Fiction: A low-caste woman in Tamil Nadu’s Tranquebar is introduced to Christianity in 18th century

Pecchi could not have guessed that the parangi who was leading her to this strange place was Schwartz – a man whose footsteps would later leave wide imprints on the soil of Thanjavur, whose name would one day be whispered as the shepherd of a new faith. For nearly 40 years, since Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg had planted the first fragile seed of the Lutheran Mission in Tranquebar, Christianity had tried to push its tender roots into the hard earth of the south. The missionaries came from Denmark and Halle, carrying their strange books and stranger hopes – hoping to “rescue the heathen from darkness, to nurse their souls into salvation.”

But the land was old, its gods older still. The missionaries soon discovered that the people here clung fiercely to their pantheon, like children clutching the many fingers of one mother.

It was only with Schwartz’s arrival that the mission felt a new wind fill its sails.

Pecchi walked behind Schwartz towards the great doorway of the New Jerusalem Church, and a faint shiver passed through her. It was not entirely fear, nor entirely wonder, but something born of the two – like standing close to the sea at dusk, unsure whether to step back...

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