SILENCE AT THE SOURCE OF THE GANGES

Documentary

Duration: 90'

In 1624, the Portuguese Jesuit priest António de Andrade, ambassador of the Portuguese viceroy in India to the court of the Great Mughal, heard a group of pilgrims talking about a very high mountain kingdom and, from the descriptions, realised that they might be primitive Christians. He decides to go and look for them.
Knowing that on the way to this mountain there is a Hindu shrine, Badrinath, António de Andrade joins a group of pilgrims travelling there. Starting from Agra and passing through Delhi, he travelled up the Ganges, passing through Srinagar in Uttarakhand. Once past Badrinath, he reached the village of Mana, from where he identified the sources of the Ganges and proceeded to make a “new discovery of the Grand Cataio or Kingdoms of Tibet”, the title of his report.
When he arrives at his destination, he doesn't find primitive Christians, but Buddhists, with whom he engages in theological discussions. He ends up getting authorisation to set up a Christian community in the old town of Tsaparang. The community won't last long due to the growing influence of the Dalai Lama, who is conquering the former Tibetan kingdoms.
António de Andrade describes his journey in three letters to the Provincial of the Jesuits in Rome, which were translated into several languages and published in several countries immediately afterwards.
After five years in Tsaparang, António de Andrade was called to Goa to become Provincial of the Jesuits. There he takes part in an enquiry into the Inquisition, which is accused of abusing its powers, and then he himself becomes head of the Goa Inquisition while planning a new expedition to the Himalayan kingdoms. The day before he was to preach at an “auto-de-fé”, he was poisoned at the behest of the Portuguese viceroy.