– Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
Looking around the area adjacent to the temple, it is difficult to imagine anything resembling the magnificent palace described by Estevão Cacela when he speaks of the official reception to which the Portuguese were entitled: “To speak to the king of Liquinirane we pass three great patios, which had wide balconies full of people, which everywhere would seem very bright. From one to the other there were large doors and very strong ones that are always closed with porters and many guards. A great and beautiful garden followed, in the middle of it there was a well-decorated pleasure house where the king was waiting for us.”
The landscape below, a meander of the river almost leaning against the slope of the hill, fits well with the letter of Cacela and the closest that we have of this description is the temple attached to Hayagriv Madhava, ample space supported by colonnades. The statues of an anonymous sadhu, Shiva, and various Buddhist deities demonstrate how ancient and syncretic this worship is. Much more recent is the oval tower of an obvious Mughal style. In spite of the efforts, the attempt to identify the property of the king of Cocho results in little more than nothing.
Bir Narayan (1621-1626), son and successor of Lakshmi Narayan, was a lover of the pleasures of life. During his peaceful reign he sponsored schools for the elite aristocrat and supported the intellectuals. This monarch, besides having received Cabral and Cacela with all the cordiality, provided them the necessary authorizations (and a considerable sum of money!) to be able to circulate in his kingdom without fear. Curiously, the Jesuits would have to retreat west again, where the town of Biar (Cooch Bihar) run by the king’s eldest son, Pran Narayan, was located. Only then, and with new safe-conduct, could they aim for entrance into the realm of the “Potente”, as Tibet was known then. Estêvão Cacela clarifies that “after various practices concerning the Kingdom of Portugal and elsewhere, dealing with our business, it seemed to him that it was better we headed to Biar, where his son Gaburassa ruled, and that from there to Runate, his last land, and from where we could reach the Potente, offering us letters for his son with direct orders to help us.”
The journey of the Jesuits to Cooch Behar was made entirely by river, as Cacela indicates, concluding this chapter of the journey: “King Stargit, besides the nine pieces of silk that he offered us, also sends a close relative to accompany us”.
It is curious to note that the whole process was done in stages, and always with the proper authorizations. Without them, nothing done.
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