António de Andrade
Encyclopedia
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. He entered the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
in 1596. From 1600 until his death in 1634 he was engaged in missionary activity in India. Andrade was the first Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an to cross the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
and reach Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, establishing the first Catholic mission on Tibetan soil.
Life
António de Andrade was born in OleirosOleiros
Oleiros is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 471.1 km² and a total population of 6,212. The municipality is composed of 12 parishes and is located in the district of Castelo Branco...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. In 1600 he went to Goa, the capital of Portuguese India, where he pursued his higher studies and was ordained a priest. He was one of the Jesuits attached to the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and was head of the Jesuit mission in Agra. In 1624 he left Agra
Agra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
, headed to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
where he and the Jesuit brother Manoel Marques joined a group of Hindu pilgrims bound for the temple of Badrinath located in the Northern part of the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand. Overcoming incredible hardships in the journey they crossed the Mana pass (5608 meters) to Tibet, the first Europeans known to have done so.
Kindly received in Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
by the sovereign of the Western Tibetan kingdom of Guge, in the capital city of Tsaparang, Andrade left after less than a month to obtain formal permission for the mission from the Father-Provincial in Goa, and to get funds and other missionaries to accompany him back to Tsaparang
Tsaparang
Tsaparang was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Guge in the Garuda Valley, through which the upper Sutlej River flows, in Ngari Prefecture near the border of Ladakh. It is 278 km south-southwest of Ali and 26 km west of the 11th century monastery at Thöling, and not far west of Mount Kailash...
. Andrade returned to Tibet in 1625 and was joined by other Jesuit missionaries. They succeeded in building a church and made many converts, aided by support from the king and other members of the royal family. Andrade returned to Goa in 1629; the mission foundered soon afterward, with the invasion of Guge by Ladakh, the death of the pro-missionary king and the installation of a hostile Ladakhi-controlled government in Tsaparang. The missionaries were persecuted or expelled, the Tibetan Christians were sent to Ladakh, and by 1640 the mission, which had begun with so much promise, was over.
Andrade became the Father-Superior of the Jesuit province of Goa, where he died in March 1634, probably poisoned by an agent of a Portuguese who was being investigated by the Inquisition.
Andrade's two extensive accounts of Tibet, written in 1624 and 1626, were published in the Portuguese original in Lisbon and quickly translated into all the major European languages; they had an important influence on European knowledge of and attitudes toward Tibet. Modern translations of Andrade's accounts are found in Toscano (1977) and Didier (2002).
See also
- Estêvão CacellaEstêvão CacellaEstêvão Cacella was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.-Life:Cacella was born in Aviz in 1585, joined the Jesuits at the age of nineteen, and sailed for India in 1614 where he worked for some years in Kerala...
- Bento de Góis
- Cornelius WesselsCornelius WesselsCornelius Wessels, SJ was a Dutch Jesuit, known for his historical works on the early Catholic Missions in Central Asia, specially Tibet, and in the East Indies....
- Ippolito DesideriIppolito DesideriIppolito Desideri was an Italian Jesuit missionary in Tibet and the first European to have successfully studied and understood Tibetan language and culture.-Biography:...
External links
- Detailed biography of de Andrade
- The Goa Jesuit Province of the Society of Jesus - The Jesuits in Goa