Jean Calmette

Jean Calmette (April 5th 1692, Rodez, Aveyron, France - February 1740, Chikballadur, Karnataka, India) was a Jésuite French, missionary in India of the South and Indianiste.

First years in India

Entered among Jesuits at 17 years, in 1709, he teaches some time in France before leaving for India in 1725 and arrives at Pondicherry on August 21st 1726. During a few years he is missionary in the area of language Tamoule around Vellore.

Initiation with the Brahmanism

From 1730 with its death it will be in the area of language Télougou, (now Andhra Pradesh). In Ballapuram Calmette attends the brahmanic schools where Sanskrit is taught and the other disciplines Hindou are (including the Astronomie and the natural science). It reached such a level of knowledge of the language there that the Brahmans accept to initiate it with the science of the crowned books, the Véda S. This favor can be regarded as a true religious initiation with the hindouism. max Müller wrote that the Calmette Father is the first to obtain the complete text of the four Védas . In these Védas, with the dires even of Calmette, treasures of literature are, treaties of Grammaire, Philosophie and astronomy.

Writer Sanskrit

Calmette is impassioned Sanskrit and of Orientalisme. With the assistance of friends Brahmans it draws from Védas of the fundamental religious truths common to all the religions like the unicity of God, the divine attributes, etc It composes of the `slokas' (texts versified in Sanskrit) containing the truths of the Christian Foi (its work Satyaveda will sara Sangraham contains 172 of them) and translates works of Roberto de Nobili into Sanskrit: the great catechism of the faith and the Refutation of the transmigration of the hearts . He also encourages his Christians to write in the crowned language. The royal library of Paris was enriched by many manuscripts telougous and sanscrits which it sent. Unfortunately the collection that itself and its companions (Jean-François Pons, Nicolas Possevin, Gaston-Laurent Cœurdoux) had gathered in Pondicherry were lost during the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773).

This promising work was stopped by the untimely death of Jean Calmette in 1740; it was hardly 48 years old.

Works

(in Sanskrit) Satyaveda will sara Sangraham .

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