COSTA, Baltasar da. Aldeia Nova (Guarda) 1613 — on sea 21.4.1673. S.J. Father. Portuguese Missionary in India. Joined S.J. in 1627 and, despite of his poor health, was sent to India according to his own eager wish in 1635. From 1640 worked 35 years at Madurai Mission and, unlike —> De’ Nobili, turned to low castes. From 1667 Provincial of the Mission, in 1670 came to Rome to fetch new workers, on returning voyage died before the coast of Guinea.
Publications: Some published letters.
– Arte Tamulica (Tamil grammar). Verapoli 1680 (no copy preserved, but a manuscript remains in Goa).
– Cr. Muru: The Linguistic and Historical Contribution of the Arte Tamulica by Baltasar da Costa, S.J. (c. 1610-1673). Annotated and commented Portuguese transcription and English translation from Portuguese and Tamil. 5+504 p. Villa Real 2022.
Sources: *A. Chakravarti, “The many faces of Baltasar da Costa: imitatio and accommodatio in the seventeenth-century Madurai Mission”, Etnográfica 18, 2014, 135-158; S. Jeyaseela Stephen, Caste, Catholic Christianity, and the Language of Conversion. Delhi 2008, 257f.; Koch, Jesuiten-Lexikon; Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus. 1, 1869, 1401.
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