The symbolic
importance of St. Francis Xavier to the people of Goa need not be repeated
every time we discuss his miracles, or every ten years when his mortal remains
are thrown open for public veneration and display. Venerated as Goencho Saib, the importance of his
incorruptible body for the colonial as well as the post-colonial administration
of Goa (for purposes of tourism) can also be clearly seen.
His importance
as someone who watches over Goa, has clearly outlived the colonial times. As I
write this column, the preparations for this year’s Exposition seem to be
slowly progressing: hopefully, from Old Goa looking like a “war zone”, in the
words of a friend, to being orderly and organized. While many of the stories
surrounding the miracles of Xavier are fairly commonly known in Goa with more
emphasis placed on the religious and spiritual efficacy, they are rarely told
as stories that had a particular historical context. What else, other than the
healing and efficacious powers of the saint, can these miracles tell us?
While dwelling
upon the symbolic importance of Xavier through time, let me refer to Pamila
Gupta’s essay, “‘Signs of Wonder’: The Postmortem Travels of Francis Xavier in
the Indian Ocean,” to locate the miraculous powers of Xavier in a particular
historical context. Through her reading of biographies and/or hagiographies of
Xavier written by his fellow Jesuits, largely around the time when the drive
for his canonization was gaining momentum, Gupta argues that these ‘signs of
wonder’ or miracles (in common parlance) associated with the remains of Xavier
tell us about alternate networks of circulation of trade and colonialism in
Portuguese Asia. As such these networks
of circulation and stories associated with Xavier’s incorruptible body were not
directly linked to imperialism and colonialism emerging from European centers.
Rather, they opened up new experiences of colonialism through travel by sea,
Christianization, and the patterns of monsoon winds.
Gupta broadens
her field of analysis to view Xavier’s incorruptible body as simultaneously “a
commodity, a gift, a relic, a person, and a thing” that allows her to see how
the mortal remains were treated in Sancian, Malacca, and Goa against the backdrop
of the reach of Portuguese commercial and political power, and the success of
Jesuit missionary activities in these regions. These three places are not
simply associated with the mortal remains in Xavier’s postmortem travels, but
they were also actively part of his travels and missionary activities while he
was alive.
After Xavier’s
death in Sancian, his mortal remains could not be fully appreciated there
“because of the limits of Portuguese statehood – Sancian was less a colonial
outpost than a temporary safe haven for commercial traffic at this time” that
necessitated the transfer of his incorruptible body to Malacca. Though,
Xavier’s mortal remains did show miraculous signs in Sancian, the Portuguese
settlers there failed to honor him with a proper burial. Moreover, though there
was an absence of a “sustained church and state activity”, Xavier still
exhibited numerous signs of incorruptness and sanctity.
In Malacca,
however, Xavier’s mortal remains were received with a greater honour. His
mortal remains were taken out in a procession in that city, where immediately
some people were healed. Xavier also rid Malacca of an ongoing plague, his sanctity
“rubbing off onto this colonial outpost [that is, Malacca] in a way reminiscent
of European relics which often acted to protect and secure its new community”.
But during the five months that Xavier’s mortal remains were kept in Malacca,
they were damaged yet again due to the grave being too small. Moreover, the
burial in Malacca happens in the absence of his fellow Jesuits (like in
Sancian) and the Governor of Malacca, suggesting an absence of the powers of
the church and the state. Gupta states that “in the end, Xavier’s poor
treatment during his internment here exposes the vulnerabilities of church,
state, and [Portuguese] public, thus prompting his subsequent removal from
Malacca”.
The city of Goa being the capital of the Portuguese presence in Asia, and a place whose importance is not just confined
to the political and commercial, but also encompasses the symbolic, receives
the would-be saint with much honour and celebration. Gupta makes a fine
observation in this regard: “Unlike both
Sancian and Malacca, where his corpse was intermittently valued and poorly
treated, Xavier is fully appreciated in Goa.
Moreover, the elaborately ritualized reception of Xavier’s holy relic in Velha Goa will be unlike either of the
events that were staged in Sancian and Malacca; that Xavier intercedes in
exposing a perfect balance of church, state, and public at this valued site
also explains why his postmortem travels end here”.
If we try to
reflect on Gupta’s view of the telling of Xavier’s remarkable story of
postmortem travels as an act that bestows a different value on the object of
the story – Xavier and his incorruptible body – we can appreciate how Xavier
was simply not a missionary who wanted to convert people to Christianity, but
as in life and death somebody who ‘performed’ miracles and exhibited ‘signs of
wonder’ within a specific and definite historical context. In life and in
death, Xavier emerges as a person who struggled against the Portuguese
administration in Asia. Like Xavier, the
Portuguese administration also struggled to maintain the health of its Empire.
Miracles do
happen – perhaps even on an everyday basis – but it is important to also see
them within a historical framework and not outside of it.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 26 November, 2014)
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