The Bharatha community of Sri Lanka had a sing-a-long on the 22nd of October 2016 at the BMICH Banquet Hall.

Close to 500 people attended this function. And the mood was robust and rich in Sri Lankan flavor. The Bharathas are Drividhians, but it is one minority community, even though has its own unique identity is well integrated into the culture of the Island. At the sing-a-long the singers gave equal place to English, Tamil and Sinhala songs. Sinhala Baila was very popular when it was time to dance. The Bharatha community in Sri Lanka love to eat, drink, sing and dance and this was something that stood out very clearly no matter young or old. Pure unfettered spontaneous celebration, of a people from a community that is spread from Colombo moving north along the coast right up to Mannar, and then there are those who live in Galle,Kurunagalle Ratnapura and Badulla. In Colombo the biggest concentration is in the Kotahena area. The most common Bharatha Surnames we see at present are, Paldano, Roche, Devotta, Vas, Carvalho, Motha, D’lmeida, Gomez, Victoria, Miranda, Soris, Fernando, Moraes, Pires, Cruz, Machado, Gonsal and Paiva.

In the distant past the Paravas (Bharatha is another version of that word) main business was pearl fishing. A book was written in 1948 by John X Motha called a ‘Short history of the Pandyans’ in which he says that the Paravas became rich and important as the pearl-fishing industry was exclusively in their hands. When Mohameddans came to power around the 15th centuary the Paravas were some what pressure due this stronger taking control and the writer John Motha says they lost their hold of the pearl industry. The revolt of the Paravas began in the year 1532, when a Parava woman was insulted and her husband’s ear was torn by a Mohemeddan. The Paravas who were greatly offended by this act plotted a sudden attack on the Mohammadan quarters and killed a great number of them. The retaliation of the Mohammadans was severe.

The Paravas then addressed themselves to Dom Joao de Cruz, a rich Parava merchant of Goa to obtain help from the Portuguese authorities. The Portuguese then took up arms against the Mohameddans and kept the Paravas under their protection on one condition that all Paravas be baptized and converted to Christianity; this happened in 1537.

Today these people lead a very peaceful life on the island. They are very devout Caholics and base their lives very much around the church. Whilst initially they came to the island to do business in the liquor trade, drapasry, phamaceuiticals etc. now there are many in the professions like banker, lawyers, accountants etc.

Thanks: www.community.lk

My cousin Marius Gomez had business connections in Tuticorin and was kind enough to arrange a hotel, a car and a local guide to take me around. I had to fly into Chennai and take a domestic flight from Chennai to Tuticorin on a small propeller-driven aircraft operated by Spicejet. I was served by lovely hostesses who made me realize that it is not only in Bombay that the “ladies are nice and so full of spice”. After 90 minutes of being pampered, I landed at Tuticorin airport. The quaint little airport consisted of a short airstrip and a small building with just enough space for a waiting area and a luggage conveyor belt. My driver was awaiting my arrival and whisked me off to Sathya Park & Resorts Hotel, which was a short 20-minute drive from the airport. (https://www.sathyaresorts.com/).

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty Indian buffet breakfast, my guide Sundar arrived at the hotel. To my surprise, he had brought along two others, a man called Bono Roche and his wife Hilvia. Sundar introduced them to me as distant relatives who had received news of my arrival and were very keen to share their knowledge with me (Photo – From L to R, Sundar, Myself, Bono and Hilvia). Bono and Hilvia turned out to be even more knowledgeable than Sundar. I learnt that the Portuguese called the area where the Paravars lived "Costa da Pescaria" or “Land of the Pearls”. This area stretched from Tuticorin to Manapad and beyond. Slowly sipping his cup of tea, Bono explained that from around the year 1500, many of the Paravars were pearl fishermen and pearl traders, diving for pearls to the bottom of the ocean where they could stay for hours.

My ancestors were first converted to Christianity around the year 1542 by a Spanish missionary by the name of Francis Xavier who had taken a vow of poverty and chastity. This dedicated saint lived by himself in a small cave beside the sea and tirelessly preached the gospel to my ancestors.

The story sounded so fascinating that we decided to do the 90-minute drive from Tuticorin to Manapad to visit the cave of St Francis Xavier. The Catholic church had carefully maintained the cave and its surroundings. The atmosphere around the cave was surreal. I could still sense his saintly anointing as I stood at the entrance of the cave and gazed out to the open sea in awe. After spending the day walking along the beach and visiting the churches of Manapad, we drove back to Tuticorin in time for dinner at the hotel.

The next morning, Bono and Hilvia came to my hotel again and we decided to explore Tuticorin town. Since my entire community had embraced Roman Catholicism, much of their activities had been centred around the iconic “Church of Our Lady of Snows” for more than 300 years. Built in 1713, the church was eventually raised to the status of Basilica in 1982 by Pope John Paul II. Bono and Hilvia then took me to the areas of Tuticorin where my ancestors lived.

Our first stop was Roche Colony Road and then Roche Park, which is a recreation area for families built by one ofmy ancestors. We strolled past an existing Roche business, and we then stopped at the Tuticorin Post Office, which was then managed by my great-grandfather (my father’s mother’s father). I was amazed that the same old post office, although dilapidated, was still in existence and still in use after all those years. Bono and Hilvia left me in Tuticorin town and headed back home while I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a roadside bench sipping a cup of coffee and observing the local folk heading back home after work. The Tuticorin public transport system consisted of quaint little yellow minibuses, which were never overly crowded and seemed to always have enough space for everyone.

The next day was my last day in Tuticorin. Bono and Hilvia came by again and whisked me off to visit the family of a wise old relative who seemed to have a depth of knowledge on the history of the Paravars going back several thousands of years. The wise old man sat in his armchair and took me back about three thousand years to a time when the stretch of coastland from Poovar to Tuticorin was well known throughout the world for its gold. He recalled stories told by his grandfather about ancient times when the area was known as Parvaim. “The ancient Paravars were boat owners and gold traders who exported their gold to kingdoms throughout the ancient world”, he said.

My own research showed that Parvaim was indeed renowned for its gold. In fact, it was so well known that King Solomon imported gold from Parvaim to build his renowned temple in ancient Israel. This is mentioned in the Holy Bible in 2 Chronicles 3:6. Although there is some debate among scholars regarding the exact location of Parvaim, a lot of the research points to Poovar as being the nearest natural sea port to Parvaim, and the most likely port at which the gold was loaded on to King Solomon’s fleet of ships.

That evening, I bade farewell to my new friends and the driver took me to the airport. While waiting for my Spicejet flight, I grappled with all that I had seen and heard over my few days in the exotic land of my ancestors. Paravar… Parvaim… were the Paravars really the original inhabitants of Parvaim? If so, did my ancestors really make such a significant contribution to ancient biblical history?

As I was early for my flight, I pulled out my laptop, connected to WiFi and googled while simultaneously cross-checking the information with the heavy pile of historical books and documents which I had faithfully carried with me in my briefcase. All the evidence I gathered seemed to point to a clear connection between the Paravars and Parvaim. Edgar Thurston, in his 1909 publication “Castes and Tribes of Southern India” quotes from an ancient and reliable document of church history, the Historia Ecclesiastica, which states that the Paravars were indeed the inhabitants of Parvaim. As I finally boarded the plane and took off from Tuticorin airport, I settled down in my seat and sipped my coffee with a renewed sense of pride in being a Paravar.

Cecil Roche was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. After being a student at St Peter’s College Colombo, he proceeded to the United Kingdom where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Essex, and a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Sheffield. He then spent 20 years in Singapore where he worked as a Senior Lecturer and a Section Head of Software Engineering at the Singapore Polytechnic. He then moved to Melbourne, Australia where he taught Information Technology and Computer Networks at RMIT University. Cecil and his Singaporean wife Julie currently live in Melbourne. Their son is a medical doctor in Singapore and their daughter has her own business in Melbourne. Julie runs a travel business and Cecil runs his own investment company while travelling often between Australia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Thanks: www.community.lk

THREE CENTURIES OF PROGRESS. Rev. Fr. Editor : In writing under the above ambitious title I wish to call your attention only to some of the striking features which attended the expansion of this well known Mission. It occupies the South-East portion of the Indian peninsula and has to-day over a quarter of a million Catholics, almost as many Anglicans, Lutherans and Congregationalists, half a million Mahometans and five million Hindus, atheists, pantheists and polytheists. The first conversions came by a mass movement. In 1534 man hunting Mahometans were extirpating a small fishing tribe, the Paravans of the sea-coast, and paid 50 cents for every Paravan head. The oppressed appealed to the rising star in the Eastern skies, the Portuguese power. The captain of Cochin came with his fleet. “Though you gave me a heap of gold as tall as myself,” he told some Mahometan chiefs who came to bribe him, “I shall protect these fishermen.” Some Franciscans landed with him and they baptized 20,000 Paravans. Thus, thanks to a diplomatic move, the Church had gained a footing. But from 1542 onward, the many thousand conversions that took place were due solely to the supernatural power of St. Francis Xavier who, like the greatest apostolic models, went about preaching and baptizing sequentibus signis (Mark, XVI). The Annual Letter of 1603 mentions 50,000 Christians under the care of sixteen Fathers, and the Letter of 1609 has the following shrewd remark: “If in the Orient from the Christian point of view the Japanese

come first, it would be unjust not to put the Paravans second. ” But we are still only on the coast. In 1574 some Paravan merchants migrated inland to Madura City and the Jesuit Father G. Fernandes followed them; but, living like a ‘‘foreigner,” he could not make one conversion. A thorough change of missionary methods was imperative. It was made by the “Roman Brahman,” Father Robert de Nobili, who, making himself all to all, took up the Indian attire, Indian dress and Indian mode of living so crucifying to the European. In five years, from 1607 to 1611, he baptized 108 Brahmans, a fact so marvellous then as to draw upon him the eyes of friend and foe. Two camps formed immediately, on each side being members of the Society, of the Franciscan order, of the secular clergy, ordinary laymen and even bishops, and archbishops and the Goan Inquisition, until in 1623 a bull of Gregory XV decided for de Nobili. But criticisms and even calurhnies followed him for many years. And yet he struck the first great blow at Hinduism and opened the portals of the Church to Brahman and outcaste alike. From Madura some Christian low caste emigrated to Trichinopoly, 100 miles to the North and formed the nucleus of the large community later on. Soon Jesuit missionaries penetrated inland both from the East and from the West Coast; while about 1663 Father de Proenza visited the Marava Kingdom, East of Madura, and from these fewceutres the Society of Jesus worked the Mission until the fatal year 1773. Already in 1569 Antony Criminale had gained the martyr’s crown. “Believe me,” St. Francis Xavier had written to St. Ignatius, “he is a saint, he is born for mission work here.” One hundred and fifty later, in 1693, 81. John de Britto also shed his blood for the faith. He had converted manv thousands. We cannot enlarge here on the missionary methods of those days, nor on the privations and the sufferings thev entailed. But the success obtained is truly j J wonderful. In 1700 Father Bouchet wrote that in eleven years he had baptized 20,000 oersons and was actually in charge of 30,000 Christians. In twenty months, about the year 1701, Father Earner reclaimed 7 000 apostates and converted 9,000 Hindus. Rl. John de Britto within eighteen months baptized 8000 catechumens, and almost every Annual Letter mentions converts by hundreds in sundry localities.

Then in 1773 came the fatal blow. Since 1759 the Society had been suppressed in Portugal, and as a consequence the mission was half strangled. The dozen Fathers, who remained after 1773, died surely before 1800. and were replaced by some unworthy Indian secular clergy of the Latin and the Syriac rites from Goa or from Cochin, and by one or two Franciscans. In 1795 three members of the Paris Foreign Missions came to the rescue, and four more came after 1832. Two of the latter introduced in 1838 the four founders of the modern Jesuit Mission and the work began anew. There has thus been a long winter season or stagnation period from 1773 to 1838. But in reality it lasted over a century until 1886, when the unhappy, and at times scandalous, conflicts of clergy and laity, caused by the double jurisdiction, of the Goanese versus the Propagandists , came to an end by papal intervention. The period of revival, or the second spring . We cannot follow here the evolution of every department of a fully organized modern Mission. There is first of all the recruiting and training department of the missionary agency, —of priests, regular and secular, of Brothers, Sisters, catechists and teachers of both sexes; secondly, the Mission work proper, the spiritual care of neophytes and catechumens and the evangelization of non-Christians; thirdly, the educational department, elementary and advanced; fourthly, charitable service in hospitals, dispensaries, asylums, orphanages and industrial schools. But these are not mutually exclusive departments; for the same person may be transferred from one kind of work to another, and there are butfew missionaries who are not called upon occasionally to exercise all the various corporal and spiritual works of mercy. There is however great advantage in concentration on special issues, while there is comprehension and freedom of impulse in the higher sphere of the administration. Let us for the present show some of the obstacles and hindrances the missionary cause meets with in India. They are physical and moral . As for physical obstacles there is first the climate. The average temperature is the highest in the world, there being only two seasons, the hot season and the hotter one. There come next periodic visitations of drought and famine, of fevers, cholera and small pox. There were moreover in the

ancient Mission continuous wars and devastation which scattered the Christians and destroyed churches. And there is still the great drawback of slow transportation. In this time of motors, rails and aeroplanes most of our missionaries must still make their circuits in bullock carts at the rate of three miles per hour with great fatigue and enormous loss of time. The chief battles, however, are fought in the moral world against the forces of paganism, protestantism and human passions of all sorts. Some typical instances will dispense with further commentary. i. Mob fury and corrupt officialdom. Here is what is called the tragedy of Kalugumalei, a climax of pagan hatred and caste rivalries. The said village has 4000 inhabitants and a fine pagoda, with large endowments of land. In 1894 some 500 persons of the rather low but ambitious caste of Sarians or toddy-drawers declared themselves Catechumens. On Palm Sunday of 1895 was the annual pagan festival. A lofty idolcar was pulled in procession as usual through the Christian quarter. When it reached the Catholic chapel, the Christians were asked to make room by removing a small, leaf shed set up at the entrance. This they refused to do, as the land was their own and such action would create a precedent; besides, there was ample room. Whereupon insults, blasphemies and stones were hurled upon them and they fled into their chapel. A tumult follows in which the landlord’s manager suddenly falls down, stabbed to death; a head man rushing to the rescue receives a fatal blow; the murderer escapes and the crowd exclaims : “Burn the chapel! ” Some prominent Hindus lead the operation; the chapel door is barricaded and the roof set on fire; the Christians, however, escape through a window, but are arrested by the police. The mob now scatters in the Christian quarter, pillages every house, tears away the jewels from the nose and ears of women and children, and the garments from their bodies, and finally sets everything on fire. Seven Christians are burnt or killed, and the damage done amounts to 20,000 dollars. But the most revolting feature of the case is that the Court of Justice, or rather of iniquity, had not a word of blame for any Hindu, while it sent thirtv-eight Christians to jail and two to the gallows. The High Court, however, commuted thedeath sentence.

2. The tyranny of caste . It operates within each caste or against some castes. From time immemorial all low and out-caste, even our neophytes, must contribute to the local pagan festivals, play the band instruments, or pull the idol-car, or at least pay some subscription. Refusal brings upon them all kinds of vexations and the loss of every means of livelihood. The missionary fights this abuse by encouraging the Christians to corporate resistance or by giving them some land or finding for them some occupation. When the Christians are few and timid, another means, used with success by the present writer, is to prevail upon the pagan head man, with threats, if need be, to report him to the British magistrate. 3. a Might is right ” policy. In a village of the State of Puducotta, within this Mission, the members of the Robber caste, the Kalians, decided in 1908 to stop all Catholic processions. As usual the subordinate Indian police and magistrates were on the pagan side. But the missionary made the Prime Minister understand that if he forced the Christians to yield in one case, there would soon be religious war all over the country. The Premier himself came on the spot, and, to enforce our right, sent on the festival day a police officer with sixty men. But when the procession reached a certain street, it met 2000 Kalians armed with sticks and projectiles. The police made the usual summons, but the Robber regiment stood firm. The order: “Road the rifles” was then given and this had a magic effect. The opposition fled and has never re-appeared. 4. Militant paganism. Its weapons are not only sticks and stones. In 1909 a group of Shanan converts were praying in their temporary chapel when there rushed in a band of pagans, herded by the manager of the local landlord. They beat all the men present, wounded several, demolished the entire chapel and carefully hid away all the materials. After a year of litigation the complaint of the Christians was rejected as groundless. These few examples show in what environment our Mission work proceeds. There is need of tact and prudence in gaining, keeping and defending neophytes without offending caste susceptibilities or men in authority in a country where, despite the laudable

efforts of the British Government, too often still might and fraud are right. Missionary action meets everywhere with re-actions manifest or latent; but the impulse from Heaven leads from victory to victory. 

J. C. Houpert, s. J.

Thanks: www.jesuitonlinelibrary.bc.edu