Polo. Once a god is portrayed as a devil, the traveler then employs popular representations of hell (devouring sinners, tortures of the damned) in his subsequent description of that god (Mitter 1977: 17).11 Whereas Gama was constrained by the context of information available to him and his implied audience, Varthema was not bound by any larger political or religious project. He was caught up in the need to promote the political myth regarding the fantasy of Christian Indians. He saw the survival of this fantasy not as a sign of irrationality, but as evidence of the importance of expectations, desires, and mediations in shaping the interpretation of experience (Rubiés 2000: 166). He would find no contradiction in thinking that the Samorin of Calicut ultimately believed in God and adored the devil at the same time. Varthema, however, was freer to describe what he saw as he experienced it. He could indulge in a creative freedom that Gama could not envision. Varthema could describe what he actually encountered, rather than try to fit it into a preestablished scenario. His description was tied, as Mitter would argue, to visual cues and imagination rather than ideology or politics. His encounter with the Indian other, therefore, was primarily grounded in deciphering what he actually

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witnessed. It inaugurated a pattern of ethnographical response that would reappear in the work of other contemporary travelers to India such as Duarte Barbosa and Tomé Pires.12 Accompanying his uncle on Cabral’s expedition, Barbosa arrived in India in 1501. Like Varthema, Barbosa also focused his narrative on Calicut, the city where Gama had landed, because it was considered the political and economical center of the Malabar coast.13 The fact that Barbosa was fluent in Malayalam contributed to his appointment as royal factor in the first permanent Portuguese feitoria in Cochin (1500–2).14 He ultimately became the chief escrivão feitor (secretary of the factory) in Cannanore (1503–17).15 As an important administrator in the Portuguese factories of the Malabar coast, Barbosa provided detailed information on the ports and traffic to the inland areas. He minutely described the political and economic situation in Gujarat, Ceylon, and Bengal as well as the wealth of Vijayanagara. When the Portuguese arrived, Vijayanagara was under the rule of Narasimha Raja.16 He and other rulers of the Hindu kingdom shared Portugal’s hostility toward the Muslims. They felt that Islam posed a standing menace, particularly the bordering Bahmanī sultanate. They were, therefore, not hostile to the Portuguese, but rather they welcomed them into their midst. In his travel account, Barbosa offered ample descriptions of Vijayanagara’s palaces, courts, streets, and squares. He concluded that life and property in India were secure and trade was vibrant.17 The Indians he encountered were depicted as prosperous and well-organized. Barbosa made a point of noting that they were not naked, poor, and black. In fact, he described the people of Vijayanagara as tawny-colored, almost like us,18 a depiction shared by Varthema and Barros.19 Although the Gentile inhabitants of Vijayanagara held some customs similar to our own, they also indulged in aberrant practices. Barbosa described customs that he clearly found abhorrent such as suttee, hook-swinging, and the deflowering of maidens with stone idols (Rubiés 2000: 212). As in the case of Varthema’s account, Barbosa also portrayed practices similar to those found in Europe. However, these practices only took place in uncontested areas, not zones of open conflict. Both Varthema and Barbosa sought to contextualize Indian alterity within a larger comparative framework, as did their contemporary, Tomé Pires. An apothecary in service to the crown as a factor of drugs, Pires went to India in 1511 to gather information and specimens. Soon after, he became the supervisor of the spice trade in the Moluccas. In 1515, he wrote the Suma Oriental, which dealt exhaustively with his travels throughout Southeast Asia.20 Like Varthema, Pires also described India as a paradisiacal site, rich in abundance

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(Pires 1967: 71) whose inhabitants exist in a prelapsarian state. Although heathens, they are good, virtuous, clever, prudent, and honest (59). For Pires, Indian Christians appear not only as metaphors, but in a literal sense. In Malabar, Pires places their number at 15,000. These Christians consist of noblemen, merchants, and craftsman. They live in fortified communities as cultivators (55, 58). Both their religion and their social structures mark them as civilized. In other words, Christianity and caste protected them from racial contamination. In one of the earliest western formulations of Aryan racial ideology, Pires discussed the black inhabitants of Malabar and the castes of Vijayanagara. Because of their color, the Naires (Nayars), a warrior caste whom Pires described as knight-like (67), must be aborigines. Their profession, bellicosity, and color distinguish them from the Aryan fold and the “purer” blooded brahmins whom he described as pacifist vegetarians. The dark-skinned Nayars were racially impure, as evinced by the behavior of their women who were neither virtuous nor domestically inclined. Nayar women neither sewed nor worked. They collected multiple sexual partners and spent their time eating and having fun (Pires 1967: 710). Upper castes went to great lengths to avoid being contaminated by them. Pires and Barbosa both had a long and direct experience of India. Their descriptions are noteworthy in that they show a precise and accurate accounting of ethnic and social distinctions in addition to elaborate descriptions of the physical setting, the natural products, trade, cities, government, laws, and religious classifications. What distinguished their accounts from those of Conti and Gama was the shift in focus from the realm of fantasy to reality. As merchants, they had less need to understand religious ideas of order. Their primary interest was with secular order. They were not concerned with establishing ties with imaginary Christians. Rather, these merchants were set on forging business relationships with real Muslim traders and Hindu rulers. Thus, they exhibited a serious attempt to communicate, map difference, and understand the social fabric of the community into which they sought entry. As we saw in Greek classical accounts, the status of Indian brahmins was a topic open to considerable speculation at the earliest stage of encounter between the East and the West. The merchants, however, did not show interest in brahmins because of any curiosity regarding Indian spirituality. Rather they wished to inform themselves about their social and hierarchical functions. In general, these travelers understood that caste was the ultimate arbiter of Indian society. Barbosa wondered whether Indian rulers were of a higher caste than the brahmins.21 He described the Nayars as exceptionally brave, although fearful of pollution from the lower castes (Lach 1965: 1.1.354–6). Both Pires and Barbosa realized that the

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Nayars were different from the brahmins. In fact, they both devoted considerable space to trying to decipher the caste system, describe its contours, and delineate the various castes. Pires and Barbosa both tried to explain untouchability, the hierarchy of marriage options, professional activities, and special prohibitions. Barbosa, in fact, delineates eighteen different castes and gives elaborate depictions of their duties and restrictions (Lach 1965: 1.1.356–7). Varthema had also tried to understand caste distinctions and had compiled extensive lists of the castes along with their duties. He maintained that brahmins were particularly virtuous, leading lives as penitents. Moreover, Varthema enumerated the precautions that upper castes took to avoid defilement from the outcastes (Varthema 1963: 138). In fact, Varthema paid special attention to the various outcaste groups, such as the untouchable Poliārs whom he describes as beast-like creatures (157). These travel narratives all sought to contextualize caste within a larger discussion regarding Indian public ways of governance. They all framed the discussion of caste by comparing it with what appeared to be the barbarity and brutishness of private existence in realms bereft of a legitimate public dimension. Pires and Barbosa, in particular, stressed the political—what it meant to be a member of the nobility in India. In this respect, their accounts differed from those of horse traders such as Domingo Paes and Fernão Nunes (or Nuniz), who focused primarily on the economic ramifications of caste. Paes traveled in the company of Christovão de Figueiredo, an important casado,22 who had come to Goa in 1520. Paes was able to visit Vijayanagara, witness its festivals, and offer a detailed description of the landscape, buildings, and economic life. He compared it to Rome and Lisbon. Nunes, who had knowledge of Kannada, traveled to the same area a decade later (1531). Because of their trade relations, Paes and Nunes had unique access to information on Hindu society that had been previously unavailable to other travelers. As we have noted, the Hindu rulers of Vijayanagara were not hostile to the Portuguese merchants. In fact, they sought very early on to form an alliance with the Portuguese against the Muslims. Moreover, they benefitted greatly from the Portuguese control of Goa. It gave them access to the sea through which they obtained arms and equipment. In 1509, Krishna Deva Raya, perhaps the greatest ruler of the Hindu dynasty and an implacable enemy of the Muslim rulers of the Deccan, ascended to the throne of Vijayanagara. He warmly welcomed the Portuguese occupation of Goa, which secured his acquisition of military supplies from abroad.23 The Vijayanagara kings soon realized that in order to wage war effectively against the Muslims, they needed the Arabian and Persian horses over which the Portuguese held the monopoly. They, therefore, sought to form trading

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contracts with horse dealers such as Paes and Nunes. In order to cement a relationship with the Portuguese horse traders, the Hindu kings showered them with hospitality in the form of relatively free access to the great capital of their empire. As a result, Paes and Nunes had a greater opportunity than any other travelers to observe and were able to compile detailed accounts of Vijayanagara’s palaces, artworks, temples, courtyards, idols, royal apartments, harem, army, feasts, rituals, and sacrifices. Like the other travelers, they too related titillating accounts of sexual mores, where Indian social conduct broke every European convention. However, such stories were not entered as evidence that the Indians were savage, monstrous, or bestial. Their descriptions took for granted that the Indians they encountered were civilized. Paes and Nunes used empirical data and civil criteria, such as political and economic success, to show just how civilized the Indians, in fact, were. Like Pires and Barbosa, Paes and Nunes relied on local contacts to supply them with information. Their reports rested mostly on common-sense descriptions written in everyday language. Avoiding allusions to any literary tradition, they recorded the most reliable economic data available in order to secure stable patterns of trade and ensure local security in the Portuguese outposts with which they were associated (Rubiés 2000: 205–6). Paes offered a colorful human geography and Nunes focused on human weakness in the social fabric—the frailty of rulers and the greed of brahmins. Like the other merchants described in this chapter, Paes and Nunes showed a marked interest in caste. However, their discussions on caste focused on its economic impact. They were concerned with caste only to the degree that it affected their ability to interact with Indians. For reasons of civility, Paes and Nunes wanted to understand caste. They were interested in conducting business without offending the natives’ prejudices. From this brief aperçu of sixteenth-century travel accounts of southern India, we can draw some tentative conclusions. The Italian Varthema represented a new generation of traveler to India. Like others before him, he viewed India as an edenic site populated by civilized people. This assessment, however, was not tied to earlier literary emplotments of India, but relied instead on visual cues. He attempted to base his commentary on a realistic depiction of what he saw. With Varthema, we leave behind the realm of fantasy. His field of vision challenges whatever imaginary landscape he might have brought with him. We also find in Varthema an early articulation of the theme of racial decay. He identified as civilized only those Indians who lived among themselves in communities as Christians. Those Indians who lived among the Portuguese or suffered under Muslim rule degenerated into barbarism (Varthema 1963: 163). Varthema clearly

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had reservations regarding the overall success of the Portuguese venture in India. In contrast, Pires, Barbosa, Paes, and Nunes offered empirical descriptions of India based on their knowledge as settled merchants dealing with the casados (Rubiés 2000: 202). Along the lines of providing pragmatic information, they tended to concentrate more on the strategic value of the data collected. They focused on India’s maritime activities and military potential. They believed that the Hindus adhered to an early form of Christianity and had been forced to modify it under pressure from the Moors. These Portuguese merchants ascribed the positive practices they witnessed among the Indians to their adherence to Christianity. The dream of noble Indian Christians still held sway. However, this idyllic India existed only because of its faith in caste regulations. Pires directly attributed civilized behavior among the Indians to their adherence to social structures and long-standing membership in the Church (Pires 1967: 73). The Portuguese merchants also tied Indian barbarism to racial indicators, such as skin color and sexual impurity. Pires and Barbosa, in particular, stressed the issue of caste. Barbosa presented a long enumeration of the myriad castes of the Indian subcontinent and Pires examined the various castes with a view to the manner in which they interacted with each other. Pires was far less descriptive than Barbosa. He focused on the moral dimension of caste and how the Portuguese should themselves interact with the various castes. In particular, he emphasized the moral dangers involved in miscegenation. Caste stood at the forefront of all these narratives within the specific context of delimiting a social geography. In fact, the themes of miscegenation and racial degeneration introduced in these merchant accounts would play an even more significant role in the other principal body of texts dealing with India at the time, the Jesuit mission letters.

II. Missionaries and miscegenation Jesuit letters were an extremely popular and regulated form of communication. Like the travel narratives, they were both didactic and entertaining. This epistolary literature presented descriptions of foreign lands and peoples along with digressions and amplifications, replete with eye-witness exaggerations of heroic adventures and pious pathos (Županov 1999: 6). Ignatius Loyola established the form the letters were to take. The general epistolary topics included information regarding kings and nobles, the common people, the Company (of Jesus), and the

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spiritual striving of the author. In this respect, the Jesuit letters replicated the ethnographic data and dramatic or theatrical vignettes common to the travel literature. Their personal narratives tended to reflect the utopianism of the missionary effort and personal quests for sainthood. The “business” portions of the letters, providing data dealing with the activities of the Company, were often dialogic and polemical (Županov 1999: 7). It was in these sections that the authors tended to confront the alterity of India. The first thing that the Jesuits had to learn about India was that conversion from Hinduism to Christianity incurred the expulsion from one’s caste (Lach 1965: 1.1.237) and consequently loss of one’s employment (Schurhammer 1973– 82: 386). Indians, therefore, tended to convert for political or personal gain. Essentially, those who converted had little to lose in terms of caste standing or inheritance and everything to win materially (education, clothing, food, and shelter). The biggest success in conversions occurred among the Paravas, fishermen and pearl divers of the southeast coast of India,24 who led a hard existence and were held in great contempt by Hindus and Muslims alike. They sought conversion from the Franciscans in 1535–36 in order to improve their low status and gain protection from the Muslims. The Paravas had reason to fear the Moors since they had tremendous power, controlled trade in the Indian Ocean, and monopolized the pearl fisheries. The Portuguese sought to rectify this situation. Their strategy was first to gain control of Moorish trade routes and then seize the pearl fisheries. This operation would take fourteen years to achieve, since the Moors succeeded in calling for reinforcements from their coreligionists on the west coast. Under the Moors, the Paravas had been virtual slaves. They had to pay tribute both to their Muslim leaseholders as well to their Hindu lords. While Hinduism assigned them their low-caste status, Muslims were responsible for their generally miserable economic condition. The Paravas were ripe for change and began to convert in large numbers. The Moors tried in vain to prevent their conversion and mass baptism. The mission of converting the Paravas became a priority for Francis Xavier when he arrived in India in 1542. Xavier’s letters speak of his admiration for these poor coastal Indians to whom he preached. His respect for them stood in sharp contrast to the contempt he felt for the brahmins. While the Paravas, and even lower castes, such as the Karaiyas, were easily won over to the faith, brahmins proved to be unapproachable (Schurhammer 1973–82: 354). Although he was able to convert tens of thousands of low-castes, Francis Xavier claimed that he converted only one brahmin. As a group, they refused to leave a faith in

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which they held a favored position. When high-caste Indians did convert, they tended not to abandon their former religious practices, as in the case of the Prince of Tanur who converted in 1549 only in order to gain military aid from the Portuguese. When he was not allowed to retain the brahmin thread, he returned to his old faith. Converted Indians wanted to be Christian and maintain caste, when it was favorable. In other words, they wanted to enjoy whatever benefits Christianity could afford them as well as those assured to them as caste Hindus. There was some attempt on the part of the Church to accommodate the new converts, resulting in the Rites Controversy. But these attempts were not sustainable. Indian converts simply held to their customs.25 Brahmins not only resisted conversion, but strove to prevent that of other Hindus, since their revenues came from idolatry and ritual. Throughout his letters, Francis Xavier describes the brahmins as the main support of paganism. In a letter of January 18, 1549, he wrote: “If there were not brahmins, all the pagans would be converted to our faith” (cited in Schurhammer 1973–82: 409–10). According to the future saint, brahmins were perfidious liars and subtle manipulators of popular ignorance. They were “the most perverse people in the world”26 and the greatest threat to the proselytizing efforts. Xavier soon realized that caste prejudice would make it very difficult to maintain the missions if they were staffed by Indian Christians alone (Lach 1965: 1.1.232, 238, 258). He needed reinforcements from Europe. From the point of view of the Church, caste pride was beginning to present an insurmountable problem that was only exacerbated by racial bias. Official documents and private correspondence bear witness to the Portuguese obsession with “limpeza” or “pureza de sangue.” In the heart of the empire, war and sea travel had considerably thinned out the ranks of white males (Boxer 1969: 249). Even as early as the voyage of Pires, it was impossible to furnish a full complement for the fleet without raising it from a class lower than that of the peasants. Convicts were enlisted to work out their terms in Indian forces. As sources of free labor diminished, slaves became a necessity as did intermarriage (Jayne 1910: 286–7). Very few white women went to India. A ship of 800 men would perhaps have a dozen women (Boxer 1963: 58). Those women who survived the journey were not particularly long-lived or fertile. In fact, Manuel had strictly forbidden Portuguese women to sail there.27 As a consequence, miscegenation became more the rule in India than it would in Brazil or Africa. Nicholas Lancilotto, the Jesuit superior at the College of Goa (1543– 48),28 wrote a letter to Ignatius Loyola on December 5, 1550, in which he decried how this racial mixing would thwart the entire missionary effort. As Lancilotto’s letter

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shows, cross-breeding was common from the beginning of the Portuguese presence in India and continued to cause problems for years to come (da Silva Rego 1947–58: 32–8, cited in Boxer 1963: 61). Albuquerque ultimately complained to Manuel regarding his policy of restricting female travel to India (Corrêa 1858, 1864: 2.375). The king was swayed by his argument and supported a compromise plan allowing the men to marry native women of light complexion and good social standing (Schurhammer 1973–82: 212). Albuquerque inaugurated this policy governing mixed marriages in 1510, around the time of Pires’s voyage. He encouraged the Portuguese to marry the white and, preferably, beautiful widows and daughters of the Muslims they had killed in the battle for Goa. It was certainly not desirable for the Portuguese to breed with the women of Malabar, who were dark-skinned Dravidians (Albuquerque 1884–1935: I.56, 338; cf. 27). Light-skinned brahmin women from the Deccan and Konkan coast were also acceptable. In other words, Albuquerque tried to limit marriage to Hindus of Aryan (as opposed to Dravidian) origin and relatively white Muslims who had been forcibly converted to Christianity (Boxer 1963: 64). Before they were even allowed to marry, these native women first had to be baptized, given a Christian name, and taught their prayers. Albuquerque imposed this rule by fining husbands if their new wives were unfortunate enough to die before having ever confessed (Valignano 1944: 48–9). The men married to these women, the casados, made up the class of merchants, officials, and skilled workers in Goa. They were its permanent citizens, cohabiting with the constantly changing population of royal officials, soldiers, and Muslims. In the beginning of the occupation of Goa, the fidalgos comprised a significant portion of the citizenry (Albuquerque 5.341, cited in Schurhammer 1973–82: 213). The number of casados grew over time, since they led rather privileged existences and were exempt from military service.29 Albuquerque’s policy of limiting interracial marriages to light-skinned women failed and many in Goa did in fact “marry negresses” (Boxer 1963: 65). Here too, caste played a decisive role. However the “caste” in question was not that of the Indians, but the social standing of the Portuguese! Albuquerque’s policy of suitable mixed marriages was thwarted by the simple fact that even after conversion Indians retained their pride of caste and race consciousness. Indian Christians were no more tolerant than Indian Hindus. Approximately 30,000 St. Thomas Christian families lived in the towns of Malabar, Quilon, and Travancore. Since they tended to supervise weights and worked in customs, they held a relatively high social position and continued to follow caste restrictions after converting. They also did not want their daughters marrying European half-breeds (Boxer

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1963: 76). In 1514, the vicar general in the East, Domingo de Sousa, had established, with the compliance of Albuquerque, a policy in Cochin and Goa of subsidizing marriages of native women and Portuguese men. The women in question were low-caste, the men were common. This policy was much criticized by the fidalgos and high-caste women who felt that such unions lowered all Christians in the eyes of the higher castes (Lach 1965: 1.1.234). Clearly, being Roman Catholic in India was associated with the lower castes, as it is to this very day. Conversion, as it was practiced in the initial years, was not a uniform process and presented demographic concerns. So much so that, by the mid-sixteenth century, Francis Xavier himself began to discourage forced conversions. In general, problems with the mission in India were proving ever more intractable. There was neither sufficient nor suitable manpower for the necessary instruction in the faith. Due to inadequate supervision, many of those converted continued their old idolatrous practices. Lacking oversight, vicars in distant areas were left adrift and the newly-converted were persecuted by both Hindus and Muslims. Not only were the Paravas prevented by their Hindu rulers from working their trade, but, in Malabar, native kings regularly seized the goods of subjects who had converted (Schurhammer 1973–82: 2.386). Caste remained the main obstacle to the success of the mission in India. If miscegenation among the populace had been problematic, it is not hard to imagine the effect that diluting the blood of the clergy would have. Miscegenation among the populace was one thing, a racially mixed clergy quite another. Just as caste marked the convert, so too did it stigmatize the priesthood. The ordination of native Indians had begun as early as 1534.30 Due to caste and race prejudice, however, the pool of candidates for the priesthood never became particularly strong for the simple reason that Indians, Hindus or converts could not bring themselves to respect a low-caste priest and the Hindu converts were mostly low-caste. Other converts, the New Christians, were of Jewish descent from Portugal and rumored also to cling to their old beliefs (Silva Rego 1947–58: 2.338–9). Some candidates for priestly and religious life had been soldiers and had thus incurred canonical impediments (Schurhammer 1973–82: 160). A conscious effort was even made to retain high-caste Hindus in secular posts that were earmarked for converts. The Portuguese quickly learned that it was preferable to place a respected Hindu in any post rather than a neophyte lowcaste convert, who was perceived as laying claim to his job because of his conversion (Lach 1965: 1.1.237–8). Initially, the Church continued to depend on Europe for its recruits. However, when the Council of Trent (1563) made requirements for clerical training stiffer,

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even European recruits became scarce. Over time, it became increasingly difficult for the Church to fill the ecclesiastical needs of both India and Brazil,31 especially since greater numbers of northern European Jesuits were needed in Europe to fight Protestantism.32 The Portuguese began to realize that caste would continue to pose an obstacle for successful recruitment among the native population. Given the shortage of manpower, the Church decided to reevaluate its priorities. As is the case today, the Catholic Church tends not to waste limited staff on failing or moribund parishes or on regions serving no strategic aim. It did not take long for Rome to decide that it needed to reassess the entire Indian venture. The fierce dedication of the Indian population, both Hindu and converts, to caste prejudice would impact considerably on the future of the Indian mission. The dedication of the converts and impediments to the mission in India would increasingly be viewed in relation to those of the Far East. When juxtaposed to Japan and China, India did not appear to provide the most fertile ground for proselytizing. Its continued adherence to caste prejudice would ultimately lead to the decision to focus on the development of Catholicism in more propitious sites. The acknowledgment that India was a less favorable missionary field gained support in 1574 when Alessandro Valignano (1531–1606) was appointed visitor to the province of India with a mandate to reshape its mission. Valignano was in a position to assess the relative success of missionary activity in India, having also served in Japan and China.33 In the different Summaria he sent to the general of the Society of Jesus in Rome,34 Valignano discussed the viability of missionary activity in India by focusing on the issue of race in the clergy. An aristocratic lawyer from Naples who had been educated at Padua, Valignano had definite ideas regarding race. He identified two races, the blacks (negras), among whom he counted Indians, and the whites (brancos), among whom he included the Chinese and Japanese. The former he held in contempt, the latter he held in great esteem (Valignano 1944: 5, 24). When he lived in Rome, even prior to his having had any contact with native populations, Valignano already had firm racial beliefs. He felt, for example, that black Africans were barbarians, living in sloth and ignorance, with no capacity for Christian teaching (Lach 1965: 1.1. 258–9). He also held Indians in contempt as naked, commonly poor, miserable, mean, and servile beings. Indians were certainly of a lower nature than Europeans and other white people (Rubiés 2000: 7). Once posted in India, Valignano was in a position to compare them to Europeans and the Japanese. He concluded that Indians possessed little substance and lacked refinement (Valignano 1944: 24–5, 1954: 13). Valignano specifically stated that

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no dark-skinned natives (in order to distinguish the Indians from the Chinese or Japanese) should ever be admitted into the Society of Jesus.35 They were deemed inadmissible as a group because they were naturally inclined by base instincts and not respected by European Christians (Lach 1965: 1.1.264). While the Japanese were, at least, led by reason, Indians were impervious to rational argument (Wicki 1948–88: lx, 169–70).36 They were darkened by their immoral lives, filthy, and corrupted by their ridiculous legends. Since Valignano deemed all pure-bred Indians unsuitable candidates for admission to the Society of Jesus, he also excluded the mixed breeds born in India, Eurasians, and half-breeds. Valignano categorized the mixed breeds according to their percentage of European blood.37 The pure-breeds born in India were thought to be illiterates; the rest were weak, vice-ridden, and stupid (Boxer 1963: 62–3). European racial prejudice and Indian intractability with regard to caste (even among the St. Thomas Christians) led the Church to decide against India as a viable mission field. According to Valignano, caste allowed exploitation without conscience. It was an expression of tyranny and superstition. While Valignano admitted that the Hindu religion had a core of theological truth, he concluded that simply too “many chimeras and monstrosities had been added” (Valignano 1944: 25–32, cited in Rubiés 2000: 7). Of these, caste was the most potent. Moreover, the political fragmentation of the subcontinent and the presence of the Moors exacerbated the situation, making conversions even more difficult and further contributing to the general failure of the mission. The Jesuits became increasingly frustrated in their efforts. Given the low esteem in which they held the Indians and their concerns regarding the quality of the converts in India, they began to shift resources to the Far East. Japan and China seemed far more propitious areas for proselytizing, and the Church was far more amenable to compromise and accommodation regarding their mission in these countries (Lach 1965: 1.1.265). The Japanese and Chinese held greater promise for evangelization, since they possessed more impressive civil achievements (Rubiés 2000: 7) and were racially acceptable. In particular, Valignano had high hopes for Japan and encouraged extensive adaptation of its culture, the study of its language, and the education of its native clergy.

III. Conclusion What happened to the monsters that inhabited India in the classical texts and tarried there well into the age of discovery? They disappeared as discussion

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turned to ethnological descriptions of civilized behavior and fascination with caste minutiae. However, in their place, another kind of monster resurfaced in the form of the brahmin and the outcaste. These two figures served a common aim in the heterological process as representations of the other that can be transported along with their authors across the ocean and circulated in Portuguese culture. Indian otherness can thus be transformed into the continuous text of European knowledge—a presentation of a natural world in transition between savagery and civilization. The brahmin and the outcaste, clothed as monsters, exemplify those very points that Certeau found so evocative—where the effects of the transformative operation seem most precarious, where the textual seam appears torn. They appear in the text as traces of what falls outside language’s operative capacity to bring what lies outside back into “sameness” (Certeau 1988: 227). The discourse on India as a land of virtuous Christian potential allies recedes from these travel accounts. Varthema, unhindered as he was by commercial or political constraints, was perhaps one of the last representative authors to engage in this rhetoric. His unencumbered status brought with it the ability to see and decipher, as in the case of his visit to the temple. The traders and administrators who followed him were more concerned with practical matters. The fantasy of an Indian ideal “Christian” alter ego gave way to elaborate and minute discussions of caste. The commercial concerns of the travelers demanded that they be able to distinguish the different castes in order to gain the political understanding necessary to work within the groups they encountered. The accounts of Barbosa and Pires focused on how to manage social interactions and promote good business. Paes and Nunes, in their role as horse traders, also needed an economic grasp of how caste worked. The Jesuits were not unlike the merchants. They too were setting up business and needed to respond to the impact that caste had on the formation of the mission and the successful recruitment of priests. Only when it became apparent that caste prejudice negatively impacted on conversion success did discussions of race, at first absent from the letters and the Summaria, become a central concern. The Portuguese initially sought a social compromise to the race issue by subsidizing marriages between Portuguese and native low-caste women. They learned, however, that the offspring of such unions were consistently held in low regard by both Indians and Europeans. The higher castes and the St. Thomas Christians did not readily accept Latin Christianity. The Jesuits responded with vitriol to caste prejudice. They then sought to convert from the top down, believing that a population followed the faith of its ruler.38 However, the ultimate

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failure in this regard signaled the more general defeat. There was nothing they could do to undermine caste consciousness. The Indians were judged stubborn, obstinate, wrong-headed, and immoral. At this point, dismissive racial or religious classifications begin to appear in the missionary literature to justify their mistrust of the Indians or explain their inability to evangelize (Rubiés 2000: 1–74). The dark-skinned natives were now denounced as intellectual inferiors who were unready to appreciate and accept Christian truth. It did not take long for the Jesuits to begin comparing Indians to other Asian populations. They actively praised light-skinned Asians and their civilizations once it became clear that conversions were more successful and long-lasting in the East Asian arena. Valignano expressed his racial bias against dark-skinned populations even before he ever encountered them. He also classified East Asians as whites. In the 1580s, he would encourage flexibility and promote Church accommodation and compromise in China and Japan. Quite simply, India was not China, and Valignano was no Matteo Ricci. The Church was open in its admiration of Chinese otherness. It valued its Japanese converts and their bravery in the face of martyrdom. But, it found little to value in India and quickly lost any interest in accommodating the Indian other. Hindu India posed a threat on too many levels. It manipulated well in diplomacy, continued to embrace indigenous racism in the form of casteism, and brilliantly exploited Christian fear and distrust of Muslims. Although the accounts of European merchants and administrators described India as a site of civilization, the missionaries felt frustrated and responded by denigrating Hindu culture. A new cultural relativism came into being. Previously, there had been a temporal and vertical relativism. It ended around 1540 with the opening of Asia. There was now both a vertical and horizontal perspective as well as a temporal and spatial view. East Asia, it seemed, also had a continuous history dating back to antiquity and, in this specific sense, might have to be viewed as equal to Europe. It was certainly deemed less troublesome than India. In general, the Indian other served to confirm and reinforce a European sense of identity which culminated, for the Portuguese, in an obsession with purity of blood and fears of sexual chaos as shown by the behavior of the Portuguese religious orders and their refusal to admit persons of color and half-caste recruits. The Jesuits, who originally exhibited no substantial color bias, came to adopt one wholeheartedly.39 Lower caste converts to Christianity retained their fear and respect for brahmins, whether they be Hindu or Catholic priests. Brahmins maintained their racial pride, since they were not born from intermarriage with lower castes or debased Portuguese. Brahmins were especially

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held in low regard by the Church (Lach 1965: 1.1.262).40 While Francis Xavier’s letters speak of the respect he had for the poor low-castes and untouchables on the coast, he had nothing but contempt for the brahmins whom he felt were perfidious liars and subtle manipulators of popular ignorance. More than anything else, his negative assessment of brahmins contributed to the shift in interest from India41 to Japan (Rubiés 2000: 8–9). The sainted proto-Christian brahmins of the Alexander legend disappeared once the “businessmen” (horse traders and Jesuits alike) appeared on the scene. The monstrous other that ancient Indians had identified as non-Aryan continued to haunt the landscape. This monstrous other was still Dravidian and/or outcaste. The only difference now was that he/she might also be a newly-minted Christian. We remember how the Greek historians had appropriated syllable for syllable the Sanskrit insults against the non-Aryan other and, through a process of translation, created a discourse of the monstrous. Now, the Jesuits were again taking their cue from high-caste Indians: Dravidian pariahs once again became monsters. Although Loyola and Francis Xavier had initially found the Dravidian outcastes noble, subsequent missionaries came to judge them as ultimately unacceptable. In addition, new monsters now entered the scene, the mendacious and intractable brahmin. Brahmins proved to be so monstrous that the Franciscans and Jesuits eventually fled from their midst. The official line was that religion, not color, should be the criterion for Portuguese citizenship and that all Asian converts to Christianity should be treated as equal to their Portuguese co-religionists. Laws were promulgated to this effect in 1562 and 1572.42 Race, however, continued to be a concern and these racial laws were not immediately implemented. The St. Thomas Christians under Mar Jacob were encouraged to reform and come into compliance with the Roman Rite. Time and again there were compliance problems. The St. Thomas Christians and their leaders continued to hold the Hindu and Nestorian beliefs as well as caste prejudices. Finally, in June 1599, the Synod of Diamper was convened and Archbishop Menezes of Goa mandated the acceptance of lowcaste churches and clergy, although such conversions had little effect on brahmins and Nayars. Almost 200 years later, Pombal’s decrees of 1761 and 1774 once again declared that all baptized Asian subjects of the Portuguese crown had the same legal and societal status as white persons who were born in Portugal. Even so, Pombal’s decrees were ignored for thirteen more years. No further proof is needed to show how deeply both the Indians and the Portuguese in India held to their racism (Boxer 1963: 76).

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In the narratives investigated here, we have seen how the theme of race virtually disappeared from the product (the text) only to appear in the production, namely the sociocultural focus of the commentary (caste). The Portuguese concern with miscegenation floats as a remainder on the edges of discourse. It functions as a shard of knowledge, left over from the selection of materials that the author manipulates. The discussion of caste in all these narratives appears in place of the presupposition absent from the textual product, namely Portuguese concern with degeneration. In a subsequent act of displacement, the established identity of the Portuguese conqueror as a civilized, Christian upholder of bloodlines will even become reinforced in a myth of racial tolerance. However, as we will see in the remaining chapters, this myth will also produce a residue which will return insistently as a fantasmic other putting in jeopardy the stable figures of both the self and the other, blurring their distinction like the Freudian repressed. The traveler is never really secure in a detached position of contemplation, but inhabits an ambivalent realm of seduction and fascination. In the work of Camoens, this fear of decay and degeneration resurfaces where one least expects it, in the epic account of Portuguese valor.

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The Return of the Monster: Camoens and the Epic Venture

In Chapter  1, we saw how for Dante, Indians became virtuous heathens who lived in a kind of utopia and were able to observe naturally God‘s eternal precepts. In the Comedia, the Indian served as a foil for the blameworthy and apathetic Christian. As India became real—a site that was explored and its inhabitants known to European travelers—it became more and more difficult to fix the location of Indian Christians, whether real or metaphorical, and to place one’s trust in them. Identifying its monsters, either physical or ethical, also became problematic, as they shifted position too frequently. In fact, as the sixteenth century progressed, Christians and monsters exchanged roles, with the monster shifting from the Indian subject to the European colonizer. By the time we reach Camoens, there is still some valorization of the virtuous Indian pagan. But, there is also an increasingly profound critique of the European Christian. Camoens developed further themes that had already found expression in earlier narratives and injected them with a potent dose of Realpolitik.

I. The poet Luís Vaz de Camoens (Camões) was born in 1524, the year that Vasco da Gama died. His family was Galician and of the lesser nobility. They had, however, gained status when his grandfather married into the Gama family. Camoens’s father, Simão Vaz de Camoens, had gone to the East as a ship’s captain. Off the coast of Goa, he was shipwrecked and died. Despite the early loss of his father, Camoens’s youth was nevertheless fortunate. He studied at Coimbra, receiving a solid grounding in Latin, history, mythology, and Italian literature. These student days comprised the happiest period of his life and were often evoked in his later poetry. They contributed to an idyllic vision of his homeland that would sustain him through his difficult years of exile. 111

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After his studies, Camoens returned to Lisbon in 1544. Due to an unfortunate love affair, he was banished by royal decree. Another account claims that his banishment was self-imposed. In either case, he went to Ceuta as a common soldier in 1547 where he lost his right eye in combat. Camoens thus experienced first hand at a young age the losses of Portuguese empire-building. He was repatriated in 1549. Shortly after his return to Lisbon, however, he was involved in a brawl where he wounded a court official and was thrown into prison. Friends interceded on his behalf and, as a condition of his pardon, he was sent to India in 1553 for what was to be three years of military service and ended up consuming seventeen years of his life. During this time, Camoens served as a common soldier and an administrator. All the while, he was hard at work writing poetry and composing Os Lusíadas, the epic story of Gama’s voyage to India and the history of Portuguese exploration surrounding it. In 1556, he was appointed Trustee for the Dead and Absent in Macao. There, Camoens led a fairly comfortable existence for several years until he was relieved of the post due to the machinations of a compatriot who coveted his appointment. Camoens was then sent back to Goa to face trumped-up charges. En route, he was shipwrecked at the mouth of the Mekong River, barely escaping with his life, as legend has it, while holding the manuscript of his epic poem above his head and out of the water. The poet made his way back to Goa in 1561 and remained there six more years (several of which were spent in prison) until he was finally exonerated for alleged administrative malfeasance in Macao. After so many travails, Camoens longed to return home and to see Os Lusíadas and his collected poems (Parnasso de Luís de Camoens) published. Thanks to a friendly captain, he got as far as Mozambique in 1567, where he spent two more years, lacking the money necessary to pay for his trip back to Portugal. It was only when his friend, the historian Diogo do Couto, passed through Mozambique, discovered his lamentable state, and took up a collection to pay his return fare, that Camoens was able to resume his journey home. During the last leg of his trip, the manuscript of his poetry was stolen. Camoens reached Lisbon in 1570, just as the city was recovering from one of its periodic outbursts of the plague. Upon his arrival, he was shocked to see how what he had envisioned during his many years of exile as the native virtues of his race had wilted under prosperity and how the people at home did not realize at what cost the empire had been built. In this mood of deep disillusionment, Camoens penned the Prologue, Dedicatory, and the Epilogue to his epic. Os Lusiadas was able to pass the censor and was finally published in 1572 at which point it met with reasonable success.

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The times were catastrophic for Portugal. Between 1542 and 1550, João III had been realistic enough to jettison four of the eight North African strongholds. His successor, Sebastião, however, was more of an idealist and religious crusader who proved to be less interested in mercenary pursuits, navigation, and commerce. In an ill-fated decision, Sebastião decided to take on the Muslims definitively. He believed that the North African arena provided the strategic site for this showdown and embarked on a disastrous invasion of Alcácer-Kebir in 1578 with 25,000 soldiers and 500 vessels. While this force might have been sufficient to safeguard all of Portugal’s holdings in Asia, it was not adequate to confront the Moors in Africa. In merely four hours of pitched battle, 8,000 Portuguese soldiers were slain and 15,000 enslaved. Less than 100 survived to bring the news of the defeat back home. This disaster was then compounded the next year when another plague broke out in Lisbon. Such were the dire conditions in which Camoens found Lisbon and Portugal upon his return. He was already physically and spiritually broken from his long ordeal in the East. The misfortunes of his country weighed heavily upon him and aggravated his despair. Camoens predicted that he would not only die in the country he so loved, but would also die with it. And, indeed, on June 10, 1580, he succumbed, barely missing the ascension of Philip II of Spain to the throne of the united peninsula.

II. The epic The title “Os Lusíadas” signifies the “sons of Lusus,” the companion of Bacchus and the mythical first settler of Portugal. The sons of Lusus are, therefore, the Portuguese. Camoens took Virgil’s scheme for The Aeneid as the model for the development of his own theme: the noble deeds of a people from the beginning of their history to the poet’s own time. Just as Virgil had placed part of his story in the mouth of Aeneas, much of the Portuguese saga is recounted by Vasco da Gama to the King of Malindi. Camoens chose The Aeneid both as his model and as a challenge. Whereas Virgil sang of “arms and men,” Camoens claimed to sing of an entire nation of heroes. Like The Aeneid, Os Lusíadas centers on the storm-tossed mariner who ventures into the unknown to found a second Roman empire. Gama’s voyage and the Portuguese confrontation with the infidel serve as the central plot of the poem. The poet proclaims the Portuguese rulers to be the equals of earlier heroes such as Ulysses, Aeneas, Alexander, and Trajan. Like the poets of old, so, too, have the heroes of old had their day. There had now arisen a new and loftier conception

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of valor. In fact, what the Portuguese had done in the East was much greater than what the heroes of antiquity had ever achieved and it was the task of the modern bard to sing their epic venture. The action begins at the geographical point where Bartholomeu Dias had turned back from venturing further eastward.1 The gods of Olympus discover Gama’s ships sailing up the east coast of Africa. In the typical epic tradition, the first canto presents the classical pantheon choosing sides whether to favor the Portuguese venture or thwart it. The Portuguese are thus well under way, after much toil and danger, when the gods of Olympus meet in council to decide if the navigators should be permitted to reach India. Bacchus, in particular, positions himself as Portugal’s implacable enemy. He is jealous, lest the Portuguese outshine his own rule in India and eclipse his fame. Venus and Mars support and champion the Portuguese venture. Venus favors them because their language is similar to Latin and they remind her of her beloved Romans. Jupiter is, at this point, neutral. In Mozambique, the Portuguese encounter an unknown race for the first time. They ask the initial questions: “Who are these people, what is their race and customs? Whose subjects are they? And their religion?” (“Que gente será esta? (em si diziam) Que costumes, que Lei, que Rei teriam?”) (1.45). The Portuguese are initially impressed with the natives who are cheerful, drink wine, and speak Arabic. When questioned regarding the purpose of their travels, the Portuguese respond that they seek the lands of the East, where the Indus flows. They inquire about India and its inhabitants. We are the Portuguese from the West: we seek the lands of the East . . . and seek those lands where the Indus flows . . . And now, it is only fair that you tell us, truthfully, of what race you are and what land this is you dwell in. Tell us too whether you know anything of India. Camoens 1952: 472

The natives answer that they are Muslims and inform the Portuguese that the other natives are pagans and uncivilized. The Muslims claim to have settled in Mozambique and offer to provide the Portuguese with a pilot who might lead them to India. This encounter is presented as congenial. The Muslim governor asks to see their arms out of curiosity, while in fact he is plotting treachery (1.67). It appears that, once he has learned they are Christian, he began to foster an irrational hatred for the Portuguese and to plot their destruction. Although promising to bring the Portuguese into contact with native Christians, the

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governor, in fact, plans to deliver them to a large contingent of Muslims. Gama thwarts these machinations and escapes from Mozambique. He also succeeds in avoiding a subsequent Muslim ambush orchestrated by Bacchus. Unscathed, the Portuguese arrive safely in Mombasa. The first canto ends with the poet lamenting the fickleness of fate.3 Canto 2 opens with Bacchus once again plotting the destruction of the Portuguese. We have seen how the scene of Gama’s visit to the Hindu temple was described in the Roteiro and Varthema’s Itinerario. In the Roteiro, Gama purposefully misreads the temple as a Christian church containing a monstrous image of the Virgin. Varthema, in contrast, neither deluded himself nor his reader. He described the temple clearly as it was—with its representations of horrific Hindu deities. He was not constrained by any larger political or religious project. He did not need to promote any fantasy regarding Christian Indians. Whereas Varthema introduces the scene in a critical and ambiguous light—Gama is either incredibly deluded regarding what is obviously a Hindu temple or cynically indulging the Samorin in some sort of power-play—Camoens presents Gama’s misprision as stemming from a plot perpetrated by Bacchus (2.10–11). In the Itinerario and the Roteiro, Gama’s initial misreading of the situation on the ground clearly anticipates all subsequent conflict. In the hands of Camoens, the ensuing animosities result from the trickery of a hostile god not through any fault of the Portuguese. Whereas the travel narratives suggest a perhaps strategic and deceptive misunderstanding of the religious context on the part of the Portuguese, the epic, in contrast, depicts the Portuguese not as confused or mistaken, but rather deluded by the contrivance of a false altar and a bad painting of the Virgin. Moreover, it is not Vasco da Gama who is deceived, but two convict-sailors who had been sent ashore. This important initial scene between the Portuguese and the Indians that in the historical accounts can be read ambiguously—do the Portuguese encounter real, albeit heretical, Indian Christians, are they duped or engaged in an initially dishonest and duplicitous game of their own or was the reality of the Hindu temple clear for anyone to see?—is simply presented by Camoens as a case of divine mischief. Time and again in the epic, the Portuguese extricate themselves from one danger only to find themselves yet again attacked by vengeful Muslims. They are repeatedly saved from destruction by Venus who promises them global dominion. Camoens consistently portrays the Portuguese as adventurers in search of both Indian and Christian allies, not the pirates that we find in the historical record. They are civilized explorers, not soldiers of fortune. Those peoples who do not welcome them, who pretend to offer hospitality but instead plot their destruction, are clearly barbarians. Following this pivotal scene in the temple, cantos 3 through

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9 re-enforce this idealized portrait of the Portuguese by having Gama recount to the King of Malindi all their heroic exploits. Gama begins his exposition by relating key episodes from Portugal’s history, beginning with the tragic story of Inês de Castro and concluding with the poet’s ruminations on the power of love. Canto 4 focuses on Portuguese maritime prowess and conquests. King Manuel had always dreamed of reaching the Ganges and the Indus Rivers. Toward this end, he dispatched Covilhã to India. When this expedition did not bear the desired fruit, the king then sent forth Gama. This canto ends with the curious scene involving the old man of Restelo, to which we will return later in this chapter. Canto 5 opens with Gama’s voyage proper, presented by Camoens as an achievement without any parallel among the ancients. The first great challenge the fleet encounters is the giant Adamastor, who personifies the Cape of Good Hope (otherwise known as the Cape of Storms). Thanks to their cunning, the Portuguese are able to escape the monster’s clutches and continue on their journey. Adamastor, however, vows vengeance on future Portuguese travelers who next dare violate his space. The poet concludes this canto with his thoughts on the indebtedness of heroes to poetry for the perpetuation of their fame. He evokes the muses’ special love for the Portuguese people that moves them to bestow due praise on their collective achievement (5.99). In canto 6, the King of Malindi assigns Gama a competent and honest pilot who will lead the Portuguese on the remainder of their voyage to India. Bacchus continues to plot mayhem against them by stirring up a storm that almost causes their total destruction. Venus intercedes once again to bring the Portuguese safely to India. Canto 7 presents the sailor Velosa who relates the tale of the Twelve of England, a dozen Portuguese noblemen who had journeyed to England to defend the honor of a group of aggrieved English court ladies, when no English nobles were brave enough to champion them. In this canto, the Moor Monsaide instructs the Portuguese on India, its people, and customs (7.37–40). Here, India is reduced to its classic markers—caste, untouchability, and Pythagorian philosophy. In matters of the flesh, the Indians are said to indulge in monstrous sexual practices. The scene with the governor or Samorin of Calicut, offers a parallel to Virgil’s depiction of Aeneas’s shield. The Samorin boards Gama’s ship and is intrigued by the heroic scenes depicted on its banners and asks for clarification. Gama’s description of the painted scenes allows the poet to describe further instances of Portuguese bravery. The glorification of Portuguese valor that concludes canto 7 provides a subtle transition to canto 8 and its opening reflection on fame. This canto describes Gama’s encounter with the Samorin, the same episode that was central to both the Roteiro and the Itinerario. We learn that the Samorin’s mind

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has been poisoned against the Portuguese. Here, as elsewhere in the epic, the conflicts that the Portuguese experience are never their fault, but due rather to Bacchus’s intrigues and Muslim provocations. As in the description found in the Roteiro, Gama’s men are detained once they bring merchandise ashore. They suspect Muslim treachery. It is only after they exchange merchandise that they can ransom their freedom and rejoin the ships. Neither the Roteiro nor the Itinerario speculate on the causes of the animosity. In fact, Varthema even provides detailed information on the excellent conditions under which trade was conducted in Calicut before the arrival of the Portuguese. In the epic, however, Gama is never outwitted in his encounters with the Samorin nor is the nobility, courage, and clear sightedness of Gama and his men ever called into question. In contrast to their comportment in the historical accounts (whether they are duped or outmaneuvered), cantos 3–9 of the epic present Portuguese exploits in a favorable light with the glaring exception of the speech of the Old Man of Restelo that concludes canto 4. These middle cantos are also noteworthy for the manner in which they punctuate the narration of Portuguese history with a series of meditations on key themes—love (canto 3), hubris (canto 4), collective achievement (canto 5), heroism (canto 6), devotion (canto 7), and fame (canto 8)—that all form the subject matter traditional to epic. Camoens’s poem now moves toward its conclusion. Canto 9 continues to recount hostilities: Gama seizes Muslim merchants in order to exchange them for the two Portuguese factors that had been detained. The Portuguese then beat a hasty retreat, aided by Venus, who brings them to the Island of Love as a reward for all their labors. Here Tethys and the Nereids frolic with the mariners. Tethys, herself, is paired off with Gama. The epic concludes with the banquet of the Nereids and the sailors. The nymph Tethys foretells the Portuguese achievements in Africa, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, India, and Ceylon in the fifty years following Gama’s voyage. She leads him up to a mountaintop where she reveals to him the structure of the universe. Tethys next prophesies the dominion of his Portuguese successors and offers a view of what the Portuguese will still discover (Siam, Malacca, Sumatra, Borneo, Moluccas, China, Japan, and Brazil). The description that she gives of India is particularly interesting. There are 1,000 cities reserved in India for the Portuguese. She foresees the sites of great Portuguese victories all along the shores of India from the north to the tip of Ceylon. For many ages, the Portuguese will make India their abode. Tethys’s geographical tour mentions the monsters we have come to expect in any depiction of India, as well as the sexual perversions we have seen so lovingly described by Conti:

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Monstrous breed of its solitary first inhabitants, a woman and a dog. The men here wear small tinkling bells on their genitals, a subtly effective measure introduced by one of their queens against unspeakable sin. Camoens 1952: 2424

She points out St. Thomas’s tomb in Mylapore and recounts the miracles attributed to him, such as the moving of an enormous tree trunk for the King of Narasingha, his construction of a massive temple from it, and his moving of a mountain. Jealous brahmins, fearing these miracles, seek to have him put to death. The brahmin who plots the deed first kills his own son5 and then accuses Thomas of the crime. False witnesses are called in and the future saint is condemned to death.6 He performs one last miracle by bringing back to life the dead brahmin child to testify against his father. This miracle so moves the king that he and many of his subjects immediately convert. Their apostasy only further inflames the rage of the brahmins and they have the apostle stabbed to death. Thomas’s martyrdom in India is evoked as a challenge to those Portuguese who sit at home rather than preaching the faith (10.119). The Portuguese may be the salt of the earth, but they corrupt themselves in their own country.7 Since “this is a dangerous theme” (Mas passo esta matéria perigosa), Tethys decides to move on with her exposition. But, it is exactly this dangerous discussion that is at the heart of Camoens’s poem. The issue here is twofold: what are the Portuguese doing at home to protect the faith in the face of the Protestant Reformation and its adherents and what are they doing in India? While they have usurped the name of missionaries, they preach and live the faith neither at home nor abroad. Quite the contrary. Although Tethys says she will avoid such dangerous discussions, it is clear that Camoens has no intention of doing so himself. In the poem’s conclusion he advises his readers, foremost being the King of Portugal himself, to look beyond this tale of valor to see a lament of defeat. The poem thus ends with the poet’s ruminations on the decline of the heroic temper and the rise of decadence. Camoens exhorts Sebastian to hold in higher regard those who serve overseas and to take counsel only from those who have experience.8

III. The anti-epic In order to publish Os Lusíadas, Camoens had to pass the censor. He had first to resolve the problem of the presence of gods and goddesses in a Christian epic that exalted the Portuguese nation and its mission of faith. Fearful lest the

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mythological references throughout the poem arouse insurmountable objections from the authorities, Camoens inserted an additional stanza in the last canto. This stanza (10.82) declares that the gods are all fabulous and are introduced as fantasy to render the poem harmonious. They are “but creatures of fable, figments of man’s blindness and self-deception” (“fingidos de mortal e cego engano”). They were used in order to “turn agreeable verses” (“para fazer versos deleitosos”). In an entire poem whose plot is grounded in the sphere of the marvelous, this addition has appeared to critics and readers alike as the poet’s attempt to move beyond the realm of myth. From a dramatic point of view, however, the presence of the gods and goddesses was necessary. Their human emotions, especially their jealousy, venality, and partiality, drive the action. As gods, they could be more exaggerated and symbolic than human protagonists. The retention of classical mythology also provides a figurative interpretation of nature. The Portuguese story was nothing if not a tale of victory over nature. In addition, the presence of goddesses and the nymphs breaks up the monotony of what is essentially a male narrative. To an audience familiar with epics in the spirit of Ariosto, exclusively male-dominated action would seem tedious. For this same reason, Camoens added chivalric tales, such as the story of the Twelve of England, Inês de Castro, and the marriage of the mariners and the nymphs. On the level of plot, such scenes lighten the narrative with a romantic overlay. On a symbolic level, episodes such as the nuptials of the sailors and the nymphs figuratively represent Portugal’s mastery over the seas. These chivalric tales also speak of a virtuous Portugal and echo Camoens’s own youth spent at Coimbra. He fed his idyllic vision of Portugal by constructing a poem filled with the tales of knightly exploits culled from classical and European epic literature as well as the historical accounts of the Age of Discovery. The poet was thus able to wed this ideal of Portugal’s greatness to the documentation found in the works of his friends—Gaspar Corrêa’s Lendas da Índia, the scientist Garcia da Orta’s Colloquios dos Simples e Drogas da India, and the historian Diogo do Couto’s Décadas. By interweaving such elements of history, romance, allegory, and the supernatural, Camoens was able to move along what might have seemed a rather monotonous plot of an ocean voyage. In the midst of this variety, however, one episode stands out as unique. This episode, approximately halfway through the poem, has continually baffled readers of the epic and seems to call into question the entire meaning of the poem. It is this scene that merits a closer reading. As the fleet is about to set sail for India on July 8, 1497, a crowd of citizens has congregated on the banks of the Tagus River, to be exact, on the Restelo beach

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near the Belém church in a western suburb of Lisbon. Among the crowd, two women are heard expressing their fears—one a wife, the other a mother. They are surrounded by the crying of the elderly and the children alike. An old man, unnamed like the women, stands out in the crowd. He addresses the men on the ships (nós no mar) and condemns as futile both the lust for power and desire for worldly renown. Craving power and thirsting for fame are follies. Honor is a fraudulent pleasure to which only vapid souls succumb. It causes people to forsake their loved ones. Power and fame are not illustrious and noble goals, but merit the obloquy of infamy that is justly punished with the loss of peace of mind and earthly belongings, including entire realms.9 The old man predicts that the promise of gold mines and kingdoms will bring doom to Portugal and its people.10 Just as Adam was exiled from Paradise, so too the Portuguese, as the true sons of Adam, will be driven by this folly that is disguised as enterprise and valor.11 The old man continues to berate the men. If their minds are set on risking their lives in savage warfare for the sake of Christianity, they should continue to fight the Moor at their gates, in nearby North Africa. The Ishmaelite is at hand, he proclaims; they need not go to the ends of the earth to fight him and, in the process, depopulate and wreck Portugal and squander its resources. By mentioning the pompous titles of “Ruler of India, Persia, Arabia and Ethiopia,” the old man is actually mocking King Manuel who along with his successors had actually assumed these titles.12 He predicts that those who go forth deserve to suffer in Hell and should never be renowned or even remembered. No poet should immortalize them; their names should die with them. The old man then makes allusions to the Argonauts, Prometheus, and Icarus as setting bad examples of excessive boldness. As he continues to harangue them, the Portuguese set sail. The reader might rightfully ask what this accusatory diatribe achieves in a poem whose central idea is the celebration of Gama’s voyage as an immortal heroic feat. Indeed, commentators have been quick13 to note that the old man’s speech voiced legitimate concerns that had been articulated in general assemblies and royal council meetings during the reigns of João II, Manuel, and João III (Moser 1980: 141). In the epic context, where we only hear the voices of the gods and heroes, the old man as the voice of the common man stands out to admonish the nation and even mock the ambition of the king. He is a very un-epic figure placed in the middle of an epic to deliver a serious challenge to those who are about to depart but also to those whose very actions and deeds the poem presumes to celebrate. Does the old man merely reflect the thoughts that were

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bruited about in the political fora of the time or does he offer the epic poet’s deconstruction of the entire epic project? It is worth noting that complaints similar to those of the Old Man of Restelo occur elsewhere in the poetry of Camoens. When the old man condemns the Portuguese military (“Já que à bruta crueza e feridade/Puseste nome esforço e valentia” [4.99]), he echoes sentiments Camoens himself expressed in describing his experiences as a soldier. In 1553, he took part in a particularly shameful massacre. In order to punish the Kingdom of Pimenta for attacking property of the King of Porca, an ally of the Portuguese, the viceroy sent troops to Chembé that butchered everything in sight. Camoens also participated in forays into the Persian Gulf, where the Portuguese were engaged in piracy on Turkish ships. Here too, as a conscript, he was forced to engage in slaughter, not battle. The Portuguese killed outright or fed alive to the sharks the Turkish crews who had surrendered. These experiences were more abominable than Chembé, where at least the Portuguese initially set out against an army in battle array. These subsequent encounters were unmitigated butchery. Camoens was disgusted by his forced service in India and the piratical incursions in the Gulf, where abominations were committed not just against sworn enemies, but also against merchants, women, children, and animals. The speech of the Old Man of Restelo, in contradistinction to the heroic tone of the rest of the epic, offers a forceful statement on the reality of the Portuguese venture. It expresses Camoens’s disgust with his service in India and the piratical incursions in the Gulf that found expression elsewhere in his poetry. Oh brute cruelty and bestiality Do you bestow the names of “valor” and “bravery,” And hold possessed of virtue great Him who despises human life, —Life ever to be prized, For He who gave it shudders at its loss. Hart 1962: 10114

Camoens’s feelings regarding the wanton brutality of the Portuguese in India can be seen in works such as the “Disparates da India” (“Follies in India”) (Camoens 1985: I.95–101), where the poet forcefully condemns their social and political shame. He specifically attacks those who brought his country to ridicule—“the rich, overbearing, pretentious ne’er do well youth, immoral moralists, hypocrites, and merciless greedy judges” (Hart 1962: 124).15 He generally castigates those who have brought dishonor to the proud name of his

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country. Ending each verse with an apt proverb, he skewers Portuguese injustice and corruption in India.16 Camoens also described Portuguese decadence in India in the redondilha “Ao desconcerto do mondo,” where he wrote: Ever in this world saw I But even more— Enough to terrify— Men who live out evil lives Reveling in pleasure and in content. Hart 1962: 11117

However, the inner reality of empire for Camoens was most fully articulated in “Cá neste Babilónia, donde mana:”18 Here is this Babylon, that’s festering forth as much evil as the rest of the earth; Here where true love deprecates his worth, as his powerful mother pollutes everything. Here where evil is refined and good is cursed, and tyranny, not honor, has its way; Here where the monarchy in disarray, blindly attempts to mislead God, and worse. Here in this labyrinth, where Royalty, willingly chooses to succumb before the Gates of Greed and Infamy; Here in this murky chaos and delirium, I carry out my tragic destiny, but never will I forget you, Jerusalem! Camoens 2005: 72–319

Lisbon is Jerusalem (Zion), where Camoens was born and loved, the place from which all virtues and fine qualities sprang, the site where civilization was to be found, and the home from which he was exiled to the Babylon of Portuguese India. Here, as in Camoens’s memories of his youth, Portugal holds an exalted position. Any memories of its cruelty and vice have dimmed with time and distance. Portugal epitomizes what it is to be civilized. However, her unworthy sons have dragged civilization into the dirt, trampling Portugal’s glory in Goa with their greed, false pride, and arrogance. In Portuguese India, the motives of all lusts reign and pure love lies unsought. Evil here waxes worse and all good is spurned. Monarchs seek blind blundering. Tyranny is taken for honor. God is

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cheated by vain words. It is a chaos that the Portuguese have created for themselves. In a longer elegiac version of the same poem, the poet asks how one cannot long for the Zion that is Portugal after having lived in this place and earned one’s daily crusts of bread in such conditions. In this particular poem, Camoens condemned the vice and corruption that was rampant in Portuguese India and gave full vent to his indignation. While Portugal appears as the flower of European nations, Portuguese India is presented as the antithesis of its purported national aspirations. Given the depth of the poet’s disgust with the Portuguese venture in India that he expressed elsewhere in his oeuvre, the warning voiced by the Old Man of Restelo is not incongruous. Camoens’s genius was that he chose to articulate these feelings in the midst of a poem dedicated to singing the praises of the Portuguese endeavor. He used the epic format to write an anti-epic. Whether he set out to write the anti-epic, or the anti-heroic sentiments grew out of the process, is not something we can answer today.20 But what we might call the paradox of an “anti-epic epic” can be seen in the poet’s simultaneous longing for and condemnation of Portugal that resulted from his prolonged personal experience of India and exile. In his epic poem, Camoens dealt with themes treated by other authors examined in these pages. In the episode in the Hindu temple and in his interaction with the Samorin of Calicut, the historical accounts challenge any script that the Portuguese were in control of the situation or even honest and forthright in their dealings with the Indians they encountered. Camoens displaces any sort of criticism of their deportment or motivations by placing blame on the perfidy of the Muslims behind the scenes and the ill-will of the gods. He works within the constraints of the epic format. Epic poetry has for its proper subject the strife of men. Heroic events effect changes in conscience and in social conditions. Epic, however, does not seek to discover the causes or explain why events occur in human terms. It is the will of the gods. Epic does not abrogate the authority of history. Rather, epic sings, in an albeit heroic pitch, the fateful strife for the realization of a great collective ideal. The epic genre forces the poet to problematize the myths of the past or create new myths. If we read the tirade of the Old Man of Restelo as central to the poem’s message, rather than as an exceptional episode, it is quite possible that the poet was already deconstructing the message of his heroic song and, using the tropes provided by classical and medieval literature, developing a new myth. He asks us where, in fact, civilization resides and where do we find barbarism? Who are the monsters? Where are the true Christians?

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In canto 7 of Os Lusíadas, when the Portuguese land in India, we see this new myth of Christian identity foregrounding the narrative. Portugal’s brand of Christianity, its devotion to the faith, is what sets it apart from the other nations of Europe. As the seafarers arrive off the coast, the poet launches into a hymn of praise to the Portuguese whose small numbers are outweighed by their devotion to the Mother Church and their bravery. The infidels have not forsaken their aggressive designs against the true faith. It is just that now Europe fails to rise in its defense. Were it not for the Portuguese, a small portion of God’s fold, the Church would be lost. The headstrong Germans who have already led a revolt against Catholicism, the misguided English, and the unworthy French have done little compared to the Portuguese.21 Clearly, for Camoens, western Christians are no longer defined vis-à-vis their fictitious Indian counterparts, but in relation to each other. Nevertheless, to be a Portuguese Christian in the Age of Discovery is still bound up with the Indian venture. It is ultimately through the conquest of India that the Portuguese distinguish themselves from lesser European Christians. India presents the means by which the Portuguese can prove their faith. What has changed is that the myths of Christians and pagan others have shifted to form new myths, that of the fictive and ideal Portuguese Christians and those who have lost their valor.22 In Os Lusíadas, this new myth allowed the Portuguese to assert a cohesive social identity and declare their cultural superiority. The social identity activated by this myth affected corollary sentiments of estrangement both from “other” European Christians and those Portuguese in India who had strayed from their heroic and historic mission. As noted, canto 10 presents the nymph Tethys revealing to Gama the structure of the universe. To relieve the endless catalogue of future Portuguese exploits, Camoens inserts into the narrative a long excursus on St. Thomas’s miracles and martyrdom. His example serves as a reproach to all indolent would-be missionaries. Here, the legend of the Christian saint stands in contrast to the final exposition of Gama’s exploits. The Portuguese native virtues are seen to have wilted due to prosperity. The people at home no longer realize at what cost their empire has been built. This is the inner reality of empire of which Camoens foreshadowed in the harangue of the Old Man of Restelo. By the time Camoens completed Os Lusíadas, the epic days were over. The poem concludes with a prophetic vision singing the praise of the Portuguese empire in India, but already hinting at its demise. Although the Portuguese achievement is presented as part of a providential design to win the world for the faith and Camoens presents it as part of God’s purpose for the universe as a

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whole, canto 10 clearly shows how the Portuguese fight for the faith is inexorably bound to the spiritual concerns of Europe. Camoens’s need for a new myth suggests that certain moral values are bankrupt and that the forces of evil and darkness will, in fact, prevail. The myth of the Christian ideal, which in the fifteenth century had been displaced to India, experienced a transformation by the mid-sixteenth century. The binary Christian ideal/pagan monster is now relocated within the imperial subject. India, once the site of a Christian utopia, has become the stage for European dishonor and corruption. The monsters absent from Columbus’s letter are thus reinscribed in the work of Camoens. These monsters are no longer the other, but the Portuguese self, spawned not on the edges of the world, but on the banks of the Tagus. Virtue will now shift to what was previously thought as monstrous.

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7

There is No There Anymore: The Subaltern Speaks to Pietro della Valle

The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.1 American Civil War Confederate General Richard Ewell The story of Camoens floating down the Mekong River after his shipwreck clutching onto a piece of debris with one hand and holding aloft in his other hand the manuscript of Os Lusíadas stands out as an iconic image of the poet as hero sacrificing life and limb in pursuit of his art. The image also encapsulates the poet who, through his song, creates the nation. Just as Aeneas carried his father back to Italy to begin its history, so too Camoens carried a narrative of Portuguese valor back home. The symbolism here is the movement beyond the limits of home (or what would become home) to the other and then the return. This Odysseus paradigm, as Levinas well observed, bears an ethical component: through this displacement, identity is forged. Constructing an identity, whether it be personal or national, often necessitates bearing an excessive burden. One chooses which burdens of the past one is willing to carry in order to journey into (and ensure) the future. Such is the case in our final episode of encounter examined in these pages, Pietro della Valle’s seventeenth-century journey to India in the company of his dead wife. Della Valle was born in Rome in 1586 to an honorable family who counted two cardinals among their ranks.2 Like Camoens, della Valle’s travels had their origin in the suicidal despair he experienced over a failed love affair that had lasted more than a decade. In his sorrow, he fled to Naples where he became a pilgrim. In 1614, he decided to go to the East. He visited Constantinople, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Holy Land. In 1616, he married Mani Gioeridaya, a Nestorian Christian who knew both Turkish and Arabic. Together, they traveled to Persia in order to serve in an expedition led by Shah Abbas against the Turks. Della Valle greatly admired his wife’s bravery. He loved her deeply and was 127

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grief-stricken when she died in 1622 at Ormuz from a fever contracted after a miscarriage. They had been married only six years and she was twenty-three years old at the time of her death. Della Valle had his wife’s body embalmed. He then placed it in a large leather trunk, hiding it under clothing. He carried her remains with him for the next five years. Even in an era before baggage restrictions, this was no mean task and it often involved bribing ship captains along the route. Della Valle was accompanied on these journeys by a young Georgian girl, Maria Tinatin di Ziba, an orphan whom his late wife had taken under her protection.3 Together, all three traveled to India, arriving in Surat in 1623. In India, della Valle visited Cambay, Ahmadabad, Calicut, and Goa before returning to Italy and finally burying his wife in the family vault in the Ara Coeli church in Rome. A Jesuit, P.S. Sgambati, wrote a Latin epigram to mark the event. Aeneas’ son! Of old Albanus’ line the heir! How well dost thou repeat thy father’s fame! From Asia he his aged sire did bear, From Asia too with thee thy lov’d wife came. In both alike true constancy is found, But thine, O Valle’s son! We greater see, He left his father in Sicilian ground, Thou bring’st to Rome the dead wife’s bones with thee. della Valle 1892: xlvii4

This poem praises della Valle for his constancy, claiming that his devotion makes him a hero on a par with Aeneas.5 In fact, the Jesuit poet quips, della Valle is superior to Aeneas who “left his father in Sicilian ground” whereas della Valle brought Mani all the way back to Rome, ennobling the poor woman, as it were, by entombing her in a princely sepulcher. After giving his wife a proper burial, della Valle then married the Georgian girl, whose charge he had assumed and who had, by now, reached maturity. She would bear him fourteen sons. Much as in the case of Camoens, political misfortune plagued della Valle at home. Upon his return from India, he was initially well received by Pope Urban VIII, becoming his honorary chamberlain. However, this welcome did not last long. One of the Pope’s servants accosted della Valle’s Indian servant in the streets and della Valle stabbed him to death in the Pope’s presence. In punishment, della Valle was banished to Naples, but his exile was commuted upon the intercession of Cardinal Barberini. For the remainder of his life, della Valle lived in Rome

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with his family until his death in 1652. Shortly thereafter, his wife and their numerous brood were themselves exiled because they were deemed too “turbulent” to remain in Rome unsupervised. They were forced to take up residence in Urbino. Clearly the Roman elite never really accepted della Valle’s barbaric “Asian” family. His travel account to the East, however, met with a considerably more favorable reception. Consisting of a series of fifty-four letters recounting his voyage through Persia, Turkey, and India, the first of three volumes was published in 1658 with the subsequent volumes appearing in print shortly thereafter. In addition to producing what some historians deem one of the earliest and substantive ethnographies of India, della Valle also provided a rich and sophisticated contemporary record on caste and religion, with special attention paid to the Portuguese presence in India. In order to follow della Valle’s commentary, let us recall the extent to which the colonization of Brazil had sapped Portugal’s resources. Della Valle himself drew attention to the shortage of manpower in India, the low survival rate of European women, and the infertility of those who did survive (della Valle 1892: 1.24). European orphans were regularly sent to India to replenish the European stock (1.25), but their numbers were not sufficient. We know from other testimony that miscegenation with the native population was a fairly common occurrence. We have also seen how pervasive racial mixing with natives as well as with their own lower classes had a negative psychological effect on the Portuguese in India, ultimately undermining the success of the Padroado and Jesuit missionary initiatives. Portugal had been weakened in its ability to administer its holdings in India after its union with the Spanish crown in 1579 and its ensuing involvement in Spain’s war with the Dutch, who arrived on the subcontinent in 1595. In 1603, the Dutch blockaded Goa but were forced back. By 1640, however, they wrested all the ports and forts from the Portuguese. Soon afterward, they forced the Portuguese out of Ceylon, Malacca, and the Moluccas. Clearly the Portuguese were in decline and the Dutch ascendant. Della Valle’s travel narrative reflected this political situation. He held the Dutch in high regard, consistently portraying them as very courteous and diplomatic (1.26), traits that he felt were sorely lacking in the Portuguese. He also noted that the Dutch succeeded so well because they accepted miscegenation better than the Portuguese, marrying at will Indians, Javanese, Armenians, and Syrians and subsequently converting them to Christianity. In 1640, there were approximately 190,000 inhabitants in Goa, mostly slaves who, according to della Valle, were black, unlearned, and mostly naked (della Valle 1892: 1.157). There were not many Portuguese to rule over them and those

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that remained were no longer rich, due to the incursions of the Dutch and the English on the seas. Della Valle, like Camoens, acknowledged the corruption of the Portuguese in India whom he felt had given themselves over to decadence and outer splendor. They exploited a poor country. Ostentatious in displaying their wealth, they were exceedingly proud. Della Valle claimed that the Portuguese pretended to be gentlemen, but actually lived wretched lives, choosing to beg rather than do menial labor. In fact, they found all work to be beneath them. In this respect, they differed from other Europeans whom, della Valle noted, would be ashamed to act accordingly. Just as the Portuguese only masqueraded at being gentlemen, so too they only pretended to be soldiers, since they were married and without sword (1.158). Della Valle was amused by what he perceived as the inauthenticity and the superficiality of the Portuguese. He noted how “nobodies” became fidalgos simply by dressing well and calling each other terms of honor. In Goa, he claimed, status was confirmed by one’s costume and the preferred fabric became silk. Even Portuguese merchants and mechanics dressed like Amorati or dandies. Simply being Portuguese sufficed them to value themselves as much as kings and even more (della Valle 1892: 1.158). Due to their vanity and arrogance, the Portuguese no longer inspired confidence. Had it not been for their cruelty, they could have easily gained the love of all India. But they no longer had any allies (1.179) because they were heedless and acted out of fatal blindness (1.197). Della Valle noted that, unlike well-bred Italians, the Portuguese were without curiosity (1.259), order, discipline, and good government (1.390). This negative assessment of the Portuguese in India was shared by other contemporary European travelers to India such as François Pyrard de Laval. This French traveler commented on the transformation of dignity in the Portuguese officials, sailors, and soldiers who, upon passing the Cape of Good Hope, threw the symbols of their former status, such as spoons, into the sea and abandoned all their former manners and customs. Feeling themselves freed from their past, these voyagers ennobled each other, demanding respect due to gentlemen from their peers as well as the native population.6 This Portuguese need to manipulate status by altering appearance and exaggerating their importance may have had its roots in the particular racial challenges they faced in India. We know from historical records, such as Pombal’s edicts and the Jesuit summaries, that the Portuguese in India not only feared diluting their bloodline by miscegenation, but also realized that the process of colonization brought with it the breakdown of class and social distinctions among the colonizers themselves. These two factors engendered an acute crisis of identity among the Portuguese that

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manifested itself in the exaggerated representation of themselves as high-class and valiant, even as their behavior and lifestyle in Goa became increasingly decadent and inauthentic. It was this Portuguese masquerade of nobility and valor that Camoens and della Valle found so contemptible. For Camoens, Portuguese Goa was the Babylon he contrasted to the Zion of his youth experienced as a student in Coimbra. For della Valle, the Portuguese in India were weak and dissolute. He contrasted them to the nobility and authenticity he discovered among the Indians. Compared to his negative assessment of the Portuguese, della Valle had a rather high opinion of the natives he encountered. Della Valle’s ethnographic descriptions of India focused on key points of comparison to life in Europe. India was a country governed by just rulers (della Valle 1892: 1.42). Its inhabitants were very clean (1.87) and its women were modest (1.46).7 Like other travelers examined in this volume, della Valle was particularly interested in social formation. He identified the role played by brahmins (1.75) and untouchables in Indian society (1.74, 80, 113), described how caste worked, and explained its philosophical basis (1.77–8). Hindus were tolerant of other religions, but fearful of defilement from low-castes (1.81). This same fear of pollution made them avoid adultery, sodomy, remarriage, and divorce (1.82–3). Della Valle also felt that the Hindus were very compassionate toward all living things; the greatest sin for a Hindu was to shed blood (della Valle 1892: 1.86). To emphasize their respect for sentient life, della Valle described a hospital they founded to care for birds (1.67). He drew his reader’s attention to the fact that within this animal hospital there was a place especially set aside for sick mice (1.68). In fact, there were all sorts of animal hospitals in India. In one, there was a Muslim thief whose hands had been cut off in punishment for stealing. Out of compassion, the Hindus kept him there so that he might have a chance at survival. As opposed to Muslims, Hindus were compassionate and sought to save animals from slaughter (1.70). They did not eat living things (1.86). Their respect for life stemmed from their philosophy. Like the followers of Pythagorus, Hindus believed in the transmigration and immortality of the soul (1.76–7). Their holy men might look like devils because they had matted hair and were covered with ash, but they were, in fact, philosophers who spent their life contemplating death (1.99–101). Although generally impressed with Hinduism, there was one aspect of the religion that della Valle found depraved: the behavior of the holy men who indulged in debauchery (della Valle 1892: 1.105). He also felt that Hinduism’s foundational myths were ridiculous (1.73). However, ever in the comparatist

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spirit, he qualified his comments with the reminder that the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had similar ridiculous stories (1.74). The way in which della Valle framed his commentary is significant. When he visited, for example, the bird hospital, he was not there just to observe superstition, but to contextualize and try to understand Indian religion and Indians themselves. This interest in Indians and his high regard for them was most pronounced in his portraits of women, such as the Queen of Olala8 and the satī Giaccamà. Della Valle depicted these two Indian women as romantic and honorable individuals. He respected their bravery and intelligence. In particular, his encounter with the more emblematic of these two figures, the satī Giaccamà, is of particular interest. The term satī (anglicized as “suttee”) denotes both the act of self-immolation and the woman who performs it. This term derives from the Sanskrit verb SAT, signifying “to be.” So the satī is a self-actualized, real, or authentic woman. Although supposedly sanctioned by the oldest Vedic scriptures, the ritual burning of wives after the deaths of their husbands was a custom that came into practice for very pragmatic reasons. Regardless of its religious rationale, the practice of satī was an effective means of ridding the population of a woman who no longer served any purpose. A widow is a burden to the social unit. She is no longer needed or wanted. She is extraneous. She is also a source of pollution and, if young, of sexual temptation. A widow’s self-immolation, more than any other Indian trope, has engaged the western imagination since antiquity and there is ample reference to this figure in early travel narratives. Her fate outraged western sensibilities and piqued the traveler’s curiosity regarding the grotesque and barbarian. However, the satī’s existence also stimulated European nostalgia for lost innocence. One of the earliest travelers to comment on the ritual was Hieronimo di Santo Stefano (1499), who presented the satī’s sacrifice as a common practice among Indian wives (Major 1957: part 4.4–6). Varthema also related in great detail the celebration surrounding the satī—her ritual clothing, the feast, the music, the dancing, and the act of immolation itself. Varthema commented that the women were often drugged into submission by priests who were “clothed like devils” and coerced into killing themselves (Varthema 1963: 207). In disgust, Varthema noted that the fire was often accelerated by onlookers adding balls of pitch. Conti too referred to self-immolation. He viewed it as a means whereby wives made themselves acceptable to their husbands. Conti also placed blame for the practice on brahmin priests, who exhorted the women to hold life in contempt. These same priests, he noted, were even capable of throwing a woman into the flames if her courage failed (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 28). Conti romanticized

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the satī’s martyrdom by describing it as a passionate embrace that she bestowed on her husband. Although he imbued the satī’s act with sexual overtones, Conti, like his compatriot Varthema, still condemned it as cruel torture. Unlike the Italians, our Portuguese travelers ignored the erotic potential and the barbarism of the satī’s act.9 They tended to focus solely on the issue of honor. This should not surprise us, since from the beginning the Portuguese encounter with India was caught up in defining the terms of honor. Pires noted that only honorable wives became satīs (Pires 1967: 39). Although the brahmin officiates were known to coerce the women (Pires 1967: 52), he claimed, some wives did manage to escape, recoiling before the flames. Their refusal to become satīs had, however, dire consequences; they were forced to live the remainder of their lives as temple prostitutes (Pires 1967: 59). Barbosa also pointed to the close association between satī and honor, and added that this sacrifice allowed women of lesser “value” and social standing to upgrade themselves (Barbosa 1918: 92). While alive, husbands owed respect to their wives, since they were potentially capable of such devotion. European women, he opined, should learn from the satī’s act and show greater respect for their husbands. All these accounts differ significantly from della Valle’s depiction of satī. Della Valle first meets the satī Giaccamà as she is making a farewell procession on horseback. Her relatives are carrying an umbrella over her head as a sign of honor. She is about thirty, with a very brown or almost black complexion. She has a good aspect, is tall, well-shaped and has good proportions. Giaccamà is calm and not tearful. She says that she is grieving for her husband and not thinking about herself. Della Valle comments that, while the act of selfimmolation is a cruel and barbarous custom, it does exhibit generosity and virtue on the widow’s part. For this reason, he finds her worthy of praise. He even notes that he might attend the immolation in order to honor Giaccamà with his presence. He wishes to show compassion for what he takes to be an act of great conjugal fidelity and love (della Valle 1892: 2.266). Della Valle’s next encounter with the satī occurs when he learns that the event is imminent. He arranges to go and visit her. Giaccamà is sitting in her yard with drums beating around her. She is dressed in white, bedecked with jewels and crowned with flowers. It is as though she is in nuptial dress, laughing and talking with family and friends (della Valle 1892: 2.273). Della Valle introduces himself as someone from far away. He tells Giaccamà that he had heard that women perform this rite and has come to see her so he could relate the event to people in his own country. Her entourage replies that they are pleased that he has come and Giaccamà herself approaches to speak with him. She talks to him about her

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husband who was a drummer. Della Valle is surprised that she is not of a higher social standing and wonders if such heroic actions are frequent or rare among the low classes. He also asks her to talk about herself and describe her motivations. Giaccamà replies that nineteen days have passed since her husband’s death. He had other wives, two to be precise, but with the excuse that they have children, they are not willing to die. Giaccamà says that she herself has a young son and daughter. But motherhood does not deter her from her resolve. Della Valle begs her to do as the other wives, rather than abandon children at such a young age. She responds that they will be well taken care of by her uncle and the other two wives (della Valle 1892: 2.275). He tries again to dissuade her for the sake of her children, but to no avail. She is cheerful and answers him that she does not fear death. She says that she wants to be a satī and repeats that she is not being coerced. When he asks if women are sometimes forced, he is told that while coercion is not customary, it sometimes occurs in the higher classes, especially if the widow is young, beautiful, and in danger of remarrying, an act that Hindus find ignominious. Giaccamà once again claims that she acts of her own free will in order to bring honor to her relatives. She explains that wearing jewelry is a sign of her rejoicing at the prospect of joining her husband. However, she also remarks that a widow’s existence is not comfortable. They are treated as outcastes by the family. Those who do not become satīs remain in continual sadness and lamentation, forced into perpetual mourning (2.276). Giaccamà thanks della Valle for his visit and is grateful that he will document the act and thus carry her fame abroad. She offers to visit him before the immolation and asks him for a token gift (such as fuel for her fire). Della Valle tells her he will be proud to receive her, but demurs from contributing firewood to the actual event. Her death displeases him and he would gladly dissuade her from it. Since he cannot change her mind, he promises to give her the gift of immortality with his pen. He then sadly takes his leave of Giaccamà, cursing that India is so unmerciful toward its women (2.276). This encounter, as della Valle described it, is strikingly poignant and seemingly sincere. What is unique about della Valle’s interaction with the satī Giaccamà is that, perhaps, for the first time in western literature, we are not presented with the European observer’s description of an Indian religious ritual, but with the participant’s own thoughts and words. This satī is not some pathetic victim of Indian barbarism and Hindu depravity, she is, to borrow from American psychobabble, her own woman. She explains that she will immolate herself of her own free will because she loved her husband and wants to join him in death. She also explains that she wants to accrue honor to herself and her children. When della Valle comments that he has heard that some women have been forced against

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their will if their courage fails them, she corrects him, reiterating that selfimmolation is not the norm and is usually a conscious decision. As a result of this encounter, della Valle comes to view the satī as the incarnation of all that he finds noble and honorable in Indians—their courage, valor, constancy, and honesty. From this interaction, he fashions the satī as a figure of ultimate virtue. She fulfills his romantic ideal of the brave warrior woman that he so admired in his deceased wife. What sets della Valle’s reading of the satī apart from other accounts is the fact that, rather than use her as a prop with which to condemn India and Hindu superstitions, the ritual becomes the occasion for actual engagement and dialogue with the other. Moreover, Giaccamà gives the lie to the great myth of postcolonial theory—the muteness of the colonized female subject. Here we have an early instance of a subaltern woman speaking for herself. As an ethnographer, della Valle records the satī Giaccamà’s voice. But, della Valle was not just an early anthropologist, he was also a poet. As such, he found Giaccamà so brave, selfless, and honorable that his muse could not forebear inspiring him. Rather than contribute fuel for her fire, he promises to write a poem in her honor. Until recently, it was thought that this poetry did not exist or had been lost. Joan-Pau Rubiés has, however, discovered in the Vatican Library three sonnets written by della Valle in honor of the satī of Ikkari.10 In Ikkeri, the city of the Hindu prince Venktapa Narika, a woman burned herself alive because of the death of her husband In India, there is a town called Ikerì There, once her husband died, Giaccamà, a Teleganan From the district of Malars Kini, Voluntarily put an end to her life Because she did not want to dwell here any longer And preferred to go to her husband in the afterlife. Where she thought she would find him. She burned herself, as it was their custom, Shortly after her spouse passed away and was burnt Without him, she did not want to live. O might this love worthy of fame at least Be celebrated in this world, Since her infidel soul cannot ascend to heaven.

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To the Same Woman O Giaccamà, if you had been as unfaithful to your spouse As you had been to God, You would never have burnt yourself With the goal of preserving another’s faith which is ultimately cruel to you. O Giaccamà, if you had shown yourself as faithful to God As you were to your spouse You would have saved your life, Even if it were filled with perpetual tears and lamentations. [Giaccamà:] I act in this way and it is the holy law That has come down from heaven That teaches me to do so. It is the only law in the world worthy of being observed. [Della Valle:] I wish I could follow those who ascended to Paradise But in order to prevent my soul from being unworthy of it, I wait until the One who will take it, calls me. [Della Valle:] I do not think, Giaccamà that the one Who lives a long life in perpetual pain suffers less Than the one who dies, by putting an end to her suffering And, by burning her torment, stops the pain. A life full of anguish, full of misery, Never forgetting the lost love Is worse than death and one has a hard heart Who leads such a life in such a state for many years. It is no greater a sign of faith or constancy To burn onself than to live and Suffer a continuous and prolonged fire. Because the soul and the heart are languishing, Consumed with greater torment wondering How much longer one must wait for an end.

These poems speak of Giaccamà’s devotion and nobility. Rather than viewing the satī through a Eurocentric lens, della Valle individualizes her, reports her thoughts and feelings in her own words, and honors her by name—Giaccamà, the Telegu satī of Ikkeri. In addition to her name, she has a home (Malars Kini).

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She is racially identified as a Teleganan, an identity strengthened by the language she speaks. Della Valle emphasizes the positive virtue of love, constancy, and fidelity as they can possibly be expressed in a foreign context. In his description of the satī, della Valle celebrated her virtue. It was all the more noticeable since he placed it in a non-Christian context. In each of these three poems, the satī is presented as faithful, devoted, and constant. She emphasizes her willingness to sacrifice herself in order to be reunited with her husband. It was the custom of her people to be burned upon death. She did not want to live without her husband. Her faith in both her God and her husband is absolute. By choosing to commit satī, she becomes worthy of fame. In each sonnet, her faithfulness is contrasted to the falsity of her religion. Orthodox Hinduism is to blame here, not the faith of the individual believer. The believer is true to her religion; her religion is not true to her. Della Valle even questions if such a religion can rightfully be hers, if it so discounts her as an individual. Giaccamà acknowledges the suffering awaiting her as a widow. She does not want to live “con perpetue lagrime e querele” or to live for a long time “in perpetuo dolore.” She chooses the path of the satī rather than suffer alive the continous and prolonged flames (“soffrir vivendo un’incendio continuo et prolongato”) of sadness. Della Valle draws a parallel between the satī’s feelings and his own sadness at the losses of his first love and later his spouse, both of whom he met with Christian and Stoic resignation. However, this last point is significant. Della Valle’s encounter with Giaccamà results in his questioning her and trying to dissuade her from self-immolation. As a result of this encounter, he also interrogates his own actions and grief. She has a choice. His own religion offered him no such alternative. He concludes that self-sacrifice and endurance are commensurate torments. One comes to an end quickly; the other lasts a lifetime. Della Valle identifies with Giaccamà and understands her. He admires her constancy and courage. In recognizing her bravery, he acknowledges his own. His sympathy, however, resides more in his esteem for her exercise of freedom and will (Rubiés 2000: 367). It is ultimately her self-determinism that della Valle celebrates in these poems. She speaks to him and, through her action and free will, della Valle gains insight into his own existence. In his encounter with the satī, della Valle did not seek to explain away difference. He did not, as all previous commentators had done, describe the ritual in order to justify Christian and European superiority. Rather, in this encounter with the other, he made a claim for spiritual equality in a world of cultural differences (Rubiés 2000: 368). With this portrait of Giaccamà, della Valle elaborated notions of platonic and chivalric love as the basis for a transcultural synthesis. The same world-view that allowed him to marry two eastern

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women under Catholic patronage (and thus forging a symbolic union of East and West) expressed itself here in his compassion and respect for the satī. As a cultured humanist, he was convinced that he could encounter in India rational signification and profound truth behind what might, at first glance, appear barbaric (Mitter 1977: 28–9). No wonder he was so sympathetic to the widow Giaccamà. He found in her the antidote to the false pride and fake sense of honor that he so despised among the Portuguese in India. While they had resorted to subterfuge to garner respect, she sought it through action. Throughout their encounters with India, the European travelers we have examined in these pages have dissimulated or disguised themselves. They threw off their former selves as easily as they tossed their spoons into the Indian Ocean. They falsified and abjured their religion. They claimed alternate nationalities. They pretended to be men of faith, but in reality they were mere bureaucrats. They feigned being heroes, when they were, in fact, pirates and brigands. The Portuguese only pretended to be soldiers, while Giaccamà was a satī, someone true to herself. Here was a woman who was so valiant and so devoted to her husband that she would burn herself alive to be with him in the afterlife. Of course, what she did was crazy. But it was ultimately no crazier than della Valle carrying his wife’s embalmed corpse across India for five years. This rather tardive meeting between della Valle and Giaccamà can tell us much about the possibility of encounter. In the first place, speech is possible because, on a fundamental level, della Valle saw the non-separation of the self and the other; he saw himself in the other. Or rather, his interaction with the satī allows him to discover himself. Giaccamà was never an absolute alien because he could relate to her by analogy. Their encounter and the resultant texts (travel account and poems) function as a mirror with which the traveler/poet interrogates his own identity. But, in this meeting of della Valle and Giaccamà, I would not say (along with Certeau) that the other was only a translation of the European self. Instead, the retrieval of her identity needed to be repeated (reconfigured, to use Ricoeur’s terminology) in narrative. It is through della Valle’s creation of a narrative that the trace of the other (Giaccamà) is rescued from the injustice of non-existence. In other words, it needed to be marked, organized, and clarified in della Valle’s travel account and poetry. Moreover, through his conversation with the satī, the telling of Giaccamà’s tale, and the transformation of this encounter into text, what had been the previous inchoate storms of della Valle’s own grief were thus rendered intelligible. It was necessary for him to achieve distance from his own personal events of grief through the translation of the satī’s sentiments into

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narrative. It was through this hermeneutic act that something as foreign to a seventeenth-century Roman as the act of throwing oneself onto a pyre becomes something that he can envision and even find familiar. In relating the satī’s commentary, della Valle is not reducing her experience to his own; he is not reducing the other to the same, but relating to her dialectically. He thus is able to hear her and is commanded to responsibility. Here the responsibility is not so much his refusal to offer her a gift of fuel and more his offer to give her fame (the ultimate lure of satī and the tangible benefit accruing to her children) in the form of translating and making known her utterances. Theirs is a moral dialogue and, as such, presupposes communication and understanding of generalized interests. Levinas would maintain that the other should not enter our horizon of subjectivity because doing so would suggest that we accept the assimilation of the other and its subsequent reduction. However, Levinas would also claim that the shock of the other’s face derails any such intentionality. Giaccamà’s face prompted della Valle to write. In Levinas’s formulation of such an event, della Valle felt himself to be elected or chosen by this encounter. He could only respond with a donation, his poems. We have seen how the various encounters examined in these pages were stuck in the ideology of their political projects and caught up in their utopian dreams. In this respect, the encounter between della Valle and Giaccamà can teach us, perhaps, one final and very significant lesson. The problem is not that we all carry around too much baggage, but that we do not realize what can be left behind. European Latinity bore the weight of its fear of dissolution. Italian voyagers carried the burden of their licentious wit. The Portuguese bore with them always their fragile identity. Camoens carried far and wide his memories of the golden age of his Portuguese youth. Della Valle literally transported his dead wife. These European Christians were burdened with their deficient faith. All these men should really have had the sense (and courage) to repack their physical and psychological luggage before they set sail. Or maybe the journey itself was contrived to avoid this very task. In any case, they should have been more like the satī Giaccamà who put on her best dress and jewelry. Weighed down by the excess baggage that was her widowed self, she threw it all into the fire in order for the real journey to begin. Perhaps, we as readers should follow her example, jettison those theoretical structures that too often weigh us down, and give ourselves over to hermeneutical play.

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Conclusion We began our investigation by delineating the two standard hermeneutical approaches that have informed literary criticism in recent years. The hermeneutics of belief (or the hermeneutical-consciousness approach) seeks to retrieve past consciousness and render the past contemporaneous with present modes of comprehension. According to Gadamer’s understanding of interpretation, one makes the alien one’s own or recognizes in the other one’s genuine home. The hermeneutics of belief views selfhood as dialogic. One seeks in the other some fusion of horizons. For Ricoeur, this recognition is attained through the repetition found in narrative. But, the same capacity for narrative to make sense of human experience also allows it to create distortions. The realization that one must be skeptical of the distortions inherent in narrative informs the second hermeneutical strategy, so that the critical-consciousness approach devolves into the hermeneutics of suspicion that sees all human communication as distorted by ideology. The recognition of these two strategies, and the acceptance of the notion that power and knowledge are entwined, structure the western encounters with the Indian other examined in these pages. The title of this book (The Hermeneutics of Suspicion) makes reference to a number of the encounters investigated here. But, as I hope to have shown, the hermeneutics of belief can also figure into discussion. Sometimes the hermeneutical event succeeds: these encounters are dialogic. But, then again, sometimes it fails. Yet, even these “failed” hermeneutical exchanges can be instructive. We initiated our investigation by outlining classical and modern philosophical visions of the other. Plato saw the self mixing with the other in order to make speech possible and lead us to being able to distinguish between the true and the false. This Platonic vision of heterology continues to function in classical hermeneutics, where the other is seen as not truly other, but as a reflection of the self. We appropriate the other, we view it by analogy, and it becomes an alter ego. In this process, the other is mediated and, thereby, reduced. It functions as a duplication of the same or, as subsequent existentialists might caution, an object of our bad faith and inauthenticity. Such distortions of the other exist to compensate the (European) self and are codified as a subterfuge to consolidate power. In this study, I have sought to reassess this psychodynamics of 141

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appropriation. Following the hermeneutical-consciousness approach, I have taken as given the possibility of a recovered message. Acknowledging the hermeneutics of suspicion, I have sought to uncover ideological discourse within these narratives that seek to solidify the imposition of power between the self and the Indian other. Whether Levinas’s paradigm of journey, Ricoeur’s hermeneutic circle or Certeau’s return to the same, these theoretical models have helped us unravel what is occurring in these texts. In these pages, we have seen how preconceptions (monsters and Christians) are repeated and become touchstones for all subsequent discussions. They function as fetishes and take on a life of their own, providing the framework through which the Indian is to be viewed. Already in classical western and Sanskrit literature, we find this doubling of identities. The Indian other can represent both an ideal and its inversion. Very early in the literature this Indian other acts as a model for the self, but only when it can be seen as contained. When it eludes us, it quickly becomes a projection of anxiety and a metaphor for the fragmented self. We have also seen how the Indian other dwells at the interstices between civilization and barbarism, utopia and dystopia, Chrisitanity and paganism, the human and the monstrous. It resides there to help us understand the complexity of the self. As we moved into the medieval period, we witnessed how the Aristotelian categories of the Christian self and the monstrous Indian other remained largely in place. But this tradition was not all that powerful. Each performance required repetition and, with each iteration, the fragile classifications shifted, at times upholding the traditional binary and sometimes subverting it. As India became a “discovered” geographical space and the Indian monsters could not be found, we saw a movement away from the exploration of physical difference to an exploration of moral depravity. Here, particularly in the narratives of Columbus’s and Gama’s voyages, the absence of the Indian monster represented an unwelcome irruption of reality that necessitated a repackaging of the Indian heathen/monstrous other as proto-Christians. Here too, with the loss of power that this newly “discovered” reality entailed, the narratives’ ability to distort and dissimulate became essential. However, once the merchants and the missionaries established themselves in India, the monsters had to disappear and the Christians had to be created (or brought in line with orthodoxy). But, when the Christianizing process met with obstacles, the monster resurfaced in other forms—the return of repressed Portuguese and Italian fears of racial degeneration. In short, even in their absence, the binary Christian/monster continued to operate to the point where, in Camoens, the Portuguese Christian becomes the monster, and

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then, in della Valle, the sacrificed Hindu widow comes to incarnate true Christian wifely virtue. All these encounters deal with disguise. All the texts examined interrogate the self in their quests for the other. In this manner, they offer instances of dialogue, some fusion of horizons and even something akin to Levinas’s notion of the gift. We also acknowledge how the myths examined in these pages (utopia/dystopia, civilization/barbarism, self/other) initiated a circle of interpretations that becomes a reliable mode of knowing to the degree that they resist contradictory evidence. Calcified as idées fixes, they inhibit hermeneutic openness and prevent the travelers’ faulty assumptions from being corrected or refined. Prester John lives on for centuries. Hindu temples, replete with wrathful deities, must be churches. Monsters are always just one island away. The important question is not why certain unproductive preconceptions exist, but rather why they persist even after individuals are confronted with information that would logically induce them to adjust and recalibrate their views. Their reticence might have something to do with the very human need to make order out of chaos and to do so through narrative. Once order has been achieved, we are loath to “reorder” it or recalibrate. Once we “discover” a way to read a situation, we tend to keep with it. In this regard, the narratives of the travelers encountered in these pages are not so very different from our own attempts to bring order to our lives. To what degree are their interpretations in these narratives any different from our interpretations as readers? Like the traveler who, believing in the existence of Indian Christians and monsters, sees them in every situation, so too we, as readers, impose our “prejudices” (ideological or theoretical) on all and sundry texts, regardless of their applicability. Like the travelers, we too tend not to question the viability of our reading of given situations/texts. Like these voyagers, our misreadings can also stem from a political will. What distinguishes us as literary scholars from these Renaissance travelers are our respective myths. The travelers to India were looking for Christians and monsters. What are we seeking? For several years now, engagement and resistance have functioned as the grand mu ˆ thoi of theory and pedagogy. Safely ensconced in their ivory towers, scholars claim to be connected to real-world struggles. They espouse solidarity with the disenfranchised and even presume to partake of the suffering of others by proxy. Academic pseudo-activism provides an ideal antidote to the nombrilisme that has always been an occupational hazard in our profession. However, institutional and academic gestures of engagement and resistance have become so radically removed from any praxis in the real world that they might

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appear for today’s intellectuals as gratifying as the Christians and monsters were to medieval and Renaissance travelers. Instead of fighting Moors and sciopods, we now battle the imperialism of the lógos. Once the lógos has been vanquished, we can then take on any number of hegemonies—sexism, colonialism, postcolonialism, imperialism, post-imperialism, globalism, etc. We can even claim universal engagement. While speaking from our own privileged position, we can claim to “speak for” others, without even learning their languages. It suffices to occupy the proper space and evoke the appropriate power structure against which we and/or the text struggle. Contrary to this prevailing critical stance, I have always felt that claiming to battle some hegemonic underpinning of a text, while seemingly noble, usually does not effect change. It does not fully exhaust the sociological dynamics, discursive practices, religious aims, and aesthetic projects of intellectual communities.1 Moreover, I suspect that those people who are most concerned with the mechanisms of power are either enthralled by it or desperately seeking to possess it themselves. Let me repeat that I come to the study of literature through the study of myth. So, from the onset, I was wary of the myths that inform the work of scholars and the politics of theoretical projects. Indeed, what have all these investigations of power in the last thirty years brought us, if not a consolidation and reification of the (often western/western-based) reader/critic in lieu of the (often marginalized) text and a resultant disavowal of any transcendent reality beyond ourselves as cosmopolitan readers? Years from now, when students of literature study the history of poststructuralist criticism, will its quests and battles not appear as self-referential and wish-fulfilling as those of the travelers examined in these pages? The problem with our travel accounts (and, perhaps, with literary theory also) is that the seekers after truth do not take seriously the prejudices with which they initiated their quests. Theoretical models are just that—models, not infallible templates onto which truth is engraved. Gadamer encouraged us to avow our Vorurteile (prejudices) as the path into interpretation. In his early work, Ricoeur called upon us to embrace human fallibility. Somehow, the acknowledgement of prejudice and fallibility is as much lost to us as (post)modern readers as it was to our early travelers. We no longer understand what the Germans so wonderfully call our effective historical consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein) or admit the degree to which it determines what we do and think. The various critiques of ideology (among which we count deconstruction, colonial discourse analysis, identity studies, and multiculturalism) claim to challenge the very possibility of cross-cultural understanding. Such critical

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consciousness approaches call into question whether advances and progress can, in fact, occur in encounters of unequal groups. In such a reading, the Indian other in this literature would always be seen as silent and passive in the face of European or western national discourse, since no true dialogue is, ab initio, even possible. The critical consciousness approach imposes no burden of responsibility on the interlocutors. Without even the possibility of dialogue, the theorizing self is neither accountable to the other nor, ultimately, even to itself. Without any recognition of the other, there can be no true consciousness of the self in any work. In contrast, hermeneutical consciousness claims that otherness speaks and insists that the interpreter adjust his/her understanding. According to Ricoeur, the absolute other can become a relative other with whom we can partially interact. Hermeneutical consciousness stands in opposition then to those theories claiming that discourse only refers to the self and never to anything real or empirical. In this volume, we have seen how, by investigating individual and institutional narratives, the histories of various others (in the form of Ethiopian prelates, Taino natives, Arawak anthropophagites, the Samorin of Calicut, Moorish merchants, Parava fisherman, and the satī of Ikkeri) do, in fact, make themselves known. Hermeneutical consciousness demands that we recognize a diversity of motives and aims. Everything is not purely a function of power, nor can we pinpoint some constant flow of progress. Reality is rather somewhere in the middle, something like a synthesis of hermeneutical consciousness and the hermeneutics of suspicion, or rather, Ricoeur’s notion of a hermeneutics that renders justice to the critique of ideology. This present volume has sought just such an approach, where there can be a hermeneutics of cross-cultural understanding even if there are great challenges to it. A text can be both a success of the hermeneutical process in terms of a fusion of horizons and a product of hegemonic discourse that aims at solidifying the imposition of power between the self and the other.

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Notes Introduction 1 “Sire, up until now I have spoken to you about the cities I know.” “There only remains one of which you never speak.” Marco Polo nodded his head. “Venice,” responded the Khan. Marco smiles. “And of what else do you think I have been speaking?” 2 For a discussion of this concept, see Emmanuel Levinas, Trace of the Other (1986). 3 These conditions inform all interpretation; they occur in language and are constituted by our membership in a historical community. They comprise the basic coordinates of understanding and are inescapable. Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory calls upon us to avow them as the historical conditions to which all human understanding is “subsumed under the reign of finitude” (Ricoeur 1981: 63). 4 We can only understand the temporality and historicity of our life when it is marked, organized, and clarified in a narrative form (Ricoeur 1984, 1985, 1988). 5 While Ricoeur sees an interweaving of fiction and history (fiction can be quasihistorical and when history can be quasi-fictional), he makes a clear distinction between the narrative of fiction and the narrative of history. It is one thing to say that narrative discourse clarifies, organizes, and configures the temporal and historical dimensions of human experience into meaningful episodes. However, it is quite another thing to claim that there is no difference between a true story and an imagined one. The difference is that history raises truth claims. Historians must argue, give reasons, and offer evidence. Fiction only has to satisfy the requirements of narrative: acceptability and coherence; it does not need rational proof, validation, or falsification. Historians, however, must argue, give reasons, and offer evidence. 6 In Time and Narrative (1984, 1985, 1988), Ricoeur proposed a revised conception of the hermeneutic circle based on the model of three stages of the Aristotelian notion of mimesis— prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration. Prefiguration (mimesis 1) consists of the imitation of action and physical activity. It represents the who, what, where, why, how, and with whom of an action, the symbolic character and cultural meanings incorporated in it, and its temporality. The second stage (mimesis 2 or configuration) involves the act of emplotment that configures and organizes events into a story. It brings together multiple heterogeneous elements (such as agents, events, goals, consequences, reversals, or unexpected results) into a whole and then mediates the plot of a story by also synthesizing the temporal characteristics into a whole.

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Finally, the third stage consists of the act of reading or listening that transfigures experience by connecting the world of narrative with the world of the reader. This refiguration (or mimesis 3) can refer to the act of reading that changes our practical understanding of the story. It is the Gadamerian application or what Ricoeur elsewhere called appropriation. Ricoeur claimed that refiguration institutes a break in my world of experience and invites me to reflect on the putative truth of the proposed world of the work. The act of reading then completes the course of a narrative. It is the final act of the activity of narration wherein human action, already prefigured like a narration and configured into a coherent whole, is finally refigured by the reader. This concept of hermeneutics, as outlined by Ricoeur, charts the movement outside the self and is thus opposed to the tradition of reflective philosophy and the pretentions of a cogito that presumes to know itself intuitively. Ricoeur also developed the themes of narrative and self-understanding in The Rule of Metaphor (1978), where he asserts that metaphor discloses a possible way of being-in-theworld that remains hidden from ordering language and first-order reference. Metaphor is heuristic fiction that re-describes reality by referring to it in terms of something imaginative or fictional and allowing us to learn something about reality. It also permits us to perceive new relations and connections among things. Metaphor broadens our ability to express, interpret, and transform ourselves. The strategy of discourse in metaphorical language aims at shattering and increasing our sense of reality by shattering and increasing our use of language. See Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (1970: 28–36) where he discusses how Habermas’s critique of ideology sought to uncover the limits and conditions of understanding that he felt the hermeneutic tradition had occluded. Ricoeur posited utopia and ideology as two poles of a single cultural imagination that not only distort consciousness and communication, but also legitimate and integrate power at a level of symbolic action. Ideology functions by coordinating social integration through an interpretative schema that distorts, dissimulates, and integrates power, authority, and domination. Utopian ideations challenge and question power and authority. Whereas ideology attempts to legitimate power, utopia seeks to replace power with something else. Both call a society into question from an imagined and possibly critical vantage point. In the process, both provide a retreat from social reality (Ricoeur 1991: 300). Fiction and non-fiction thus propose alternative means of explaining why things are the way they are. Through the utopian and ideological capacities of narrative’s creative language, Ricoeur found a resolution to the oppositional values that Gadamer and Habermas projected onto tradition. The main issues of the debate were as follows: Gadamer proposed that tradition transmits understanding (Gadamer 1978: 13–17, 18–43). We can only understand because we are grounded in our historical condition. Our cultural tradition unfolds

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in a dialogical manner, accumulating truths that are constantly verified and adjusted. Misunderstandings are challenged and rendered into understanding through a process of constant interrogation (Ricoeur 1981: 83). Habermas agreed with this claim but pointed out that tradition also transmitted violence and domination, and that it systematically deformed communication (Habermas 1988: 143–75). His critique of ideology (critical consciousness) viewed all understanding as distorted and related to the repressive action of authority (Ricoeur 1981: 83). Tradition is a product of underlying forces, such as economics, sexuality, and power. Habermas held that criticism needs to unmask such ideologically frozen dependencies (Ricoeur 1981: 82) in order to free us from injustice and repression. Gadamer and Habermas also disagreed over the issue of universality. Gadamer believed that hermeneutics could rightly claim universality. Habermas felt that hermeneutics could claim it only at the expense of its given limits. For Gadamer, tradition (which included one’s prejudices) was the source of the historical consciousness that makes understanding possible. For Habermas, it was the source of systematic distortions that perpetuate domination. Habermas faulted Gadamer for not tying his understanding of historical consciousness to any transcendental perspective on history without which Habermas claimed we cannot recognize whether a given tradition is ideologically distorted. Without such a perspective, there is also no means of challenging domination (Habermas 1980: 181–211). Gadamer conceded to Habermas that language presents not only a site for rationality and consensus, but also a locus for coercion. But, he further noted that it is impossible for anything to occur behind the back of language if everything comprehensible that happens is the event of language. Hermeneutics was understood to already present within itself a critique of consciousness and communication. It acknowledges that the interpreter has no way out of monolithic discourse. Any appeal to an extrahermeneutic entity was, therefore, unnecessary. With this concept of hermeneutics, Gadamer rehabilitated the concepts of prejudice, tradition, and authority by linking them to Heidegger’s fore-structures of understanding and appealing to the human sciences to overcome distanciation. In contrast, Habermas sought to develop the Marxist concept of interest by appealing to the social sciences in order to locate emancipating possibilities and to reflect critically on institutional reifications. While Gadamer acknowledged that misunderstanding posed an obstacle to understanding, Habermas was more specific. He claimed that ideology and systematically distorted communication impeded understanding. Gadamer recognized the humility at work in hermeneutics, while Habermas championed the defiance central to the critique of ideology. For Gadamer, the focus was placed on the finitude and the historical condition to which we all belong. In Gadamer’s schema, historical consciousness takes the individual’s encounter with a text (person, conversation partner) as a model for the act of

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understanding that which is foreign. Tradition guides this engagement, but it is authorized by a context that is twisted by deeper forces so that understanding comes to act in the service of something larger and, perhaps, more nefarious. Thus hermeneutic openness, the premise for the successful act of interpretation according to Gadamer, emerges as part of a larger discourse on power. Ricoeur found Gadamer’s thematization of the epistemological problem of subject-object relations in terms of each person’s participation in and alienation from tradition convincing. He, therefore, structured his response to Habermas around the relation of distortion and belonging, proposing a reconciliation of the two theorists’ stances. In his commentary on the Gadamer-Habermas debate, Ricoeur tried to show how each approach can recognize the universality of the other (Ricoeur 1974: 153–65, 1981: 270–307). He suggested that the differences between Gadamer’s and Habermas’s positions resided in conflicting meanings each assigned to the term “tradition.” Ricoeur also claimed that Gadamer’s recovery and application of tradition did not contradict Habermas’s philosophical aim of exclusivity and critique of false consciousness. Distanciation posits the semantic autonomy of a text that allows a reader to hear meaning apart from the author’s intentions (Ricoeur 1991: 37). Since distanciation can make possible the act of appropriation, the hermeneutic act can then render familiar and one’s own what was previously foreign. Hermeneutic situations thus become the play between distanciation and appropriation. Ricoeur understood Gadamerian hermeneutic play and Habermas’s critique of ideology as both part of the same process of interpretation, since language can be viewed as a polysemic source of both misunderstanding and the fullness of language. Creative language allows us to express aspects of the world that are beyond ordinary, descriptive language. The detour with creative discourse, however, always flirts with ideology and utopia, since both project new and alternative modes of interpretation and being in the world that are based on creative configurations of human action. 12 Symbolically, this defeat was mirrored in Ricoeur losing out to Foucault for a chair at the Collège de France in 1969. 13 Montaigne’s essay, “On Cannibals” investigates this very process and the manner in which the foreignness of the other is unveiled. The speech of the cannibal both judges and escapes us. It is presented in a textual form that cannot be considered as its true representation. Yet, as Certeau claims, the text brings the other closer to us since it presupposes a speech (from the cannibals) as well as a reader (us) (Certeau 1986: 67–80). 14 For Ricoeur, the self and the other are dialectically related in such a way that the other is never reduced to the same. Ricoeur claimed that the voice of the other can only command one to responsibility. In order for the self to be capable of hearing and recognizing the other, however, it must be receptive. It must also be able to

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discern and recognize the legitimacy of the other’s commandment. Moral dialogue thus presupposes the ability to take the perspective of the other, learn from one another, communicate with and convince each other in order to reach an understanding of our generalizable interests. The self and the other, therefore, complement each other (Ricoeur 1992: 341). On this point, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics would differ considerably from theories of alterity espoused by multiculturalism and postcolonialism that value universal rights but gloss over any mandate of universal responsibility. See Figueira (2008). It also serves as an alternative to psychoanalysis that reveals the role of the other only as a psychic projection of the self. Ricoeur’s dialogical hermeneutics suggests that the other is neither absolutely transcendent nor absolutely immanent, but rather somewhere between the two. Just as Ricoeur calls for the other to be responsible for its actions, so too does he place a similar burden of accountability on the self. Who exactly is this other that Levinas promotes? The alterity that one desires is the alterity of Autrui (the human other) and that of the Très Haut (God) (Levinas 1969: 4/34). Levinas claims that Autrui is visible, whereas God does not appear at all. The only way to have a relationship with God is to respond to the appellation of the human face, to generously approach the other in his/her misery. When Levinas speaks of the face, he means expression, world, and speech. Through their irreducibility, the other shatters my world and breaks my egoism. In its misery, the face commands me to recognize it. I must give to it because it is a face and not a mask. It is non-representational. The face of the other is not a mere spectacle or image. It is an epiphany that speaks, supplicates, and commands me to be responsible (Levinas 1986: 352–3). The other is absolutely exterior. It must break into my separation and, as revelation, summon me from the outside. Levinas presents generosity and language as the only non-totalizing modes of relating to the other (Levinas 1969: 50). Both philosophers also differed considerably in their approach to the aesthetic and, particularly, their valuation of literature. Levinas had a very negative assessment of poetry and the aesthetic that can be traced back to 1948 and “Reality and its Shadow.” In this essay, first published in Les Temps Modernes, Levinas presented art as a form of non-responsibility, an evasion and, in theological terms, idolatry. He further linked poetry with negatively charged terms such as intoxication, magic, participation, incantation, and play (Levinas 1987: 4). He was wary of art because it moves us toward participation (Levinas 1969: 58) that, for Levinas, represents a wallowing in the pathetic. This pathos leads to loss of subjecthood and passage from oneself to anonymity (Levinas 1987: 4). A work of art renders the audience passive, disengaged and evasive of responsibility (Levinas 1975: 76). The ethics Levinas proposed was meant to provide a break from participation. He believed that

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literature renders the subject exterior to itself. Levinas’s distrust of aesthetic representation stemmed from his belief that by taking on a character (une figure, i.e. face), there is the possibility of losing one’s human nature. One risks becoming incapable of distinguishing illusion from reality or the stage from the world. In the case of theater, for example, one is put in a situation where one cannot distinguish a directorial command from a divine command. Art petrifies, immobilizes, and freezes action with regard to the face. It is significant to note that the discussion of the other in Levinas, and particularly his negative assessment of participation through art as a form of intoxication, is a position he developed in the aftermath of the Holocaust. God is one who has passed us by. We have only received an inkling of His presence when we see His back receding past us. God has already escaped. However, God shows himself in the trace, as in Exodus 33. To go to Him is to follow this trace, to go toward the others who stand in His trace (Levinas 1986: 359). The Odysseus paradigm reveals those genuine attempts to assimilate the other in a movement of excursion and return. The Abraham model shows how, most often, these encounters result in an irreversible movement devoid of recognition and gratitude. Levinas associates this paradigm with the biblical story of Abraham who leaves his fatherland for a land yet unknown and forbids his servant even from bringing his son to the point of departure (Levinas 1986: 348). An analogy here can be drawn to the critique of orientalism. If colonialist discourse was as monolithic and powerful as Said had claimed, it could not have been defeated! Perhaps this is the moment to admit my “prejudice” for the hermeneutical approach as someone who trained under Gadamer and Ricoeur and who professionally “came of age” in the wake of Said. My previous publications have been critical of the Foucauldian/Saidian model, seeking out the aesthetic and religious quests involved in East-West encounters that were only peripherally involved in the power dynamics of colonialism. In the last thirty years, this position has not been politically correct. But in the wake of the bankruptcy of postcolonial theory and the resurgence of interest in Ricoeur and Levinas, perhaps, a reassessment of the hermeneutical approach is underway. By the term “India,” I signify what was then loosely considered as the expanse encompassing Ethiopia as well as the area that today comprises the modern nations of India and Pakistan. In the case of Columbus, India (or the Indies) denotes the Caribbean islands he visited and took for India. Jean de Léry begins his narrative by denouncing the lies of Thévet (Léry 1992: 53–4). Accounts of this legend are found in the apocryphal book, the Acts of Thomas, dating from around the third century, written in Syriac and translated into Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, and Armenian. See Rogers (1961: 94–7).

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1 Representations of the Indian Other 1 Arrian also described the Indians as tall and slender, lighter in weight than other men. See also Arrian’s Indica (ca. ad 150). 2 In this regard, see Filliozat (1945) and Armstrong (1936). 3 People with a large foot that extends over their head like an umbrella. 4 Portions of his account survive in the Natural History of Pliny and the Indica of Arrian. 5 People who have no head; their eyes, nose, and mouth are embedded on their chest. 6 Pliny’s comments on India (Natural Histories, bk. 6) were based on Megasthenes’s Indika. 7 Arrian (Exped Alex. V.v), who claimed to have sought out credible accounts of those who accompanied Alexander on his expedition, approved of Megasthenes. Diodorus simply omits Megasthenes’s questionable accounts for the sake of clarity. Strabo and Pliny edited Megasthenes for accuracy. However, in their attempt to make his account a pleasant read, they edited out important information, such as boring lists of topographical data, which were thereby lost. 8 The Greeks, whom the Indians called Yavana, were certainly mlecchas. Yavana was a term believed to derive from the geographical term “Ionia.” 9 With the boundary of Aryan control in the Ganges valley, any Aryans who entered the mleccha-deśa (land of the mleccha) required elaborate expiatory rites to cleanse themselves of pollution as repeatedly enjoined by the dharmaśāstras (law books). 10 See also the Sanskrit terms karn.aprāvaran.ās, karn.ikās, and lambakarn.ās. 11 Isidore also viewed the monster as “making known.” His etymologies presented them as portents (11.3.2), making the future known. 12 Elsewhere in the Divine Comedy, India is described as a unique site because of its hot climate (Inferno 14.32; Purgatorio 26.21) and vegetation (Purgatorio 32.41). 13 As in the Classical period, so too, in the Middle Ages, “India” continued to designate the area encompassing the Indian subcontinent, the East Indies, and the Far East. 14 The descriptions of the Indians on this map are largely taken from Solinus (52.20). 15 China appears for the first time on the Fra Mauro Map. 16 As Slessarov notes (1959: 16), Gundafor was Gondaphares (Gundaphara) who was a first-century ad Partho-Indian king known from coins found in the Indus Valley and thus a contemporary of the Apostle. 17 There are many derivatives of Pseudo-Callisthenes in many languages. Julius Valerius produced a Latin version (Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis) in the early fourth century to be followed by vernacular renditions in German, Provençal, French, Dutch, English, Arabic, Syriac, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Hebrew, and Ethiopian. There was also a Jewish Alexander tradition involving the enclosing of Gog and Magog, his visit to Jerusalem, and the Lost Tribes of Israel. Finally, there

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were historical Alexander texts, such as the Res Gestae Alexandri Magni of Quintus Curtius Rufus, the Anabasis of Arrian, the Bibliotheka of Diodolus Siculus, and the Life of Alexander of Plutarch. There exists the testimony of Alexander’s secretary Eumenes and Ptolemy’s eyewitness account. Both renditions survive in excerpts in Cleitarchus and Megasthenes and these, in turn, were reinterpreted by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Arrian. It is, indeed, ironic that the image of India and its brahmin inhabitants found in Pseudo-Callisthenes became the authoritative “first-hand” account in contrast to the narratives of those who had actually traveled with Alexander on his expedition and left behind day-to-day accounts. Elsewhere the Caspian Gates are situated at Gog and Magog. From the Sanskrit prāchyata, meaning eastern, so the Prasioi are easterners. In this regard, they form a parallel function to the trope of the Germans found in Tacitus and the French Enlightenment depiction of the noble savage. Until the late fifteenth century, the Indian Ocean was understood as an enclosed sea, the mare clausam (Le Goff 1980: 189–200).

2 The Lure of Christian Allies and the Fear of Muslim Enemies 1 Marco Polo (Polo 1903: 3: 45–58) makes mention of the tomb of St. Thomas, as does John of Montecorvino (1246–1328). Odoric of Pordenone (1286–1331) visits it in 1323 (Yule and Burnell 1903: 2, 141–6) and John of Marignolli (1290?–1358?), a Florentine Franciscan, claimed to have visited it in 1348. 2 He also came to seek support from the Pope and complain of his treatment by the patriarch and one of the Antiochene princesses over the division of the spoils captured from Muslims. 3 Otto is a good authority. As the son of the Margrave of Austria, the maternal grandfather of Emperor Henry IV and the uncle of Frederick Barbarossa, he was politically influential and well informed. His chronicle is considered one the best medieval historical works. Otto, in other words, was not an armchair historian; he accompanied his half-brother, Emperor Conrad III, on the Second Crusade and visited Constantinople and Jerusalem. 4 The two cities in question are Jerusalem and Babylon, the civitas Dei and the civitas diaboli, respectively. 5 After the fifth century, Nestorian clergy built churches and monasteries in India and China, even as far as Mongolia and Manchuria. 6 It is thought that the name Samiardos refers to the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar. 7 There is some indication that this narrative of Prester John may, in fact, allude to a real event in the history of Central Asia, the defeat of the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar by the Qara Khitai on the steppe of Samarkand in September 1141. The rest of Otto’s

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narrative is thought, however, to be unhistorical, since Qara Khitai never made it as far as the Tigris. There is also some suggestion that Otto is alluding in his account to earlier accounts of a mighty Christian emperor in the East, since, as one critic notes, he uses the term narrabat to describe the battle and the description of Prester John’s trip to the Tigris depended on the verb dicebat (Beckingham 1966: 9). It is possible that Otto was retelling a more generally reported story. It is also possible that stories about Prester John predated Sultan Sanjar’s defeat and that this defeat was merely utilized to give them verisimilitude. While Indians claimed that the incorrupt body of St. Thomas is enshrined in Mylapore, tradition in the West had it that his remains had been transported to Edessa. The authoritative edition of this letter by Friedrich Zarncke, along with various translations, is available in Ullendorf and Beckingham, eds., The Hebrew Letters of Prester John. This date is problematic, since it is based on the authority of the Chronicle of Albert of Trois Fontaines, who also claims that the letter of Prester John was addressed to Manuel and Frederick Barbarossa, in addition to Comnenus. Zarncke has examined some eighty manuscripts of the letter and has found none addressed to Barbarossa. The letter could not have been written before 1143, when Manuel ascended the throne, or after his death in 1180. One such account, The Book of Infante Dom Pedro (1515), exemplifies how these elements would be incorporated into the description of the grand tour of the Prince of Portugal in 1425–26 (Rogers 1961). The unknown author of The Book of Infante Dom Pedro, identifies himself as one of the twelve who traveled with the prince. Although the prince did, in fact, take a voyage, he did not visit all the places described in this narrative. Certainly Pedro did not venture beyond Christendom to the far side of the Muslim world, to Prester John’s terrestrial paradise. The narrative clearly has a utopian and ecumenical intent. It implicitly criticizes the disunified world of Latin Christianity and presents Prester John’s realm as an ideal site where Church and state are united under a benevolent, generous and extremely wealthy autarchic ruler. All the tropes that have characterized the emplotment of India appear again here. Prester John lives in a magnificent palace whose walls and furnishing are encrusted with precious gems. He sleeps on a bed made of sapphire. The monsters (sciopods, hermaphrodites, monoculi, pygmies, centaurs, and cannibals) make an appearance, as does the miraculous hand of St. Thomas offering communion every seven years. We also find the titillating description of strange sexual mores, as in the case of Dom Pedro’s encounters with the Amazons who fornicate only three times a year for the sake of procreation. Morally monstrous, the Indian Amazons abandon their sons and only raise their daughters. They also cut off their left breast so they can effectively wield a Turkish bow.

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12 Beckingham disagrees with this assessment (1966: 11), viewing this letter not as a response to Prester John’s letter but rather as a result of a meeting somewhere in the East between someone in his household and some distinguished subjects of a potentate considered to be the King of the Indians. He draws this conclusion because nowhere in the letter is he called a priest. The only connection to the Prester John letter is that in Alexander’s response he chides the Indians on being conceited and this criticism is thought to refer to the bombast of the Prester John letter. Beckingham claims that it could just as easily refer to the tone that John’s subjects took with Philip. Beckingham concludes that, rather than a reply, the letter of Alexander was probably a response to a meeting with Ethiopians. 13 This trope of the Indian as the good heathen is not only to be found in Dante, but also in Mandeville, the most influential vision of India in late medieval Europe due to its extended presence in Latin, English, French, German, Dutch, and Spanish versions. Indians are presented here as good people who fulfill the Ten Commandments. India is the earthly paradise, the last place visited before Mandeville returns to England. India is contrasted directly with the sorry state of affairs in Europe. Indians are true and faithful. God loves them. Mandeville makes them the model of non-Christian virtue. 14 This idea first appears in a manuscript of Guido Pisano dating from 1118 and may have been fairly new when Prester John’s letter was written. 15 See Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis (Jacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo), Supplementum Chronicarum (1983 [1485]). 16 This confusion was long-standing, already present in the sixth-century account of Isidore of Seville, where Ethiopians were described with words that Solinus had applied to India centuries before. This confusion between India and Ethiopia can also be found in Dante, Paradiso (19.106–11). 17 See Jewish Antiquities 1.3. 18 It is probable that he used the information solicited either to compose a treatise or a map. Unfortunately, no record of this interrogation, either in textual or planisphere form, survives. Planispheres by Giovanni da Carignano from this time do, however, survive, but none show the lower part of Africa or Asia. 19 In addition, Góis called attention to the situation in Lapland and requested that the Pope encourage Christianity in northern Europe. It was significant that Góis associated the religious identity of the Lapps with that of the Ethiopians. With this association, Góis made a strong appeal for tolerance and the promotion of Christian unity. This call for ecumenicity was reinforced in the widely disseminated English translation of this work by John More. The spirit of tolerance in 1533 is aptly expressed in More’s introduction. 20 It was most unfortunate, for example, that Góis had not been present when a Portuguese embassy led by Rodrigo de Lima went to Ethiopia and returned home with vital information in 1527.

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21 As he had done in the Legatio, here too Góis made an appeal for the Lapps and the need to bring them, like the Ethiopians, into the Roman Catholic fold. It is significant to note in this regard that the cultivated, innocent, and virtuous Lapps on whose behalf Gόis campaigned could be identified geographically with the Scythians deemed so absolutely monstrous in classical literature and medieval cartography. 22 His authorial stance, by the way, would cost him dearly when he later came under the surveillance of the Inquisition. 23 Góis’s Fides barely scooped Francisco Alvares’s own account of the encounter published under the title, the Verdadera informacão das terras do Preste Joam das Indias. 24 Góis’s research provided Ramusio with material on the embassy that found its way into the first book of his Navigationi et viaggi ne qual si contiene la descrittione dell’Africa et del paese del Prete Janni (1978 [1550]). 25 It would not be until 1541 that Ethiopia was delivered from her Muslim enemies by 450 Portuguese soldiers under the leadership of Christopher da Gama.

3 The Quest for Christians and the Rediscovery of Monsters 1 Classical rhetoric described the various forms of comparison that allow us to speak of the other and thus postulate difference. The unknown author of Ad Herennium (4.46) enumerates the four forms of comparison as similitudo per contrarium, similitudo per negationem, similitudo per brevitatem, and similitudo per collationem (cited in Hartog 1980: 351–2). 2 Gosman (and others) have read the letter allegorically. Gosman sees it as offering fragmentation with a view toward utopian significance so readers could construct an earthly happiness. Disorder is meant to give way to unity and coherent hierarchy of divine will. Gosman (1990: 216) sees it as a model for moral and political change; disorder implies and leads to harmony and meaning. Michael Uebel rejects this analysis. He claims that readers are delighted in the shock of discontinuity and fragmentation, in the clash of form and disorder and in the co-presence of the far-fetched and the believable. 3 For a discussion of Nestorianism, see Rubiés (2000: 56). 4 The culmination of the evolution of the St. Thomas and Prester John narratives can, perhaps, be seen in the very popular treatise on the pontificate of Prester John that circulated in popular Latin chapbooks about 1499. It was written by the Augustinian Fra Filippo Foresti da Bergamo [Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis] (1434–1520) and first published in the second edition of his Supplementum Chronicarum (Brescia 1485), a romance offering data concerning geography, customs, and the diversity of man, animals, and marvels. 5 The Council was an important last-minute effort to reunite the Latin and the eastern Churches in the face of the Turkish advance against the Greek empire. It was mainly

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devoted to convincing the Greek representatives to accept papal authority and Latin doctrine. The Emperor John VIII Palaeologus accepted its terms in 1439 but this acceptance was not upheld by the majority of the Greeks. Eugene IV got agreement from the Armenians in 1439, the Coptics in 1443 and the Nestorians in 1444 (Rubiés 2000: 87). 6 The Treaty of Alcáçovas was sanctioned by the papal bull Aeterni Regis (1481). 7 He achieved this goal, becoming the procurator of the Church of San Francesco and magistrate and ambassador for his native city (Rubiés 2000: 87). 8 Portions of Conti’s account, as it appeared in Poggio’s Historia, can also be found in Jacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo’s Supplementum (1485), India recognita (1492, but edited by the Poggio in 1448), and in an anonymous 1492 chapbook entitled De ritu et moribus Indorum, along with medieval letters of Prester John and information on India derived from the Supplementum. Poggio’s rendition of Conti’s account was translated into Portuguese in 1502. Spanish and Portuguese versions were used by Ramusio in 1550. Conti’s account also informed the geographical work of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1461), Toscanelli, and the cartographers of the fifteenth century (Rogers 1962: 69–71). 9 Suttee or satī refers to the self-immolation of a widow (usually on her husband’s cremation pyre). See Chapter 7 for a more detailed description of this ritual. 10 Poggio’s Facetiae were short popular stories of sexual and anti-clerical character that were written in elegant Latin. 11 Cristoforo da Bollate, senator of the Duke of Milan, notes in a preface that Poggio “permitted” himself less license with regard to immodest matters than other authors and “is more precise in describing geography and reporting customs” (Bracciolini and de Varthema 1963: 3). 12 The major account of the First Voyage was Columbus’s journal of which the original and its copy were lost. Before it was lost, it was used as source material for the extant accounts. A summary was made by the historian Frey Bartholomé de las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapa and historian of the Indies who advocated native rights and chronicled tales of native oppression throughout the sovereigns’ new dominions. Las Casas composed a digest of Columbus’s lost logbook. It resurfaced in the nineteenth century. Another account can be found in the biography of the admiral by his son, Hernando (or Fernando) Colon. Before Columbus’s journal was lost, it was also used by Peter Martyr. The first-hand account, Columbus’s letter to Santángel was written on February 15, 1493 and published that same year along with its Latin translation. It became the principal means whereby news regarding the voyage was disseminated. There were nine editions before the end of 1494. Other accounts of the first voyage are to be found in the royal historian Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Orviedo’s Historia general y natural de las Indias (1547). 13 In a translation of this letter addressed to Gabriel Sanchez, Columbus specified that the islands were “nuper inventis” or “de novo repertis” or “noviter repertus”

Notes

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17

18

19 20 21

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(Washburn 1962: 14). The original letter of Columbus on the discovery of the New World on October 12, 1492 was written in Spanish. There are two Spanish incunables, one in the New York Public Library and the other in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Both may have been printed after the earliest Latin editions. They are addressed to the Escribano de Ración, a known supporter of the expedition, Luis de Santángel. The Latin text was issued in seven editions. It is addressed to the Royal Treasurer of Spain named in the text as Gabriel Sanchez or (corruptly) as Raphael Sanxis. The Spanish texts are dated from the Canaries on February 15, 1493 but are then followed by a postscript explaining that adverse weather has delayed the dispatching. One edition is now dated March 4 and the other, March 14. Washburn suggests that the vagueness stems from Columbus’s desire not to do violence to the public imagination back home (Washburn 1962: 16). Marco Polo did not use this term (Indies) to describe the islands. Las Casas agrees with this point, stipulating that conversions would occur for the “profit of God” only if accompanied with love, charity, and kindness. In his critique of Columbus and condemnation of the missionary venture in the Caribbean, Las Casas notes that the admiral did not observe divine and natural law and did not understand properly his sovereigns’ obligation and his own to the natives. When Columbus suggests enslaving them, Las Casas noted that this was not the purpose of God, the Church and the discovery to which the voyage should have been subordinated (Las Casas 1969: 59–60). In order to fulfill the goal of converting the natives, Columbus took on his first voyage a converted Jew with knowledge of Arabic to teach the Christian mysteries to the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians who were believed to speak Arabic (Columbus 1969: 12). They did, however, wear their hair long “like women.” Dated May 29, 1493 and housed in the Seville archives. While it is not within the purview of this study to prove whether the Caribbean cannibal existed beyond its literary construction, it should be noted that scholars have drawn the association between cannibalism and western imperialism. See Palencia-Roth (1985, 1993, 1997). In The Man-Eating Myth (1979), the anthropologist William Arens attacked the notion of cannibalism calling it a myth generated to enslave a hostile other, a theory supported by Anthony Pagden in The Fall of Natural Man (1982). Re-examinations of the historical evidence claim that Spanish accusations must be understood in the context of imperial propaganda and seen as self-serving, because the cannibals were the sole Amerindians subjected to enslavement. In Colonial Encounters, Peter Hulme reviewed the evidence and found the case for the Carib’s cannibalism weak (1986: 55). He claimed that the human bones found can be traced to ritual killings, the burning of captives’ flesh, and the Carib’s own fiction created to give him a ferocious reputation. There is an equally vociferous school of thought that

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dismisses claims that cannibalism was a historiographical and anthropological myth. These critics of the man-eating myth point out that English, French, and Dutch sources that would be less prone to imperialist self-interest offer ample proof of Caribbean cannibalism. This view holds that just because the Spanish sources should to be viewed with skepticism does not mean that they are to be dismissed. Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, De Orbe Novo (1970 [1504–50]). Other secondary documents include Andres Bernaldez’s Historia de los Reyes Catolicos (Chs. 123–31) and a chronicle by the curate of Los Palaios with whom Columbus stayed after his return. This text was written before 1500 and first published in 1856. Its English translation can be found in Columbus (1967: 1.114–67). There are also letters of Italian residents in Spain on what they had heard regarding this voyage (Columbus 1864: 3, 166–8). Morison (1940: 209). Cuneo’s father had sold Columbus’s father a country house. Cuneo’s letter on the Second Voyage is dated October 28, 1495. In 1509, Juan Ponce de Leon began the Spanish conquest of Puerto Rico. Scouting along the coast he found Carib loggers. He intended to return them to St. Croix and bring back Taino Puerto Ricans to Puerto Rico. This order was reconfirmed by Ferdinand in 1511 and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1525. In 1547, Charles exempted the male Caribs from the New Laws of 1542 prohibiting slavery. Female Caribs were enslaved in 1569. Later editions of the poem are entitled “Lettera dell’ isole che ha trovato nouvamente il Re di Spagna.” I take this formulation of strategy and tactics from Certeau (1988).

4 Vasco da Gama, the Meaning of Discovery, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion 1 “We come to look for Christians and Spices” (Velho 1945: 36). See also Castanheda (1924: 1.40). 2 On the notion of discovery, (Morison 1940: 5–10). 3 The Roteiro is the primary source for documentation. Its presumed author was Álvero Velho. Additional information is provided by Manuel’s correspondence, published by Antonio da Silva Rego (1947–58). 4 The São Gabriel was captained by Vasco da Gama, the São Rafael by Paolo da Gama, the third ship, the Bérrio was captained by Nicolão Coelho, and the fourth ship was a supply ship led by Goncalo Nunes. 5 During this time, the term “discover” also had another quite different meaning of reaching lands by calculation and chance that were never previously known. Vespucci would represent this second type of discoverer, since he conceived the new lands he found as distinct from Asia (O’Gorman 1961: 100).

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6 At this juncture in time, trade with the East was in the hands of the Moors from Sofala to Suez, from Aden to Ormuz and north and central India. The Muslims had taken Goa from the Hindus. Merchants were the ruling class in Calicut and held control of the pearl fisheries to the south. 7 Neither Gama nor any of his captains went ashore. This strategy of the captains staying on board would become, in later years, official policy. 8 For an analysis of Portuguese and Muslim antagonism in Kerala, see Bouchon (1972: 3–59). 9 The three captains in Gama’s fleet rarely set foot ashore themselves, even in a favorable location such as Malindi. 10 Gama paid the two pilots that he got from the Sultan of Mozambique well (thirty misqâls of gold and cloaks), with the proviso that at all times one of the pilots stay on board, to vouchsafe for the behavior of the other. 11 The southern Malabar coast was famous for its pepper. It was populated by the warrior caste of Naires, Jews, and St. Thomas Christians. Independent kingdoms, such as Cannanore, Calicut, Tanor, Cranganore, Cochin, Quilon, and Travancore were ruled by the Samorin who had become very rich from trade with Moorish merchants. At the time of the arrival of the Portuguese, the kingdom of the Bāhmanīs (Konkan and the Deccan) was disintegrating. Five Muslim kings supported by foreign mercenaries had divided up the country and were in constant warfare with each other and the Hindus from the south. 12 The origin of this term is unknown. It has been speculated to be a deformation of samudri raja, “king of the sea” in Sanskrit or Hindi. The case also can be made that it derives from the Malayalam term tamaturi or tamuri, also meaning “sea king.” 13 In the Chronica do felicissimo rey Dom Manoel (1926: ch. 48), Damião de Góis supplements the account found in the Roteiro and describes how four native “priests” accompanied the Portuguese inside, pointed to the image, identifying it with the words: “Maria, Maria,” and prostrated themselves before it. 14 He noted that he subsequently saw similar representations in other “churches” he visited. 15 I borrow this term from Bernand and Gruzinski (1988: 11–12). 16 Initially, the Samorin had asked Gama whether he wanted to be housed with Christians or Muslims, as it was the trading custom for foreign merchants to be put up in some ethnic quarter. Gama had declined. 17 Portugal’s claims to supremacy of the sea would directly conflict with the Samorin’s own authority. Calicut’s status and prosperity for 400 years had been bound up with the Arab merchants. The Portuguese attempt to displace them affected the basic policy of the Samorin upon which the strength of Calicut was based. 18 Part of the problem may stem from the terminology used by the Muslim interpreters. In Arabic, they called the Hindus infidels (cafres, caffers), a negative

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epithet that was also used in reference to Christians (Yule and Burnell 1903: 140–2). The Portuguese did not realize that Muslims recognized several types of unbelievers. 19 For the Indian view of this encounter, see Panikkar (1929).

5 Re-visioning the Christian and the Monster 1 Marco Polo’s amanuensis. 2 This region was designated Farther India, to distinguish it from Near India (the eastern coast of Africa) and Middle India (India proper). It consisted also of Pegu, Burma, Siam, and Malacca, the trading center of the Far East. 3 Varthema was knighted by Viceroy Almeida for his services and subsequently received aristocratic status from King Manuel of Portugal (Rubiés 2000: 134). 4 Varthema undertook his voyage between 1503–10. 5 Also like Conti (or at least, the Conti filtered through Poggio’s Facietae), Varthema wrote entertaining anecdotes of a sexual nature (Rubiés 2000: 143). But these anecdotes describe pagan zones outside India, as in the case of the Queen of Rhada in Yeman, who is driven by her desire for his white body and laments that she and her family are black. 6 Marco Polo had noted that southern Indians were black, appreciated being black, and portrayed their devils as white. The reaction of the Portuguese and Italian travelers to Indians differed radically from their response to Africans. The Portuguese viewed black Africans (they used the term “negros”) as bestial in their way of living and the most often subjected to slavery (Rubiés 2000: 172). They distinguished Africa as the land of the blacks as opposed to the land of the Moors. 7 In particular, see his descriptions of Vijayanagar, Canonor (Cannanore), Bathacala (Bhatkal), and Deccan (Bijapur). 8 See, in particular, his description of Cannanore (Varthema 1963: 125). 9 See, in this regard, his descriptions of Tornapatani, Calicut, and Quilon (Varthema 1963: 132, 163). 10 Varthema also described images of Śiva and Pārvatī appearing on a coin as two devils (Mitter 1977: 18). 11 Mitter fails to note in his analysis that the manifestations of wrathful Hindu deities lend themselves to fearful interpretations by Christian audiences for whom the divine is not depicted often in horrific forms. 12 Both Barbosa’s Livro and the Suma Oriental of Pires were not published until the Italian compiler Ramusio put their texts into print in 1550. The Portuguese did not want to disseminate the information contained in them. 13 Since Calicut was the site of the first Portuguese trading system, it was also the place where hostilities erupted with the Muslims (both native and foreign) who dominated

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trade in the area (Rubiés 2000: 155). It was not until 1540 that Calicut concluded peace with the Portuguese. Cochin was the most important city after Goa for the Portuguese in India. On his Second Voyage (1502), Gama made trade agreements with Cochin and Cannanore and established fortresses there. It is said to have become entirely Christian by 1512 (Albuquerque 1884–1935: 1.44) The St. Thomas Christians, whom legend had it were converted by St. Thomas, were descendants of Syrian merchants who used Syriac as their liturgical language. They numbered at this time 15,000. Cochin was also populated by Hindus, Moors, and Jews. It is quite noteworthy that Barbosa had obtained this position, since he had earlier dared to challenge Albuquerque. In 1513, Barbosa had written to the king criticizing Albuquerque’s militaristic politics as being detrimental to preserving trade relations with Calicut and Cannanore (Rubiés 2000: 205). In 1490, the first dynasty of kings of Vijayanagara came to an end. Narasimha usurped the throne. The Portuguese erroneously mistook the name of the new king for that of the kingdom. In 1565, Federici would describe the same site after its downfall—in ruins—with a particularly vivid suttee scene. He noted that the people are tawny brown, almost white (Lach 1965: 1.1.354). He informs his readers that the Deccani and Gujarati are of a tawny complexion (Varthema 1963: 116, 123). His voyage led him eventually to China, where he headed the Portuguese embassy (Rubiés 2000: 205). Contemporary travelers such as Barros and Castanheda believed that the kings were brahmins. Portuguese married to natives who lived as settlers in the Portuguese enclaves. The emperors of Vijayanagara were united in their enmity toward Islam. The bond was so strong that, thanks to Vijayanagara, the Portuguese were able to keep Goa for the first fifty years of its occupation with very little military force. At Cape Comorin began the Fishery Coast, the land of the Paravas and the beginning of Farther India. Once the Portuguese had established ecclesiastical and secular authority based in Goa, they tried to apply a forceful policy on dissent by establishing the Inquisition. See letter #20 of January 15, 1544 (Xavier 1944–45: 170): “bragmanes . . . es la gente más perversa del mundo.” In 1534, Miguel Vaz Coutinho, the vicar general of India asked the king to allow husbands to bring their wives with them (Schurhammer 1973–82: 2.212). Lancilotto later directed the Jesuits in Quilon, the Fishery Coast, and Mylapore (1552–58). They were required only to fight if the community was under direct attack.

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30 Initially, few natives or Luso-Indians were, in fact, trained for the priesthood (Boxer 1963: 69). Moreover, if they were not trained in Europe, they simply were not ordained. 31 At the College of St. Paul in Goa, the 1557 enrollment was 134, of which ninety-five were full-blooded natives (Lach 1965: 1.1.263). 32 Northern European languages were sufficiently different from Portuguese to make the task of recruitment even more difficult. Italian priests, whose linguistic skills were more easily adapted than those of northern Europeans, were in high demand. But, even with the Italians, the demand far outstripped the supply. 33 Valignano served in Goa from 1583–87 and then from 1595–97, Macao from 1588–90 and 1603–6, and Japan from 1571–82, 1590–92, and 1598–1603. For a positive reading of Japan and China, see Xavier’s letters #90, 96, 97, 110 in Xavier (1944–45). 34 Three reports comprise his historical narrative, Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesus en las Indias Orientales (1542–64) of which the first part consists of the standard biography of Francis Xavier. 35 It was the Italian Valignano who insisted on the admission of Japanese into the Society in 1582, a concession subsequently extended to the Chinese and the Koreans. 36 See the India Summarium of 1580 (Silva Rego 1947–58: 12.474–78, 591). 37 The reinol was the Portuguese born in India of purer European heritage of which there were few in number. The castiços were born of a European father and a Eurasian mother. The mestiços were the half-breeds. 38 In this regard, one thinks of the long campaign to convert Akbar. 39 For the Jesuit letters, see Josef Wicki, 7 vols of letters between 1540–69, Documenta Indica (Rome 1948–88) and A. da Silva Rego, 12 vols, Documentacão para história das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. 40 See Xavier’s letters #20, 90, 96, 97, 110 in Schurhammer (1944–45); on brahmins, see especially Jan. 29, 1552. 41 For Xavier’s career in India, see Schurhammer (1973–82, vol. 2). 42 It is to be remembered that the Inquisition was established in Goa in 1560 and, by 1565, considerably limited the rights of New Christians (i.e. Jews) in India.

6 The Return of the Monster: Camoens and the Epic Venture 1 Dias’s earlier voyage is told in retrospect. 2 Os Portugueses somos do Ocidente; Imos buscando as terras do Oriente . . . (1.50) A terra Oriental que o Indo rega; . . . – Se entre vós a verdade não se nega – Quem sois, que terra é esta que habitais,

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Ou se tendes da Índia alguns sinais. (1.52) Onde pode acolher-se um fraco humano, Onde terá segura a curta vida, Que não se arme e se indigne o Céu sereno Contra um bicho da terra tão pequeno? (1.106) Where is frail man to turn for succor? Where may he live out his brief span in safety, secure in the knowledge that the heavens will not vent their indignation on so insignificant an insect? (Camoens 1952: 56) Monstros filhos do feio ajuntamento Du˜a mulher e um cão, que sós se acharam. Aqui soante arame no instrumento Da geração costumam, o que usaram Por manha da Rainha que, inventando Tal uso, deitou fora o error nefando. (10.122) Note the similarity between the story of Abraham and this brahmin. It is significant to note here how brahmins are perceived to be as treacherous as the Muslims. Olhai que, se sois sal e vos danais Na Pátria, onde profeta ninguém é, Com que se salgarão em nossos dias (Infiéis deixo) tantas heresias? (10.119) You corrupt yourselves in your own country, where no man is a prophet, wherewith— not to mention the infidels— shall even the heresies be salted that so abound in our time? (Camoens 1952: 241) No mais, Musa, no mais, que a Lira tenho Destemperada e a voz enrouquecida, E não do canto, mas de ver que venho Cantar a gente surda e endurecida. O favor com que mais se acende o engenho, Não no dá a Pátria, não, que está metida No gosto da cobiça e na rudeza Du˜a austera, apagada e vil tristeza, E não sei por que influxo do Destino Não tem um ledo orgulho e geral gosto, Que os ânimos levanta, de contino A ter para trabalhos ledo o rosto. Por isso vós, ó Rei, que por divino Conselho estais no régio sólio posto,

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Olhai que sois (e vede as outras gentes) Senhor só de vassalos excelentes! (10.145–6) And now, my Muse, let there be an end; for my lyre is no longer attuned and my voice grows hoarse, not from my song, but from seeing that those to whom I sing are become hard of hearing and hard of heart. This country of mine is made over to lusting greed, its sense of values eclipsed in an austerity of gloom and depression; there is no longer to be had from it that recognition which fans the flame of genius as nothing else can. And I know not by what turn of destiny it should have lost the sense of joyous pride and pervasive pleasure that buoys up man’s spirit to face toils and travails with unfailing cheerfulness. I appeal to you, my King, who occupies your throne in furtherance of the divine will. Look around at other peoples and reflect on the excellence of these vassals who call you their lord. (Camoens 1952: 247) 9 Ó glória de mandar! ó vâ cobiça Desta vaidada a quem chamamos Fama! Ó fraudulento gosto que se atiça Cu˜a aura popular, que honra se chama! Que castigo tamanho e que justiça Fazes no peito vão que muito te ama! Que mortes, que perigos, que tormentas, Que crueldades neles exprimentas! Dura inquietação d’alma e da vida, Fonte de desamparos e adultérios, Sagaz consumidora conhecida De fazendas, de reinos e de impérios! Chaman-te ilustre, chaman-te subida, Sendo digna de infames vitupérios; Chaman-te Fama e Glória soberana, Nomes com quem se o povo néscio engana. (4.95–6) Oh, the folly of it, this craving for power, this thirsting after vanity we call fame, this fraudulent pleasure known as honor that thrives on popular esteem! When the vapid soul succumbs to its lure, what a price it exacts, and how justly, in perils, tempests, torments, death itself! It wreaks all peace of soul and body, leads men to forsake and betray their loved ones, subtly yet undeniably consumes estates, kingdoms, empires. Men call it illustrious and noble, when it merits instead the obloquy of infamy; they call it fame, and sovereign glory, mere names with which the common people delude themselves in their ignorance. (Camoens 1952: 119–20)

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10 A que novos desastres determinas De levar estes Reinos e esta gente? Que perigos, que mortes lhe destinas Debaixo dalgum nome preminente? Que promessas de reinos e de minas De ouro, que lhe farás tão facilmente? Que famas lhe prometerás? Que histórias? Que triunfos? Que palmas, que vitórias? (4.97) To what new disasters is it bent on leading this realm and its people? What perils and deaths has it in store for them, concealed under some fair-sounding name? What facile promises of gold mines and kingdoms does it hold out to them, of fame and remembrance, of palms and trophies and victories? (Camoens 1952: 120) 11 Mas ó tu, geração daquele insano Cujo pecado e desobediência Não somente do Reino soberano Te pôs neste desterro e triste ausência, Mas inda doutro estado, mais que humano, Da quieta e da simples inocência, Idade de ouro, tanto te privou, Que na de ferro e de armas te deitou. (4.98) They are an unhappy race, the heirs of madmen whose sin and disobedience has doomed them to exile from paradise as well as from the divine state of simple and tranquil innocence. The golden age that was Portugal has now become the age of iron and destruction. (Camoens 1952: 120) 12 Não tens junto contigo O Ismaelita, Com quem sempre terás guerras sobejas? Não segue ele do Arábio a Lei maldita, Se tu pela de Christo só pelejas? Não tem cidades mil, terra infinita Se terras e riqueza mais desejas? Não é ele por armas esforçado, Se queres por vitórias ser louvado? Deixas criar às portas o inimigo Por ires buscar outro de tão longe, Por quem se despovoe o Reino antigo, Se enfraqueça e se vá deitando a longe! Buscas o incerto e incógnito perigo, Por que a Fama te exalte e te lisonje, Chamando-te senhor, com larga cópia, Da Índia, Pérsia, Arábia e de Etiópia! (4.100–1)

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Is not the Ishmaelite close at hand, with whom there will always be wars and to spare? If the faith of Christ be the motive, does not he profess the cursed creed of Mahomet? Has not he a thousand cities and territories beyond calculation, if instead lands and riches be the lure? Or, if it be the praises that fall to the conqueror, is not he too a redoubtable antagonist? You allow the enemy to flourish at your gates, while you go seek at the other side of the world, at the price of depopulating and weakening its ancient kingdom and squandering its resources. You are lured by the perils of the uncertain and the unknown, to the end that fame may exalt and flatter you, proclaiming you with a wealth of titles lords of India, Persia, Arabia and Ethiopia. (Camoens 1952: 120–1) For a summary of the commentary on this episode, see Moser (1980). Já que nesta gostosa vaïdade Tanto enlevas a leve fantasia, Já que à bruta crueza e feridade Puseste nome esforço e valentia, Já que prezas em tanta quantidade O desprezo da vida, que devia De ser sempre estimada, pois que já Temeu tanto perdê-la quem a dá. (4.99) Que dizeis duns, que as entranhas Lhe estão ardendo em cobiça, E, se têm mando, a justiça Fazem de teias de aranhas Com suas hipocrisias, Que são de vós as espias? Pera os pequenos, uns Neros Pera os grandes, nada feros Pois tu, parvo, não sabias Que lá vão leis, onde querem cruzados? (Camoens 1985: 1.97) Ó vós, que sois secretários Das consciências reais, Que entre os homens estais Por senhores ordinários: Porque não pondes um freio Ao roubar, que vai sem meio, Debaixo de bom governo? Pois um pedaço de inferno Por pouco dinheiro alheio Se vende a mouro e a judeu. Porque a mente, afeiçoada Sempre à real dignidade,

Notes Vos faz julgar por bondade A malícia desculpada. Move a presença real Ûa afeição natural, Que logo inclina ao juiz A seu favor. E não diz Um rifão muito geral Que o abade, donde canta, daí janta? (Camoens 1985: 1.100–1) 17 Os bons vi sempre passar No Mundo graves tormentos; E pera mais me espantar, Os maus vi sempre nadar Em mar de contentamentos. (Camoens 1985: 1.136) 18 A longer elegiac version of the sonnet is as follows: Cá neste Babilónia adonde mana hipocrisia, engano e falsidade; cá donde ousada toda carne humana a todo arbítrio vive da vontade; cá donde enrouqueceu sa lusitana musa o furor heróico e suavidade; cá donde se produz por cega via matéria a quanto mal o mondo cria; cá donde o puro amor não tem valia, porque Baco o tem hoje desterrado; cá donde a frecha de ouro não feria senão cabelo preto e alfenado; cá donde a loura trança não servia nem o rosto de sangue matizado; cá donde nada vale à glória humana, que a Mãe, que manda mais, tudo profana; cá donde o mal se afina o bem se dana, se algum a terra em si quer produzir; cá donde a falsa gente maometana a glória toda funda em adquirir; cá donde multiplica a mão tirana professa em mais crecer, matar, mentir; cá donde o fazer bem é vilania, e pode mais que a honra a tirania; cá donde a errada e cega monarquia de fabulosas leis está vivendo e à forca de um amor engrandecia

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o nefando Alcorão em que está crendo; cá donde nada vale a poesia e se está da lei dela escarnecendo; cá donde a fidalguia maometana cuida com nome vão que a Deus engana; cá nesta Babilónia onde a nobreza da lusitana gente se perdeu, e do grão Sebastião toda a grandeza irreparavelmente se abateu; cá donde algum mentir não é baixeza e os méritos esmola—assi creceu da cobiça mortal a sem-razão— com esforço e saber pedindo vão; às portas da cobiça e da vileza estes netos de Agar estão sentados em bancos de torpíssima riqueza, todos de tirania marchetados. É do feio Alcorão suma a largueza que tem para que sejam pardoados de quantos erros cometendo estão, ça neste escuro caos de confusão. Cumprindo o curso estou da Natureza, ilustre Dama, neste labirinto; mas quem usa comigo mais crueza é tua condicão, que na alma sinto. Acabe-se algum dia tal tristeza e este sentido mal que em versos pinto. E, pois na alma é sentido e coracão, vê se me esquecerei de ti, Sião! (Camoens 1980: 3.519–21) 19 Cá neste Babilónia, donde mana matéria a quanto mal o mundo cria, cá onde o puro Amor não tem valia, que a Mãe, que manda mais, tudo profana; cá, onde o mal se afina o bem se dana, e pode mais que a honra a tirania; cá, onde a errada e cega Monarquia cuida que um nome vão a desengana; cá nesta labirinto, onde a nobreza com esforço e saber pedindo vão; às portas da cobiça e da vileza; Ca neste escuro caos de confusão,

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cumprindo o curso estou da Natureza. Vê se me esquecerei de ti, Sião! (Camoens 1980: 2.268) 20 Using the examples of the Iliad and the Rāmāyan.a, one can make the case that epics have within them a subtext that calls the entire epic venture into question. 21 A vós, ó gerac¸ ão de Luso, digo, Que tão pequena parte sois no mundo, Não diga inda no mundo mas no amigo Curral de Quem governa o Céu rotundo; Vós, a quem não somente algum perigo Estorva conquistar o povo imundo, Mas nem cobiça ou pouca obediência Da Madre que nos Céus está em essência; Vós Portugueses, poucos quanto fortes, Que o fraco poder vosso não pesais; Vós, que à custa de vossas várias mortes, A lei da vida eterna dilatais; Assi do Céu deitadas são as sortes Que vós, por muito poucos que sejais, Muito façais na santa Cristandade, Que tanto, ó Christo, exaltas a humildade! Vedelos Alemães, soberbo gado, Que por tão largos, campos se apacenta Do sucessor de Pedro rebelado, Novo pastor e nova seita inventa; Vedelo em feias guerras ocupado (Que inda co cego error se não contenta!) Não contra o superbíssimo Otomano, Mas por sair do jugo soberano. Vedelo duro Inglês . . . Pois de ti, Galo indigno, que direi? Que o nome “Christianíssimo” quiseste. (7.2–6) You are a very small part of mankind, you Lusitanians, a very small part even of God’s fold; and yet neither peril nor self-seeking, nor lukewarmness in devotion to Mother Church deters you from the conquest of the lands of the infidel. As few in numbers as you are stout of heart, you do not pause to reckon up your weakness. Facing death in manifold forms, you spread the faith that brings life eternal; for Heaven has willed that, few though you may be, you shall do great things for Christendom. So high, O Lord, dost thou exalt the humble. Consider the Germans, that far-flung and headstrong people who are even now in revolt against a new shepherd and a new creed. And, not content with the blandness of their ways, they are engaged in unworthy strife, not against the overbearing Turk,

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but against the Emperor, whose yoke they seek to throw off. Look at the dour English. And what shall I say to you, unworthy Frenchmen, who sought for yourself the title of “Most Christian”? (Camoens 1952: 161–2) 22 Pois que direi daqueles que em delícias, Que o vil ócio no mundo traz consigo, Gastam as vidas, logram as divícias, Esquecidos de seu valor antigo? Nascem da tirania inimicícias, Que o povo forte tem, de si inimigo. (7.8) And what of those who, grown forgetful of the valor of their ancestors, waste their lives in the pursuit of wealth and the pleasures of shameful indolence while tyranny sows dissension among a once brave people that is become its own worst enemy? It is with you, Italy, I speak, sunk in a welter of vices and divided against yourself. (Camoens 1952: 162)

7 There is No There Anymore: The Subaltern Speaks to Pietro della Valle 1 Cited in The Smithsonian, January, 2009: 45 2 Rustico under Pope Honorius II and Andrea under Pope Leo X. 3 In India, della Valle was very diligent to provide for his girl’s care. He placed her with the Dutch commendator’s wife, a closeted Catholic, to protect her faith, person, and honor (della Valle 1892: 1.26). 4 Aeneadum soboles! Albani sanguinis haeres! Aeneae proavi quam bene facta refers! Ille senem ex Asiâ fertur vexisse parentem; Ex Asiâ conjux est tibi ducta comes. Par utrique fides esset, nisi quòd tua major Est pietas, Italûm gloria Valliade, Ille senem extinctum Siculâ tellure reliquit; Tu Romam extinctae conjugis ossa vehis. (della Valle 1892: xlvii) 5 As we saw in the last chapter, comparing someone favorably to Aeneas was also a trope found in the Lusiads, where the Portuguese heroes are also said to show greater valor than their Latin epic forebear. 6 Pyrard (1887: 2.120–1): “And although these enrolled soldiers have no title or dignities, yet they do not omit to assume honor among themselves, calling themselves all ‘gentlemen’ though they be of low condition . . . These titles which they use among themselves, are only to make the Indians believe that they are all of goodly and illustrious parentage, having no race of Vile Churls among them. Wherefore they will not that any Portuguese or other [European] should do any Vile

Notes

7 8

9 10

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or dishonorable work, nor should beg his livlihood, they will rather maintain him to the best of their power, and they infinitely prize the title ‘Portuguese of Portugal’ calling such a one homo blanco, or ‘white man.’ All the poor Indians they despise, as though they would trample them under their feet. So these Indians were all amazed when we told them that these fellows were sons of porters, cobblers, drawers of water and other vile craftsmen.” He makes it a point to note that prostitution does, however, exist (della Valle 1892: 1.46). Della Valle describes the queen as black, like an Ethiopian. She is a fortyish, heavy-set woman who does not look her station. Her clothes are of common cotton; she goes barefoot and naked from the waist up. She looks more like a laundress or a kitchen wench. He marvels that this woman has been able to rout the armies of Spain. He admires her for her military prowess, much like he had admired his first wife. Della Valle speaks to her with an interpreter. She has a graceful voice. Out of modesty, she hides her face. When he inquires why she hides her face, she gives the excuse that she has no teeth, even though she does (della Valle 1892: 2.307). The first thing della Valle does in his conversation with her is to distance himself from the Portuguese, since the queen has warred against them as allies of her former husband (2.314–15). Della Valle tells her that he comes from Rome and has been wandering for ten years. Having heard of her and her exploits, he claims that he has come to offer her his services (2.308). Della Valle presents the queen as brave and intelligent. She is also intuitive, asking him if he left home because he had lost a loved one. Della Valle demurs from answering her (2.309). The Portuguese outlawed suttee early on. Albuquerque outlawed it when he took Goa; see his Commentaries 1884–1935: 2.94. Della Valle’s poems are found in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. Lat 10, 383. These poems were first published by Rubiés (2000: 399–400): In Ikkeri città regia de Venktapa Naieka principe gentile. D’una donna che si brugiò viva per la morte di suo marito In India è una città detta Ikerì. Dove, morto il marito a Giaccamà Ch’era donna di razza Telengà Ne la contrada di Malars Kinì, Non volendo ella dimorar più qui Ma col diletto andarsene colà Ne l’altro mondo vi pensa’l trovarà Spontanemente sua vita finì. E, com’è lor costume si bruggiò Poco dopo ch’estinto, et arso fù Lo sposo; senza lui, viver no vuòl.

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O amor degno di fama, e che qua giù Sia celebrato almen, poi che non può Lo spirito, ch’è infedile, andar là su. Alla medesima donna O Giaccamà, si quanto a Dio infedele Altretanto al tuo sposo fossi stata, Non ti saresti mai viva brugiata Per serbare altrai fede, a te crudele. O Giaccamà, se a Dio così fedele Come al tuo sposo ti fossi mostrata La vita ti saresti conservata, Ma con perpetue lagrime e querele. Io così faccio, e a farlo mi insegna La santa legge che dal ciel discese, Che sola al mondo d’osservarsi e degna. Vorrei seguir chi in paradiso ascesa Ma per non far di ciò l’alma mia indegna Aspetto che mi chiami chi lei presa. * Non penso Giaccamà che habbia men pena Chi vive a lungo in perpetuo dolore, Che chi per dare al suo mal fine, muore, E abbrucciando i tormenti, il duòlo affrena. Vita d’affani e di miseria piena Senza por mai in oblio ’l perduto amore Peggio e che morte, e ha ben duro il cuore Ch’in tale statio molti anni la mena Ne più gran segno è di fede, o costanza, Brugiar se stesso che soffrir vivendo Un’incendio continuo e prolongato. Ja che l’anima e’l cor si va straggendo, Et con maggior martiri è consumato Quanto più lunga è del fin la speranza.

Conclusion 1 Elsewhere (Figueira 1991, 1994), I have examined the aesthetic and religious quests motivating such cross-cultural endeavors.

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Index Albuquerque, Afonso d’ 102, 163, 173 Alexander 13, 19, 33–6, 113, 154, 156 Alexander Romance 19, 33, 35, 37, 39, 45 Arawak 66, 70–1, 145 Aristotle 18, 19, 35, 36, 50, 74 Aryans 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 96, 102, 153 Augustine 28, 29, 74, 75 Barbosa, Duarte 15, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 106, 133, 162, 163 Bhabha, Homi K. 3, 46, 51 Brahmins 36, 37, 38, 73, 96, 100, 101, 105–8, 118, 131–2 Bracciolini, Poggio 58–60, 74, 158 Cabral, Pedro Alvarez 86–7, 95 Camoens, Luís Vaz de 109–31, 164–72 Cannibals 18, 66–67, 69–72, 150, 159, 160 Caribs 66–71, 159, 160 Caste 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 109, 131 Certeau, Michel de 6, 7, 10–12, 15, 72, 88, 105–6, 142 Chanca, Diego Alvarez 67, 69, 70 Christians, Indian Christians 8, 14, 15, 28, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49–55, 59–62, 65, 70, 73, 75–85, 87–9, 91, 93, 94, 96, 98, 99, 101, 105, 106–9, 111, 114, 115, 118, 123–5, 137, 139, 142, 143, 144, 160 Columbus, Christopher 13, 14, 49, 54, 57, 58, 59, 62–73, 75–6, 91, 125, 142, 158–60 Conti, Nicolò de’ 14, 54, 58, 59–62, 73, 75, 91, 117, 132, 158, 162 Covilhã, Pêro da, 56–7 Cuneo, Michele de 67–8, 160 Dante 30, 45, 72, 74, 111, 156 Dati, Giovanni 14, 72–5 Dasa 22–4 della Valle, Pietro 14, 127–39, 172–3 Dilthey Wilhelm 2, 4

Ethiopia, Ethiopians 18, 19, 28, 44–9, 51, 73, 145, 156–67 Foucault, Michel, Foucauldian 4, 5, 6, 8, 150–2 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 4, 5, 10, 11, 144, 147–150, 152, 141 Gama, Vasco da 14, 57, 76–88, 93–6, 111, 113–17, 120, 124, 142, 160, 161 Gόis, Damião 15, 46–9, 50–1, 156–7 Habermas, Jürgen 5, 10, 149–50 Heidegger, Martin 2, 4, 9 Hermeneutics of belief (hermeneutical consciousness) 141, 142, 145 Hermeneutics of suspicion (critical consciousness) 141, 142, 144–5 Herodotus 17, 18, 19 Hindu(s) 43, 81, 85, 89, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102–5, 107, 115, 131, 134, 135, 137, 143 Hindutva 22, 24 Hock, Hans H. 22, 23, 24 Husserl, Edmund 2, 9 India, Indians 11–14, 19–20, 22, 28, 30, 31, 35, 37–41, 43–5, 47–8, 56, 59, 71, 72, 75, 76, 79, 85–7, 89, 94, 100–7, 114–17, 118, 125, 129–31, 135, 142–3, 152–3, 156, 162 Jesuits 13, 101, 105, 106, 107, 108, 128–9 Jesuit letters 99, 100, 105, 164 Las Casas, Bartholomé de 63, 64, 159 Levinas, Emmanuel 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 139, 142–3, 147, 151–2 Loyola, Ignatius 14, 99, 100, 108 Lusiads 14, 112, 113, 118, 124, 127, 172

187

188 Maps 31–2 Marx, Karl, Marxist 2, 149 Megasthenes 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 153–4 Miscegenation 103, 129 Monsters 25–9, 31–3, 37, 38, 43, 47, 52–3, 62, 65–6, 72, 75, 76, 91, 105, 108, 111, 117–18, 123, 125, 142, 144 Montaigne, Michel de 150 Muslims 31, 44, 46, 50, 55–6, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 89, 93, 96–8, 100, 107, 112–15, 117, 123, 130, 131, 157, 162 Nunes, Fernão 14, 97–9, 106 Otto of Freising 41, 45, 154 Paes, Domingo 14, 97–9, 106 Paiva, Alfonso de 56–7 Pires, Tomé 15, 95–9, 100–2, 133, 162 Plato 1, 17, 141 Pliny 17, 19, 21, 74, 153 Portugal, Portuguese 11, 125, 129–30, 157, 163, 173 Prester John 13, 32, 41–5, 47–9, 51–4, 56–8, 63, 73, 75, 86, 88, 154–7 Pseudo-Callisthenes 33–6, 45, 153 Pyrard de Laval, François 130, 172

Index Ricoeur, Paul 4–6, 8, 10, 11, 44, 72, 76, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 Rig Veda 22–4, 26 Rubiés, Joan-Pau 135, 175 Said, Edward W., Saidian 2, 5, 152 St. Thomas, Acts of Thomas 13, 33, 39–43, 45, 47, 51, 54, 56, 58, 74–5, 108, 118, 152, 154, 155, 157, 163 Samorin of Calicut 76, 81–4, 86, 88, 93, 116, 123, 145, 161 Satī 132–5, 137–9, 145, 158 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 2, 4 Schwanbeck E.A. 25–7 Scythians 17, 18, 32, 39 Sernigi, Girolamo 88 Strabo 19, 20, 21, 154 Syllacio, Nicolò 67, 69 Taino 67, 71, 145, 160 Treaty of Tordesillas 57–8 Valignano, Alessandro 14, 104, 105, 107, 164 Varthema, Ludovico de 14, 91–5, 97–8, 106, 115, 117, 132–3, 162 Vorurteile (prejudice) vii, 4, 144

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