who were pearl fishers. His task of learning Tamil was difficult since, it bears no resemblance to any European language. After seven months of eager and exhausting study, he could speak and write Tamil.

On the 10th November 1606, Robert-de-Nobili left for Madura. He reached Fernandez's mission house. The Madura mission was about eleven years old but Fernandez had not made any headway regarding conversion to the Christian faith. On reaching Madura and surveying Fernandez's work, Robert-di-Nobili immediately knew where the defeat of his prodecessor lay. He chalked out a programme of work for himself. His earlier contact with the Indian population and convinced him that they had to be converted slowly in their own way their own beliefs and customs.

Nobili's first acquaintance at Madura was the school master in Fernandez's service. He won the school master by talking to him in his own language (Tamil).

India during Nobili's day was full of castes. It was a basic category of Indian thought. The beef-eating, outcastes in foreign dress the Indians called Paraṅkis. The Portuguese rule which had encouraged “mixed marriages” had also led to a down trodden detested sect of Paraṅkis. It was the first name given to Nobili in Madura. The Paraṅkis were considered as bad as the Paṟaiyars and the Paḷḷas. Fernandez had failed to attract any of high cast Hindus into the Christian fold since, he was also labelled along with the “outcastes” and he made no effort to erase it.

Making people change their ancestral national customs and give up their caste, as a token of the sincerity of their conversion, struck Nobili as a carying injustice. Hence he began with a more acceptable method. He called Christianity the true religion (Sattiya Vētam) and not the religion of the Paraṅkis. He adopted some of the harmless Hindu customs of sitting cross-legged on the floor, gave up eating meat and drinking wine, dressed like an “India Sanyasi,” walked with wooden sandals and called himself