great sanctity, seems to have been a protest against the reception of large groups from the depressed classes and low-sudra castes into the church. Nor has any mission connected with one of these movements escaped internal controversy about it,”¹⁸ “Various sudra castes have been represented in mass movements that have established Roman Catholicism in many parts of South India..… The Nāṭārs, who comprise the largest number in the strong Anglican church of Tinnevelly and the vigorous and potent united church of South India in the Tamil District of Travancore, are Sudras, formerly reckoned as low-caste, but now regarded as one of the alert and progressive elements in those areas,”¹⁹ Education and the importing of it in South India particularly was until the commencement of the 20th century in the hands of Brahmins and those belonging to the higher strata of society. The lower caste and the untouchables were merely satisfied with a day-to-day living. Their living condition was usually deplorable. Religion with the accompanying rituals was practised but their significance was never understood. The temples were not open to them and they had to be satisfied with a wayside deity or the community deity. The Brahmins specially, jealously guarded all knowledge of the Sacred Books. It was but natural that when the Missionaries preached it fell more often than not on receptive ears and there was wholesale conversion or “mass movement”. Christian Missionaries were not the originators of this kind of mass conversion. “Much of the expansion of Mohammadanism in India, before the Modern era of Christian Missions, took place through mass movements”.²⁰ Whatever the criticism we now know that Robert-de-Nobili’s efforts were not in vain and he was able to launch a new era in Missionary work in India. However, during 1610 there was a certain amount of persecution of the Christians. “The chief obstacle to the further progress of Nobili’s work came from the representations of Fernandez to the higher authorities, questioning its very foundation as cutting at the root of Christianity. ”²¹

18. Waskom Pickett. Christian Mass Movements in India; Introd., P. 9.

19. Ibid. P. 28.

20. Ibid. P. 36.

21. Sathianatha Iyer, R. Ibid; P. 107.