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preserved, Xavier looking as if he were 'only asleep.' Legends had
by now already grown up around the man, many of the faithful
claiming to have witnessed him perform miracles. This
incorruptibility in death was instantly hailed as more proof of his
sanctity.
Xavier had never expressed any particular fondness for Goa; he
had chosen to perform his most strenuous Christianising in India
in Kerala, instead. Goa, however, was the base for Portuguese activities
in the East, and thus had the right to claim his body. In due course,
the coffin arrived on the wharf of Ribandar, though at an
inconvenient time: it was Lent, and any sort of hectic public
gathering was all but banned. Nonetheless, Xavier's corpse was
greeted with wild enthusiasm; fanfares rang out, people thronged
the streets shouting, the city's countless bells pealed 'as in welcome
to some great prince or conqueror.' Accompanied in a procession
led by the viceroy and his councillors, the body was initially installed
in the chapel of Saint Paul's, which Xavier had helped found. Some
days later, the coffin was opened and the saint, now sixteen months
dead, was found to be still in an extraordinary state of preservation.
For four days thereafter, his corpse was exposed to the public,
drawing huge crowds. Collection boxes filled up; a tradition began.
And it was this tradition that was still in full swing in 1975. An
opportunity to see the 'incorruptible body' of a saint seemed to me
too good to miss. The unruly line-up twisted around the side of the
basilica and off out of sight into a grove of dense palms. I asked
someone near the main doors how long they'd been waiting. Two
days was the answer. I had assumed the profusion of bedding and
cooking equipment was just the typical Indian aversion to travelling
light and eating someone else's food. In this case, however, it was
merely pragmatism.
My two companions, David and Esther, had already found India
something of a trial by fire compared with the cosseted luxury their
wealthy parents provided back home. They were not prepared to
spend two days lining up to see a Catholic saint who'd been dead for
four hundred years. Our driver unexpectedly provided a solution:
for a hundred rupees each - to grease the palm of a priest - we could
go straight in the back door. His offer was accepted.
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