From Jesuit Missionary to Tamil Pulavar
Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi SJ (1680-1747), the “Great Heroic Sage”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20041870 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sascha Ebeling (University of Chicago), Margherita Trento (0000-0002-3443-358X, Center for South Asian Studies) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Pages | 53-89 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | L’Inde et l’Italie (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/books.editionsehess.23276 |
| OpenAlex | W3026504699 |
| ISBN | 9782713231544 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 9 |
In the course of the thirty-six years he spent in South India as a missionary, the Italian Jesuit Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (1680-1747) composed a number of literary works in Tamil that gained wide recognition and are nowadays included in the standard Tamil literary histories. How did Beschi become a canonical Tamil author? In this paper, we follow Beschi’s career from Italy to South India in order to understand Beschi’s journey from being a missionary to also becoming a scholar-cum-poet known in Tamil as pulavar. We believe that Beschi acquired recognition as a poet in two different phases. First, he consciously attempted to become part of the literary ecology of Nāyaka-period Tamil Nadu by composing works that would establish his reputation as a poet, among them his masterpiece, the epic poem Tēmpāvaṇi. The refined language of his works is in itself a testimony of this effort of being recognized as a “traditional” scholarly authority. Second, during the nineteenth century, colonial administrators, missionaries and Tamil Christian intellectuals in South India “rediscovered” Beschi, collected manuscripts of his poems and produced printed editions of most of Beschi’s works.The essay begins by discussing Beschi’s education in Italy. We then map the stages of his career in South India, showing how he developed his literary portfolio, by writing grammars, dictionaries, and sophisticated prabandhas. We further examine closely some stanzas from the Tēmpāvaṇi to show how he negotiated his double role as a missionary and as a pulavar through language and literature. The final section of the paper focuses on the nineteenth century and the rediscovery of Beschi’s works by British and French colonial administrators and orientalists, discussing in particular the manuscript copies of the Tēmpāvaṇi collected at that time
Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · EPIC · Literature · Order (exchange) · Poetry · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Tamil · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Classics · History · Philippine History and Culture · Study and Philosophy of Religion
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2021 (3) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |