– Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
During their sojourn in Changri the two Portuguese priests were certainly pleased with the animosity manifested by the locals in regard to the followers of Mohammed, for, as Estevão Cacela tells us, the Bhutanese “of the Moors they speak very badly, and it is a name they use for someone they really despise.”
The inhabitants of that region of the Himalayas had something in common with the Portuguese: they defined themselves as monotheists, for “they say that they have one God, and have very well made images of him.” In fact, one of these images would be shown to him by the Shabdrung himself, as Cacela recalls: “He showed us one image very composed, modest, representing a king made of gold with a small vessel of water in his hands, a sign of how God washed the sins from the souls.”
On one occasion Shabdrung exhibited a mandala; in the case – and, as recalls the religious men – printed on a tangka, probably very similar to all those so common in the outer and inner walls of the monasteries. Here is the description of the Jesuit: “He also showed us another panel on which the heavens were painted, and in the midst of them was a square house in which he said that God dwelt, since according to his ordinary speech they know God as an immensely entity, and as such, is everywhere.”
Cacela also stresses an important point: the non-institutional aspect of Buddhism, which for many is considered more a philosophy or a code of well-being than a religion itself. The Jesuit writes: “The king told us that Chescamoni was not God and only the common people, not the learned lamas worshiped him.”
Cacela also speaks about the Holy Cross and the Holy Trinity, finding many similarities between the two religions, which will certainly have given new impetus to him and his traveling companion. The same had happened some years before with António de Andrade, pioneer among the pioneers in those whereabouts. In the Relation, at a certain point we can read: “It is well seen in these things that the light of the Holy Gospel has come here in some way, and the other ceremonies and blessings which they use show much resemblance to the things of Christendom.”
The priests’ pioneering spirit did not stop there. Estêvão Cacela is the first Westerner to associate the name Sakahmuni (Chescamoni, in Portuguese words) with Gautama Buddha and to indicate to us the place where he will have been born, although he mentioned the geographical location and not the exact name, that is Lumbini, in present-day Nepal. The missionary explains: “About the son of God, they say he was born in a remote place, where there now is a very famous pagoda, twelve days journey from there. And they also say that he was born two thousand years ago and that he remained twelve months in the mother’s womb.”
Follow
