Paper short abstract:

From a Christian viewpoint 'sacrifice' denotes gentilidade, idolatry, and ritual killing. New questions arise if one tries to investigate the local religious environment that takes voice in the Christian fight against sacrifice. I will focus on the entangled receptions of the terms karman and yajña.

Paper long abstract:

In an effort to qualify the Indian 'heathenism' or 'paganism' ('gentilidade' in Portuguese), the Jesuit Giacomo Fenicio quoted a passage from 1 Corinthians in order to condemn certain Malabar ritual practices. The Greek term employed by Paul of Tarsus to indicate the ritual killing is thousia, but in the Latin language employed by the Christian theologians, this word became 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice as a concept was then used in Jesuit treatises to visualize efficiently the pagan 'side' of the local practices. In the words of Fenicio, 'gentilidade' serves as a synonym of idolatry, namely worship performed through offering and ritual killing in honour of the idols. Such practice was in contrast with monotheism and the fight against sacrifice meant a fight against idolatry. Such assumptions suggest that it is clear what sacrifice was from the Christian perspective; however, new questions arise if one tries to investigate the local religious environment that takes voice in the Christian fight against sacrifice or in the 'accomodation' attempts to rationalize certain customs.

I will examine how missionaries employed and translated the ritual Sanskrit terminology borrowed from the authoritative texts. I will focus on the entangled receptions of the terms karman and yajña in order to discuss the doctrinal disputes among local religious groups. I will suggest that the equivalence between sacrifice, karman and yajña does not merely provides a response to the Christian debate against idolatry, but also translates and reflects the social, political, and religious emergence of new audiences of the Vedic tradition.