PORTUGUESE INDIA, 1946, the 3rd centenary de Brito's birth, Scott 467
Surcharged as a postage due stamp in 1951, Scott J43-44
(design based on a drawing of Albert Sousa),
John de Brito was of Portuguese nobility and the son of a governor of Brazil. He entered the Jesuits in Lisbon in 1662, was ordained in 1673, and left that year for the mission in India. He worked mostly in Madura. At the time Christians belonged mostly to the lower castes. John aimed at converting the higher castes, the better to establish Christianity in the region, and to do so he became a pandaraswami, an Indian ascetic, who could approach all castes. He adopted the appropriate dress and life style of such an ascetic, one of the first of the Jesuits missionaries to do so. One of his converts, Prince Tadaya Theva, upon becoming Christian put aside all his wives except one. One of the rejected wives complained to her uncle, the raja of Marava who eventually had Brito executed. More
This stamp was from a PORTUGUESE INDIA mini sheet (above) with de Brito
and Xavier, Scott 471a
And it appeared on a series of postal cards, H&G 42-43
some of which featured the tomb of Xavier (below) or the interior of the Bom
Gesu Church.
PORTUGAL, 1948, the 3rd centenary de Brito's birth, Scott 689-692
The image of him as a page at Lisbon is a Barata Feyo bas relief based on
a painting by Henrico Franco;
and as an apostle in Madura, another bas relief of Feyo